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During the election period in 2017, historian Anne Salmond wrote hopefully about an emerging trend she called\u00a0\u201cJacindamania.\u201d<\/a><\/span>\u00a0The appeal of Jacinda Ardern, leader of New Zealand\u2019s Labour Party, was due to the fact that people want real \u201cchange\u201d: \u201cafter 33 years of the cult of the \u2018free market\u2019 from both major parties, many Kiwis are finding that its arguments no longer ring true.\u201d Salmond believed that \u201ca seismic shift is under way.\u201d<\/p>\n

As prime minister, Ardern has been keen to demonstrate that she is \u201cfocused on more than just GDP<\/a>,<\/span>\u201d by placing an\u00a0emphasis<\/a><\/span>\u00a0on\u00a0mental health<\/a><\/span>\u00a0as a liberal alternative to the bland conservative fixation on gross domestic product as a measure of national wellbeing. In her words, \u201cNobody wants to live in a country where, despite a strong economy, families are homeless, where our environment is being rapidly degraded and people with\u00a0mental healt<\/a>h<\/a><\/span>\u00a0issues do not receive the support they need.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is not surprising that people are suffering widespread depression, anxiety and mental illness. As Salmond wrote, \u201cThe mindless pursuit of short-term profit has not just poisoned waterways across New Zealand. It\u2019s been toxic for communities as well.\u201d We live under a system that is based on exploitation and that inevitably breeds mental illness and addiction, which capitalism interprets as nothing but a lucrative market for major industries from alcohol to drugs, cosmetics to pharmaceuticals.<\/p>\n

By now, many people understand that these problems are systemic and cyclical, social and collective, not just individual and medical. According to Salmond, young New Zealanders wanted a government that would address them accordingly, and\u00a0\u201cJacindamania\u201d<\/a><\/span>\u00a0would be the answer.<\/p>\n

So there is some hype around the Labour Party\u2019s 2019 \u201cWellbeing Budget<\/a><\/span>,\u201d released on May 30 by finance minister Grant Robertson. Promotional videos frame the budget as an \u201cexciting,\u201d radical departure from the usual dry and misanthropic financial plan, \u201cwith the\u00a0biggest investment<\/a><\/span>\u00a0in mental health, in any Budget, ever.\u201d In practical terms, this investment is a\u00a0scheme<\/a>\u00a0to place<\/span>\u00a0mental health practitioners in doctors\u2019 clinics throughout the country, in a system that will allow GPs to immediately refer patients with mental health concerns. Ardern also emphasises the need for addiction services.<\/p>\n

To determine whether we are really being collectively heard, or just collectively patronised, it is worth staying grounded in some sound and critical understandings of what addiction and mental illness really are and where they come from.<\/p>\n

World renowned addiction expert Gabor Mat\u00e9\u00a0understands<\/a><\/span>\u00a0addiction as a coping mechanism that \u201cdoes not begin with the brain, it begins with the circumstances that shaped the brain.\u201d To address mental illness and addiction at the social scale, he stresses the importance of thinking beyond clinical solutions. To Mat\u00e9, addressing widespread addiction means tending to the early years of life, the relationship between mother and child, and the \u201cparenting environment.\u201d In his analysis, the conditions in which mothers care for children are crucial to individual and social wellbeing. This is psychology 101, and feminists have always said that the measure of a healthy society is how it treats its women.<\/p>\n

This means that Ardern and Labour Party\u2019s promises to deliver social wellbeing will need to be evaluated against the way they respond to the demands of New Zealand women \u2013 and New Zealand women protested this government throughout 2018, as mothers, as midwives, nurses and teachers. A female \u201crole model\u201d in the country\u2019s top job has not sufficed for us so far, however sweetly she smiles. For us, social wellbeing clearly means radical change to the conditions in which women live.<\/p>\n

Addressing child poverty is indeed a major promise in Ardern\u2019s new budget, and top of the list is\u00a0a funding increase for the Ministry for Children<\/a><\/span>, Oranga Tamariki. Last month, the current events site\u00a0Newsroom<\/em>reported that on average, Oranga Tamariki confiscates\u00a0three M\u0101ori babies<\/a><\/span>\u00a0from mothers staying in maternity hospitals each week. A young mother told journalist Melanie Reid that \u201cIf I had three wishes it would be to keep my baby, have a house, and to have Oranga Tamariki leave me alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Reid reported, this young woman had been left alone in a hospital room overnight as police and staff from Oranga Tamariki tried to take her baby. Two midwives \u2013 Ripeka Ormsby and Jean Te Huia from M\u0101ori Midwives Aotearoa \u2013 were locked out of the hospital for trying to intervene.<\/p>\n

