The Hastings youth council has made a successful bid to get voting rights.

Hastings District Council has narrowly voted in support of giving unelected youth councillors the ability to vote on council issues alongside other councillors at a committee level.

Their mayor thinks giving youth councillors voting rights will bolster their future opportunities.

Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst told Kerre Woodham this was thought through very carefully.

She says it'll encourage young people into local government, which isn't easy, because people definitely don't do it for the money.

LISTEN ABOVE

<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px 0px 10.6667px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">The Hastings youth council has made a successful bid to get voting rights.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px 0px 10.6667px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">Hastings District Council has narrowly voted in support of giving unelected youth councillors the ability to vote on council issues alongside other councillors at a committee level.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px 0px 10.6667px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">Their mayor thinks giving youth councillors voting rights will bolster their future opportunities.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px 0px 10.6667px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst told Kerre Woodham this was thought through very carefully.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px 0px 10.6667px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">She says it'll encourage young people into local government, which isn't easy, because people definitely don't do it for the money.
<p style="-webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px 0px 10.6667px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; vertical-align: baseline; font-kerning: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">LISTEN ABOVE

Join Kerre Woodham one of New Zealand’s best loved personalities as she dishes up a bold, sharp and energetic show Monday to Friday 9am-12md on Newstalk ZB. News, opinion, analysis, lifestyle and entertainment – we’ve got your morning listening covered.

Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Sandra Hazlehurst: Hastings Mayor on the youth council being given the ability to vote at a committee level

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/6f76173b-5b55-4692-b19c-b1f701871fae/transcript

The Greens voted last night to swallow a dead rat. Even the vegans had to chew on a dead rat last night. Green Party delegates overwhelmingly decided to use the Waka Jumping law, which they hate, to eject Darleen Tana from Parliament if she decides not to quit first. Darleen Tana, the former Green MP, currently sits, useless as tits on a bull, as an independent and was the subject of a late night special general meeting zoom. All 185 party delegates present at the meeting reached consensus —I don't think they do anything so trad and bourgeois as vote— they reach consensus within the Green Party, to endorse using the legislation against Tana.   

Political reporters say that suggests the party is far more united on the issue than previously thought. There had been some hoohah about treatment of women and treatment of women of colour within the Greens, but it appears not. It appears they can all see that the reason that Darleen Tana is sitting there squatly in Parliament is because she's got nowhere else to go. She's not acting on a matter of principle, she's not acting on a matter of the higher moral ground the Greens are very fond of finding, she's just sitting there because she needs a gig and as to pay the bills.  

So the Greens have been historically vocal about their dislike for the same law they've now opted to use against Tana, but Green Party Co leader Chloe Swarbrick says everyone should be open to changing their minds when faced with issues like this.   

What do we expect our politicians to do? If a party is elected and you as a voter have listened to the campaign promises, and you've read through their policies, and you understand what it is that they intend to do when they get into power, do you then sit back and watch as they go and renege on every single promise and are not the party you voted for? You'd want to see politicians take a principled stand, wouldn't you?  

Do you expect them to stick to a party that has been disloyal to its voting base, or do you expect them to take a principled stand? Resign and sit as an independent in the House, being a burr under the saddle of the government, reminding them of the broken promises? I think we can all see with Darleen Tana that she needs a gig. She needs a job. She's not going to get one that pays that well. Sitting doing nothing in Parliament is paying her a hell of a lot more than she'll get doing anything else. She is not principled, but other MPs have been, and they should be allowed to do so. They should be allowed to sit in the house and remind a party that it's broken its promises to its voters, in my opinion. 

