The glaring anomaly when state steps in

The High Court case featuring caregivers providing care to their disabled adult children is currently being conducted in Auckland. The carers want to be paid for the care they provide because, they argue, if a stranger is required to provide it that stranger gets paid. The Crown lawyer, acting for the Ministry of Health, counteracts;

Coleman explained the Ministry's argument that a social contract existed where people look after their own, and pointed out the policy in question was about filling gaps in services for people with disabilities.

It was not about providing a wage for families - that was the business of the Ministry of Social Policy.

So sometimes the state is happy to ignore the "social contract", and at others, it suits to uphold it.

When it ignores the contract it undermines and weakens it. That has already occurred on a massive scale at an enormous social and economic cost.

The state should uphold the social contract. Having said that these parents are more deserving of assistance than those who treat a "wage for families" as a lifestyle option.