Tax and transfer

From the latest Household Incomes Report overview a couple of interesting points.

Pertaining to the lower graph, "The transfers received by the top decile are almost entirely from NZS. The rest is from low-income ‘independent’ adults living in high-income households while (legitimately) receiving a core income-tested benefit such as Sole Parent Support."

Which raises a question for me. Why is it that student eligibility for an allowance is tested against parental income but eligibility for sole parent support is not?

The genesis of the DPB and not naming fathers

The first DPB Emergency benefit was created by a National government in 1968.

The DPB statutory benefit was passed into legislation in 1973, under an incoming Labour government. But it was pushed along by a National MP Lance Adams-Schneider's private member's bill under debate at the time.

That's why I wrote to Leighton Smith today that the DPB was introduced by a National govt.

I should have been clearer. And I should not rely on my memory:-)

Don W picked it up and Leighton didn't have time to read my clarification.

The subject of the DPB was under discussion because of a campaign launched by Auckland Action Against Poverty to have the penalty against sole parents on welfare who refuse to name the father of their child abolished.

If the business of naming the father is genuinely troublesome (the child is the result of rape or incest) Work and Income will not apply the penalty.

However there is also a dodge that goes on which the bureaucracy tries to discourage.

Current law requires the naming of fathers in order to collect Child Support from him. By not naming the father, the mother colludes to help him avoid paying Child Support which, if she is on welfare, is kept by the state to offset the benefit cost. In return the father agrees to pay her a lesser sum than Child Support but higher than the penalty. So both win.

Of course AAAP wouldn't have a problem with this. They are happy for the 'downtrodden' of any hue to rip off the 'neoliberal' welfare system.

Do they comprehend that these sorts of campaigns actually hurt the poor by hardening voter attitudes?

"The 30 million word gap"

According to the NZ Herald,

Some children are starting school without the ability to speak in sentences, sparking a government investigation.

A Nelson school principal, "said busy and tired parents not speaking enough with their kids was a key part of the issue, with many leaving parenting to the TV and electronic devices."

I can accept some element of truth in this but equally, busy people always find time. My children grew up during the video explosion and watched hundreds of movies. But they were also read to daily and talked to constantly.

What I am reminded of was a study I read about some years back.

The results of the study were more severe than the researchers anticipated. Observers found that 86 percent to 98 percent of the words used by each child by the age of three were derived from their parents’ vocabularies. Furthermore, not only were the words they used nearly identical, but also the average number of words utilized, the duration of their conversations, and the speech patterns were all strikingly similar to those of their caregivers.

After establishing these patterns of learning through imitation, the researchers next analyzed the content of each conversation to garner a better understanding of each child’s experience. They found that the sheer number of words heard varied greatly along socio-economic lines. On average, children from families on welfare were provided half as much experience as children from working class families, and less than a third of the experience given to children from high-income families. In other words, children from families on welfare heard about 616 words per hour, while those from working class families heard around 1,251 words per hour, and those from professional families heard roughly 2,153 words per hour. Thus, children being raised in middle to high income class homes had far more language exposure to draw from.

 This amounted to a 30 million word gap by age three.

In addition to looking at the number of words exchanged, the researchers also looked at what was being said within these conversations. What they found was that higher-income families provided their children with far more words of praise compared to children from low-income families. Conversely, children from low-income families were found to endure far more instances of negative reinforcement compared to their peers from higher-income families. Children from families with professional backgrounds experienced a ratio of six encouragements for every discouragement. For children from working-class families this ratio was two encouragements to one discouragement. Finally, children from families on welfare received on average two discouragements for every encouragement. Therefore, children from families on welfare seemed to experience more negative vocabulary than children from professional and working-class families. 

Ironically one of the reasons the DPB was introduced was to allow sole mothers more time with their children. To reduce their stress and enable better parenting.

Today it is known that maternal depression, welfare dependence and low literacy are all associated.

Challenging the 'women as victims' narrative (updated)

Just watched the PM towing the PC line again on TV One News.

