In poverty but not hardship

Thanks to the reader who drew my attention to a recently released Ministerial Committee on Poverty report. It contains information familiar to me but presented in new and revealing ways. For instance the chart below shows that of the 270,000 children 'in poverty' around half are not experiencing hardship. That's because income is arguably less important than outgoings, or budgetary prioritising:

This report is very encouraging in that it identifies children of beneficiaries and particularly sole parent beneficiaries as forming the major share of children at risk of deprivation, but it resists leftist solutions. It finds for more targeting (eg of services), not universalising payments (no child benefit as proposed by the Children's Commissioner), and is clear that getting sole parents into work, or increasing their hours, is the best strategy. It notes that in Nordic economies parents are expected to return to work when their child is 13 months old. It also makes mention of the need not to disincentivise work (or encourage fertility patterns that are not in the nest interests of children) with higher benefit payments.  I will blog more of the graphs later.

OECD GDP per capita - a question

The NZ Initiative featured this graph (courtesy of Capital Economics) in its weekly newsletter today. It poses a question for me. Why is the Australian line so erratic compared to NZ's? A guess: there is more competition/changeability of rankings amongst the richest nations, whereas relativity between the poorer nations (of which NZ is one) is steadier. (The 10 years to 2011 gdp per capita stats are here. Both countries showed steady growth from 2002 flattening over 2008-11 but Australia's gdp per capita grew by 14 percent whereas NZ's grew by 6.)

Ed Miliband proposes "one nation"

UK Labour leader Ed Miliband has given a speech called, "A One Nation Plan for Social Security Reform" in which he repeatedly refers to "one nation". I can't get the echoes of Pauline Hanson out of my head but I don't suppose most poms would have heard of her.

James Bartholomew has summarised and commented on the speech here.

As always it's interesting to note the shared language and ideas between UK Labour and NZ Labour. For instance he talks about David Cameron's "dirty secret" -  a phrase I've heard Jacinda Ardern use against Paula Bennett.

But I don't think NZ Labour will be picking up on this particular term.

Good stuff from Affordable Auckland

I like Stephen Berry and wish him well in his local government candidacy campaign. Here's a cut and paste of his press release today:

‘Not Your Usual Hui’ Patronises Homosexuals

Thursday, 6 June 2013, 5:03 pm
Press Release: Affordable Auckland ‘Not Your Usual Hui’ Patronises Homosexuals
“I would be hard pressed to argue that engagement with Auckland ratepayers and residents is not a core function of Auckland Council. Of course it is. However, the ridiculously politically correct manner in which this Council goes about this interaction is wasteful and ineffective.” Affordable Auckland Waitemata & Gulf candidate Stephen Berry is referring to one example; ‘Not Your Usual Hui’ being held at Auckland University on 7 June 2013.
“Not Your Usual Hui is a forum for the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (GLBTI) communities to start the conversation about how we strengthen and build capacity in Auckland to create ongoing, positive social change,” says Auckland Council’s media release on the event.
Mr. Berry, who is openly gay, says, “I find this Council’s PC overbearing foppishness in its desire to be inclusive of everyone highly patronising. Why ‘Not Your Usual Hui?’ Is it an unusual hui because it will be full of homosexuals? Are homosexuals incapable of gathering in a usual manner? Is this a warning that there may be men with sparkles on their cheeks wearing shorts with pockets hanging out of the bottom? Is a meeting of heterosexual Irish seagull hunters considered to be a usual hui?”
“I also question what value is attained by boxing all individuals with varying sex lives into otherwise unrelated collectivist packages and expecting to find one opinion representative of an entire ‘community.’ According to Council logic, men who have sex with men will hold the same opinions as women who have sex with women, individuals who have sex with anyone, people who have had sex changes, people who want a sex change and people who haven’t really made up their minds.”
“Some homosexuals are leftist, some are libertarian, some are even conservative. All are individuals who have varying belief systems and do not live their lives separated in a gated community working gay jobs, driving gay cars and living in gay houses. Holding a forum to obtain a gay view will be as successful as seeking men’s views, women’s views, European’s views, Maori’s views, Pacific Islanders views and Asian’s views. You’ll get the opinion of a few activist self-appointed representatives demanding more public money for their special interest group and little else.”
Stephen Berry says that the Council should engage with those who live in Auckland. “Engage with as many individuals as possible about what happens in this city. Do not patronise them with collective labels in the process!”
ENDS

