ACT and cannabis

According to the NZ Herald today:

Mr Boscawen said he strongly believed the leader should also stand in Epsom.
"I believe we should pick our best and most experienced person as the leader and offer that person to the people of Epsom."
"I believe if split that role we send mixed signals that the person we think is good enough to be the leader, is not good enough to be the Epsom candidate."
The last election showed that there was also a risk of conflict.
"We had Don Brash come out and promote the liberalisation of marijuana and while that may have had the support of five per cent of the population, John Banks knew that was fatal for his campaign and strongly opposed it."
The public then witness a conflict between the leader and the Epsom candidate.

Cannabis decriminalisation should be a peripheral issue for ACT. Nevertheless denying a position is untenable. It looks dodgy. It's permissible to state that members of a party are divided and until the actual legislation came up, the way the party will vote is unknown. Or that it would be a conscience vote and MPs would vote accordingly. It shouldn't have created the problem that it did back in 2011.

But really. Claiming only 5 percent of the population supports liberalisation? This tells me John Boscawen is also anti. Why not just say so? I think ACT would reap more kudos for admitting they are divided on the issue BUT jointly and strongly committed to individual responsibility, low tax, and small government.

TV3′s Campbell Live Mon, 26 Sep 2011, asked viewers “Should cannabis be decriminalised?” and 72% replied yes by text or email.

A new poll has found that almost two-thirds of New Zealanders are against legalising cannabis....another poll by UMR Research [2012] which asked a different question found last month that only 35 per cent of New Zealanders wanted cannabis to stay illegal, 17 per cent wanted it fully legalised and 46 per cent wanted it "decriminalised".

Males bore the brunt of the recession

Statistics NZ released a paper today about the effect of the recession on men and women.

Female labour force participation held up much better.

The main reason is that females work in public sector protected jobs - health, social and education sectors. Men work in the private sector - manufacturing and construction. Of course, ultimately, the public sector jobs rely on revenues gathered from the private sector.

Worth thinking about the graph above next time you hear public sector employees moaning about conditions and pay rates. At least their security has been better than others enjoy.

Adoption versus abortion

From the NZ Initiative's weekly newsletter comes this graph:

The NZ Initiative doesn't offer any narrative and I haven't got any suffice to say it's an interesting fact that both opposition to adoption and access to abortion are feminist driven issues. Would you consider the story this graph tells a successful outcome of feminism?

(The blue line includes adoptions of overseas children).

Would UK Labour's education policy suit Cunliffe?

If he wants to outdo National, perhaps this policy could make an appearance in Cunliffe's State of the Nation speech next Monday (reporting from the World Socialist Web Site):

Britain: Labour’s plan for licences another attempt to vilify teachers

By Margot Miller
23 January 2014

In another bid to outdo the Tories in attacking the working class, Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt recently announced that under a Labour government, teachers working in England’s state schools would have to be licensed every few years.
This would involve both continual assessments of a teacher’s competence, as well as an external assessor making their judgement on whether a teacher is fit to teach. Originally proposed by the previous Labour government’s Education Secretary Ed Balls on a five-year cycle, Labour intends to consult with the teaching trade unions in order to implement teacher licensing.
According to Hunt, the latest proposal is intended to give teachers the “same professional standing” as doctors and lawyers, “which means re-licensing themselves which means continued professional development”. He continued, “If you’re not a motivated teacher... passionate about being in the classroom— you shouldn’t really be in this profession. So if you’re not willing to engage in re-licensing to update your skills then you really shouldn’t be in the classroom.”

State inconsistency about pets and beneficiaries

Contrary to what some believe, my long-term advocacy of welfare reform is not about being mean or punitive. It bothers me that HNZ is planning to take a hard line with tenants who have pets. According to the Otago Daily Times:

The SPCA says Housing New Zealand's plan to evict dogs from state houses could be be "catastrophic'' for the animals and community.
Documents released to the Otago Daily Times under the Official Information Act revealed a plan to allow dogs to live at a state house only "in exceptional circumstances''.
HNZ considered dogs a "barrier to independence'' that made it difficult for tenants to "move on'', the documents revealed.
The SPCA said in a statement today that the policy seemed like an overreaction to what was a minor problem with only 37 reported incidents out of an estimated 40,000 dogs.
"Such a policy will cause real distress and suffering to the dogs and the owners who consider their pets as members of their family,'' the statement said.
"The wholesale eviction of 40,000 dogs would be catastrophic for the dogs and the community.''

