Ex-communicating National

National removed all prisoner voting rights on the back of one-term MP Paul Quinn's private member's bill in 2010. Andrew Little now says he will restore voting rights to those serving three years or less. Why? I haven't asked him but if a person is expected to contribute to society they should have a vote. If a prisoner will be released within the term of the next government they should have a say in how the country is run. They will be expected to work and pay taxes after all. But Bridges comes out crowing 'soft on crime.' National will rescind the change! A nonsensical call to the unrelentingly punitive element if ever I heard one. 

Then National's overwhelming opposition to the voluntary euthanasia bill revealed more about the party than I wanted to know. 

I've paid close attention to them for two decades and felt the odd flicker of excitement - when John Key called Working For Families 'communism by stealth', or Bill English said prisons were an 'economic and moral failure'. But the weak flame has now sputtered out.

It'll never be enough Carmel

Earlier this week the Child Poverty Action Group conference was giving stick to the Minister of MSD for not doing enough to ease poverty. She appeared, didn't take questions and has retaliated with a press release showing that:

1 million New Zealanders warmed by the Winter Energy Payment
36,000 families bank the Best Start Payment in first year
6,000 more families received the Family Tax Credit, 220,600 in total
They receive an increase too – from an average of $117 to $157 a week for Inland Revenue clients, and from an average of $147 to $188 a week for MSD clients
People receiving the Accommodation Supplement got an average increase from  $71 to $98 a week
13,500 carers receiving the new Clothing Allowance
We are on track to lift 50,000 to 74,000 children out of poverty

Ah but the Welfare Expert Advisory Group recommended increases to core benefit levels of up to 47%. When is that going to happen?

It must be a thankless task being a left-wing Minister and continuing to be criticised even when you do as you were asked.

I have an idea for Carmel. A little experiment.

Agree to give a beneficiary a meaningful % increase (up to 47%) if they opt to be paid in-kind, ie their benefit is loaded onto electronic card that can only be used for specified items. Otherwise the status quo remains.

It would be most interesting to observe the uptake.

But it'd fascinating to see the reaction of CPAG who would be severely conflicted over the civil liberties of beneficiaries to spend their money as they see fit versus the offer of a significant increase in income.

Is having to feed kids breakfast at school cause for celebration?

MSD thinks so:

The KickStart Breakfast programme will tomorrow celebrate 10-years as the only national breakfast programme of its kind in Aotearoa, serving more than 30 million breakfasts since 2009.

73% of Northland schools participate down to 26% in Canterbury.

Now this government 's goal is to replicate the dependency on lunches as well.

Truly aspirational.

If only Huntaways could vote

Switch on the computer this morning and  kick off with the really important stuff - an article  and short movie about my favourite dog - the Huntaway (mine waits impatiently as I write to get out and into it, despite the foul weather). Designed to run up to 20km a day, they relish their work, their freedom to work and purpose.

Feeling cheery I move on to an opinion piece by David Seymour at Magic Talk.

While encouraged to see him published for wider consumption, as I read it I am reminded about how bad this government - and National - really are. As well as last week's Zero Carbon abomination,

In ‘Red October’ last year, it was left to ACT to vote against the entire Parliament on three issues. Market studies legislation gives massive powers to bureaucrats at the Commerce Commission to demand sensitive commercial information from entire industries even if no allegation of uncompetitive behaviour has been made. The Prime Minister’s child poverty legislation focuses on inequality (and therefore ‘fixing’ it with income redistribution) rather than child poverty and neglect. ‘Equal pay’ legislation gives courts the power to decide how much workers in entire industries get paid.
Aside from a few brave academics and activists, we’ve been the only voice against new restrictions on what New Zealanders are legally allowed to say. Freedom of expression is important because it respects the fact that every one of us has a unique view of the world and because it allows us to make progress on difficult social issues.
Only ACT said ‘no’ to the first tranche of firearms legislation because it treated firearms owners with contempt and because rushed law is bad law. We are now seeing the consequences – just 32,000 of perhaps 240,000 firearms have been handed in to Police.

Matthew Hooton made mention of UMR polling last week finding ACT pushing 3 percent.It is probably premature to get excited about doubling (or more) their 2017 vote.

