Over the Hudson

The last post made me nostalgic for aviation. My PPL medical has expired and I haven't flown for a couple of years. This was taken heading north up the Hudson in the early nineties.

The US was the best place to fly. You could hire a plane from Teeterborough, just north of NY City. After a brief checkout flight, you were away. Compared to London, where I got my licence, the air restrictions were minimal.

When the twin towers fell I cried for days. The loss of life was terrible and so was the inevitable loss of freedom to follow.

Too close for comfort?

This photo, snapped by a guy at a football game near Heathrow, has shown on the TV news for the last two nights. Authorities are saying that the legal separation (1000ft vertical and 3nm horizontal) was maintained. In fact a spokeswoman said on TV3 news the two planes were 5.6km apart horizontally. The one behind is a Boeing 777, much larger than the one in the foreground but I am still skeptical about the claimed maintained separation. What do you think?

Away with the fairies

Reason.com's daily brickbat story;

Developer Marcus Salter says fairies have cost him big money. Well, not fairies, as much as the Scottish villagers who say they believe in them. When he started to move a big rock in the middle of his development, neighbors in St. Fillans complained he would disturb the fairies that lived underneath it. At first, he thought they were joking. But when the local community council started talking about complaining to planning authorities, he took the claims much more seriously. The planning commission's guidelines say nothing about protecting fairies, but they do say "local customs and beliefs" must be taken into account in approving development. Salter decided not to even fight. He's having the project redesigned to leave the rock in place.

Communism kills

Madsen Pirie of the Adam Smith Institute, on the Council of Europe attempts to have crimes against humanity committed by the communist regimes of the Soviet Union and other states condemned, writes;

Imagine a row of 100 people, nearly 40 deep, being bulldozed over a cliff. Almost 4,000 people killed. The communist regimes did that to their own people every day of every year throughout the 72 years of their sway. There were Western intellectuals who tried to justify this, or to make light of it. Indeed, there may still be some who do today. They told us that we couldn't expect an omelet without breaking eggs. It was a horrendous number of eggs – and we never did get the omelet.

And I know people who still believe that the theory was right - it was only the implementation of it that failed.

Recommended reading, Reflections on a Ravaged Century by Robert Conquest.

Killjoys everywhere

The state of Western Australia is going to ban kids from wearing denim next year.

"It (denim) is associated with weekend wear, with recreational time. It's just unacceptable at schools and we are trying to lift the standards," a spokesperson for Western Australia state Education Minister Ljiljanna Ravlich said.

State of the Welfare Nation (2)

Under this man's watch welfare spending continued to grow. The big drop in reported unemployment has not been reflected in total welfare spending. And as a percentage of the total welfare bill, Super spending declined.

To use the technically correct terminology, Social Assistance Benefits Paid in Cash has risen every year since 1994;

($million)
1994 10,279
1995 10,657
1996 11,075
1997 11,616
1998 12,192
1999 12,429
2000 12,483
2001 12,681
2002 12,838
2003 13,110
2004 13,352
2005 13,448

Some like it hot

Wanganui mayor, Michael Laws' new priority is to have the official temperature taker moved from the airport to the town so all of NZ will know just how "hot" Wanganui really is. What is it about him and heat? Oh yeah, that's right....

Cindy Kiro's solution

Children's Commissioner, Cindy Kiro, was interviewed by Michael Laws this morning on Radio Live. Part of the interview was prompted by Law's observation that CYFS seem unable to keep children safe. (CYFS had been involved with Jill Tito's child but taken no action.)

Kiro says, CYFS are only the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. We have to get back to fundamentals. We have to find out why families, parents and grandparents, aren't taking care of their kids.

Laws interrupts and says, "Sorry. I am looking after my kids and most of the listeners are looking after theirs."

Kiro insists that we, as a society, have an attitude that tolerates too much violence as normal. New Zealand seems to have high rates of child abuse, injury and accidents and it's more widespread than we think. The problem is a collective view about levels of acceptable violence.

She continues, the problems are so widespread every child's welfare, health and education needs to be checked regularly.

Cindy Kiro is an apologist and a time waster. In her world there is no personal responsibility, only collective. That being the case the state must monitor all families and all families will have to stump up for this time-consuming, resource wasting, heavy-handed process. Kiro, go away.

Modern day Maori Wars

Pita Sharples is declaring war on the culture of dependency.

Dr Sharples said there was too much dependency on welfare in Maoridom - something Labour had not addressed.

"It's like a kid - if you keep giving your kids everything, at the end of the day they don't have the skills and knowledge to do it themselves."

More prisons and welfare agencies were not the solution, he said.

He is right. The proportion of Maori on benefit is steadily rising. Four in ten single parents on welfare are Maori. And that will affect coming generations.

But this isn't the first time Pita Sharples has made these encouraging noises. Where is the Maori Party policy on welfare?

Explaining liberalism

NBR news editor Deborah Hill Cone, sometimes confused with Deborah Coddington, writes an interesting piece in today's Sunday Star Times magazine titled Exit Stage Left, Being liberal ain't what it used to be.

"Back in the 1970's when we talked about racism we all knew what that meant - it was simply that you should not judge people by the colour of their skin......Of, course now it is considered racist if you don't think Maori are especially spiritual and good at playing the guitar. Go figure."

"My friends describe me as the Michael J Fox character in Family Ties. But this is not correct. Michael J Fox's character, Alex Keaton, was the conservative son who dismayed his hippy parents. On the other hand, I am still my parent's daughter, a liberal; it's the rest of the world that has gone topsy-turvy."

"These days most people who pride themselves on being liberal are nothing of the sort. They want a bossy state with lots of laws and rules and they take a dim view of human nature, assuming most people are hopeless cases incapable of pulling themselves up by their government-supplied bootstraps."

The people she describes are statists through and through and should be challenged at every opportunity to explain just why they think they are liberals. True liberals love individual liberty. Good on Deborah for tackling a tricky topic with humour and wit.

Don Brash on the welfare state

Don Brash has a guest opinion piece on Muriel Newman's site this week. Over the holidays he read UK author James Bartholomew's The Welfare State We Are In. Rodney Hide read this some time back and blogged extensively on various facets of the book.

I was surprised that Don is inclined to think the situation in the UK is worse than it is here. Personally I think it might be the other way around. But that's a big call given Bartholomew looks at the total welfare state, not just the effects of the benefit system. What I base my instincts on, I'm not quite sure. Just as I am not quite sure what Don bases his on. Some factual comparisons might be called for.

(But a solicited comment from an insider about our health system goes, "It is seriously ill yet staggering on. You have to ask yourself what is going on when you can't give away a GP practice and pharmacists sell their pharmacies to go and work for somebody else in Ireland)

What I am more optimistic about is New Zealand's ability to improve the situation. Here, our political system and relatively small population hold much more potential for positive and rapid change than can be expected in the United Kingdom.

Questions

What can be said about Jill Tito? She spills the beans to the Sunday Star Times on her sorry, sordid story.

At the root of it all, she said,was low self-esteem, a problem she had face all her life. "I'm too easily influenced, I trust people too easily. I don't get to know them properly," she says.

She dropped out of school and left home at 16. Now 24 she has never had a job, but has five convictions. She once took a bar-tending course in Hamilton, but dropped out on the first day to go drinking with her friends. She gave up her first son, born when she was twenty. His new caregivers abused him and the boy is now in CYF care. She has not seen him for two years.

She says she was a good mum before meeting Harley Wharewera, letting him and his mate move in and repeatedly beat her two year-old son almost to death.

The community say she was a bad mum. "(The child) stank, he was dirty."

