The Customer & The Constituent AGAIN Attempts to Bring This Shame to the Attention of  'Anyone Who Cares' Up There in the 'Hive

For almost a year, The Customer & The Constituent NZ, has done its darnedest to bring this story of bullying, intense victimisation and corruption to the attention of ANYONE who might possibly trouble themselves to care, around the halls of the New Zealand Parliament.

This sorry saga (which has gone on for more than three years) involves extraordinary levels of various types of bullying and victimisation by multiple Ministry of Social Development personnel - from senior branch level, to Ministerial executive.

It's a long story, and it's been one hell of a ride for the lone, disabled individual who is the unfortunate focus of it . . . but seemingly a joy ride for the various levels and layers of vindictive Ministry minions and departmental spin doctors who have reveled in traumatising said individual . . . "because they can".

The story is actually so intensely distressing that, as the editor of this publication and the one who would otherwise have to almost traumatise myself by reading over it all again for the purposes of producing this update, I'm going to spare myself of having to do so. Instead, for anyone who wants to acquaint themselves with the detail of the whole, multi-year horror story, I hereby provide the following links to, and summaries of, my previous three articles on the case:

1)  In this, my first article exposing the case, you will read how this lone, but determined disabled, individual:

• Resorted to government assistance only after exhausting their entire (previously substantial) savings and then some) and only after doctors insisted they avail themselves of their rightful disability-related governmental assistance.

• Despite the obvious disability situation, was put on an unemployment benefit rather than a disability benefit;

• Was publicly ridiculed by multiple staff at the Palmerston North branch for the nature of the individual's disabilities, and then, following said public ridicule was sent off on a bogus exercise to find an address that didn't exist, returning to the laughter of staff and even the security doorman who had been brought in on it.  (The Customer & The Constituent was told of many other instances of intentional psychological cruelty in the months subsequent to that spectacularly shameful event, including instances setting the individual up for faux justification of cessation of the individual's benefit.)

• Spoke with, or applied to, numerous start-up-funding agencies for grant funding to establish a business that the individual could, within the confines of their disabilities, build into a revenue source which would allow a move off of government assistance. All agencies pointed the individual to readily available grant funding, for this precise purpose, through the Ministry of Social Development.
  
  After 2.5 years of being subjected to extraordinary psychological torment related to applying for this MSD assistance, including being asked to travel (very challenging for the individual) to conduct lengthy and detailed presentations which (although well received, mysteriously resulted in nothing other than a complete subsequent block-out of the individual), culminated instead, in a $200 reduction of the individual's weekly benefit for finally insisting on an explanation for said 2.5 years of tortuous torment. 

• Was then subject to a further situation engineered by MSD management personnel and appointed minions to completely axe the individual's entire weekly benefit and leave them completely without one.

• Was then subject to an ongoing campaign of victimisation, disingenuousness, dishonesty, provably fabricated (albeit impressively creative) accusations by MSD, and a further escalation of persecution by not only the regional MSD management and personnel, but also by the Ministerial executive, and Ministry spin doctors, who had, by then, been recruited to deal with an individual that had not been expected to break the mold of the average defenceless disability beneficiary, and who was beginning to speak out beyond the MSD's own "channels" about the psychological bullying and multiple, overt injustices.

2)  In the sequel to that first article, when the individual, now some months after having been, and continuing to be, completely cut off from their legal entitlements (as in, NO weekly benefit, following its unjustified and vindictive cessation as engineered by Masterton's Kawana Gaunt and his two superiors), you will read how:

• The individual assembled a 40-page dossier of correspondence and related material to demonstrate the matter, had it witnessed by a Justice of the Peace for proof of having sent it, then posted it by Receipt Requested snail mail to multiple Ministry and Parliamentary parties.

• Not one word of acknowledgement of the above, nor of any other of the individual's prior or subsequent correspondence, was to be forthcoming from either the Ministry or the Minister's office. And that is despite the Minister, the "Honorable" Louise Upston (who, by the way, is also the Minister for Disability Issues!) and her official staff being actively prompted by a good number of other Ministers' staff to respond (some of them asking her more than once to do so).

3)  You will then read how, several more months after the individual's having had their full weekly disability benefit cut off (which it still was) without justification, the individual was finally urged by a community law centre to take the matter to the Human Rights Commission (HRC):

• Recognising the severity and now beyond urgent nature of the matter, the Commission immediately assigned a mediator to the case and picked it up without delay.

• The mediator assigned a reasonable deadline for MSD to come back to her with a "please explain" on a number of counts related to discrimination and victimisation.