But as Seymour says, "...we believe in a free society..." They appear to be the only party in parliament that truly does right now. And they need support.

If only Huntaways could vote.

Home ownership falls but barely

Over recent years the narrative amongst the media has been 'falling home ownership'. Today in Stuff Susan Edmonds writes:

"According to the 2018 census, only 64.5 per cent of New Zealanders own their own home, compared to nearly 74 per cent in the early 1990s."

Note the front page of Stuff  says an economist blames "greedy" boomers.

The rather more tempered headline reads, "Home ownership at lowest level in 70 years, economist says Baby Boomers to blame." I wonder if he actually used the word "greedy"?

In fact the rate is down by 0.3% since 2013 - a much smaller change then between previous census takes. From Stats NZ:

"By 2013, home ownership had fallen to 64.8 percent of households – the lowest rate since 1951 (when 61.5 percent of private dwellings were owned)."

It's possible the downward trend is arresting.

Single parents better off in work

Yesterday Statistics NZ released results from the General Social Survey which asks respondents whether they have enough money to meet everyday needs. Here is the result by family type for 'Not enough money'

The accompanying text reads:

"The proportion of single parents who felt they didn’t have enough money to meet everyday needs decreased from over one-third (36 percent) in 2008 to around one-quarter (24 percent) in 2018 – the biggest decrease of any family type."

There is a very strong correlation with the numbers on the DPB (which became Single Parent Support in 2013).

Obviously the strengthening economy after the GFC has provided more jobs. But also Bill English realised that is was just as important to focus on parents on benefits as it was the single unemployed. In fact probably more important as their well-being would effect the next generation.

Unfortunately between September 2018 and 2019 the numbers rose for the first time since 2010. They went from 58,620 to 59,715 - a 1.9% increase.

I hope that we are not looking at a future where more single parents will be saying they don't have enough money to cover their costs because of the current government's attitude to welfare.

Housing waiting list increased 139% since September 2017

Just released 139 percent increase.

Update on child poverty statistics

The Child Poverty Action Group is holding a summit later this month. This statement is from the release about it:

Late into 2019, 174,000 children living in the most impoverished, desperate situations are yet to see any real gain.

It is quite incorrect to say "late into 2019" and put a number on it. But thanks anyway for prompting me to update myself on where the statistics are at.

Statistics NZ says:

"We have made improvements to the data source for measuring child poverty in the future, including increasing the sample size from between 3,000 and 5,500 to 20,000 households. These improvements were implemented in the 2018/19 HES, which is collected between July 2018 and June 2019. First child poverty results from this survey will be available early in 2020."

The figure of 174,000 is for the year ending June 2018. The definition for this group is:

 h) Percentage of children living in households in New Zealand in each financial year who fell in: Low income: less than 40% median equivalised disposable household income after housing costs (AHC) for the financial year

But there are multiple measures of poverty. Here's another:

i) Percentage of children living in households in
New Zealand in each financial year who fell in: Severe material hardship 

That number is 65,000

As that is the lowest number by any measure, these must be the "most impoverished".

You can find the various measures here.

They comprise a) through to j) 

The numbers range from  65,000 to 341,000

By 7 out of 9 measures (there is no d) table) child poverty grew between 2017 and 2018.

Are benefits protection money?

I heard Kim Workman expressing a view this morning that withholding benefits from gangs would result in more crime.

He may well be right.

But is that what Mickey Savage's grand and noble idea has come to? That benefits are now paid as protection money to some individuals or groups to ward off violence and lawbreaking?

Maybe a society could live with such an arrangement if it worked.

But it doesn't. The crime gets committed anyway.

If we want to reduce crime, by Mr Workman's logic, gang members should be paid more.

The tragic thing is that many current politicians actually believe and want that. If we just pay the unemployed and the unemployable more, Aotearoa will become some sort of nirvana. A shining beacon of social justice.

They are dangerous delusionists.

"Welfare crackdown"

Couple of quick points.

Stuff is reporting that Labour abolished the sanction for not naming the father of a child on a benefit and that National would reverse this.