Without doubt the crossover between beneficiary, known-to-CYF, and HNZ tenant is substantial.

And MSD knows that involvement with animals can be really beneficial for building empathy. About the Epuni Care and Protection Residence and animal visitation:

“Developing empathy is natural, but exposure to violence interrupts this process. Contact with safe, loving others can begin to redress this harm.” Sputnik’s planning to get his own dog one day. “He’ll be my best friend, and I’ll call him Sputnik II.”

Not if you live in a state house you won't.


Update

A beat-up perhaps? The NZ Herald reports today;

Ms Pivac [spokeswoman] said HNZ reviewed its dog policy in 2012 because it was concerned about the seemingly high number of tenants who had dogs without permission.
"At that stage we did consider taking a harder line on dogs, but in the end we have ended up taking a pragmatic approach to what is always a difficult topic for us.

It is performance pay

John Key should just say his new education management  scheme IS performance pay instead of denial.

Lots - if not most - people are paid on performance. If they don't perform they don't get paid. When they perform well they get paid more, even if that requires initiative on their own behalf eg a change of employer. When I take a commission I am explicit that if the commissioner isn't satisfied, they won't buy the painting. Key's scheme tells teachers and principals that if they are a cut above, there is now a new opportunity to get paid better. Good job too.

What's wrong with performance pay anyway? What's with the drive to protect mediocrity? It can't be fair whatever way you approach it.

Shearer on "hand-outs"

Ex Labour leader, David Shearer has made some surprising comments in a column published in the NZ Herald today.

Despite sponsoring a private members bill to feed children in decile 1-3 schools he obviously has major misgivings about it.

Since my Food in Schools Bill - to provide food to lower-decile schools - was drawn out of the Parliamentary ballot in October, I've been rethinking this course of action.
My meetings with principals, doctors, charities and communities have convinced me that some important adjustments should be made to the bill.
My research took me to a wonderful school, Owairaka District School, where 8-year-old students served me a lunch of vegetarian pizza from their own pizza oven, salad from their garden, and muffins made with eggs from their chickens and honey from their hives.
Owairaka is a decile 2 school but the children are kept nourished and learning through this innovative garden-to-table programme.
But more critically, they are picking up the lifetime skills of gardening and food preparation - and they are doing it alongside family and community volunteers who also benefit.

It's win, win, win - so much better than a hand-out for the kids - and it raised a question I have grappled with since my bill was drawn.
Is it right to impose a one-size-fits-all solution on to every low-decile school in the form of a food hand-out?

An important Labour MP questioning the hand-out philosophy? That won't sit well with his colleagues.

There's an old saying: give someone a fish and it will feed them for a day; teach someone to fish and it will feed them for a lifetime.
Of course, we all agree that no child should be hungry at school. But what's missing is a programme that will not only fix that but also improve nutrition and ensure self-reliance.
Before coming into politics I ran huge feeding programmes for starving kids, including one for 30,000 children in Somalia.
Without that food, those children would have died. But the programme was always designed to be temporary. As soon as the crisis passed, the families moved on, relying on themselves.
My fear is that we will institutionalise dependence through relying solely on a feeding programme. We need to be far more forward-looking.

Surely Shearer has extended his thinking beyond the provision of food? Dependence is firmly institutionalised amongst certain groups in this country thanks to weekly cash hand-outs. Yet his party wants to make those hand-outs more generous in terms of availability and size.

And as it stands, the hand-outs aren't there to cushion until the "crisis [has] passed". For many they exist to fund a life of chosen dependence on other people's money. That institutionalisation then saps them of the will to take responsibility for things like feeding their children. They simply expect more hand-outs.

However, despite his misgivings Shearer continues:

My bill originally aimed to legislate for food to be available in every decile 1, 2 and 3 school that wants it, so poorer communities can have confidence their children won't be hungry at school.
That's a start, but I'm going back to the drawing board so we can address the issues of nutrition and encourage self-reliance. We have lost the basic skills of how to garden and provide for ourselves.

As well as how to work and provide for ourselves.

Regarding feeding kids in school, Shearer's obvious conflict is shared by many. To solve it the child is separated from the parent. The failure of the parent is ignored in order to address the child's need. I think it's a mistake. It's only going to breed more reliance on the state. I fully expect that when Labour introduced the DPB somebody was arguing that is was necessary so single parents could ensure their childreen were fed.

