"Since we've opened we've had young people walking in the door who are experiencing homelessness, some of them are sleeping rough. A substantial group have gone to Work and Income for support, have told them their situation, and been told look, you're not entitled to access to emergency housing, or access to shelter."
#AaronHendry, 2025 founder of The Front Door
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=7c8e7bb1-9e5a-4999-9a84-4717114ae07f
(1/?)
But despite the fact that NatACT First policies are definitely making homelessness worse, Chris Hipkins says;
"I can assure you we aren’t going to spend our first year back in government pausing, cancelling, and reviewing everything."
https://norightturn.blogspot.com/2025/03/want-change-dont-vote-labour.html
That noise is me grinding my teeth and tearing my hair out.
(2/?)
If the best the electoral system can offer us are Labour parties led by people like Chris Hipkins and Keir Starmer, maybe the anarchist theorists are right? Governments, whether right wing or "left", are the problem not the solution.
Maybe large scale mutual aid is the way of out of intentional impoverishment created by successive governments over the last 40 years?
(3/3)
The problem is not that elected governments aren't delivering what they promise. They're made up of humans, so if they can, there's always a risk that they will.
The real problem is this;
Citizens don't have any way to *make* them keep their promises, other than the threat of booting them out come the next election. Which assumes there are other candidates who aren't worse.
Government decision-making doesn't seem to be subject to ongoing democratic oversight with any teeth.
(1/?)
Instead of ongoing democratic oversight, we're supposed to get sufficient information to reliably know;
Which candidates are really offering what citizens want, genuinely intend to deliver it, and are capable of doing so?
Which is impossible. Meaningful democracy requires citizens to have access to levers of collective decision-making power whenever elected officials are in session.
Which is why I keep saying elections are orthogonal to democracy.
(2/2)