"Can Pakeha raise Maori children?"

In response to this article which was headlined Can Pakeha raise Maori Children? in the hard copy.

 

Jobseeker benefit - new trend

 

The orange line shows that the numbers of people who can't work due to a temporary health condition or disability rose quite quickly after the first lock down and continues upwards. 

By September 10, 2021, the number had risen to 81,579 - the highest it has ever been since this category of benefit was introduced (and higher than numbers on the old sickness benefit it replaced ever reached).

This is undoubtedly a consequence of delayed treatment. Just one aspect of the underlying harms that are being caused by lock downs.

Women run the show

 

The Taxpayer's Union Curia Poll released yesterday includes a gender breakdown. While we know more females than males vote Left, I didn't expect a gap this big.

50% of males would vote National/ACT with only 43.2 percent voting Labour/Greens.

Essentially women, collectively, are running the show.

What is it about Labour/Greens policies that women love?

The trend isn't confined to New Zealand. Here's one explanation from Europe:

"...social liberalism has been gaining ground. It appears to have a direct impact with women increasingly calling for the redistribution of wealth, and men insisting more often on personal responsibility in politics."

That'd explain the policy attraction of Labour and the Greens here. And of course there's the indispensible policy called 'Jacinda'.

What really worries me is the conclusion drawn. That ACT and National  need to attract more support from women. True but they can't do it at the risk of losing support of men.

For integrity's sake parties should stick to policies based on their principles. ACT should stick to its traditional recourse to personal responsibility but endeavour to explain to female voters why.

For instance, a popular policy among women is taxpayer-funded Paid Parental Leave.

Wouldn't it be better to have lower income tax that would enable a new mother to stay home OR to use according to her own priority?

Some of the strongest support I received when campaigning against the DPB was from mothers angry at having to work to pay the taxes for others to stay home indefinitely (with no obvious social benefit to society).

ACT can gain more female support by convincing women that greater freedom and choice doesn't lie with greater government.

Effect of lock down 2020 on satisfaction with govt

From a survey by MSD into how the 2020 Covid lock downs affect various aspects of people's lives, two graphs. 

The propensity control group was surveyed before the pandemic.

"Satisfaction with the Government. Respondents rated their satisfaction (0 = completely dissatisfied; 10 = completely satisfied) with “the performance of the current New Zealand government”:

Voting in the 2020 election confimed this pattern.

I'll be watching for a repeat of this survey in 2021.

Does anyone think the effect will be the same?

We better hope not or there will be plenty more lock downs coming.

Not unusually I'm out of step with the norm - or surveyed respondents anyway.

My satisfaction with govt went south (if that's possible) with the onset of the first lock down.