But what about Super numbers?

Kiwiblog has a post up about the declining benefit numbers. He's analysed the drop in numbers since December 2010. I've left this comment:

Over the period you have chosen to analyse there were 31,000 fewer working age beneficiaries and I agree. that can only be good news (albeit the decrease may mainly involve short-term dependants and reflect economic conditions rather than welfare reforms. Hard to know now the longevity reporting has changed.) But there were 79,000 more superannuitants. When is National going to address this problem?

I don't see Super in the same light as a benefit for a number of reasons. However it's still a debit on government revenue which is growing every year, faster than any decrease in the working age welfare bill.

Eligibility for the very first Old Age pension was set at 65. It's madness to ignore how different 65 year-olds of today are.

Key's obstinence over this matter is one of his few electoral vulnerabilities.

17,000 fewer on benefits - welfare reform or economic conditions?

According to the Minister:

Latest benefit numbers reveal thousands of New Zealanders have gained financial independence by coming off welfare in the past 12 months, Social Development Minister Paula Bennett says. Figures for the December 2013 quarter released today show over 17,000 fewer people are on benefit compared to December 2012. “This is a significant decrease and proof that the welfare reforms implemented by this Government are making a huge difference for New Zealanders,” Mrs Bennett said.

Yet MSD says:

Main benefit numbers increased substantially between December 2008 and December 2012, though they have fallen from their peak in 2010. The main driver for this pattern has been changes in economic conditions.

I'm inclined to agree that economic conditions are the greater influence.

The categories of benefit changed in July 2013 and the earlier numbers have been adjusted accordingly. I'd like to see the chart go back further to ascertain whether the prior pattern also reflected the economy (in the absence of any meaningful reforms under Labour).

Further from Bennett:

“The decrease includes over 8,000 sole parents who have gone off the benefit, a 9.4 per cent drop compared to the same time last year,” Mrs Bennett says.
Welfare reforms included new obligations for sole parents to be ready and available for part-time work when their youngest child is school-age and full-time work when their youngest turns 14.
“This impressive drop is down to thousands of sole parents seeking a better future for them and their families through work, and also thanks to Work and Income case managers, who are doing a fantastic job offering better, more targeted support than ever before.”

Yes, sole parent beneficiary numbers have dropped by 9.4 percent, but they did this during the 2003-07 period too. So as much as I want the reforms to make a difference, it is probably too soon to tell.

Trends in proportion of the working-age population receiving Domestic Purposes Benefits at the end of December, between 2002 and 2012

Update:

HOWEVER there is one factor that would lend support to the Minister's claim which she should probably be drawing attention to.

The number of people who are long-term dependants (over 1 year by this government's definition) has fallen as a percentage of all beneficiaries. At December 2012 the percentage was 70.5% ; at December 2013 the figure was 69.4%. (Those numbers relate only to the current benefit spell). In real terms between Dec 2012 and Dec 2013 there were 15,755 fewer long-term beneficiaries but only 1,471 fewer short-term beneficiaries.

I've also looked at Sept quarter figures because the Dec figures are distorted by an influx of students.

Sept 2012 74.4%
Sept 2013 73.7%

But I'd like to see data relating to those dependent for 4 or more years but those stats are no longer provided.

The truth about welfare dependence and what the Left denied

The graph below, from the latest Taylor Fry valuation of beneficiary liability, shows the age of entry into the benefit system for those beneficiaries aged 30-39 at June 2013. For a long time I tried to get this information out of MSD but the limitations of their data prevented a certain outcome. However I could get enough to suggest that somewhwere between a third and a half of people on the DPB began on welfare as teenagers. That was disputed by people like Susan St John (see below).

The reason 30-39 year-olds are depicted here is that older data is not available (ie the full benefit history of 40+ idividuals is unknown).  Almost two thirds of current 30-39 year-old beneficiaries began on welfare aged 19 or under; three quarters aged 24 or under. Stunning. This information clearly shows why it is so important to stop young people entering the benefit system from the outset.

The letter below was published in the NZ Herald, June 16, 2010. I responded here:

Dear Editor

Lindsay Mitchell (NZ Herald letters, 15th June) claims that Ministry of Social Development data shows that at last a third of current DPB recipients began on welfare as teenagers. She then goes on to suggest, with no supporting data, that the actual percentage may possibly be twice that.