A number of questions come to mind. Who filled her head with all the stuff about "low self-esteem"? What wider effect does getting paid by the media to further your notoriety nation-wide have on people with bad motivations? Does anybody know, or care, who the father and grandparents of the beaten child are? And, have you and I been paying this pathetic creature to subsist?

Tito has been advised, in order to move on she should "forgive" Wharewera and Tawa.

They don't deserve forgiveness and neither does she.

As a child I was utterly captured by The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I too wanted to find Narnia. I looked in wardrobes for it.

Yesterday I went to see the movie. It was OK. The ambience was what I think C S Lewis would have approved. The story-line embellishments, he would have tolerated. Was the magic there? I don't think I can answer that question as an adult. My children didn't appear to feel any, though they enjoyed it.

What made me blog about this wasn't a desire to start reviewing movies. No. I was thinking about Google's China decision and defending argument. The Chinese people want information. Some is better than none.

Sitting down at my computer tonight it struck me that going into the blogosphere and greater world beyond is ever so slightly like entering a magic wardrobe. The screen is initially blank and unyielding. Then it leaps into life and the light and images and sensory feedback draw me into a vast multi-dimensional space.

When C S Lewis wrote his book there was no comparative technological analogy for his wardrobe. Now there is. And aren't we lucky. In the words of Mrs Beaver, To think I would live to see this day.

For the Chinese, maybe some of Narnia would be better than none at all.

Petrol thieves get the nod

Gas station "drive-offs" are getting more and more common. Hamilton police have sent a clear message to would-be thieves with this statement reported on Stuff today.

"Acting Hamilton city area controller Inspector Wayne Ewers defended the police handling of drive-offs. Resources were limited, so officers were not sent to follow up a possible theft of $60 of petrol when there were violent crimes to investigate. "

Do you believe that?

Fascinating first-time insight

The recently passed Care of Children Bill allowed some media access to the controversial Family Court. Here, for the first time, a report on a battle over child custody. This is the stuff of nightmares to me. Yet it goes on all the time. Note how much power the pyschologists wield.

"The case turns on the evidence of the court-appointed psychologist. The father is critical of the psychologist's report saying it didn't take into account what happened in his eldest son's early childhood. He's critical too that the psychologist didn't make it clear what was required when she visited his home. He had the impression she just wanted to talk to the children and so kept out of the way, but was dismayed to find the report criticised him for being passive."

It seems the eldest boy who is ten, wants to be with his father but the psychologist says that the child has been filled with bad feelings against his mother and needs complete separation from the father for a period in order to rebuild the bond with his mother.

"Milicich, the children's lawyer, points out that under the new Act, it's his role to explain to the children the decision of the court. He notes too that children have a right of appeal if a decision goes against their expressed views. "They [the two brothers] cried as recently as last week that they do not want to live with their mother and that they will run away "

It's a protracted story but a must-read. The upshot is the father has to undergo a four week total separation from the children and counselling "specifically about the need to promote the mother's parenting to the children". He agrees and no court order is required.

The reporter has done a good job of staying objective but I find the title he gave his piece interesting. "The kids are not alright."

Sharks; the new "terrorists"?

According to a journalist writing in today's NZ Herald, "A 'monster' white shark in the Manukau Harbour could be the same one that has terrorised people along the Taranaki coast - but experts say it is impossible to tell."

My comprehension of "terrorise" is to coerce with terror. But isn't the shark just doing what sharks do? Swimming around. Although he might fill people with fear it isn't his intent. And the woman boatie featured on last night's TV3 news didn't seem to be "terrorised". She urged her husband to try and get closer to the shark, despite it being as long as their boat. He was, understandably, a little less keen.

Discrimination against the childless

The Working for Families extension kicks in from April 1, 2006. I am all in favour of tax cuts but across the board. And many families will soon be recieving more in cash credits than they pay in tax!

Working for Families is discrimination against the childless. And if you don't think it amounts to much have a look at these two examples;

Currently a family earning $45,000 per year with two young children receives Family Assistance of $46 per fortnight. From April 2006 that will increase to $277.

A family earning $60,000 per year with two young children is currently not eligible for Family Assistance but from April they will receive $161 per fortnight.

Look, all you childless people should get breeding. If you don't have your own you are going to pay for someone else's anyway. You aren't allowed to decide you'd like to use your money to start a business or travel the world or save for your retirement. Children are a much worthier cause. Nanny says so.

More stupid sheep

Look at what these dipsticks, Residents Action Movement (or appropriately RAM) are saying about road tolls.

"Tolls are a regressive tax that negatively impact on those who can least afford it. Workers, students and elderly people in Auckland travel long distances to work, education, healthcare and social activities. Tolls will add to their burden. Only those owning or managing businesses will be able to have their tolls paid for by their firms or the government and/or get tax write-offs on the tolls.

Road tolls are highway robbery. They steal income from the majority of society, and at the same time, they steal public ownership away from what will become market-driven highways. That's reactionary politics."

Auckland wants new roads or upgrades. Everybody will pay for this through their taxes. That includes people who use the roads very little or not at all, because they don't live in Auckland. If people paid directly for their road use they can adjust their behaviour accordingly. Those who will most profit from better roads i.e. in time saved transporting goods or getting to business appointments, are the high users who will pay the most.
As long as taxation for roads ceases, then user pays is fairer to all.

Has Chris Trotter been burgled?

Chris Trotter's DomPost column today tackles how we should think about and approach crime and punishment. He describes how the Marxists approached the subject dispassionately and scientifically, believing that flawed human beings could be "repaired, reformed and rehabilitated." In fact, it has turned out that human beings cannot simply be "reprogrammed." He says,"Longitudinal studies of children born in the 60's and 70's have revealed that 'nurture' counts for a great deal less than 'nature'.

So Trotter concludes that the Left may have to just bite the bullet on this one.

"It just might be that the Right's hardline approach to crime and punishment is correct."

New family job-share policy

Now this is a great idea, being trialled by McDonalds in Britain and so far, so good.
New rules allow family members, grandparents, siblings, parents to share a job. Any member can sign in for a shift without having to notify management.

Take note UNITE. This is a policy which would go a long way to helping families. Put your energy into campaigning for something similar here.

Mother admits allowing child abuse

Mother admits allowing child abuse is a fairly innocuous headline. Initially she denied allowing the abuse. Now she admits it.

I thought I would check out those convicted of the abuse on the Sensible Sentencing Trust database to see if they had prior convictions. Only the current ones are recorded. Here is what I found;

A frequent visitor to the house said that just about every day the men would take the toddler into the bedroom and give him a lag. "He would be screaming, crying and calling out for his mother while this happened," the court heard. The toddler's 23-year-old mother has denied a charge of permitting the wilful ill-treatment of a child. It was also alleged that Wharewera forced the boy to eat dog faeces. He was said to have locked the boy in a small cupboard and threatened him with assault if he did not eat the faeces. The boy complied. "The defendant Tawa was present and after this gave [the boy] another lag, with the defendant Wharewera hitting him hard four or five times on the head with an open hand and while the defendant Tawa held him," the police summary said.

Tawa was also present when Wharewera allegedly forced the boy to eat faeces dipped in tomato sauce during a meal of fish and chips. The boy vomited. Tawa admitted putting his own faeces on a piece of paper and smearing it round the bed where the boy and his mother slept. Living conditions at the house were described as "utterly filthy, unhygienic and in a state of squalor". "Used disposable nappies lay around the house amongst wet clothing and bedding, empty beer bottles, instruments for smoking cannabis and various rubbish. There was no edible food in the house." Police officers and social workers who went to the house were said to be horrified by the conditions. When spoken to by police, Tawa admitted being involved in giving the boy lags, which he said were initially playfighting and wrestling. The lags became punishment for when the boy was "naughty", and resulted in him crying. Tawa's explanation for his actions was that he had been influenced by Wharewera

In these sorts of cases, and god knows we see too many of them in New Zealand, I don't know who the worse criminal is. The person who hurts the child so terribly, or the parent, who stands by and watches. A child who comes into this world without a parent willing and wanting to protect them is the saddest thing.