Find yourselves some volunteers

If "charitable" organisations were truly voluntary they wouldn't be bemoaning the necessity of laying off staff due to government funding cuts.

Five out of eight staff at the Mangere Budgeting Service will lose their jobs at the end of this month because of a funding cut.

The 'cut' was the cessation of temporary funding by the way.

I worked for a charitable organisation for a few years. Some of the volunteers went on budgeting courses and were able to offer that service to the 'client'. All they were ever paid was petrol money to make the home visits.

"We have staff wanting security of jobs. We simply can't offer it."

What you need then is staff with a different motivation. People who have an existing source of income. Perhaps more superannuitants - a growing pool of able and time-rich people. That's your answer.

Libertarians not interested in social order or cohesion?

This is a excerpt from Colin James' latest ODT column (not on-line yet) about politics and inequality:

The social security state and its successor, the welfare state, bedded in not because the liberal-left initially triumphed. It endured because National adopted it in the late 1940s.
National's reason was not kindness. It was a liberal-conservative belief in the intrinsic value of a cohesive society to all its members. Exclusion of some from the community undermines social order and social order is precious to most conservatives. (Libertarians such as ACT and some National ministers are a different breed.)
Some days John Key and at times some other ministers exhibit that instinct, which some call a "communitarian" conservatism, traceable back to Edmund Burke.
So later this decade will that instinct prevail in National if a future different government tries to restore a secure, because less unequal, society?

I can only take from this that James thinks Libertarians (and "some days John Key"?- Edmund Burke was a classical liberal) are not interested in a cohesive society. Is it the leftist  every- man- for- himself characterisation?

Speaking for myself, social cohesion and social order (as opposed to chaos) are hugely important but when sought after through coercion by either government or individuals, won't endure. People can only be forced  to be each other's keeper or to think in certain ways for so long.

Yes, social cohesion (amongst Pakeha society anyway) increased after the introduction of social security. Every worker made a dedicated contribution to ensure that a very tiny minority of needy people had a better standard of living than they would have had pre -1938. It was post war and post depression. To an extent people were in shell-shock (some literally). It was a time when people valued living peaceably and each other. It was a time when personal courage and integrity were valued as people mourned those they had lost and lauded those who had survived. (It was also a time when certain behaviours were heavily stigmatised and thus controlled by individuals backed by government - divorce, unmarried childbirth, non-sobriety, homosexuality).

But, and this isn't a new theme for me I know, values have changed. And intrinsically caught up in that change, both as a cause and an effect, is welfare. It stopped being port of last call and started to develop into support all had a right to call on for whatever reason they chose to promote. The numbers on benefits exploded through the 1980s.

Family life, particularly for Maori, started to break-down. As the units broke down, the larger community lost cohesiveness. Yes, inequality grew (the topic of James' column) as a growing percentage of people received low incomes via benefits, and the middle class increased their incomes through women progressively working and professionalising. Middle class working two parent families are now relatively rich and single parent families are relatively poor; compared to the rest of the developed world NZ is now poorer - the inequality the left don't talk about.

Wages haven't kept up, in part, because the government keeps trying to subsidise low incomes through various methods, letting employers off the hook in the process. We have reached the stage, thanks to social security, where we have more redistribution of wealth going on than at any other time in New Zealand's history (barring perhaps the early 90s) and yet we still have inequality and a less ordered and cohesive society than during the 50s and 60s. More violence, more dysfunction, more child neglect, more mental illness, and more reliance on artificial means to relieve stress.