This is designed to make us believe that New Zealand has an enormous problem of sole parents starting young and being on the benefit for years. This Bogey may justify all kinds of draconian knee jerk responses. In fact MSD says that, of the 34,000 DPB recipients aged 29 and under who had any time on a benefit as a teenager, only 17% (5,780 people) received the DPB, and the others may have had a minimal stint on unemployment or sickness benefit long before they had children. Thus only 6% of current DPBs started as teenagers.

It is a gross exaggeration to describe this as a huge dependency problem. The data clearly shows that sole parents largely move off the benefit when suitable jobs are available and when the needs of their children allow them to. The hand-ringing over sole parents should be replaced with community respect for the difficult lonely and yet vital work they do in caring for their children.

Susan St John, Exec CPAG

(St John is now on Radio NZ disputing Bennett's claim that the welfare reforms are having a positive effect on lowering the liability valuation because the numbers "have no context". Of course they do. The context does mean that the role the reforms has played is debatable, as I said yesterday, but there is context.)

Welfare reforms working, says Bennett

RNZ asked me to comment on Paula Bennett's release today heralding the drop in beneficiary liability due to the welfare reforms.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett has welcomed the latest valuation of the welfare system showing a significant reduction in the liability.
The June 2013 valuation shows the current lifetime liability^[i] is $76.5 billion.
"Of the $10.3 billion reduction in liability^[ii], $4.4 billion is due to Work and Income actively exceeding expectations by getting more people off benefit for longer, and less people coming onto benefit," says Mrs Bennett.

I had the luxury of half an hour to look at the numbers but concluded I'd have to take them on good faith. Future projections concerning so many people and so many variables are always going to be debatable. For example, some of the drop is due to CPI forecasts coming in lower than predicted.

But it's conceivable that a small drop in the percentage of beneficiaries can equate to a much larger drop in the percentage of projected liability (13 percent between June 2012 and June 2013). This is because some beneficiaries will use welfare for much longer than others. The reforms have targeted those people.

While the government is happy to claim responsibility for the improvement on their reform programme, other factors are also at play. The falling teenage birth rate, improving economy and falling youth unemployment.

In any event I have always believed the focus of the reforms - youth and sole parents - is the correct one. If the actuarial indications showing these reforms having a positive impact are sound, that can only be good.

Reflections on a brief OE

I've been away.

Went to Hong Kong, Macau and China.

Countries, their people and political systems, become far more interesting when experienced firsthand. Retrospective rambling accounts are not necessarily  interesting for those who weren't there.

So just a few observations.

Our teenagers - 15 and 19 - did not want to come home. New Zealand's merits, for example, space and clean air, do not compensate for the internationalism, excitement, variety, customer service, efficiency and fascination Hong Kong offers. As do Macau and Shenzhen to lesser degrees. But at that age, their priorities are understandable.

We were surprised and slightly amused when a tour guide showing us around one of China's Special Economic Zones spoke glowingly about the comparative ease of doing business in NZ where you can, "... set up a company in a day!" (He did not know we were from NZ seeing our mainly British passports.)

The same guide had just fathered his second child and was expecting to pay US$1,200 by way of a penalty (and I'm not talking child support). But he explained  that his rural-born status meant his fine would be less than that of others who could face much steeper penalties. He cited a local celebrity facing millions. Perhaps a progressive tax?  There didn't appear to be any particular rancour about this. A bigger point of complaint was losing money on Shenzhen's stock exchange.

The border we crossed between the New Territories and China is an ugly affair. A glass-enclosed corridor between two stations crosses over a brown canal-like ditch with barbed wire on either side. The initial impressions of China are slightly depressing but quickly improve.

The (gr)immigration officials are very stern but otherwise efficient. Below their panelled window is a facility to press buttons rating their service. Going in, we pressed the left-most button for the 'best' rating. But coming back my daughter got confused and again pressed the left-most button, this time though delivering a 'poor' rating. She was mortified at her mistake not wanting to cause the  young Chinese female official any bother. Two Australian teenage boys had pressed the poor button on purpose and thought Sam was a great source of amusement for being so concerned over her mistake.

Sam and I tried to figure out squat toilets. Mentally. Not physically.

