The facts about childhood obesity

This is not an overweight child. It's a chubby baby for god's sake. Unfortunately it is running alongside a headline Number of obese Kiwi children 'scary'.



The highest rates of childhood obesity are concentrated in the poorest deciles and amongst Pacific and, to a lesser degree, Maori children. But does the report allude to those facts? No.

Meanwhile the susceptibility neurotic and angst-ridden middle-class mothers will be looking at their healthy chubby cherub unnecessarily agonising over whether she is over-feeding (and now under-loving) him.

Absolutely asinine suggestion from Mary Wilson

Mary Wilson, trying to emulate an abrasive Sean Plunket on National Radio this morning, makes the utterly asinine suggestion that ACT should sacrifice Epsom to prove it can cross the 5 percent threshold and therefore has a mandate. The 'interviewer' tries her hardest to make Rodney agree with Phil Goff's view that ACT is "terminal" but succeeds only in sounding rude and silly.

Here's a page from a February 2005 article from North and South.

Rodney has been written off many, many times. And yes, I am guilty of describing recent events as akin to a murder-suicide. But I have also predicted that Rodney Hide will survive, even if only as a Ron Paul figure.

Creative gravy train - an oxymoron

I am alerted to the following because I subscribe to a community and volunteer sector newsletter;

Changes to arts funding announced

Creative New Zealand will introduce two new and complementary multi-year funding programmes from January 2012 to provide clarity, stability and flexibility in the way it funds arts organisations and artists. The new funding programmes are:

* Arts Leadership Investment (Toi Tōtara Haemata) to provide support for between two and five years to well-run, financially sound organisations that fulfil a key role or roles in the creation, presentation and distribution of high-quality arts experiences to New Zealanders

* Arts Development Investment (Toi Uru Kahikatea) to complement the Arts Leadership Investment programme by offering greater flexibility in the range of activities it supports. Funding will be available for periods from six months to two years for arts organisations, groups and individuals. Applicants will not need to fulfil a key role (see above).

The changes follow a review, where the arts sector identified an ongoing need for skills development. Creative NZ will work to enhance existing capability building programmes to meet the needs of both emerging and established arts organisations. It will also look at ways to offer incentives for artists and arts organisations to collaborate on projects, such as the commissioning and presentation of new work or to provide support for young and emerging artists.

You may have noticed I have been blogging less frequently. This is because I am painting and sketching more frequently. Why? Because I need to contribute to our household income. A few weeks back I took my portfolio into a couple of framers with the proposition that I sketch on their premises (providing me with exposure) and any commissions I pick up, they do the framing. I have priced my sketches at a very accessible price. So far the exercise has been successful picking up 4 commissions, with three of them for multiple sketches and more in the pipeline. I also met a fascinating Maori man who has agreed to be a subject for some new paintings. It isn't hard work because I enjoy interacting with the public and I love creating with pastels. But it is honest work.

It pisses me off immensely that we have a 'creative' art gravy train in New Zealand. Firstly because you and I have to fund it. Secondly because it often turns out crap. Real talent will attract willing sponsors and patronage. Lack of talent relies on handouts. Thirdly is provides 'jobs' for bureaucrats and fourthly it removes audience and potential buyers from artists who are trying to go it off their own efforts. Bah. Back to work for me.

Update; Sam provides a useful link about NZ On Air funding which comes from the Culture and Heritage budget which was Helen Clark's own portfolio. Between 1999 and 2008 expenditure rose from $427 million to $1,107 million. And National seems to have accepted this level along with all the other Clark administration spend-ups.

On vouchers instead of benefit cash

Sean Plunket is now writing a column for the DomPost. His first provoked a comment from me which was published yesterday.

Not on-line, I was cutting out the letter for scanning when I noticed the photo under the headline it was given. I think I'll make an exception for her.

ACT voters least loyal

According to the latest Horizon poll of 3,673 voters ACT appears to be losing support to National;

National has 30% of decided voters (3% down on its 2008 share of all registered voters).



