Anti-voluntary euthanasia submitters overwhelm (updated)

Jane Silloway Smith, who used to work for Maxim, has analysed the submissions to the health committee on the matter of voluntary euthanasia:

“Maryan Street and the Voluntary Euthanasia Society wanted to know New Zealanders’ views on legalising assisted suicide,” says Dr Jane Silloway Smith, Director of Every Life Research Unit, “and the people have spoken: at a ratio of about 3 to 1, they have told Parliament not to legalise assisted suicide.”

Dr Smith has been analysing submissions made to the Health Select Committee’s investigation into ending one’s life in New Zealand. She has conducted a random sampling of the 20,576 submissions made public by the Committee thus far. Her analysis has found that 78% of submitters are against legalising assisted suicide, while 22% are in favour of changing the law.

“Submitters to the Health Select Committee have overwhelmingly expressed their opposition to assisted suicide,” comments Dr Jane Silloway Smith. “The very clear ratio against a change in the current law alongside the high number of total submissions shows that there is a strong public political will opposed to assisted suicide.”

I am happy to take her word about the numbers but I've had a look at around 20 submissions.

Here's half a dozen of the noes. If Silloway is happy to assume her sample is right re numbers I will assume my sample is right re content.

(Right click on image to view)

Clearly a lot of effort has gone into collecting many sheets of paper featuring some oppositional statement in order to get anti-euthanasia submission numbers up.

Looks to me like the churches have been very busy.

Not one of the positive submissions that I have sighted was as 'unsupported' as these.

Ah. Democracy. It's a wonderful thing. Not.

I utterly resent religious people imposing their views on me via legislation - especially as pathetically expressed as these are.

Update

Some more single sentence, single page submissions.

Did any of these people follow or understand the Lecretia Seales case? Did they understand the text of the petition they were submitting on?

That the House of Representatives investigate fully public attitudes towards the introduction of legislation which would permit medically-assisted dying in the event of a terminal illness or an irreversible condition which makes life unbearable.

(Right click on image to enlarge)

Criticism of WINZ case management approach awry

A Master's thesis student says Work and Income is pushing many beneficiaries into jobs that don't last.

But 61 percent still had paid work two years later. That's not a bad result. I don't have time now to check  but I believe it compares well to past performance.

But it was her recommendation that I took issue with:

"Sudden said the agency should be more flexible and supportive and bring back a system of personalised case managers that was axed in 2010."

Here is the current case management approach. Note the last sentence:

 You can still ask to be seen by a specific case manager if you want to, but it means that you may have to wait longer for an appointment if the case manager you want to see is busy helping other clients.

Breaching protection orders

The NZ Herald has a piece detailing  statistics relating to the breaching of protection orders. I read through it looking for mention of what appears to be  common scenarios. That is the female applies for a protection order and then the couple surreptitiously reconcile. Or the female uses a protection order maliciously to prevent the father from seeing his children and he refuses to accept it.

People use the law when it suits and ignore it when it doesn't.

Typically though  these circumstances are not acknowledged. The writer probably didn't ask anybody who might speak on behalf of male partners and fathers. The assumption is simply that men who break protection orders pose a further threat to the women. Doubtless this is sometimes the case. In fact women have been killed when protection orders are breached.

But how I long for some less superficial analysis of  matters that relate to 'family violence'.

Shame we care less about GDP per capita

Source

Source

When solutions are worse than the problem

There I was, developing a great deal of sympathy for a woman whose child was removed from her at birth and put up for adoption. It must be hell to have a newborn forcibly wrenched from you immediately after the birth. The thinking behind those actions had to change.

But the last paragraph in the piece lost me.

(Link to the piece is broken - see related material here)

Yadiyadiyada

Maori tribal leaders will today sign a "covenant" with the nation's children, promising to treasure and respect them and make childhood a time of "joy and light".
The signing, at a 68-member Iwi Chairs Forum at Hopuhopu near Ngaruawahia, will launch a public campaign to adopt the covenant as a national constitutional document like the Treaty of Waitangi and the Bill of Rights.

Collectivist gestures won't solve a problem driven by collectivism.

The only way child abuse will be reduced is by the parent (preferably parents) being fully committed to the child's safety and well-being.

Being a single parent makes you poor

Here's a mother with three children struggling to find money to eat. She has made her budget public.

She is on one income and paying a reasonably high rent of $460. There is no-one else sharing the expenses. That is her choice.

