Every Child Counts, the left-wing conglomerate - blame-everybody-but-the-parents-for-child-poverty group - commissioned a report from Infometrics (yes, Gareth Morgan's outfit - now also part of the poverty industry). It was released mid-August but gained no traction. Initially I thought, on reading a piece in the NZ Herald this morning titled, Brown poverty a 'time bomb', they are having a second push by bringing race into it. Guaranteed to spark.
But then the Herald says the report is released "this morning". Not short of a bob or two are they? Ironically the 'poverty' industry appears quite rich.
Anyway, one of the Every Child Counts advocates, Hone Kaa, is lining up behind the coroner who wants all children monitored. But isn't the problem 'brown', to use his word?
"I really don't care for adults who say 'that's prying too much into my personal business'. As far as I'm concerned I want to save a child," Dr Kaa said.
The report argues that new ways of measuring well-being need to be developed which take into account Polynesian world views.
That is also rich in irony. Remember this quote from an earlier post:
.... the Status of Children Act 1969, [which] ended discrimination between children born within and outside registered marriage and removed the term "illegitimate" from the statute books. This legislation reflected a desire to reduce some of the stigma associated with ex-nuptial birth that New Zealand inherited from English family law and brought the judicial system into line with the much more liberal concepts of Māori (Cameron 1967, 1969, Quin and O'Neill 1984).
The liberal concepts of Maori. Polynesian world views.
They worked in past context perhaps. Within a large whanau or hapu. Children being raised by elders.
But they don't work within the modern NZ welfare state. Still the problem is misdiagnosed.
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Hmmm, it always amuses me to see this myth of Maori cultural superiority in respect of raising children. If you believe Dr John Robinson in his recent book The Corruption of New Zealand Democracy — A Treaty Overview you see what this meant in practice - wholesale infanticide of girl babies, killing and enslavement of children as spoils of war, etc. European law and culture in Victorian times may have been a little insensitive in terms of illegitimacy but the prospects for any child were immeasurably better than under Maori culture.
Who gives a *** about the child's "prospects".
Neither the Maori way nor the "Victorian" way taxed high-value, high-worth subjects to pay for bludgers -
in fact both Maoridom & Victorian society abhored the idea of useless lazy bennies.
And both Maori and Victorian society had a really strong concept that some people were better than others, and only those people with a real stake in society had a say in the way that society was governed.
It's time to be truly "conservative!"
- end the disaster that is welfare!
- reintroduce a property / wealth qualification for
general roll" voters
- ensure Maori roll voters are restricted to those with a real stake in society (e.g. heads of Iwi).
now we're talking
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