Sunday, November 26, 2006

Collin's views on welfare = ACT's?

The Herald on Sunday summarises the Hager book;

Hager says: "(Brash) gave the (welfare) job to an MP called Judith Collins, whose views on welfare would have fitted comfortably into (ACT)."

I suppose they do resemble Muriel Newman's. They are conservative views. The conservative wants welfare with obligations. It's expensive and paternalistic. It's interventionist. It may be an improvement on what we have.

Myself? I frequently disagree with the conservative approach.

Here's an example. Take the common occurrence of women giving birth outside of a permanent relationship. The conservative hankers after making all non-custodial fathers take financial responsibility for their children. Too many fathers are 'deadbeat Dads'.

I say make the person who decided to have the child take responsibility.

The conservative won't move on but we are living in different times. Women have rights, choice and independence hitherto unknown. They now need to accept liability as well.

5 comments:

Berend de Boer said...

So intercourse should be a purely recreational activity for men without any strings attached. All the responsibility lies solely on women?

I'm not sure you have thought this true too well Lindsay. It takes two to make a child. And a child deserves the support of his father.

We can argue if having the government involved will work. Probably not, perhaps we should just give women the right to use civil lawsuits to get dads to pay if they want to and retract the government completely out of the mess it created in the first place. But I doubt that will happen soon. We currently have no example of a socialist society that successfully withdrew from socialism.

Anonymous said...

Where do you get your information from?

What we need in this society is real Ministers of Parliament who believe in Political Correctness of government departments especially in Ministry of Social Development.

To wait six months to a year in Family Court senario's shows a gravy train waiting to be derailed and Judith Collins (creditential Lawyer) has a lot to answer for. Where is the help for families... nowhere?

It would be interesting to see what facist remark you make next

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Berend, First, I do not believe it is the taxpayers statutory responsibility to fund other people's childen.

Putting the responsibility on the woman is the only way out of the "mess". She can chase the father through the courts but that doesn't guarantee support and she needs to make her decisions based on that possibility. Thousands of liable fathers are only paying $13 a week anyway. That's not enough to raise a child on.

Ideally children would be brought up with and supported by their fathers. You and I both believe that. But carrying on with the status quo, which you seem to be advocating because we can't successfully withdraw from socialism, is not going to achieve that.

Socially, what obligation society has to sole mothers is possibly the hardest question facing NZ. Everybody sees the problem and nobody wants to acknowledge unpalatable solutions. There is no easy, neat answer that will be fair to all parties. I have thought about it, more than I care to really. I always come back to the same conclusion. But don't worry. There isn't a political party about to agree with me.

Hence I will sometimes line up behind conservative ideas simply because, as I said, they may be an improvement on what we have now and that's all that's on offer.

Berend de Boer said...

Well, go ahead Lindsay. What are your thoughts on the obligation society has to single mothers? Or post a few pointers if you have written about it in the past.

How do we move from here to a society without the government abjugating responsibility for the mess it created with a single stroke.

I'm not pc (no not that one), so open to any ideas. As long as they work or might work.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Berend,

http://lindsaymitchell.blogspot.com/2006/06/way-forward.html

I don't believe in utopia by the way. But child abuse, neglect, child and youth criminal offending, are far worse than 30 or 40 years ago. It's the kids I keep my eye on.