The estranged father is paying her $284.53 weekly. That's probably stretching his budget substantially as well.

These parents have chosen to arrange their lives this way and it is making her at least, and possibly him as well, 'poor'. And their children.

She is receiving $343 weekly from the state to assist with living costs.

I am not sure what the point of the article is.

Flight of the Doves? Not quite

It was a poignant movie from 1971. An older brother (played by the late Jack Wild) flees Liverpool with his baby sister in tow, escaping an ill-motivated uncle, designated caregiver since the death of their mother, to return to Ireland in search of their grandma.

The modern version isn't quite as fairy-tale like.

Reading between the lines, these two children (reported as running away with a suitcase a few days ago) have been persuaded to leave their foster/whanau care to be picked up by parent or associate of parent nearby.

But I am having difficulty understanding why CYF has issued the following statement. With such high priority routinely placed on privacy, this action surprises me. Is there a whiff of back-covering here? Or is it merely a matter of CYF needing to develop the discourse with media given the children's disappearance has already been well-publicized? Any other ideas?


Concerns remain for missing brother and sister
28 July 2016.
Child, Youth and Family General Manager Operations, Kay Read calls for the McLean whānau to bring children out of hiding.

“We are extremely concerned about two young children that are currently missing. Their mother has texted us to confirm they are with wider family, but will not let us or the Police know where the children are so we can be satisfied about their safety.

“Our primary concern is for the safety and wellbeing of these children and we urge the family to return them safely – and to do this immediately.

“Children shouldn’t be used a bargaining chips in an attempt to influence decisions regarding custody or placement. Decisions around the custody of children and young people are a matter for the Family Court and are made with the best interests of the children as an absolute priority. No decisions can be made while these children are still missing.

“Child, Youth and Family has always been willing to work with this mother and her wider family and we will continue this involvement.”

RNZ updates

The mother waived privacy rights. Yet, "It is not appropriate for the details of this case to be played out in the public arena," the [CYF]spokesperson said. So still a question mark over the reasons behind the release.

There's cash going begging?

Police are considering paying for child abuse tip-offs. They say too many people aware that a child is being abused or neglected do not report it. Some people have so lost their moral compass, they say, that only a cash reward would prompt action.

There are so many fish hooks here.

If a witness is more motivated by money than their concern for a child, what kind of person is being prompted? Malicious reports are already a problem. (NZ doesn't keep data but some countries do. No reason we would be any different).

In any case, the problem of not reporting is complex. It isn't necessarily indifference or collusion.
Any person with a modicum of intelligence will consider the repercussions of a report.

1/  For the victim, removing a child from its home and mother is a very, very serious step to take. Where does the child go? The outcomes from foster care and state care are not good. These children can end up physically safer but emotionally, irrevocably damaged. Prisons are full of the product of state care.

2/ If  the risk to the child staying is so great that all of the above looks better, then what kind of parent(s) are you dealing with?

3/ What retaliation will be visited upon you and more importantly, your children?

4/ Are you on balance better to provide a safe haven for the child without involving the authorities?

People who live in environments most likely to harbour child abuse and neglect do not typically trust CYF or the Police. And increasingly I can understand why.

Police act as if a report of child abuse is akin to waving a magic wand over the head of a child. It isn't. It merely begins a chain of events that have the potential to cause even greater harm to the child.

It may save their life, though murdered children are often already known to CYF.

The success of cash as an incentive is evidence-based. It's no coincidence that most abused children are born onto a benefit.

So if there is more going begging, use it to incentivize vasectomies, sterilizations and long-acting contraception. Because some people will take it. And they are the people who have little interest in being a parent - let alone a decent parent.

Inequality in context

Source: Fraser Institute

Almost half of sole parent beneficiaries are Maori

47.4 percent of Sole Parent Support beneficiaries are Maori. In the Youth and Young Parent category the proportion rises to 49.4 percent.


I've charted the latest June data below:

(Right click to enlarge)

Some commentary.

1/ This disproportion accounts substantially for the high rate of Maori child poverty. While Pacific children are also disproportionately poor, they are more likely to have working parents.

2/ The Maori numbers are dropping. There are 9.5 percent fewer on Sole Parent Support now than at June 2014.

3/ But, some with children aged 14 and older are now buried away in JobSeeker statistics. I suspect these numbers will be relatively high in regions like Northland and the East Coast

4/ The falling Maori teenage birth rate may make a positive reduction in the future OR the delayed births may still appear in the benefit numbers


I have included the notes regarding ethnicity that accompany the data tables.