Te Huia previously appeared in the media in April, in the\u00a0Sunday<\/em>documentary\u00a0The Black Hole<\/a><\/span><\/em>, which drew attention to the fact that about\u00a01 in 4 mothers<\/a><\/span>\u00a0are affected by perinatal depression and anxiety in New Zealand. \u201cThe problems that we are seeing are more social than clinical,\u201d Te Huia said, echoing Mat\u00e9 (more accurately, Mat\u00e9 echoes what indigenous women have always known). \u201cThere\u2019s partnership issues, there\u2019s poverty, lack of housing\u2026 There\u2019s a sense of shame and blame when you can\u2019t cope.\u201d Te Huia asked an important question:<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes this government really care about M\u0101ori women? Do they care about the workforce, that\u2019s overworked? Do they care about us, as women, in this country?\u201d<\/p>\n

Midwives, nurses and teachers \u2013 all overworked, female-dominated professions \u2013 protested the Ardern government throughout 2018. In May, midwives\u00a0marched to parliament<\/a><\/span>, with Wellington Region of the College of Midwives chairwoman\u00a0Siobhan Connor<\/a>, saying that the average take-home hourly income for for urban midwives is $12.80 \u2013 and for rural midwives, $7.23. \u201cMidwives are leaving the profession because of this,\u201d she said, \u201cand then women lose access to maternity care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last July, nurses also went on strike: 92 percent of all nursing staff in New Zealand are women, according to the\u00a0Nursing Council<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019re not asking to be millionaires,\u201d Registered nurse Danni Wilkinson explained. \u201cWe\u2019re asking to be able to afford to live where we can take care of the patient population.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teachers, unable to make the Ardern government listen to their demands, marched in August last year and then again on 29 May. 72 percent of teaching staff in New Zealand are women. \u201cI want my students to have the education they deserve,\u201d\u00a0Lisa Geraghty wrote<\/a>, in an article outlining teachers\u2019 demands and why she voted to strike. \u201cI want them to have teachers who have time to teach them. I want them to have teachers who aren\u2019t exhausted, burnt-out, and feeling undervalued.\u201d These women have all been locked into tense negotiations, ongoing and demoralising.<\/p>\n

One promise Labour\u2019s budget makes, in terms of addressing the social and cyclical underpinnings of wellbeing, is to \u201cmake sure that we\u00a0break the cycle<\/a>\u00a0of domestic violence, sexual violence and poverty for children.\u201d This should indeed be a priority: at least sixteen women and girls\u00a0were murdered by men<\/a>\u00a0in New Zealand last year, the year that Ardern famously claimed that she believes that \u201c#metoo\u201d needs to become \u201c#wetoo.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

One thing that needs to happen urgently is for the government to uphold UN recommendations for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the New Zealand Family Court. Last November, the Backbone Collective \u2013 an organisation that works with mothers trapped in abusive homes \u2013\u00a0presented a petition<\/a>\u00a0asking for just that. In 2017, the organisation\u00a0surveyed<\/a>\u00a0500 women who had been through the Family Court after separating from an abuser \u2013 83 percent reported that the Family Court treated their abuser as \u201csafe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Backbone Collective co-founder Deborah Mackenzie says that \u201cIt has become patently clear to us, after hearing hundreds of women\u2019s experiences of the Family Court, that even though women initially approach the Family Court for protection, their lives and those of their children are made less safe as a result.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wellbeing Budget\u00a0lists plenty of services<\/a>\u00a0that will receive funding, but more wraparound services simply dodges the central problem of a Family Court that works to keep women and children trapped in relationships with dangerous men at all costs. The budget does not mention the necessary inquiry, demanded as the result of work with hundreds of women.<\/p>\n

This problem of cyclical family violence also links to Ardern\u2019s claim that she wants to address addiction. It so happens that New Zealand men have been\u00a0increasingly discussing<\/a>\u00a0the disastrous effects of their past and present porn addictions publicly. The aforementioned Backbone Collective report,\u00a0Seen and Not Heard<\/em>, also shows that approximately 54 percent of child abusers are known to use pornography \u2013 it states that porn use should be considered a \u201cred flag for the Family Court.\u201d If porn is a \u201cred flag,\u201d we have a big problem. In 2015, Pornhub, the largest porn site on the Internet, conducted market research that ranked\u00a0New Zealand<\/a>fifth among the most prolific porn consuming countries.<\/p>\n

The relationship between porn addiction, sexual violence against women and children and social wellbeing should not be underestimated. Pornography is so effective in stimulating male aggression that\u00a0militaries routinely use both prostitution and pornography\u00a0to make troops battle-ready. A progressive government focussed on addressing wellbeing, addiction, and domestic and sexual violence, should be addressing the problem of pornography as a priority.<\/p>\n

One reason that the Labour government cannot address the porn problem is because\u00a0porn is filmed prostitution<\/a>, and the Labour Party continues to support the model of full decriminalisation of prostitution that it passed in 2003. This model legitimises the sex trade by legalising the pimping and the purchase of women, nevermind the fact that prostitution is the \u201cdeadliest situation a woman can be in<\/a>,\u201d that the\u00a0majority of women<\/a>\u00a0in prostitution meet the criteria for a diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder, and that 95 percent develop drug and\/or alcohol addictions. The government currently funds the New Zealand Prostitutes\u2019 Collective (NZPC) to the tune of $1 million per annum, and the lobby advises women that a good way of \u201cdealing with violent clients\u201d is to \u201cTry calling FIRE, a passerby will probably pay more attention.\u201d This is no way to tackle the reality or the social origins of sexual violence.<\/p>\n

