Lindsay Mitchell

On NewstalkZB t omorrow after the 10am news with Justin du Fresne talking about welfare, social issues and the stuff I generally blog about...

Another good graphic from Stats NZ showing how much we are spending on certain commodities when comparing 1974 with 2013: Click here ...

This moved me, particularly the second sentence. The State never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral, but onl...

Thanks to Steve Wrathall on Whale Oil who drew my attention to this illustration: If you think this is only a contemporary observation,...

New work from Peter Saunders who provided advice to the Welfare Working Group: A new Civitas book proposes a sweeping overhaul of the ben...

I am "stunned" by the audacity of the Child Poverty Action Group in their comments about the error in CYF data collection and repo...

Three 'yes' votes just about to go in the post. As I emailed Leighton Smith yesterday, in response to people unsure whether they ...

The Minister of social Development has taken the unusual step of spelling out how much benefits pay versus income from work. She's pr...

This story was sent to me by a reader: New mothers are to be offered up to £200 in shopping vouchers to encourage them to breastfeed th...

According to Paula Bennett , We have seen teen birth numbers fall for the last three years – despite rising previously. And the birth rat...

Always interested in phraseology and idiom I was unfamiliar with David Cunliffe's choice to describe the likelihood of John Tamihere b...

The NZ Herald reports : Up to 90 per cent of pregnant women will have to get an antenatal check within 10 weeks if the Government procee...

Notice that the victim of violence in this case , run over repeatedly by his partner, is a man.  Waikato police district on-call manager ...

The Herald on Sunday features a sappy column from Kerre McIvor about how glad she is we have the DPB/Sole Parent Support. Over time, th...

Updating my artist blog so cross-posting. Just used this painting in an ad going into the new Petone Chronicle being produced out of Ea...

Stuff reports today on the 40th anniversary of the DPB coming into being. The DPB turns 40 today, but beneficiary advocates say it's...

Stuff has reported on the number of people on benefits for drug or alcohol addiction  More than 5000 people are collecting benefits beca...

The show is over for the rest of the year. I guess that's the market. Their detractors spoke and, in turn, the advertisers spoke. But ...

A reader has kindly sent me a copy of the Treasury report which analyses the proposed living wage. Below is a table from it showing how mu...

Last night's thunderous Wellington display,  combined with a neurotic, extremely anxious dog with an existing tummy upset manifesting ...