Terry Serepisos - just like government

There seems to be a recurring theme for me this week. Extravagance with other people's money. Terry Serepisos is one example. He owed millions to people who have taken him on trust; paid for materials to do work for him; paid wages for people to do work for him; taken on their own debt waiting for him to pay up. It struck in the middle of the night, worrying about monies owed to me, I may be a victim of his foolhardiness myself as a downstream domino.

People laud him for the Phoenix but he was spending money and building debt. He is really no better than governments using tax and ratepayers money for things they don't need and don't want.

For instance, my local government, the Hutt City Coucil, is an assinine spenthrift. There are signs going up all over the place (not signs of belt-tightening either).

In our street there are six Norfolk pines. They have been designated 'protected trees'. Fine. But every single one has to have its own sign (each a duplicate) to inform the public of their hallowed status among things with roots and leaves.

A nearby alleyway suddenly has a name with signs, at either end just in case you miss it.

Now these bloody blue signs are popping up everywhere telling us the name of our home. I thought I lived in Eastbourne but no, I live in Muritai. But some people who think they live in Eastbourne have it confirmed. Indeed they do live in Eastbourne.

Entering the bays an enormous sign has been erected with symbols I have yet to work out completely. One means swimming - not shit Sherlock. You can swim in the sea?
Another looks like a narrow bridge of which we have none. Maybe the knife and fork is a reminder to check your picnic implements are of the 'safe' variety.

All of it costs money that cannot be spent elswhere. I know that a number of local businesses are teetering on the brink. The lotto and confectionary shop closed two weeks ago. I am sure business owners and other residents regard this splurge of signage with the same bewilderment and anger as I do.

Spending other people's money in an unrestrained, devil-may-care manner is bad enough in a boom. In that respect I can comprehend Serepisos' activities. But not now and not the council. They are just kicking sand in our faces.

Perhaps I could fashion my own sign warning off sand-kickers. But it'll have to wait till I am back in the black.

Vernon Small poses a question about ACT

In today's DomPost Vernon Small asks whether John Key should continue to "hold out the lifeline to ACT" or:

"...would it be better in the long run (and more humane) to allow ACT and its damaged brand to die a quiet death? That may create room for a new liberal free market party to spring up on his right."

I have my own question.

I want Brash, but I don't want Banks. Do I want Brash more than I don't want Banks? If ACT polls like it did in 2005 that's what ACT will be. No good for me.

So I'll keep watching the polls and waiting for number three to be announced.

Gareth Morgan's vision

From Gareth Morgan's latest NZ Herald article:

"...we need a system of redistribution that gives to each adult the means to live in dignity in the absence of paid work, delivering to all the freedom to find a balance between paid and unpaid activity, while ensuring that all those who do seek paid work get rewarded for their efforts."

All of the above should be delivered through civil society (sorry, can't find a better term ). That is people finding the means to create a "balance between paid and unpaid activity" through their relationships with each other.

Gareth Morgan wants the state to deliver it to people through taking "the means" off one and giving it to another.

The civil society involves no force - Morgan's vision involves significant force.

The civil society binds people - Morgan's vision isolates them.

The civil society (with increasing interference from the state) is the long-standing basis by which many (but not all) have lived happy and fulfilling lives - Morgan's vision is merely a re-run of demonstrably disastrous utopian fantasies.

More on the ACT dope debacle

ACT was always supposed to be the party of ideas. That was what I constantly heard when I was involved. That means leading thinking; expressing possibly contentious ideas; and influencing reform.

When one of them rightly waves that flag, others run a mile. Pathetic.

Banks is an idiot. He doesn't, never did and never will belong in a party of new ideas. He can't even get his head around this debate not being about drugs good/drugs bad. It's about whether the way authorities and lawmakers currently approach them is effective.

The current approach is riddled with inconsistencies and hypocrisies. If that is what society thinks will make the best impression on young minds then it is deluding itself.

Campbell poll - 72 percent say 'yes' to decriminalising cannabis

John Campbell just conducted a poll on the back of interviews with both Don Brash and John not-over-my-dead-body Banks.