The removal of the sanction does not kick in till April 2020. Hasn't happened yet.

Also reported is National's plan to apply "money management " to beneficiaries under 20. This already happens. Introduced under the last National government.

The idea to withhold benefits from non-vaccinaters has been proposed repeatedly in the past. The problem seems to be if something untoward happens to a child post a vaccination received purely because the parent needed to retain their benefit, 'enforced' by the state, what responsibility does the state bear? This could be argued much further re what is and isn't a 'choice.'

But from a philosophical viewpoint, anti-vaxers rely on the herd immunity without contributing to it. Should they be allowed to rely on the herd's financial safety net without making that contribution?

Towards a Code of Social and Family Responsibility - Mark II

National is revisiting the past with its 'Social Services - Discussion Document.'

When Jenny Shipley was Prime Minister,

"...in February 1998 the Department [of Social Welfare] distributed copies of a discussion document to all 1.4 million households in the country. Towards a Code of Social and Family Responsibility described current laws and the role of government in relation to eleven issues, and posed questions that were intended to prompt discussion and stimulate feedback... John Angus and Maree Brown, the senior DSW officials responsible for analysing much of the public reaction to the Code, concluded that many of the negative responses were related less to the content of the proposal than to distrust of the government's motives. "

It is wearisome when you have followed political responses to social problems for so long.  The politicians come and go. The issues remain.

Can't help but conclude that working groups and public consultations are not much more than avoidance tactics.

Gangs are not good for children

If National comes out promising to attack gang welfare dependency you can bet your bottom dollar the Left will counter with, "But what about the children?"

The Left is as prone to manipulating children as pawns in their pro-welfare arguments as the gangs are in using them as meal tickets.

Just remember when you start hearing the objections:

The vast majority of adult gang members have received a main benefit. 62 percent for 5 or more years. Over half (59 percent or 2,337) of all gang members had benefit spells that included dependent children, either with or without a partner.

This will not include those children on a sole parent benefit whose mother is the main recipient.

Sixty percent of the 5,890 children of gang members have been abused or neglected. The alleged perpetrator of abuse or neglect was more often recorded as the children’s mother than the gang member.

How can anyone advance an argument that the taxpayer should continue to fund an environment that is so bad for children?

Statistical source

Why you can't trust RNZ

Last week I blogged about RNZ skewing benefit numbers.

Now they have just posted a report about National criticising the rise in Jobseeker numbers.

Spot the problem?

MSD: no desired outcomes achieved

The MSD Annual Report has just been published.

No desired outcome achieved.

All against a backdrop of lowest unemployment in 11 years.

But wait. There's some good news. 

MSD has achieved greater gender diversity than the rest of the public service and NZ workforce:

Public too ignorant to own their own lives

Alex Penk from the Maxim Institute had an opinion piece regarding the proposed End of Life referendum, MPs are paid, and better equipped, to make these decisions,  published in Tuesday's DomPost.

My response:

I was surprised that 70 percent of the politicians who voted against a referendum were National MPs.

RNZ badly skews benefit numbers

According to Radio NZ:

There are still 109,000 people in New Zealand on a benefit, out of work. Fifty-two percent of those people have either a disability, health or mental health issue; or are caring for someone who does.

Here is the current situation:

I have tried to understand how the RNZ reporter came up with the 109,000 statistic. One possibility is the reporter referred only to Jobseeker beneficiaries and excluded those working part-time; that someone gave her unpublished data.

However she includes in her definition those 'caring for someone' with a disability. They receive the Supported Living Payment (SLP) which appears  missing from her statistic.

It is true that 44% of people receiving the Jobseeker benefit have an injury or health or disability condition but it is expected they will return to work. Those on SLP are not expected to work though some do want to, to the extent that they are able.

Those relying on the Sole Parent Support (SPS) have also been totally ignored in her statistic. Today it is the norm for mothers with children to work. When their youngest is three SPS beneficiaries have part-time work obligation which many do not meet. So surely many in this group are also "on a benefit, out of work".

RNZ is a strange outfit. Note they include in the broadcast soundbites of Mike Hosking railing against growing jobseeker numbers then run a piece dominated by Carmel Sepuloni. It's like pro-government propaganda.

