messes left by politicians
This is something of a little roundup of things to rant about in relation to Aotearoa New Zealand politics and our upcoming election. I'm going to start with this:
Schools treaty decision blindsided Māori and Crown should apologise, Waitangi Tribunal says.
The causes of crime run deep, justice runs deep, doing anything to reduce crime rates runs very deep. Education is a large part of the picture. When the government signals that it does not care about Māori, the historic injustices inflicted on Māori, righting the wrongs of the past, or the wellbeing and cultural safety of Māori children at school, one of several end results (none of them good) will be crime. When the government decided to remove school boards' obligation to give effect to the Treaty (let alone Te Tiriti - the current government isn't even capable of that discussion, though), it signalled to Māori kids that it does not care. How are these kids supposed to respond? Did the government think they would all magically turn themselves into little Pākehā kids? What the government did when they removed that obligation was to signal to Māori kids and their families that they are not important and not welcome. There's no way this kind of government action leads to anything good.
Youth homeless summit appeals for greater attention to plight of young people.
Stable housing is a large part of keeping people out of trouble. Stable, secure housing will go a long, long way to reducing crime rates. Stable, secure housing with the needed supports will allow young people to succeed in life. Stable, secure housing with the needed supports that meets young people where they're at and responds to their needs and desires should not be the Gold Standard - that should be the most basic, foundational standard, the minimum. This is not difficult to understand.
Government shelves proposed system to 'transform' responses to family violence.
The National Party claims to care about victims, unlike those opposition parties. And yet, here is the National Party-lead government at work, choosing to not fund a system that would, if implemented, enable various government agencies to coordinate services to protect victims and prevent family violence. This leads me to believe that the National Party is far more interested in empty posturing and far right virtue signaling than actually doing anything to help the victims of crime or prevent crime.
'Make us part of the solution': Wāhine Māori share justice system experiences with Waitangi Tribunal.
There's a lot on this, so I'll just put this quote from Director of the National Youth and Justice Coalition Awatea Mita here and encourage you to read the rest:
"So custodial remand essentially operates as an incredibly expensive and destructive form of social housing now, where Māori are being remanded in custody for these low-level crimes, not because they present significant risk, but maybe because they do not have compliant accommodation.
"And the sad thing is, there are a number of Māori providers who are ready and able to provide supported accommodation as an alternative, but there are limited government-funded pathways for this."
How restorative justice unveiled the human impact in a threatening-to-kill case.
Just one example of how this works. It is important to note that restorative justice is not an "easy option". It is looking beyond the labels "offender" and "victim". If the only tool the justice system has is punishment then crime persists. If, on the other hand, we look at the whole person, the factors that have lead them to crime, then we are able to deal with those factors and bring that person to a place where they can re-enter society better able to participate meaningfully and constructively. Part of that is bringing them to a place where they can understand the impact their offending has had on the victims of their crime, where they can take responsibility for their actions.
Simply punishing people achieves nothing. Reducing crime rates requires healing.
Lastly, a lot has been said about gangs this election. Certain parties have engaged in rather nasty behaviour accusing their rivals of being a bit too cosy with gangs. Not much useful discussion on the issues of gangs and crime has happened. This is about the best I've seen. Unfortunately, Joel Maxwell felt the need to spend a lot of time establishing that he is not a fan of gangs before finally getting to the point, but along the way he makes this very good point:
But as of February this year the media was reporting only about 10,500 patched and prospective members of gangs in the whole country.
Conversely, there are a million of us Māori!
And eventually he gets to his thesis:
Right now Aotearoa is in the grip of a fuel crisis largely created by a billionaire, Donald Trump, who was supported financially into power by at least one billionaire, Elon Musk, and is preying on the fears of vast swathes of humanity, underwritten by the technology of other billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg.
We’re all small fry, even the gangs, but we do have one powerful tool at our disposal. Let’s vote, and make it about the real stuff, not unreasonable fears, queasy fascinations.
Now, I think the media should have been doing a much better job of focusing on the "real stuff" rather than just repeating politicians playing on our "unreasonable fears" and "queasy fascinations". But the point he makes here is very, very important. We should not let the politicians distract us from the real issues, and when we vote, we should be voting for those most likely to actually work on building a fair, equitable society in which all our children can see a future for themselves.