Johan Morreau - the disenfranchised

Johan, according to your youtube presentation, the solution is better organised nanny state. You show us pictures of the connected babies, and say that these pictures were taken in Amsterdam, Holland where the family had a child nurse 8 hours a day teaching her parents how to respond to her needs and how to organise their home. Of course. Parents are dumb, right?

What you neglect to say is that the Holland scheme is an OPT IN scheme, which offers a raft of other programmes which the NZ parliament would never agree to, but are far more valuable than the "8-day care.    

I know people in Holland, and asked them about this service. Yes, it's there if mothers want it, but most thinking parents usually part way with this system within 48 hours because their advice can be laughable. And frankly, most parents don't need to be taught how to organise their houses or lives, and neither do they need to be taught how to respond to their child's needs. However, one thing Dutch parents don't like, is the huge emphasis that all mother must be back at work when their babies are 1 year old. They tell me lots of stories of distraught stressed babies basically torn away from parents, who do not cope with that separation.

Are you wanting that too Johan?

Then as if 8 hours a day for a week has any relevance, . . . as if Northern Europe is some utopia to show up New Zealand's failure, you say, "A country like Holland is closing it's prisons, at a time when New Zealand is building them."

Such a remarkable assumption.

Simple as that?

Did you only read the first bit of this article Johan? Err...isn't that called cherry-picking? 

Because if you did, then you missed these bits. 

" However one Dutch MP Nine Kooiman, told Telegraaf newspaper: “If the government really worked at catching criminals, we would not have this problem of empty cells.”

Frans Carbo, head of FNV, said there was another story. “The ministry puts everything down to a decrease in crime in the Netherlands, partly related to the ageing population,” he said. “Actually, the ministry of security and justice is already cutting back and reorganising the whole chain. This starts with police, where reorganisation is failing, so they are not as good at detection and a lower percentage of crime is solved than ever before…"

So maybe, it's not quite so simple.  Shame about the police force losing it's crime solving ability.  Even though Holland is a big brother state which tracks its citizens on data bases which you apparently envy, the Netherlands is also, in other regards, a very permissive and liberal society which allows many things in society, which would land New Zealanders in jail.  In Europe, women had much more political input, and jail policies have long been very different to our.  While one jail might have been made into a tourist hotel, in others, business is booming as those prisons contract to take prisoners surrounding countries that still have a compentent police force.

The declining numbers of Dutch prisoners in Dutch prisons, might have nothing at all to do with eight days of a state mandated nurse giving state-mandated sound bites.  It might be that definitions of crime are different, sentencing policies are different and rehabilitation more successful.  But it also might have everything to do with the ability of a new IT breed of more intelligent, totally cyber-savvy criminals who now easily outwit the police.

Criminals, all over the world, are turning to cyber crime, because the tools are now there to do it so easily, and not get caught doing in-the-flesh crime.

But the rhetoric fits your clarion call, because your ideas are basically all based on more money for your systems:

• Big Brother: community child health services are seriously underdone.
• Big Brother: antenatal education is almost unavailable to those families that need it most.
• Big Brother: we don't have the midwives, child health nurses, social workers to identify and support the families that need it.
• Bigger Brothers united: all our services need to work really well together.
• More money for Big Brother: We need to throw more money at the issues.
• Big Brother prohibition: reduce access to alcohol, cut methamphetamines off at the border is critical. (as if prohibition ever worked, right? who exactly runs the NZ meth factories Johan?)
• Big Brother: sorting poverty in New Zealand's increasing gap between rich and poor is critical.
(Read your own history Johan... start with Macleans 1964 book ("Challenge for Health, a History of Public Health in New Zealand), and consider just what has REALLY made the biggest improvements in the past.
• Big Brother: sorting housing is critical.
• Big Brother. Children's ministry with aspiration and responsibility to sort this.
• Big Brother: children's minister to be front bench minister of finance.
• Big Brother: Treasury can help to sort this.
• Big Brother: Banks and corporations legislated to "give back" to a country and the communities that they benefit from.

According to my analysis , neither the banks or corporations benefit from the marginalised community group who, according to you, have nothing to spent and no homes to live in. Perhaps the money grabbing legislation should be directed at the drug smugglers, the millions of forced "entitled family" payments to Samoa/Tonga - and other "elements" who leach the money and soul out of these groups?

Perhaps you should just say it as it really is: You expect the law-abiding, hard working taxpayers who responsibly look after their own families, to be doubly taxed so as to pick up the tab for all those who can't, or won't. That's what it amounts to, because you know full well that corporations and banks, simply pass the costs on, and their profits never blip.

Neither is there any recognition of the responsibility of previous generations of families of these parents who don't make the grade, to have an active part in solving the problems they created. Where are they held accountable or being "educated" in all this?

• Big Brother: Can we have a plan - a 10-yr plan for maternity, for your people for children that crosses all the political boundaries, and outlives the political cycle beyond our three years?

Seriously, Johan, what country are you living in? Hasn't New Zealand had to suffer the last 36 plus years at the hands of ineffective long term maternity/birth/CYPS plans crafted by you lot, which dragged on way too long after the horse was dead while you kept flogging it and saying, "give it time, it will work"?

Then you say, "When you go home, go and talk to your politicians. Make sure they understand the seriousness of the issues and that they commit to THE SOLUTIONS.... it's going to take an "all-of-the-country" approach to solve the first thousand days."

Everything in your impassioned plea, adds up to more money for you, for big brother boys, for monitoring services to teach parents you portray as dumb and in need of education.

Never once in all this rhetoric was there any mention of where the real solutions lie, nor was there any dawning in your consciousness that YOU and all the systems you have previously put in place, are part of the problem.

Not once is there consideration for research into the real reason as to WHY there is a housing shortage, and what really lies behind that. That might have everything to do with political policies which encourage the buying up of properties, and inflating the prices of them for their own gain.

But even worse, never ONCE in your rhetoric, and ideas, was there any thought of, mention of... ... God forbid .... asking the major stakeholders of this country - mother and fathers, . . . what THEY NEED.

Sitting down and talking to them. I understand your reticence, because you might discover one size does not fit all, and your ideas are extremely simplistic. Not once do you ask: "How has the medical model failed you?"

AS in the 1980s, your kite is just another idea to get more money to enforce more control, compliance and conformity. You have embraced consultation with Maori and organisations - because you see that as your “solution” to problem children. Is it?

The last big elephant in your room, is that there is no analysis, discussion with, or the embracing of the needs or aspirations of the people you don’t see in your clinic, who are equally disenfranchised. They love their children…. who also happen to matter.

Like the teacher focusing on problem children, your focus is on the tiny minority. The solutions you cite to solve that problem parents will not be welcomed by the ignored majority who don’t need even the present big brother breathing down their necks.

Your solutions, Johan, are all about the medical model, that can only be achieved through the dollar sign. It looks like its about money, to achieve your goals, your standards... and satisfying your theories, and dare I say it - making a name for yourself?

You ignore the mother's integrity and heart. You censor information. You regularly negate the right to decide, and treat those whose choice is not yours, as criminals. You ignore a mother's right not to be bullied.

You don't consult with us.

You don't "hear" us.

When will you ever learn?