Scary stories about the state gone mad

Here is a very scary story that details the potential for new government taxes (levies or fines) through compulsory, tracked, recycling.

Citing the British model, Cleveland, Ohio, is taking a giant step toward a similar scheme of compulsory recycling, says Wendy McElroy, a research fellow at the Independent Institute.

* In 2011 some 25,000 households will be required to use recycling bins fitted with radio-frequency identification tags (RFIDs) -- tiny computer chips that can remotely provide information such as the weight of the bin's contents and that allow passing garbage trucks to verify their presence.
* If a household does not put its recycle bin out on the curb, an inspector could check its garbage for improperly discarded recyclables and fine the scofflaws $100.
* Moreover, if a bin is put out in a tardy manner or left out too long, the household could be fined.
* Cleveland plans to implement the system citywide within six years.

Although you would be shocked to read about legislation forcing pubs to sell only low alcohol beer, you wouldn't be surprised. But this story is even stranger. In 2011 bars and restaurants in Colorado will be banned from the sales of such products.

As the happy-hour crowd began trickling into The Celtic Tavern on Tuesday night, bar owner Patrick Schaetzle — flanked by placards and mirrors touting Murphy's Irish Stout — got some unsettling news.

Sometime next year bars will have to stop selling his Lower Downtown pub's signature stout along with an array of other beers that are lower alcohol.

A bit of both

I deliberated over whether to title this post "It's a bit late now" or "It's never too late".

Ex UK minister in charge of narcotics policy has decided that all drugs should be legalised. Shame he didn't come to this conclusion - or at least act on it - while he was in charge. But from someone in his position and with residual influence on public opinion, his revelation is better late than ever.

"The war on drugs does not work. We need to be bold, we need some fresh thinking," Ainsworth, who was also Defence Secretary in the former Labour government, told BBC radio.

"This has been going on for 50 years now and it isn't getting better. The drugs trade is as big and as powerful as it ever was across the world."

Ainsworth said each drug should be examined on its own terms and there should be different regimes for each one. Heroin should be legally available, but only on prescription, he suggested, while cocaine could be available from legal sources such as doctors.

"I'm not proposing the liberalisation and legalisation of heroin so we can all get zonked out on the street corner," he said.

"What I'm saying is heroin needs to be taken out of the hands of the dealers, put into the hands of the medical profession, done in a mass way to the extent that's necessary."

There was a time when I kept my views about decriminalisation quiet. People think you are mad when you suggest legalisation of all drugs. But over time it becomes clearer and clearer that the madness is in the status quo.

Unsigned threat

Yesterday this was left in my letterbox;



The first thing I note is that the complaint is unsigned. Which immediately raises my hackles - like bloggers and commentors who hide behind anonymity to carp and criticise.

The next is the pedantic detailing of times. The aggrieved writer must be writing them down. They seem a little early as I usually only wake Sam at 7 but they are thereabouts. However, to describe after 7am as "very early hours" is silly. On a week day - the only time I walk Girl at that time - anyone working or attending school is up and about.

Then the "continual barking". Girl, a trained heading dog, gets very excited about her walk and yes, she does bark "madly" from the door to the gate when she quietens down as she goes on the leash. So she barks for a few seconds.

She is not out of control.

But as the writer is threatening a complaint to the council, I wonder what "continual barking in the very early hours" will infer? A dog left alone to bark constantly at one or two in the morning? That would probably provoke an unnecessary and unwarranted investigation.

Then I consider the line about having some consideration for others in the neighbourhood. Having put an anonymous note in my letterbox I am now wondering who I have upset. Is it a newcomer or a neighbour I usually get along with? The writer has cast suspicion over the other neighbours by refusing to sign their name or talking to me personally. In my book that is a more anti-social action than my neglecting to shut my occasionally barking dog up.

I will endeavour to do so by putting her on the leash before she exits the house. But I now face the unpleasant experience of setting off on our walk wondering who is disapprovingly watching us from behind twitching curtains.

Perhaps I will set off today loudly singing "Joy to the World...."

Core Crown expenses and welfare spending

Welfare, including Super, accounts for one third of expenditure.

In 2006 Treasury forecast welfare expenses in 2010 would be $18.975 billion. They under-forecast welfare by over $2 billion.

