Why the vacuum around the new Children's Commissioner?

For those of us who take an interest in child welfare and listen to various media outlets, Jane Searle is a familiar voice. As head of the organisation Child Matters, she was often the go-to person when child abuse deaths occur. As an ex detective who worked in a child abuse team, Jane wasn't afraid to talk about contributing factors such as drug addiction. My first response to her appointment was that she would have to be better than the wet Claire Achmad.

So naturally I am keen to hear what she has to say in her new capacity as Children's Commissioner but can find very little. Here's why:

"Children's Commissioner Jane Searle will be available for media interviews from Monday 17 August."

So she has two weeks grace to get her feet under the table and familiarise herself. Is that unusual? Perhaps the news of her appointment (from August 1) was prematurely leaked? Perhaps because the outgoing Commissioner was going reluctantly?

The single media report I can find is at Waatea News:

"For Māori communities, the appointment comes amid continuing concerns about the disproportionate number of tamariki Māori involved in the state care system and ongoing calls for culturally responsive approaches that strengthen whānau, whakapapa and community connections."

Here we are presented with the Maori worldview (or te ao perspective) which I am not sure Searle is particularly onboard with due to previous comments about the politicisation of Oranga Tamariki and staff inability to just get on with the basics.

But before Searle is available for interviews she was available to the local marae.

Louise Upston wrote on Instagram yesterday:

"This week I joined in welcoming new Children’s Commissioner Jane Searle at Waiwhetū Marae. I know Jane will be a fierce and independent advocate for children. She stands in good stead for the role, with more than 15 years’ combined experience in different parts of the children’s sector, including child protection. Thanks to outgoing Children’s Commissioner Dr Claire Achmad for her passion and advocacy for young people. Go well."

Some people are getting to hear from the new Commissioner.

So in a vacuum I'll have to do my own research and draw my own conclusions.

In a media announcement about her appointment Searle said:

“There are approximately 1.2 million children in New Zealand. Of those, 170,000 live in material hardship. What’s more, tragically last year alone eight children were killed at the hands of someone else, while thousands more live with severe abuse and neglect.

“These are the children who deserve our priority attention. Too often, they are unknown, uncounted, and unseen by the system. They deserve to be supported, and they deserve a safe, successful future.”

My personal view is that the best advocate for the vast majority of children is their own parents. While I agree with her prioritisation of children living with severe abuse and neglect, straight away it is implied that material hardship and severe abuse are linked.

In 2024 Searle did an interview with Mike Hosking:

Child poverty continues to increase, coming as no surprise to frontline organisations

The latest Stats NZ figures show a two percent rise to 12.5% of all children are living in households that can't afford the basics.

Child Matters chief executive Jane Searle says the numbers of two-income families needing the help of community initiatives has risen substantially.

She told Mike Hosking that the "working poor" is now something they're seeing all the time."

Ironically this is the exact same line the outgoing Commissioner was pushing to Jack Tame at the weekend. It indicates an excessive focus on child poverty as a cause for child maltreatment.

Sean Plunket challenged Searle on this association in an interview in 2022 about the death of Ruthless Empire. He said he was not going to let people get away with killing a child because, " 'I couldn't pay the grocery bills and I was unemployed.' You cannot use the economic circumstance to justify barbarism." Searle agreed saying that New Zealand has high levels of methamphetamine use. Specifically, "Methamphetamine's had a huge impact on child abuse." She added that drug addiction, housing and untreated mental health issues all increased risk for children.

The following year she spoke with Michael Laws (who will probably be an MP later this year), again on the issue of child abuse after another high profile case. Laws asked, Why is it that it nearly always transpires that OT knew about the child concerned yet did nothing or not enough? Searle said Oranga Tamariki was not fit for purpose. That there are huge issues with the culture, workload, training, leadership and there has been for thirty years. Of course that criticism was laid while Labour was still the government.

But in April last year she told Ryan Bridge that OT was " ...a very big ship to turn around and it is going to take years. We always knew that. But this shows that the capacity is still not what it should be. If wait lists are still growing it's going to increase risk. There's no way around that."

She constantly calls for more resourcing to tackle child abuse. But what sector isn't calling for greater resource?

