Poorly tailored Greens’ plan for impoverished kids has forgotten the threads and treads

Alf is damned glad he doesn’t belong to a party which serves up vegan food at its conferences and declares them to be a fragrance-free affair.

This, it seems, means party members are expected to eschew deodorants and perfumes, and so on, which in turn means those who turn up are exposed to the pong of the raw body odours of delegates who are apt to be sparing with the use of soap.

Because Alf would avoid such occasions, the Greens have been denied his advice on how to improve their education policy.

That policy was announced today, as you can find here.

The Greens want to install nurses in every low decile primary and intermediate school to tackle poverty-related illness.

Great. But it doesn’t go far enough.

A doctor should be part of the package.

And a dentist.

Applause, please, for Paula as she puts down the leftie plonkers with our position on poverty

Do we really have to weigh her before declaring her obese?

Hurrah for Paula.

She is giving the lefties a good swerve by challenging their preoccupation with measuring poverty.

Paula Bennett banged out a media statement on the subject yesterday.

She said (here) that addressing the causes of poverty instead of debating how it’s measured is the Government’s main focus.

“The Government is committed to taking action to combat poverty. This is in stark contrast to the Labour Party which just talks about how it should be measured,’’ Mrs Bennett says.

“Following recent debate on the issue, I have been misquoted in various media as saying there is no poverty line, or it’s been reported that I don’t acknowledge that a poverty line exists.

“What I’ve actually said is that there is no official measure of poverty in New Zealand, and that is correct. The actual work to address poverty – insulating homes, getting people into work, ensuring children have access to free health care – that is the priority for this Government’’ says Mrs Bennett.

“Of course there is poverty in New Zealand. This has been acknowledged by the Government but it’s not a priority to have another measure on it.”

Good one, Paula.

You don’t have to put a fattie on the scales to get his or her weight.

You can see he or she is fat.

Joris is back with some concerns about poverty – but leaves 100,000 or so kids out of considerations

It looks like the hacks at Stuff might not have got it quite right, when they reported what Joris de Bres told the Maori Affairs Select Committee.

The committee is holding an inquiry into the well-being of Maori children.

This was timely, coinciding with the release of the coroner’s report on the deaths of the Kahui kids.

The first sentence of the Stuff account of de Bres’ presentation (here) tells us –

Maori children are being denied their basic human rights, Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres said.

Huh?

That’s awful.

The outfit that hates poor people alas has just lost NZ’s first-ever Sikh MP from its membership

Life is a matter of making the right choices.

Alf is somewhat astonished to learn that Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi, the first Sikh to be elected to our Parliament, is backing away from giving folks the impression he might regard beneficiaries as “freeloaders”.

Alf’s astonishment is that many citizens similarly have a dim view of beneficiaries.

And so they would be sympathetic about his membership – but only until Friday – of the Facebook group “I hate poor people”.

It seems he had been signed up to the group since 2009.

The group has 398 members, according to the Sunday Star-Times.

This makes it a somewhat sad little outfit, woefully lacking in good organising skills, bearning in mind it was set up to express displeasure at those on benefits and low incomes.

Alf reckons he could whip up 398 new members in a 30-minute stroll through a suburb like Remuera or Khandallah.

There’s nothing wrong with making the rich even richer – but that won’t stop Labour bleating

Alf welcomes the PM’s political offensive on behalf of the wealthy.

He has urged the rest of the country not to be jealous if the rich get more from Thursday’s Budget tax package because the rich are crucial to the economy.

It’s bloody good advice.

Mind you, Alf happens to think the poor are crucial to the economy too. We need them to work for the wealthy, preferably for low wages to enable the wealthy who hire them to get even wealthier.

Even better is to have plenty of the poor buggers on the dole, so those with jobs become less inclined to push for higher wages, because they can be easily replaced.