In Macau we put our lives in the hands of a hustling cab driver. We christened him Brian for reasons that I won't explain because they are racist. Well, maybe I will. Brian is the name we give to every stereotypically bad Asian driver we encounter in NZ. This trip gave us greater insights into that phenomena. They do not hail from Hong Kong where the driving is excellent - assertive but accommodating. In Hong Kong they drive on the right. In China they drive on the left. That might explain something.

But Brian was a godsend. Drove us around Macau and managed to manage us with very little English. We paid him at the end of our day-trip, and, as I had discovered through our conversations, he was duly off to a casino to lose it. That was his daily routine.  Macau is the new Vegas and I couldn't do justice to describing the bizarre spectacle. Massive hotel casinos are looming up in the smog everywhere interspersed with development sites, cranes, and temporary facades.

Hong Kong in winter is hotter than NZ this summer. In Wellington anyway.

If we wanted to live in a comparable suburb of Hong Kong to Eastbourne (eg Stanley) we would pay 7-8 times the value of our 5 bedroom house for a two bedroom apartment, probably with no view. Otherwise  the cost of living is lower. Taxis and buses are affordable. We used both and marvelled at the low fares. Food is cheaper. Loyal to NZ wine, I was buying Oyster Bay sauvignon at 7 Eleven at less than the NZ price.

Kowloon Buddhist monks are graspy rip-off artists. Perhaps this is a misconception on my part based on the monk's misconception of my behaviour. I dropped some money in his collection bowl intending to walk on, but was subjected to the preliminaries of a blessing, with a bracelet pushed over my wrist then told I must pay $100HK. He wasn't taking no for an answer and I wasn't paying it. It got a tad physical. Quite unpleasant. Not that $100 HK would have broken the bank but I would rather give it to the lady with the burnt face and no hands. Avoid Kowloon if desperate beggars bother you. At one point I decided to not buy stuff I didn't need from street markets and give away the savings. I filled my pocket with change and then didn't see another. So perhaps not as prolific after all.

Air NZ is a great airline. Compatriot service companies should take a leaf out of their book. 

Great to be home but we returned with a reluctance. The bittersweet sign of a great  holiday. 

Living wage critique

I posted earlier some opportunity cost examples Brian Scott provided in his critique of the living wage calculations. Kiwiblog has now linked to his full published report.

Brian Scott has published a critique of the so called Living Wage, and it should be compulsory reading for any politician that has treated the calculations done by Rev Waldegrave as a fit basis for public policy decisions. It is quite legitimate to have a view that wages should be higher, but to insist that the correct level is that calculated by Rev Waldegrave is a surrender to symbolism over substance.
The key findings by Scott are:

1. Only 12% of low income households are two adults and two dependents, which the Waldegrave calculation is based on
2. They assume you need 10 hours of childcare a week, even if the children are aged over 14
3. They calculation of level of “basic necessities” is not based on any empirical measurement of the lowest cost of necessities, but merely a proportion of the average expenditure in deciles 1 to 5 (this one is key – it is a calculation based on the Browns should be spending as much as the Jones, and is not a caculation on how much income the Browns need)
4. The calculation doesn’t account for some sources of household income such as trade-ins, sales, teenagers income (yet does include their costs) and school donation tax refunds
5. The calculation double counts some expenditure such as childcare costs
6. The calculation includes as a basic necessity costs such as Sky TV, pets, international travel and video games
7. The calculation includes insurance for dwellings and mortgages, despite assuming they are renting

Implication of ageing population

The graph below depicts the 'support ratio' for NZ over the next 46 years. The support ratio is the ratio of workers to consumers. The best way to reduce the drop is through greater immigration (the blue line) although at some point immigrants also become consumers and not workers. Increasing fertility takes women out of the workforce so produces more consumers in the short term (the green line). Whichever way you look at it by 2060 the ratio will be probably lower than ever before. And in 1960, when families produced three,  four or five children, the consumers were generally less expensive than those of the future - more predominantly the elderly. Though I guess that's a debatable point.

Who pays the lion's share of income tax?

A reader sent me the following:

Could these comments apply to NZ and Australia ? The top 1 percent of U.S. earners pay nearly 40 percent of U.S. income taxes. The top 10 percent pay 70 percent. The top 50 percent pay more than 97 percent of income taxes. The poor pay nothing. 