What's left for a government to force people to do in the name of equality and security?

Gangs committing most of the crime in NZ?

This RNZ reported statement from Corrections Minister Anne Tolley, on the back of the Springhill riots, intrigues me:

She said most crime in New Zealand is committed by gang members.

How does she know?

One would assume that the number of gang members in prison might provide a pointer but I don't believe that has been measured since the Prison Census was discontinued in 2003, at which time patched and associates made up 11.1 percent of the prison population.

Now if the percentage was unchanged (unlikely) and her statement was true, that reflects very badly on those charged with detecting crime and locking up offenders.

There were 376,013 crimes recorded in NZ in 2012.

Yet according to National MP Todd McClay:

 Police estimate there are 3,500 patched gang members in New Zealand.

(Revealing comment at the bottom of that op-ed)

The Sensible Sentencing Trust claims there are 21,882 gang members and affiliates. That's very specific.

Anyway, the numbers don't  stack up.

I've tried to verify that Tolley actually said this, but there's no press release on the matter.

Don't you wish that journalists would be a bit sharper and dig deeper when confronted with quite startling claims?

Jarrod Gilbert, who has researched gangs for a decade says,

"There's a lot of hysteria which is unnecessary for the most part."

So what's the truth of it? Even if she intended 'violent' crime I'm dubious about the accuracy. (And when gangs are committing crime it's often against each other or other gangs though that's not really relevant to the topic of this post.)

Finally, after a bit more searching I've found this from a 2009 paper prepared for Parliament about young people and gangs:

Recorded apprehensions where the offender was recorded as gang affiliated at the time of offence declined from 4,711 in the 2002/03 fiscal year to 3,706 in 2004/05 but then increased to 6,392 in 2005/06. [19]   The Department of Corrections’ Census of Prison Inmates and Home Detainees 2003 found that 62 percent of sentenced gang members were imprisoned for violence or sexual violence. This was slightly higher than for those without gang connections (58 percent). [20]  
As at 16 May 2007 a total of 1,471 prisoners were identified as actively affiliated with gangs. The largest numbers were affiliated with the Mongrel Mob (523) and were Black Power (426). [21]   This compares to a total prison population at 30 June 2007 of 8,083. [22]   In June 2008 the Minister of Police Hon Annette King said Police estimated the total number of patched gang members and associates was between 3,000 and 3,500. [23]   Police Association President Greg O’Connor thought the figure was higher – probably over 3,500. [24]  

I can't find any basis for the Minister's claim. It could come from Victimisation Surveys which capture non-prosecuted crime but....I'm still skeptical. Looks like she was wrong or mis-reported.

Sole mum spoiler

We probably all know someone like this.

A father-son bonding session planned by a North Island primary school was cancelled after a single mother demanded to be included.
Two "Band of Brothers" seminars were arranged by Matakana School to help fathers get more involved in their sons' lives, and as a forum for dads to share their issues. One session was for dads and another was for fathers and sons.
A solo mum wanted to attend but was told she couldn't because her presence would inhibit discussion. She was told a mother and son seminar was planned for later in the year.
"We really just wanted an opportunity for the guys to open up and chat, and they wouldn't particularly want to do if there were females around - which I think is understandable," said principal Darrel Goosen.
The woman's son was welcome at the second seminar and the guest speaker offered a specific session with her and her son but she continued to insist on attending, Goosen said, so the school board decided to cancel the event.

She is probably still defiantly claiming the high ground.

This bothered me though:

Psychologist Sara Chatwin, from MindWorks, said in today's society - where almost 50 per cent of Kiwi households are single-parent households - the session should have been promoted as a parent-child affair.
"I understand where the mother is coming from. The implications are that that child will feel incredibly left out if they are the only child without a dad who is going to a seminar like that."

