For Emma

Emma is 18 years old. She is as thin as a rake. She's "in da face". She also has thin razor-blade marks on her arms and God knows where else. Her "take no bullshit" façade is something she applies as readily as those who wear make-up but there is something that makes Emma stand out.... she is a fighter - a strong determined young woman that went against all the advice of everyone she asked.

Emma texted me this afternoon to announce her abuser (who pleaded not guilty and, as a result, forced Emma into testifying in Court) was sentenced to 9.5 years.

On behalf of myself and all the other survivors of child sex abuse, I salute you Emma. Well done babe. More power to you!

Abuse of Name Suppression Law

Name suppression for a former All Black who pleaded guilty to child assault in Court yesterday flies in the face of Parliament's aims.

The former rugby star is the latest in a long line of top sportsmen (and comedians) who have appears in criminal courts and been allowed to keep their indenties secret. A poll on the NZ Herald's website asks: "Do suppression laws in NZ need to be reviewed?" 

• 97% say YES
• 7% say NO

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/child-abuse/news/article.cfm?c_id=146&objectid=10769780

The Shame within NZ

"Each night Ngatikaura Ngati would climb into bed and tell his adoptive mum Kura and dad Finau that he loved them before clasping his little hands in prayer." 

This is the life that this little boy knew and grew to love in his short three years. His birth mother, fearing some benefit fraud by claiming for children not in her care, returned to collect the little man and within nine short weeks, he was dead.

The link below gives graphic details of the systematic abuse he suffered whilst in his birth mother's care - most of which would have been visual to anyone who saw him and yet, no one said a thing. Ngatikaura was brought up speaking Tongan so to be dragged from the only home he knew and plonked into an over-crowded house where he didn't even have a bed and they spoke only vile English, would have been such a cultural shock. No wonder the little man wet himself and for which he received brutal beatings with a softball bat.

The parents (for want of a better word) claim they "didn't mean to do it," but I fail to understand how someone could consistently beat a child with a bat and not think it would cause any harm. Their defence team are highlighting the fact that, whilst he may have been beaten him with a "stick," no one touched his head. Maybe that's because the head is the most visual part of a small body - bruises and swollen limbs can be hidden amongst floppy clothing. 

We in New Zealand were incredulous to the new Bill that made it illegal for parents to physically discipline their children and we were aghast when a father was hauled before the Courts cause he clipped his kid's ear after running out onto the road, but here is a clear example of why such a Law was ever passed - some parents just don't get it.

My next question is why on earth these parents weren't charged with murder and instead, copped a lesser charge of manslaughter. What does it take to murder someone these days? I can bet my bottom dollar that if I went out into the street and clobbered someone with a softball bat (not around the head- mind) and that person later died, I would be definitely face a murder charge!  

The mind boggles at our judicial system.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10439204

NZ Elections today

New Zealand elections today. So, how'd did everyone go - if at all? 

Like so many people standing in a claustrophobic voting booth, I would have been better off pinning 'the tail on a donkey.' Maybe I even did - the candidates all looked like a bunch of asses and everyone claims their shit don't stink. 

But today, of all days, is suppose to be the day us citizens can put things right. We can tick the box that says "this one, this person, they will do it, they will make the changes we all need." In the same nano-second, you're reminded of some back-peddling they did on some previous policy or some "no comment" when Journalists chased them down on some issue. 

This is the person I want to vote for:

• Someone who will put a stop to millions being spent on insane studies (Nearly a million for pornography research)
• Someone who will look at the insane justice system (convicted sex offenders get free, unlimited, counselling, while victims are restricted to 4 measly hours)
• Someone who will not even consider giving hand outs to finance companies cause they screwed up
• Someone who will implement a Bill that says those that do rip hard working people off, cannot keep their own million dollar houses while those that invested have to downscale
• Someone who will see the value in a child - free education should be just that (free)
• Someone who will lift NZ's children off that poverty line that puts us in the top 3 worldwide as useless shits
• Someone who will take a real look at the judicial system that rewards perps with "good behaviour" while in incarceration. Why not let a "sentence" be a bloody sentence?
• Someone who will look into why Government department employees can access company facilities to sue clients, then hide behind the fact they are suing as an individual in their own right 
• Someone who doesn't think a business trip means putting booze, porn, and prostitutes on the tax payers account

The thing is, I can't find anyone on my voting paper that can cover even one of those issues. They are as corrupt as each other. May as well vote for the one whose honest enough about who he is...

ACC: Sends Sensitive Claimant file to strangers

After demanding an IT sweep of her file, an ACC claimant was told her file was "inadvertently released" to three organisations: Waikeria Prison, Gore Medical Centre, and the Auckland Family Doctors.

"ACC Sensitive Claims Unit regrets to advise you that when the emails were being scanned and watermarked, a technical error arose which resulted in the documents being faxed to three fax numbers held in the memory of the multi function device."

The claimant, an ACC Sensitive Claims client, has grown increasingly concerned about privacy issues within the organisation and rightly so - in the two months it took to have her IT sweep request actioned, ACC managed to send it (via fax) to just about everyone else but her! 