Should cannabis be decriminalised and 72 percent texted YES.

A Stuff poll shows 77 percent support.

A NZ Herald poll is less emphatic with 48 percent of over 16,000 saying yes.

Honestly? I am surprised but very pleased at that result.

As for the Brash/Banks schism, business as usual for ACT. Just much more publicly overt.

Good on Don

Kiwiblog reports Don Brash calling for the decriminalisation of cannabis. Good for him. Even the Greens aren't pushing this barrow anymore.

Act leader Don Brash is calling for the decriminalisation of cannabis.

He says prohibition of the drug hasn’t worked, and policing it costs millions of tax payer dollars and clogs up the court system.

He’s told TVNZ’s Q&A programme there are other ways to restrict the use of marijuana.

“It’s estimated thousands of New Zealanders use cannabis on a fairly regular basis, 6,000 are prosecuted every year, a $100million of tax payers money is spent to police this law,” says My Brash.

Separatism versus secularism

New Zealand is a secular state. The public service is secular in its practices and policies. If you are Pakeha.

Maori spiritualism and cultural beliefs are another matter however.

A fine example of this can be seen in a report just released by MSD.

It canvasses child misconduct and the ways in which the state deals with the problem.

Te Hohounga: Mai I Te Tirohanga Māori – The Process of Reconciliation: Towards a Māori View - The Delivery of Conduct Problem Services to Māori (Te Hohounga). The report was commissioned by the Ministry of Social Development in 2009. The author, Lisa Cherrington, (Ngati Hine, Ngapuhi), is a Senior Clinical Psychologist, School of Psychology, Massey University.

Te Hohounga contributes toward a Māori view of conduct problems and to provide advice on how Māori tamariki, taiohi and whānau experiencing conduct problems receive the most effective and culturally enhancing interventions possible and on improving behavioural services for Māori....

The starting point to Te Hohounga is the importance of indigenous knowledge and identity, and how this is reflected in mythology stories to understand, and respond to, conduct problems:

“Kōrero pūrākau (mythology stories) highlight the impact of separation. After Ranginui and Papatuanuku were separated, their children all had different reactions. Kōrero pūrākau show us how our atua coped, adapted and dealt with change, separation and loss. Aspects of tikanga came about from the actions of the atua who were reacting to the changes. In addition, the pūrākau show the capacity for both positive and negative actions. When considering the behaviour of each of the children, the pūrākau reflect a strong, strengths-based focus. This is relevant to viewing conduct problems within a Te Ao Māori perspective”.

IF a different approach were successful, and IF correcting child misconduct is to continue be the job of the state, then so be it.

BUT research into the effectiveness of the Maori world-view approach conducted by Professor David Fergusson warned:

These findings do pose a challenge to current policies aimed at reducing the over-representation of Māori children in rates of child maltreatment, which emphasise “identity interventions” that are not evidence-based and are largely ideologically driven. Even though such policies are no doubt well intentioned and observe statutory requirements unique to the New Zealand context, following the view expounded by UNICEF (2003, 2007), they must be exposed to ongoing critical scrutiny and empirical evaluation.

Child poverty - what is left unsaid

In the run up to the election, groups wanting the government to solve child poverty have been very active. A mix of academics, political activists, religious lobby groups etc. say that 200,000 New Zealand children are living in poverty thereby significantly increasing their risks of poor health, educational and social outcomes.

But who are these children? The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), authors of the latest report, Left Further Behind, are not specific about the group’s composition. They make observations like, “The[se] poorest children in New Zealand are found disproportionately in sole parent households…” and “Māori children are twice as likely as Pākehā to be living in a poor household … a fact the report identifies as reflecting the relatively high proportion of Maori children living in sole parent beneficiary families and households.” Some of the children also live in two-parent working households apparently.

Other sources, The Child Health Monitor 2011 for instance, provide further clues. It records that in April 2011 children reliant on the DPB numbered 180,845. Also, “During 2009, 75% of all households (including those with and without children) relying on income-tested benefits as their main source of income were living below the poverty line.”

