Reported on Radio New Zealand:
Ms Collins was challenged at the Police Association's annual conference in Wellington today by a delegate, who said poverty was making law enforcement harder.
The delegate said his officers had been very busy with gangs, which he said were often filled with people who had experienced poverty as children.
The government's approach to child poverty was criticised in a recent United Nations report, as well as by opposition politicians.
Ms Collins responded by saying the government was doing a lot more for child poverty in New Zealand than the UN had ever done.
In New Zealand, there was money available to everyone who needed it, she said.
"It's not that, it's people who don't look after their children, that's the problem.
"And they can't look after their children in many cases because they don't know how to look after their children or even think they should look after their children."
Monetary poverty was not the only problem, she said.
"I see a poverty of ideas, a poverty of parental responsibility, a poverty of love, a poverty of caring."
As the MP for Papakura, she saw a lot of those problems in south Auckland, she said.
"And I can tell you it is not just a lack of money, it is primarily a lack of responsibility.
"I know that is not PC, but, you know, that's me."
She refused an interview on the John Campbell Show. Quite wise. Jacinda Adern did appear but typically contradicted herself and her party by talking up Working For Families, and its role in child poverty reduction, while ignoring that National kept the policy.
She was a pig in muck canoodling with Campbell. But her grasp of the wider context of historical child poverty was woefully lacking.
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8 comments:
If property was about not enough money, centre-right governments and politicians like John Key would have been all over that is a solution decades ago as a way of stealing the opposition's policies and staying in government
The problem is not a lack of money: the problem is too much money.
Stop welfare and the problems just go away.
Good on Hon Collins for not bothering with Red Radio - why do we few taxpayers have to pay for a broadcast arm of the Labour/Green alliance?
"Red Radio" was the only NZ MSM outlet that ever called John Key a Communist to his face.
That's worth an awful lot in my book.
Anon said "Stop welfare and the problems just go away." I suspect if that were to happen, anarchy would be the result. After anarchy comes government imposed martial law with armed troops patrolling the streets of Aotearoa. Then more money will be needed to service an ever expanding military budget and dictatorship follows the demise of democracy with flash uniforms adorned with lots of braid the order of the day for the oligarchy.
Personally I think I prefer the problems of welfarism.
The [Police ] delegate said his officers had been very busy with gangs, which he said were often filled with people who had experienced poverty as children.
This is an interesting statement, reading here as a social and political judgement from the Officer. However the Officer may have been just matter of fact.
I think Judith Collins has received widespread kudos for assessment that:
"I see a poverty of ideas, a poverty of parental responsibility, a poverty of love, a poverty of caring."
In Bangkok, I often wander around such truly slum and financially impoverished areas it would make your eyes water. Some of these households manage on 250-300 bahts [NZ$10-12] per day. Bringing this finance to equivalent NZ spending we could allow $NZ45.
While I am contemplating that, two little Thai kids will rush out to see the falang, and show off to me their toys, and their happiness.
It is not lack of money which wrecks and impoverishes children's lives.
I am not saying that being hungry and cold is OK, but it is that financial poverty is not the major problem.
As they say "there is no prosthetic for an amputated spirit." Seeking it in alcohol and or drugs, only highlights its absence.
My own family experience is all I have to prove that financial poverty does not have to create despair.
Growing up in an isolated rural environment, meant my children had no access to television or weekly trips to movies or hanging out at McDonald's with their friends. Their clothes were mostly hand me downs or the creations of a mother who could knit and sew, as I struggled to make a living as an artist/craftsman. My children never had anything fancy, but they grew up in a safe and loving home and never went hungry thanks in part to the garden their mother tendered. 30 years later they are successful well adjusted individuals with a strong work ethic and distinct personalities who have made this socially dysfunctional old man immensely proud.
Would I be able to replicate my experience of 30 years ago into today's environment, I have no idea. I've traveled many roads and found myself in a few dead ends over the years, but I suggest, "you cant get lost, unless you are going somewhere."
his officers had been very busy with gangs, which he said were often filled with people who had experienced welfare as children.
there. something we can all agree on.
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