The 2010 welfare expenditure breakdown:



If all of the expenditure that relates to working age welfare is totalled the sum is $9.379 billion. Divide that by the number of working age beneficiaries at June 2010 - 333,000 - to get an average sum of $28,165. That figure will be slightly high as a small percentage of the accommodation supplement and other allowances are received by Super annuitants or non-beneficiaries, so let's conservatively call it $27,000.

Now I know I am labouring a point here but an average income of $519 per week does not describe abject poverty. The Sue Bradford group wants New Zealanders to believe that current benefits of $194 a week for a single adult or $366 for a sole parent with one child are "simply too low to live on". Her numbers do not reflect reality. Some individuals may be living on basic benefits but the resulting call is for all beneficiaries to receive an increase. If the problem is inaccurately described, so is the solution.

Poor children and what should be done about them

Now Tapu Misa is beating the give-the-In-Work-tax-credit-to-beneficiary-families drum.

And more generally, reducing child poverty requires more robbing Peter to pay Paul.

The first demand will not be met. It wasn't met under Labour. And it sure as heck isn't going to be met under National.

Lifting the income of families with children can be addressed through work, or through benefits. If it is done through the benefit system then the result is large numbers of workless households.

If it is addressed through paid work, the goal of the Welfare Working Group, the result is a better economy and the re-establishing of personal responsibility as a common value.

Children in families with work do better than children with families on benefits despite both being on low incomes.

Children in families that work suffer the least abuse or neglect.

Children in families that work grow up with similar expectations for themselves.

But I have said it all before.

Question that Tapu Misa might like to address in some future column. Asian children are the poorest in New Zealand. They must be because their parents have the lowest incomes. Why aren't they beset with educational failure, poor physical and mental health and headed for drug and alcohol problems?

Asians have the lowest median incomes from all sources yet also the lowest incomes from government transfers. What is that telling us?

Understanding 'being on a benefit' versus 'being on a benefit package'

Yesterday I was being interviewed by Larry Williams when I came out with 'benefit package'. We shouldn't talk about people being on a benefit - but a benefit package. That is because only a minority receive just the basic benefit. And if they do, it is because they have other means or fewer outgoings.

This is not about attacking beneficiaries. It's about properly understanding why some are reluctant to give up what they perceive as a/ an income comparable to what they would receive through working and b/ greater security than a job.

The following tables are from the latest (2009 financial year) MSD statistical report and show what other assistance beneficiaries get;

Accommodation Supplement




Temporary additional support or special benefit



Rates of payment (in here is the biggie that all carers on a benefit receive for dependent children - family tax credit.)



There are other tables available for supplementary assistance for child or adult disability, special needs grants etc. Assistance that people who are not on benefits do not receive, unless they meet the means-tested requirements.

I take you back to a comment made to Simon Collins of the NZ Herald earlier this year.

Connie Raiwhara, who runs the Pikorua community house where Ms Heremaia attends a sewing class, said many sole parents had no qualifications and would not give up the benefit for a minimum-wage job.

A sole parent with three young children paying the $332 average rent for a three-bedroom house in Papakura would get $206 in family support and $165 in accommodation supplement on top of the $278 DPB, a total of $649 a week.

"A lot of our solo parents get well in the $700s. They are not going to go from $700 to $400," Ms Raiwhara said.

"Even if you're in a fulltime job on $400-$500 a week [after tax], childcare is $240 a week. You're working to pay for someone else to look after your child.

"Maybe they should put the wages up and maybe that would give people the incentive to go back to work."

Now let's recall what Sue Bradford et al are saying;

"The alternative group, chaired by Massey University social policy expert Mike O'Brien and including former Green MP Sue Bradford, says current benefits of $194 a week for a single adult or $366 for a sole parent with one child are "simply too low to live on"."

The whole thrust of the Alternative Welfare Group's approach is to misrepresent the situation to garner public support for 'poverty-stricken' beneficiaries which then turns into political opposition to reform.

No, it is not easy being on a benefit. It is not easy being on a low income full stop. Neither is it easy working 5,6 or 7 days a week only to lose a good part of your earnings to someone who refuses to make similar efforts.

