Exercise programme

I tried it, I liked it, you will too!!

The older we get the more important it is to incorporate exercise into our daily routine. This is necessary to maintain cardiovascular health and maintain muscle mass.

If you're over 40, you might want to take it easy at first, then do more repetitions as you become more proficient and build stamina. Warning: It may be too strenuous for some.


Always consult your doctor before starting any exercise program!



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NOW SCROLL UP..

That's enough for the first day. Great job.

Have a glass of wine.

The true extent of unemployment

Most people don't know how the official unemployment rate is calculated. Most are surprised when they find out.

The government, via Statistics New Zealand, conducts a survey called the Household Labour Force Survey. Citizens are recruited into the survey and must participate for two years. Every three months they are phoned and questioned about their work habits and those of other household members. Through the questions it is ascertained whether or not the participant (and any other adult members of the household) is employed. At any given time 15,000 households participate.

The current official unemployment rate gleaned from the survey is 6 percent.

The unemployment rate is not a reflection of people registering at Work and Income. If it was, the number would be considerably higher. For instance, at June 2009 310,000 working-age (18-64 years) people were receiving a benefit (unemployment, sickness, invalid or domestic purposes, etc). That represents around 12 percent of the working age population or 1 in 8 people.

There is good reason to assert this figure is a better representation of the true unemployment rate. Regardless of the reason somebody is reliant on welfare they are unable to support themselves through paid work or other means . They are not employed.

It would also be a fair suggestion to add to this figure those people who are long-term ACC claimants. During the year to June 2008 there were around 108,000 people claiming weekly compensation from ACC; 23,000 had been receiving compensation for 1 year or more. If last year's figures are similar, that would add another 1 percent the 12 percent who are on benefits. Perhaps an accurate unemployment rate hovers around 13 percent.

Certainly there is nothing scientific about these rough calculations . But they serve to show that an unemployment rate of 6 percent is not telling us a great deal about the ratio of dependent working-age people to non-dependent.

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Prior to the creation of the HLFS the only source of information about unemployment was the census or the number of unemployment benefits claimed. It is rather sobering to take a look at what those figures looked like in the mid-1960s.

5,125 males were unemployed on census night in 1966. Most of the unemployment must have been a temporary affair however given that throughout the sixties there were only ever a couple of hundred people on the unemployment benefit. In 1965 there were only 28,000 people receiving working-age benefits - the majority, a Widow's benefit. There was no ACC. The population was around 2.6 million.

Fewer than 30,000 dependent people then, compared to over 300,000 today. A ten-fold increase with less than a doubling of the population.

How the world has changed. New Zealand's modern benefit system reminds me of the famous quote, "Build it and they will come.

He who laughs last....

Guess who owns this up and coming horse?









Here's a clue.

Doggy freedom

Speeches by politicians are best avoided in my experience. Full of banal, platitudinous, dreary waffle.

But I rather liked this one from Rodney Hide, quoting John Stuart Mill in an effort to get his audience, the NZ Companion Animal Conference, thinking about some basic principles.

I stand for freedom. I take the view, and apply it as Minister, that less government is good government. I think government should leave people as free as possible.

I believe hand-in-hand with individual freedom comes personal responsibility.

Too many people want to be free to do as they please but then aren’t prepared to accept the consequences of their own decisions and actions. They prefer to offload the consequences to others.

The fact is we can’t enjoy individual freedom unless we also accept personal responsibility.

This belief is probably more popular in the abstract than in everyday life.

Faced with any problem, an awful lot of people immediately think that ‘there should be a law against it’. And an awful lot of legislators, listening to the people as they should, agree, and pass a law against it. Sometimes, this law works, and things get better. But mostly it doesn’t.

I think the lowering of road deaths is an example of stronger laws and heavier enforcement producing a good result. Sure we have had to accept random breath tests, but our roads are undoubtedly safer as a result. That’s a small price to pay for reducing the carnage on our roads.

My belief in the need for individual freedom and personal responsibility impacts directly on my job as Minister of Local Government, which includes consideration of the country’s dog laws.

I want to announce today that I have asked officials to begin thinking about a first-principles review of the dog laws.

I have not asked that this be a priority, because I think the government has more important things to do. But I expect that sometime in 2011, you may be asked for your views.

In the meantime, the present laws will apply, although I hope that local authorities will work hard to ensure the emphasis is on freedom, rather than restriction.

