Lindsay Mitchell

Thanks to the reader who drew my attention to a recently released Ministerial Committee on Poverty report . It contains information familia...

The NZ Initiative featured this graph (courtesy of Capital Economics) in its weekly newsletter today. It poses a question for me. Why is t...

UK Labour leader Ed Miliband has given a speech called, "A One Nation Plan for Social Security Reform" in which he repeatedly ref...

I like Stephen Berry and wish him well in his local government candidacy campaign. Here's a cut and paste of his press release today: ...

If "charitable" organisations were truly voluntary they wouldn't be bemoaning the necessity of laying off staff due to govern...

This is a excerpt from Colin James' latest ODT column (not on-line yet) about politics and inequality: The social security state and ...

This RNZ reported statement from Corrections Minister Anne Tolley, on the back of the Springhill riots, intrigues me: She said most cr...

We probably all know someone like this . A father-son bonding session planned by a North Island primary school was cancelled after ...

My Truth column May 23. It's not on-line yet but I thought I'd put it up anyway. Despite being over a week old it seems somewhat top...

That cartoon. The thing I noticed about it immediately is that it featured two old codgers also trying to get a free lunch. Old people deman...

On Monday the government made a formal response to the Children's Commissioner Expert Advisory Group Solutions to Child Poverty which w...

The Prime Minister has confirmed that National will be extending food in schools programmes. He knows there is discomfit about this amongst ...

The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) is about to return to court for the third time arguing that the In Work Tax Credit should go to benefi...

Below are welfare benefit expenses projected to 2017. Note that the table accommodates the benefit changes from Unemployment, Domestic Purp...

Labour MP Clare Curran has posted a list of "right-wing" policies from Australia's Institute of Public Affairs (must add to ...

 My Truth column for May 16-22 Criminologist Greg Newbold’s recent remarks on Maori’s over-representation in violent crime statistics re...

Lexie and I are off to parliament to join other Beagle owners as a petition asking the government to rule out testing recreational drugs ...

Here's an interesting table which reveals quite a lot about who and how long people stay on the DPB: 1 in 5 of those single pare...

Came across this snippet from 1938 which showed a voter turnout in Wellington of 89 percent. "...a surprising number of people on t...

Rodney Hide hosted Sean Plunket's Radio Live show on friday and from 11am Roger Douglas and Peter Conway (Council of Trade Unions) discu...