In support of my previous post here is further evidence that when it comes to psychological abuse women can dish it out too.

The data above comes from the NZ Crime and Safety Survey 2006. I am a little dubious about the inclusion of people who  said they  ‘don’t wish to answer’as positive though they are described as a"small" number.

Regarding frequency:

 Eighteen percent of men said one or two types of behaviour happened frequently or sometimes; 14 percent of women said the same. Six percent of men said that three or more behaviours happened frequently or sometimes; four percent of women said the same.

Post script

Acknowledging what the PM said yesterday according to today's NZ Herald. Good.
 "A good father, a good stepfather and a good man does not hit, intimidate or control his spouse, partner, ex-partner or her children. The same goes for women who are abusers."

Family Violence consultation paper bias

Today announcements will be made about how police and justice handle family violence. Belatedly I took a look at the consultation document.

There are 4 case studies. Below I have given you just the first paragraph of each:

1

Protection orders – Accessibility
Lisa has been living with her partner Todd for over a year. Lisa is becoming increasingly scared by Todd’s behaviour towards her. He has a temper and is quick to yell and curse at Lisa, and has threatened to hurt her.

2

Safety and parenting arrangements for children
After months of criticising and threatening to hurt her, Olivia’s husband Nathan
grabs her throat and tries to strangle her. The next day, while Nathan is out visiting friends, she leaves with their two sons and moves in with her parents.She applies for and is granted a protection order, which prevents Nathan from having any contact with her.

3

Prosecuting psychological violence
Yuki and Sefu have been together for six years. Yuki is a fulltime mum to their eighteen-month-old daughter Violet. Sefu is outgoing, charming and has many friends. Within a few months of moving in together he begins to criticise Yuki and lose his temper with her. He accuses her of lying to him about where she is going and who she is with. He often puts her down in public.

4

Information sharing
One of Dr Evan’s patients, Mark, seems agitated. When Dr Evan asks Mark what’s wrong, he says his partner Miriama ‘needs to be taught a lesson’ for going out to a movie with her friends. Dr Evan is worried about what Mark is thinking of doing. She knows that under the Privacy Act she can disclose
personal information if she thinks it’s necessary to prevent a serious threat to someone’s life or health. But she’s not sure whether Mark’s comment on its own is serious enough, and she doesn’t want to lose Mark’s trust. In the end she decides it’s better not to tell anyone.

My interest in this matter was piqued by the Prime Minister on TV this morning talking about stopping violence against women and children.

Sure enough, in the consultation document in the section that describes family violence as it relates to the genders, 'women' are put with 'children', and 'men' are on their own.

An increasing number of countries have developed strategies specifically aimed at reducing violence against women and children. The strategies typically include measures to address a range of forms of violence against women and children, including intimate partner violence and sexual violence. They emphasise the need for responses to recognise the gendered nature of these forms of violence and the influence of social attitudes about the status of women on the incidence and nature of violence.

There is no acknowledgement that women also abuse children.

I have worked with men who were awarded the custody of their children because of abusive partners. I accept they form a minority. But for the purposes of this exercise, they may as well be invisible.

Auckland Action Against Poverty

Housing New Zealand are evicting a woman who, "...admitted she had been selling up to 60 tinnies daily, with a value of $1200 a day."

"It is Housing New Zealand's job to house people; it is the courts' job to determine guilt or innocence and determine necessary punishment," says Auckland Action Against Poverty's Alastair Russell.

Auckland Action Against Poverty (Sue Bradford's group) needs to get its focus sorted. This woman is not 'in poverty' selling up to $1200 worth of tinnies a day

AAAP  should not be defending people who undermine the very system they claim is so crucial. They should be using the tenant as an example of why people in actual ' poverty'  are 'homeless'.

Obviously the whole welfare state lost its moral compass years ago aided and abetted by socialist advocates.

