Restraint

Regular readers of this blog will know that in the league of blogosphere rudeness mine just doesn't rate. It is not in my nature to slam and slag people off. I don't find it therapeutic and attention seeking isn't a priority either. However I would not like to give the impression that I never speak ill of people. I do. But I confine my comments to people I know well and trust - making them, that is:-)

That, I feel, is as it should be.

If I was cleverer and quicker remarks such as the following might trip off my tongue. They would also be more than acceptable;

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." - Irvin S. Cobb

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." - Paul Keating

"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." - Forrest Tucker

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." Clarence Darrow

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend.... if you have one." - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one." - Winston Churchill, in response.

"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." - Stephen Bishop

Arguing the law but missing the point

Not that I agree with Rosslyn Noonan, Chief Human Rights Commissioner, but according to this news item we are already back to square one in respect of the anti-smacking law;

She says force can be used when it is reasonable to do so, such as stopping the child from hurting themselves or others.

What the 'yes' vote urgers are missing is this. Because of a combination of media reporting and the controversial debate about banning smacking, the social climate has changed. There is hysteria about child abuse abroad. This isn't dissimilar to the hysteria over sexual abuse earlier. (Sexual abuse similarly underwent a change of definition to eventually encompassing any unwanted touching.)

Many more people are reporting what they personally define as abuse or assault which the police may or may not prosecute. The reports do not need witness substantiation or evidence. If the particular police involved are inclined towards empathising with the current climate, a prosecution is more likely to occur. There have been and will be miscarriages of justice.

People cognisant of what has happened are fearful, with good reason. Worse, I don't think there is any putting this cat back in the bag.

Having kittens - literally

Remember Daisy?

She's up the duff. We first noticed something awry when she started missing her target when leaping. Then Robert, who likes to carry her around cradled in his arms, noticed her tummy getting harder. Then Sam, searching for fleas, noticed her teats changing. Now she is ballooning daily. Sam wants to do a pregnancy test but I asked her how she proposes getting the stick into a constant stream of cat pee? Much less why you would want to. If she isn't pregnant, I'm the pope.

Anyway, it's written all over her face.

Doctor shortage

The OECD has just released a comparison of health data. In many ways NZ is unremarkable. Except for this;

"New Zealand has fewer physicians per capita than most other OECD countries. In 2007, New Zealand had 2.3 practising physicians per 1,000 population, well below the OECD average of 3.1."

By my reading of the situation this is largely a result of political interference. Successive governments have made the role of general practitioner less and less attractive. And of course our general economic standing means physicians are better paid elsewhere. My husband is a health professional (not a physician) but our children have never shown the remotest inkling of interest in pursuing a career in health. With all the dire media coverage, why would they?

Discretionary welfare - the irony and the problem

Last week I commented on the turn-around the Left has made on the issue of discretion in the area of welfare benefits. Having achieved their rules-based welfare, they are now calling for eligibility rules to be bent and discretion used for top-ups.

To illustrate my claim here is a passage written by Geoffrey Palmer, then a Professor of Law at Victoria, later Labour PM and briefly PM, in 1976;

"The message is, in my view, that whatever benefits we decide to pay we should pay them as of right. We should cut down the areas of discretion. We should make the benefits available automatically where at all possible and we should eliminate the screening mechanisms which destroy the dignity of the person receiving the benefit. When the community has decided to spend as much money as New Zealand has on income maintenance the money ought to be delivered by efficient and up to date machinery which aims to serve the recipient of the benefit without making him feel like a beggar."

In 1975 there was a grand total of 54,152 working age people receiving a benefit and nearly a third were widows. The population was 3.1 million.

Today there are over 300,000 with a population of 4.3 million. The results of rules and entitlement-based welfare are clear.

My own view about discretion is that is belongs in the area of private and voluntary charity where it can be exercised rightfully by people who have raised their own money and gathered their own resources. We should have far more of this sort of assistance. The organisation I work for does not carry on providing help endlessly to people who are not making a reciprocal effort.

When it comes to the state, the use of discretion becomes more difficult. How much power should state agents have when it comes to taxpayer purse strings? Hence we should have far less state assistance.

Doctor beat-up

This is an entirely spurious headline designed to antagonise patients and taxpayers;

Doctors prescribe drugs that don't work

Three out of four New Zealand doctors have prescribed placebo medications to patients, new research suggests.

Medical researcher Shaun Holt said the practice could be costing the taxpayer several million dollars.

The placebo effect exists, therefore if a drug improves someone's condition, it has 'worked'. The writer tells us as much in the article;

Placebos are associated with the release of natural painkillers in the brain, including dopamine. Taking a placebo creates a "self-reinforcing feedback loop" in the brain: during pain an individual recalls having taken the placebo and reduced pain reinforces its status as a painkiller. About one-in-three people appear susceptible to placebo effects.