ACC responded by saying it was a "random technical error" and that it had "never happened before." Yet, as the claimant points out, if ACC only found out about this "random error" because one of the unintended recipients contacted them, how do they know it has never happened before? 

More worrisome, is why it took ACC two months to notify the claimant about this total breech of privacy and would they even have bothered if she'd not been writing to them consistently asking for a record of who has is accessing her information?

For now, ACC are conducting one of their infamously time-wasting troubleshooting investigations and keeping everyone up to speed on their ... um... progress.

"Thank you for your email. Unfortunately at this point in time, I am unable to provide you with a timeframe as to when ACC will be in a position to fully respond to the questions you have raised."

Another claimant seems to have an uncanny skill at interpreting letters such as this and I, for one, think she has hit the nail on the head:

"[ACC] Her email may as well have said... at this particular time I have to tell you to go suck eggs whilst we do our best to cover our asses, pass the buck, and just hope you will become so frustrated, you'll go away."

Opinion:

I find it abhorrent that this is the same organisation that filed a $250,000 defamation lawsuit against me for daring to call them "Incompetent." I also don't believe in coincidences either. This claimant is also my ACC advocate - the woman who has been relentlessly sending letters to the Privacy Commission and the Ombudsman for the breech of privacy in my own case.  How uncanny is that?

  

ACC: Sexual Abuse Claimants -Nothing but a PAIN IN THE ASS

You god damn pesky bloody sexual abuse claimants! 

Don't you realise how much of a pain in the ass you lot are?  We, at ACC, are a business. God damn it! We're an Insurance Company. That means, we get people to pay us money in the hope they never have to pay you! Now, look... we've been doing very well, thank you very much, getting all sorts of NZ companies paying us shit loads just in case some dick falls over his ladder and brakes his ankle, claiming the boss was a tosser and neglected basic safety regulations or some misguided midget takes an occupation at ......anything.... that's not the point.... we still got his tiny ass covered too! And, thank God for that! 

But we, at ACC, are getting mighty pissed off with you SCU BLUDGERS!

Look, we have lined our pockets on the proviso that no crap can slip through our cracks and, quite frankly, we don't give a shit what has slipped through yours! Sure, some hard nosed lesbians took to the streets some time back demanding crap - we forget what, was on the News but whatever... and yeah, then there was that butch blogger who thought she was a smart shit to talk crap about our Dr Peter Jansen.. yeah, then he sued her (HAHA) and then... yeah anyway, Jansen pulled out cause.. cause.. cause he don't like shit OKAY!

Look, the point is... we are sick and tired of you lot... we've had to BEND OVER backwards cause you dicks asked for US to be investigated... yeah right, for what? ... Falsifying some top notch University study? Look, we took what we needed (for your benefit) from that "Massey University" study and applied the god damn theory.... 16 hours counselling, no questions asked..... and no, we don't give a rat's ass what the other 99% of that report said or the fact that, what we did take, was way out of context, cause, we're a fucking business okay and we do what we god damn well want to and when you got people like, Nick Smith, in your back pocket... you people are shit, you got nada, nothing, no where to go, no where to run... and even if (LOL) you actually DID have something valid, like something ethical or moral like... we still won't give a shit cause it's election time and a whole new bunch of assholes will be employed with the same hope of climbing the corporate ladder.. in the meantime SCU dickshits...we will be so high up that ladder (just like Jesus Jansen) that even our shit won't stink!

Oh crap... did someone record that conversation?.. FFS, that was private, in a coffee bar.... whew!..... I'll just make a phone call... despite the police being "quiet" and no more new recruits in the foreseeable future... we'll just get a few dozen to put an injunction on that conversation and ... BOB'S YA UNCLE!

POWER TO THE PEOPLE..... POLITICIAN!

Dear Dickhead (aka, above post)


So you think we (sexual abuse survivors) are nothing more than ... times wasters yeah, nothing better to do with our lives than to make yours a misery, clambering over rights once had and now taken away and.. we should NOW be ever so grateful that you expect a full recovery from sexual abuse in a mere 16 counselling sessions... You have to be kidding me right? FFS, even YOU don't think that's feasible... how else could you possible explain, shafting even the 16 hours into a mere frigging four?????


http://www.acc.co.nz/search-results/index.htm?ssUserText=ACC5934a

SUMMARY OF ABOVE LINK:

Initial Support Sessions (4)

The first four hours of support are pre-approved and you can start these straight away without a purchase order number.

The first four hours of support need to be completed within 8 weeks and you need to submit the ACC5934a ‘Support Sessions Plan’ at the conclusion of these sessions. The plan is a brief report and can now be downloaded from www.acc.co.nz by entering ACC5934a into the search function.

Some clients may choose to withdraw from the process after the initial four sessions. 

GEE YA THINK? 

ACC Reading between the lines...

Received a reply from ACC. A letter that has so much blacked out data that what's left is bullshit. If anyone knows how to upload an email PDF attachment, I will put download the 'report' on here for all to see.. not that there is much to see - it's all black and white, literally