Did anyone notice the irony of new Tourism Minister Stuart Nash speaking at Summit Aotearoa saying " ‘Brand New Zealand’ is paramount"?
The government and the public service are determinedly moving to Aotearoa as the name of this country.
But the world they want to court knows it as New Zealand.
A government running with the hares and hunting with the hounds...
Talking to Heather du Plessis Allan on NewstalkZB this afternoon (the article was generated before the interview).
Update - Kerre McIvor picked up the theme and some of the interview this morning. Great. Exactly what the report was intended to generate. Discussion.
Just for good measure let's throw in the middle of the country, the Wellington region, Capital and Coast DHB:
StatsNZ today on September 2020 data:
The total fertility rate was 1.63, the lowest on record in New Zealand.
This trend began in 2008. There have been 12 straight years of falling fertility which includes Maori fertility.
Some will welcome this fall. I don't. The essence of life is procreation and family. Used to be, grandchildren living overseas was a major regret for my generation. Soon it will be, no grandchildren at all.
The main reasons for the decline are females putting off having children until their thirties. The window gets smaller and conceiving gets harder.
And more females are remaining childless by choice.
The trend is a major demographic development mirrored across the developed world and being slowly echoed in India and very faintly echoed in the African continent. Countries that don't have falling TFRs are experiencing only slight upturns (from already low rates) due to aggressive fertility encouragement policies. When I last looked Hungary and Japan were two but both are still under New Zealand's current level.
Colin James makes this prediction (echoing earlier statements elsewhere not least by National's leader):
David Seymour will have trouble managing his disparate bunch of new MPs.
I think I know what 'disparate' means. Different from each other. But let's check a google definition to be safe:
essentially different in kind; not able to be compared.
Well I am very pleased about that. A party that represents individualism - individual rights must not be subjugated to collective rights - should feature free thinkers with varying interests.
You wouldn't want ACT to behave like a herd of sheep, very similarly to one another.
Seymour may have trouble managing them but does he want to? He needs them to be able to manage themselves.
They are all mature people. Worldly even.
There are bound to be political missteps in an environment where the media is salivating for a slip-up and not past precipitating one.
But parliament was overdue for some new blood that's not running through the veins of conformists.
Under Labour the culture at WINZ was deliberately changed. Far more resources were put into ensuring that clients were receiving their full entitlements and fewer into work brokering. There was an all round softening of attitude, more 'kindness' I expect. That might also include approving more grants and recoverable assistance. Which might have the unintended consequence of driving more beneficiaries into more debt? (A bit like those nasty money-lenders Labour detests).
Someone asked the question and I've charted the answer.
Note the acceleration occurred BEFORE Covid.
Bernard Hickey has joined the chorus calling for benefit increases. That's because beneficiaries will spend the money. But he fails to address the unintended consequnces of benefit rises.
1/ There is risk of landlord 'capture'
2/ All second tier assistance will be subject to reductions negating the benefit rise. If the assistance is redesigned so as to not reduce, then the margin between working and not working gets smaller and more people rationally choose not to work or to reduce their hours
3/ That will lead to even less productivity ...
4/ ... and more intergenerational dependence on benefits
5/ Finally there is no guarantee that the extra money will be spent on children (Hickey's implication with his final comment).
Which goes like this:
It’s worth leaving the last word to the Growing Up in New Zealand longitudinal study of 6000 children born in the Auckland, Counties Manukau and Waikato DHB regions in 2008/09. There’s now eight and the latest report was published this week. Nearly 40 per cent are living in cold, mouldy and damp homes. About a third are obese. About 20 per cent of the families surveyed did not have enough money to eat properly.
Of 4,828 respondents 6% had a major problem with damp and mould; 31% had a minor problem. My expectation would be that minor problems are fixable problems. My own home falls into this category (though perhaps into the former category after this week's deluge.)