Absolutely the comments can apply to NZ. The numbers change only slightly. From Treasury:

Who pays income tax... and how much?

Annual individual taxable income ($)	Number of people (000)	Number of people %	Tax paid ($m)	Tax paid %
Zero	260	8	0	0
1 - 10,000	374	11	171	1
10,001 - 20,000	704	21	1,234	5
20,001 - 30,000	469	14	1,539	6
30,001 - 40,000	341	10	1,756	7
40,001 - 50,000	293	9	2,001	8
50,001 - 60,000	234	7	2,232	8
60,001 - 70,000	188	6	2,340	9
70,001 - 80,000	138	4	2,138	8
80,001 - 90,000	95	3	1,791	7
90,001 - 100,000	65	2	1,427	5
100,001 - 125,000	99	3	2,689	10
125,001 - 150,000	42	1	1,488	6
150,001+	75	2	5,590	21
All	3,375	100	26,397	100

The trouble is these figures don't include tax credits, benefits, and other cash tansfers. When they are taken into account:

... Treasury earlier this year [2013] estimated that this year households earning over $150,000 a year – the top 12 per cent of households by income – will pay 46 per cent of income tax.

But when benefit payments, Working for Families, paid parental leave and accommodation support are taken into account, these 12 per cent of households are expected to pay 76 per cent of the net income tax. And that is before New Zealand Superannuation payments are counted.

By contrast, households earning under $60,000 a year – which is half of all households – are expected to pay 11 per cent of income tax.

“When we take income support payments into account, as a group they will actually pay no net income tax at all,” Mr English says.

“That’s because the $2.7 billion of income tax they are expected to pay will be more than offset by the $8.1 billion they will receive in income support.

 So, "12 per cent of households are expected to pay 76 per cent of the net income tax" is pretty much the same as the US figure of, "The top 10 percent pay 70 percent". Notwithstanding I don't know whether the US figure applies to households or individuals.

Drug testing beneficiaries unconstitutional Florida judge rules

From Reason.com:

A district court judge in Florida granted summary judgment for the plaintiff in a case challenging the constitutionality of a law requiring welfare recipients to submit to drug testing.

More

Fair enough. Making beneficiaries pass a drug test as a condition of receiving welfare is a bridge too far in my opinion. The drug-testing Work and Income conduct is on people who will be referred to jobs that require applicants to be drug-free. That's a different matter.

Paula Bennett:

“Around 40 percent of the jobs listed with Work and Income require drug tests and it’s reasonable for employers to expect people to be drug free.”

As I've commented before the whole drug-testing issue is thorny for me, beneficiary or not. If private companies want drug-free employees that's their prerogative. However it's unrealistic to broaden the expectation to ever-increasing types of employment. And a breach of people's privacy rights...which I think is what this judge is ruling.

Pacific people more self-sufficient than Maori

At 15.7 percent, Pacific people have higher unemployment than Maori at 12.2 percent.
 
Yet their reliance on benefits is low compared to Maori.

At September 2013, there were 9,546 Pacific people on a Jobseeker Benefit compared to 42,277 Maori. As a percentage of all people on JS that equates to 7.5 and 33 percent. The Pacific share is roughly equal to their overall percentage of the population. The Maori share is more than double their overall percentage of the population.

Looking at sole parents the pattern is repeated with 10 percent of those receiving Sole Parent Support being Pacific and 46 percent, Maori.

The final benefit, Supported Living Payment, shows a similar ratio though the numbers are lower at 6 and 24 percent.

So why the difference?

Is it simply that Pacific families and communities are stronger and more supportive? Is it a matter of eligibility for benefits? Is there a shame attached to being on a benefit?

My knowledge of Pacific people and their culture isn't sufficient to provide the answer but I favour the first reason.

Given their self-reliance though I wonder why they vote Labour? Perhaps they don't, or won't in the future.

Here's a quote from 2011:

Mr Laulu [senior Labour Party office holder] said he did not believe Labour could continue to rely on Pacific people to vote Labour "because I'm union or my parents and family have always voted Labour".

Graph of the Year

The current and beloved article of faith amongst leftists is rising inequality.

Here's a very recent example from Boxing Day:  

Inequality keeps rising, says UC social research expert

Earlier in the year I was fortunate enough to be sent a hard copy of the latest Household Incomes report by its author. Lucky because a request to MSD went unacknowledged and it's such a lengthy, comprehensive report a printed reference copy does wonders for data ease of accessibility and my good humour. Thank you Bryan Perry.