The Greens voted last night to swallow a dead rat. Even the vegans had to chew on a dead rat last night. Green Party delegates overwhelmingly decided to use the Waka Jumping law, which they hate, to eject Darleen Tana from Parliament if she decides not to quit first. Darleen Tana, the former Green MP, currently sits, useless as tits on a bull, as an independent and was the subject of a late night special general meeting zoom. All 185 party delegates present at the meeting reached consensus —I don't think they do anything so trad and bourgeois as vote— they reach consensus within the Green Party, to endorse using the legislation against Tana. &nbsp;&nbsp;
Political reporters say that suggests the party is far more united on the issue than previously thought. There had been some hoohah about treatment of women and treatment of women of colour within the Greens, but it appears not. It appears they can all see that the reason that Darleen Tana is sitting there squatly in Parliament is because she's got nowhere else to go. She's not acting on a matter of principle, she's not acting on a matter of the higher moral ground the Greens are very fond of finding, she's just sitting there because she needs a gig and as to pay the bills. &nbsp;
So the Greens have been historically vocal about their dislike for the same law they've now opted to use against Tana, but Green Party Co leader Chloe Swarbrick says everyone should be open to changing their minds when faced with issues like this. &nbsp;&nbsp;
What do we expect our politicians to do? If a party is elected and you as a voter have listened to the campaign promises, and you've read through their policies, and you understand what it is that they intend to do when they get into power, do you then sit back and watch as they go and renege on every single promise and are not the party you voted for? You'd want to see politicians take a principled stand, wouldn't you? &nbsp;
Do you expect them to stick to a party that has been disloyal to its voting base, or do you expect them to take a principled stand? Resign and sit as an independent in the House, being a burr under the saddle of the government, reminding them of the broken promises? I think we can all see with Darleen Tana that she needs a gig. She needs a job. She's not going to get one that pays that well. Sitting doing nothing in Parliament is paying her a hell of a lot more than she'll get doing anything else. She is not principled, but other MPs have been, and they should be allowed to do so. They should be allowed to sit in the house and remind a party that it's broken its promises to its voters, in my opinion.&nbsp;

Kerre Woodham: What do we expect our politicians to do?

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/0402a29d-16ef-4a4c-a711-b20d000e66ab/transcript

We're going to open the show today with a chat on ACC, given that it's managed to go from a $911 million surplus to a $7.2 billion deficit in the year to June. That’s got to hurt.

ACC said, in it's just released annual report, that lower than expected rehabilitation performance contributed towards the deficit, and noted the cost of providing services and compensation to injured people increased by 16% over the year. That makes sense. The price of everything has gone up. The price of taxis has gone up to get people to their appointments, the price of scans, everything that you can apply to ACC for will have risen in price. You can understand that the deficit could be a whole lot worse.

If you are one of those people who have been on ACC and that is, as Mike pointed out this morning, 100% of the Kerre Woodham Mornings team, all two of us. We covered a lot of the costs ourselves. We didn't apply for everything that you're entitled to under ACC. I didn’t get a taxi or house cleaning, and we got extra treatment to aid our rehabilitation and recovery to make it that much faster, and we did that at our own expense and time. We made an investment in our own recovery. And that's partly because we can, there are some people who simply do not have that option, but partly because Helen and I saw it as a team effort – thank you very much, ACC, but we will do our very best to do what we can to get back to work. And I bet many of you are the same. How much have you actually claimed what you could have claimed? I bet the figure could be a whole lot worse, so put that down to the Kiwi attitude of fair play. You've done your bit, thanks very much and we'll do ours.

I did notice too that in the reporting on the story —perhaps they mentioned it in the report, and I haven't read the entire ACC report, I've only gone off the news coverage— when they said lower than expected rehabilitation performance contributed towards the deficit, they didn't make any mention of their failed $74 million restructure that removed personal case managers for nearly 12,500 clients, and then oh that's not working, reinstated them. Maybe they did, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. I didn't have time to read the whole report this morning, but surely the “lower than expected” rehab performance could in part be attributed to the fact that they tried a $74 million restructure of case managers that failed dismally, and now personal case managers have been reinstated.

A lawyer specialising in ACC law said the reversal was not a surprise because the agency had been warned the new system would fail. When it comes to the blowout, okay, “lower than expected” rehab performance – that's staff shortages in the health sector, that's holdups in the health sector that means you're delayed in getting treatment, you're delayed in getting to see somebody, and that can attribute towards the “lower than expected” rehab performance. Also, the reason why people are taking longer to get back to work. The average claimant who received weekly compensation for less than a year took 69.7 days to return to work at the beginning of the fiscal year. By the end of the year, that number had risen to 72.8 days. So the delays in the health sector could attribute to that.

