Coddington on Rich

Deborah Coddington writes about Katherine Rich;

Rich is also loyal. She was sacked by Brash, remember, for flatly refusing to go around the country trying to sell a welfare policy stating women on welfare would get no increase for a second child, and single mums should consider adoption.

How could Rich, mother of two very small children and sitting pretty on a substantial taxpayer-funded salary, tell struggling beneficiaries to live on the smell of oily rags? She was correct to refuse, but she was cruelly punished - not only by the party - for sticking to her guns.

This observation is as much about Deborah's discomfit as it is Katherine's. As an MP I believe Deborah felt the same ill-ease. My own earlier comment about Katherine being a loss to National because she is intelligent was genuine. I won't forget that she wrote an excellent report about welfare reform and showed a sound grasp of what should and could be done for starters. But then she bailed on it.

Why should we keep paying women to have more children when already on welfare and what is wrong with a young pregnant single female trying to finish her education, or have a career, or travel, considering adoption as an alternative to getting stuck on welfare for years as an unskilled, unemployable mother?

If Katherine refused to say these things because it made her feel personally hypocritical or, heaven forbid, judgemental, then she was either letting her opponents silence her or she was in the wrong party.

I have two children. I am financially comfortable. I don't feel unqualified to advocate welfare reform because of my personal circumstances. Hell, do we have to find a beneficiary to stand on a soap box before anyone will listen? In fact, that is what political parties do. They buy into this nonsense. Get a Maori or you can't credibly talk about matters Maori. Get someone who used to be on the DPB so we can talk about welfare credibly. Think Donna Awatere Huata, Paula Bennett, Metiria Turei, Sue Bradford. And then they use these people as shields. How can we be racists or beneficiary bashers when we have Maoris and ex-beneficiaries in our midst??

But this is just collectivist crap. Your skin colour, your sex, your sexual orientation are NOT more important than the ideas that drive you.

If you are committed to your beliefs then it doesn't matter that someone rings you up at some ungodly hour and screams "rich bitch" down the phone. Or writes letters about the material symbolism of the wine rack they saw in the photo of you sitting at your living room table. If you really do want better for those people and children who are being hurt by the welfare system then you have to take a deep breath and carry on.

I suspected this was why Katherine and Brash parted company on the reform front. Having had it confirmed I now think she is most definitely doing the right thing.

Until the right starts valuing MPs like Rich for their loveliness, as equally as they promote MPs like Judith Collins for their balls, they'll never get women like me to vote for them.

I care neither for "loveliness" nor "balls" . I want the truth and I don't care whose mouth it comes out of.

Coddington's column really tells us what is wrong with politics right now. There is precious little courage of conviction.

Quote of the day

"If National were re-elected and went back to the policies of the 80s and 90s, we would again have increases in violence." Jim Anderton, Friday, February 15, 2008

Reporter turns columnist

This is my response to Simon Collins' column in today's NZ Herald;

The new funding of non-governmental social services is, according to Simon Collins, society's acceptance of a further need to socialise what were once family responsibilities. He refers to this move as the "logical end point."

In fact it is neither logical nor an endpoint. As Frank Field, former British Welfare Reform Minister would say, the welfare state - the monopolisation of welfare provision by government - should not be regarded as some sort of utopian end game. Historically private organisations have played an important role in providing social services and insuring against social risk. But it is almost as though Mr Collins believes we will all live happily ever after now that government has pledged to fully fund service providers like the Women's Refuge and increase funding to Barnardos. (Am I the only one to notice that these beneficiaries strongly supported the government in passing the anti-smacking legislation?)

What will happen is their demand for public money will continue to increase irrespective of performance and the taxpayer, who could previously choose whether or not to support these 'charities', no longer has any say in the matter. Some agencies now plan to take on new social workers or increase remuneration to paid staff. What we will see is a further expansion of the welfare industry.

What we won't see is any let-up in demand for what are mostly bottom-of-the-cliff services. That is because the benefit system - which once primarily responded to need but now creates it - remains unchanged. It will continue to provide incentives and backstops for people to behave in ways that are damaging to themselves and their children.

Collins presents the reasons why the welfare state grew as inevitable. Extended and nuclear families broke down as a result of urbanisation, the loss of full employment, the pill and women's liberation. The state had to replace the support no longer available from parents, grandparents, siblings etc.