Ethnicity data is self-identified and multiple ethnicities may be chosen by an individual as fits their preference or self-concept. Multiple selected ethnicities are then prioritised into a hierarchy. The Māori ethnicity has the highest priority in this hierarchy, followed by Pacific peoples. NZ European has the lowest priority. This is to ensure that smaller and politically significant ethnic groups do not get overwhelmed by the larger ethnic groups. A single ethnicity is assigned to an individual based on this hierarchy. Ethnic groups do not currently align with Statistics New Zealand ethnicity groupings.

Blurring lines badly

I'm with Sian Elias. This kind of police work makes me sick. It blurs the lines between right and wrong so badly that it can only make outcomes worse.

Using lies and deceit to entrap someone, to encourage worse criminal activity than might otherwise have been the case, and to use oodles of public money to engage in such elaborate baiting is unacceptable.

I don't know how we are supposed to trust an organisation that for months sits around conniving more than 20 set-ups to deceive an impressionable, possibly not that bright, young person. How can sane individuals participate in this sort of hoax? And do they have to graduate from acting school?

It is bad enough that so many young men live in a virtual reality world that leaves them amenable to propositions to join a glamorous criminal underworld. But the supposed upholders of justice exploiting it?

It is a horrible crime to cause the death of a baby but it was manslaughter. Why was the state so hell-bent on punishing this guy (still technically a 'child' when he committed the crime)  when he was only ever going to serve a short sentence?

If I wasn't so repulsed I would find it risible.

It's the 21st of July

I mention it only because the June quarter benefit statistics have not yet been released.

On April 21st the minister issued a release heralding lowest benefit numbers since 2008.

On January 21st she made a statement referring to the steady annual decline in numbers.

It'll be most interesting to see if the overall downward trend is continuing.

Update: Right on cue
And Jo Goodhew gets the job of putting out the release which is remarkably similar to the April 21st version.

'Marriages that end in divorce' is not the same as the divorce to marriage ratio

Jim Rose has highlighted the following depiction of "the percent of marriages that end in divorce". The range of percentages from 9%  to 71% is fascinating. Naturally the question arises, where would NZ fit in? What colour would this country be?





The answer is....we don't really know.

According to Statistics NZ:

One half of all marriages ends in divorce

This frequently uttered factoid looks like a good reason to save money on an expensive wedding. But can it be true?

Statistics New Zealand’s Population Statistics unit records the number of marriages registered each year and tracks how many of these end in divorce. Analysis of this data shows that roughly one-third of couples who married in 1970 had divorced by their jade wedding anniversary (35 years). This suggests that two-thirds of marriages end in the death of one partner.

But aren't divorce rates increasing? Of those who married in 1980, one-third of couples had already divorced by their silver wedding anniversary (25 years). This is still well below one-half of all marriages.

The longest marriage certified by the Guinness Book of Records is 86 years, although there are longer marriages pending verification.

Conclusion
This myth is busted.

How did this myth arise?
There are roughly 10,000 divorces and 20,000 marriages in NZ each year. 10,000/20,000 = 1/2 – so one-half of all marriages end in divorce, right? Wrong! The couples divorcing in a year are not the same couples who marry in that year, but a subset of all those who married in preceding years and have not yet divorced (a much greater number than 20,000).

When measuring the frequency of an event in a population (eg divorces) it is important to express the number of events in the context of the population who are likely to experience that event (sometimes called the 'at risk' population). For divorces, that population is the estimated number of existing marriages (from all years past and present). The method used to bust this myth, where divorces are analysed by year of marriage, is known as a ‘cohort analysis’.


What the chart above actually shows is the divorce to marriage ratio. Based on that NZ would be 43% in 2015, or the same colour as the UK.

Graph of the Day

Released today by Statistics NZ an article discussing "The Kiwi factor in record net migration."

At the 2008 election  (which I stood in as an ACT candidate so remember the issues well) it was all hand-wringing over our young people leaving to live overseas. The brain-drain even.

Now they aren't leaving, pushing up net migration, it's all hand-wringing over housing prices and job poaching due to high net migration.

There is no happy medium. Because the oppositional style of politics, aided and abetted by media, will always find a crisis.

New painting

Updating artist blog. 