Assuming an unchanged proportion, 75% of the 180,845 DPB-dependent children are living below the poverty line; around 135,600. So two thirds of the child poverty problem relates to DPB reliance.

Recent Ministry of Social Development research into sole parents on benefits found,"The research considered all sole parents in receipt of a main benefit at 31 December 2005 – around 114,000 people. Of this group: just over half had spent at least 80% of the history period supported by main benefits; a third appeared to have become parents in their teens."

Importantly, a third is a minimum estimate due to the method of calculation. The research also found that the ‘early starters’ tended to have larger families, more debt and greater hardship. Putting together the pieces thus far, conservatively 60,000 of the children living in poverty belong in welfare families which sprang from a teenage birth.

Surprisingly CPAG’s report mentions teen births just once and then only as an OECD indicator of child well-being, not as a significant source of child poverty.

The CPAG’s approach is one of government responsibility after the fact. It chides the Welfare Working Group for over-emphasising individual responsibilities rather than human rights. CPAG’s attention is on their cure - a greater shift of wealth into these families – and not prevention.

Given the increasing ability of young people to avoid early births, that is odd. Young people across socio-economic levels are having relationships and sex. But most of the births to teenagers occur in the poorest deciles – 56 percent in the lowest three and 23 percent in the poorest. Poor, uneducated girls have less to lose when choosing or failing to avoid premature parenthood. A benefit will pay equal to or more than working full time at the minimum wage.

Yet the major recommendation advanced by CPAG is to increase benefits. Given the above set of circumstances, it isn’t difficult to anticipate what raising benefits may do. Increase the number of children on benefits.

Does that matter? Yes. When the Ministry of Social Development studied whether the source of income mattered to the living standards of poor children in benefit households versus poor children in working households they found that, "The results demonstrate that there is considerable variation in the living standards of those below the poverty threshold, and suggest that poor children in families with government transfers as the main income source are a particularly vulnerable group...Poor children whose families are primarily reliant on market income are in an intermediate position."

This indicates that poverty, of itself, isn’t necessarily the problem. Yet CPAG, and their counterparts, seem quite reluctant to pin down the 200,000 children by family structure, employment status or ethnicity.

They certainly aren’t interested in a discussion about the long-term impacts of New Zealand’s high teenage birth rate, especially among Maori. If they were, a report into reducing child poverty would be the very place to have it.

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer

Many are pushing inequality as an election issue.

The gini coefficient measures inequality.

"From 2000 the level of inequality as expressed by this measure has been static or tending to fall."




Over the same period two countries that had greater annual change (+) were Sweden and Finland. Greece had the greatest negative annual change (-). That is, their gini coefficient dropped. Their equality increased. Yahoo.


Source of graph.

DPB dependency records

A journalist from the Waikato Times has been investigating long-term benefit dependence in her region:

A single Waikato mother of six children has been receiving benefits for almost 30 years.

She is one of an army of long term Waikato beneficiaries revealed in information released to the Waikato Times under the Official Information Act.

Social Development Ministry statistics show 1647 people in the region have been receiving some form of benefit for 15 years or more.

A further 1500 have been on it for between 10 and 15 years, 3655 between five to 10 years, 6309 between two to five years and 12,904 for less than two years.

Bear in mind these periods describe continuous dependency. If people leave welfare and return, the clock starts afresh.

According to the ministry's information, Waikato's longest claiming beneficiary first started receiving the Domestic Purposes Benefit in 1982 and is still on it. The ministry would not say where the woman lived or give details of how much she received.

If she was to receive the present DPB rate for the Domestic Purposes Benefit of $288.47 for the next 30 years it would cost taxpayers $449,280.

That's a strange observation. If the woman had begun on the DPB at the youngest possible age - 16 - she would now be 47. She can't spend "the next 30 years" on the DPB but she will probably spend the next 18.

