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Wednesday, August 25, 2010

John Key does not care about suicide


Key to explore suicide laws
John Key said yesterday that Parliament could "explore" the rules on suicide reporting because they were "somewhat defunct these days".

"The reality is that, particularly with youth suicide, very quickly social networking sites like Facebook and blog sites report that. There's huge engagement with young people around that information and so I don't think blocking the media from reporting is achieving an awful lot."

He said it would make sense to review the rules, but it was important to tread carefully because of the risk of copycat suicides.


I am pretty passionate about the issue of suicide, I was on the Board of Trustees of Youthline and it featured heavily as a topic on the youth talkback I did on radio, so listening to Key lend support to the issue is welcome, but his words are simply not held up by actions.

I'm not talking about implementing hard right economic policy as social policy which was the reason our suicide rate tripled in the welfare restructuring under Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson, I'm talking about National's cruel decision to not allow funeral costs for the families of suicide victims all because, as Nick Smith puts it, 'suicide is not an accident'. This cruelty mirrors the cruelty Nick Smith used to deny rape victims any counselling by defining rape as an 'acute event' rather than a mental illness.

We spend millions on road safety based on the premise that the road toll is a public health issue, we allow our Police force vast draconian powers to force blood from drivers based on nothing more than the cops personal prejudices, yet we don't put any of that effort or political will into a suicide rate that dwarfs our road toll, why? Because politicians don't want the answer as to why so many of our fellow citizens decide to end their life in this supposed 'gods own'.

3 Comments:

At 25/8/10 7:57 am, Anonymous Carol said...

I think John Key would just like the MSM to cover suicide more, adding to all the crime and celebrity stuff the media already covers. That way he's probably hoping a lot of people won't notice that their income isn't buying as much as before, and that their democratic rights are being eroded.

And maybe Key's also hoping that, instead of raising real incomes for the middle & low income Kiwis, he's trying to sell more of our resources off to overseas interests, and to raise the costs of property and business beyond the reach of most kiwis:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10668580

 
At 25/8/10 10:54 am, Blogger Dave Brown said...

I think Key is just reacting to the reality check finally made by the Chief Coroner after decades of official denial that we need to treat suicide as a social epidemic.
Because his party is stuck in the groove that suicide is an individual act for which society is not responsible, he can't foresee that once this issue becomes openly discussed it will blow away the delusion that NZ is 'godzone', and that 500 plus kill themselves every year because they are trampled over by Key's 'aspirational' predatory capitalism.

 
At 25/8/10 2:33 pm, Blogger Blair Anderson said...

Suicide linked to "Trouble with the Law" Anyone.?

Criminalisation a primary driver?

Police, Gateway?

Prohibition sucks lives, as well as blows cops away. Gee, Couldnt be deviancy amplification at all.

Suicide remains a morality crime and its enforcement "white priviledge".

Missed by HR diversity conference.
Everyones to busy micromanaging.

The teleco's 'ombudsmen' has never processed a race based complaint' but the Police are compelled by the Minister of Health to enforce disparately, targeting as it were young, male, maori and unemployed and we dont measure the harm which "we first, shouldnt be doing" according to a long tested medical maxim.

Should be be surprised that this week the British Physicians AND the former US Surgeon General Jocyln Elders say tax and regulate, as does the Union of Black Police Officers (some 80,000 members).

Anderton, Hon Associate Min of Health oversaw Helen Clarke's Order In Council crucial amendment to tax and regulate soft drugs to R18.

[and give them two years to grow up making safer choices before we let them near a supermarket shelf see SAFERCHOICE.ORG]

Professor Nutt called the new rules "Brilliant"

(Gt Britain had a Class D Bill before the House of Commons eight years ago only it didnt pass)

Lets top pretending...

"we dont know what's broken!"

Yeah Right (and we want to ban that - the right to an alternative point of view or to express irony )

I say, Cognitive Liberty for Christchurch under Andertons' Class D.

If not here, then where Jim?

sig: Blair (for Mayor) Anderson

 

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