Since when were half of NZ households single parent? Try 18 percent of all families, or 30 percent of families with dependent children (and possibly declining). When someone can't even get factual information correct I'm disinclined to listen to their personal opinion. And unsurprisingly, what she says next is in fact silly. If there are so many single parents, but the event was open to their children, the child wouldn't feel left out. And nobody was barring the father from attending even if he is estranged from the mother.

This mother sounds like someone with a lot of baggage who unfortunately isn't making life for her child any easier.

Truth column May 24

My Truth column May 23. It's not on-line yet but I thought I'd put it up anyway. Despite being over a week old it seems somewhat topical:


We're told 270,000 children are living in poverty. That's the number of children living in homes below 60 percent of the median household income after housing costs. Some argue that income isn't as indicative as spending. Amongst that 270,000 are children not experiencing hardship because their parents prioritise and budget. In any event, using the 60 percent measure, child poverty actually declined from 2001, and plateaued after the Christchurch earthquakes and global financial crisis. So why do we constantly hear about growing hunger?

Benefits are adjusted annually for inflation to keep up with living costs. Rents are a big consumer of income but the aforementioned improving data is after housing costs. Also, New Zealand's had it tougher before. The early 1990s recession was deeper than the GFC, yet there was no clamour about hungry children then.

There's one consumable with a price that has risen significantly, and is set to rise further. Low-income people, especially Maori women, use a lot of it. Tobacco. Ironically the tobacco tax hikes have been driven by the Maori and Mana Parties, whose leaders are determined to price cigarettes (scheduled to rise to $20 a packet by 2016) out of the reach of Maori and Pacific people. The reality is, though, most don't kick the habit.  Add to tobacco the drought-induced escalating cost of cannabis, also used more by Maori than other ethnicities, and it's entirely reasonable to speculate about the contribution this makes to foregone grocery items.

I'm not denying that children are suffering, often from experiences worse than hunger. But there's too little honesty about why. The hypocrisy of high-earning leaders who deliberately ratchet up costs for their already skint constituents, and then carp about the consequences for the kids, is breathtaking. And to rub salt into the wound, on April 1 this year, the tobacco hike was omitted from the inflation adjustment to benefits. Not a very funny prank.

Where are the offended old codgers?

That cartoon. The thing I noticed about it immediately is that it featured two old codgers also trying to get a free lunch. Old people demanding free this and that, or refusing to entertain giving up privileges other members of society don't enjoy, aren't uncommon. But they don't represent all over-65s. Haven't heard Grey Power complaining yet.

Metiria Turei, on the other hand, is being hysterical - and I don't mean funny. Her reaction is ridiculous. "Does our country really hate us?"

(Comments are "closed" because ... the Greens want an open exchange of ideas??)

Personally I didn't think the cartoon was very clever or funny. It was limp. If you are going to offend people it should at least be witty and worth it.

Budget focus on teen parents

On Monday the government made a formal response to the Children's Commissioner Expert Advisory Group Solutions to Child Poverty which were very extensive and costly. Essentially the government has simply reiterated everything they have already done, but I thought it worthwhile highlighting the section about teen parents who are, to my mind, where much of the available government and non-government resources need to go. Generally teen parents get stuck in the welfare rut for longer than most and contribute to the intergenerational cycle more than most. They are teen parents for a short time but single, benefit-dependent parents for many years thereafter. Their children will almost certainly figure amongst the poorest, most deprived in the country:

Investing in teen parents

Budget  2012  set  aside  $287.5  million  over  four  years  for  the  first  phase  of  the
Government’s  welfare  reforms  to  help  more  New  Zealanders  into  work.   Much  of  this  is earmarked for supporting youth, including $80 million over four years for  early childhood education, childcare and the Guaranteed Childcare Assistance Payment for teen parents. Another $77.6 million was set aside to support the roughly 14,000 disengaged 16 and 17 year olds, to move them into education or training.

A new Youth Service and reciprocal obligations 

The Government has set up a new Youth Service to work with vulnerable young people. 
Community-based providers are funded to deliver wraparound support to teen parents and unemployed or disengaged young people, in order to improve their educational outcomes.  

