Suicide rates in Northland should surprise no one - especially Tariana Turia

Turia 'shocked' at rise of Northland suicides
Tariana Turia is questioning whether the Government has an effective response to the number of 32 suspected suicides in Northland this year, the latest tragedy involving a 10-year-old boy.

It's a shock is it Tariana?

Why are you shocked?

When you decided to side with a National party whose agenda was to slash public spending and attack beneficiaries and Unions, what did you think was going to happen Tariana? Were rainbows and marshmallows from the sky going to rain down upon the happy residents of these shaky isles were they?

Where does Tariana get off with her surprise and shock? When I presented a speech to her last year at the community sectors conference, I pointed out to her the ramifications of cutting back on social infrastructure. I pointed out that our suicide rates trebled to the shameful global highs they are today during the 1990's war against the poor.

When Ruth Richardson launched the mother of all budgets that set benefits lower than the weekly nutritional minimum for adults, the social feedback was immediate with our suicide rates sky rocketing. I made this point to Tariana in my speech, that we couldn't pretend not to know what the ramifications of these type of policies created because we could see them throughout the 1990s.

For Tariana to now exclaim shock and surprise for the predictable end results of the policies the Government she has signed up to have now created suggests she has all the vision of a blind cyclops.

None of us should be surprised by the exact same results coming from the exact same attack on the poor, what we should feel is ashamed that we've simply repeated the mistakes while learning none of the lessons.

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