When things get tight, people do desperate things and last week we saw one ‘desperate’ woman advertise she had made a choice to become a prostitute rather than continue on her domestic purposes benefit, so she could study at University. But I wonder how desperate she really is.

It sounds very dramatic and she had posted the advertisements apparently but had yet to commence work in her new line of business. The Green Party thought the story was so politically useful they flew her down to Wellington from Auckland to get media attention and arrange a television interview to be screened that night. 

Questions were asked in Parliament and then things started to crumble for the Greens new List MP Jan Logie. Firstly, Labour Party Jacinda Ardern blew the whistle by asking questions on the same point, effectively stealing the show. It all blew up in their faces as the facts came to light.

The mother of two children receives a benefit which amounts to the equivalent of a $43,000 wage. This does not include early children education funding for both children, it does not include money WINZ would loan for educational costs, it does not include hardship grants that would be available from time to time, and  it does not include $4,000 towards fees and $1,000 course related costs.

As the Greens and the Labour Party have so strongly supported the integrity of the woman it follows she was not just going to turn a few ‘tricks’ to supplement her benefit because that would only allow her to earn $100 per week on top of her benefit after declaring her supplementary income. The obvious contention is that she would go off the benefit and work full time in the industry. Most people would find it very hard to believe that any mother of two children is forced give up the benefit to become a prostitute.

The comparison is frequently made between what money solo parents can access for training or education now and twenty years ago. The NZ Herald investigated this and found that a woman in the same circumstances today is $160 better off each week than a sole parent studying in the early 1990’s. Through this little saga, nobody has made a point of the risk such activities could bring to the welfare of the children living in this situation. Surely a mum intelligent enough to study at university can see the threat to the health and welfare of two small children being supported in this way. No matter how lawful and sanitised by legislation prostitution may have become, the drugs, alcohol and violent associations of street work are a threat not only for the workers but for those dependant on them.

In the end the story flopped as the questions were answered and the true situation was outed. TV news was not so interested once the woman’s options were publicised.

The fact that half the women on the DPB don’t have NCEA Level One is the target of educational assistance because without that base level of learning further education is out of reach.
ENDs

The famous quote from Yogi Berra “it’s de ja vu all over again” seems to befit the question of maternity services in Wanganui, with the proposal last week to combine the maternity services between Wanganui and Palmerston North Hospital. That would mean that any birth with an element of risk to the safety of mother or baby would be scheduled to be delivered in Palmerston North. A mum giving birth without complication in Palmerston North would be back in Wanganui Hospital in six hours and 24 hours after a ‘c section’. Women from Palmerston North requiring obstetric and gynaecological surgical procedures would have them in Wanganui.

Nationally it is known as being “south of Bombay Hills” but in Taranaki it is known as “south of Burgess Park”. This is the tendency for all money, energy, publicity and promise to be liberally strewn around those areas with most population. We see it in South Taranaki in many guises. Last year it was the perennial issue of health and most recently in roading with an argument developing between spending on the Waiwakaiho versus the Normanby Bridges.The argument was the inconvenience of sitting a queue of traffic versus the danger of negotiating the over-bridge which has claimed the lives of many in its time and has been the scene of huge numbers of crashes and near misses.

We’ve had another Waitangi Day Celebration and while most of it was a genuine celebration, the news headlines were around protest again. This is not a surprise but an expectation because, like Ratana visits by the political parties, the topics for discussion are issues that affect New Zealand as a whole and M?ori in particular. Because the visits to Ratana surround the birthday of the leader of the Ratana Church movement, then the aspect of discussion is courteous and polite. Because the Waitangi Celebrations are around the Treaty of Waitangi and post-signing there was about 150 years of neglect of that treaty, bringing with that neglect hurt and insult, Waitangi Day is marked by protest. As much as there is a protocol, the protest movement don’t believe they do justice to the day without getting stroppy about something. Usually that something has a thread of truth to it. As they say, there is no smoke without fire.