Friday, May 7, 2010

Hilarity ensues

1. Paula Bennett the Social Development Minister has set up a Welfare Working Group to give her independent, objective advice that the social welfare system is suddenly in crisis and urgently needs to be disbanded in order to preserve it. In particular she has appointed "freelance consultant and independent author" Professor Peter Saunders.

That would be this Peter Saunders, from the Centre for Independent Studies:
It is "immoral ... to take money from people who maintain themselves and families ... and redistribute it to people who have no intention of even trying to achieve self-reliance".
2. Questioned about Saunders' views, she praised his academic standing and referred MPs to his book Welfare to Work in Practice.

3. This confused MPs who read the book because it promotes diametrically opposite views:

"There may be advantages in allowing those with the weakest attachment to ... work to 'opt out' and live on an 'unconditional basic income' financed by the rest of society."
The author turns out to be a different Professor Peter Saunders.

4. The latest statement from Paula Bennett insists that she has appointed the Saunders she wanted, i.e. the rightwing hack on wingnut welfare,* and it was only her rationale for appointing him that was confused.

Journalists are not sure which Paula Bennett issued this statement.

There is nothing I could add that would improve this story so instead here's a Muybridge animation of a zombie "Stuporous Melancholia". I would be stupefied and melancholic too if someone stole my clothes and took photos of me.

* Believes that the working class are poor because they have inherited lower intelligence. Lauded by the Murdoch Press. Dropped out of Australian academia to write a novel about the Islamic Apocalypse featuring a failed Australian academic as the hero. Good enough for advising the NZ government.

9 comments:

Smut Clyde said...

According to Murdoch's #1 propaganda paper The Australian,
"It's hard to turn a newspaper page without hearing from the relentless libertarian, Peter Saunders. A former professor of sociology at the University of Sussex, Saunders uses spare and stylish English to mow down paddocks of sacred cows" (23 May 2008).

Apart from the agricultural ignorance revealed in the suggestion that cows are harvested by "mowing", the argument here seems to be that rightwing newspapers were quoting Saunders all the time, therefore he deserved to be quoted in rightwing newspapers.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

the social welfare system is suddenly in crisis and urgently needs to be disbanded in order to preserve it

We must burn the village in order to save it!

In particular she has appointed "freelance consultant and independent author" Professor Peter Saunders.

I'll bet dollars to donuts that he'll be spending his consulting fees on rent boys.

Another Kiwi said...

For all of the notice that "Gordon" Bennett will take, it could be Elmo.
She will slash and burn whatever anyone says.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Paula Bennett the Social Development Minister

So this is like making James Watt the Secretary of the Interior, or appointing John Bolton as Ambassador to the U.N.*?

* Crap. Yet another stain on the alma mater.
~

mikey said...

"There may be advantages in allowing those with the weakest attachment to ... work to 'opt out' and live on an 'unconditional basic income' financed by the rest of society."

Yes! This makes utter sense to me. I have NO attachment to work. I find work interferes with the creative process, which is stimulated by drinking Sailor Jerry's Spiced Rum, smoking pot and looking at porn on the internet. If the rest of society would provide me with a small stipend, an "unconditional basic income", I would seldom put on trousers, let alone leave the house to menace the community. This is often described as a Win/Win...

fish said...

I am much more willing to have my tax dollars support Mikey doing nothing all day but download porn than it going to the SEC for the same thing.

M. Bouffant said...

mikey, I don't get it. I only had to threaten to threaten [sic] one relative w/ a gun, go through some awful experiences, be homeless, lose almost all of my cool stuff & souvenirs; now I'm totally retired, being creative, the U.S. is subsidizing my rent AND paying me back the Social Security taxes I was gypped out of, & THEY'LL NEVER MAKE ME WORK AGAIN!!!

(You have any relatives you can trust to tell the cops to take you the wig house rather than the cop shop after you threaten them?)

I am, therefore (per wv) exsad. (Still pissed & raging, though.)

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Hmpf. When I threaten my relatives, they typically return fire.

Understandable, certainly, but it doesn't wash with the nanny state representative in charge of free porn.

Well, it hasn't until now. Since it's Mother's Day, perhaps if I wore one of her dresses while threatening my brother's digs?

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Dogs. Stupid iPhone keyboard vs. Fat fingers vs. Spellcheck.

Digs is kinda funny too, though.