Ivory towers, trusts and homelessness
We are here again, a desperate, homeless person with so many people wringing their hands demanding people "do something".
I have tried in vain for many years to "do something", at times coming close, but most times being ignored by those with power and resources.
I have dared to suggest that the Victoria Trust model of care be used. This model has been responsible in Timaru for drastically reducing bed usage in the acute unit and ensuring good care for those in the community.
The whole thing is run by one person, from his spare bedroom — not a multi-storey building in the CBD, with umpteen staff, funded handsomely by Te Whatu Ora, as is a case in Dunedin.
I have offered my time and expertise free of charge to start such a trust in Dunedin but have been met with silence.
Why doesn't the ODT be part of a solution and investigate the Victoria Trust model, visiting Timaru and "exposing" what can be done, so being part of the solution and not constantly reminding people of the problem?
I doubt that I shall get a response, but at least I tried.
Penury and pensions
Today the lead story in the ODT (11.10.23) was the report of the woman who has lived for the past four years in the bushes beside the motorway.
We now have here in New Zealand many people who have no fixed abode and are sleeping on the streets, living hand to mouth and dependent on community and voluntary support services in order to survive. What a sad reflection on our society and values.
When a member of Parliament has given nine years’ service and retires, they are entitled to a parliamentary pension and concessions on air travel etc. I ask why they are so favoured?
They have been very adequately paid whilst in office, so why do they require these entitlements and privileges?
That money could be much better utilised assisting society’s underprivileged.
Was it any surprise?
From a somewhat mechanistic social science perspective – and leaving ethics, history and political legalities aside – it is not surprising that when you suppress a people for decades, tighten the thumbscrews ever tighter, rob them of all hope for liberty and of a vision for a better future – as the state of Israel has done to the Palestinians since the Naqba (the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948) – and when people feel they have nothing to lose (even their lives) it must eventually come to a violent eruption of sorts.
Add to this mix a religion that strongly promises a blissful afterlife to the martyr who died in a righteous cause, you have a recipe for explosive action.
It is another matter that this desperate action will not be beneficial for Palestinians in any way – on the contrary it will lead to further reprisals and even stronger oppression and Israel will go on ignoring several UN resolutions.
Then and now
If today’s Western minority world governments like ours were around in 1944 they’d have condemned the residents of the Warsaw Ghetto as terrorists, asserted the right of the Germans besieging the place to self-defence and denounced those who protested as anti-Aryan.
The rugby world officiating cup looms
I can say rugby is already the loser in the 2023 Rugby World Cup. If nothing is done the cup in Australia in four years should be renamed the Officiating World Cup. Overreaching, maybe rugby wannabes are interfering in the game. The official who went back to an apparent but not noted knock-on following Samoa being awarded a try — who had time to attempt the conversion — should have been sidelined by the on-field referee as soon as he tried to interfere. The Samoan coach, very kindly, wonders if there is an unconscious bias. I believe it may be a very conscious bias.
Rates question
I have looked over our rates assessment.
Doing so, I have found that Dunedin Transport Class B is not a fixed rate.
You would think everyone would pay the same amount regardless of their property value?
Can I have a response from the Otago Regional Council?
[Sarah Munro, ORC finance manager, replies: The Dunedin Transport Class B rate is charged on the capital value of a property.]
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