The journalist goes on to say that she "has received $450,000 in tax payer's money during that time." The writer has probably used the current rate and multiplied it by 31. Which ignores all of the additional assistance for her children and accommodation costs. And, of course she cannot factor in the change in the value of money over time. It is highly, highly unlikely MSD tallied up the women's tab for the 31 years dependent on you.

Anyway she isn't on her own or holding the record. Here's one that has been on the DPB for 36 years. I seem to remember that Muriel Newman uncovered cases that had been on it since it was created.

Update; A discussion about this matter is going on at Kiwiblog. I have just posted the WWG recommendation to deal with people who add children to their benefit, something this parent must have done.

Addressing unintended consequences from incentives for parents to have additional children

We have heard a concern among some people that setting a work expectation for parents when their youngest child reaches three years or six years may create an incentive for a small minority of parents to have additional children to avoid this work expectation. Should this eventuate, this would likely contribute to worse outcomes for the parents, their existing children and the family as a whole, and make it even harder for parents to regain their independence from the welfare system. The Working Group considers that one component of addressing this incentive is to provide support for people on welfare to manage their fertility, including through contraception and information about expectations.
The Welfare Working Group also proposes a change in the conditions of eligibility to address this issue. The majority of the Working Group recommends that a work test in the case of parents having an additional child while on welfare should be aligned with paid parental leave provisions (when the youngest child reaches 14 weeks). A minority of members felt that the work-test in the case of parents having an additional child while on welfare should be aligned with parental leave employment protection provisions (at 12 months). The Working Group is of the view that if the changes to the work test do not address the incentives to have additional children while reliant on welfare payments, then it may be necessary to consider additional financial disincentives in the future. There was agreement that should such provisions be introduced emergency and exemption provisions would be critical.

A bit of irony Sue Bradford has overlooked

Sue Bradford is celebrating the implementation of her bill to allow imprisoned mothers to have their babies in prison for "up to two years, instead of the six to nine months that currently applies."

‘I feel it is absolutely fitting that news that the new law is finally being actioned inside womens’ prisons has come through on Women’s Suffrage Day.’

Ironically, at the same time, the right to vote when in prison for less than three years has also been removed.

In respect to these changes, who did the better job as an MP?

Paul Quinn or Sue Bradford?

I vote Bradford. But with deep reservations.

Sex ed squirms

Just a quick post re parents getting uncomfortable about today's sex education.

My just-turned 13 year-old will relate some part of that curriculum to me and we almost simultaneously both go "oooooooh" as in "yicky" (or as my husband would say, "more information than I wanted".) The lessons are jointly to boys and girls and it seems there is quite a bit of "oooooh" on both sides.

They are taught that some 'practices' are 'normal'. Which is better, in my book, than teaching they are 'abnormal'.

I figure as she is comfortable enough to relate the episodes to me, and we can have a little laugh about it all (something I would never have done with my mother) then probably no harm done. Pulling her out of lessons to save hers and my sensibilities wouldn't be a better option.

But really, aren't some aspects of our sexuality just private?

Socialised health and longevity - the nagging never ends

I care about what happens to people. Especially those personally involved with me. But also, those who I don't know, in a broader sense.

But I can't care more about them than they do themselves.

If they want to eat their way to an early grave then quite frankly, that's their prerogative. Don't give me all the burden- on- the- public- health- system pleading. Firstly, because over their lifetimes unhealthy people will ultimately consume fewer public funds and secondly, if you are serious about that argument, why have public health? Why not privatise and improve the incentives to be healthy?

No. Thought so. Can't do that. So let's stick with the current context.

There is no sense behind the onslaught of nannying that has suffocated targets for many decades now. Actually, didn't it begin with the welfare state? 'Now we have nationalised your body, we have the right to nationalise your behaviour'.

Matt McCarten - get over yourself . The rest of the world doen't need you to watch over them, stop them eating your idea of unhealthy food, or force them into sport and activity, or make them read food labels.

You have your beloved socialised health and security. Stop rubbing salt into to the wounds of those forced to fund a system they are fundamentally opposed to.