And then the other issue that ACC faces is that two court judgements have increased the scope of what ACC covers and the breadth of who's entitled to this coverage. Think of the smashed babies that survive but are so badly damaged that they will never be able to work – ACC has to make an allowance for those babies for life. They will live and they will live well into their middle years, but they'll never work. There is no hope of recovery or rehabilitation for these poor children. They're also having to take into account victims of unreported childhood sexual offending who are unable to work as adults. So they have to make allowance for those people too. So the breadth of what it covers, the scope of what it covers, it could be a whole lot worse.

It's still claimed that this is the best system, that this form of social insurance is still the best system. Do you agree? Do you believe that ACC is still fit for purpose? I do. I think for all of those well publicised cases of those who rort it, remember the famous Auckland businessman who was found playing tennis on his very own tennis court, under flood lights, and he had been off work for ages and ages and was exposed on the cover of the Herald on Sunday or something. He had been rorting in the system for ages. For all of those that rort, there are very many who contribute towards their own recovery and towards their own costs. It could be a whole lot worse. It means we don't have lawyers suing and countersuing, which I think is a very, very good thing. And it does mean that we can be damaged, be fixed and go back to work.

On the whole, I think it's still working. And there are ebbs and flows in terms of making a profit, investing, putting money aside, getting a better return some years more than others. As far as I'm concerned there are problems with ACC – yes, the $74 million restructure that was a U-turn that led to nowhere, unfortunate, but there we go. We have to live with that, reconcile that into the books, learn from it, reinstate the case managers help people get back into work. As far as I'm concerned, I’m still happy to pay my levies, still happy to see ACC continue to provide the services and the treatments it does. 

We're going to open the show today with a chat on ACC, given that it's managed to go from a $911 million surplus to a $7.2 billion deficit in the year to June. That’s got to hurt.
ACC said, in it's just released annual report, that lower than expected rehabilitation performance contributed towards the deficit, and noted the cost of providing services and compensation to injured people increased by 16% over the year. That makes sense. The price of everything has gone up. The price of taxis has gone up to get people to their appointments, the price of scans, everything that you can apply to ACC for will have risen in price. You can understand that the deficit could be a whole lot worse.
If you are one of those people who have been on ACC and that is, as Mike pointed out this morning, 100% of the Kerre Woodham Mornings team, all two of us. We covered a lot of the costs ourselves. We didn't apply for everything that you're entitled to under ACC. I didn’t get a taxi or house cleaning, and we got extra treatment to aid our rehabilitation and recovery to make it that much faster, and we did that at our own expense and time. We made an investment in our own recovery. And that's partly because we can, there are some people who simply do not have that option, but partly because Helen and I saw it as a team effort – thank you very much, ACC, but we will do our very best to do what we can to get back to work. And I bet many of you are the same. How much have you actually claimed what you could have claimed? I bet the figure could be a whole lot worse, so put that down to the Kiwi attitude of fair play. You've done your bit, thanks very much and we'll do ours.
I did notice too that in the reporting on the story —perhaps they mentioned it in the report, and I haven't read the entire ACC report, I've only gone off the news coverage— when they said lower than expected rehabilitation performance contributed towards the deficit, they didn't make any mention of their failed $74 million restructure that removed personal case managers for nearly 12,500 clients, and then oh that's not working, reinstated them. Maybe they did, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. I didn't have time to read the whole report this morning, but surely the “lower than expected” rehab performance could in part be attributed to the fact that they tried a $74 million restructure of case managers that failed dismally, and now personal case managers have been reinstated.
A lawyer specialising in ACC law said the reversal was not a surprise because the agency had been warned the new system would fail. When it comes to the blowout, okay, “lower than expected” rehab performance – that's staff shortages in the health sector, that's holdups in the health sector that means you're delayed in getting treatment, you're delayed in getting to see somebody, and that can attribute towards the “lower than expected” rehab performance. Also, the reason why people are taking longer to get back to work. The average claimant who received weekly compensation for less than a year took 69.7 days to return to work at the beginning of the fiscal year. By the end of the year, that number had risen to 72.8 days. So the delays in the health sector could attribute to that.
And then the other issue that ACC faces is that two court judgements have increased the scope of what ACC covers and the breadth of who's entitled to this coverage. Think of the smashed babies that survive but are so badly damaged that they will never be able to work – ACC has to make an allowance for those babies for life. They will live and they will live well into their middle years, but they'll never work. There is no hope of recovery or rehabilitation for these poor children. They're also having to take into account victims of unreported childhood sexual offending who are unable to work as adults. So they have to make allowance for those people too. So the breadth of what it covers, the scope of what it covers, it could be a whole lot worse.
It's still claimed that this is the best system, that this form of social insurance is still the best system. Do you agree? Do you believe that ACC is still fit for purpose? I do. I think for all of those well publicised cases of those who rort it, remember the famous Auckland businessman who was found playing tennis on his very own tennis court, under flood lights, and he had been off work for ages and ages and was exposed on the cover of the Herald on Sunday or something. He had been rorting in the system for ages. For all of those that rort, there are very many who contribute towards their own recovery and towards their own costs. It could be a whole lot worse. It means we don't have lawyers suing and countersuing, which I think is a very, very good thing. And it does mean that we can be damaged, be fixed and go back to work.
On the whole, I think it's still working. And there are ebbs and flows in terms of making a profit, investing, putting money aside, getting a better return some years more than others. As far as I'm concerned there are problems with ACC – yes, the $74 million restructure that was a U-turn that led to nowhere, unfortunate, but there we go. We have to live with that, reconcile that into the books, learn from it, reinstate the case managers help people get back into work. As far as I'm concerned, I’m still happy to pay my levies, still happy to see ACC continue to provide the services and the treatments it does.&nbsp;