Nice news on Sunday last. My entry into the annual Muriel Hopper Art Award, "Denise", received one of two People's Choice Awards.  I also won one in 2014 for "Azalea"

National behaving like Labour/Greens again

Just announced:


“Sole Parents spend on average 14 years on a benefit, but we know that tertiary education can significantly reduce the average time they spend on welfare so we’re making it as easy as possible for them to transition to study.

We knew a decrease in accommodation assistance was a disincentive for sole parents to move off a benefit and into study. This policy removes that barrier to higher education, encouraging more parents to take steps towards sustainable and rewarding employment.

“On average beneficiaries with a tertiary qualification spend six and a half years less on a benefit compared to those without, so supporting them into full time study is a good investment in their futures, and their children’s future,” Mrs Tolley says.

Using 14 years dependent on welfare as the bench mark makes it possible to sell this move as an 'investment'. But why not use NO time on a benefit as the ideal rather than seven and a half years? Why not set policy that encourages people to complete their education before having children?

Paula Bennett made reforms to the Training Incentive Allowance (slammed by the opposition)  based on evidence from the Welfare Working Group:

For DPB clients, most Work and Income interventions used appear to have little effect; training interventions are a particular weakness. Fifty-one percent of DPB recipients participating in an intervention took the Training Incentive Allowance, which MSD found to have no effect on the time a beneficiary was likely to spend off benefit – in fact the study found there was a chance TIA slightly increased the average time spent on benefit. MSD did note there was a chance that TIA may have an unobserved long-term impact (after seven years) on time spent off benefit. 

Essentially policy creates single parents then more policy is required to ensure they stay dependent for only seven and a half years. We're going backwards.

Talk about dodging the question Jacinda

David Seymour writes in today's SST:

OPINION: Why are so many children born into benefit-dependent families?

"Much of the country is focused on child abuse, poverty, and putting kids' needs first. The political left tell us the Government should just spend a few dollars more, as they have told us for decades.

Yet the current Government taxes and spends $80 billion every year.  This surpasses the wildest dreams of the welfare state's architects.  When Michael Joseph Savage departed office, government spent, in today's money, only about $2700 per person per year. Now it's $17,000 per person (or $85,000 per family of five).

Just 2 per cent of working-age New Zealanders received benefits in the decades following Savage's reforms.  Now it's 10 per cent, and welfare spending is the biggest item of government expenditure. So how can we still have child poverty and neglect in New Zealand?

Lindsay Mitchell has made ending poverty her passion.  She studies it meticulously and presents her conclusions politely and respectfully.  The most staggering statistic she's given lately is that one in five children are born into benefit-dependent households.

You might think that if you're on a benefit it's a bad time to bring a child into the world.  You're probably like the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders who think it proper to wait, save and sacrifice before having children, in a comfortable environment, then stop when you feel your family is at a size you can support.

Chances are you don't begrudge taxpayer support for people who fall on hard times, need to escape an abusive partner, or have any of a dozen other circumstances.  But here is the interesting thing: being on a benefit seems to make you more likely to have children.

Only 10 per cent of working-age people are on a benefit, yet 20 per cent of children are born into families receiving benefits.  In the six months to March 2015, 6000 babies were added to existing benefits.  That's enough to raise the hackles of those paying tax while preparing to have their own family, but worse is the outcomes for the kids involved.

Benefits seem to make people have kids early, a key risk factor for maltreatment.  As of 2015, in the general population 22 per cent of births were to mothers 24 or younger, but 44 per cent of beneficiary caregivers (mostly mothers but sometimes fathers) with a child born that year were 24 or younger.

The ultimate result has been calamity for New Zealand kids.  University of Auckland researchers have found that, of under-fives who faced maltreatment, 83 per cent were on benefits before age two.

Out of fairness to the taxpayer and the children, we need a new deal.  It's simply not good enough that the Government taxes some people, who are often waiting, saving, and sacrificing for parenthood, so that it can pay others to have kids earlier.  It's absolutely unacceptable when we know this policy is enlarging child poverty and abuse.  We need to put children first.

If you're 18 or younger, you can't get an all-cash benefit from the Government.  Instead it pays rent, power, and basic necessities before giving the remaining entitlement in cash.  A compassionate government should attack child poverty by extending Income management to any parent who has additional children while on a benefit.

The message would be simple.  If you want to have children while receiving a benefit that's fine, but the Government will give entitlements in a form that puts the needs of the children first."

JACINDA ARDERN REPLIES:

"You're right, David. A lot has changed since Savage's day.