I do not know what will emerge from such a first-principles review. In the lead-up to it, we can all do some thinking. Here’s mine: John Stuart Mill, the great 19th-century advocate of freedom, was responsible for what we know as the ‘harm principle’. It says 'the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection'.

More

Misleading headline?

The headline from yesterday reads,

Increase in benefit numbers smaller for Sept

Unfortunately the only benefit statistic released was the unemployment benefit.

Which makes me wary.

It is nevertheless good news that fewer people have needed to resort to the dole.

Don't tell the OECD

The OECD is nagging Australia about not letting the unemployed gravitate to disability benefits. That is because only a small percentage ever come off them. The OECD says;

Disability benefit receipt has almost doubled in Australia since 1990, with the biggest growth among the working-age population.

Better keep them away from NZ or they'll be nagging us too. The number of people receiving a sickness or invalid's benefit here has almost trebled since 1990, from 47,000 to 140,000.

I wonder if Paula mentioned that last week when she was in Paris detailing to other employment Ministers at an OECD-hosted meeting how well NZ does in keeping people off benefits. What was it she said again?

"Unlike other countries, we don’t hand over a benefit and then offer to help someone find work."

Australians discovering extent of welfare-upbringing disadvantage

The Australian National University has been conducting an ongoing survey into young people, their experiences and attitudes. It involves participation of some 4,000 youth accessed through Centrelink (Work and income equivalent) records. Some of their latest findings were presented to the Australian Conference of Economists last week. The Melbourne Age reports;

Young people who have grown up in welfare-dependent families are disadvantaged in more ways than has previously been realised, a study shows.

From much higher rates of asthma and hospitalisation to much lower rates of post-school study and entry to university, the young are likely to suffer the disadvantages of their parents....

..."People have suspected these differences but I'm not sure we knew of the extent of the disadvantage and the breadth," Professor Cobb-Clark said.

Specific measurements of various differences are provided. Frankly, unlike Professor Cobb-Clark, I am surprised that the differences weren't greater. It may be that there is a positive bias because participation in the survey was voluntary so the sample is a more motivated group.

The Centre for Independent Studies says;

"Welfare campaigners this week lobbied the government to lift unemployment benefits, after the OECD revealed that more than half the jobless households in Australia are ‘poor’: with incomes less than half of the median.

But acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard did not take the bait, standing by the government’s decision not to increase unemployment benefits and payments for sole parents in this year’s budget.

Gillard was right to stay firm. More work, not more welfare, is what these families need to improve their economic situation and the well-being of their children.

One in eight kids now lives in a jobless household. Most of us instinctively appreciate that the striking disadvantage they face extends well beyond the purely economic.

Fairfax’s Adele Horin reported yesterday on new research from the Youth in Focus study released at the Australian Conference of Economists this week. It highlights just how destructive welfare and parental joblessness is for these kids.

If welfare rights campaigners who this week attacked the government really want to improve the lives of those they claim to help, they could start by recognising that making welfare more attractive will only intensify their problems."

Couldn't agree more.

Worst excesses of welfare; UK and NZ parallels

The destructive practice of paying women to have babies with casual acquaintances is starting to permeate the collective consciousness of the UK population. Even PM Gordon Brown is starting to talk about the ill-advised policy that pays 16 and 17 year-old mothers to live 'independently' in council flats.

A friend has just returned from the UK. She brought with her an article from the Daily Mail, knowing I would be interested. Fortunately it is also on-line. Here I will excerpt pieces and draw New Zealand parallels.

It opens;

Machetes by the door, drugs on the table - and mothers paid by the state to have babies with men they barely know. What HAVE we done to the British family? It's the most destructive crisis of our age - a generation of violent, illiterate, lawless young men living outside civilised society.

New Zealand - A prison population at an all-time high, convictions for violence at an all time high, gangs that are getting more vicious with no shortage of newcomers.

It always started the same way, he said: he'd start seeing a woman, and she'd tell him she was on the Pill.

Then two weeks later: 'Bang, she gets pregnant.' There was never any discussion about the pregnancy.

As far as he was concerned, they were barely an item at that stage - and they were certainly not about to move in together.

So why did these women choose to have babies by a man they barely knew?

Prince, who is 37, laid the blame squarely on benefits: 'Women get money from the Government; men get eradicated. What do you need a man for? The Government has taken our place.

Politicians, for their part, blame the rising numbers of troubled children on the breakdown of the family and the absence of fathers.

This is a fundamental mistake: they are presuming there is a family in the first place.

Above all, the Government needs to recognise that benefits are a powerful incentive, particularly for young girls.