Kerre Woodham: On the whole, I think ACC's still working

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/f24ce1dc-386c-4603-a76e-b20c00046e71/transcript

I remember about 25 years ago there was an absolute hoo-ha at the Grey Lynn Countdown, because staff there were speaking to one another in their own tongue in the common staff room. And there was a complaint from somebody who spoke English —that was the language they spoke, and they didn't speak any other languages— and they took great offence to people speaking in their mother tongue in the staff room. They said it made them feel uneasy, they didn't know what they were talking about, and you can imagine the brouhaha resulted - who was right? Who was wrong?  

Now, so many years later, a memo has been sent around Waikato Hospital asking nurses to speak English only when they're on the wards. Concerns have been raised about other languages being used by nurses and the exclusive use of English in all clinical settings is safer for treating people, according to the memo. And I quote, “each nurse is required by Nursing Council New Zealand to achieve competency both in the written and spoken language of English. Consistent use of one language reduces the possibility of missed care, misunderstanding of clinical requirements and enhances safe teamwork.”  

And I totally get that. I totally understand that where there are issues of clinical safety clear communication is utterly vital. There must be an unequivocal understanding between medical staff and patients around the treatment of patients. But when you're chatting to one another or to patients who might share your background and share your language, I really don't see where the problem is.  

It's a real lesson in humility, as many of you will know, to go to a country where English is not the lingua franca. Especially when words are your thing, where your way of expressing yourself, where your way of participating in the world is through language. All of a sudden you go to a place where there's another language spoken, you don't speak it, and you are reduced to a basic, basic level of conversation. Despite your very best efforts to learn a few words before you go, quite different when you get there, and you are reduced to absolutely fundamental basic communication. You can't explain yourself; you can't expound on your ideas; you can’t express nuance. It's incredibly frustrating and very, very good for your humility. And gives you, I think a deeper understanding of what it must be like to come to New Zealand, to set up your home here, to set up your life here, to work here and to have English as a second language.  