But he makes no mention of how people's attitudes and values changed in response to the increasing ideology and level of collective responsibility. Taking personal responsibility for one's actions became less expected, admired or necessary as the state promised to pick up the pieces. Having children alone became socially acceptable. Self-destructive habits became illnesses and afflictions rather than self-indulgent shortcomings. As more and more people resorted to welfare benefits any stigma diminished. The culture of rights replaced the culture of morals.

Crime worsened from the 50s - not the 70s - as those changing values crept in. Increased crime was not primarily a result of sky-rocketing unemployment or the economic reforms. It was a result of a loss of those values that prevail when people rely on themselves and each other; when they need to live co-operatively and constructively together. Benefits which accrue to people no matter why they find themselves unable to work, damage society. Alcohol and drug abuse, casual child bearing, idleness, violence and dysfunction are possible and perpetuated through income from benefits.

The agencies the taxpayer is now going to fund, to the tune of nearly half a billion dollars, typically work with the families who exhibit all these types of behaviour.

Simon Collins writes that this new funding is a "historic change". Indeed. It is another win for state collectivism and another nail in the coffin of personal responsibility. Things just took a turn for the worse.

Katherine Rich announces departure

That will lower the collective IQ of the National Party a few points. All the best Katherine. I am sure you have made the right decision.

WFF is socialism, not tax relief

"The people who tend to be the most mobile in American society are the educated and motivated -- in other words, the taxpaying class. Tax them too much, and you'll soon find they aren't there to tax at all..." The Wall St Journal

Isn't that exactly the message our government needs to hear about New Zealand society.

Which reminds me of something else I was chewing over. The business of Working For Families and taxing those without children to support those with. The major justification given for this is those parents are raising the next generation of taxpayers. But at the rate this country is going there is no guarantee of that. Many young people leave and don't come back. Part of the reason they flee is they do not relish the prospect of being highly taxed to pay for other people's children. Here's a question. Have welfare states anywhere produced an increase in the average family size?

'Supporting' families is code for vainly attempting to centrally plan society. It treats people as state lackeys, units for wealth extraction. Interfering in the structure of society has similar results to interfering in the market. Ultimately less is produced. A few inefficient industries are retained through subsidy but at a cost to those who might otherwise thrive or create new enterprises or innovations. Intervention in families has the same stifling effect as intervention in the marketplace.

They can call WFF 'tax relief' but it is just another facet of socialism.

Clark's pledge - Good money after bad

The headline reads "Govt to give $446m to help troubled families"

The government is going to add close to another half billion to the welfare bill that creates these troubled families in the first place. Troubled families receiving NGO services are almost always beneficiary families. Many families typically have three or four service providers working with them. Many will have children who were born onto a benefit. They will have debt problems, sometimes gambling, drug and alcohol abuse problems. They may be methadone patients raising children. They use foodbanks habitually. They are at risk of losing their children if they do not comply with plans devised by CYFS. Depression is common.

As much as I support volunteers working with these families more government funding will probably just be good money after bad. Volunteering (apart from transport costs) has no financial cost. Costs come with paid staff, offices, administration and bureaucracy. As I have said before - at that stage NGOs become almost interchangeable with government departments.

More than just a walkabout

John Howard introduced 'welfare quarantines' in the Northern Territory. That means that beneficiaries have half of their welfare income quarantined to a local shop to pay for food, electricity and clothing. Reportedly the scheme has been well-received, by aboriginal mothers especially. Now only half of the previous amount of cash is available to thieves and there is a "guarantee of food on the table".

Now Hone Harawira has just announced he is off to Australia to persuade Kevin Rudd to scrap them.

More from the Salvation Army Report

The Salvation Army Report asks, who is caring for the children of those single parents moving off welfare and returning to work? Because the early childcare and after school care is least available in the poorest neighbourhoods where those parents generally live.

But single parents only have to work 20 hours a week (or 4 hours a day) to receive the In Work payment, which is what the Salvation Army claims is enticing single mothers back to work.

So combining caring for children and part-time work doesn't necessarily require any other provider. And according to the latest Household Labour Force Survey the big increase is in part-time employment which rose by 6 percent in the year to December 2007. Full-time employment only rose by 1.5 percent. In absolute terms there were more part-time jobs created than full-time.

In the Sallies ideal world all single parents would be at home to care for the kids, supported by the state if need be. They prefer the view that neglected children and troublesome teenagers come out of home where parents work. Not homes where parents rely on welfare. Unfortunately for the Sallies, the evidence doesn't support this. So again I say they are deceiving themselves.

