New Zealand should emulate the United Kingdom.
This call has surfaced repeatedly over the past few days. For instance:
[Max Rashbrooke] said New Zealand should follow Britain's lead and pass a Child Poverty Act, which would set out measures and targets, as well as a plan of meeting them.And Jonathon Boston, Professor of Public Policy at Victoria University of Wellington and 'expert' in solutions to child poverty, in this morning's DomPost:
"It's about taking a comprehensive approach so I think we need to start with measures, start with a plan and then I think the right actions will flow out of that."
Moreover, there is nothing new about governments setting child poverty-reduction targets. Governments around the world have done so for many years. In Britain a Child Poverty Act was enacted in 2010 with cross-party support committing governments to setting and achieving specific targets to curb child poverty.But wait.
Only three months ago the UK Child Poverty Action Group reported:
“A decade ago, when David Cameron became party leader, he promised that under his leadership his party would measure and act on child poverty. It’s a tragedy that we are now talking about rises in child poverty not falls. It’s also hugely depressing that at a time when we’re seeing rising child poverty the Government has passed legislation that eliminates its target to reduce child poverty, or even to report on the progress it is making."
Confirmed by this from 2015:
The government is to scrap its child poverty target and replace it with a new duty to report levels of educational attainment, worklessness and addiction, rather than relative material disadvantage, work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith has said.The old target set by Tony Blair, based on the percentage of households with below average income, will continue to be published as a government statistic – but will no longer be seen as a target.
Out of touch or just willfully ignorant?
10 comments:
It seems to me that poverty is the latest hobby horse taking on from the previous hobby horse global warming which seems to waning. No doubt there will be those that will want to get on the poverty gravy train just like those before them that were on the global warming gravy train. This is just another excuse for those on the left to push their own socialist agendas which will justify an increase in the forced extraction of taxation to fund this latest gravy train.
Thanks Don, I said something similar to Leighton Smith this morning.
http://120.138.20.16/WeekOnDemand/ZB/auckland/2016.10.05-09.30.00-D.mp3
I heard you talking to Leighton
Out of touch? Wilfully ignorant?
I'd suggest deliberately duplicitous.
PS: Excellent appearance on Leighton's show, by the way. Points well made.
Why would anyone be surprised at duplicity from the left?
After all, they've engaged in it for fifty years or more, at the least.
The real issue is understanding why they can lie and cheat without it ever worrying them.
Its because they believe in the end, and anything is permissible if committed in pursuit of that end.
And that end is, in extremely brief terms, the deconstruction of western society, and the abolition of what they perceive as white power structures, and the capitalist system. They seek to replace it with a Marxist nirvana.
All primary left wingers subscribe to this view and pursue this objective with intent. Secondary left winger assist them in this pursuit without really knowing the what or why.
The UK has been subjected to this subversion now since soon after the end of the second world war. They beat off Nazi totalitarianism, only to vote for a slightly different more sophisticated version today, and gradually grow it from within. Via subversives in academia and govt and the bureaucracy.
Ever seen one of those documentaries on the Second World War? About the Blitz or the Battle of Britain, or the invasion of Europe? Compare the language, manners and general demeanor of the people from that era with that of a graduate from the UK public school system today.
The degeneration is chronic, and it continues, aided by a failure to not only defend England, but the principles that made England. The principles that made it as a country one of the most effective advocates for individual liberty the world has seen.
The left has been working hard to destroy England for decades and its one of the reasons why we in NZ, who still have some way to go to be as bad as the UK, SHOULD NEVER SEEK TO EMULATE ANYTHING THEY DO.
Nor should we ever believe one thing their government (no matter what party) says.
The left say poverty is the issue. They are right in a way. The problem is a poverty of mind. A rejection of everything that ever made England great, and spawned democratic countries like NZ, Canada, the UK and Australia.
The UK has sunk into an amoral swamp of Marxist depravity and its not poverty that is the real issue, its the rank amorality that accompanies Marxist govt and by result, Marxist society.
Poverty even if we give way and accept it as an issue, will only be avoided by a good country, and a good country can only exist if there are good towns, and good towns can only exist if there are good families, and good families can only exist if they are made up of good individuals, and most importantly pass this "goodness" on to their children.
If we accept poverty as real, and really want to do something to fight it, the solution is once again a return to the patriarchial family, respect for the institution of marriage, and the revival of long lost customs and habits that before World War two allowed our societies a degree of civility, manners and consideration for others we can't even get close to right now.
What we don't need is more degenerate Marxism, and the institutionalized lies and propaganda (from academia as well as govt) that underpin that evil ideology.
Ta PC, it was very much on the hop. And Red, I don't agree with all your assertions, eg the need to return to the patriarchal family, but I do appreciate your extensive and thoughtful comments.
Thank you Lindsay.
I should say I never intended the comment to be so "extensive".
My original intent was just to say we should never do as the UK does or listen to what they say because they're all a pack of lying Marxists who have stuffed their country.
By the time I'd finished saying that, there it all was. :)
I'd like to add something in response to your disagreement on the need to return to the patriarchal family.
We all agree on what we want right? That being broadly better outcomes for children and society as a whole.
I know you like to collect and observe a lot of social welfare data, and that's fine, but my POV is that empirical evidence is important.
Feminism is just another part of the Marxist deconstruction strategy. The reversal of traditional female/ male roles has not done society one iota of good.
The emasculation of man, especially wherein they have been stripped of their traditional role, and that role designated worthless, is an event that imho has had a serious effect on our social condition.
Not at all suggesting Gloriavale is a perfect model we should all emulate. Nevertheless, leaving the religious aspect aside, it is a place where men and women full traditional roles and the empirical evidence would suggest the results are far better for children there than they are in socialist society's Marxist ghettos.
"The reversal of traditional female/ male roles has not done society one iota of good."
Except in the family where the father stays home and child minds while the mother goes to work to earn the income, I don't think roles have been reversed. Some men have been "stripped of their traditional role" (especially by benefits) but the majority are still playing a bringing home the bacon part.
A society where two parents didn't need to work would be my preference and possibly achievable if one half of society wasn't having to pay tax to support the other.
But I like the modern freedom for couples to decide how they will arrange the upbringing and care of their children according to their own strengths, interests and inclinations.
RB, I'm disappointed:
We all agree on what we want right? That being broadly better outcomes for children and society as a whole.
Nope: because there is no such think as society -- there are only individuals and families
The whole idea of outcomes for "society as a whole" or for "children" is communism at its root. It should be illegal to measure anything across "society". It should be illegal for governments to do anything for "children" or try to measure them in any way.
empirical evidence is important.
empirical evidence -by its nature aggregated across something that does not exist is not possible without going to communism.
Let's say there was empirical evidence that - I dunno - single parent families were better for kids than married families (e.g. where there was violence or abuse). Would that mean single parent families were "better"? Of course not: there are individuals and individual families: it is communism to aggregate any further than that.
Let's say there was "empirical evidence" that state schools produced better results than fully private parent-paid voluntary schools? (Look at Finland, communists claim empirical evidence there). Does that make communism right?
Or Look at health outcomes, longevity, morbidity. Let's imagine there was "empirical evidence" that NHS style single payer / single provider (or even French or Swiss style single payer multiple provider) health systems had "better" outcomes that true free markets or US style systems (pre Obamacare) --- but even if there were, it would still not be right thing to do.
there is no such think as society, To even suggest we want to make things "broadly better ... for society as a whole" is to give in to communism from the very start.
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