And what is "eating properly"? If its chicken and veges ... cheap as chips - literally. It has been demonstrated repeatedly that a family can eat well and inexpensively with some application and planning.
But truths are very unfashionable in 2020.
Raising benefits is a quick-fix; a deceptively appealing but ultimately damaging policy.
The Growing Up in New Zealand Study continues to frustrate me. Just released is their Now We Are Eight report. Yet again there is bugger all information about the fathers of these children.
The word 'father' appears 3 times in the 172 page report, ironically the last time in the appendix describing the study's "overarching research questions" which include, "How involved are fathers in children’s lives, and what are their influences over time on children’s development?"
The word 'mother' appears 468 times.
'Partner' crops up 18 times, the context of which relates only to
- partner conflict
- study methodology
Data relating to single or two parent households is inconclusive.
In the extracted chart 'parent alone' makes up a smallish percentage for each ethnicity, but the grey and green portions could contain either a single or two parent family. And the 'two parent' portion doesn't necessarily indicate two biological parents.
But that's all there is.
According to the Census 2018 (conducted around the same time as the Now We Are Eight report was compiled):
Twenty eight percent of families with children are one parent.
Next, in the past, the GUiNZ collection waves have included information about sources of income including benefits. Not this time.
Perhaps this is due to the Auckland University of Technology previously pointing out:
"A weakness of the GUiNZ data is that it may not be population representative and is not linked to administrative data.... Overall, 95% of GUiNZ children are born to mothers who are partnered. The GUiNZ sample seems to have low sole-parent status compared to a 2009 study that found one-third of families with dependent children were headed by sole-parents (Ministry of Social Development, 2010). This could be because being partnered in the GUiNZ data is not the same as their domestic-purposes benefit status, from which partnership status is inferred by other studies. We find that 70% of those who say they receive the domestic-purposes benefit also answer yes to the question of whether they have a partner – confirming that the sole-parent status derived from GUiNZ is essentially different to those studies which rely on benefit status to infer partnership status."
Perhaps the GUiNZ survey designers do not want to 'compromise' the authenticity of reponses by including questions about benefits.
The media discussion created by the release of Now We Are Eight has been all about how the 8 year-olds responded to questions about gender identification.
More important than fathers, and whether or not they have one.
Earlier last week Peter Williams, Magic Talk, decided to spend the morning discussing "men beating their wives". This was on the back of the Johnny Depp court case and the appointment of Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson as Minister for the Prevention of Family & Sexual Violence. His framing of the violence problem was decidely that it's a male issue. He recalled how he felt about the sickening violence portrayed in Once Were Warriors many years ago and how seemingly nothing much has changed. (I was simultaneously recalling that the author, Alan Duff, was blessed with a peaceful father but suffered a violent alcoholic mother.)
Anyway, very quickly Williams began receiving text after text taking him to task, and then callers describing female aggression and manipulation, a couple from grown children who had witnessed it with their mothers. A few people referenced David Fergusson's work in this area who steadfastedly maintained domestic violence is a problem with both genders.
Consequently I have been meaning to write something very brief and gather some international stats from GOVT sources ie crime surveys conducted by state agencies which canvas victim experience as opposed to police prosecutions, convictions, etc which always predominantly feature male offenders,. the type of statistics Williams was citing. Male victims generally don't report violence to the authorities.