I miss ACT

It is now February 2008. In 6-9 months I'll have to step into a polling booth and put a tick by a party. And right now there isn't a tick I can make that gives me any hope that New Zealand will be a better place for my kids. Do you think I am alone? I don't.

The message I am getting repeatedly is no party is putting an alternative view. The one party that believes in choice isn't offering it. When pushed they might express a viewpoint at variance with Labour or National but they aren't shouting it from the rooftops. It was once about the media ignoring releases but now the releases aren't even generated.

Let's cut to the chase. ACT's leader needs to hold Epsom. If ACT expresses 'unpopular' views which appeal to 10 or 20 percent of voters, that's great across New Zealand - but it's not enough in Epsom. So ACT are in a bind.

But if they carry on being irrelevant to most of New Zealand but acceptable to Epsom, and return with 1 or 2 MPs again, they will face the same problem all over again.

Rodney said attacking never got ACT anywhere. Their vote collapsed in 2005. I believe the vote collapsed because Don Brash led National. Now people are sticking with National because there isn't any other party offering them a convincing alternative.

ACT needs to attack. God knows there is no shortage of targets. Not attacking for the sake of it. Attacking because something is wrong, or inefficient, unfair or a waste of space.

Attack Working For Families, the student loan fiasco, the Buy NZ Made campaign, the Maori seats, Paid Parental Leave, lifestyle welfare, the school 'donation' scheme, the Families Commission, the Children's Commissioner, Women's Affairs.

Stick fast to your founding principles and start doing some rabble rousing. Start fighting to get back the support that went to National.

Because a Taxpayer's Bill of Rights isn't going to do it. And the Regulatory Responsibility Bill isn't going to do it. As laudable and valuable as they are, these policy bottom-lines are too complex for sound bites and one-line reporting. If you haven't got the interest in a few seconds that's it.

I understand the bottom-line policy strategy. That's important too but those bottom-lines need to be very simple. Less is more. ACT has always appealed to the intellect but it needs to appeal to emotions too.

I want ACT to survive, passionately. I voted for Rodney Hide to lead the party and have never regretted it. But I don't want to see another three years like the last. I have a shirt somewhere that says, "ACT - The Real Opposition". I paid some ridiculous amount of money for it at a fund-raising auction because I believed the message.

That is what ACT now needs to show the public again. Consistent, loud, reasoned and civil opposition. That is ACT's job. To restrain government.

Self-deception

The Salvation Army has just released its first ever "State of the Nation" report.

‘More children appear to be at risk of harm, more are engaged in petty crime, there is more violent crime and more people in jails.'

"As a country we have invested hugely in core social spending, from $23b 10 years ago to $39b this year, but with very little increase in social progress. In fact, the gap between rich and poor appears to be widening.While this social spending is essential it seems to have contributed very little to our social progress. Why should be this be the case?"

Could it be that welfare long since stopped majoring in meeting need? It now predominantly creates need. It draws in very young families who get stuck. It offers incentives and subsidies for all the wrong behaviours.

Yet, make no mistake, this outfit wants a bigger welfare state. In 2004 Campbell Roberts, its author, was at a Green Party conference calling for them to eradicate systemic poverty. And we know what the Greens solution to poverty is. More wealth redistribution by the state.

If you do nothing else take a look at the cover of this publication. It features a two-parent, two-child family who couldn't be more different from the people this report is actually about. More self-deception. That's what this paper should be called, "The State of Self-deception in New Zealand Report."

Maori and prison

"....under this Government we have more Maori in prison than we've ever had before...."

So says Dennis O'Reilly responding to Shane Jones who is having another "crack" at Maori gangs.

What Mr O'Reilly says is true. But it would have been true if it was claimed about any government since Maori started to move to the towns and cities.

The prison population, since the second world war, has steadily risen as has the proportion that is Maori.

According to the Howard League in the 1920s 4% of the prison population were Maori, rising to 6% in the 1930s and 15% by 1940. By 1989 they formed 49% of the prison population.

The earlier low prison rates were not because Maori were more peaceful and law-abiding, a view some politicians proffer. The evidence points to them resulting from Maori and Pakeha forming quite separate societies.

Moana Jackson says that today's offending by Maori cannot be divorced from the spiritual and material poverty created by the ongoing consequences of colonisation.

Yet the victims of Maori crime tend to be Maori and if they want the protection provided by a system of law and order, which includes prisons, then colonisation has afforded them this.