One  of  the  groups  targeted  by  the  Youth  Service  is  16-18  year  old  parents  who  are receiving  financial  assistance  from  the  Government.    In  return  for  receiving  financial assistance, these Young Parent Payment recipients are supported to complete a range of obligations focused on improving their parenting skills, including: 

    completing a parenting education programme
    enrolling every dependent child with a Primary Health Organisation
    keeping every child under the age of 5 years up to date with WellChild checks, and
    ensuring  their  children’s  attendance  at  an  approved  early  childhood  education
programme or other suitable childcare while they are in education, training, work-based
learning or part time work.

Learning what works for young Māori parents

55% of Young Parent Payment recipients have identified themselves as Māori.  Alongside the  Youth  Service,  the  Government  has  invested  in  a  Supporting  Intergenerational
Success initiative, which provides tailored support for young single Māori mothers to move into meaningful training and employment opportunities.  This initiative is being run by Te Puni Kōkiri for one year.  Its focus is on harvesting information to find out what works and identifying the opportunities and challenges for this group.  

Supporting  Intergenerational  Success  was  designed  to  complement  the  Government's
welfare reforms and other initiatives that focus on young mothers with more complex and
entrenched needs.  Providers are working with single Māori mothers aged 16-20 years old
who are receiving the Emergency Maintenance Allowance or Domestic Purposes Benefit in
South Auckland, Rotorua, Waikato, and Gisborne.

More Teen Parent Units

The  Government  is  funding  the  establishment  of  a  further  5  teen  parent  units  in  2013, which  will  provide  more  educational  options  for  teen  parents  in  these  areas.    Not  every school can have a teen parent unit, however, so the Government is exploring alternative ways to incentivise teen parents to return to or remain in education.
 
Dedicated Intensive Case Workers

In  2010,  the  Government  invested  $7.9  million  in  Teen  Parent  Intensive  Case  Workers. These  Case  Workers  are  working  in  19  high  needs  communities  to  support  the  most vulnerable teen parents and their children.  

Their  aim  is  to  help  teen  parents  stay  in  education,  and  work  with  those  on  benefits  to prepare for future employment.  They link teen parents and children to the services and support  they  need,  such  as  antenatal  care,  services  that  help  prevent  repeat  teen pregnancies, housing, budgeting, and home visiting and parenting services (parents aged under 18 are prioritised for the limited available  places in Family Start).  They also help ensure children of teen parents are participating in Well Child services and early childhood education.  
 
Volunteer Neighbourhood Support

Volunteer  Neighbourhood  Support  initiatives  assist  the  Teen  Parent  Intensive  Case
Workers in nine priority communities.  They provide support for teen parents who are not facing  major  challenges,  but  who  may  be  isolated  and  able  to  benefit  from  greater
connections  with  their  neighbourhoods.    Improved  access  to  parenting  and  mentoring programmes has been a focus of most of these initiatives. 
 
Parenting Support for Teen Fathers

This programme focuses on helping teen fathers to be responsible and nurturing parents.
In  2010,  the  Government  provided  $730,000  for  it.    A  resource  created  for  service
providers  brings  together  what  is  known  from  research  and  good  practice,  and  enables examples  of  effective  parenting  support  to  be  shared.    This  resource  is  being  used  by communities across New Zealand to develop support services for teen fathers.  

The  Government  has  also  funded  support  services  for  teen  fathers  in  nine  high  needs communities.  These services provide teen fathers with information and skills to prepare for the  birth  of  their  child,  parent  their  children  effectively,  and  identify  and  respond  to  their children's health, education and social needs. 

Supported Housing for Teen Parents and their Children

In 2010, the Government invested $6.2 million in Supported Housing for Vulnerable Teen
Parents  and  their  Children.    This  initiative  provides  housing  with  adult  supervision  and support by trained staff 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  It addresses the needs of the most vulnerable teen parents and their children.  