But first, I came across this. A fact sheet from the US National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. It is hard to imagine NZ's White Ribbon organisation being as even-handed in their advocacy:
1 in 4 men have been physically abused (slapped, pushed, shoved) by an intimate partner. • 1 in 7 men have been severely physically abused (hit with a fist or hard object, kicked, slammed against something, choked, burned, etc.) by an intimate partner at some point in their lifetime. • Nearly 1 in 10 men in the United States has experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner and reported at least one measured impact related to experiencing these or other forms of violent behavior in the relationship (e.g., being fearful, concerned for safety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, need for healthcare, injury, contacting a crisis hotline, need for housing services, need for victim’s advocate services, need for legal services, missed at least one day of work or school). • 1 in 18 men are severely injured by intimate partners in their lifetimes. • Male rape victims and male victims of non-contact unwanted sexual experiences reported predominantly male perpetrators. Nearly half of stalking victimizations against males were also perpetrated by males. Perpetrators of other forms of violence against males were mostly female. • From 1994 to 2011, the rate of serious violence (rape, sexual assault, robbery and aggravated assault) committed by an intimate partner declined 64% for males • During the most recent 10-year period (2002-11) for which data is available, nonfatal serious violence accounted for more than a third of intimate partner violence against males (39 percent).
So to my unofficial chart:
Australian data depicting young Australians’ chances of receiving welfare (aged 18–26) by parental welfare receipt:
Again the effects of welfarism are manifested in waste and frustration.
New Zealand is heading into peak harvest season and there aren't enough workers to get fruit off trees or vegetables from the ground.
"This could be my last crop," says Heap, who grows courgettes near Waipapa in Northland. "I'm at the point where I'm not going through it again."
Northland for God's sake. Highest unemployment in the country. Thousands being paid to do nothing. NOTHING.
Worse than nothing in some cases. Paid to terrorise and steal from people who the govt has already stolen from to pay hush money. The flawed 'benefits reduce crime' theory.
What we are doing is insanity writ large.
The repeated and popular news story is how much worse women's employment was hit by the Covid crisis.
Stats NZ issued a release saying "Women have fared worse than men across key labour market measures..."
I'd have thought that the numbers having to resort to benefits was also a key measure.
Those numbers tell a different story.
The new government is going to come under a great deal of pressure to lift beneficiary incomes from many quarters: CPAG, AAAP, Salvation Army, The Christian Council of Social Services, to name a few advocacy groups. Their parliamentary partners, the Greens, will also be exerting pressure.
Are beneficiary incomes too low?
One way of looking at it is, how do they compare internationally?
Below I have charted the assistance available to a single parent in Australia versus a single parent in New Zealand. I've only included the major income components: basic benefit rate, family tax credits for children and accommodation assistance. Certainly in NZ there is extra assistance available via special grants for additional accommodation needs, food etc. As well in Australia anyone currently on a benefit is receiving a Corona Virus $125 weekly supplement until December 31, 2020. That is not included. I modelled a parent with young children as that is when they are most likely to be on income support.
Sources:
https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/services/centrelink/parenting-payment/how-much-you-can-get
https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/services/centrelink/family-tax-benefit/how-much-you-can-get/ftb-part-payment-rates#baserate
https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/services/centrelink/rent-assistance/how-much-you-can-get
https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/products/benefit-rates/benefit-rates-april-2020.html#null
The following graphs compare the September 2020 unemployment data released yesterday by Stats NZ with corresponding MSD Jobseeker benefit data. The first is a regional breakdown of the % of working age population on the Jobseeker benefit versus the regional unemployment rate:
Poto Williams has been appointed Minister for Police.
I recall being rather alarmed about her views just three years ago:
Labour MP Poto Williams is calling for rape investigations to reverse the "innocent until proven guilty" legal methodology.
Labour's sexual violence spokesperson, Mrs Williams has called for radical reform of the sexual justice system which would see rape accusers believed by police as a starting point.
This would place the burden of proof on the accused - directly contradicting the philosophy of "innocent until proven guilty".
It's conceivable the new Minister for Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence, Green MP Marama Davidson could throw her weight behind this.
Am I wrong to be worried that we are in for some scary stuff?
And how come Greg O'Connor has never gotten anywhere near a police ministerial role with his decades of experience?
Too conservative. By a long shot.
Data from Oranga Tamariki show that in the year to June 2020, 151 babies - aged up to three months old - were removed by the state due to concerns about their care and safety. (While officially under state care babies are most commonly removed to the care of a family member).
