Helping children from poor homes

The children who form the group covered by a damning Paediatric Society report are overwhelmingly those on welfare and those living in one parent homes - the poorest homes by a long margin. The automatic response from child health advocates therefore is to call on government to give more money to their parents - they cannot give it directly to the children - and to spend more money on their housing.

The second recommendation may have some substance. If the government is going to keep a stock of state homes it would be wise to maintain them. However that maintenance doesn't fall solely to the landlord. Tenants would benefit from looking after properties too. That means not breaking windows and leaving them unrepaired during winter months. Removing condensation in bathrooms so paint and wood do not deteriorate. Spending money on heating homes instead of using the money on alcohol, tobacco and drugs - the last of which can gobble up a benefit payment within a couple of days. Unfortunately when people do not own their property they have far less interest in looking after it.

The first recommendation is however made without thought and is without merit. In fact I would go so far as to say pumping more cash into the homes of these children may even worsen the overall picture.

That is because raising benefit levels has been demonstrated to attract more people onto benefits. It is interesting that the government accepts that raising the pay levels of teachers, nurses and policeman will attract more of them but doesn't use the same argument to resist calls to increase benefit levels - the current campaign being run by the Child Poverty Action Group and supported by the Greens and the Maori Party.

New Zealand's social assistance levels are already generous by international standards. So generous that many parents prefer living on a benefit to working. Not all, by any means, but a good percentage. They will justify this preference by pointing out that taking a job will mean they 'earn less' than they do on a benefit. This may have been the case in previous years but with the lowered abatement rates and In Work tax credits nobody should be disadvantaged when moving into work. And yet we still see thousands of parents move onto the DPB every year, especially teenagers who have little idea about child rearing or home maintenance yet are given that responsibility.

So in our employment-rich environment many parents would be better off - which is what the advocates want - if they got a job. Maybe not much better off immediately but there is more chance of income from employment rising than income from a benefit rising. As well many have only school age children. If the parent were also absent from the home more frequently less electricity would be used, power bills being one of their main expenses. And if some pre-school children's home environments are so very unhealthy then it would benefit them to also be elsewhere for at least some of the day.

At some point the role of a parent, the adult in the equation, must be questioned. It cannot continue to be the financial obligation of society to solve problems knowingly caused by individuals. Those caused by people producing children they cannot afford to raise being a major example. Socialising problems exacerbates rather than alleviates them.

So yes, the government may need to put some more money into existing state home stock but even more importantly, tenants need to take responsibility for keeping their homes in a sound and hygienic state.

Meantime what would make a huge difference for those parents who are struggling, be it their own fault or not, is more personal attention. More mentoring and practical help from private citizens. The faceless bureaucratic services cannot sort out the current mess by simply pouring more money into the homes of these children. Over thirty years of doing that already has shown it will not work.

The many child advocates promoting this solution mean well. I have no doubt. But they must look at the bigger and historical picture if they want the lives of New Zealand children to be better in the future.

In 1904 a Wellington trustee of the Charitable Aid Board said that the more the Government tried to assist the destitute the greater became the demands. This is as true today. Yet it seems many are destined to promote soft but unsuccessful solutions.