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m guessing that they won t give me a chance which is highly unfair anyway if you get any time tomorrow please do put in a submission even if it is a very short one posted by stargazer at 00 10 no comments thursday 30 october 2014 submission to hamilton city council on older person housing review i thought this would be the best place to share the submission i ve put in tonight to hamilton city council s review of pensioner housing there is strong support in council for selling these houses which would be terrible so this is what i had to say about it all do you support in principle council s proposal to sell all the council owned social housing properties to a combination of sympathetic social housing providers and on the open market no please includes sic reasons why you hold this position hcc has a responsibility to the this community to provide housing crucial for the well being of many vulnerable senior citizens the increasing inequality in new zealand society along with an aging population means that the demand for social housing will the rise in number of the working poor as a result of inadequate wages paid for their work means that people are less able to save soaring house prices means that fewer people are able to afford their own homes the problem of adequate housing is a complex one which requires investment from both central and local government it requires a higher level of investment not the divestment of existing stock the sale of such stock will cause unnecessary hardship and suffering the private sector does not adequately or efficiently provide housing for our vulnerable too many properties in the private sector are poorly maintained cold damp while speculators seek to make short term capital gains while failing to ensure adequate standards for housing moreover the system of providing accommodation supplements as an alternative to the provision of social housing means that taxpayers are forced to pay for profiteering by those who can afford to own more than one home had those supplements been reinvested into the maintenance and upgrade of the houses then it might have been money well spent but this has not been the case and i d refer councillors to excellent work done by bryan bruce http bryanbruce co nz feature child poverty inside child poverty full documentary and nigel latta https www youtube com watch v adnlqxkf_hw feature youtu be in highlighting the health and social issues caused by inadequate housing the market does not provide adequately for those who are vulnerable and government has a duty to ensure that all citizens are looked after access to safe and adequate housing is a human right and i refer councillors to article 25 of the universal declaration of human rights article 11 1 of the international covenant on economic social and cultural rights new zealand is a signatory to both i d also recommend councillors inform themselves by visiting this link http www ohchr org en issues housing toolkit pages righttoadequatehousingtoolkit aspx do you have any specific comments in relation to the other options considered by council option 1 status quo option 2 retain but lease to social housing sector option 3 partial sale option 4a sell all to social housing sector or option 4b sell all on private market these option are outlined in more detail in the options paper option 1 the status quo is not sufficient hcc must invest in the social housing stock to ensure adequate standards my preference would be that council actually increase the funds available option 2 this may be the best option under present government policy in order to access government funding however should council consider this option strict regulations must be put in place to ensure that the housing is retained for older persons that the standard of the housing stock is kept high as the council will remain owner of the properties they will be able to include and enforce terms of the lease that provide protection for our senior citizens option 3 this is not an acceptable option as there is no guarantee that the housing will not be lost from the social housing stock as stated by poverty action waikato in their submission the 2012 sale of pensioner housing units by hcc has resulted in only 12 of the 53 units sold being available for the elderly to rent at affordable rates option 4a there are not sufficient resources in the social housing sector to purchase and maintain all of the council s social housing stock a previous sale at johnson st was only able to go ahead due to an interest free loan from the d v bryant trust as stated by karen morrison hume to radio new zealand even if the social housing sector had the funds to invest in that level of social housing those funds should be invested in the provision of new housing and not in purchasing the council s existing stock as mentioned in my answer to the previous question the demand for pensioner housing will be increasing and council needs to plan for increasing provision in the long term option 4b this option is unacceptable leave our vulnerable senior citizens in a precarious position do you have any other comments in relation to this proposal i support the submissions of poverty action waikato and of the d v bryant trust i understand that council feels hampered by government policy which prevents local government from receiving funding for social housing provision however this hasn t resulted in other councils around the country selling their pensioner housing council should consult with other local government bodies to ensure they implement solutions that preserve the social housing stock and protect the senior citizens in our city posted by stargazer at 22 45 no comments thursday 6 february 2014 waitangi day reflections another waitangi day almost over in terms of public discourse it has gone the way of most waitangi days people complaining about the negativity about how the day has no meaning for them how we should have another day where we can talk about unity isn t anzac day so much better as a celebration of nz etc etc etc well i went along to the event put on by the hamilton city council at 7am in civic square we started with a powhiri then had a few speeches some songs refreshment a few years back we used to have a full day of events at innes common by the lake but funding was pulled and that doesn t happen anymore it used to be a celebration of many cultures but the faces in the audience were almost universally brown as they were today so now we get this hour and a half in the early morning and a very sanitised affair it is no protest here just like the herald has been boasting today because we want to commemorate a sanitised version of history where we all get to feel good about ourselves and never have to question the way our society is structured or the injustices that have happened before and are happening today tim macindoe was actually specific in echoing the herald s line that there should be no protests on this day can t remember the exact words he as so many other people around the country have no doubt done called for unity but what does this call for unity mean the unity they re talking about sounds like one where marginalised people stay silent never say anything uncomfortable it s a unity based on a dominant group continuing to dominate and marginalised groups not challenging that domination it s a unity based on unfairness and inequity we could also have unity if the