Labour has 22% (3% down on its 2008 share of all registered voters).



ACT has 2% (down from 2.7% in 2008) but only 40% of its 2008 voters remain loyal. Some 28% of ACT voters have switched to National while 19% say they don’t know who they would give their party vote to if a general election were held tomorrow.

Unfortunately the period over which the survey was conducted is not specified.

As rich as Australia - once

Statistics New Zealand has published updated material it provided to the Taskforce 2025 including many interesting tables comparing labour forces and migration rates among other things.

Ironically, as a response to the catching- up- to- Australia campaign, a fatalistic feeling is emerging amongst New Zealanders that this country can never be as rich as Australia. That view is in danger of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy in that it contributes to driving away people who don't accept it. Ambitious people who keep hearing, "They've got the population; they've got the mineral wealth; they've got the markets..." will want to be in the 'they' team.

I don't accept it. NZ has been as wealthy as Australia and can be again. It just takes political will.

At last, my kind of candidate

I am not voting for a mayor and struggling to find names to tick for any of the other FIVE selection processes. God knows why there are so many. There are a couple of no nonsense experienced types who hold mild appeal but when I trawled through all the electoral bumf last night I was defeated by the inanity of the proclamations. So many people with 'vision' and 'passion'. We are fair drowning in a sea of these self-confessed attributes.

Then I got excited. This morning. At last a billboard that didn't make me baulk. A billboard that even made me smile and feel like there is a upside to the tiresome charade of democracy local body elections have become.



I can nominate a Hutt City candidate for the same ticket;


Now there's vision and passion in spades.

And as I stepped out with madam candidate this morning I reflected that her public speaking abilities really are second to none.

Any other nominations?

The future of David Garrett

David Garrett is now deciding whether to quit parliament completely or return as an independent MP.

"But it seems to me the people elected five Act MPs - not four and an independent..."

That's according to Rodney Hide.

There is talk that Sensible Sentencing contrived the placement of David Garrett at number 5 on the ACT list. That Rodney Hide had to swallow this because he needed the votes that SST would bring. One commentator put the number at 100,000. I do not know what the size of the Trust's membership is, and there is no guarantee that members would vote ACT simply because they belonged to the Trust.

However if it is correct that a sizeable share of ACT's 2008 party vote came from SST members (as the left would have us believe) then with their continued support David Garrett does have a mandate as an independent MP.

I mean the SST could spin their continued support as embracing redemption which adds credibility to their hard-line-on-only-the-worst-offenders claim.

There are around 2,350,000 voters so each MP is worth 19,500 votes. Are there 19,500 people who want to be represented by David Garrett?

I don't but I never made any secret of that. It just irks me to hear the PM telling Paul Henry this morning that New Zealanders have spoken and the polls say Garrett isn't wanted.

Neither was ACT by the vast majority of people. Isn't that the point of MMP? That small minorities get a voice?

(My apologies if this proposition has already been put elsewhere. I haven't seen it.)

Australians are having the debate our parliament denies us

Australians are debating voluntary euthanasia.

Fourteen years after the Northern Territory became the first place in the world to legalise euthanasia - only to be overridden nine months later by the Howard government - Greens leader Bob Brown pledged his first priority would be a bill to restore the territories' power to pass euthanasia laws.

A poll asking if that right should be restored is running roughly three quarters in agreement.

ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope said he believed euthanasia laws would be passed if introduced to the ACT Parliament, where Labor rules in alliance with the Greens.

''I think … it is quite likely with such a large Green cohort with the balance of power now that it would possibly pass,'' Mr Stanhope said.

''I don't support legislation to legalise euthanasia, but I'm in a minority within my party. There has always been very strong support for euthanasia in the ACT.''

Which leaves the question, what about the rest of Australia?

Senator Brown's bill comes as voluntary euthanasia legislation is set to be debated in both the South Australian and the West Australian parliaments.

Meanwhile we New Zealanders are being denied any vehicle to debate the issue despite it being of relevance to everybody.