Reminder of why welfare is in such a mess

The NZ Herald reports;

"The alternative group, chaired by Massey University social policy expert Mike O'Brien and including former Green MP Sue Bradford, says current benefits of $194 a week for a single adult or $366 for a sole parent with one child are "simply too low to live on"."

But most beneficiaries are not living on just the basic benefit. The following illustrates the additional support someone on the DPB might typically be receiving and why that disincentivises work;


TAS = temporary additional support
DA = disability allowance
AS = accommodation supplement
FTC = family tax credit

Next;

"... the alternative group says there is actually "no immediate crisis". It says beneficiaries fell from 15 per cent of the working-age population in 2000 to only 10 per cent in 2008 when jobs were available, and have risen to only 12 per cent in the current recession."

12.5 percent is a crisis when compared with the 30 years that followed the creation of social security when the total number of working age people receiving a benefit never exceeded 2 percent.

Also ignored is that those making up the current 12.5 percent are on typically much longer term benefits than the dole which made up half of all benefit uptake in the early 90s.

It says the $60 a week "in-work tax credit" for families with at least one fulltime worker should be paid to all low-income families.

This claim has been made ad nauseam. The Child Poverty Action Group took their case to the Human Rights Tribunal and lost. The Tribunal found the government had the right to discriminate in order to encourage people to work. And remember it was a Labour government they were fighting.

There is no way any of the stuff in this report is going to fly. It merely serves to remind us of the type of sentiment that got us into such a mess with welfare.

(Graphs from the Treasury Report to the [official] Welfare Working Group)

Pro-welfare activists gear up

The Alternative Working Welfare Group presents its final report today. I can't find an associated media release but just heard Sue Bradford on the radio network news talking about recommending raising benefit levels, 'full' living wages, recognition of caring and the inclusion of beneficiary wants for the system. They have an event planned in Wellington today.

Fortunately, as it stands, they have no political power to implement their desire for ever more wealth redistribution.

(Still find the Catholics and Sue Bradford an odd mix.)

The English Pointer

Still sketching every day in Eastbourne. Painting sales leave a lot to be desired but the pastel commissions are steady. Here's one picked up yesterday by the delighted owner of an English Setter.

Social Development Minister playing statistical sophistry

The Minister for Social Development released (some) November benefit numbers yesterday. The total number of people on benefits has risen from 338,000 in September to 342,000. She said this;

“We now have 342,076 people on benefits - that’s ten percent of the working age population – we’ve a long way to go to improve this picture,” says Ms Bennett.

Yet in September the Ministry benefit fact sheets showed that between 12 and 13 percent of the working age population was reliant on a benefit.

So the Minister is saying that 1 in 10 working-age people is on a benefit but the Ministry is saying 1 in 8.

In her defence the Minister will probably say she is employing the working-age definition of 15-64 years-old. Yet the Ministry officially uses the 18-64 definition for the purposes of collating and distributing statistics;

This fact sheet defines the working-age population as aged 18–64 years to reflect the minimum age of entitlement to most benefits and the age of eligibility for New Zealand Superannuation. All information in this fact sheet refers to working-age recipients of main benefits.

I note too that the increase in absolute numbers is being largely blamed on students going on benefits.

As usual with universities finishing for summer, an influx of students (5,802) going onto benefits pushed overall benefit numbers up....The biggest contributor to the rise in overall benefits in November was due to the influx of students onto benefits.

But when the students go off the benefits next year the associated decrease will be trumpeted as an improving economy or good government performance as per her statement earlier this year;

"It's really pleasing to see 5,595 young people came off a benefit in just the last month," says Ms Bennett.

"Young people have been among the hardest hit by the recession and initiatives like Job Ops and Community Max have proven vital in keeping young New Zealanders in work," says Ms Bennett.

In reality all that happens is students move between student allowance and the unemployment benefit.

Whose cost, caring?

Tapu Misa's latest column is a criticism of the Welfare Working Group's focus on paid work to reduce dependency on the state.

She "whines" (her word) that stay at home mums feel worthless and undervalued. She presumes to speak for all at home mums. Collectivists have to do that in order to find collectivist solutions. Personally I never, ever felt undervalued as an at-home mother but what I and my family think is more important to me than the views of any other faceless community.