dominant group accepted the injustices talked about them in an honest and respectful way were prepared to listen understand and maybe even stay silent themselves for a while but i very much doubt that this is the kind of unity we are talking about waitangi day is a time when the media is present when they are reporting when the nation is paying attention if this is not the time to raise issues then when is the fact is that there will never be a good time the fact is that the people calling for unity or disparaging waitangi day never want to hear what protesters have to say and never want to hear a full and fair telling of our history this is in fact a freedom of speech issue to call for waitangi day to no longer be our national day to call for an oppressors version of unity is in fact an attempt to silence certain voices the kind of voices that very rarely get a chance to be heard in the first place this morning the mayor talked hamilton s 150th anniversary being this year and she did have the grace to say it was the anniversary of european settlement of this city i hope that isn t just because of the tainui kaumatua in the audience i hope that she continues to say this in front of all audiences but it s too much to hope that the commemorations will talk about what that settlement has meant for local iwi no one used the words confiscation or land theft in their speeches today but that is an inescapable part of the history of this city so much of it is built on confiscated land how can we have any kind of commemorations or celebrations that fail to mention that fact this is our history warts and all it needs to be told warts and all anything less is wrong yet another injustice to add to the history of injustice why on earth do we need to hide from our own history or retell it in a way that leaves the important bits out if it makes some people uncomfortable then maybe those people need to do a little self reflection it s not like anyone is blaming them for what happened in the past at the most they will be shown how past events have led to them having a more privileged place in society today again i m failing to see how that s a bad thing waitangi day is the best day for our national day it s a day when we should be political as well as historically focussed a day when we should feel both proud and sad a day when we should reflect on both the good and the bad because that s who we are it should be a tumultuous and challenging day not a day of false unity based on suppression of voices happy waitangi day to all of you and read this it s lovely posted by stargazer at 20 58 1 comment tuesday 4 february 2014 kirikiriroa human rights network and the upr looks like 2014 is not going to be a good year for blogging i m just not finding the time to write which is a pity because i miss it this is the first night for a while where i haven t had a meeting or an event along with a ton of emails or a proposal or something else but at least i m seeing some progress with the work i m doing the campaign for consent has been keeping me busy and we ve had some wins in the last couple of weeks we managed to secure funding for a project to put some messaging into student orientation packs tomorrow we re having a stick a thon to put the messaging on to 3b1 notebooks the local ywca is helping out with that here is the thing we are sticking on don t know how well that will come out on the blog but we went for positive messaging around consent hopefully it will make a difference we ve also managed to do quite a bit of networking we re hoping for some positive results around that one of the things i did want to write about is the universal periodic review of human rights and i may do more on that when i have a little more time to get into the details of the recommendations it s a process carried out by the united nations that happens every four years i had the privilege of being part of a group that sent someone to present to a pre session thing at the end of last year hamilton has a human rights network a group of people who have had some training from the human rights commission to be human rights facilitators a programme they call taku manawa our presentation went under the name of kirikiriroa human rights network and was presented by rachel o connor rachel found out about the upr while doing some further human rights training and so because of her enthusiasm we were able to be part of the process the bulk of the work was done by her and the whole experience has been really useful for all of us our presentation focused on 3 areas racially motivated crime the police are still not recording ethnicity data for victims of crime so we have no idea of how much hate crime happens in nz the impact of the mass arrival bill on racial discrimination the political use of fear of masses of people arriving in boats to nz to change this law has been harmful tracey barnett has written a lot about this and the refugee resettlement quota with a recommendation to increase numbers to allow family reunification which is known to improve settlement outcomes for refugees a fourth point noted in our presentation was the need for better consultation with the public regarding the whole upr process it was something that didn t receive much publicity in the lead up there wasn t much funding provided by the government for consultation hardly a surprise because that would mean people would be raising human rights issues which would make the government look bad hopefully there will be more ability for people to have input when the next review comes around so after organisations had presented to the pre session a couple of weeks ago we had the minister fronting up to answer questions we had other countries giving us their recommendations pdf based on largely on what was presented at the pre session one of the issues that comes up with this kind of thing is that various countries with poor human rights records are giving recommendations to improve human rights in our countries and i bet when i talk of these various countries most people s minds will automatically go towards countries in asia africa the middle east there is a narrative that first world countries are superior in human rights to third world countries and that therefore third world countries really should have nothing to say about human rights in first world countries i find that really problematic for a a variety of reasons first the most violent and vicious human rights abuses tend to be as a result of scarce resources and people fighting over them in that process human rights get ignored scarcity of resources and third world poverty can be linked to unfair global trade practices historical loss of wealth through colonisation and current loss of wealth through invasion and occupation a lot of these things are as a result of actions by first world countries while they may have stronger human rights records within their own countries and that is debatable their foreign policy is rife with abuses in other countries more than that human rights abuses in first world countries are often downplayed or ignored altogether so ireland has had a history of sexual abuse exploitation of the labour of young women considered fallen the united states has the highest incarceration rate in the world and a huge imbalance in the number of black men being incarcerated australia has major issues re the aborigines and the stolen generation land grabs and the like there are plenty of other examples from...