Oranga Tamariki wards don't fare so badly afterall

Children are stolen; children are abused in state care; Oranga Tamariki is a racist institution, and so on.

They aren't my claims but they abound from various sources. You'll be familiar with them.

Yet when children and young people in state care are surveyed about how they are feeling currently their responses are fairly positive. Probably - dare I say it - on a par with most young people their age.

You can enlarge the graph here. P30. Research released today.

The first statement: 'Have people in my life who love me no matter what'

77% say 'Yes definitely' 20%, say 'Yes I think so'.

The lowest agreeable score was, 'Know my ancestry (whakapapa)' where just 25% said 'Yes definitely ' and 28% said 'Yes I think so'.

For me the first aspect of a young person's life is more important. The importance of feeling unconditionally loved is hard to overstate.

Not all young people in the care of the state have participated so that's a shortcoming. 84% participation rate is nevertheless good.

The survey results seem strangely out of sync with the failure of  OT opponents put about.

"You have nothing to fear"

 Here's Stuart Nash, MP for Napier:

Nash acknowledged that Hawke's Bay had a gang problem, but said arresting people was not the solution to the problem.

In terms of public safety, Nash said any form of gang violence “tends to be perpetrated against other gangs”.

“In terms of feeling unsafe, unless you’re a gang member, you have no reason to feel unsafe. The public are not everyday target. I understand gangs can be intimidating, but unless you’re a rival member or tied up in the drug trade, you have nothing to fear.”

Tell that to the toddler shot dead by a gang in Wanganui; tell that to a young nurse who was relieved of $2,000 he'd just withdrawn from an ATM by gang members and offered no assistance by the police; tell that to rape victims who serve as unwitting initiation objects.

What a terrible stance for an MP to take.

Cindy Kiro

Cindy Kiro's appointment to the role of Governor General is political. Judging by comments on Kiwiblog people have forgotten her time as Children's Commissioner. She advocated that every child should be interviewed or assessed before age two and again at ages five, 13, and 17 - a heavy-handed unnecessary state intervention to avoid stigmatising particular groups. 

She helped Sue Bradford push through the anti-smacking legislation saying, "...we know more about parenting and child health and development now than we did in our parents’, grandparents’ and great grandparents’ times."

Warding off an interviewer asking about Maori child abuse she said, "I think people need to get a little careful when they start this business," and propagated false child death statistics in defence. She never owned or corrected them after their inaccuracy was identified. 

She overspent her Ministry's budget and was criticised for spending too much time overseas and staff turnover. 

Kiro is not a smart appointment.

Labour happy for babies to be born onto benefits

When Paula Bennett was Minister for Social Development she wanted to stop people adding children to an existing benefit to avoid work. So the subsequent child rule was created. If a beneficiary adds a child to a benefit, when that child turns one, the parent will still have the same work-obligations based on age of the previous child - part-time between ages 3 and 14; full-time thereafter - hardly onerous.

Now Sepuloni wants the rule removed. This is an extract from support material that accompanies the bill to achieve this:

I take issue with the adjective "small" to describe the number of people who have added a child to a benefit and are currently affected by Bennett's rule. Almost 9,000 in total.

2,533 have added a child to their benefit when the next oldest was 14 or older (which is why they are currently on the Jobseeker benefit).

Let's call it careless procreation at best. It is not good for the babies to be born onto benefits. To say otherwise defies commonsense.

But note that the government analyst who wrote the support material says "lighter" work obligations are beneficial and:

Apparently lighter work obligations will allow mothers to take up education for "long-term careers".

These are females who don't know how to stop having kids when they are already in a bad situation!

A shining example of the naive and foolish ideology of the left.