Blindspot Busters

(still a great name). It was lovely to meet you on Friday in person at the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce event. I wanted to explain why, when I was so eager to leave the building as soon as the doors opened in the hopes of building understanding between us. As an AuDHD person with PTSD and cPTSD, my neurodiverse spider senses were tingling after your speech and I had to leave to understand why before I could speak to you again.

What I have discovered is that, from my perspective your words and your actions are incongruous with each other. To me it seemed that you are a very intelligent woman who genuinely believes they are doing their best for the country, you were a snappy dresser, quick to provide a compliment and genuinely warm and friendly in your demeanor. All of this warmed me greatly, as I genuinely believe that we could have a calm peaceful conversation about the people’s concerns.

The issue I have is that your actions, once again from my perspective, have been creating the exact opposite results from the ones you claim to value. This causes me to distrust you. 

Now the great thing about this particular medium is that neither yourself nor your supporters can interrupt me at this point. This is generally where discussions between left and right fall apart in my experience. When one side says something the other side disagrees with, it is taken as a personal attack. This is not a personal attack. It is simply me sharing my perspective in the hopes we can have a genuine hearty debate about the issues, and hopefully find a more reasonable compromise somewhere in the middle, that will allow everyone in the country to feel a lot more comfortable.

So in the interest of trying to broker a peaceful exchange, here are the specific issues I have with what you shared on Friday at the Hutt Valley Chamber of commerce event.

1. On at least two, if not more occasions, you choose to insult your political opponents rather than simply persuade the audience you have the better argument. You could compare policies between the parties to highlight why you think yours are better absolutely. That is a cornerstone of healthy debate. However, your pot shots at the Labour Party simply came across as that. Pot shots. You didn’t offer any intelligent comparison to policy that made what you said anything other than an insult. To me that is bullying behavior, and if I was not so passionate about attempting to have a genuine peaceful conversation with your party, you would have lost me completely with the insults alone.
   
   The reason for this, from my perspective is, you Nicola Willis are a role model to young woman, and you are currently modelling bullying behavior. As someone who has experienced extensive bullying in her life due to my neurodiversity, I do not find any bullying behavior of any kind acceptable, especially not from someone in a position of power such as yourself. The National party staff have also exhibited bullying behaviour towards me recently. I have commented about this online, so won’t go into detail here.
   
2. Whilst I agree that the investment boost opportunity looks interesting, overall the sitting governments priorities are deeply concerning to me. The fact that legislation was rushed through without consultation that severely impacts many women in particular, is from my perspective, more in line with a totalitarian government system than the democracy we are supposed to be living in in Aotearoa. The increase in punitive punishments for behavior deemed anti-social, the addition of ‘compliance offers’ in Auckland, the number of cuts to funding within the social sector – all of these choices the government have made has left many many people in New Zealand very very angry. 
   
   I know this because I travel quite a lot due to my personal safety concerns in an ongoing court battle over custody of my son, and while I am travelling, I talk to a lot of interesting people. Many of these people are living on the streets. The fact that you treat these people, and they are people Nicola, like they are second class citizens, or more plainly from my perspective, as sub-human, shows me that you have a lack of compassion for the people you are supposed to serve. 
   
   Behind every one of those people is a heartbreaking trauma story about how the system you are currently in charge of has brutally let them down. My heart breaks for the people of our country every day, however you and your staff, as the supposed representatives of the people, will not even open your doors to concerned citizens. Shame on you Nicola. I believe this goes against the very principles on which your current role was created, and if this is not rectified, I would like to know how I can make a complaint to the governments HR department, because I do not believe any of you are doing your jobs correctly.

3. Sadly, your response to my question, “Where is the aroha in your budget?” left me concerned that we have wildly different definitions of love and compassion. The answer you provided is that you were increasing the number of RTLB’s in schools to support kids with dyslexia and ADHD. Following this you went on to describe these kids as disruptive to the other students, which once again, made me feel very uncomfortable.

My son is currently being assessed by a court appointed psychologist for neurodiversity, has been held back a year and has a full time RTLB. I am neuro-diverse, as is many members of my family and many of my friends. Whilst I appreciate that extra support for these kids is fantastic, and I agree with you the kids are very important, from my perspective, these initiatives can also create a sense of isolation and shame for the children simply because they are being treated very differently.

I would instead propose that this initiative is also accompanied by an education campaign that helps all the kids in the school, the teachers, the parents and anyone else who is interested, to learn about neurodiversity and some better approaches to how to create a more supportive learning environment overall. I also know one such programme that already exists. The ADHD Mama in Canada has been developing one such programme through a university over there, and that might be a very good place to start.

I have many many more concerns Nicola, but I don’t want to overload you. I personally find it sometimes take me a while to process things, and appreciate not being overloaded, therefore I model that behavior for others in the hopes they will reciprocate. I say this because you were complaining about the language someone choose to use to describe you (notice how I did not mention the word there Brooke???), however you are bullying your people currently, and I am not sure why you are surprised that they are bullying back?

Anyway, this is designed to provide you with an opportunity Nicola Willis, to show the people what kind of person you really are. Are you a kind compassionate person willing to meet with a concerned citizen and talk through these concerns calmly and rationally… OR… are you and your party going to continue bullying the people of Aotearoa and ignore me?

The choice is yours Nicola. I am sure I will see you again soon.

Warm Regards,

Nicola Peeperkoorn