In 2018 the number was 299. A halving.
But the number of babies 'referred for assessment or investigation' dropped only slightly from 1,899 in 2018 to 1,848 in 2020.
A number of inferences can be taken.
Based on the investigation level being relatively stable, a large drop in removals must mean a change in policy/ threshold. That could indicate a lack of resources, eg available caregivers, or a deliberate attempt to lower the number due to political pressure.
I am eternally suspicious of sudden large changes in numbers in any data BUT to be fair OT has signalled a cultural change in behaviours.
I just hope like hell that this change in procedure - for whatever reason - will mean better outcomes for the babies. OT has claimed it as a success. Surely it's a little too soon to tell.
(Note also that the brief containing this data makes no mention of ethnicity. Also a departure from usual practice.)
David Seymour decided to draw up his End of Life Choice Bill five years ago. His primary reason was compassion. He believed it was the right thing to do. To the degree that he turned down two ministerships in the John Key government in order to pursue his bill.
The bill was drawn from the ballot on June 7, 2017 - before the 2017 election. It then went to parliamentary debate but NZ First made their support conditional on a referendum. I'm glad they did and was always confident that the public would support the bill. Why? Because this was the third time a voluntary euthanasia bill had been to parliament and the issue was not going away. Support was growing.
The 2020 referendum returned almost two thirds in favour.
What a great result.
Thank you David for the decision you made 5 years ago.
RNZ reports on the Waitangi Tribunal hearing into the disproportionate number of Maori children in state care:
Dr Alison Green is completing her post-doctoral research at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, comparing the policy for removing indigenous children from their families in both Canada and New Zealand.
She points to a federal government law passed in Canada last year as a mechanism New Zealand could draw from to put in place the structural changes needed to devolve power from Oranga Tamariki to Māori.
Bill C-92 gives First Nations, Inuit and Metis collectives in Canada the right to create and enforce legislation to look after their own children.
In January this year in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, the Cowessess First Nation enacted their own legislation which gives them to the right to operate their own child protection services based on their cultural practices.
Green suggested those redesigning how Oranga Tamariki interacts with Māori children should approach the Cowessess First Nations.
The implementation of indigenous responsibility for indigenous children is not new in Canada. The provincial devolution of services to native tribes has been ongoing and not much has changed. Bill C-92, a federal law, only expands the scope of devolution.
I urge you to read An Endless Cycle of Despair by Brian Giesbrecht an ex Provincial Court Judge in Manitoba, Canada.
Excerpt (picks up the story in the 1970s/80s):
Out-adoption was eventually abandoned in favour of devolution as provincial child welfare authorities relinquished most of their authority over reserves to local Indigenous agencies such as the DOCFS in Manitoba. As a sitting judge, I watched as this policy unfolded in real time.
Advocates assured provincial governments that as newly formed Indigenous agencies opened up and Indigenous leaders gained more control, the old problems would ease. Appropriate cultural influence would inevitably reduce the number of children in care. Some even claimed chronic Indigenous welfare problems would disappear altogether. I once expressed my skepticism to a highly placed welfare bureaucrat. He candidly, if naively, responded: “How could it possibly be worse than the current situation?”
As it turned out, it could. To the story of Lester Desjarlais, we have added the equally tragic stories of Tina Fontaine, Phoenix Sinclair, Serenity and Devon Freeman, to name just a few of the better-known entries from a long list of despair. In Manitoba, approximately 90 percent of the province’s 11,000 children under the care of a child welfare agency are Indigenous, either on or off reserve. The biological parents of these children are often themselves products of an Indigenized child welfare system.
And because off-reserve adoption has been so severely discouraged, many children are placed in temporary foster care instead of with permanent families. This means that when they reach adulthood they are often left to fend for themselves, without any reliable family supports. This is one major reason why the majority of homeless people on Winnipeg’s streets are believed to be former child welfare wards. Meanwhile, FASD takes its toll on reserves, generation after generation.