Early intervention is also one of her 'solutions'. Few would disagree but what does that mean in practical terms? Uplifting babies? We have seen the massive opposition from Maori over that particular state power. As Children's Commissioner she will have to take a stand on a number of contentious issues. Where will she land?

Her time and experience in police child abuse teams led to her promoting mandatory reporting - timely, given National MP Andrew Bayley's bill to criminalise non-reporting - though that position could change.

I am concerned that she will concentrate on child protection (the bottom of the cliff) rather than looking at what creates the circumstances which lead to maltreatment. Will she advocate for actually using the predictive risk modelling AUT pioneered but Anne Tolley rejected? Data behind the modelling showed:

“Of all children having a finding of maltreatment by age 5, 83% are seen on a benefit before age 2, translating into a very high “capture” rate.”

To this best of my knowledge I am unaware of Searle ever talking about the connection between welfare and child abuse.

I hope that she does remain a "fierce and independent" voice for children as promised by the Minister, and isn't captured by the Wellington wokery or Maori separatists. Advocacy is a waste of time if it doesn't translate into action.

Outgoing Children's Commissioner calls for bigger benefits as swansong

Outgoing Children's Commissioner calls for bigger benefits as swansong.

Today on Q&A outgoing Children's Commissioner Claire Achmad  told Jack Tame the idea that work alone will lift children out of poverty is a "fallacy". 

Yet the US evidence says the opposite.

NZ has a very high rate of sole parent benefit dependency. So did the US. The two countries share the family breakdown of African Americans and Maori. The Maori ex-nuptial birthrate is currently 81 percent and Maori make-up 51 percent of sole parent beneficiaries (with a recorded ethnicity).

Under a Democratic administration the US reformed its welfare benefit for families (not specifically but frequently headed by a single parent) in 1996. AFDC - Aid for Families with Dependent Children - became TANF - Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Time limits and work requirements were introduced.

Here's what happened:

 

Source of graphs

Achmad wants both wages and benefits to increase. But what about the gap between them needed to  incentivise work? 

And has she chosen to ignore NZ research that shows children in poor families whose source of income comes from the market, fare much better than children in poor families whose income comes from the government?

To summarise, the findings show that poor children reliant on government transfers, when compared with poor children reliant on market incomes, have lower living standards and a number of compounding shortfalls that can be expected to place them at greater risk of negative outcomes. 

Claire Achmad has no understanding of behavioural economics. Or any other kind of economics.

She sat with Jack Tame on Q & A today talking like a clone of Jacinda Ardern. The similarity of ill-informed ideas, expression thereof and mannerisms was astounding.

Of course her appointment couldn't be extended. Her advocacy is thoroughly misguided and to that extent, would only ever worsen children's life chances in general.

Perhaps her recent vacuous virtue-signaling campaign should serve to illustrate just how badly she needed to go. Her petition Dear Children gathered, after seven months, the grand total of 4,385 signatures. Not even her fellow travelers were roused.

National are not promising you anything except other people's money

National are not promising you anything except other people's money. 

The latest example, having historically opposed Paid Parental Leave, they are now promising to extend it further. This is what they famously did with the Clark government's Working for Families which sealed the 2005 election for Labour. Remember John Key and his scathing comment about 'communism by stealth'? He had three terms to repeal but it is still with us. In this term National have increased payments.

This is what National does, over and over. They opposed most of the Ardern/Sepuloni welfare reforms like the Best Start payment, removing the requirement to name fathers and no longer using child support to offset the Sole Parent benefit. Come to power and they are silent.

They repeatedly cave in, which earns them a justifiable reputation as 'Labour lite'. 

That drags the political centre to the left. That forces the parties on the left to push the boat out even further, and what was radical becomes palatable and then acceptable.

That's the story of the last 35 years.

Returning to National's latest about-face it is embarrassingly obvious that National is hunting the female vote. Women vote left in larger numbers than men. So to keep their jobs National need to be woman-friendly.

But who are they doing a disservice to in the process?

By dragging us left each time they gets their hands on the reins (while all the time promising to save us from the left) they enable more redistribution of taxes. There are now new taxes being proposed at this campaign like capital gains, asset, inheritance and land tax.

National doesn't save us from 'communism by stealth'. It enables it.

Only  principled  opposition, with enough power to be effective, will lead us back towards personal responsibility and prosperity.

