Give that man a medal

This is most enjoyable. An excerpt from an interview by Paul Holmes with Chief Families Commissioner Jan Pryor.

PAUL Dr Pryor, isn't the fact true that you exist simply because Labour needed to buy Peter Dunne's cooperation to form a government years back, purely political invention is what you are, you can do nothing and you can make nothing happen, and it costs us eight million dollars?

JAN That’s a view that I hope is changing Paul. The Commission before I came spent about four years clarifying and focusing on what its role should be, because you're right, it was established as a political agreement. I would argue very strongly now that the Commission has earned its stripes. What we do we have three functions, we listen to families…

PAUL All bureaucracies believe in the right to exist and justify that don’t they?

JAN Well let me give you a personal account here, I until a year ago was a full time academic and researcher in a university, I was leading a research centre that was doing research on families, when I was asked if I would do this position I had to think very hard about it. I believed then and I believe even more strongly now that I can do more for New Zealand families in this position of independence, of giving contestable advice to government, to NGOs, to communities and work alongside families and communities, than I could do from the university.

PAUL Alright but certainly in its five years of existence the Families Commission has certainly not affected the child abuse stats, 12,100 kids were listed as abused or neglected by Child Youth and Family last year, 12,100, and that was two and a half thousand more than the previous year. You don’t seem to be achieving much there.

JAN Well do you know – well let me tell you what the Commission does around family violence generally, and remember there is a Children's Commissioner who focuses particularly on children,

PAUL And then there's a department of Social Development as well.

JAN Social Development doesn’t have the independence we have, but let me tell you, I as Chief Commissioner am on the Family Violence Child Support which is a very powerful body of people from everywhere, Police, government…

PAUL Who are obviously really effective in stopping family violence.

The fix is worse than the problem

The not unusual thrust of Tapu Misa's column today, that inequality is the source of all social ills, is too big to take on wholesale. So I will deal with just one claim;

The more hierarchical society becomes, the more sensitive people become to their social status. In fact, say Wilkinson and Pickett, much violence happens because people, especially males, feel disrespected and humiliated.

People live their lives in a microcosm. Family and friends influence them most. Then the wider community and then society. Or whanau, hapu and then iwi, though I am less certain about the order for Maori.

If "males especially" are feeling "disrespected and humiliated" it is most likely by peers, parents or teachers, then later, workmates/playmates or partner. I have heard Maori direct their anger towards the "f---ing Pakeha system" when in trouble with the "f---ing Pakeha law." How widespread that is, I don't know. But I am guessing it is secondary, and contrived anger. The individual first falls foul of, or becomes alienated from, other individuals who he has been far more closely connected to than the somewhat amorphous society.

In Maori and Welfare I wrote;

James Belich plausibly speculates that the ‘desocialisation’ of Pakeha men, a crime-inducing process that occurred in the nineteenth century during male migration from their homelands (and families) to New Zealand, was a similar process to the ‘detribalisation’ that happened to Maori in the latter part of the twentieth century, and similarly caused high crime rates. Belich argued that:

People avoid crime, not primarily because it is illegal, but because of the disapproval of those that matter to them – in the traditional, rural Maori case, the kin group.

Detribalisation and relative confinement of large families within small urban houses delivered ‘street culture’ and youth gangs. The economy that supported the detribalisation process was a mix of low-wage employment and increasingly accessible welfare benefits.

In both Pakeha and Maori worlds, the role of the male has become increasingly disrupted. And that is the result of government attempts to equalise material well-being. The Royal Commission of 1972 recommended that social security be widened so everyone had a sense of belonging, a right to participate. It was thought there was too much inequality then, yet violence wasn't anywhere near today's levels.

Retrospectively the major policy to arise from the Commission was the domestic purposes benefit. Men could now be fathers in the most limited sense of the word. Sperm donors and wallets (where wallets had anything in them).

Some men would have celebrated this new found 'freedom'. No more court or prison for failing to provide. No submitting to shotgun marriages. No need to hold down a job. But the downside is obvious. No need to take responsibility. No need to commit or care. Idleness and disaffection. And women are more violent as well. No social constrictions or stigmas to acquiesce to. No relationship compromises to bow to. That's freedom?