When it comes to people who foreshorten their lives through over-eating, over-drinking, smoking etc., what the taxpayer loses on the swings, they will regain on the roundabouts. The best that can be said for health and longevity as subsidised and supervised by the state.

Need a laugh?

Did my dough on the All Blacks to be ahead at half time by a margin of 16-25.

It's depressing for the Japanese and I don't think it is going to get any brighter somehow.

But this made me laugh, just arrived in my inbox from a non-rugby-watching philistine friend:

How attempts to protect children might backfire

The NZ Herald reports:

Turning a blind eye to child abuse will now be classified as criminal after Parliament tonight passed a law to hold people accountable.

The Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) creates a new offence of failing to take reasonable steps to protect a child or vulnerable adult from the risk of death, grievous bodily harm or sexual assault, which comes with a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment.

Parents or people aged over 18 could be found liable if they had frequent contact with the victim, including if they were a member of the same household or if they were a staff member at an institution where the victim lived.

There is a distinct possibility this law will increase the danger for abused children. That is because children may become more isolated as people who merely suspect abuse remove themselves from the circle of liability.

This may appear to be an abdication of responsibility but even for the best intentioned people, those who give freely of their time to work in high risk communities, the potential risks to themselves may become too high.

What is Rodney Hide going to do?

Sorry if I have missed something significant on this subject, but what is Rodney Hide doing?

Twice it has been reported that he is not giving a valedictory speech because he is not leaving parliament.

He isn't on National's list. He isn't standing for National in Epsom.

He isn't on ACT's list (with number three yet to be confirmed) and he isn't standing for ACT in Epsom.

Don't think he will be standing for the Mana Party somehow.

Which leaves another distinct possibility. He will stand as an Independent in Epsom.

Traditionally independent candidates do diddly squat. BUT Hide is a Minister. If National does a deal for him to continue in ministerial capacity he can continue to be an effective electorate MP. Peter Dunne and Jim Anderton have essentially been doing the same thing at various times.

I imagine that Rodney has a fair bit of personal loyalty saved in the Epsom bank. If I lived there I would vote for him even as an Independent.

And even if he failed he would probably do for Banks in the process. John Banks, who has to win Epsom to keep ACT in parliament. Can't see that worrying Rodney somehow. And why should it?

Interview about child poverty

Did an interview with Geoff Robinson on Morning Report today. I was asked to comment on the latest child poverty report released yesterday by CPAG. For some reason I was introduced as a researcher from a conservative right-wing think-tank called the Institute For Liberal Values (a contradiction in terms.) I haven't been in that role for years.

Anyway a local business couple came into my shop this morning saying I should be hiding. That people would be "ripping shreds off me" for suggesting that parents need to take more responsibility for those choices and actions which resulted in their children living in 'poverty'. They were tongue-in-cheek. But what a strange world we live in. Only governments are to blame for every ill that befalls us and only governments can resolve every ill that befalls us. It seems to be a mindset that many people and many media players can't get beyond. Perhaps it's because there is no story if individuals are at fault.

Absurd response to income management

The following is an Australian editorial about income management. It largely argues against the practice of allocating 50-70 percent of a benefit to a payment card, on the basis it restricts freedom and impinges on dignity.

A PROPOSAL by the federal government to manage welfare recipients' income has some merit if it is aimed at protecting children.

But any intervention - that most inflammatory of words - into the lives of people and denial of their basic human rights must be treated with great circumspection.

Income management, which is on trial in the highly cosmopolitan Bankstown region of western Sydney, involves apportioning between 50 and 70 per cent of a person's welfare payment to their BasicsCard.


The percentage is determined by Centrelink public servants on a case-by-case basis and the card can be used only in approved outlets such as supermarkets, department stores and motoring retailers. The card cannot be used for alcohol, tobacco or gambling.

It may seem hard to argue against an initiative that diverts money from the pub or the betting shop to the weekly food, clothing and medical budget. But income management impinges on people's right to make their own choices. It also risks stigmatising sections of our society.