The houses are for teen parents (ranging in age from 13-19 years) who are unable to be
supported  by  their  parents/caregivers  and  who  lack  the  resources  to  find  a  stable  and suitable place to live.  Teen parents in these homes receive parenting support and social work support, learn budgeting and other life skills, and get help to plan for their futures.

Food in schools - non-culpability creep

The Prime Minister has confirmed that National will be extending food in schools programmes. He knows there is discomfit about this amongst his constituency but, according to the NZ Herald says,

 "...if the child is not fed ... we know they don't learn...In the end they are a victim, they may well be a 6- or 7-year-old victim that can't stand up for themselves so we have some responsibility to do something about that."

Yet a Auckland University study undertaken across 14 low socio-economic schools where children received free school breakfasts organised through Red Cross or the private sector found,

 "A free school breakfast did not have a significant effect on New Zealand children's school attendance, academic achievement, self-reported grades, sense of belonging at school, behaviour or food security. However the programme had significant positive effects on children's short-term hunger ratings. More frequent programme attendance may be required to influence school attendance and academic achievement."

Sounds familiar. The policy isn't working because we aren't doing enough of it. I'm not buying it. And speaking of buying....

.... these are the payment rates for Family Tax Credits received by beneficiaries specifically for the care of their children:

Category	Amount per week
First or only child, 0 - 15 years	$92.73
First or only child, 16 years or older	$101.98
Second or subsequent child, 0 - 12 years	$64.44
Second or subsequent child, 13 - 15 years	$73.50
Second or subsequent child, 16 years or older	$91.25

 
A box of Homebrand Cornflakes costs $2.39

A loaf of Signature range wholemeal toast bread is $2.49

500g Anchor butter $3.89

2L Signature milk $3.79

That's shopping at Countdown, not the cheapest, but should feed one child breakfast easily. That's 13.5% of the 'first and only' child payment.

The minute anyone disagrees with the 'feed the children in schools' policy they are put into the non-caring, greedy corner.

But I won't accept that characterisation.

Every time we cede to non-culpability creep we actually make the overall situation and outlook for children bleaker. If we fail to ask for parental responsibility, we won't get it. And the fall-out from non-responsibility manifests in far worse ways than hungry children and at times when nobody else is available to step in and fill the void.

CPAG return to court - again

The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) is about to return to court for the third time arguing that the In Work Tax Credit should go to beneficiary families. The group has an opinion piece in today's DomPost:

OPINION: New Zealand continues to grapple with a poor track record for child poverty and particularly the rising inequality affecting our poorest children.

More

My response:

Dear Editor

An opinion piece from the Child Poverty Action Group (Dominion Post, May 28) is prefaced with a statement that the group is back in court this week trying to get Working for Families extended to those getting benefits. Children in beneficiary families do receive Family Tax Credits, part of the WFF package. What they don't get is the In Work Tax Credit (IWTC) specifically for parents who work.

The IWTC was created by the last Labour government which believed the best way out of poverty, including for children, was paid work. It reflected the extra costs of going to work and the often negligible gap between income from low-paid work and income from a benefit.

Research from the OECD (whose experts assisted the government at the last defence of this policy) has shown that reducing child poverty simply by lifting benefit payments increases the number of workless homes. In short, paying the IWTC to children in benefit homes will lift their income in the immediate future but won't eliminate the ongoing source of their poverty - parental unemployment - in the long run. That's why the Human Rights Tribunal ruled,"...the discrimination caused by the exclusion of beneficiaries from the In Work Tax Credit is demonstrably justified."

CPAG refuse to accept this and continue to throw good money after bad fighting the decision. It could probably be better spent on practical measures to reduce hardship amongst poor children.

