Tuesday 11 May 2010

very sad

i'm not in the mood for writing today. a lot of depressing stuff happening, including the tragedy with the korean family in christchurch. now the father has also committed suicide, and the whole thing raises questions around settlement support and the role of immigration nz in all of this.

i guess we'll have to wait for the coroner's report to get details of the background. migration is never an easy business, and it's especially hard to do when you're on your own with kids and no support network around you. add to that issues with language and the inability to find a job, and it's a pretty nasty mix.

sigh.

as a pick-me-up, i found this gem of a young donny osmond and michael jackson appearing together at an awards ceremony. very cute:





and in case you're interested, i'm planning to be on back benches tomorrow night to talk about - what else - banning the burqa. more sigh. think i need to watch that clip again!

2 comments:

Deborah said...

I thought that was a heartbreaking story too, stargazer. It made me wonder about what promises had been made to them, and whether there had been any support for them at all. There's a huge ethical problem here: is it right for schools and tertiary education providers to take massive fees from students who come from overseas, but then not provide any services at all?

stargazer said...

yeah, i have all those questions in my head too, and more. i just don't want to put them down until we have some more facts available. i hope that some serious changes come about as a result of the coroner's report.