Cullen does a "Danny Crane"

Finance Minister, Michael Cullen told Paul Holmes, on NewstalkZB this morning, that unemployment would rise by 20,000 by year-end. This has been repeated regularly in news bulletins over the day. He has just issued a retraction correcting the figure to 8,000. He says he had the wrong figure in his head after reading a Treasury report. Slightly embarrassing for him but at least he was prepared to admit his error and put the record straight.

I wonder if Treasury's crystal ball is as useful as my kid's 20Q?

Death of the West

David Farrar is discussing international population predictions made in "Death of the West" by Mark Steyn, based on current fertility rates. A couple of months back I wrote this opinion piece about the domestic situation and how it is likely to be affected by our declining fertility rate and ageing population.


While near-hysteria abounds over peak-oil, bird flu, terrorism and global warming, scant attention is paid to the big story of this century. The one that will affect quality of life more than any other.

That story is our ageing population and declining fertility. But as subjects go, it's just not very sexy. Perhaps too, it is difficult to generate widespread interest when those of us old enough to recognise human mortality might just scrape through under the current system and the rest are in that lovely life phase where the idea of ageing is as remote as ..... time-travel.

But travel through time we do, at this point, in one direction only.

New Zealand has around half a million people aged 65 plus. That number will rise to 1.325 million by 2051 if Statistics New Zealand medium series population projections hold water. We can expect a 273 percent increase.

By contrast, the working-age population will only increase from 2.7 million to 2.9 million - a mere seven percent rise. And the number of 0-14 year-olds will actually decrease.

In all likelihood I will be dead by then but my children will not. On their behalf I did a few rough calculations. These are not scientific but if somebody better equipped wants to dramatically contradict my findings I would be absolutely delighted. Please make my day.

Making assumptions of no change in the Super qualifying age; the proportion of the working-age people on a benefit; the tax collected per head of the working population and rates of payment to pensioners and beneficiaries, the percentage of tax collected going on pensions and benefits will rise from 30 percent to 57.

That's the conservative scenario. What say unemployment doesn't stay at 3.4 percent? If the number of working-age people on all benefits reverts back to 15 percent (usual during the nineties) instead of the current twelve, then spending will increase to 61 percent.

Supporting the higher number are three other factors; one, Maori make up a growing percentage of working age beneficiaries as well as an increasing percentage of the population; two, the growth of single parent families is outpacing the growth of two-parent families and three, the seemingly unstoppable upward trend in sickness and invalid benefit uptake.

Next to consider is, most of us will spend most health dollars towards the end of our lives.

For arguments sake let's say two thirds of the health vote is spent on the elderly. That means today's $9 billion will have to grow to around $24 billion by 2051 (assuming we are happy living with extensive waiting lists.)

Now we have a problem. All of the tax the government has collected from its 2.9 million working age citizens has been spent on pensions, benefits and health and already there is a multi-billion dollar shortfall.

Of course there will be some relief coming from the Cullen Fund, if it survives and delivers. Just how much is debatable. Cullen says it will peak at 36 percent of super costs but other economists have put the peak pay-out as low as 20 percent. Even if it pulls us out of the red there is still the matter of education, defence, law and order, roading, etc to fund.

All of this points to a number of problems.

Raise tax, a lot. Question: are people more likely to want to come to a highly taxing country or leave it? There is a concrete limit to how much tax a government can squeeze out of the people. We may already have reached it. Further tax hikes will aggravate rather than solve the problem.

Significantly raise the age of retirement and means-test Super. But means-testing produces bad incentives. Those who try to plan and save for their old-age are penalised. And under growing taxation this becomes increasingly difficult. The productive population becomes resentful. More rats desert the proverbial ship.

Produce more children. Again it's hard to support a family under high taxes. Besides New Zealand already has higher fertility rates than most OECD countries. The trend however is down - not up.

Increase immigration. Can we attract more immigrants capable of making a positive contribution? Of course we can.

But we won't. Not until we recognise how just much we need them.

That realisation must dawn soon if the necessary political decisions are to be made. If we do care about our children's lives we must stop being precious about keeping the country sparsely populated so it is seen as a clean green get-away paradise. To give our kids a chance of living good lives in their birth country we must get over our irrational fear of foreign ownership

This seems counter-intuitive only because we refuse to face the facts. An increasingly impoverished country cannot look after its people, let alone the environment.

New Zealand needs to add a couple more million workers over the next fifty years. If we don't the only kind of paradise we will be living in is a fool's.

Tax as an investment?

From Colin James' NZ Herald column of January 24;

Labour spent much effort in 2004 on its "brand" to encapsulate its "values". But a brand has no value if voters don't value it. Waffle words like "fair and inclusive" are not likely to frame the way voters think. A "fair go" might. Getting voters to see tax as an investment, not a drain on good people's good times and a dole for wastrels, might.

I see tax as an investment - lost. It is money confiscated from the private sector and lost to private investment.

In the words of James Gwartney, Dwight Lee and Richard L.Stroup, authors of Commonsense Economics,
"There is every reason to believe that investors risking their own money will make better investment choices than central planners spending the money of taxpayers. Remember, an investor who is going to profit must discover and invest in a project that increases the value of resources. The investor who makes a mistake - that is, whose investment project turns out to be a loser - will bear the consequences directly. In contrast, the success or failure of government projects seldom exerts much impact on the personal wealth of government planners. Even if a project is productive, the planner's personal gain is likely to be modest. Similarly, if the project is wasteful - if it reduces the value of resources - this failure will exert little negative impact on the planners. They may even be able to reap personal gain from wasteful projects that channel subsidies and other benefits towards politically powerful groups who will then give the bureau added political support at budget time. Given this incentive structure, there is simply no reason to believe that central planners will be more likely than private investors to discover and act on projects that increase society's wealth."

The Green Paper

The UK's welfare reform Green Paper has been released. It's a fizzer - what you would expect from a Labour, or, for that matter, a Conservative government. From the Scotsman comes this report which features an interesting comparison between the UK's approach to incapacity benefits and New York's;

How New York saw 86% drop in sickness payments

NEW York in the early 1990s was a very different place to the city which today boasts some of the highest employment and lowest crime in the world. Much of the credit for that change has gone to its then mayor, Rudy Giuliani.

His thinking was blunt: welfare fuelled poverty, and keeping people in penury was not compassionate. His attention turned to the 24,900 people then claiming the United States equivalent of incapacity benefit.

He had each rigorously assessed by an independent firm of medics. The old system was like the current British system: it sought to establish whether or not people could work.

But Mr Giuliani asked his firm of doctors to assess which type of work each person was physically and mentally capable of doing. He then hired a private company to help them find work.

Crucially, those assessed capable of even low-level employment were given jobs by the state - such as tending the parks or cleaning graffiti from the walls - if they refused to find them outside.

Staying at home and collecting benefit was not an option in New York. Faced with the alternative of low-paid and low-skilled work serving neighbourhoods, the incapacity benefit claimants dropped 86 per cent.

All this was achieved within three years. By 1999 - his fifth year as mayor - the sickness benefit rolls had shrunk to 3,423.

Many were re-categorised as unemployed and put on a level of welfare payments which were demonstrably inferior to the jobs then being created so quickly.

As president, Bill Clinton applied the same for states in what was called "workfare", as it demanded work.

But Britain looks set to remain in the "welfare" era.