For the past few years, Britain has had the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe, with 90 per cent of births occurring outside marriage.

The British teenage birth rate (27 per 1,000 15-19 year-olds) is behind New Zealand's at 32 (and for Maori it rises to 80). There is a marked correlation between the high Maori teenage birthrate and high Maori crime rate.

An overhaul of the benefit system is clearly at the heart of transforming the lives of disadvantaged children. But to accuse their mothers of being feckless is unjust: they are merely responding to the economics of the situation.

They have grasped the consequences of our poor education system better than our politicians ever have.

Last year, less than half of teenagers finished compulsory schooling with five good GSCEs that included maths and English. Of those, the ones who do worst of all are children from lowincome families.

Then what happens? The boys take to crime - and the girls get pregnant.

Incredibly, more than a quarter of British children are now raised in single-parent families - and nine out of ten of them are headed by women.

At the last census 28 percent of New Zealand families with dependent children were headed by a single parent - eight out of ten are women. Male single parenthood is more common among Maori probably accounting for the gender difference with the UK.

What future is there in Britain today for a girl without qualifications?

Skilled and hard-working immigrants now monopolise menial jobs, and the next step up - a job, for example, in catering or hairdressing - pays about £10,000 a year before tax.

Which is slightly less than a girl with two children receives in benefits, and without the incentive of somewhere to live rent-free.

In Streatham, South London, I overheard two young girls pushing buggies talking about a friend. 'Why she got pregnant?' asked one. 'She's got a good job!'

In other words, if you were in well-paid employment, with good prospects, there was no reason to have children.

The average income for 18-24 year-olds is $384 - below the average income of a single parent on the DPB.

Sir Norman Bettison, chief constable of West Yorkshire Police, summed up the situation starkly: 'We are talking here about the perverting influence of welfare. The more kids you have, the more money you get.'

In New Zealand around 5,000 babies are added to an existing benefit each year.

Many single mothers are excellent parents, of course. But the Government has put disadvantaged girls in a position where the only career open to them, the only possibility of an independent life, is to have children - whether they want to or not, whether they are likely to be good mothers or not.

The state, as Prince pointed out, has indeed taken over the role of both husband and employer.

With a combination of financial incentives and poor schools, it is ensuring a steady supply of babies who start life with all the factors in place to become the next generation living on benefits or the proceeds of crime.

What is the Government doing about this cynical cycle of deprivation?

Over the past few years, it has come up with a plethora of schemes to intervene ever earlier in the life of a disadvantaged child. In other words, it has concentrated on the consequences of single parenthood - but not the cause.

Ditto, ditto, ditto for NZ. Last week the latest was announced. Getting parents back into the class room to teach them how to raise their ill-disciplined children.

What is the point of setting targets to end child poverty when the Government's policies are creating tomorrow's poorest children - and grandchildren?

Exactly. See my post about the Maori Party targets to end child poverty.

So why hasn't the Government reformed the benefit system? It's as if they're offering car drivers a bonus for every crash - then acting surprised when accidents shoot up.

Good analogy. Cash is offered to teenagers to have babies and then hands are rung over the rising teenage birthrate. The only defence of this stupidity is that the two are not related. Yet research has shown the two are related.

The absence of a male role model has a particularly profound effect on disadvantaged boys during their teenage years.

A third of 14-to-25-year-olds questioned for a survey by the Prince's Trust did not have a parent whom they considered a role model.

More than half said they'd joined a gang to acquire a sense of identity, while a quarter said they were in search of someone to look up to.

These boys are unlikely to find male role models in schools. The number of male teachers has slumped to its lowest level in at least 20 years; and in primary school, 85 per cent of teachers are female. Even in youth offending teams, women make up the majority of the staff.

This year, according to the latest research, one in three children who live with a single mother will spend less than six hours a week with a male role model - whether a father figure, relative or teacher.

All the odds are stacked against them. Even children on the 'at risk' register are five times more likely to have single teenage mothers - as Prince knows all too well.

Two of his children, he discovered recently, were being neglected by their 19-year-old mother.

'The house was like a crack house: dirty clothes everywhere,' he said. 'She fed them crappy food, she left the kids [to] fall asleep in front of the TV. My boy was underweight and quiet.'

Social services removed the children and gave them to their maternal grandmother to bring up. But Prince's ex-girlfriend, he says, has made no attempt to get her children back.

He shrugged. 'She's never had a job. She's lived off the Government and what men give her.'