Benefit expenditure forecasts

Below are welfare benefit expenses projected to 2017. Note that the table accommodates the benefit changes from Unemployment, Domestic Purposes, Sickness and Invalid benefits to Jobseeker Support, Sole Parent Support and Supported Living payment. Interesting though that the forecasts are for pretty much unchanged expenditure from actual total of $4.794 billion in 2012 to forecast $4.697 in 2017.

Long list of likeable policies - not for Labour

Labour MP Clare Curran has posted a list of "right-wing" policies from Australia's Institute of Public Affairs (must add to my blog roll). Curran highlights the only one she thinks has merit.I like most of them. Brightened my morning to see these ideas being promoted:

• Means-test Medicare
• Eliminate family tax benefits
• Abandon the paid parental leave scheme
• Abolish the Baby Bonus
• Abolish the First Home Owners’ Grant
• Repeal plain packaging for cigarettes and rule it out for all other products, including alcohol and fast food
• Repeal the alcopops tax
• Reject proposals for compulsory food and alcohol labelling
• Repeal the Fair Work Act
• Allow individuals and employers to negotiate directly terms of employment that suit them
• Introduce a single rate of income tax
• Return income taxing powers to the states
• Cut company tax to 25 per cent
• Cease subsidising the car industry
• Abolish the Foreign Investment Review Board
• Abolish the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
• Abolish the Office for Film and Literature Classification
• End local content requirements for Australian television stations
• Break up the ABC and put out to tender each individual function
• Devolve environmental approvals for major projects to the states
• End mandatory disclosures on political donations
• End all corporate welfare and subsidies by closing the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education
• Immediately halt construction of the National Broadband Network and  privatise any sections that have already been built
• Privatise Australia Post, Medibank and SBS
• Halve the size of the Coalition front bench from 32 to 16
• Reduce the size of the public service from current levels of more than 260,000 to at least the 2001 low of 212,784
• Slash top public servant salaries
• Force government agencies to put all of their spending online in a searchable database
• Repeal the carbon tax, and don’t replace it (if it is replaced by another costly scheme, most of the benefits will be undone).
• Abolish the Department of Climate Change
• Abolish the Clean Energy Fund and repeal the renewable energy target
• Withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol
• Repeal the mining tax
• Privatise the CSIRO and the Snowy-Hydro Scheme
• Abolish the Commonwealth Grants Commission
• Introduce fee competition to Australian universities
• Means test tertiary student loans
• Repeal the National Curriculum
• Introduce competing private secondary school curricula
• Reintroduce voluntary student unionism at universities
• Introduce a voucher scheme for secondary schools
• Abolish the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)
• Eliminate ‘balance’ laws for radio and television broadcasters
• Abolish television spectrum licensing and devolve spectrum management to the common law
• Eliminate media ownership restrictions
• Cease funding the Australia Network
• Rule out government-supported or mandated internet censorship
• End public funding to political parties
• Introduce voluntary voting
• End media blackout in final days of election campaigns
• Formalise a one-in, one-out approach to regulatory reduction
• Legislate a cap on government spending and tax as a % of GDP
• Legislate a balanced budget amendment which limits the size of budget deficits and the period the government can be in deficit
• Allow people to opt out of superannuation in exchange for promising to forgo any government income support in retirement
• Encourage independent contracting by overturning new regulations designed to punish contractors
• End all hidden protectionist measures, such as preferences for local manufacturers in government tendering
• Remove all tariff and non-tariff barriers to international trade
• Remove anti-dumping laws
• Deregulate the parallel importation of books
• End preferences for Industry Super Funds in workplace laws
• Privatise the Australian Institute of Sport
• Rule out federal funding for 2018 Commonwealth Games
• End all public subsidies to sport and the arts
• Eliminate the National Preventative Health Agency
• End all government funded ‘Nanny State’ advertising
• De-fund Harmony Day and close the Office for Youth
• Repeal Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act
• Allow the Northern Territory to become a state
• Introduce a special economic zone for northern Australia including:
  a) Lower personal income tax for residents
  b) Significantly expanded 457 Visa programs for workers
  c) Encourage the construction of dams.