And here is where The Customer & The Constituent again picks up (what should absolutely no longer be) the ongoing saga, of which the key points are this:

• June 4 (2024) saw the first exchange between the HRC mediator and the individual. The Customer & The Constituent is in possession of the multitude of correspondence and notations regarding all communications between the individual and the mediator. In this, the first of them, the individual expressed "in advance" gratitude for the mediator's help:
  
  "I very much look forward to receiving your phone call and thank you in advance for your help (as I am in a very desperate and very debilitated, and very, very stressful and very alone situation)."
  
  The individual had added that they were without any source of income, which had been the case since the vindictive, without-cause complete cessation of their disability benefit several months earlier . . . and even before that, had been trying to subsist on a weekly amount that had been "docked" by $200 per week by a Kawana Gaunt at Masterton MSD for "answering him back" after the individual had finally, in frustration, demanded an explanation for the two prior years of psychological torture by his superior related to the self-employment grant application. The individual had gone on to explain to the mediator how Gaunt had then reduced the weekly sum by a further  $200 per week, before manufacturing a reason to cease it in its entirety the following week.
  
  A large part of the June 4 to November 21 HRC component of the saga involved someone called "Letisha".
  
  It would seem that MSD personnel are trained in (a) dragging such matters out for as long as possible, and (b) how to avoid any favorable result for the complainant. "Letisha" repeatedly ignored the mediator's stipulated deadlines for responses to the component issues, instead stipulating the date/s when she would respond - dates that were rarely, if ever, adhered to anyway. The multitudinous emails between the individual and the HRC mediator, mostly comprised polite follow-ups by the individual, and responses from the mediator to the effect that, "I still haven't heard back from Letisha yet. Yes it's been a while! I should get around to following her up again."

But back to just the key points:

• Along the way, between the fact that the MSD bullies had now realised they weren't going to be able to get away with leaving the individual benefit-less for much longer, and the fact that someone had belatedly advised the individual of the Benefit Review Committee process (and that, with HRC's eyes on the case, MSD couldn't fudge that), the individual's benefit was "reinstated".
  
  Except that it wasn't. It wasn't at all. It was only partially reinstated. No reason was given to the individual for    the only-partial reinstatement of the level at which the weekly benefit had previously sat. Back-pay also was only partial, and to this day, the individual receives just the same substantially reduced weekly amount.

'Please Explain Why You Haven't Reinstated the Full Weekly Amount', Asked the HRC Mediator . . . Who Never, Ever Received An Answer

This unexplained reduction became an additional item over which the HRC's mediator requested a "please explain".

And here we see just how riddled - from top-to-bottom and side-to-side - the Ministry of Social Development is with not only disingenuousness and cunning, but also with deceptiveness and dishonesty. And most certainly, with cunning.

By way of assurance that the benefit differential matter was being addressed and that, therefore, the HRC mediator could rest assured all was well and that she could remove that from her foci, she was told by MSD that the individual was being assigned a friendly, compassionate "integrated case manager" specifically to "make things right" and certainly to "correct the benefit anomaly" with the individual.

From the mediator's November 21 email to the individual:  "MSD have clarified that Vicki’s (Wildbore's) involvement with you has addressed the first issue (i.e. the only partial reinstatement of the weekly benefit) and if you have any further concerns you can continue to take them up with Vicki."

But that was a fallacy. The issue of MSD's theft of the individual's entitlements was  never addressed.  Ms Vicki Wildbore, as it turned out, simply dismissed the individual's attempts to take the matter up with her.

"It doesn't say on your file" (i.e. why the powers that shouldn't be, had only partially reinstated said benefit), Wildbore had told the individual before actively changing the subject. Twice, apparently.

Instead, Wildbore had suggested that a small conciliatory pittance might be available to the individual going forward, if they produced certain figures.

However, the individual recognised the obvious manoevre. Namely, that doing so would be akin to admitting defeat over the issue of the by-then substantial amount of accumulated back-pay owed for the large missing weekly amount  - which is clearly, as of the date of this sequel artlcle - a whole lot larger now).

Meantime, on the note of discrimination relating to the self-employment grant funding application - the slithery MSD spin doctors trotted out nothing other than yet another re-framing of the same disingenuous and conveniently incorrect reasoning based on the same deliberately wrongful assumptions they'd relied on in the past . . .the same core "facts" that the individual had dissected and proven as fallacious numerous times prior. 

But the Sham Didn't Even Stop There. MSD's Lack of Shame Is the Gift That Keeps on Giving.

Despite their dishonest but seemingly neat and effective side-stepping of any obligation for ethics, the MSD still had their trump card . . . and they could hardly wait to play it. 

They did what any corrupt government agency would do:  They then declined  the Human Rights Commission's offer of formal mediation.

This left the mediator with nothing more she could do for the individual, except to recommend that the individual "file proceedings directly with the Human Rights Review Tribunal", and "apply for legal representation from the Office of Human Rights Proceedings" . . . which, in fact, she had earlier very much urged the individual to do.

And, indeed, the individual would have done so.

