Dear National, STOP FUCKING MY COUNTRY UP. PLEASE.

The country I grew up in, the New Zealand I remember as a child was a land of compassion; a land of hope. A place where everyone had a reasonable chance of success, and no one had to live in ignominy. We were in fact what America has so long pretended to be. A land of freedom, a land of milk and honey. GODZONE (I seriously hate that term, but grasp it's intent). 

What have we become? I lament.

What drove us to this dirty bottom? A place where our leaders believe it is acceptable to take those most vulnerable people and make them MORE VULNERABLE; Acceptable to discard our collective responsibility to care for ALL our people; Acceptable to treat the unfortunate as criminals. What did we all do so very WRONG?

In the wake of a huge step in the right direction, in the shining light of our finally giving our people the option to marry whatever other thinking adult they choose to love, are we about to take a giant filthy leap into the dark ages? 

Changes to benefits happen all the time, I was a beneficiary for a long time - sickness is a respecter of no one. But the changes we are looking at now are a sickness in themselves. Compulsory pre-employment drug testing? What the ACTUAL FUCK? At the expense of the beneficiary no less. If a prospective employer wants a fucking drug test, they can fucking ask for one and fucking pay for it them fucking selves. Is this suddenly Nazi Germany (sorry Germany, you have come a very long way since those dark days)? read here about the latest travesty

Dodgy new laws invading personal privacy? Sure we can do that; what the fuck, why not! SERIOUSLY NATIONAL PUT A FUCKING TIN FOIL HAT ON YOU CRAZY BASTARDS. Stop it right now.

I could continue but I'm actually starting to froth a little, so I shall restore sanity and continue in peace.

Bizarre idea I know, but what about actually trying to HELP these people? Recently the concept of benefits as an addictive influence on people has been mooted. That handing someone with no current means of survival a lifeline is tantamount to handing them a bong. Well, I can see a certain train of logic in it and I'm pretty sure it's the same train of thought that the person(s) who initially suggested this were on. For some people going from a panic situation with no money, no job no prospects to a wage they can get for doing NOTHING could conceivably be like a drug, but I think that's actually a pretty small percentage of the total adult population. The people who will treat it like a drug for the most part are the ones who are at risk of all kinds of similar issues anyway. The ones who are raised in a naf situation and raised to expect they will never be able to get out of it no matter what they do. The ones who don't believe in themselves in the first place. And what do we achieve by making the system harder for them? We make them even less likely to ever even TRY to raise themselves up. Mark my words National, you will create a new culture of criminal, those who feel they have no place else to go. What you save in making peoples lives more miserable you will loose in so many other ways. Handing someone the means to pull themselves out of the gutter will never be a wasted effort no matter the result. We are judged by how we treat those fallen from fortune, and if we do not try we cannot succeed.

I'm not suggesting that there are no people who will take advantage of a welfare system. I am suggesting that those people are a tiny minority. I am suggesting that taking food from these peoples mouths will not magically make jobs appear, will not magically make them qualified for the jobs that are out there. I'm suggesting that making things harder for the ones who actually want to try will only hold them back.

If you want to make a real change you are starting in the wrong place. The place where the change must come, as all change must come, is with the young. Start in schools, improve our education system (which you have so far continued your crazy path by dismantling further) teach children to respect themselves, to respect others. Teach them to believe they can be everything they are capable of, that if they try they can make more of themselves than what they see. ALL children, not just the privileged few. Make sure that they have enough to eat, a roof over their heads, clothes on their back. Make sure that no child is left behind, that no child feels they are not worth as much as the next. Change for good is a long process, but quick change for a quick profit will turn to ashes in your mouth. 

Take some of the bollocks that no one actually needs to learn out of the education system at put in the skills that will help them GET A JOB. The skills to make a good choice in further training. The education system is a monolith that needs a facelift, a massive facelift. Restructuring to a system that teaches a mixture of what you need to know and what you want to learn. I look at the state of our current education system and weep. Teachers under paid and under valued. For goodness sake how the fuck long have they had to put up with the NOVOPAY debacle? If that was politicians wages getting fucked up it wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes. School was hardly perfect when I was there, lets face it schools worldwide are by and large a bit crap - unless they happen to have a shed load of cash available to them. But when I was a kid it was still a respected institution, not an irritation that you had to tolerate in order to get on with your life (ok I probably have a pretty twisted attitude towards school both past and present, sue me). Teachers don't have time to put into the students, students don't have freedom to learn, and to find their own path. Parents treat schools like daycare and seldom have the spare time to put into helping their kids find that path. All that money you want to put into invading our privacy and policing our poor, put it into helping them to raise a healthier, happier next generation. A generation of young adults who believe in themselves, believe in their homeland and want to make this a better world. I dare you to.

Peace. Out.