On Garrett

Michael Laws has put the Garrett business into perspective perfectly, and prompted me to give it a shot.

Garrett did a very stupid, calculated and deliberate thing as a young man. He is rough-edged still, and a risk-taker. But above all he is now a victim. And in a world where victimhood is the bleat on too many people's lips I don't use the word lightly.

He is a victim of the media. Last week the NZ Herald actually asked for any reader who knew more about the passport incident OR ANYTHING ELSE ABOUT DAVID GARRETT to contact them. This kind of scrutiny is going to keep real people out of politics. I've made many a mistake over my life but am in a better headspace for them. A drink driving conviction I received in 1985 wouldn't have been much material to prosecute and persecute given there are current and ex-parliamentarians (and media) who have received much more recent convictions for the same. Put in context though drinking and driving has the potential to cause more physical harm than stealing a dead baby's identity.

Worse, Garrett is a victim of a culture of backstabbing in ACT which is utterly abhorrent. I never liked the law and order mantle ACT donned (and didn't put up any pertinent campaign signs in 2008). To me three strikes is authoritarian; prisons create career criminals out of young men and, regarding other legislation, too much power is being invested in the police. However these are matters to debate and Garrett and I did come to blows over them in the ensuing months. But to dislike someone's ideas and actions (or allegiances) to the point where you want to destroy them personally, is revolting.

And that is what ACT has come to. It's like watching a murder-suicide with Garrett playing a bit-part of sacrificial lamb.

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.

Rearranging deck chairs

There is a certain useful phrase about rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic (and I am not referring to the post on Big News about ACT). No. It was my instant response to reading that Iain Duncan Smith ( double-barrelled surnames are bad enough - unhyphenated ones are worse), Incomes and Pensions Minister in the UK, is still pursing a 'single' benefit. It is "doable" he insists.

To what end? NZ Labour spent years pursuing the idea. Why would it encourage people off welfare or discourage them from going on? As I heard a talkback caller astutely point out the other day on an unrelated matter, you can staple feathers on a Labrador but that doesn't make it a chicken.

And the classic political argument is employed to justify the estimated $7 billion pound cost of setting up this new creature. It will be paid for by the taxes that the long-term unemployed will produce when they get jobs.

Run a mile Chancellor.

Identity theft - identical crime

I wonder what Frank Macskasy was sentenced to?

Update: the answer is here.

"Lifestyle choice is going to come to an end"

Will we ever hear Treasurer Bill English saying this?

"People think it's a lifestyle choice just to stay on out-of-work benefits; that lifestyle choice is going to come to an end."

Of course just exactly how UK Chancellor George Osborne plans to bring it to an end is not at all clear. This won't cut it.

When Clinton vowed to "...end welfare as we know it" he carried through on the promise.

Still I suppose even publicly acknowledging the lifestyle choice is progress.

Musical mammeries

Apple announced today that it has developed a breast implant that can store and play music.

The iTit will cost from $499 to $699, depending on cup and speaker size.

This is considered a major social breakthrough, because

women are always complaining about men staring at their breasts and not listening to them.

Garrett revelation: why now?

The only aspect of the David Garrett assault conviction story that interests me is, why has it come out now? Are we in for another morbidly fascinating round of murky leaks, accusations and counter-accusations ACT-style? Will Whale Watch once again attract more visitors than Kaikoura? Or is this revelation merely the work of the tacky, tabloid media and Mr Garrett's fellow MPs can be expected to stand stoically behind him? Or he may prefer beside and in view.

Kiro calls for higher benefits for Maori

From Simon Collin's article it becomes apparent that what Cindy Kiro said last week was misreported by Catherine Delahunty. She isn't looking at what employment opportunities await young Maori but asking for more early investment and higher benefits.

Former Children's Commissioner Cindy Kiro has made an impassioned plea to invest more in Maori children - for the sake of New Zealand's economy.