'Prince' is no prince either. His holier than thou tone is somewhat derisible. But he is spot on when he sums up the situation. The government has usurped fathers and the vital role they play, causing massive social problems. And that is no less true in this country.

"Capitalism needs to lift its game."

Karl Du Fresne has a very readable column posted entitled, Capitalism needs to lift its game.

Essentially we blame systems instead of the individuals tainting them. Capitalism gets a bad name because of greedy, immoral people. The law gets a bad name because of exploitive, dissolute lawyers. Democracy gets a bad name because of unprincipled, power-hungry politicians.

It doesn't follow that we throw out the systems.

Ah, but you might say, the welfare state gets a bad name because of abusive, free-loading types and yet you want to fundamentally change it. True. But that is because it hasn't proved itself to be the best option. Unlike capitalism which, as Du Fresne writes,

"...is the only economic system that has consistently demonstrated, over time, that it can improve the human condition. That’s why all the most humane, liberal, advanced societies in the world have capitalist economies."

Frankly, I would settle for a large reduction in the size of the welfare state but its inbuilt mechanisms mean it will always tend towards growth. There-in lies the conundrum.

I voted for Dane

Last night was the grand final of Homai Te Pakipaki. I voted for Dane Moeke - not because his was the best performance on the night. But because he has the most talent. Unfortunately last night it was looking raw, almost undercooked.

At every performance Dane has tackled songs that have stretched his voice. His first performance of I Will Always Love You was amazing - a much overused word that I rarely use. And two weeks ago he took on the Celine Dion number, My Heart Will Go On. Apart from one crack, again he delivered the crescendos powerfully and left me transfixed.

But last night he bit off more than he could chew. I don't know whether the song was his choice but he could have done with better advice.

The winner, Roland Williams, sang Me and Mrs Jones superbly but it's a safe choice for any half decent male singer. And he does have the x factor going on with the ladies. He was the only danger to Dane.

But Dane. You were the winner of the series on sheer potential and for having the guts to push it. Today go watch Little Miss Sunshine because it'll lift your spirits and it has a message that you need to take to heart. Winners are the ones who never give up. If I don't hear you sing again I will be much the poorer for it.

Blog stats

Exceeded 6,000 visits for first time ever last month.

Thanks for staying tuned in. And leaving comments which I (nearly) always appreciate. And for being civil and considered.

Children of the last recession

There are social trends happening here - and in other similar developed countries - which demand some attention.

It is true that through the second half of the nineties and early part of the 2000s some social indicators were heading in the right direction. But inexplicably they reversed. No. It wasn't the advent of tougher economic times because the trends reversed in advance.

Examples; Teenage birth, drinking and driving, crime in general, homelessness (anecdotally), youth suicide?

A couple of these are exclusively functions of the young, others, disproportionately. But there hasn't been a demographic blip. I have another theory.

The change is driven by the children born in the last recession who have been hitting adolescence and young adulthood. In 1990-1992 welfare dependence was very heavy. There were far more young people on welfare than ever before. They were abusing alcohol and other substances in greater numbers than before. Many, subsequently, never left the welfare ranks. Thus their children were affected pre- and post birth by their lifestyles. Many are disaffected and lawless. And probably mentally disturbed.

Huge hike in cannabis offences

Oh yes. Prohibition is a wonderful deterrent.



Recorded cannabis offences rose by almost 26 percent in the year to June 2009.

Police downplay rising crime

The June quarter crime statistics have just been released and they aren't good. What irks me no end is the spin the police put on them.

There were 442,540 recorded offences compared with 426,690 for last year, an increase of 3.7 percent. During this time New Zealand's resident population increased by approximately one percent. So, the recorded offence rate per head of population increased by only 2.8 percent.

'Only' be damned.

That's 15,850 more offences. Many, many more victims of crime.

It is the job of the police to prevent crime, not to normalise or downplay it.

What are you going to do when you grow up?

My generation commonly referred to adults as 'grown-ups'. I suppose it was the natural extension of the often-asked question, what are you going to be when you grow up? Or, what are you going to do when you grow up?

I am going to have kids, then I am going back to school to learn how to be a grown-up.

But Anne Tolley says nobody can force you to. Not even Work and Income.

That's good. 'Cause I was about as interested in a second time round as I am in the first.

Well if you aren't interested in learning how to be a grown-up from strangers, what about your own mum and dad?

What dad?

Well what about your mum?

She's too busy.

Doing what?

Going to school learning how to be a grown-up