Truth column May 16-22

 My Truth column for May 16-22

Criminologist Greg Newbold’s recent remarks on Maori’s over-representation in violent crime statistics reminded me of another.  A 2007 Corrections report found, “… over 16,000 Maori males currently between the ages of 20 and 29 years [over 30% of that age-band] have a record of serving one or more sentences …” Also noted was the over-representation of Maori victims because “… much crime occurs within families, social networks or immediate neighbourhoods.” This was called a “catastrophe” for Maori.

More

Beagles go to parliament

Lexie and I are off to parliament to join other Beagle owners as a petition asking the government to rule out testing recreational drugs on animals is presented. I'm not heavily involved in  this campaign but can't see any case for using Beagles (chosen for their gentle easy- to- handle nature) to keep recreational drug users safe. Couldn't those who like to experiment with drugs, inherently risk-takers, test them personally?


 Update:




No Minister. No Peter Dunne. Green MP Mojo Mathers accepted the petition and she sent apologies on behalf of John Banks who also strongly opposes but couldn't attend. Some coverage here.

1 in 5 new entrants still on DPB after ten years

Here's an interesting table which reveals quite a lot about who and how long people stay on the DPB:

1 in 5 of those single parents who went on the DPB in the year to June 1998 was still on it (or back on it) ten years later. Almost one in three of those who'd had their first child under 18 were still dependent.

(If you look back from a point-in-time, the proportion that are long-term is much greater as they accumulate.)

Earlier 1998 research looking at entry (to any main benefit) in 1993 found,

35% of the 1993 entrants overall and 57% of the DPB entrants were in receipt of benefit on the five-year anniversary of their 1993 grant.......

If we could identify the long duration group early in their benefit history and turn that history around, the benefit savings would be great, possibly sufficient to support a greater up-front investment in assisting people to secure sufficient incomes to become and remain independent of the benefit system than has been contemplated in the past.

That's what the later research does and why National's reforms have targeted very young entrants.

Voter turnout

Came across this snippet from 1938 which showed a voter turnout in Wellington of 89 percent.

"...a surprising number of people on the rolls for the six Wellington seats and Hutt did not record their votes in the General Election October 15."

Did the writer express surprise because the turnout was lower than previous?

Today's Wellington and Hutt electorates voter turnout is 81 percent.

He'd be flabbergasted at the national 74 percent turnout - less than three quarters (with 58 percent in the Maori electorates.)

Roger Douglas versus Peter Conway on the budget

Rodney Hide hosted Sean Plunket's Radio Live show on friday and from 11am Roger Douglas and Peter Conway (Council of Trade Unions) discussed the budget. But it developed into a more far-reaching debate about the real problems facing NZ, especially education and welfare. Does poverty cause dysfunction or vice versa? Roger kept returning to education and the need to get it right for Maori. Conway insisted that the public schools were fine but the homes that the failing kids came out of were the problem due to poverty and unemployment. Roger used an example of a Ruatoria school run by Maori, with children mainly from beneficiary homes, that is apparently getting great results whereas the next door public school is not. The kids from the private school go on to tertiary education, the kids from the public school don't.

On welfare, Conway was adamant that when jobs were available people took them. He specifically talked about the reduction in the numbers on unemployment benefit dropping from 162,000 to 17,000 which showed that "When the jobs were there people took them and so only a very tiny number didn't...human characteristics didn't change....what changed was the opportunity and availability of work." And that all happened under Labour's investment approach.

Sounds great except the total number of people on benefits  dropped from 1 in 7 to 1 in 10. Not a very tiny number. As Roger pointed out quite a lot of people moved onto incapacity benefits which continued to rise throughout. If that is the best that can be achieved under a Labour government it leaves a lot to be desired.

You can pick up the interview here. It's covered over the four quarters from 11am to 12am, Friday May 17.

Rodney does a great job on radio. This is the kind of discussion I want to hear. And judging from caller's comments to him, so do others.