She told a conference on welfare reform that Maori were "the canary in the coalmine", losing their jobs and being thrown on to welfare benefits before others when the economy was hit by recession.

It actually matters not whether the country is in recession. Throughout the 'good' times Maori continued to be heavily over represented on benefits.

Dr Kiro, now an associate professor at Massey University's School of Public Health, said these differences were driven by a wider increase in inequality in New Zealand since the late 1980s.

"Maori and Pacific families and individuals are among the most deprived and this is part of the macroeconomic environment that we need to address," she said.

A challenge for Dr Kiro. How does she explain the sharp difference between Maori welfare dependency and Pacific? At June 2010 of all those receiving a benefit 32.1 percent were Maori whereas only 8.3 percent were Pacific.

Professor Kiro said the ageing non-Maori population, combined with relatively high Maori and Pacific birth rates, meant the future NZ economy would depend on today's Maori and Pacific children.

"Quite apart from the moral imperative, we have an undeniable self-interest in making sure they grow up well-educated and well-adjusted. They must, to look after us oldies when it comes time.

"The scientific evidence about the importance of the early years in terms of good life outcomes, including productivity, is now overwhelming."

If Maori children were growing up in families on welfare, then welfare payments had to be high enough to support good lives in decent housing.

Defeated. Forget that children do better when their income comes from the market. Forget that they need a working parent to build expectations. Forget that they need in situ fathers to protect from going off the rails and being prey to gang recruitment.

Put welfare payments up and all we will have is more relatively poor parents and children on benefits. Especially Maori. Kiro has a very poor understanding of what really matters regardless of ethnicity. People need work and strong, constructive relationships, both of which are undermined by the DPB in particular.

In need of a ' home for life'

On first reading this is a heartbreaker but on second thoughts it might be the best thing that could have happened. Let's hope Paula Bennett can find these two a ' home for life'.

Maori and Pasifika children "future caregivers of an ageing population"

Green MP Catherine Delahunty made the following statement about an address by Cindy Kiro to the shadow Welfare Working Group last Thursday;

I loved Cindy Kiro’s challenge to our self interest by investing our best in Maori and Pasifika children as the future caregivers of an ageing population.

Now that is a most interesting statement. At a child poverty conference in Auckland last year I suggested to Cindy Kiro directly that there exists a great deal of care-giving capacity in the DPB population which our ageing population could harness thus providing many more paid jobs. She responded to me that she didn't want to see sole mothers "ghettoised" into rest home workers.

Perhaps she has been thinking a little more about where the employment opportunities lie for many Maori and Pacific females in particular. There is no shame in providing care for the aged (or the young for that matter) and being paid to do it well.

State subsidies benefit the wealthiest

David Craig, senior lecturer in Sociology at the University of Auckland, has has written an interesting piece about the state subsidising wages. Essentially he describes how the 1980s economic reforms left NZ a low wage economy which both National and then Labour addressed through wage and rent subsidies. Some of the policies he identifies are less obvious than others.

There can be no doubt that it is near impossible to live alone on the minimum wage. And that low wages drive people off shore. New Zealand needs higher wages. But when the state steps in with tax credit top-ups and accommodation subsidies the pressure on employers to lift wages or landlords to lower rents is reduced. Ironically it is largely the left that create these subsidy policies. They worry over rising inequality but inadvertently enable it to grow because their redistributive policies play back into the hands of those who own most of the wealth.

Tax credits have been proven to be the only way to get vast numbers of ex-beneficiaries in the US into work and earning enough to live on. In the short term I support them because having a parent in work will provide the best chance of breaking into the inter-generational state dependence cycle. But will their children also have to rely on top-ups as a permanent state of affairs?

I want to see a more egalitarian society. But I don't support the state being the instrument by which that is achieved. Neither however do I think the unfettered market will achieve it. I base that on human nature and the reality of greed.

I gather Craig supports the state as that instrument but is in a quandary as to how incomes can be lifted and inequality stemmed continuing on the current pathway. So where do statists go from here?