Shearer should reaffirm Labour's commitment to making work pay

Today's DomPost editorial points out the obvious. God knows why last year's Labour couldn't see it.

Given that the last Labour government had nine years to upskill, educate and nudge, the public could be forgiven for assuming that under Mr Shearer Labour has nothing new to offer.
Of one thing voters can be sure: extending the "in work" tax credit used to compensate low-wage workers for the extra costs associated with work, to beneficiaries, as proposed by Labour last year, will not solve the problem. It will only further reduce the incentives to seek paid employment.

The IWTC is an incentive to work. Effectively remove it and the incentive disappears. Shearer should publicly reaffirm Labour's commitment to making work pay separating himself from the lame duck period under Goff and King.

Doctor and academics slate Mayor's excitement over private sector job creation

Lower Hutt Mayor Ray Wallace has been lambasted on the DomPost's opinion page. Below is a letter from a local GP and a further featured letter from University of Otago academics appeared today. My response to the first follows:

 

Dear Editor

Unlike Dr Susanna Kent (Letters, August 9) I wasn't "appalled" to see Lower Hutt Mayor Ray Wallace recently launching a refurbished cigarette factory in Petone. Tobacco is still a legal substance. While this remains the case we may as well have the jobs here. At least the usual outcry  over unemployment caused by manufacturing jobs being lost overseas is avoided. Of course, criminalising tobacco would also create jobs. For illicit growers, black market racketeers,  police, court personnel, prison officers, etc. The unstoppable cannabis industry proves the point.

Acts of heroism

I feel terribly sad about the seeming loss of three lives in New Plymouth yesterday. When you have a child who could easily fit the bill it hits home more sharply perhaps? But there is something I wanted to say. While it may have been the wrong, and eventually tragic call to climb yesterday, the instructor lost his life trying to save the boys. It reminds me of the teacher in the Mangatepopo Gorge tragedy, who strapped one of the youngsters to his back but neither made it out. Makes me weep.

Maori and Pacific unemployment drop

Statistics NZ has just released the June HLFS. Overall unemployment is up slightly (6.7 to 6.8 percent) but Maori (13.9 to 12.8 percent)  Pacific (16.0 to 14.9) and Asian (9.4 to 8.2) unemployment are all down from March, though all figures are still slightly higher than June last year.

A new table (15) has been added. It shows the NEET percentage (aged 15-24 Not in Employment or Education). That stands at 13.1 percent.

Internationally NZ is ranking 14th in the OECD. We have steadily fallen in the rankings since around 2006. The OECD average is 7.9 percent.

Anyway, generally not much to write about that gives cause for optimism.

Kiwiblog: Labour soft on fraud?

David Farrar has a post regarding an exchange David Shearer had with a constituent about a neighbour being on a sickness benefit while he was up painting his roof. Shearer empathises with the constituent about the unfairness of the situation. Then Farrar points out the hypocrisy of this as Labour has opposed every National reform measure to reduce fraud. The implication is that Labour is soft on benefit fraud.

The statistics don't support this however.


table IS.1: Fraud and abuse investigations and reviews completed, and overpayments identified¹

Financial year2	Number of investigations and reviews completed	Number of overpayments established	Value of overpayments ($)
2006/2007	39,141	7,084	41,935,634
2007/2008	26,736	4,407	33,702,275
2008/2009	26,400	3,327	33,780,453
2009/2010	19,935	2,996	39,336,133
2010/2011	16,266	2,424	39,838,760

table IS.2: Fraud prosecutions completed

Financial year1	Number of prosecution cases of benefit fraud completed
2007/2008	1,028
2008/2009	735
2009/2010	789
2010/2011	690

Quote of the day

From Walter Williams here:

"One does not have to be in favor of death camps or wars of conquest to be a tyrant. The only requirement is that one has to believe in the primacy of the state over individual rights."

"ACT brand has been irredeemably damaged"

I am not a fan of Richard Long. In today's Dominion Post he writes as if an expert on ACT's history but can't get the ex-president's name right. However, the title of his column is wholly correct in my humble opinion.

Former ACT president Catherine Isaacs took the political gold at the weekend for making a sensible, coherent case for charter schools. But, alas, it is all too late to save her party.

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Unpalatable choices in public health provision

A disturbing example of the difficult choices that will increasingly face public health rationers.

From Scotland:

A GOVERNMENT adviser and leading surgeon has suggested that NHS funds would be better spent on providing surgery for morbidly obese patients than on palliative care for the terminally ill.

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Truth Column July 26

My July 26 Truth column is now on-line.

Every day across New Zealand thousands of heroin addicts are given legitimate doses of a heroin substitute – methadone – by their local pharmacist.

While the programme purports to wean people off with reducing doses, more often it’s a maintenance scheme which keeps the addict  stabilised, functioning and free from crime. 