Duration on dole

Over at Kiwi Blog a commentor has posted on a discussion about the rising dole numbers:

MCos
I would suggest the problem is with the long term unemployed. According to this article 13.27% of our unemployed have been without work for a year or more. This puts us at the better end of the OECD spectrum and far ahead of a lot of European countries and the UK.
From what I’ve heard 90% of unemployed are reemployed within six months.
This would suggest that most people are out of work not because they want to slack around.
https://data.oecd.org/unemp/long-term-unemployment-rate.htm

I like this kind of comment because it is at least backed up by a source. Trouble is another source, MSD, provides a completely different statistic. My response:

63,977
78,954
The top number is those who have been on the dole (Jobseeker benefit) for a year or less and the bottom number is for more than a year.
55% long-term unemployed
https://www.msd.govt.nz/documents/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/statistics/benefit/2019/quarterly-benefit-fact-sheets-national-benefit-tables-sep-2019.xlsx
For all main benefits 71% for been dependent for more than a year.

I checked the source of the OECD data. It is as I expected the HLFS:

The length of time (to reference week) since worked for pay or profit. Duration of "Less than one month" refers to the duration of unemployment during the previous four weeks, including the survey reference week.

This is a sample survey and relies on self-reporting. It is also the source of our official unemployment rate. The publicly available data does not include that which the OECD is using.

But the commentor indirectly raises an issue which I mentioned to Mike Hosking. There will be people on the Jobseeker benefit who are working a few hours but not enough to get off the benefit completely.  This might account at least in part for the discrepancy between the two long-term unemployed percentages presented by two different sources.

The moral imperative to work

I had a discussion with Mike Hosking on NewstalkZB yesterday about why the numbers on Jobseeker continue to escalate. There are at least a couple of trends driving it but Mike was more interested in the political aspect.
Listen here

Host Kerre McIvor played a part of the interview and ran with it after 9. People were almost unanimously in her corner. That if you can work you have a moral imperative to do so.

It struck me later that National's welfare reforms have had one very interesting effect. Because so many more people are classified as  'Jobseekers' (those who used to be on a sickness benefit and those who would have been on the DPB even when their youngest was 14 or over), now that the unemployment rate is at only 3.9% the public is far less tolerant.

Remember that when Labour was last in govt and unemployment dropped to 3.8% in 2008, the same % of people were on welfare - just spread mainly over the other three benefits - DPB, Sickness and Invalid. So the argument about working and supporting oneself was muddied.

I don't know if this consequence was intended by National but it certainly makes the argument more black and white. The lack of workers in many industries and regions is holding back growth. An unjustifiable scenario with so many people receiving the dole.

Sean Plunket interviews Jim Flynn

Yesterday Sean Plunket interviewed Jim Flynn on Magic Talk and it was a fascinating 15 minutes. 

Flynn left the US to escape the persecution under McCarthyism so full well knows the experience of being shut down (or worse)  for beliefs. He talks here about that but also other scholars with whom he disagrees, the likes of Charles Murray, a "very nice man" who he regularly corresponds with. Another in danger of becoming a 'non-person' for his ideas.

He also talks about his specialist subject, 'intelligence' and what he thinks has happened to our collective intelligence that people have become less tolerant of alternative ideas. From memory described heightened sensitivity as a key driver.

And of course he discusses what his forthcoming book is about. Sounds like some Women's Studies departments on US campuses are fortresses of fundamentalist feminism. Otago's isn't he reassures.

This is really worth a listen:

"University of Otago emeritus professor Jim Flynn joins Sean Plunket on Magic Afternoons to discuss his book, ‘In Defense of Free Speech: The University as Censor’, being turned down by a UK publisher due partly to legal concerns around the inclusion of scholars with inflammatory views."

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

The Child Poverty Action Group has a list of goals it believes will improve outcomes for New Zealand children. They are:

Substantially improve core benefits;
Remove harsh sanctions that impact on children;
Ensure that all benefits and all part of Working for Families (WFF) are indexed annually to prices and wages;
Remove the hours of paid work criteria from the WFF In-Work Tax Credit and extend it to all low-income families;
Treat adults in the benefit system as individuals without penalising them for being in a partnership;
Focus on what will give children better outcomes and less on moving their carers into  paid work; and
Ensure that applicants receive all the assistance to which they are entitled.

