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Think of the children

Trivia question for the day - What country?

Man loses child for drunk driving conviction
A father of 2 had his newborn baby 'confiscated' following a conviction for driving at .05 above the limit. He was also fined $50. The social worker assigned to the family indicated that this was just one of several indicators in her risk profile, which she could not release details of, due to privacy laws. The mother was later admitted to hospital suffering a nervous breakdown. [Dec 31]

1800 new orphans - a 300% increase from last year
The Dept of Children today confirmed skyrocketing numbers of children placed into orphanages. "This was to be expected now that we have substantially increased the resources available to our monitoring program. This is a good outcome. It means our policy is working." [Dec 29]

Case worker caught in blackmail scam
A case worker was sentenced to 6 months community service today after found to have been blackmailing parents of new born babies. Mindy Jiro had been charging up to $700 to parents for them to avoid a bad report on the 'home assessment' which automatically results in instant removal of a newborn child whilst the family is investigated. It was found many parents did not complain for fear they would lose visiting rights, or permanent custody. There have been renewed calls for an independent inquiry as this is the 5th case in three months. This was dismissed by the Children's Commissioner who described the incidents as 'isolated' and 'the good outweighed the bad'. [Dec 6]

Pedophile sentenced to 12 months home detention
A man found to be abusing his adopted child had the child permanently removed. He was sentenced to 12 months home detention and instructed to complete a sexual ethics course. A spokesperson for the Orphanage Commission said that the policy of adopting children out to single male parents was a good policy and to not do so was discriminatory. They hastened to point out that abuse cases in adoptions had also increased against single parent females as well. [Nov 21]

Creation of the Dept of Children a huge success
The newly formed Dept of Children opened today with an announcement of $300 million dollars in funding. The 800 staff will manage and control the nations 13 Orphanages and have plans to launch a new marketing campaign to increase adoption rates. [Nov 11]

Case Worker murdered
Police are investigating the murder of a Social Worker, following the breaking of a news story by Government Watch Magazine where she was identified as having removed over 160 children from their parents under the 'unfit parents' law. This is 70% higher than any other worker. Police are also considering prosecuting the Magazine, which has made headlines from previous articles which the Government have described as 'unhelpful'. There are no plans to revisit her cases as many of the children have already been adopted out. [Oct 29]

Every Home Assessed
Mandatory screening of every baby's home life is being proposed by the children's commissioner in a bold bid to halve New Zealand's shocking child murder rate.

Cindy Kiro's scheme would make it compulsory for every newborn's caregiver to nominate an authorised provider to assess their family's progress through home visits. Those who refused to take part would be referred to welfare authorities.

The homes of newborns will be assessed by a case worker who will decide if the parents and environment is 'risk free'. Targeted with saving 5 lives [a year] in [the first] 5 years, estimates are that only 500 babies or so will be removed from parents who meet the risk profile. [Sep 8 - Dr Kiro can save 5 children with $5 million]

[updated 3:53pm to correct numbers 'saved' to 5 children per year]

Background Reading:

Leave No Commissioner Behind

Dr Kiro's Master Plan


Comments

  1. Help me out guys - I know I missed several news stories after the Sep 8 release. You are welcome to fill in the gaps.

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  2. STASI, coming to a corrupt and failing democracy near you soon.
    A typical left wing blanket approach to what really is a problem that lies mostly in the Maori population.
    Not many babies called john or jane smith being slaughtered in their homes are there?
    But not to worry, all the whities will fall into line or lose their kids.

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  3. I just about could not believe what I was reading this morning as I laid the Dominion Post onto my kitchen table. Thank God it's on the front page! All those people that read the weekend paper for enjoyment most likely were choking on their cereal today.

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  4. I put up a big post about this over at CR.
    If Kiwis don't grow some spine and fight this outrage, they may as well simply roll over and vote the commies back in, because National certainly won't repeal either this or the anti-smacking legislation.
    Time to tell this government and the likes of Cindy kiro to f*&k off!