This is a prime example of harm minimisation in practice. It represents an acceptance that people either want or need to use recreational drugs and making criminals out of certain users only creates additional harm.

Contrast this approach with the recent news that police have arrested over 2500 people in cannabis operations over the past six months. 

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Other Truth columns here

Does Sam win ... yes she does!

Erin Simpson Show Next Fashion Icon

 

Sam  was the winner of a trip to the NZ Fashion Weekend in late September. I watched the show on Friday heart in mouth despite knowing the outcome (she arrived back at Wellington airport with a beautiful bunch of flowers). She was thoroughly surprised when the judges said her name, and suitably humble I am happy to report. Her model was also a Year 9 girl, but 5' 11" and in (ginormous!) heels and they look adorable together - very much the long and the short of it.

The On Demand replay is here

And, from Sam, thanks so much to all of those people who voted her into the Top 25. You made it possible.

Remand population grows significantly

I wouldn't agree with Kim Workman's philosophical approach to crime and related matters but his statistical stuff is sound. Yesterday he delivered a submission to the Law and Order  select committee containing the following:

“In the last ten years, the sentenced prisoner population increased by 33.7%, while the remand population increased by 116%.” Said Mr Workman, “Around 56 percent of those remanded in custody did not go on to serve a custodial sentence. We remand offenders in custody at a rate higher than other comparable countries, with the exception of the United States.
“Maori defendants are nearly twice as likely as their European counterparts to be remanded in custody. The unanswered question is whether this discrepancy occurs because of differential offending patterns by Maori, a lack of cultural responsiveness, or the negative impact of laws, structures, processes and decision making criteria. There has been no in-depth research on this issue since 1973, and it is a matter of urgency.”

Following the link to his full submission was unsuccessful but it did take me to Rethinking's website. My first visit. It's a well designed site. Just a quick excerpt which describes Maori offending in a way I haven't seen before;

 At every stage in the criminal justice process, the outcomes for Māori are generally more severe than they are for Pakeha. Māori are less likely to receive diversion or cautions and are more likely to be sentenced to prison. Although New Zealand's imprisonment rate is 199 people per 100,000, the rate for Māori is closer to 700 per 100,000. Māori make up over 50% of New Zealand's prison population and over 60% of its female prison population.

Asset Sale poll

All I hear from commentators, politicians, the media etc is the majority of New Zealanders are against the asset sales. How do they know? This NewstalkZB poll doesn't bear out the claim.

Do you support the Government's asset sales legislation?

• Yes 50 %
• No 47 %
• Unsure 3 %

Truth Column Friday July 19

My Truth column for July 19 is now on-line:

A local bus stop was recently tagged with ‘Aoteoroa is not for sale’. I was tempted to sneak out in the dead of night and add, ‘No more house sales to immigrants’ beneath.

Because that is the implication and most would find the idea abhorrent. 

Now we have, ‘No asset sales’ which is equally sweeping, superficial and emotive.  The reality is the NZ government is carrying huge overseas debt and it needs to pay some down. If it doesn’t, its future ability to borrow to fund everyday, vital services could be endangered. 

We are all watching the situations unfolding in various European countries, which are either bankrupt or verging on it. That poses the question: Would New Zealanders prefer austerity over asset sales?

Read more


Other Truth columns here

Dads matter - an understatement

Rodney's Herald on Sunday column today is about his Dad and how important our Dads are. How they guide us and set an example. I am also blessed to have one such Dad. And I can bring to mind two people who lost their Dads in the past year who felt exactly like Rodney and I about them. Good men themselves.

Then I had lunch with a friend just returned from where her father lives who didn't even visit him. Can't abide him and was forced to explain to the aunties why. Because he violently abused her mother and siblings and she will not forgive him. Never. And without him she'd gone badly off the rails as a youngster (not that she ever seems to particularly rue her 'colourful' past.)

Last week Sam took a photo of her Dad and me as part of a social studies project. It's something to do with photos of everyday things that matter - a favourite meal for instance - to send to a school in another country. I wondered out loud how many of her fellow pupils would be able to send a photo of their Mum and Dad together. She in turn identified out loud which friends could. About half. I told her how when I was her age I didn't know anyone, not a friend, not a neighbourhood kid, who didn't live with both parents. Bar one whose mother had died.

Isn't that a phenomenally rapid  social change. One generation. And we know the downsides. The wealthier kids materially weather the upheaval  better but that's about it. And I'm not condemning people who split. Intolerably unhappy relationships should be abandoned. But the widespread nature of breakdown goes far beyond what should naturally occur. Or what would naturally occur without government interference.

Getting around the DPB work-test rules

The table below shows that most grants of a DPB are to people transferring within the system or who have been on welfare previously - 71 percent to be precise. I asked the Minister under the Official Information Act:

1/ In 2011 how many second-time or subsequent grants for the DPB were to a caregiver with more than one dependent child; a youngest child under 12 months old and who had been off benefit for between 12 - 48 months? Their answer:

The point of my question? I am trying to ascertain how many people will qualify for a further 5 years of welfare before work-testing because they had a subsequent child off welfare. 437 is a starting figure.