However, in the midst of all of this - and after the cumulative enormity of the extraordinary levels of stress to which the growing numbers of MSD personnel, executives and spin doctors had subjected the individual, by then, for at least three years - the individual ended up with some unwanted free accommodation in an emergency department, intensive care, and subsequently a cardiac ward, after an  extreme stress-induced cardiac event.

'MSD Outright LIED to the Human Rights Commission'

Here I will conclude the fourth article in this ongoing sequel, by quoting the individual themselves this week:

"Despite the fact that it's anathema to me to let anyone - much less people who are drawing large government salaries, including in the Beehive itself - get away with treating any citizen in such a sustained corrupt manner, I have had to ask myself if it's worth ending up back in intensive care with tubes hanging out of me and monitors attached to me.

"So I'm weighing my options.

"While they can shove their precious start-up grant - because I'll figure out a way to get back to work despite my circumstances (I have to, I have no choice) - I absolutely am going to hold them accountable for (a)  the back pay that now totals (conservatively) $4966.50 (i.e. 30.1 weeks @ $165) as at the date I'm talking to you, for the at least $165 per week that they chose to be smart alecs and short-pay me when they supposedly "reinstated" my benefit (but didn't), and (b) also for that full amount going forward, for as long as I still regrettably need their bloody benefit.

"It's noteworthy that they bold-facedly lied to the Human Rights Commission when they told them the shortfall was being corrected (past and present) by this new case manager, Vicki Wildbore (because she NEVER corrected it) - and it's still not corrected now.

"So there's some serious amount of backpay to be had, and I'm NOT walking away from that. It IS - and always WAS - my legal entitlement, because that's what I was being paid when the nasty lot at Masterton vindictively engineered a set of circumstances where they could suddenly cut it off . . . and the Benefits Review Committee stipulated its FULL reinstatement, as indeed it should have."

'MSD's Ultimate Victory Would Be to See Me Either Homeless or Six Feet Under. That Would Be A Bell-RInging Moment for Them.'

The individual is now concerned that they're about to see the commencement of the next stage of a persecution campaign . . . and that it might be upscaled, as "punishment" for having taken the matter to the Human Rights Commission - "despite the slimy way they averted any accountability, anyway".

Quoting the individual:

"I received a letter in the mail this week, forcing me back into engaging with them, at threat of yet again cutting off my weekly benefit - or the part of it that they're actually still begrudingly allowing me to have.

"The fact is, since they won't help me help myself with regard to finding a way that I can again work, and their rationale for not helping me is that I don't have to work, why are they forcing me back into engaging with them? They should be just leaving me the hell alone . . . AFTER first making good on the back-pay that they lied to the HRC mediator about.

"But clearly, they're about to start their 2025 campaign on me. Can't let a fun time come to an end, can they?

"Oh, and guess what? Very predictably, it appears that the assignment of the friendly case manager who was going to fix it all, is no more. It's back to a generic "turn up or we'll cut your benefit off' cycostat letter all over again.

"Clearly, the whole 'Vicki' thing was just a ruse to fool the HRC mediator  and get her to close the case.

'They Are Absolutely Without Any Ability to Feel Shame'

"They are absolutely without any ability to feel shame. It seems like it's a recruitment requirement, at least at the middle and upper management levels.

"Can you see what I mean about the level and depth of deceipt and dishonesty? How IS it that we can run our government departments with people who can act with such corrupt impunity? Although I suppose with the fact that the woman at the top of the tree - Upston herself - cultivates that sort of culture around her in her own office, what can you expect of the Ministry personnel downstream?"

Where does the individual plan to go from here?

"I don't know if too many of your readers will really feel the severity of it, if they've never tried to subsist on a benefit - especially a disability benefit, if you've got substantial regular health-related expenses - and at the same time you're being robbed of $160 or more per week. It's the difference between eating or not eating, paying your power bill or not paying your power bill, and being able to take your car for a warrant or not daring to do so . . . and going without many more essentials that are now luxuries.

"On the one hand, I don't want to end up in intensive care again, or homeless, or worse (which they'd consider their ultimate triumph), but on the other hand, I feel a moral obligation to expose these cretins for once and for all, because if they're doing this to me, with my degree of tenacity, can you imagine what they're getting away with, with others who can't stand up for themselves like I have at least tried to do?"

Editor's Note:

One is left to wonder what the Human Rights Commission's Disability Rights Commissioner, Prudence Walker, would think of all this . . . what she would think of the process's ineffectiveness, taxpayer money wastage, and the fact that the only thing a corrupt government agency has to do to avoid culpability is to "decline" mediation (albeit, unless that agency's victim has the appetite and the tenacity to file proceedings at full Tribunal level).

In the interests of bringing to my readers, an answer of some sort to this burning question, I am considering seeking a meeting with Ms Walker.

Watch this space. This appalling story is a long way from over.