Doctors are quite probably adept at identifying the one in three.

And what about prescribing drugs as a diagnostic tool? If the doctor guesses wrong, the drug 'doesn't work'. But it does eliminate one possible diagnosis so hasn't been a waste of money.

There is a subtle but significant difference between a drug not doing what it is therapeutically supposed to do and it being a waste of money.

Gordon Campbell on Paula Bennett's welfare abuse

This is a column by Gordon Campbell. My comment follows;

Paula Bennett’s welfare abuse
July 1st, 2009

To date, the government’s response to the recession has been faulted on the demand side – for not giving sufficient stimulus to the economy, as reflected in its wilful misdirection of most of the April tax cut money to the top tier of incomes, when low income earners would have spent the money to far better economic effect. The lack of proper planning and funding for social welfare provision has been just as disastrous.

Right now, the government seems intent on forcing more and more of the victims of this recession into fewer and fewer job openings. On National Radio this morning for instance, Social Welfare Minister Paula Bennett could be heard riding off energetically in all directions. Why, she was going to hand the Disabilities portfolio over to Taraina Turia in order to concentrate on getting people into jobs! We were dreaming, Bennett said, if we didn’t think that unemployment wasn’t going to increase.

Fabulous. So, beyond the slogans and empty gestures, would she be relaxing any of the eligibility settings for assistance, in recognition of the scale of the recession? No, not at all. Earlier this year, Bennett refused to instruct her staff to exercise discretion when it came to dispensing help through the Temporary Additional Support (TAS) scheme – which is the last line of defence for people in danger of slipping through the welfare safety net. Now was not a time to ‘tinker’ with the rules, she told me when taking questions about the government’s response to the recession, at a post Cabinet press conference.

In similar vein, Bennett is refusing to revisit the eligibility rules in households where one partner is still working. Currently, as Sue Bradford of the Greens has pointed out, couples with an earner in paid employment need to be amassing below $534 a week before the unemployed partner can qualify for the dole, or the DPB. This rule is, among other things, serving to keep the welfare figures conveniently and artificially low. As Bradford says, the situation is putting pressure on couples to split, in order to gain access to assistance. Shouldn’t Christine Rankin and the Families Commission be having something to say to Bennett about her eligibility rules?

These rules, as Susan St John and Keith Rankin showed yesterday in the NZ Herald, stand up badly to international comparison, and are inherently unfair :

Mary Williams, of Muriwai Beach, who lost her job in a bank in March, said in a letter to the Herald: “Why am I classed as a single earner paying ACC and income tax when employed, but classed as a couple when out of work?”

She and her husband Neville have started selling their possessions. “Because my husband earns just above the income limit for a couple, I cannot register for unemployment,” she said.

So, it is all very well for the government to say it is concentrating on getting people back into work. Already, the inadequacy of this response is evident : because there are not enough jobs for the people, and for the families, most at risk. Eligibility rules for assistance that have been premised on a relatively healthy job market and a ready return to employment are no longer adequate. Still, this government currently seems uninterested in responding to genuine need – it is more about spinning an appearance of concern, for the re-assurance of the majority still in work.

That approach is extremely short-sighted. “Financial pressures that attack the family unit lead to deepening poverty and emotional damage for all concerned,” Bradford says. “In the long term, poor educational, health and employment outcomes for children and adults in sole parent families will cost us more than easing rules on income levels and benefit entitlements.”

It would take five minutes for Bennett to issue a direction that people with partners in paid employment can access the unemployment benefit. She should also be telling her front line staff to administer the TAS benefits with discretion, and according to need. Yet that would be to assume that this government has an interest in steering New Zealand through this recession with anything other than its own welfare in mind.

By Lindsay on Jul 3, 2009 | Reply
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But socialists have traditionally despised the idea of discretionary entitlement. Universal rules and rights-based entitlement is their ideal. In order to provide such, means-testing has to be applied. That allows targeting of the neediest.

“Eligibility rules for assistance that have been premised on a relatively healthy job market and a ready return to employment are no longer adequate.”

The eligibility rules have been premised this way since the first Labour government introduced Social Security.

Welfare benefits are paid from general taxation. If people want better cover, then the country needs to change to a more comprehensive insurance-based model.

Sue Bradford,“In the long term, poor educational, health and employment outcomes for children and adults in sole parent families will cost us more than easing rules on income levels and benefit entitlements.”

So Bradford is now admitting that there is a problem with sole parent families. This is only because, she would counter, their benefits are insufficient and their children live in poverty.

But now she is suggesting that couples be given preferential treatment in terms of how much household income they can acquire via welfare.

