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Lindsay Mitchell
lindsaymitchell.blogspot.com
Judith Collins has been in parliament for a long time and I have blogged about her for the duration. Not extensively but when I agreed or disagreed with her comments. She was, after all, National’s spokesperson on Social Development from 2005-08. She once made a deliberately audible comment when I approached her at a welfare forum, “Here comes Lindsay Mitchell to tell me I am too soft on welfare.” Didn’t bother me bar I never saw myself as ‘hard’ on welfare. I just believed welfare was hard on kids.
But here’s a relatively recent contribution (2016) that contains more than a kernel of truth. It’s also a good example of why I wrote this morning, “…she says what she means and means what she says.” The link is still live:
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.”
I see a poverty of plain speaking holding New Zealand back, badly, if the practice is not re-established. Collins could trigger its return.
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