Not included in this figure is for instance someone who left under 12 months ago and returned with a newborn.

The Ministry also qualified my 'off benefit' as 'off DPB-related' which also narrows the field.

The point is, as it stands, as long as a baby isn't added to a benefit the caregiver won't be work-tested until the baby is 5. Some people are clever. They have already forced the Ministry to pay the DPB to both parents if the parents split custody of their children. So there are two benefits to play around with when considering which one to 'add' a subsequent child to.

As in any group of people, there are those who will abide by the rules because they are honest and well-motivated, and that includes people on welfare. But there are others who will play the system for all it's worth. Ironically those are the very people these new rules are supposed to positively influence.






table DP.3: Periods since clients last received any main benefit

Period since client last received any main benefit	2006/2007	2007/2008	2008/2009	2009/2010	2010/2011
	Domestic Purposes Benefits granted to working-age clients1
None (clients transferring within the benefit system)2	9,447	10,035	10,654	11,416	11,071
Under 12 months	9,900	10,567	10,876	9,683	9,963
1–2 years	3,289	3,938	4,483	3,656	3,198
2–4 years	3,061	3,393	4,365	4,201	3,307
Had not received a main benefit in the previous 4 years	7,774	8,561	11,433	11,660	10,533
Total granted to working-age clients	33,471	36,494	41,811	40,616	38,072
	Domestic Purposes Benefits granted to other clients1
Total granted to other clients	940	1,054	1,100	942	799
	Total Domestic Purposes Benefits granted1
Total	34,411	37,548	42,911	41,558	38,871

Forget "fair" and focus on the fiscal restraint

David Shearer says that Mondayisation of public holidays and longer Paid Parental Leave are "fair to families".

But these bills aren't fair to employers and most taxpayers. They are both an additional cost on the economy. And the timing is bloody awful.

Leaves me in no doubt that National was the better governing party to weather a protracted recession. That's not to say they couldn't do  better.

The passage of these bills would indicate that New Zealanders are no better than other head-in-the-sand Europeans.

Two coroner's reports

The NewstalkZB 9 o'clock news (Wellington - not the Network because I have checked the replay) reported that Gary Evans found Macsyna King "had no involvement in the death of her twins."

Contrast that to a coroner's report last week that found two good Samaritans had contributed to the death of Iraena Asher.

I am going on media hearsay but these findings seem utterly incongruous.

Using a benefit as camouflage

Here's a perfect example of people using a benefit as camouflage (albeit not a very successful one). I mean they surely didn't need the money.

Three solo mothers, one of whom is known locally as "the queen of green" and is seven months pregnant, have been sent to prison for a cannabis operation that netted them up to $340,000 in four months last year for selling "tinnies" from a state house in Napier.
A "tinny" is a small tinfoil-wrapped package containing between 0.6 and 1.2 grams of cannabis, which sells for about $20.
Business was so good during the four months that they sold a $20 tinny every minute and the number of customers so great that their cars would clog up the street...... The four offenders, who are all beneficiaries, appeared for sentencing before Judge Tony Adeane in Napier District Court last week.

Truth column July 13

My Truth column for July 13 is now on-line.  

Some people on the dole fail drug-tests and subsequently miss out on a job. So they stay on welfare. Is that OK?  The current government doesn’t think so. That’s why new legislation proposes sanctions – a reduction in benefit – when it happens. 


The legislation does not propose drug-testing all beneficiaries as a condition of eligibility for ongoing support. That’s jungle drum stuff. There’s another problem with benefits and substance abuse though.

Read more

Other Truth columns here

It's OK to henpeck and ridicule men

I just watched a SUBWAY TV advertisement for some new healthy product which is "girlfriend approved". For chrissakes. I immediately said to my daughter, do you want to be  the gatekeeper of what your boyfriend eats?

Men have always been hen-pecked but why make it standard operating procedure? Oh, but I forget.

A major newspaper recently crowed over  women now being smarter than men.

I can't help but notice that when IQ differences between ethnicities are suggested, all hell breaks loose. But claim a difference between genders, ie men are 'dumber', and that's fine and dandy. Imagine an equivalent headline to the linked story, "Sorry Whites, Blacks are smarter."

Why are sensitivities about ethnicity - fizzing amongst feminists especially -  absent  for gender?

I don't really care if Subway want to advertise "plus salad in case the missus is looking". It must work for them. It just bugs me that political correctness is applied so selectively. Look at the fuss from the feminists over  the Tui TV ads that have, they say, a "very corrosive effect on women's self-worth". Are they going to get upset about TV ads that make men look incapable of thinking for themselves?