More credit to the people who do pass their English proficiency when they've come from somewhere else. Blimmin’ sure I wouldn't be able to pass my Mandarin proficiency or my Hindi. You know so much more than what you're communicating, and yet all the person hears on the other end is a basic one-dimensional other. So any chance you get to be you, to be all of the you rather than the basic you, I can understand why people would take that. Again, at no point should clinical safety be compromised. At no point should a patient's treatment be in any way misinterpreted because there is a lack of understanding, but if you have the time to talk to somebody in their own language, in their first language, wouldn't you take it?  

I mean, anybody who's lived overseas must know what that is like and the relief when you when you start to build upon the basic structural foundation of the language you're learning, to be able to offer more of yourself through words is immense. So to people have chosen to make their life in this country who have learned English at school, quite different to using it in day-to-day life, more credit to you. Where clinical safety is paramount, English must be spoken, but if you've got a bit of downtime, can you possibly blame somebody for wanting to be all that they can be through the expression of their own language? 

I remember about 25 years ago there was an absolute hoo-ha at the Grey Lynn Countdown, because staff there were speaking to one another in their own tongue in the common staff room. And there was a complaint from somebody who spoke English —that was the language they spoke, and they didn't speak any other languages— and they took great offence to people speaking in their mother tongue in the staff room. They said it made them feel uneasy, they didn't know what they were talking about, and you can imagine the brouhaha resulted - who was right? Who was wrong? &nbsp;
Now, so many years later, a memo has been sent around Waikato Hospital asking nurses to speak English only when they're on the wards. Concerns have been raised about other languages being used by nurses and the exclusive use of English in all clinical settings is safer for treating people, according to the memo. And I quote, “each nurse is required by Nursing Council New Zealand to achieve competency both in the written and spoken language of English. Consistent use of one language reduces the possibility of missed care, misunderstanding of clinical requirements and enhances safe teamwork.” &nbsp;
And I totally get that. I totally understand that where there are issues of clinical safety clear communication is utterly vital. There must be an unequivocal understanding between medical staff and patients around the treatment of patients. But when you're chatting to one another or to patients who might share your background and share your language, I really don't see where the problem is. &nbsp;
It's a real lesson in humility, as many of you will know, to go to a country where English is not the lingua franca. Especially when words are your thing, where your way of expressing yourself, where your way of participating in the world is through language. All of a sudden you go to a place where there's another language spoken, you don't speak it, and you are reduced to a basic, basic level of conversation. Despite your very best efforts to learn a few words before you go, quite different when you get there, and you are reduced to absolutely fundamental basic communication. You can't explain yourself; you can't expound on your ideas; you can’t express nuance. It's incredibly frustrating and very, very good for your humility. And gives you, I think a deeper understanding of what it must be like to come to New Zealand, to set up your home here, to set up your life here, to work here and to have English as a second language. &nbsp;
More credit to the people who do pass their English proficiency when they've come from somewhere else. Blimmin’ sure I wouldn't be able to pass my Mandarin proficiency or my Hindi. You know so much more than what you're communicating, and yet all the person hears on the other end is a basic one-dimensional other. So any chance you get to be you, to be all of the you rather than the basic you, I can understand why people would take that. Again, at no point should clinical safety be compromised. At no point should a patient's treatment be in any way misinterpreted because there is a lack of understanding, but if you have the time to talk to somebody in their own language, in their first language, wouldn't you take it? &nbsp;
I mean, anybody who's lived overseas must know what that is like and the relief when you when you start to build upon the basic structural foundation of the language you're learning, to be able to offer more of yourself through words is immense. So to people have chosen to make their life in this country who have learned English at school, quite different to using it in day-to-day life, more credit to you. Where clinical safety is paramount, English must be spoken, but if you've got a bit of downtime, can you possibly blame somebody for wanting to be all that they can be through the expression of their own language?&nbsp;

Kerre Woodham: Can you blame someone for speaking their own tongue in a bit of downtime?

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/e756aec8-c6ff-41bf-bdc6-b20b00068099/transcript

Sandra Hazlehurst: Hastings Mayor on the youth council being given the ability to vote at a committee level

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