How government plans to get people back to work

GOALS

• Reduce incapacity benefit claimants to 1.5 million within a decade.

• Return 300,000 lone parents into work.

• Encourage one million over-50s to return to work.

INCAPACITY BENEFIT (IB)

• To be renamed Employment and Support Allowance.

• New claimants to have "work-focused interviews" and engage in "work-related activity" to qualify.

• Those refusing to attend interviews will have payments cut, but not below level of jobseekers' allowance.

• Pathways to Work scheme, being piloted in Glasgow, to be rolled out nationwide.

• Those returning to work will qualify for extra benefits.

• Those with severest disabilities or health problems will have a higher benefit and be exempt from interviews.

• Doctors discouraged from signing people on to IB - and asked to support patients who want to return to work.

• Doctors' surgeries will have employment advisers to intercept those claiming IB.

LONE PARENTS

• Will be required to attend a job interview every three months once the youngest child turns 11.

• Will be offered benefits if they return to work, so no parent would be better off on benefits.

HOUSING BENEFIT

• Moves afoot to give benefit directly to claimant, thereby giving them an incentive to find a cheaper place to live.

Does Peter Dunne know what he thinks?

As read on Scoop;
Dunne cool on 'radical' child check-up proposal
Wednesday, 25 January 2006, 11:33 am
Press Release: United Future NZ Party

United Future leader Peter Dunne says the Children's Commissioner's call for the Government to test all children four times during childhood to keep tabs on their welfare looks remarkably like trying to re-invent the wheel.

"I'm all in favour of making sure all our kids get the best start in life ? in fact, that's been one of United Future's core messages ? but instead of setting up a whole new ? and invariably expensive ? system, why not use the community resources we already have?" he asked.

"For example, Plunket, to name just one New Zealand organization, has decades of experience in assessing the health and welfare needs of New Zealand children.

"There are many other locally-based and experienced organisations who can do the work the Commissioner is calling for ? let's make sure they're well-equipped to do the job.

"More well-meaning smothering by nanny state is not the answer," said Mr Dunne.

ENDS

Snap

Having just commented on the link between benefits and the rate of single parenthood, hot off the press comes this news from Scotland. Number of one-parent families up by 24%

"The government's critics say that it is the benefits system that has contributed to the increasing number of single parents. David Laws, the Lib Dem work and pensions spokesman, also blamed the benefits system for the rising number of lone parents. There is a financial "disincentive" for lone parents to take a new partner, Mr Laws said."

The Prime Minister, Tony Blair says that the long-awaited Green Paper on welfare reform, due for release today, "will put pressure on single parents to seek work".

Five most constipated people in the bible

1/ Cain who wasn't Abel
2/ Noah who sat on the ark for 40 days and 40 nights and passed nothing but water
3/ King Soloman who sat on the throne for 40 years
4/ Moses who took 2 tablets and went on the mountain
5/ King David whom neither Heaven nor Hell could move

State of our Welfare Nation (1)

This is a popular time of year for party leaders to deliver "state of the nation" speeches so I thought I might look at the state of our welfare nation.

Statistics aren't always reliable. Especially five years out from the last Census, the only time we actually count families and even then, we rely on people providing accurate and honest information.

The following, then, is based on 1/ Projected Families Containing Dependent Children by Family Type and Territorial Authority (published by Statistics New Zealand) and 2/ information provided by the Ministry of Social Development under the Official Information Act.

At August 2005 sixty nine percent (or 113,000 out of 164,500 ) of single parent families with dependent children relied on a benefit. The highest rates are in Northland (85 percent), Bay of Plenty (82 percent) and Gisborne/Hawkes Bay (80 percent).

In 1966 we didn't have the DPB. Only 7 percent of all families with dependent children had a single parent. Today that percentage has risen to about 32. I cannot prove the relationship between the DPB and the growth of one parent families is a causative one. You will have to draw your own conclusions.

(NB Some people on benefits also work part-time but the percentage isn't high. Less than one in four people on the DPB has participated in work some time in the past twelve months.)

Coming to a town near you......

This one is probably the sleeper story of the day. New regulations will mean that an estimated 1,000 Wellington buildings will require strengthening to guard against potential earthquake damage. Just heard Kerry Prendergast, Wellington Mayor, interviewed on the subject. "It's all about public safety," says she.

"Of the buildings identified, 300 are ours!". Yeah Kerry. But you won't be putting your hand in your pocket to pay up to '$100,000' to strengthen a structure. You'll be sticking it into the ratepayer's. Apparently this new requirement is yet another product of the extension in the powers of local government and will affect other centres in due course.

Thinking with no future

Sue Bradford: "It's time employers started to pay their fair share and accepted that wages should be high enough to live on. The taxpayer should not continue to be expected to subsidise business to the extent they are at present through top-up programmes like Working for Families and the Accommodation Supplement. These are just forms of unrecognised corporate welfare."

Employee taxpayers fund the WFF programme and are often also beneficiaries of it. Employer taxpayers also fund WFF but will generally not be a beneficiaries of it. Bradford wants the employer to pay higher wages, in which case his income and/or profits will fall and he will pay less tax. The employees, with increased income, will pay more tax and lose eligibility for WFF. Neither the employer nor the employee is better off. All that has been satisfied is the Green's ideological yearning to see employers punished.

If the Greens were genuine in their desire to see take-home wages rise they would back tax cuts and reduce or abolish these expensive "income -churning" govt-run programmes which do nothing but reduce productivity.

This happens in two ways; 1/ by giving people money to do nothing (why would a household's potential second worker take a part-time job if they are going to sacrifice their WFF entitlements?) and 2/ they use up valuable and scarce labour resources creating non-productive make-work jobs.

Many economists talk about New Zealand's urgent need to lift productivity. Expanding government redistributionist schemes is not the way to do it.

Footnote; I am reminded of an exchange I had with Trevor Mallard during the election camapign. We were seated together and during one candidate's presentation he quietly said, "When I started work the top tax rate was around 70 percent."
"Which is about what effective marginal tax rates will be under Working for Families," I answered. "Aaah. But at least you can work your way out of it," he replied. "Why would you want to?" I asked.

"Forget Them vs Us Attitude"

The following is an editorial from today's Gisborne Herald. The importance of Iain Gillies' message cannot be over-stated, but it doesn't appear in print nearly often enough. This should be COMPULSORY reading in school.

Employers and workers need to be on same wavelength
by Iain Gillies
Tuesday, 24 January, 2006

What is an employer? An employer is the person who gives us a chance to hold our head up high in society by earning our living.

An employer is also the person who gives us a chance to earn a fair wage, to show what we can do, and respond to an increasingly competitive environment.

At this time of the year we have many youngsters starting out on their careers. We wish them well and hope they fulfil their ambitions.

We have one bit of advice for them . . . disregard any suggestion that the workplace is a Them v Us world, with the workers on one side and the employers on the other.

Maybe that applied in the distant past but in today’s economic climate we’re all in the same leaky boat.

Perhaps that sounds a bit pessimistic because the country has plenty of successful businesses.

For a company to be viable it must produce a profit. This profit goes into many things, including plant maintenance, plant replacement, meeting rising costs and, most import of all, company growth.

Growth means more work and more jobs. The employer benefits from having the initiative to set up the business in the first place.

The employee benefits from having the initiative to acquire the skills necessary to do the work. And those looking for work benefit from the increased number of jobs available.

But weigh the business down with costs growing at a faster rate than the company’s ability to produce, sell and make a profit and the growth stops. The whole process can actually move into reverse.

The company, in order to keep from going to the wall, scrimps on plant maintenance, is less inclined to replace ageing plant and starts to cut back on the number of workers employed.