Welfare, or the redistribution of cash to achieve equality, has done far more to create violence than the pre-existing inequality. Yet Tapu Misa's prescription for a better world would require more of it.

Public notice for Auckland readers

Boscawen Challenges Local MPs To Front
John Boscawen MP, ACT New Zealand
Friday, September 4 2009

ACT New Zealand MP John Boscawen today challenged Labour leader Phil Goff to attend a public meeting this Monday, in his Mt Roskill electorate, in order to defend his decision not to support a law change, despite the overwhelming smacking referendum results.

"More people voted 'No' within the Mt Roskill electorate than voted for Mr Goff to be their local MP. It's time Mr Goff fronted up to the residents of Mt Roskill to explain why he is ignoring their wishes and why he thinks he knows best," Mr Boscawen said.

"In fact, out of the 70 electoral seats in Parliament, 56 electorates had more residents vote 'No' in the referendum, than who voted for the MP who now represents them. I have yet to see one of those MPs fighting for a change in the law.

"New Zealanders vote for their electorate MPs to be their voice in Parliament – not so that those MPs can run their lives and tell them what to do.

"That is why I will be holding not one, but a series of public debates around the country on the smacking referendum and how the adoption of my Private Members Bill – to amend Section 59 - could solve this issue. I intend to hold a public debate in the Helensville electorate where 25,327 voted 'No'.

"I will be challenging the local electorate MP in each area – including Prime Minister John Key - to front up to their constituents, and defend their decision not to support a change to the law.

"This is no longer just about the smacking referendum; it's about the whole democratic process in New Zealand. After all, what value is there in an electorate MP that doesn't listen to their constituents?

"Under the constitutional principle of the rule of law, our citizens need to have certainty that they can go about their lawful business without fear or threat of being detained or investigated by the police. I am delighted that Professor Jim Evans, Emeritus Professor of Auckland Law School, has agreed to address this issue at the Mt Roskill meeting," Mr Boscawen said.

Public Debate On Smacking Referendum, Monday, September 7 2009, 7.30pm, Hay Park School, 670 Richardson Road, Mt Roskill, Auckland

An "endearing" Minister

Colin James wrote a column in The Press last week about Key's continuing popularity. Since then a Roy Morgan poll has the National-led government up further to 60 percent. One of the comments Colin James makes is this;

So Paula Bennett can make gaffes, some serious, and Key can rely on the public seeing them as endearing.

Beyond gaffes, other aspects of Paula Bennett's life also endear her to the public. Maori solo mum made good - great role model stuff. Her new westie-chick car. Her forgiving Christian attitude to the young man her daughter is involved with. Her ballsy intervention in a shopping mall fracas.

But here's the question. Will New Zealand be well-served by an endearing Minister of Social Development? Is she going to be the Mother Theresa of beneficiaries when the time is well-overdue for some tough love?

Young women on benefits have a strange attitude to life in my experience. They are waiting for it to start. Like, one day, they are going to be a lawyer or something. And when you ask when they are going to start doing the work that will be required (which is usually going back to NCEA level and passing some exams) their eyes glaze over. One day.

It is quite likely one day will never come but the dole will keep on coming. They can just keep on living in limbo, making themselves feel good about it because they have ambitions, like, y'know.

Sure they aren't all in this mold. But the ones that aren't are self-motivated. The Minister doesn't need to lose any sleep over them. She does need to be thinking hard, very hard, about what will shake up the others. And it isn't a hey girlfriend approach.

US unemployment reaches 9.7% and males take the biggest hit

On the same day that the Washington Post breaks the news that US unemployment has risen to 9.7%, the NCPA has run a piece about the growth of female employment;

Women held 49.83 percent of the nation's 132 million jobs in June and they're gaining the vast majority of jobs in the few sectors of the economy that are growing, according to the most recent numbers available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, says reporter Dennis Cauchon.