But the picture Misa concocts is of a society increasingly ganging up on all stay at home parents.

These days the idea of staying at home to look after young children seems increasingly old-fashioned and indulgent.

Yet, strangely, more and more men are doing it. Any 'indulgence' arises from the fact that many parents are using public money to stay home. Not money their partner has earned.

But Misa never makes any distinction between the two.

Some mothers (I imagine most) work because of economic necessity, but I've had more than a few women confess to me that they needed to work for their own sanity.

The mothers I know who are resisting that trend, despite the personal and economic costs, find themselves swimming against a tide that is increasingly unsympathetic, even dismissive of the role they play in raising and supporting their children.

There it is again. A 'tide' of collective opinion.

This leads to the predictable assertion that society puts no value on 'caring', or not enough anyway.

What she really means is that the state puts no value on caring because she observes the state getting increasingly reluctant to pay for it.

That is because when the state takes on responsibility for the upkeep of individuals they do less and less for themselves and each other. Families have fewer reasons to stay together and rely on one another. I am sure that the members of the WWG do value individuals caring for one another but understand that the welfare system has undermined this.

With its narrow focus on paid work rather than care, it continues to miss the bigger picture.

No. I think it is Tapu Misa who misses the big picture.

And one more thing. She alludes to a situation developing in the US;

As the New York Times reported last week, budget cuts in schools, for example, have heightened the need for more volunteer help just as parents have less and less time to give.

The unpaid work that would have been done by stay-at-home mothers is now falling on over-burdened working mothers, who are starting to "say NO to volunteering".

High unemployment has meant more people have more time on their hands. People are stepping forward to fill roles in schools that were previously paid positions and perversely, the unions are fighting them. Out of necessity the state is shrinking and the left do not like it.

Useless information for you

The only use for the following navel-gazing information is to idly compare it to your own circumstances. My household would rank below Italy. I do almost all the gardening and housework. That is because when himself is at home he is usually doing paid work. It just continues from one computer screen to the next. And that's fine by me. He might also point out that as he puts a reasonable dollop of money into my bank account each month my work is not in fact unpaid.



Source.

Children's Commissioner on the DPB

Reading the Children's Commissioner objecting to proposals from the Welfare Working Group Options paper I wondered how the reporter could make such a major statistical error;

With 183,000 single parents receiving the domestic purposes benefit, it was important to pay attention to how changes to the benefit system would affect them.

Wrong.

So I searched the paper by 183,000. Here is the result.

Approximately 183,000 children are being raised in a family on a Domestic Purposes Benefit.

Then I checked the Commissioner's release but it wasn't his mistake. Very poor reporting on the part of the journalist who shows they are completely unfamiliar with the subject or wouldn't have made such a glaring mistake.

But back to the Commissioner's objections.

He wants single parents to be able to stay on the DPB for longer than two years and doesn't want any measures introduced that prevent more children being added to the benefit. Result? Long-term dependence. Back to the drawing board.

Yet when he presented to the Welfare Working Group earlier this year he said;

“living in a benefit-dependent home has serious impacts on child wellbeing.”

So the Children's Commissioner can be added to the long list of people who know there is a problem but don't know what to do about it. Their constant refrain is "what about the children?"

Quite. What about the children if we require no more from their parents? What about the children if parents are allowed to continue to treat the benefit as a lifestyle entitlement?

I am fully behind the documented option to reduce the DPB to one year only (with a lifetime limit on welfare). This allows time for the mother and child to bond in the case of a new birth, or time for a recovery after a relationship breakdown in the case of a separation. But one year's availability (in the majority of cases) would change the way people think about welfare and require them to start taking responsibility for their own lives. It is also in line with most working parents expectations. One year off work.

Sketching still

Fonzie.

From a photo by Carrick.

Susan picked him up at the weekend and has framed him already. Gorgeous dog.

On my 15th straight day of 'public' pastelling and I have work coming in steadily.

Key looking to move on welfare

All the usual accusations of 'beneficiary bashing' have surfaced on the back of the Welfare Working Group's options report. Tapu Misa, Gordon Campbell, Sue Bradford, the Alternative Welfare Working Group, the Greens etc.