Child poverty exaggerations exposed by official source

Below is a random selection of reports regarding child poverty in New Zealand. They represent only a small fraction of similar claims:

As many as 28 per cent of New Zealand children – about 305,000 – currently live in poverty.
When a child grows up in poverty they miss out on things most New Zealanders take for granted. They are living in cold, damp, over-crowded houses, they do not have warm or rain-proof clothing, their shoes are worn, and many days they go hungry. It can mean doing badly at school, not getting a good job, having poor health and falling into a life of crime.

Unicef, New Zealand
     

Save the Children chief executive Heather Hayden says child poverty could have a huge effect on our economy.
"Unless there is a change of course, we're at risk of writing off the future of hundreds of thousands of New Zealand children – sentencing them to a lifetime of poverty.
"This is not just up to the Government to fix, but for all of us to make different choices so the 305,000 children currently struggling every day to get what they need to thrive, can have a future," she says.

Save the Children

 Ms Turei said 375,000 children lived in cold, damp houses and most of them were rented. ``We would create minimum performance standards for rental properties which would ensure warm, healthy homes for thousands of children.''

Green Party

 "...here in our first world paradise, 270,000 children are not getting the start they need in life.
These children of Aotearoa, New Zealand:
• Suffer from preventable,life-threatening diseases usually only seen in third world countries
• Live in cold, damp, overcrowded, unsafe houses"

Middlemore Foundation


These are by no means exceptions. They typify the discourse on child poverty in New Zealand.

But I am not the only one who is frustrated by these misrepresentations of the true situation.

The author of the Household Incomes Report (the official source for poverty data) has more than once, in his latest report, addressed some of the exaggerations politely referring to them as "common misunderstandings". I disagree. The modus operandi of many politicians and advocates is to inflate problems for their own purposes. It is neither accidental nor a misapprehension.

Anyway here is what Bryan Perry has to say:

• A common misunderstanding involves attributing some or all of the list of deprivations surveyed in the HES and elsewhere to most or all children in low-income households – the reports are clear that this is not the case:
o some develop a narrative that starts with a high number of children in low-income households, then goes on to make it sound as if all these children suffer many serious deprivations – the reports make it clear that this is not the case, and that such narratives produce misleading accounts
o an example using a specific item illustrates the issue:
- HES collects information on the degree of any problem with dampness and mould (no problem, minor problem, major problem)
- 110,000 children are in households with a reported “major problem” re dampness and mould
- 50,000 of these children live in households in the bottom AHC income quintile and 60,000 in other households
- this low income group (bottom quintile) has 20% of all people, and 27% of children in it (290,000)
- so, “only” 17% of these children (50,000 / 290,000) live in homes that report this issue:
E though this is 17% more than what most would consider acceptable, it is well off 100% or even “most” of the income poor

o the same analysis applies to many other individual deprivation items

o the evidence shows that the common claim that “all or most children under a given low-income line have all or most the deprivations that society does not want children to experience” is false – the information in the reports does not support the claim, and shows them to be unfounded

(added emphasis)

NZ's 1% not like US

Unfortunately I don't have time to do justice to the just released Household Incomes Report but here is an interesting finding from the overview:

• One of the reasons for the interest in what is happening with very high incomes is the fact that in the USA there has been considerable growth in the share of total income received by high income earners (see graph on previous page) , while at the same time there has been little or no income rise for the bulk of the “middle class”. Neither of these factors apply in New Zealand: the trends for the top 1% and 0.5% shares are flat for New Zealand, and “middle class” income growth has been solid over the 20 years to 2015. 

I can almost feel the collective wince from the Left.

Rumours of nuclear family demise premature

A reader brought up news headlines that recently came out of the longitudinal Dunedin study. Here's a different take on it:

Don’t Write Off The ‘Nuclear Family’


Family First is warning that recent media headlines such as “Mum, dad and the kids? Not so much ...” "nuclear family a thing of the past" and "the nuclear family has exploded" are misleading because of the shortcomings and limitations of the research that the statements are based on.

