yesterday wellington charmed me with her beauty: the harbour sparkling blue, the tararuas fading into the distance and the norfolk pines lining oriental bay completing the picture postcard image. the valiant & i enjoyed a cruise around the bays & later i lay in my back garden staring up at the blue blue sky.
today wellington reminded me just how fickle she can be. the wind whipped in from the north-east & just walking down to the bus left me feeling exhausted. but i still managed to get into town for the reclaim the night march. a small group of women were gathered outside the railway station to listen to some great speeches, & by the time we set off to march through town the numbers had swelled to a noisy crowd. oddly, the march had no police escort; one of the organisers thought this might have been because there’d been a much bigger, related, event two days earlier for white ribbon day. does this mean our local constabulary can only afford to escort one march a week?
several of the speakers spoke about recent changes to ACC which mean that victims of sexual abuse seeking counselling must have a psychiatric referral. this means that victims of abuse must be classified as mentally ill, if they want to access treatment for their trauma. huh??? are you mentally ill if you suffer post-traumatic stress after being caught up in a violent incident such as a bank robbery or a mugging? this is a really dangerous shift, as it will be a disincentive for people to seek help – being formally declared to have a mental illness could impact on future employment and other things, as well as being an additional barrier to get through before accessing counselling. it also stigmatises the victim, putting some of the blame onto them, rather than the perpetrator (who is the one who’s really mentally ill!).
the current government are making lots of nasty little changes like this. another thing they’re trying to do is make motorcyclists pay a larger ACC levy – something motorcyclists are campaiging against. and rightly so – how about a hike for rugby players? (do rugby players even pay ACC levies?)