That's a record high for a measure that's been growing steadily for decades and accelerating during the recession. At the current pace, women will become a majority of workers in October or November.

From December 2007 to June 2009:

* Men have lost 74 percent of the 6.4 million jobs erased since the recession began in December 2007.
* Men have lost more than 3 million jobs in construction and manufacturing alone.

The only parts of the economy still growing -- health care, education and government -- have traditionally hired mostly women, says Cauchon. That dominance has increased in part because federal stimulus funding directed money to education, health care and state and local governments.

How does that compare to NZ?

Obviously our unemployment rate is much lower at 6 percent.

Over the last three June quarters (2007 - 2009) the numbers (millions) employed have looked like this;

Males 1.163 1.166 1.159
Females 1.009 1.023 1.011

So although when unemployment information was last released it was noted that females were taking the brunt, over two years they have actually fared better.

Looking at which sectors have continued to grow over the same period they are, as in the US, health and community services, and education. The only other sector to grow was business and financial services.

The sectors that actually generate wealth - construction, manufacturing, agriculture, forestry and fishing all shrank.

It's a worry.

(David has just objected that health indirectly creates wealth. Can't generate wealth without a healthy workforce he says. Can't pay for health without any wealth generation, I counter. I don't think it's a chicken and egg scenario. The wealth comes first. That is observable historically.)

Beat-up headline?

There isn't time to delve very deeply into this right now but the following headline has got to be the biggest beat-up;

DIY disasters kill nearly 600 a year

An average of 11 people died each week from accidents in their homes in the year to the end of June - an annual total of 573. That compares with the road toll last year of 366.

That is amazing. In 1993 157 people died from accidents at home (1996 NZ Yearbook, p180). The number has quadrupled? (Population in 1993 = 3.48 million.)

Unfortunately many elderly die from falls in the home. After age 75 the rate for women is higher than for men. Are they included in the 11 deaths per week?

Also the ACC website says ;

More people are injured at home than anywhere else in New Zealand. Children factor highly in our home injury statistics.....Each year 700 children cut themselves badly enough at home to be admitted to hospital.

Assuming there is some connection between injury and death some of the 11 deaths per week could include children.

No, I am very suspicious of this statistic. But it is Safety Week after all. Got to scare the sheeple.

Time to do nothing

Is the war on child abuse any different from the war on drugs or the war on poverty? They all feature escalating measures and escalating failure. Yet governments doggedly persist, doubtless justifying their actions internally by speculating that the statistics would be even worse if they did nothing (and that they need to be seen to be doing something or what rationale for their very existence?)

Pause for a moment. In the war on child abuse, what would a do nothing approach look like? Governments doing nothing sounds like a unthinkable abdication of responsibility. That is what you have been trained to think.

Fact; Most of the abuse goes on in beneficiary homes. Who or what created these homes? The bricks and mortar is often owned by the government and the occupants are paid to live by the government. These are homes created by social policy.

So the first do-nothing action could be to stop paying people to have babies they have no means of supporting. That would reduce the number of people doing just that, although some babies would still be born into untenable situations. Left to find their own solutions, people would sort out themselves who was best placed to care for and raise the child. That already goes on to a certain degree. Without any state benefits only the most motivated would be stepping forward. The most motivated would coincidentally also provide the best care.

Where children are still being subjected to abuse or neglect, the state then has a role in protecting that child's legal rights - but that's all.

Instead we get the Minister of do-something, as well as keeping current social policy settings unchanged, launching a whole new campaign against child abuse. She says she doesn't care what it costs. If it saves just one child it will be worth it (heard on TV last night). Of course Pharmac doesn't have the luxury of sitting around the table deciding which medicines to fund on this basis - just the Minister of do-something. Then she says it would appear a whole new generation of parents needs to relearn that shaking babies is dangerous. That means this exercise has to be repeated every generation because the state has to step in and do what the failed parent-educator (also a product of the state) doesn't.

You see. It's just a nauseatingly endless self-feeding cycle. Paula Bennett is like the mouse inside the tread wheel. Time to get off.