But it's not quite right to claim that in the decades following his reforms, that very few received benefits. From 1946, every family received Government support. It was called the Universal Family Benefit, and it went to every mother who had children under the age of 16. That made them part of the welfare state, but no one was vilified for that.

Back then we also had low unemployment, generous state housing, high home ownership rates, and a 40-hour week that delivered wages you could live on. In contrast, we now spend billions of our welfare budget topping up working people's low wages and high rents – this is where the fastest growth in our welfare spending has been. In contrast, the number of people on sole parent support for instance, has remained static for years and represents just over 2 per cent of the working age population.

Yes, there will be a small, tiny minority of people who make bad calls and it impacts on their children, whether they are on government support or not. And yes, we should have the tools in place to deal with that (just like we should have the tools in place to deal with people who avoid paying their taxes) But if we want to look at what has really changed since Savage, it's the fact our welfare state is having to pick up everything  that is broken – ridiculous housing costs, low wages, people working multiple jobs to put food on the table and barely see their children, an education system that leaves too many behind, and a generation of kids who have lost hope.

If you want to genuinely help turn the bus around, start with that list. I'm sure Savage would."

This is classic Ardern waffle. Totally avoiding the central question and steeped in irony. But let's deal with the dodges anyway. In the order they appear:

Instead of the Universal Family Benefit there's now Working For Families which targets those families on lower incomes. National tightened the targeting. So Labour's response is to stop targeting low-income families? And people who get WFF are not vilified for it either, by the way.

Back when there was "low unemployment, high home ownership rates, generous state housing and a 40-hour week that delivered wages you could live on" we had preferential tax rates for family men, wages set by the Arbitration Court, unproductive jobs and lots of horrible stuff that went with a highly regulated economy. So Labour's response is to re-regulate the economy? Undo their late 1980s work?

The "fastest growth in welfare has been on topping up working people's low wages and high rents". Really? That'd be the accommodation supplement and WFF. When you create a policy and go from zero spending to over $2 billion of course it's going to show the fastest growth. So Labour's response is to get rid of its own policies? 

What she claims is anyway only true over a short period. The growth Seymour refers to has come because NZ went from having around 2% of its working age population on welfare for many decades (most commonly the Widow's Benefit) to 10% today (and it's been higher).

Let's look at the next claim, "..the number of people on sole parent support for instance, has remained static for years and represents just over 2 per cent of the working age population." Static at 4% actually (see above). It has now dropped to 2.4% due to National's welfare reforms that concentrated on getting sole parents into work but also moved them onto other benefits. The fact is at the 2013 census 28 percent of families with dependent children were sole parent and just over three quarters received a benefit. So Labour's response is to sweep these numbers under the carpet?

According to Ardern, who is all-knowing, a "small, tiny minority of people make bad calls". But one in five children born onto welfare does not represent a tiny minority. Which implies most of the decisions to have children who will immediately be plunged into 'child poverty' are good ones. 

And her piece wouldn't have been complete without the requisite pop at tax evaders. You see, rampant welfare isn't the problem. It's the people who question why they are paying their taxes for it who really need to be chastised and controlled.

Ardern is a nice person who is very big on sympathy but, like the party she represents, woefully short on solutions.

"Freedom to choose foolishly"

"Deepening social inequality" - where?

Venezuela maybe? How's that working out? The 'rich' are ordering food parcels on-line from Miami. The 'middleclass' is cutting out meals and going without basic necessities. The 'poor' are attacking food trucks and warehouses, stealing crops, foraging and storming supermarkets in border cities.The situation is deteriorating quickly. The country is being brought to its knees by socialism.

So it's Alice in Wonderland time reading the following complaints about New Zealand on the World Socialist Web Site:

"...the National Party government’s austerity measures since 2008 have “confiscated” billions of dollars from the poor and transferred this wealth to the rich. It has cut taxes for top income earners and corporations, increased the regressive Goods and Services Tax and pushed thousands of people, including single parents, off welfare payments. Spending on healthcare and education has been effectively cut, and thousands of jobs have been shed in government departments and publicly-owned companies, including Solid Energy, NZ Post and KiwiRail....the political establishment is seeking to wash its hands of any responsibility for the deepening social crisis."

The writers should seek sanctuary from this brutal regime in a country that has embraced and implemented their political ideals. Oh, but they would be out of a job. Nothing to complain about. Nothing to eat. Nothing to wipe their bottoms with.