The Howard government no doubt had its heart in the right place when it introduced its intervention policy into Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory.

How can protecting women and children from the brutal legacy of drug and alcohol abuse be a bad thing? Well, nominally, it can't.

But the reality is that such interference has an Orwellian aspect that must be questioned. The government and its hired help - the public service - assume the right to tell people how to live their lives.

Eradication of dignity, independence and freedom belongs in a totalitarian state, and even the suggestion of a move in this direction must be subject to rigorous scrutiny and debate.

While some in the Northern Territory have praised the intervention policy - now being sustained by the Gillard government - others have been implacably opposed to what they see as a denial of liberty.

Supporters argue that lives have been saved or greatly improved by intervention.

But while governments must do everything possible to educate and even regulate so that vulnerable members of society are protected, they must not trample people's rights to shape their own destiny.

There are many examples in Australia of a nanny state and most, such as anti-smoking legislation, helmets for cyclists, compulsory seat belt wearing and blood alcohol limits enjoy the support of the sensible majority.

But if income management threatens our democratic foundations its implementation must be such that it in no way encroaches on Australian ideals.

Note that it begins by saying intervention is the most imflammatory word. Absolutely. State intervention is something to be limited as much as possible. But has the writer forgotten what pays for benefits? Massive intervention by way of taxation.

So how come it is OK to intervene in the lives of working people but not in the lives of the non-working people they support?

Then he or she invokes Nanny State. Well really. The welfare state is the nth degree expression of Nanny State. If the prospect of income managment puts off some of the not-so-needy that would represent a reduction in Nanny State. Not an extention.

"Eradication of dignity, independence and freedom belongs in a totalitarian state..."

The eradication of these things is the very result of a sprawling benefit system that sees one in seven or eight people living off the state; dosed up and addicted to hand-outs; caught in debt traps, and having to live cheek by jowl with people they are afraid of.

The editorial arguments are pompous and fickle.

It is morally defensible to income manage all beneficiaries.

But that still doesn't get to the crux of the problem of having ridiculous numbers of people treating benefits like a legitimate alternative to work or reliance on each other.

No evidence of Maori family violence?

A story about the "dark side" of NZ characterised by Maori gangs and violence, written by a Sydney-based journalist and running in UK's Independent contains the following:

Jim Anglem, of the Violence Research Centre, rejects this notion, saying women and children were revered in traditional Maori society. Moreover, between 1950 and 1970 there was little evidence of Maori family violence.

He hasn't been looking very hard for it.

Historian Bronwyn Labrum reviewed child welfare files from the 1950s and 60s.

"As with Pakeha however, domestic conflict contributed to a sizeable number of cases, and appears to have intensified, or become more visible, under pressures of urbanisation, relocation and living in a nuclear family style. Money troubles and commonly accepted rates of Maori drinking only made matters worse. In 1958 the Secretary of Maori Affairs informed the minister that welfare officers were constantly being called on upon to mediate in 'domestic disputes' and ' needed tact and diplomacy plus a fair share of good fortune' to solve such cases. The reports from the districts suggested excessive drinking, unequal distribution of family income, unfaithfulness, and bad living conditions, among other things as reasons."

Bronwyn Dalley, in Family Matters, described a 1967 investigation into child abuse that found the reported rate of abuse for Maori children was six times that for Pakeha.

And there are other first-hand testimonies from social workers of those decades detailing domestic violence in rural Maori communities.

A trip to the local library alone would provide the evidence he can't find.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10750847
(Can't embed the link)

Accurate headline

Good to see the MSM getting the headlines right for a change, instead of parrotting what the Minister chooses to highlight:

Dole numbers drop, welfare increases


Yesterday all I heard about in various news bulletins was how the number of people unemployed had dropped.

It is arguably worse when the other benefits rise because the people that go on those tend to stay on welfare much longer. So behind the 'good news story' was a 'worse news story'. Typically recessions cause a lagging rise in totals on benefits other than the dole. Totals which do not fall again.