Even Steve Maharey emerged yesterday to add his criticism to the carping cacophony.

We have heard all of this before, along with the willingness to distort everything we know about the welfare system to win the argument.

Priceless. He would know about distortion. For years he painted a misleading picture of people on the DPB as typically separated, in their thirties and highly motivated to work.

And his big idea?

What we need is an approach that will harmonise social policy with economic development and identify social programmes that make a contribution to economic growth.

If this can be done, the case for social welfare holding back growth is weakened and arguments in favour of social welfare become compelling.

I call this alternative social development because it provides a justification for redistribution by advocating resources be put into social investments that will impact positively on the economy.

Oh groan. Social 'development' was practised for years under his watch. That's what the Ministry is named after. There is, however, an economic theory called 'broken windows' that explains why redistribution of resources on the back of calamity does not add to overall economic growth.

Anyway, one theme they all keep hammering is, there is no crisis, there is no 'dependency'. For instance Tapu Misa writes;

Mike O'Brien, an associate professor of social policy at Massey University, questions the focus on dependency. He writes that other than anecdotal stories and "prejudicial assertion", no evidence is presented to support the claim about benefit "dependence".

The Group offered numerous statistics to flesh out dependence in terms of both numbers and duration of stay. But here is a quote from recent MSD research if they want it from the horse's mouth so to speak;

On average, sole parents receiving main benefits had more disadvantaged backgrounds than might have been expected:

• just over half had spent at least 80% of the history period observed (the previous 10 years in most cases) supported by main benefits
• a third appeared to have become parents in their teenage years

I have, by the way, argued frequently that the last statement is an undercount and explained why. But if this state of affairs isn't 'dependence' then it is hard to envisage what is.

So I was buoyed to read this morning that John Key will be looking for next year's welfare policy in the final recommendations the Welfare Working Group make in February.

He [Key] signalled that he also wanted final proposals from the welfare working group, due to report in February, translated into policy by the next election.

Good man. Put up some real welfare reform policy and I will vote for you. It'll be a first.

Silly name calling

NewstalkZB political commentator, Barry Soper, never worries about disguising his dislike for Rodney Hide and ACT. Here he refers to him as "Rodney Thick Hide" .

Which ever way you read it neither interpretation works. He is not thick. And he is not impervious to criticism and hostility. I made the reacquaintance of an old (but young) ACT supporter by chance the other day. We reflected on Rodney's unfailing, and often unfounded, optimism. And his sheer doggedness. The second trait is reinforced by John Boscawen's uncanny ability to never falter when he has a goal. Neither are out for the count yet.

I commented to my husband when Rodney became engaged to Louise Crome that she would want children. Not that I know her or anything about her. But I was a similar age, and newly married, when I had my first child and if it is there to out, the desire to mother is very strong by that stage. So I also wonder what that will mean for the future of ACT. Rodney becoming a father again. He is a character predisposed to sea changes. Perhaps he will draw the curtain on politics. At least he would no longer have to tolerate silly name-calling.

Don Brash delivers National a few home truths

Predictably the NZ Herald is sensationalising another Don Brash Orewa speech delivered last night with the headline, "Brash attacks Maori - again. "

The section about Maori and equal citizenship is only a small part of a speech which lays out plainly what is wrong with the way National is managing the country and what needs to happen if the economic decline is to be arrested.

Here are a few lines towards the conclusion of a 9 page speech; a recognition that particularly resonated with me;

One of the problems in any democratic society is that when left-of-centre parties are in power they tax heavily the high-income minority to win votes from the majority. For at least a time, they can be almost guaranteed of winning if they take $1,000 off one voter and give $200 to each of five voters (after clipping the ticket on the way through of course!). Right-of-centre governments feel obliged to continue that policy, even where it violates their constitution and destroys the country’s future.

The problem is that, unless those policies are reversed from time to time, we get a steady increase in the size of government, and a steady increase in the tax burden carried by the most productive members of our community. It takes courage, vision and moral purpose to reverse that trend.