OECD warns against long-duration single-parent benefits

Media Release
OECD WARNS AGAINST LONG-DURATION, SINGLE-PARENT BENEFITS
Thursday, September 3, 2009

The OECD has just released a comparative report about child well-being across developed countries. New Zealand is described as having high child poverty rates.

Welfare Commentator Lindsay Mitchell said that while some child advocacy groups interpreted that as a signal more should be spent on welfare, that isn't what the report is recommending. Mitchell quoted the report as saying, "Some countries spend considerable amounts on long-duration single-parent benefits. There is little or no evidence that these benefits positively influence child well-being. Durations could be reduced and resources concentrated on improving family income during the early part of the life cycle for those children."

This means adopting a work-based anti-poverty strategy. The report looks at the effect of time-limiting and a number of welfare-to-work US programmes by reviewing the available research and finds;

"Overall, employment promotion pilots linked to making work pay have positive but modest short-term effects on some important dimensions of child well-being, in addition to reducing child poverty. Whether these effects can be sustained into better long-term outcomes for children from permanent polices remains unclear."

So those countries that have focussed their efforts on getting single parents into work have not seen a detrimental effect on children.

The report specifically mentions Norway where in 1998 benefits were raised by a fifth BUT a work or education test was imposed on the parent when the youngest child turned 3. Mitchell noted, "In NZ we wait until the youngest child turns 18. This is bad policy. "

As the report points out, "The indirect evidence from United States welfare-to-work experiments suggest that eligibility for such benefits until late in the child life cycle does not have positive effects on child well-being."

Mitchell says that the government should be paying attention to what the OECD advises. "After all, they campaigned on work testing the DPB."

More pathetic paternalism

Unless the NZ Herald has made a significant mistake a health economist is truly barking. He has proposed a Smartcard system for beneficiary and WFF recipients that "attract the subsidies of about $5 a week per child" to be used on healthy food.

We are talking about 300,000 children at the very least.

He estimated this would cost the Government around $100,000 a year.

Very strange maths. I figure it would cost $78 million. Perhaps he has worked in some 'benefits' from healthy eating by way of health savings. Or perhaps he is referring to the annual administration costs. Or perhaps this is the reimbursement he wants for continuing to mastermind such magnificent, medical intervention.

Whatever the reason behind this somewhat 'conservative' estimate, the suggestion is no more than another pathetically, paternalistic nanny-state-doing-your-thinking-for-you idea.

I thought he said he had bigger fish to fry?

What a lot of BS this is. Key says he hasn't got time for trivial stuff like the anti-smacking law but has the time to ponce about currying favour with the feminists.

Where is the Child Support review going?

A couple of weeks back there was some media reporting about the costs of raising children. The costs seemed over-inflated to me. As the research has been produced in advance of a review of the child support system a closer look is required.

The 21 page report, prepared by the IRD, uses a method used by Australia to estimate child costs as part of its child support reforms. The data comes from the Statistics NZ Household economic survey and comprises 930 households.

The actual formulas are hieroglyphics to me but here is what they produce;

The thing that is immediately obvious is the average low income is actually quite high when one considers that a majority of custodial parents are on a benefit. The lower the income, the higher the proportion the cost of raising a child becomes. If on an income of $450 a week the proportion rose to 24 percent the cost would be $108. But I am only guessing. Why didn't they model as low as that given the purpose of the research? Or wasn't their sample representative of typically low income custodial/liable parents? In which case, was it relevant?

Around half of the paying parents (approx 66,000) currently pay the minimum $14 per week (2007). The maximum level of child support payable (for the year ending 3/2010) is$577 per week, which just happens to be very close to the combined cost of two children (one in each age bracket) at an average income.

So beyond concluding that child support payments as they stand do not realistically meet the costs of raising children as modelled in this paper, it is very difficult to see where this review is going. You can't get blood out of a stone. Upping demands on higher income liable parents or upping state support?

The problematic child support system is anyway largely a side effect of the DPB. That's where attention needs to be focussed.