Probably it's too late as even ACT - ridiculously labelled 'far right' - seems to suffer from a milder form of the same syndrome. Yes, I understand there is a generational influence at play. Yes, politics is the art of the possible.

But while entitlement only ever seems to expand, its capacity to do so is limited.

Winston Churchill said it best:

"For a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."

Christians electioneering

A report from the Chief Executive of the NZ Council of Christian Social Services has made some headlines this morning. It's called Kua Mahue/ Left Behind: Poverty in Aotearoa in 2026

None of the content particularly surprises. Lots of statistics (many quite dated) about who is in poverty, followed by the 'drivers and determinants' which include unemployment, inadequate benefits, debt, lack of social housing, the fuel crisis, climate change, poor mental health, discrimination and colonisation - specifically, "The failure of the Crown to protect the social and economic wellbeing of Maori [which] breaches the obligations of Te Tiriti." Then the 'cure'.

I wait with bated breath for someone purportedly representing Christians to mention other drivers such as, having children with no means to support them, separation, alcohol and substance abuse and addiction, not acquiring educational qualifications or skills, committing crime.  But that would involve blaming the individual instead of the 'system'. That would be judgmental and an anathema to those operating in this space.

What space is that?

The author of the report completed a postgraduate degree between 2014 and 2016 which "focused heavily on inequality and social policy in Aotearoa."  She went on to become a political advisor to the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern and a senior political advisor to Hon Carmel Sepuloni. No disclaimer is made with the report.

Yet the recommendations it makes are totally political:

Introduce a Poverty Reduction Act to commit to freeing New Zealanders from Poverty; increase benefits and reduce sanctions; index benefits back to CPI or wages - whichever is higher; restore a benefit akin to the old sickness benefit with a higher payment rate; allow beneficiaries to earn more from work without losing their benefit; build more social housing; introduce GST rebates on food for low income families and remove asset thresholds for those who need or already receive the accommodation supplement.

Right out of the Labour or Green Party playbooks.

I'd be happy to take a bet with anyone that we will eventually see the author running for parliament.

She typifies the career politician on the left. 

What frustrates though is, faced with the evidence of policy failure, she still demands more of the same.

The report states:

"In 2018, in response to the rising rate of child poverty in Aotearoa, the Government introduced the Child Poverty Reduction Act. Under the Act, the Government is required to set three- and ten-year targets, while how New Zealand is tracking against the measures is reported annually through data from the Household Income and Living Survey (HILS) (previously the Household Economic Survey). In 2026, 8 years after the Act’s introduction, these targets have not been achieved, with no significant reduction in child poverty rates, despite initial improvements following the 2021 Wellbeing budget."

Despite the failure of the Child Poverty Reduction Act the author calls for yet more legislation, namely the Poverty Reduction Act.

Welfare has not made New Zealand a stronger, more cohesive and productive society. Unemployment is 5.3 percent - not high by historical standards (though the author may not recall the 1990s and the GFC). The low-skilled say they can't find jobs yet migrants come here and work in arduous, often vital roles many New Zealanders have turned their backs on. Because they can. Interviewed about the report a Salvation Army spokesperson said, "Around 10 percent of those needing food support are in employment." Meaning ninety percent are on welfare.

Being 'in poverty' is predominantly about being on welfare long-term and the associated mind-set. The country needs less welfare dependence, not more, which is what bigger and better benefits inevitably lead to. If the current 12.8 percent of working-age people on welfare was significantly reduced, the genuinely needy could be better taken care of.

But here comes the next generation of socialists determined to build a nirvana through tax-and- redistribute policies that simply do not work and never will.

Residents must retain their right to participate

According to Treasury, "People present in New Zealand each year are increasingly non-NZ citizens":

"In 2024, there were 476,000 resident visa holders to spend at least one day in New Zealand, and 705,000 holders of permanent resident visas."

Residents who have lived in NZ for at least a year can vote. But Winston Peters wants to prevent several hundred thousand people who work and pay taxes in NZ from doing so.

Many of these people will have citizen applications in process.

For years I had tenants who were honest, employed, totally reliable, wanting to make NZ home but were in the long-winded queue for citizenship. I know because I signed related papers on their behalf and frequently queried their progress. They were English, Colombian, and Malaysian.

