Bits and pieces

Bits and pieces this morning.

The Welfare State We're In looks at welfare in Italy:

In Italy, pensions are the biggest item. Social assistance or tax-fund benefits for the unemployed, lone mothers, children etc are very small compared to the UK. Low benefits for lone parents surely has had a major influence in the very low rate of lone parenting. (There are Catholic countries which have far higher rates.) In fact a professor told me, “The lone mothers are wealthy”. He did not mean they get high benefits. Only wealthy women can afford to be lone mothers.

NCPA covers off the problem with social entitlements:

Freedom and entitlement are largely two different paradigms to think about the fundamentals of economic development. Depending on the balance between free choices and more coerced decisions, individual opportunities to learn, own, work, save, invest, trade, protect and so forth could vary greatly across countries and over time, says Jean-Pierre Chauffour, lead economist in the International Trade Department at the World Bank...For developed countries, they suggest that prioritizing economic freedom over social entitlements could be an effective way to reform the welfare state and make it more sustainable and equitable in the long run.

Don Brash sticks to economic matters addressing a Federated Farmers meeting in Southland. Good. Less pleased to see latest polling but its very early days.

Mr Brash criticised the National Government for not having the courage or willingness to repeal some of the previous Labour government's "dopier policies", such as interest-free student loans and KiwiSaver subsidies. They did not help from a government policy point of view and required more overseas borrowing to afford the schemes.

If ACT gained power or influence, it would aim to cut out "sillier programmes" that Labour had introduced, he said.

The National Government might not have created the economic mess the country was in, but it failed to draw it back. It should not have taken three budgets to introduce a more austere one when the global financial crisis was developing, Mr Brash said.

Many of ACT's policies were what National had been promoting at the previous election.

And Tariana Turia goes all flowery launching the WE CARE SOCIAL AWARENESS campaign. What a lot of bollocks.

Some of you in this room may be gardeners. For those who are not, let me share with you a little secret.

There is no such thing as a green thumb.

There are gardeners who care – whose gardens reflect the quality of care they are exposed to. That care might extend to some pretty unorthodox approaches – gardening under moonlight; with mood music; with teabags or potato peelings as fertiliser….but whatever it is, the quality of care is immediately observable by the vibrancy and the strength of the plants.

Today we are talking about a different garden – the garden of humanity.

It isn't so much what she says that I object to but that government is all over the issue and arena of caring. It is their interference that breaks down the natural networks that provide care. Which takes me back to where I started, with a further quote from James Bartholemew about the Italian welfare system:

The Mediterranean system. This is centred around the ideal of the family as the first resort for welfare. Children and the elderly are considered firstly as the responsibility of the family. The state’s role is only to assist the family in doing this task.