The NZPC is funded by the Ministry of Health in the name of \u201charm reduction\u201d \u2013 this government, and its new budget, does some very interesting things in the name of \u201charm reduction.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wellbeing Budget includes a $3 million funding boost for \u201cgender affirming surgery.\u201d In principle, this means surgical castration and imitation breast implants for men who identify as women, and it means double mastectomies for women who identify as men. 85 percent of men in the former category do not opt for surgical castration; but practices like breast binding are becoming more and more popular among young women who wish to opt out of being female. The government-funded organisation RainbowYouth has been\u00a0promoting breast binding<\/a>\u00a0among young women for some time. It pays to consider that increased suicidality is actually\u00a0correlated\u00a0<\/span>with\u00a0<\/span><\/em>transgender ideology<\/span>. Also, in 2013, there were 2,866 youth self-harm hospitalisations, and three quarters of these were young women and girls. We are being asked to accept the surgical mutilation of struggling young women in the name of \u201charm reduction\u201d and improving \u201cwellbeing.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the\u00a0Lesbian Rights Alliance Aotearoa<\/a>\u00a0(LRAA) formed last year, to advocate for lesbians and object to the pushing of transgenderism onto vulnerable young women, Labour Party MP Louisa Wall published a\u00a0press release<\/a>\u00a0specifically to try to discredit the group. The LRAA recognises transgenderism as a new affront on women, especially lesbians. The trend has persisted for long enough to make it evident that most young women who bind their breasts and opt for double mastectomies because they identify as male, transpire to be lesbian. The LRAA is also fed up with being told to accommodate heterosexual men who identify as \u201clesbian\u201d into their personal lives and lesbian spaces, but politicians refuse to listen.<\/p>\n

The Ardern government\u2019s minister for women Julie-Anne Genter accepts the view that\u00a0\u201ctranswomen are women,\u201d<\/a><\/span>\u00a0namely that men should be considered female and lesbian if they want to be. This men\u2019s rights ideology itself is making it increasingly difficult for women to gather, make connections and organise around the common struggles we face as a sex. On December 5 last year, the Abortion Law Reform Association held a rally to take abortion out of the Crimes Act, at which government spokesperson for domestic and sexual violence, Jan Logie, spoke. The organisers\u00a0issued a warning<\/a><\/span>\u00a0that women known as \u201ctransphobic\u201d or holding \u201ctransphobic signs\u201d would be \u201casked to leave,\u201d since \u201cnot all people<\/a><\/span>\u00a0who might need an abortion are women.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many women have become numb to the implications of this redefinition of sex that politicians promote and endorse. But this erasure of any real, material meaning to the word \u201cwomen,\u201d along with the dismissal of our protests coming from at work and in the home, brings to mind a line from Marilyn Waring\u2019s 1988 book,\u00a0Counting for Nothing:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWe frequently hear from politicians, theologians and military leaders that the wealth of a nation is its children. But, apparently, the creators of that wealth deserve no economic visibility for their work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of this invisibility, many women are so used to seeing our own lives and occupations as a solitary endurance test in which our responsibilities for children and family take precedence, that we barely realise when our opportunity for collective action as women \u2013 not just carers and teachers \u2013 is taken away. We\u00a0expect\u00a0<\/em>to be engaged in endless, futile and solitary battles, asking for the help we need to meet our responsibilities, only to meet the same nods and smiles, and paternalistic dismissals.<\/p>\n

This Ardern government makes life as tough for women as their opposition did. Their new budget will not change that. It also does not change women\u2019s lives to hear about what a good \u201crole model\u201d we have been offered, or that we need to\u00a0\u201cchannel our inner Jacindas.\u201d<\/a><\/span>\u00a0All of last year, women fought on the streets, in the courts, and alone at home, for our wellbeing, safety, livelihoods and the children in our care, and we are not heard.<\/p>\n

If this budget hype proves anything, it is that it truly does not matter if our prime minister is a paternalistic, dead-eyed conservative man who talks about GDP, or a paternalistic, sweet-smiling liberal woman who talks about \u201cmental health.\u201d Women need radical change to the material conditions in which we live. We need freedom from the tyranny of this idea that because we are supposedly born to breed, care, clean and nurture, we should put our own needs last and we should not make demands for ourselves as a sex class.<\/p>\n

Politicians are not in the business of radical change. If we want change, women will need to learn to bring our demands together and make them collectively, in spite of the climate. We will need to learn to fight for ourselves with the same dogged determination with which we work and fight to care for others, isolated into silos within a culture that denies women either economic or sexual autonomy. That\u2019s when we\u2019ll be able to say that \u201ca seismic shift is under way.\u201d<\/p>\n