Let’s face it . . . people are in business for profit. If there is no profit, there is no business, no jobs, and no income tax for the state to distribute to the needy.

This is a basic economic fact and one ignored by too many people these days. So let’s cast aside that anachronistic Them v Us attitude and work together to make New Zealand a force to be reckoned with in the world.

Slow news day

A driver was stopped in Oregon under suspicion of drunken driving. The father of the driver, a passenger in the vehicle, proceeded to remove his prosthetic legs with which he assaulted the state trooper.

If the son wasn't legless, the father certainly was.

school holiday fever

We are into the last two weeks and the kid's time is starting to weigh a bit heavy. My seven year-old has just put her head around the door to tell me that she knows why you don't get square glasses. She says, if they were square and you tipped them up to drink out of, the drink would run out of the corners. I just looked at her.

Is that right? Now I am trying to envisage doing just that. Don't you put your mouth slightly into the glass in anticipation so in fact the drink wouldn't run out of the corners? I am intrigued enough to put "square glasses" into my search angine. Looky here;



Genuine Jack Daniels square glasses. Is there something I am missing about whiskey and square glasses?

The topsy-turvy world we live in

The overnight talkback lines have been running hot over this one from Inglewood.

Paul Espiner grabbed a machete and confronted intruders who were threatening to kill a woman with a baseball bat one day last October.

For his bravery, he was charged by police and yesterday in the New Plymouth District Court was convicted – and discharged – of possessing an offensive weapon.

The intruder had been dealt with earlier, and was given a diversion, meaning he had to write a letter of apology, avoided a criminal conviction and had his name suppressed.

Fortunately Mr Espiner says he would do the same again.

Only half the story

Some say Simon Power, National MP and spokesman for Crime and Justice, is really firing. Some take his press releases at face value. Here he says the parole system is failing.

While it is true that over 4,000 people failed to report while on parole over the past three years, the number has dropped steadily.

November 2002 165
December 147
January 2003 151
February 127
March 171
April 149
May 151
June 110
July 135
August 108
September 114
October 139
November 107
December 120
January 2004 95
February 95
March 131
April 125
May 89
June 85
July 101
August 114
September 107
October 114
November 164
December 107
January 2005 77
February 112
March 137
April 97
May 93
June 84
July 88
August 97
September 87
October 55
Total 4148

Breaches of parole are also trending down.

But Mr Simon says, “Parole is a failed experiment for serious offenders, but the Clark/Peters Government is not interested in doing anything about it, even when the evidence is staring them in the face,” .

I don't care for Labour but I do want the the full story. What surprises me is the government haven't bothered to issue a countering release. The wily or the lazy. Take your pick.

Light-hearted look at a thorny issue

How to SuperSizeMySupport

Sometimes people use completely irrelevant statistics to bolster their dishonest campaigns. Here, speaking on behalf of UNITE and the SuperSizeMyPay.Com campaign, co-ordinator Simon Oosterman uses "poverty" statistics to build sympathy and support for his cause.

“Community groups are joining the fast food workers’ call for McDonald’s, Burger King and (Restaurant Brands restaurants) KFC, Starbucks and Pizza Hut, to take social responsibility for the welfare of their workers, their families and the wider community,” Oosterman said.

“In 2004, 19% of families had incomes below the poverty line and 43% of dependent children in sole parent families were living below the poverty line. [1] Over 22% of households reported that ‘food runs out because of lack of money’. [2]

“As the biggest brands, these companies set the wage standards for the entire industry and are in a key position to play a major role in making poverty wages history in New Zealand."

It is not the fault of the fast-food industry that so many people CHOOSE to raise their children single-handedly on a benefit. In all likelihood the 43 percent Oosterman refers won't have a working parent.

Note to Dr Cullen?

The UK Guardian reports today that a leaked document reveals the government is considering moving Benefit call centres offshore in order to save £1bn.

By some very rapid and rough calculations I reckon New Zealand could do the same and save around $65 million.

(Better still, if we could get a couple of hundred thousand working-age people off benefits we could save closer to $4 or 5 billion)

Mike Moore on the political landscape

Mike Moore has a good column in today's DomPost, "Home seen through new eyes," in which he makes some observations about what has changed most since he's been away. Here are a couple;

"What's also very different in New Zealand is the number of tax-payer funded TV advertisements telling us to be better people. All good and worthy causes. Don't smoke, cover up food in hot weather, drive better, watch kids in pools, don't dive into rivers without checking, safe sex, exercise.

But does it work, or is it about showing that the government cares about us? The government must be the biggest ad buyer on TV and radio unlike in other democratic countries."

Well spotted. His list is a little light though. Let's not forget advice on alcohol consumption, gambling, avoiding the sun, avoiding accidents in the home, securing your home against criminals, avoiding domestic violence. What have I forgotten?

"Whatever happened to the stoic Kiwi who took it on the chin? And what's this about the new 'stress' industry where well-paid public executives need paid time off because they have a tough job? Hey, that's why they get the big bucks. Get another job if you're not up to it."

Absolutely. But Moore still thinks Labour can get it right.

"Labour now has a stronger Cabinet with the promotion of Southern Speights-drinking males David Parker, Clayton Cosgrove and Damien O'Connor. Hopefully they will fight the out-of-control bureaucrats who know best and want to social engineer us to be more like them."

Sounds like the real kiwi blokes vs the chardonnay socialists. But what is it the bloke says, "Shes a hard road finding the right woman mate."

It's an even harder road getting rid of her.(see Clark guns for another term as PM.)

Moore finishes with a rhetorical question, "Isn't it good the last two governments have not changed the fundamental reforms of the 80's?"

Totally.

Wayne Again

I'm not on a witch-hunt but the news the PC Eradicator generates is silly.

Here he is having a go at the Ministry of Social Development for substituting "additional" needs for "special" needs.

Wayne Mapp - or PC Eradicator as he is sometimes called - is flabbergasted a ministry report seems to frown upon the term "special needs". The report replaces the term with "additional needs" throughout the lengthy document, stating it wants to break the convention of the term "special".

Wayne Mapp says it is hypersensitivity because there is little difference between the two terms. He is wondering whether a set of bureaucrats put a committee in place to come up with the new word.

Doesn't he remember that "special" needs was a descriptive "non-judgemental" replacement for conditions like epilepsy, cerebral palsy, autism, intellectual handicap etc. Yet "special" needs is now the standard he defends.

This man is really in a hole and digging...

The blame lies with the jackass who dreamt up the role.

Golf and GPS

Lots of people never listen to commercial radio because they detest the ads. But ads can educate and stimulate thought (and those that don't, I'll put up with because the alternative, state radio, is funded through forcing a majority of people, who never listen, to pay for it. Wrong.)

Anyway, I took the kids golfing yesterday. We all hacked our way around with the occasional good shots which can never be replicated by doing the same thing next time. The universal rule of golf.

So, there is this advertorial/interview I've just been listening to with a guy from Sharpies in Wellington. Apparently new golf rules came into force on January 1, 2006. Players can now use a GPS device (think its about $700) to work out the distance of the shot they want to make.

Now the device wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to my game. Getting the distance right isn't much use when the ball's trajectory is thirty or more degrees off course.

But I wonder how people feel about their use at a professional level? Surely part of a professional's skill is to be able to judge a distance? I'm a big fan of technology but is there a line to be drawn in sporting endeavours?

Postnote; I am now heavily dosed with voltaren thanks to a combination of golf and blogging. According to the Doctor I must have injured a shoulder/neck muscle without knowing it until four o'clock this morning when it when into excruciatingly painful spasm. Sitting in front of the computer too long and then going to bed caused the muscle to go into a gradual seizure. I better get off here now.