You really should be thanking Paula Bennett - not attacking her - for sticking with the welfare philosophy of the Left. State, universal, means-tested, rules-based, entitlement.

MSD take a year to release statistics

Yesterday the Ministry of Social Development released their annual statistical report - 1 year after the most recent statistical information contained therein. It covers the 30 June 07 to 30 June 2008 period. That means we can look forward to having current statistics available in a year's time.

At the end of June 2008 there were 258,317 people on a main benefit. Towards the end of June 2009 there were 302,000. So some trends depicted in the report have reversed.

But here is a smattering of tables and graphs of particular interest;

Firstly this table shows welfare expenditure as a share of gdp.



Note that the total expenditure on pensions and main benefits was $9,285,000. Yet if you check 2008 Crown Expenses tables you will actual 2008 Social Security and Welfare spending at $17,877,000. This includes all of the other expenditure like accommodation supplement, emergency benefits,etc and the cost of running the whole kit and kaboodle. That pushes the share of gdp up to just short of 10 percent. The share of total government spending is 31 percent.

The next is interesting because it illustrates the extent of DPB 'churning'.



These figures relate only to grants - not total numbers of recipients. Of the 36,494 people granted the DPB in 2007/08 only 23 percent had either never received a benefit before or not within the last four years. Over three quarters were transferring benefits or returning. This indicates being on the DPB is more a way of life than an unusual and temporary event.

The next two tables again show grants, not total numbers, and provide reasons for those grants.






There was a big annual increase in invalid benefit grants (36 percent) and psychological and psychiatric conditions continue to trend up with both invalid and sickness grants. Nearly all of the growth in sickness grants was due to psychological/psychiatric disorders and substance abuse.

Objecting to 'good moral character'

Speaking to the medicinal cannabis debate last night Lianne Dalziel said;

The problems I see with the Bill are:

The introduction of a complex regulatory framework - with a Medicinal Cannabis Registration Board being established to issue Medicinal Canabis Identification Cards and Designated Agent Identification Cards - A Designated Agent is required to prove him or herself to be of good moral character. I totally object to that phrase being inserted in NZ law.

What is that about? A facet of the religion of 'non-judgementalism', a dogma adhered to fanatically by the Left and promulgated thoughtlessly through various state institutions?

It is hardly surprising that many people now exist in a moral vacuum. If good moral character is archaic and unmentionable, what are we left with?

More interest in the smacking referendum than the 2008 general election?

In respect of the 2008 General Election;

At 14 October, 2008, "... around 200,000 people still weren't enrolled."


On 4 November, 2008, there were, "...170,000 people who are still not enrolled to vote on Saturday."


So in those 3 weeks preceding the 2008 General Election only 30,000 people enrolled to vote.

In the two weeks since the smacking referendum campaign was launched by the Electoral Commission, over 25,000 have enrolled or updated their details.

While not directly comparable these figures provide some context.

People appear just as, or more motivated, by the smacking referendum.

Key's strategy a flop

Great. New Zealanders are not going to be told that the referendum is a waste of time. Bad call John Key.

Just released;

More than 25,000 people have responded to the call to get enrolled or update their enrolment details to take part in the upcoming referendum - but there are still many more who need to take action today.

In the two weeks since the official campaign started to raise awareness of the referendum on the question “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?” at least 25,000 people have updated their enrolment details or enrolled for the first time.

“We’re recording an average of over 2,000 people a day taking action by enrolling or updating their details to get ready to vote in the referendum,” says Murray Wicks, National Manager, Electoral Enrolment Centre.

It is only 7 months since the election when most motivated people would have been up-to-date. Around 33,000 young people will have turned 18 during that time and many people will have moved. But I think 25,000 is quite significant. Especially when it is also quite typical for people to wait until the last minute to take action.

From better pay to no pay

Back in 2005 one of the most controversial issues was the passage of legislation that would force sheltered workshops, which employ intellectually disabled people, to pay the minimum wage. This was a Labour move, backed by the unions, besotted with equal pay. ACT in particular, led by Muriel Newman, warned that the change would lead to the closure of workshops and the loss of jobs. The arrogant Ruth Dyson sailed on undeterred by the pleas of families whose main concern was to keep their sons and daughters employed and with purpose and meaning in their lives.

And so it has come to pass.

The Hutt News yesterday reported that after twenty four years Packworx would close leaving 23 intellectually disabled workers without jobs. In 2006 it had employed 60 people.

At the time Labour announced it was repealing legislation that covered sheltered workshops, around 3,000 people were employed in the sector. Mrs Gray said some workshops closed immediately and a good number of others shut up shop when the legislation came into full effect on December 1 last year.

I suppose the women that marched on Parliament yesterday want similar equalising legislation. How does the saying go? Be careful what you wish for because you might just get it.