But NZ First is quite happy to tax and rate residents yet deny them the right to participate in the democratic process.

Stuff also reports:

"Speaking at a campaign meeting in Warkworth on Sunday, Peters said the party would end voting rights for permanent residents, arguing that deciding New Zealand’s future should be “the privilege of those who have sworn allegiance to New Zealand”."

One can't help but wonder which 'New Zealand' he refers to? Is that the one governed by the Crown or the growing dystopian parallel version envisaged by those who claim Maori never ceded sovereignty? Including the leader of the Labour Party.

The whole business of loyalty to NZ is fraught given the turmoil of the last decade. How many  politicians have been described in traitorous terms? How often are NZ leaders accused of being mere puppets whose strings are pulled by globalists?

I have no idea about the veracity of those claims but to hear Winston speak about 'allegiance to NZ' as if it is something all citizens share by virtue of their citizenry is laughable.

Loyalty to New Zealand is a subjective can of worms.

So reverting to an objective argument, people who live here, work here, pay taxes and contribute in many other ways must have a say in the laws that affect them.

On the weekend of the 250th birthday of American Independence its worth remembering the clarion cry of the American Founding Fathers - no taxation without representation.

TOP's Citizen's Income policy

 

Source: Opportunity Tax Reset policy

Let's look at the costings first.

Each Citizen's Income would be $19,400 annually. At December 2025 there were 4,161,400 aged 18 and over, so the "headline CI cost" would be $80.731 billion.

Because TOP's proposed income tax rate up to $50,000 is 28 percent, there is "Tax Clawback." Above they have calculated it at 33.57% which on the updated headline cost would be ($27.101 billion). The CI is not tax-free as Lisa Owen reported it on RNZ last week.

The current cost of the benefits being replaced is:

Jobseeker Support and Emergency Benefit $4.614 billion

Sole Parent Support $2.255 billion

Student Allowance $0.574 billion

Supported Living Payment $2.558 billion

Super $23.191 billion

Totaling: ($33.192 billion)

That leaves a Net cost of CI at $20.438 billion. (TOP's 2024 costing is $15.788 billion)

The next item is Net Supplementary Support cost. Now it starts to get complicated (especially for a system that is apparently simple to administer and will save $3.825 billion in MSD and IRD administrative costs.)

According to their document:

"For most people, the Citizens’ Income will not be enough to live on. Many New Zealanders need additional income to support themselves and their families, and can not necessarily be expected to obtain it from employment. The current system of benefits and tax credits is complex, punitive, and expensive to administer. We will replace the bulk of it with the following universal supplementary supports:

• All parents will receive the following tax free Child Support Incomes

• First year: First child $18,250 ; Each subsequent child $17,250

• Second year: First child $13,750 ; Each subsequent child $12,750

• Third year: First child $13,750 ; Each subsequent child $12,750

• Years 4-18: First child $7,750 ; Each subsequent child $6,750

• These Child Support Incomes replace: Working for families payments (family

tax credit and in work tax credit), Paid Parental Leave payments, and Best

Start payments. They will be available for all parents, are not reliant on parents

attending work, training, or study nor children attending a daycare service. This

saves extensive bureaucratic costs and gives parents more freedom of choice.

The 20 hours subsidy for children aged 3 and over to attend Early Childhood

Education is unchanged.

• Sole parents will receive an additional allowance of $9,500 per annum

• A disability allowance of $6,000

• Superannuitant top-ups of $5,250 in total for a couple or $10,000 for a single

person

• Housing Support Income payments based on regional housing costs but

averaging $10,500 for families and $6,500 for couples and singles.

Each type of support will gradually reduce by 10 cents for every extra dollar earnt,

starting from household income between $50,000 and $75,000. This efficiently

ensures that the most support goes to those who need it the most."

Let's look at each of those items.

Child Support

According to the IRD, in the 2023-24 tax year (the period 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024), 328,400 eligible families representing 656,500 children received a total of $3.043 billion from Working for Families, or an average of $9,269 per family.

TOP's proposed Child Support Incomes appear well in excess of this averaging approximately $8,500 per child - not per family. The supplementary support abatement may reduce this but at face value their child support bill would be $5.58 billion.

Sole Parents
There are more than 100,000 sole parents. That's around $1 billion.