Gerry Fights On

Ex ACT MP, Gerry Eckhoff, continues the fight for property rights.

"Mr Eckhoff says DOC has told the farmers a botanical survey will have to be done on their land before they will ever get any form of resource consent."

So Gerry took out a trespass notice against them. 12 other farmers have signed it. His advice to landowners - if you have something special on your property, best get rid of it.

Once again, the state's use of force achieves the opposite of the intended result.

Who said it?

Refresher;

"However, the question that has to be asked is whether the productive potential of the economy can be unlocked if the principal prescription is to reduce taxes and compliance costs."

"This year's Newsweek 2006 special edition on Innovation has significant contributions from prime ministers, CEOs of the world's largest companies and leading creative thinkers. They provide a compelling message about the role of government in achieving growth and innovation."

"In successful economies, governments do more than get out of the way. They are the primary funders of education, and actively work to attract international business."

Was it;

a/ Jim Anderton
b/ Rod Oram
c/ Steve Maharey
d/ Brian Easton?



Sorry. It was a trick question. It was National MP, Wayne Mapp, in the Mapp Report of Friday Jan 20.

Compulsion for Corporates

From today's Feminist Daily News;

New Law in Norway Requires Women to be 40 Percent of Corporate Boards
Publicly traded private companies in Norway are now obliged to have 40 percent of corporate boards to be comprised of women and have been given two years to meet the requirement. Karita Bekkemellem, Minister of Children and Equality, has threatened to dissolve any company that does not do so, reports the New York Times.

This is a truly appalling misuse of state power.

That aside, it beats me why women want a situation where they can never be sure if they progress on their own merits.

Nats' policies scared women, says DomPost

Nats' policies scared women. They scared me. Probably not for the same reason as they scared most women though.

When the last election became the biggest lolly scramble we had seen in a long time I became very apprehensive (understatement). When I realised Don Brash's outspoken opposition to lifestyle welfare was going to be watered down into "tried- and-failed-before" policy I was disappointed (understatement). And when John Key insisted that National would increase government spending, just not at the rate Labour was proposing, I was disgusted.

After years of racial policies we now have people voting on racial lines. We have a party based on race.

After years of feminism it is only natural that people are voting on gender-based lines. The majority of women perceive, quite rightly, that a Labour government will do more for them. But what amounts to privilege for one group means pain for another.

Governments should protect the rights of the individual without favour or discrimination. If that means one race or one sex isn't going to vote for you, so be it. Hold to the principle and put your energy into explaining it better.

Another whale tale

Telstra Clear News reports a whale has brought London to a halt.

Over our summer whales have provided us with much of the interesting news and even provoked some vigorous exchanges of op-eds. Now one from this species, Northern Bottlenose, has made a bid for media stardom by swimming up the Thames as far as the Chelsea Bridge. I hope for his sake the Thames is a bit cleaner than it used to be.

As pure as the driven snow

Reason.Com have awarded their daily brickbat to NY police;

Jessica Scherer, her boyfriend, and another friend decided to celebrate the arrival of winter by building a giant snow penis. She says people walking by laughed at it, and people driving by honked their horns. But the New Windsor, New York, police say they got complaints about it. So they beat it down with shovel while no one was at home, even though apparently there are no laws prohibiting giant snow penises. "We probably weren't 100 percent correct in going on the property and knocking it down. But our intentions were pure. Some people were offended," said New Windsor Town Supervisor George Meyers.

Washington Post suspends blog comments

This is unfortunate.

"(But) Brady went on to say that readers refused to follow the site's simple guidelines prohibiting personal attacks, the use of profanity, and hate speech.

"It's a shame that it's come to this," Brady wrote. "Transparency and reasoned debate are crucial parts of the Web culture, and it's a disappointment to us that we have not been able to maintain a civil conversation, especially about issues that people feel strongly (and differently) about.

"We're not giving up on the concept of having a healthy public dialogue with our readers, but this experience shows that we need to think more carefully about how we do it."

Who said it?

"However, the question that has to be asked is whether the productive potential of the economy can be unlocked if the principal prescription is to reduce taxes and compliance costs."

"This year's Newsweek 2006 special edition on Innovation has significant contributions from prime ministers, CEOs of the world's largest companies and leading creative thinkers. They provide a compelling message about the role of government in achieving growth and innovation."

"In successful economies, governments do more than get out of the way. They are the primary funders of education, and actively work to attract international business."

Was it;
a/ Jim Anderton
b/ Rod Oram
c/ Steve Maharey
d/ Brian Easton?

Lakes Lunacy

This is madness.

A Wanaka couple can't sub-divide and build because the houses could be seen from THEIR PRIVATE footway. The problem wouldn't have existed if the public-spirited couple hadn't allowed the public use of their footway.

Solution. Close the walkway. Who loses out?

Don Brash

Listening to Mike Hosking interview Don Brash this morning on NewstalkZB.

Don says, "Don Brash is Don Brash, what you see is what you get."

I believe him. He is the most atypical politician. He is also the best thing National has going for them.

Asked if he was expecting a challenge to his leadership before the next election he said, "No". I hope he is right.

Kids say "no" to chicken nuggets

....at least mine do. No amount of advertising will change that. But this food nanny doesn't think they are capable of making their own choices. Rob Quigley complained to the Advertising Standards Complaints Board. They found that the Tegel chicken ads that use child "pester power" have not "been prepared with the high sense of social responsibility required under the (advertising) code."

And get this." Children should not be urged in advertisements to ask their parents to buy products for them."

No kidding. They should go out and get a job so they can buy the stuff themselves?

What is always overlooked is, if you don't like the ad, if you don't like the messages your kids are getting, you can turn the TV off.

Moral of the story; the less responsibility we are accorded the less we will exercise.

Not a shaggy dog story

From the files of fact is stranger than fiction comes this story. Apparently dogs do as well as state-of-the-art screening tests at sniffing out people with lung or breast cancer. Wow.
Bow wow.

Back-sliders

I've posted before about the creeping expansion of local government.

Here is a good example from New Plymouth. The District Council wants to build a large cafe in the heart of the CBD. The Taranaki Daily News, which often produces good sense editorials, tells them to resist the temptation;

"In leaving it to private enterprise, the council cannot be accused of competing with ratepayers that it taxes heavily for the privilege of being in a prime location.

This was the motivation that ended its downtown retailing role nearly 20 years ago and is no less valid today and certainly not when there are other willing players prepared to gamble with their own dreams, skills and money."

Well said. And anybody who remembers the state of New Plymouth's CBD twenty years ago would agree.

One man's PC antidote is another man's poison

"In contemporary New Zealand, Maori culture is part of our nationhood. But in a modern democracy, equality is the most fundamental value, ensuring that all citizens have equal treatment. Public occasions and public institutions should reflect this. If that requires the adjustment of protocol to enable the values of equality and hospitality to be expressed that should happen."
National MP Wayne Mapp

Maori MPs say the Corrections Department's move away from conducting powhiri so as not to offend women is political correctness gone mad. National MP Tau Henare says a whakatau is designed to settle visitors down and is part of the ceremony but he says using it instead of a powhiri is a watering down of the culture. He believes people need to accept that when they are in Rome, they should do as the Romans do.

A voice of reason?

NewstalkZB reports;

"A member of the Otago District Health Board has criticised the news media for hyping-up the threat of bird flu. Central Otago mayor (Dr) Malcolm Macpherson says; the news media is pumping up the shock-horror story; public health experts are relishing their hour in the spotlight; and the drug industry is peddling its products."