"The research comes from a very small sample of just over two hundred 15-year-olds. The study itself states that 'the sample cannot be generalised to all New Zealand children.' This is primarily because the 15 year-olds' parents were young at the time of their birth, but also because it is not a random sample of NZ teenagers," says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of family First NZ.

"The mothers' median age was just 22 and young maternal age is a known marker for increased instability of family life. The study authors state that 'young parenthood may be associated with educational and socioeconomic disadvantage'. That only 26 percent were living with two biological parents by age 15 may be an effect of this disadvantage and distinct to this sample."

More

Barry Soper suggests time limits on dole

Outrageous!

"Unlike many other countries New Zealand doesn't have a finite period for how long the dole can be claimed, change that, and you may change some attitudes. That may sound hard but the real mismatch is the number of foreign workers we're required to bring in to fill vacancies, compared to the number of locals on the dole."

Why isn't he explaining why nobody should be expected to work for the minimum wage, how rapacious employers are getting away with treating immigrants like slave labour, how New Zealanders shouldn't have to work in dead-end jobs?? Capitalist muppet.

Seriously, many of the people who come into New Zealand and work at jobs Kiwis don't want to do have come from countries where the dole doesn't even exist - let alone have finite terms. That's why they have a work ethic.

*Fifty six percent have been on welfare for more than a year. 

Remark of the day

Had to highlight this brief remark from Karl du Fresne

"Sue Bradford was on Radio NZ's Morning Report today lamenting the fact that New Zealand had no left-wing think tanks. Has she forgotten the universities?"

Indeed.

Giving granddads a bad rap is unjustified

According to the editor writer in the HOS:

"Many a grandfather today would have to admit their son's parental performance puts theirs in the shade. "

This is based on fathers being more involved in the day to day care-giving of their children. Those that are still in their children's lives that is. The HOS admits that based on the data used to write this piece only 60 percent of the fathers in the Growing up in NZ study were responding. (I have checked this at the two year interviews when the numbers were 6242 mothers and 3804 of their partners.)

"Committed, conscientious fathers of young children appear to be the norm nowadays."

Well that's nice, even if the norm is defined by three out of five.

By my observations young fathers today are very involved with their children. Partners expect it. Often the father takes sole care to give the mother a break. It's not unusual to see fathers take the primary role of day to day care while the mother pursues her career. And I believe that's a great thing if the two have worked out who is better suited to what and they support each other wholly in the decision.

BUT I am increasingly uncomfortable with the current generation of commentators painting the past as a time when fathers were remote, disciplinarians and marriage a loveless trap. Did I grow up in an unusual family? My dad was always there. He was better at caring for me if I was sick, he made the meals at the weekend, he took interest in every interest I pursued (and still does). Mum did all the housework (though a cleaner came on Fridays because mum was a full-time teacher) but he did all the section and home maintenance work. I'm told he was at rugby practice when I was being born but I was too young to remember:-)

We should stop giving the baby boomer and baby boomer's dads a bad rap. Mostly they stuck around, come hell or high water. To me, that is the ultimate expression of care for a child.

(Apologies to any fathers reading this who have been forcibly excluded from their children's lives.)

Blog stats make no sense

Blog stats are not my priority. I don't monetize. But I would like to understand why the anomaly between Blogger Stats and Sitemeter data.

This is what Sitemeter tells me about August:

Blogger though tells me something totally different:

Averaging over a thousand page views a day mostly from the United States.

Can anyone explain this to a naive blogger?

The unintended and unconscionable consequences of hiking tobacco tax

Reader Jamie has been leaving links on a post I wrote in 2014 about what was starting to happen as tobacco taxes rose. 

This week on Tuesday:

"A lucrative black market for cigarettes is fuelling an increase in armed robberies, with criminals targeting dairies and stealing tobacco products to order.
Some dairy owners are toying with the idea of pulling cigarettes from their shelves, but the decision is not an easy one with tobacco products making up a large amount of their business.
In the last seven weeks, robbers have targeted at least 17 Christchurch businesses, including dairies, pubs and bakeries. That compares to 12 in the first five months of the year."