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  5. I thought the critical piece of info is that 98% of mothers/families voluntarily use services like Plunket. So the only argument lies with 2%.

    Lets have some clear instruction on that 2% and what their motives are.
    Until we know just what and who we are dealing with here.. and whether most deaths come from this group, then we should oppose any legislation.

    JC

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  6. I noticed that too JC. What I thought was interesting there was Dr Kiro's reaction to that:

    It is estimated about 98 per cent of New Zealand parents take up the existing offer of free child health support, such as that provided by Plunket. Dr Kiro said this system was based on voluntary engagement and was "a recipe for disaster".

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  7. Zen,

    Likely Kiro has a desire to shift the argument away from that 2%. Good PC stuff.

    The conservative angle on this one is the semi social objectives of Sir Truby King who recognised we had similar problems 100 years ago when he established Plunket (1907). That, at least, is a tradition to cherish and recognise as one of the most successful social interventions ever.

    Last July, our two daughters had their first babies, and it was with something of a ceremony that we handed over to them their Plunket books of 1970 and 1971, and I can easily remember when they were born and raised on a dead end road in the middle of a forest with only one family within cooee, that the house and baby got a tidy and clean before the Plunket nurse arrived.. suitably shaken after negotiating the bridge over the gorge.

    Those ladies went everywhere and provided a hugely important link to the world of newborns and their health. They provided the measurements and weights and report on the baby, how it was doing and suggestions on how to handle the various problems that afflicted babies and their families.

    All good frontier stuff. And the sad thing is that governments of the past 25 years have failed to understand that the frontier isn't in the wop wops anymore, but right here in our towns where under-educated single mothers have no support or discipline of Plunket worth a damn.

    If 98% of families seek the support of the likes of Plunket, then I'm very supportive of the other 2% being checked out by Social Welfare or whatever, but just that 2%.

    JC

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  8. What a difference when something is offered and accepted, rather than mandated!

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  9. Zen,

    It's not the simplest subject. Eg, I'm 100% for immunization, because it protects me and mine, but it's coercive.. too bad.

    Same for babies, I'll go coercive every time.
    Education (and my wife was Correspondence School), I'll be coercive again.

    You name it, and I'm a coercive Socialist, but everyone says I'm a bloody Tory. Go figure.

    JC

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  10. jc, do you really believe that people should be coerced into having their children vaccinated, regardless of whether or not they agree with it?

    There is risk in vaccinating children, and there are many parents that make educated decisions to not vaccinate their children. I am one of them. I strongly believe that one of my children who has high functioning autism, would very likely be low functioning if we'd continued to vaccinate. Should my child be forcibly vaccinated?

    If vaccinations ever become mandatory in this country, I won't have to think twice about leaving.

    JK

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  11. With vaccinations there's a herd protection effect, ie, vaccinate more than about 85% and you still well control the disease or thing being vaccinated against. The non vaccinated person may die or suffer major problems, but the disease will likely be limited to him.

    But once vaccination rates fall below 50%, the effect on the herd is lost. I might be a little wonky on the figures now, but you get the idea.

    I can recall when I first went to school in 1949 and for years after, the effects of the various diseases that kids contracted.. like tetanus, whooping cough, TB, polio, diptheria, scarlet fever etc, it was pretty damn tragic for many and I wouldn't want to see them back again.

    There's room for non vaccination in NZ, but only whilst the herd is protected, then compulsion must come in.

    JC

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  12. JC, if you want a herd effect, you need to be vaccinating adults as well. Most vaccines don't last that long - typically ten years or so. That means that most adults a child comes into contact with will effectively be unvaccinated - including yourself.

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  13. Lucyna,

    True for some conditions, but the majority immunizations are either lifelong, produce milder forms of the disease or provide protection till the child's natural immune system kicks in.

    JC

    ReplyDelete

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