I've addressed these below point-by-point:

SUBSTANTIALLY INCREASE CORE BENEFITS

Sole Parent Support basic weekly rate is $340 net. The rate is the same for a sole parent on Jobseeker support. A couple on Jobseeker support with children receive $195.50 each.

It is impossible to consider basic rates without taking into account accommodation subsidies:

And tax credits for children of beneficiaries:

(The new IRD site does not publicise rates but these were current in 2018.)

There's not a lot of point in tallying possible incomes but you can see that the components above and beyond the core rate are significant.

I do not doubt that life is tough on a benefit but - for the large majority - it is supposed to be  a temporary state of affairs. When the margin between working and welfare is reduced, the risk of dependency is increased. No study I am aware of has ever shown children  in long-term benefit dependent homes have better outcomes.

REMOVE HARSH SANCTIONS THAT IMPACT ON CHILDREN

Sanctions exist to ensure that beneficiaries meet their obligations. We all have obligations, whether to our partners, employers or employees. That's the real world.

We wouldn't adopt a general attitude that people with children should be exempt from obligations and it shouldn't be applied in the world of welfare.

ENSURE THAT ALL BENEFITS AND ALL PART OF WORKING FOR FAMILIES (WFF) ARE INDEXED ANNUALLY TO PRICES AND WAGES

The first part of this has already been implemented by the current government. If workers collectively get a annual wage increase so do beneficiaries.

REMOVE THE HOURS OF PAID WORK CRITERIA FROM THE WFF IN-WORK TAX CREDIT AND EXTEND IT TO ALL LOW-INCOME FAMILIES

The CPAG has fought for this through repeated court cases and lost. It was the 1999 - 2007 Labour government that created the in-work tax payment with the explicit purpose of getting beneficiaries - especially sole parents - into work. The Clark administration believed that the best way out of poverty is work. But working has other benefits too. It provides purpose, social contacts (not to mention romantic partners), and self-esteem. It also role models expectations to children.

TREAT ADULTS IN THE BENEFIT SYSTEM AS INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT PENALISING THEM FOR BEING IN A PARTNERSHIP

In 2018 economist and social policy advisor Michael Fletcher was commissioned by Superu to investigate individualising entitlements in New Zealand’s benefit system. He modelled changes that “… suggest the cost of individualising all entitlements would be in the order of $1.5 billion to $2 billion.” But he also cites forthcoming work from Anderson and Chapple that estimates
individualisation would cost several billion dollars per annum. A Universal Benefit Income would achieve the same end. In 2010, when Treasury modelled a UBI of $300 per week for all individuals aged 16 and over, it identified a $45-57b annual price tag (which would replace the current $27 billion cost.)

What did Churchill say, something about a society trying to tax itself into prosperity is like a man trying to lift himself up by the  handle of the bucket he is standing in? He might as well have a child in the bucket with him. The same would still be true.

FOCUS ON WHAT WILL GIVE CHILDREN BETTER OUTCOMES AND LESS ON MOVING THEIR CARERS INTO PAID WORK

So many studies on so many outcomes have shown children have better outcomes with two parents. Having two parents improves outcomes even when income is low. The two-parent family was the prevalent type before we began subsidising single parents.

Notwithstanding, some children are better off with just their mother or father, and a period of being supported by the taxpayer to stabilise a family situation doesn't present a problem. But again it should be temporary. Carers should be looking to work to provide for their children.


ENSURE THAT APPLICANTS RECEIVE ALL THE ASSISTANCE TO WHICH THEY ARE ENTITLED

Which should be the case, as should ensuring parents on a benefit are meeting all their obligations eg trying to find a job. Surely it's a two-way street? But CPAG disagree as per their prior goal calling for the abolition of sanctions.


It isn't at all clear to me what this brave new world of bigger benefits with no strings attached is going to do for children. Money can't buy love. In fact unconditional money finances lifestyles unconducive to happy and safe childhoods.