Superannuitants

There are 928,000 superannuitants, with around a third single. So $3 billion for singles and $3.2 billion for couples. Again the supplementary support abatement will claw back some.

Disability and Housing

Disability and housing support currently cost the government $4.55 billion so the replacement support is unlikely to be lower than that.

My running total for the supplementary support is $17.33

Can all of this be paid for out of the $15.614 billion listed? I can't answer this as I am not privvy to their workings but I am dubious.

And what does their abatement policy actually mean?

I asked an economist for their take writing:

TOP says "Each type of support will gradually reduce by 10 cents for every extra dollar earnt, starting from household income between $50,000 and $75,000. This efficiently ensures that the most support goes to those who need it the most."

So, for example, one type of support is a sole parent allowance of $9,500. Am I correct in calculating that the sole parent could earn a further $95,000 (over her nominated household income threshold) before losing her sole parent allowance?

How does that square with support going to "those that need it the most?"

Or am I misunderstanding the reduction?

The economist's response contained the following possible interpretation:

"Your reading seems to be the natural one but they could have higher abatement rates for incomes above $75k, just unstated."

More complexity?

On the information provided it is impossible to know whether TOP's supplementary costs are valid. If the government makes a change in tax settings affecting families they usually provide examples of how typical households will be affected. TOP doesn't do this. Quite possibly because it would highlight the complexity of their supplementary support regime.


Back to the costing table above, on the right side of their ledger (how to pay for it all) TOP proposes a Land Value Tax and administration savings:

Two points:

1/ Their costings are based on 2024 numbers. Already supplementary support costs have risen. Pensioners, for example, are growing rapidly in numbers. Land values, on the other hand, are static. What happens when TOP's tax pushes land values down?

2/ The assumption that this policy will save almost $4 billion in administrative savings is highly dubious. In fact, elsewhere in the tax reset document it is stated: "Simplified welfare with savings of at least $1.5 billion in administration costs."

In summary, the net CI cost is higher than depicted as is the revenue required to pay for it.

But there's another glaring problem.

TOP claims that, "The current benefit system punishes work through devastating effective marginal tax rates." Removing EMTR's is the big selling point.

Yet the new policy also abates away income. Again: "Each type of support will gradually reduce by 10 cents for every extra dollar earnt, starting from household income between $50,000 and $75,000. This efficiently ensures that the most support goes to those who need it the most."

Also known as targeting or means testing. How is this any different to how the current tax/benefit system works?

The problem TOP claim to be solving is very much a feature of their replacement.

Continuing on the same theme TOP say, "In all cases, eligibility is based on straightforward criteria and does not require complex administrative assessments, namely means testing or job search requirements. Applications will be made online through My IRD or MyMSD and automatically approved if criteria are met."

All recipients of the Citizen's Income will find any supplementary assistance they receive abated if their incomes rise. That IS means testing.

Means testing requires enormous bureaucracy. It also motivates dishonesty and reduces work effort. Yes, that occurs presently but don't pretend it won't under this system.

And "automatic approval" will not be as straightforward as is being made out. Where is the proof of disability? Where is the proof of sole parenthood? Where is the proof of rental amount on your home? Where is the proof the child you say is in your care full-time actually is? If you share care, who decides the split of Child Support? When is the supplemental support paid and when does it become debt if income rises? There are tens, if not hundred's of questions like these that arise from each individual's personal circumstances.

All of the expensive admin TOP says they will be doing away with is pie in the sky.

Traditionally, though the current execution is poor, because benefit money comes from the taxpayer, obligations can be imposed, and the type of assistance can be tailored to incentivise self reliance where that is a possibility (most cases.) That's the only effective traditional charity model I know of. Expectant giving. (Yes, the govt isn't a charity but that is the uncomfortable reality of where we are at).

TOP just wants to redistribute more than ever before, with no strings and no obligations, all the while pretending they have a magic bullet to do away with complexity, EMTRs and to fire-up the economy.

I don't think they understand human nature.
___________________________________________________

Afterword: Having written that last sentence earlier in the week, I read Liam Hehir's blog today:

"I should nail my own colours to the mast here. I would never vote for TOP. Its technocratic, clever-person-at-a-whiteboard politics cuts contrary to everything I believe in. I do not want a politics run by people who think society is just waiting to be optimised by the right policy dashboard. The whole anthropology of the party is the antithesis of what I think politics is and should be about.