Many of the Indigenous organizations given responsibility for child welfare were initially incapable of protecting native kids. Training and education among staff were dramatically different from the provincially-run agencies and these problems were exacerbated by dysfunction and corruption within other reserve institutions, including school boards and local government, as the Lester Desjarlais inquiry painfully illustrated. Again, this is not a racially-motivated accusation; the size of many reserves’ polity leaves them especially prone to conflicts of interest and nepotism. The problem of “small democracies” is detailed in University of Calgary academic Tom Flanagan’s 2016 study Corruption and First Nations in Canada.
Today, staff at Indigenous-run agencies are much better credentialed and the organizations more professional. After several decades of devolution, the care provided to children at risk is now largely equivalent to provincially-run child welfare agencies. Yet the statistics continue to worsen. Indigenization alone is clearly not sufficient to remedy the massive problems facing Indigenous children. Regardless of who is in charge, the root causes remain: addiction, family breakdown and poor community oversight. It has even become common for Indigenous child welfare workers to be criticized for making the same difficult choices that federal and provincial child welfare workers once made during previous eras.
When devolution began, it was common for Indigenous agencies to declare that no native babies would ever be apprehended from maternity wards. Parental and cultural rights would trump the rights of children at risk. This belief is further embedded in Bill C-92 through its “cultural continuity” requirement. Yet Indigenous child welfare officials have lately come to realize that leaving a newborn baby with his or her mother can be so fraught with risk that immediate apprehension is the only safe option.
That was the situation in the high-profile G (DF) case, in which a Winnipeg-based Indigenous child welfare agency tried to detain an addicted pregnant mother for treatment. She had previously given birth to several brain-damaged babies, yet the Supreme Court of Canada ultimately decided that detention violated the mother’s rights and, hence, was unlawful. The child, and many others since, was therefore consigned to a fate of painfully low chances.
After more than 30 years on the bench, it was clear to me that governments and agencies have very little control over how parents actually care for their children, or the eventual outcomes. Child welfare workers, Indigenous or non-Indigenous, are all motivated by a deep desire to do what is best for children under their watch. If a child has become a permanent ward of the state, it is almost certain that his or her home life was thoroughly and irreparably dysfunctional. Accordingly, the only way to remedy the high number of native children in foster care is to tackle the root cases. Family dysfunction on reserves is not the fault of child welfare agencies. The blame lies with parents and their communities.
It is this difficult reality that the federal government was trying to cope with using residential schools, and the provinces with the Sixties Scoop. Given the subsequent failure of devolution to remedy the situation, it is impossible to imagine a further push to sever native child welfare from the rest of the country will yield the desired results.
If Canada truly wishes to reduce the number of Indigenous children in foster care – and all Canadians have a stake in this outcome − we must start by emphasizing the importance of sobriety, parental responsibility and family stability among all citizens. Instead, Ottawa has chosen to place the blame for native child welfare failures on past injustices such as colonialism and institutional racism.
Ring any bells?
Alexandra 387
Balclutha 594
Dunedin Central 3,241
Gore 562
Invercargill 3,033
Mosgiel 414
Oamaru 704
Queenstown 588
South Dunedin 984
Timaru 1,655
Total 12,162
On the lighter side of life, prior to the first lockdown I was providing daycare for two extra dogs. The arrangement had run for about a year. Lockey, a chihuahua cross, was slow to warm to me. On our very first day together out walking he took off, me in vain pursuit and high-tailed it for home. I gathered up the other ward and my own, went home. We drove around to his house on the hill and coaxed him back into the car. The months passed and Lockey got surer about me. Then April came and the arrangement couldn't stand. But within days there was yapping at the front gate. Lockey had brought himself around. And so the habit has continued. Most days he turns up early and someone will collect him late in the day. We have all agreed that it works for him and it works for us.