Here's the graph that should accompany every press release about growing inequality.

This is the official measure of inequality in New Zealand. The trend line can best be described as declining albeit slowly.

Taking envyism to a new level

Here's an interesting claim from a poster at the Daily Blog:

Right now the minimum wage is so low that those receiving it look upon beneficiaries with envy. - See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/12/30/next-year-is-election-year/#sthash.AMxcxww8.dpuf

Right now the minimum wage is so low that those receiving it look upon beneficiaries with envy. - See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/12/30/next-year-is-election-year/#sthash.AMxcxww8.dpuf

 "Right now the minimum wage is so low that those receiving it look upon beneficiaries with envy."

If that's true, it's a major problem for the Left who look for voters from both low-income groups - workers and beneficiaries.

With envy comes resentment. You might expect low income workers to feel some sympathy for beneficiaries if both groups are 'struggling'. But if the Left continue to stir and fuel bitterness about low wages, those workers might consequently feel more resentful towards beneficiaries than government.

Then, when Labour and the Greens talk about lifting benefit levels specifically through paying beneficiaries the IN WORK tax credit, how are they going to react?

Is that what's really behind the living wage campaign? To lift minimum wage levels up to the equivalent that (some) beneficiaries receive?

The political poser for the Left is how to keep low wage workers and beneficiaries both happy with election promises. What an awful dilemma.

Right now the minimum wage is so low that those receiving it look upon beneficiaries with envy. - See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/12/30/next-year-is-election-year/#sthash.AMxcxww8.dpuf

Ten positive trends

Time for a break from the hand wringing promulgated by left-wing academics, politicians and media, and note some of the positive trends that are happening in New Zealand:

1/ Assaults on police

Tasers and training are credited with a double-digit drop in assaults against police.
Recorded offences against police dropped more than 20% between 2009-10 and 2012-13, figures released under the Official Information Act figures reveal.

2/ Deaths from sudden infant death syndrome

The number of infants dying suddenly has dropped but the rate is still too high, officials say.

In 2012, 36 infants died of cot death or sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI). This is down from 55 deaths in 2008.

3/ Recorded crime

Police Minister Anne Tolley has praised frontline Police, with recorded offences down for the third fiscal year in a row, and a massive 17.4 per cent drop in crimes in the past three years.
There were 29,337 fewer recorded offences in the year to June 2013, a fall of 7.4 per cent, representing a 7.9 per cent drop per head of population.

4/ Smoking rate

The recently-issued 2013 census results show a big fall in smoking rates since the last count in 2006. Little by little, great progress has been made...The news stories focused mainly on the overall decline in the numbers of smokers, which had fallen by nearly a quarter, from 598,000 to 463,000. That means that today only about 15 per cent of adults smoke, compared with nearly 21 per cent in 2006.

5/ Teenage birth rate

... the birth rate per 15-19 year-olds has been dropping since 2008.

6/ Abortion rate

The general abortion rate decreased from 17.3 per 1,000 women aged 15-44 years in 2011 to 16.1 in 2012. It cemented a five-year downward trend, and the rate was the lowest since 1995, when it was also 16.1 per 1,000, Statistics New Zealand said.

7/ Road deaths

 A record-low Labour Weekend road toll is part of a "downward trend" in deaths on New Zealand roads, police say.

8/ Child mortality rate

New Zealand's infant mortality rate - babies who die before their first birthdays - has fallen steadily from 25 for every 1000 births in the early 1950s to 4.8 for every 1000 in the Unicef data, and to 4.2 in the latest Statistics NZ figures for 2012.

9/ Maori suicide rate

The drop in Maori suicide was largely accounted for by a decrease in male Maori suicide, in particular young male Maori suicide. In 2011/12 there were 94 male Maori suicides, while in 2012/13 there were 72.

10/ Rheumatic fever amongst children

The Rheumatic Fever Prevention Programme began on 1 July 2011, and has been significantly expanded since. The goal of the programme is to reduce rates of new cases of rheumatic fever by two thirds, from a baseline rate of 4.2 cases in 2011 to 1.4 cases per 100,000 people by June 2017. In 2012, the rate of rheumatic fever had reduced to 3.8 cases per 100,000 people