A UBI would be spiritually disastrous because work is not just a way of allocating money, but one of the ordinary disciplines that attaches people to duty, competence, service and reality. The idea that if necessity is softened people will naturally become creative, civic-minded and fulfilled, rather than often drifting into dependency and uselessness, cuts hard against human nature. And a land value tax offends me because it treats the most settled, intergenerational form of property as a convenient hostage, forcing families to keep paying tribute on property they may have spent several lifetimes building or preserving."

Well said Liam.

Current tax rates:

Up to $15,600: 10.5%

$15,601 to $53,500: 17.5%

$53,501 to $78,100: 30%

$78,101 to $180,000: 33%

Over $180,000: 39%

TOP proposes:

• 28% for income up to $50,000 p/a

• 34% for income between $50,001 and $200,000 p/a

• 39% for income at $200,001+ p/a

Quarter of a million children are now dependent on welfare

It's appalling that a quarter of a million children now need an income from the state to feed, clothe and house them.

Data released under the Official Information Act shows over a quarter of a million children were dependent on welfare at December 2025.

At 31 December 2025 there were 255,300 children aged 0-17 reliant on a caregiver on a main benefit (234,429); or on an Orphan/ Unsupported Child benefit (20,871). 

More than a third of all Maori children were dependent (36.5 percent) versus  16 percent of non-Maori.

Of the 57,705 births during 2025, one in five babies was welfare-dependent by year end. Dependence is established very early, often from birth. This pattern has persisted since the 1990s.

Over two thirds of the children rely on a single parent. Half of the children depending on Sole Parent Support are Maori.

For context, since December 2017 (when Jacinda Ardern made herself Minister for Child Poverty Reduction)  the total under 18-year-old population has risen by 4.6 percent, whereas the number of under 18-year-olds dependent on a main benefit has risen by 31.2 percent. 

Jacinda's prescription for solving child poverty was wrong.

New Zealand's 'child poverty' problem will not be solved while high numbers of children live in unemployed households. The ongoing response of raising benefit incomes and reducing the margin between work and welfare will only incentivise more people to opt for the latter. This normalises benefit dependency for children and the habit becomes inter-generational. Many of these children will spend their entire lives living on a benefit and develop an expectation of continuing this lifestyle as adults.

Chronic benefit dependency, lack of educational achievement, disproportionate use of health services, and contact with Oranga Tamariki and Corrections are all intertwined.

But perhaps the biggest tragedy is the thousands of children who are missing out on fathers. Personally, I lost my Dad last year and I miss that lifelong relationship. He was hugely influential in my life, I identified with him strongly and we understood each other. How many children are deprived of that inestimable value in their lives?

This country's approach has to change. I laid out a feasible policy here.

Let's hope at least one party will have the guts to make tackling this entrenched and worsening problem part of their election platform. 

It's appalling that a quarter of a million children need an income from the state to feed, clothe and house them. These kids, and those that will inevitably follow, deserve a better chance of realising their own potential. This is still a first world country with ample opportunity for those who want to grasp it.

Colonisation blamed for Maori meth use

Here is yet another example of a taxpayer-funded health professional teaching that self-destructive behaviour by Maori is the fault of colonisation: land dispossession, loss of language, attack on family structures, attack on belief systems etc.

(Left click on image to enlarge)

The above slide is part of a presentation from  Oranga Tamariki Team leader Psychology, Health and Clinical Services. It was published in April this year.

Given it's Maori gangs - Mongrel Mob and Black Power - predominantly selling the drug, it's to be assumed they too are doing so due to the ravages of colonisation.

There is no end to what can be explained and excused under this lazy, pathetic and repetitive 'modelling'.

But what about the vast majority of Maori who do not use meth? Wouldn't it be far more useful to examine what creates resilience and success, and strive to emulate the values and upbringings that contribute to the positive outcomes most Maori experience? 

The past cannot be undone. We only have the future.

This pervasive apologism practised by supposedly 'educated experts' serves society very poorly. It's the thrust of a western movement that pimps indigeneity for all its worth.

If people are told that it isn't their fault they are using methamphetamine, how do they take the ownership needed to stop?