Source

And on Wednesday:

"In Napier a father and son produced a hockey stick and table leg from behind the counter and fought back after two masked robbers, armed with a claw hammer and crowbar, attacked their dairy on August 26."

Source 

This was utterly predictable and is unconscionable.

If you feel frustrated and impotent under cynical and pragmatic governance, watch the father and son beat back the would-be burglars.

They don't.

The Ministry for Child Survival

The fuss over naming the new ministry to replace CYF 'Ministry for Vulnerable Children' is axiomatic of the public service and associated agencies.

The new Children's Commissioner objects to the name as "stigmatising and labelling".

Metiria Turei says it's "very negative, takes a deficit and exclusionary approach to supporting children and families. "

Labour want a Ministry for Children - no adjective.

Marama Fox of the Maori Party says, "If it was up to me I would be looking to set up a Ministry of Family or a Ministry of Whanau. We need to fix the whole of the problem."

Think-tank Maxim agrees with them all,

"The name falls squarely into the “deficit” model of thinking that fails to express a sense of aspiration for the children in care."

I disagree.

The new Ministry will be dealing with children who are vulnerable. It follows the passage of the Vulnerable Children Act 2014. Its name is entirely befitting. And Anne Tolley is to be commended for sticking with it.

But there is ongoing resistance. The Children's Commissioner says he will only refer to the Ministry by its Maori name. Oranga Tamariki.

In support Maxim blogger Kieran Madden writes,

"Oranga Tamariki is the silver lining here; it is redemptive. Not only because this is more inclusive of Māori children—who count as 60% of the children in care—but also because it is aspirational. “Imagine the reaction to a door knock from a badged Vulnerable Children’s worker,” asked Becroft. Compare this with someone representing Orangi Tamariki.
This convinced me that the new name—while accurate—isn’t helpful. Tolley argued that a name “won’t save a single child,” but if it does open one door that might have remained closed, it might.
Becroft is urging all in the sector to only use Oranga Tamariki, hoping that the English version will “wither on the vine.” This is a good idea. A name is, as he notes “only the start,” but an important one. It is up to the Ministry, and those working with children and their communities to provide care that lives up to the better name.
Ka pai, Oranga Tamariki."

Anyway, I thought I should find a translation of the name that we are all being urged to use before I wrote this post.

That'll look good when it comes to boasting our credentials to the international children's rights police, UNICEF - The Ministry for Child Survival.

Robert Rector on US welfare reforms 20 years later

Twenty years after Clinton signed off the major welfare reform bill in the US, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Bill, the results are still getting a bad rap from the left. Even the Economist ran a skeptical report saying the record was patchy and the reforms had failed to touch deep poverty. Some states have worked a lot harder to use their capped welfare grant to best effect than others. That criticism has some validity. Also, sadly, there are always some in society who can't and won't be helped. New Zealand has its own share of people with intractable, self-destructive inclinations. I've seen people who have been through every source of available assistance to the point where even the Sallies have washed their hands of them.Ultimately propensities for addiction and aggression can only be overcome with a resolve from the individual harbouring them. But I digress.

There have also been some hysterical claims about the reforms pushing Americans into levels of third world poverty.

Robert Rector, who has written about welfare and poverty in the US for decades examines the claims here.

His concluding words are spot on and highly applicable to this country:

Exaggerating poverty has been a mainstay of progressive politics since the beginning of the war on poverty. No matter how much the taxpayers spend on welfare, the sky is always falling. Bogus claims of widespread “extreme destitution” promote social polarization and political paralysis, distracting attention from the real problems crippling low-income communities.

Flicker of light in DomPost

I don't know who John Denton is but thanks for the flicker of light in this morning's DomPost which has become a bereft bastion of the economically deluded of late.
Oh, perhaps I exaggerate a little....