Unpublicised cost of the "war on drugs"

Despite falling crime rates, US "clearance rates" have risen substantially. That is, in recorded cases, fewer arrests or identification of suspects are made. So today a murderer has a forty percent of getting away with it compared to a ten percent chance in the 50's. Why? One reason suggested by Scott Christianson, a former New York state criminal justice official, is;

"Instead of arresting suspects for burglaries and other serious reported crimes, cops today spend much of their energy going after illegal drugs. Their arrest rate for drug possession (especially marijuana) has shot up more than 500 times from what it was in 1965."

It is the job of the state to protect people from each other - not themselves.

What are police for?

The Herald reports that around 80 candidates (that's about 14 percent) have failed to file election expenses and may be referred to the police.

So where were the police during the election campaign when signs were constantly vandalised, trashed or stolen? It was a daily battle keeping the signs intact and upright. Mine were spray painted, knocked down and ran over; in one case sanitary pads were taped to them. In another, local workers striking in Petone "borrowed" them to write their messages on the back and hoisted them up lamposts.(They were very polite when I went and asked for them back. One even promised to vote for "Rodney's party" after I explained that a tax cut would put more in their pockets than a wage increase.) Overall we lost half of our stock worth hundreds of dollars.

Now, I confess that while I reported the thefts to the Electoral Officer I didn't report them to the Police. Hell, we couldn't get a cop when our car was broken into and the CD player stolen.

If there is one thing the police should be doing it is protecting people's lives and property. The idea that they would have the time or inclination to chase sloppy candidates while so many crimes go uninvestigated and unsolved is enraging.

A brief diversion from politics etc

In the process of beginning my entry for the bienniel National Portrait competition.

This one was my first entry back in 2000. It was rejected in favour of a second piece (you were allowed two submissions.) I was surprised and this remains one of my favourite paintings.

So far I've coated two pieces of canvas with burnt sienna so not much to show. But you can see from the following how the subject emerges from either an ochre or sienna backwash.

This is the same guy a few years on.

Almost identical

By a strange synchronism, having just posted about very subtle differences, I just recieved this from a friend in South America. Thanks Judy. You always brighten my day;

Subject: Almost Identical

Students were assigned to read 2 books, "Titanic" & "My Life" by Bill Clinton. One smart ass student turned in the following book report, with the proposition that they were nearly identical stories ! His cool professor gave him an A+ for this report:

Titanic: $29.99
Clinton: $29.99

Titanic: Over 3 hours to read
Clinton: Over 3 hours to read

Titanic: The story of Jack and Rose, their forbidden love, and subsequent catastrophe.

Clinton: The story of Bill and Monica, their forbidden love, and subsequent catastrophe.

Titanic: Jack is a starving artist.
Clinton: Bill is a bullshit artist.

Titanic: In one scene, Jack enjoys a good cigar.
Clinton: Ditto for Bill.

Titanic: During ordeal, Rose's dress gets ruined.
Clinton: Ditto for Monica.

Titanic: Jack teaches Rose to spit.
Clinton: Let's not go there.

Titanic: Rose gets to keep her jewelry.
Clinton: Monica's forced to return her gifts.

Titanic: Rose remembers Jack for the rest of her life.
Clinton: Clinton doesn't remember Jack.

Titanic: Rose goes down on a vessel full of seamen.
Clinton: Monica...ooh, let's not go there, either.

Titanic: Jack surrenders to an icy death.
Clinton: Bill goes home to Hilary...basically the same thing.

Spot the difference

Peter Cresswell has the right-hand John Singer Sargent painting of Madame X posted at his blog. This is apprently the infamous portrait that scandalised Paris.

In fact, it was the one on the left (photogragh of the 1884 original). Sargent had dared to paint Madame X with her right shoulder strap dangling down which Deborah Davis writes, in Strapless, John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X, suggested to "outraged Parisian viewers, either the prelude to or aftermath of sex."

This left the artist "stunned" and his subject "bathed in tears".

"After the Salon ended Sargent repainted Madame X, placing the fallen shoulder strap in its proper position. He kept the portrait in his studio for the next three decades, then sold it to the Metropolitan soon after Amelie's Death." (Amelie being the model.)

How times have changed. What would those Parisians have inferred from the way women dress today? That's one heck of a lot of sex going on!

Why people didn't vote

The Chief Electoral Office has just released results from a post election survey they commissioned. The section I found interesting is below;

Non-voters

The majority of non-voters had considered voting in the election at some point during the campaign, with most waiting until Election Day before deciding not to vote. Nearly two-thirds of non-voters (66%) had considered voting in the 2005 election, with this percentage being higher for both Māori non-voters (72%), and youth non-voters (77%).

The majority of voters (53%) waited until election day before deciding not to vote; this is an increase from 44 percent in 2002. Around two-fifths of non-voters (41%) put a lot of thought into deciding whether or not to vote.

Non-voters gave a variety of reasons as to why they did not vote. One-quarter of non-voters (25%) said that their main reason was that they ‘couldn’t be bothered with politics or politicians’.

When presented with a list of reasons for not voting, the three factors rated as having the greatest influence (the combined results of those that rated the factor as having ‘a lot’ and ‘a little’ amount of influence) for non-voters overall were:

It makes no different to my life who wins the election (35%)
I don’t trust politicians (34%)
I’m just not interested in politics (33%)

The three factors rated as having the least influence (‘not at all’ and ‘not really’ combined) for non-voters overall were:

I haven’t voted in the past so why start now (70%)
It was obvious who would win so why bother (63%)
I couldn’t see a difference between the parties’ policies (54%).

Ironically 47 percent of non-voters still followed the results on election night. I wonder how many of them have been moaning about the outcome ever since?

The Roads to Serfdom

An article by Theodore Dalrymple traces the effects of collectivism on post-war Britain. Was Hayek right? What about the thinking of Orwell and Belloc and Beveridge?

"The British are no longer sturdily independent as individuals, either, and now feel no shame or even unease, as not long ago they would have felt, at accepting government handouts. Indeed, 40 percent of them now receive such handouts: for example, the parents of every child are entitled not merely to a tax reduction but to an actual payment in cash, no matter the state of their finances. As for those who, though able-bodied and perfectly able to work, are completely dependent on the state for their income, they unashamedly call the day when their welfare checks arrive “payday.” Between work and parasitism they see no difference. “I’m getting paid today,” they say, having not only accepted but thoroughly internalized the doctrine propounded in the Beveridge Report, that it is the duty of the state to assure everyone of a decent minimum standard of life regardless of his conduct. The fact of having drawn 16 breaths a minute, 24 hours a day, is sufficient to entitle each of them to his minimum; and oddly enough, Hayek saw no danger in this and even endorsed the idea. He did not see that to guarantee a decent minimum standard of life would demoralize not only those who accepted it, but those who worked in the more menial occupations, and whose wages would almost inevitably give them a standard of living scarcely higher than that of the decent minimum provided merely for drawing breath.

Dalrymple believes that it was Hilaire Belloc, in his book, The Servile State, who most closely predicted today's society;

In (Belloc's) view, “The future of industrial society, and in particular of English society . . . is a future in which subsistence and security shall be guaranteed for the Proletariat, but shall be guaranteed . . . by the establishment of that Proletariat in a status really, though not nominally, servile.” The people lose “that tradition of . . . freedom, and are most powerfully inclined to [the] acceptance of [their servile status] by the positive benefits it confers.”

Sugary spanner in the works

Sue Kedgeley, and fellow zealots from FOE (Fight the Obesity Epidemic), the Public Health Association and MOH aren't going to be thrilled with this bit of research. A team of Scottish scientists have discovered that drinks high in sugar content aid memory."In an age of low-sugar or artificially sweetened drinks, they suggest that too many low-calorie beverages could hamper mental performance."