Entire speech here

Liquor ban in Day's Bay

Some locals, led by one councillor Ross Jamieson, are pushing for a permanent liquor ban in Day's Bay, a traditional day-out picnicking destination for Wellingtonians, especially the young. My letter to the local rag:

Dear Editor

Law that relies on police discretion to administer it is bad law. The policing of a permanent liquor ban in Days Bay would apparently permit "a decent family" to break it. This is a recipe for harassment of the 'wrong' people, whoever the wrong people are. Probably young, brown and loud.

Councillor Jamieson has discounted "personal freedoms" in favour of preventing "loutish behaviour". He might reflect on the slippery slope he is embarking on.

Young people have been coming to Days Bay, enjoying themselves and, God forbid, drinking, for generations. Most stay out of trouble. If they break some existing law protecting person and property, police and prosecute by all means. But introducing 'discretionary' law to target one sector of society sets a very bad precedent.

A snapshot of children born in NZ today

Some useful information will come out of this long-term study launched yesterday. 7,000 children in and around Auckland will be followed from birth. This will probably be a similar exercise to the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Study into children born in the 1970s. Some key facts were released yesterday. TV3 highlighted that 45 percent of the mothers in "high deprivation areas" were not aware of Working For Families. That is probably because they have no connection with the tax system through work. They will be well aware of the benefit system and using it.

KEY ANTENATAL FINDINGS

* 40 percent of children were unplanned
* 90 percent of mothers made changes to their diet during pregnancy.
* 16 percent of all mothers did not take folate at any time before or during their pregnancy.
* More than one in 10 mothers continued to smoke through their pregnancies (with an over-representation of those identifying as Maori and living in the most deprived areas.)
* Many mothers consumed alcohol during pregnancy.

KEY DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION

* Forty nine percent of mothers identify as NZ European, 18 percent as Maori, 15 percent as Pacific and 15 percent as Asian.
* One in three of the Growing Up children have at least one parent born overseas.
* There are a multiple number of languages spoken by parents with one in three children being born into families where parents speak more than one language competently. One in five children will grow up in homes where English is not the main language (although 97 percent of mothers and partners are able to converse in everyday English). The most common languages spoken in the home after English are Samoan, Hindi, Tongan and Mandarin. Maori as the main language is spoken in less than one percent of homes.
* Twenty-eight percent of mothers live either on their own or with extended family (sometimes including their partner).
* Five percent of mothers are teenagers.
* Ten percent of mothers needed fertility assistance to get pregnant.
* Half of the children are born into families living in rental accommodation (public and private).
* Forty percent of children are born into families living in the most deprived areas of New Zealand (according to NZDep 2006 indices).
* Nearly half (45 percent) of mothers in high deprivation areas were unaware of Working for Families.
* Children are born into families which are highly mobile with more than half having moved more than twice in the last five years. This is often within a neighbourhood.

KEY STUDY INFORMATION

* The mothers of the Growing Up children were recruited during their pregnancies during 2008, 2009 and 2010.
* The mothers lived in the Auckland, Counties Manukau and Waikato District Health Boards at that time.
* Many have left these areas but remain in the study.

The Welfare Working Group Options Report

The WWG report is very long and laced with tens and tens of options. Some sound and some silly. But they seem resigned to putting up everything bar the kitchen sink. There are various media reports which attempt to pick out what each author considers the main options.

Stuff.

The NZ Herald.

Otago Daily Times.

The mistruths from the left start.

Sue Bradford:

By using figures that assume people on the DPB and Invalid's Benefit, will stay on them for the rest of their lives, assumptions are made about welfare costs that are completely biased and unrealistic.

The assumptions are based on the actual average time that DPB and IB recipients stay on a benefit.

This is what the report says;

For someone currently on a benefit, it is estimated that the total cost of all future benefit payments will be $192,000 for a person on the Invalid’s Benefit and $161,000 for someone on the Domestic Purposes Benefit, compared to $65,000 for a person on the Unemployment Benefit.

I only had time to read the executive summary yesterday. There are options covering time limits, work-testing the DPB much earlier than is currently the case, investing up front based on what a beneficiary is likely to cost if left to their own devices, a far more paternalistic approach to teenagers, changing abatement rates, supplementary assistance regimes etc. Responses are invited if you feel inclined to. (Try this link later)

The alternative group's report is due out December 9.