Justin du Fresne

I have missed Justin du Fresne from the time he retired from the morning NewstalkZB talkshow. In fact, I've never found another talkback home. When you work alone you need company and Justin was the best. His wit and his warmth  made the perfect blend.  His broadcasting professionalism and interviewing prowess are becoming rare commodities. My deepest commiserations to his family.

On his last show of 2008 Justin read the full Desiderata poem to some very beautiful and ethereal music. Barely anyone could have gotten away with it. Or pulled it off. But he did.

Thank you Justin for so much zest, curiosity, acumen and humour.

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann

Catholic response contradicts

On behalf of NZ Catholic Bishops, the writer says all opinions are equal ... and then says they aren't.

______________________________________________________

All views on assisted suicide matter

Wednesday, 24 August 2016, 4:56 pm
Press Release: NZ Catholic Bishops
“All views on assisted suicide matter” says Catholic Bioethics Centre spokesperson.

Director of The Nathaniel Bioethics Centre, Dr John Kleinsman, is surprised and appalled at the disingenuous tactics being employed by assisted suicide supporters. Both Matt Vickers and Act MP David Seymour have in recent days described the unprecedented number of submissions to the Health Select Committee and the overwhelming 78% opposition to a law change as nothing more than the result of formulaic submissions collected in bulk by mostly religious institutions or as religious bullying from the pulpit by pastors.

“Their insinuations are two-fold: (i) that the only possible basis for opposition is a religious one and (ii) that the views of people with a faith perspective don’t count or count less,” says Dr Kleinsman.

“The first is totally inaccurate – just read the many evidence-based submissions by professional groups and others – and the second is nothing more than an example of bigotry – a smoke screen, a distraction based on an elitist view of what counts as legitimate political discourse.”

“It is actually impossible to know the precise numbers of submitters whose views on assisted suicide may be influenced by their faith. One analysis of the submissions shows that approximately 17% of opponents and 4% of supporters of a law change drew on religious concepts,” said Kleinsman.

“The Health Select Committee Process is an important part of the way we exercise democracy in New Zealand and all citizens have a right to express their views in their style and in their own language. Some people will express that view in a sentence, others in a few pages. Since when did a person’s view depend on their level of education or ability to be articulate? To think otherwise is to imply that some New Zealander’s views count more than others. I believe most New Zealanders, whatever their personal position on this issue, will see such claims for what they are – as an assault on our principles of inclusion and fairness.”

“The idea that some people’s views count more than others is a very small step away from the very dangerous view that some lives matter more than others – something that disabled people encounter all the time. This debate needs to focus on the evidence.”

“I urge the Committee to pay attention to the Palliative Care Physician who, as part of her oral evidence pointed out ‘that people often change their mind, they don’t know all of their choices and that the evidence shows that people who engage in palliative care early not only live better, they live longer.’”

“These are doctors who deal with deaths from all kinds of illnesses every single day – if anyone is in a position to say that assisted suicide is unnecessary or dangerous it’s them.”

“The key question is whether a law allowing assisted suicide can adequately protect those who are vulnerable to coercion because of illness or disability. Let’s have a respectful debate about that.”

Marriage American-style

From Brookings:

"Educated Americans have not turned their backs on marriage; the well-documented “marriage gap” is mostly due to a decline in marriage rates among the less educated. As a general rule, the more letters American women have after their names—and therefore the greater their economic independence—the more likely they are to be married."

That bottom line is interesting. Seems arrested, as is the top line.

As often happens with Brookings, I can't agree with all of the commentary. For instance:

In the past, highly-educated women faced an unenviable choice between accepting a patriarchal marriage or forgoing marriage and children entirely. Now they are able to raise their children within a stable marriage without compromising their independence.

In the past there were very few "highly educated" women. There were smart women but not many went to university and I reject that its known what was going on inside other people's marriages anyway. I wasn't raised in a 'patriarchal' family' and neither was my husband.

Men compromised their independence too. The role of sole breadwinner in most marriages tied them to jobs and careers they may not have wanted. That always seems overlooked in the feminist dialogue.