Just months ago FOE issued advice that, "Sugary drinks are best avoided by most people, most of the time."

Why? What a bunch of naggers.

And the good news is....

One way of concocting good news about New Zealand is to compare it a country where things are worse. The Scotsman quotes Murdo Fraser (isn't that a great name) Deputy Leader of the Conservatives saying today;

"The biggest growth industry in Scotland is in government.

No-one minds more policemen, teachers and nurses, but too many of these [other] jobs are non-productive. How is it that we have had a 12 per cent increase in Scottish government staff since 1999 and a 40 per cent rise in the number of full-time staff employed by quangos? The reason is that the Labour/Lib Dem Executive wants to centralise, regulate and control every aspect of our lives."

And he added: "Over 50 per cent of GDP is now spent by the state. The Executive keeps on telling us that economic growth is its top priority, but what it fails to understand is that the staggering growth in the public sector over which it has presided is stifling the ability of private business to generate wealth."

So we should count our blessings. Our government spends only 39 percent of GDP.

On the other hand, the trend is an upward one and doesn't Scotland sound depressingly familiar?

A legislative double-take

In 2004 Parliament passed the Clean Slate Bill. Quoting the Ministry of Justice, "This legislation is designed to allow individuals with less serious convictions who have been conviction-free for at least seven years to put their past behind them."

Tomorrow a new law comes into effect that will re-punish some men for decades-old low-level sex offences; such as having sex as a teenager with a girlfriend before the girl's 16th birthday by banning them from jobs they have held for years.

So much for putting their pasts behind them.

Whatever you think about this sort of legislative "contrast" it is understandable that the general public are suspicious and cynical and mistrusting of our lawmakers.

"Welfare is not a lifestyle choice."

I had better make good on my promise to debunk myths surrounding the welfare state.

"I do not support the view that the DPB is a lifestyle choice." Steve Maharey, Minister for Social Developemnt and Employment, 2001.

Over the past few years questions I've put to the Ministry of Social Development under the OIA have revealed some interesting facts;


(21/7/05) 37,631 single parents currently on a benefit started on welfare before they reached twenty. Of those, 5.5 percent began on the DPB. Most began on the dole.

(12/7/04) 36,986 single parents on welfare have school-age children only.

(2/10/03) In the year ending 2002 4,860 newborn babies were added to a benefit that had been in place ten months or more.


Some people are using welfare as last-resort, temporary assistance.

Other people are demonstrably abusing it. Unfortunately they form a majority.

Illegitimacy

Unsurprisingly I have been advised against using the term "illegitimacy". It is a word I've struggled with before (and been advised against using before).

But the following passage made me think again so I'll quote it (also from The Bell Curve.)

We use the older term "illegitimacy" in favour of the phrases currently in favour, "out-of-wedlock births" or "births to single women", because we think that, in the long run, the word illegitimacy will prove to be the right one. We are instructed in this by the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski. In his research early in the century, Malinowski observed a constant running throughout the rich diversity of human cultures and indeed throughout history. He decided that this amounted to "a universal sociological law" and called it the "principle of illegitimacy". No matter what the culture might be, "there runs the rule that the father is indispensable for the full sociological status of a child as well as of the mother, that the group consisting of a woman and her offspring is sociologically incomplete and illegitimate." The rule applies to east or West, primitive cultures or advanced ones, cultures where premarital sex was accepted or banned, where children were considered as asset or a burden, where fathers could have one wife or many.

I agree that the religious connotations of the word, that a child is born of sin, is a "vile concept". (So is the idea of children being born into sin which is why I refused to have mine baptised.)

So I could use another word for the sake of diplomacy and not causing injury to the feelings of single parents and their children but then I would be doing exactly what has got us into this unhappy state of affairs; saying that it is completely legitimate for single women to have babies with no care for whether the father will support her or her child emotionally or financially.

I need to make one more point. It is none of my business if a woman wants to do motherhood alone and can do so independently. But she is the exception to the rule. The majority of single mums having babies alone go on welfare.

Why the welfare state is self-perpetuating

Unlike conservatives I don't advocate government spending money on a plethora of "family strengthening" programmes. Neither do I think families should get taxbreaks over and above what single people qualify for.

On holiday I re-read Is there really a fatherhood crisis?

Stephen Baskerville, professor of political science at Howard University, puts it better than I can.

"Identifying fathers rather than governments as the culprits behind family dissolution not only justifies harsh law enforcement measures, but also rationalises policies that contribute further to the absence of fathers, which they are ostensibly meant to prevent. Further - given the undeniable coorelation that the fatherhood advocates have established between fatherlessness and today's larger social pathologies, such as poverty, crime, substance abuse - it allows officials to ignore the simplest and safest solution to these ills, which is to stop eliminating fathers. Instead, governments devise elaborate schemes, invariably extending their reach and power, to deal with the problems that their removal of fathers has created: not only fatherhood promotion and marriage therapy, but larger anti-poverty programmes beloved of the left and law enforcement measures dear to the right. By concocting a fatherhood crisis where none previously existed, government across the spectrum has neutered the principal rival to its power and created an unlimited supply of problems to solve."

The paper also introduced me to a new term, "plethysmograph." It is not in my dictionary and I am not going to describe here what it means. Read the paper. I am sure you will be as horrified as I am at what is going on in the States, according to the author.

Home thoughts from abroad (the SI anyway)

Went on holiday. Not terribly good at it. I was "supervising" the kids in the pool. Another middle-aged lady was supervising her aged mother. She plops down beside me and makes lots of inviting-conversation noises. Then she starts peering over my shoulder. "That looks like heavy holiday reading", she says.

I stop. Think about it. Not unkindly, I said, "It's the only kind of reading I do. "

"It's the only kind of reading I don't do," she replied.

That was the end of that budding relationship.

I was reading the Bell Curve, by Charles Murray and another guy who died before it was published. Fascinating. Only half way into it but the hypothesis is that IQ (or lack of it) is driving a deepening strata in society. They build a compelling case.

Couple of things I noticed while away.

The witnesses to the lion-mauling at Wellington Zoo received counselling. I wonder which training module specifically covered counselling people who witness lion attacks? And did you notice the absence of condemnation of the male juvenile-deliquent lions?

Ex Labour MP, Mark Peck became the Smoke Free Coalition boss. How awful. He admits to fighting his own addictions of gambling and alcohol yet has no compunction about making a living out of heaping more guilty misery onto addicted smokers.

And finally, Judith Collins beefing about CYFS spending at least $300,000 on conferences for their social workers made me feel an uncharacteristic pang of sympathy (stopping short at Ruth Dyson) for this dogsbody of an agency. The National opposition is about as effective as a hawk hanging over a road-kill but none-the-less keeps CYFS name in the public's bad books, their "clients" hate them, and the government hates them (let's contract out to the private sector so we can't be blamed for the tragic and predictable failure of bottom-of-the-cliff services.)

What JC should be talking about is the government's ongoing encouragement of widespread illegitimacy (it's as good a word as any to convey my meaning) and associated woeful parenting. She has seen enough of it in her electorate.

Politically, I haven't missed much of moment.

The price of security is too high

I don't know T.L.Rodgers from a bar of soap but this column has made more impression than others on the same subject.

"I would much rather live as a free man under the highly improbable threat of another significant Al-Qaida attack than I would as a serf, spied on by an oppressive government that can jail me secretly, without charges."

And.....
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." Benjamin Franklin.

If, on occasion, the issue seems somewhat remote to me I think about the extreme reactions I sometimes get from politicians when making submissions to select committee. Then I ask myself, if they had the powers to shut me up, would they use them?

We mustn't become so distracted by bogeymen that we lose sight of our freedoms being chiselled away.