Still Nothing from Ms Paula Bennett!

Time is almost up folks to get your submissions to the select committee and support sole parent beneficiaries. Please remember that although this may not affect you now I truly believe this is the start of New Zealand making Early Childhood Education compulsory for all 3-5 year olds and this is merely just a 'test group'.  They have no right to part us from our children and at such an early age and we must fight hard to keep this freedom. It goes against our human rights to take this away from a parent.

I am sadly still waiting on a reply to my letters to Hon. Paula Bennet...it's been 42 days now since I wrote :-(  Interestingly every other member of parliament I have written to in the last six weeks has done me the courtesy of replying except the one minister who has any power in these matters.  I was promised a reply in an email dated 11th October.

"Your email of 18 September 2012 was received by this office and your response is in the final stages of sign-out and should be sent to you early this week.  An acknowledgement was emailed to you on 20 September advising that you would receive a response at the Minister’s earliest convenience" from Natalie Hansen Private Secretary, Office of Hon Paula Bennett Minister for Social Development

Alas though the reply has not arrived and with submissions closing tomorrow it looks like I will be made to wait until after submissions close,  when it will be too late for me to raise any further issues in a submission, how very convenient!!

I will leave you with an excellent piece by Barbara Smith from the Home Education Foundation on why we should ALL submit a submission.

Why should I put a submission into the Select Committee about the beneficiaries?

Greetings

We only have just 2 more days for getting submissions in to the Select Committee to stop the Government from making ECE and immunisations compulsory for beneficiaries. All the information you need is here: http://hef.org.nz/2012/make-a-submission-reject-compulsory-early-education-for-3-year-olds/

Some of us think why should we be doing anything that will not affect us?

Let me assure you that you do not know when this could affect you. You do not know when you might become a widow, become unemployed, or have sickness in your family.

So please think again. And put in a submission.

When Ruby Harrold-Claesson (the Swedish lawyer) was here in New Zealand a few years ago she talked about the “tyranny of the small steps”. The Government knows that they can’t make huge changes all at once so they do it in little steps in ways that people can’t see what they are doing.
Well this Bill, I am convinced, is to make ECE and immunisations COMPULSORY for all children down the line. The Government is taking it is small steps and thinking that if they bring it in under the idea of reducing benefits then it might be accepted. Well just read the “White Paper” or the “Supporting Vulnerable Children” pamphlet. This is what they say:

Result 2: Early childhood education: In 2016, 98 per cent of children starting school will have participated in quality early childhood education.
Result 3: Immunisation: Increase infant immunisation rates so that 95 per cent of eight month olds are fully immunised by December 2014 and this is maintained until 30 June 2017.
Result 4: Assaults on children: By 2017, we aim to halt the rise in children experiencing physical abuse and reduce current numbers by five per cent. —- (Why is Result 4 one ONLY 5%?)

These are yours and my children. They mostly don’t go to ECE and are mostly not immunised.

Paula Bennett eventually (2016 for ECE and 2014 for immunisations) wants this to be for almost ALL children. 98% for ECE and 95% for immunisations is almost all children and only 5% reduction in abuse of children. It is our children Paula Bennett is after not the abused children.

So please think again and put in a submission for your children and grandchildren.
All the information you need is here: http://hef.org.nz/2012/make-a-submission-reject-compulsory-early-education-for-3-year-olds/

35 submissions already put in are here: http://hef.org.nz/beneficiaries/submissions/
To make an online submissions click here and go to the bottom of the page: http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/SC/MakeSub/2/d/6/50SCSS_SCF_00DBHOH_BILL11634_1-Social-Security-Benefit-Categories.htm

This Bill MUST be rejected. Please ask for it to be totally rejected in your submissions. Thank you.

About the Home Education Foundation

The Home Education Foundation has been informing parents for 27 years about the fantastic opportunity to de-institutionalise our sons and daughters and to embrace the spiritual, intellectual and academic freedom that is ours for the taking. Through conferences, journals, newsletters and all kinds of personal communications, we explain the vision of handcrafting each child into a unique individual, complete with virtuous character, a hunger for service to others, academic acumen and a strong work ethic. For more information, please visit www.hef.org.nz

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I ask my friends, family and anyone else reading this to make a submission and make a difference.  You can even make submissions from abroad so don't let that stop you!  Please support our freedom to choose and bring back the right to look at Motherhood as a worthy and valid career path.  I love my kids and nothing is more important than their education, health and well being and who better to give them these things than the Mother who loves them with all her heart and soul. 


Kate x

P.s

Within an hour of posting this blog I got a reply from Hon. Paula Bennett albeit a copy and paste job of all the other letters I have seen recently however at least I got a reply.  I have asked for clarification on one point and that is if sole parent beneficiaries meet the 15 hours of works (which I more than do) then is she saying we still will not be allowed to homeschool our children?  If so why the hell not??!!! Are we lesser human beings that we have this right taken away from us because we have had to ask for help?  When did Motherhood become a choice? Where have the days gone when a Mother was positively encouraged to stay at home with her little ones, what a sad, sad world it is becoming.  I work longer hours than anyone I know and I don't get weekends off!! I am MAD with a capital M!!