Material poverty? Hundreds of thousands of low income Maori have had jobs, raised balanced kids and stayed out of serious trouble so that doesn't cut it either.

Spiritual poverty? What exactly is that? Alan Duff might describe it as self-loathing which prevents the individual from caring about anyone else. That I can accept but who causes it? Who crushes the spirit in people? Those closest to them I'm afraid.

Dennis O'Reilly clearly believes the high Maori imprisonment rate is a problem for government to solve. It isn't. It is a problem for individuals to solve. I know a young man who's father is in and out of prison, who has attempted to get his son into a gang. So far, apart from a minor misdemeanour, the youth is OK, holding down a job and involved in sport. I would say his mother has made the difference, countering the father's input. I have helped him put together a CV and we've sent off job applications in the area he is interested in. I helped him with a passport application form. Little things. But his mother cares about him and I care about them both.

It is individuals and their relationships that make a difference. Not faceless intangible social systems overseen by governments. All they are good for is blaming and buck-passing.

WFF - tax relief or welfare?

Cactus asks the question;

Has anyone done a study about working people receiving working for families such that the amount they pay in tax is lower than what they receive under WFF plus other benefits? These people are by definition beneficiaries as well.

Not quite a study but here are some statistics from Gordon Copeland. He would disagree with Cactus;

Is Working for Families “tax relief” or “welfare”?

United Future MP Gordon Copeland, the party’s spokesperson on Revenue, recently asked Finance Minister Dr Michael Cullen for a break down of the types of families who will receive financial assistance through the Working for Families package.

“I asked the question of Dr. Cullen because, whilst Labour refer to Working for Families as “tax relief”, National habitually characterise it as “welfare”,” said Mr Copeland.

“In response to my question, Treasury have furnished to me the following breakdown:

Families who receive some benefit income 164,400
Families who receive no benefit income, but receive more than they pay in tax 66,500
Families who receive no benefit income but receive less than they pay in tax 125,900
Total 356,800

Clearly the 164,400 families who receive some benefit income could be described as “welfare recipients”. Equally the 125,900 who continue to pay tax are the recipients of “tax relief”. That leaves the 66,500 families who, whilst working and paying tax, receive “top up” assistance from the State.”

“I do not regard those 66,500 working families as “welfare recipients” since, in my view, that terminology should be reserved for those whose principal support comes from the State.”

“It should also be noted that the number of benefit families (164,400) does not increase as a result of the Working for Families package, (although the amount of income available to those families certainly does!).”

“On balance therefore, true to the centrist position which characterises United Future, I think Working for Families can be accurately described as a “tax reduction and family income package!”

Unhappy landing

Yesterday a significant experiment was conducted in the Mitchell household.

It was conclusively proved that a potato-top pie, in particular, a large family-sized potato-top pie purchased from the local butcher, when dropped from a height of 1 metre, does land potato-side down.

No repeat or variation of this experiment is planned. Although it has been suggested that if the pie was tied to the cat's back during it's progress from oven to dinner table, and the cat was to fall from a height of 1 metre, a different outcome may be achieved.

Bacon and tomato sandwiches are very wholesome and satisfying.

Violent Crime: How does provincial NZ compare to New York?

Stephen Franks has a post about violent crime in New Zealand and compares Central Districts to New York. This is a comment I have just made.

At its peak (1990) the murder rate in New York was 14 per 100,000. In 2006 it had fallen to 4.8

Comparing Central districts is tricky because the number of murders is very small and the fluctuations large. But if you take the average number of murders over the five years to June 2007 you get 1.47 per 100,000

In the 2000/01 year it rose to almost 3 per 100,000.

However, if you look at violence overall, at its peak New York experienced 1180 violent crimes per 100,000. By 2006 this had dropped to 435.

In Central Districts in the year to June 2007 there were 1265 violent crimes per 100,000 population.

So the likelihood of being murdered in the Manawatu, Taranaki or King Country is still less but the likelihood of being a victim of violent crime is considerably greater.

(Leaving aside issues of reporting and recording)

Update; The New York rates refer to state rates. Murder in NYC peaked at 30.8 per 100,000 in 1990 and has fallen to around 6 today. According to the US Dept of Justice in 2002 the overall violent crime rate in NYC had dropped to 790 per 100,000. If I use the latest NYPD stats and 2005 Census population count (not entirely satisfactory) that has now dropped to around 663 - still much lower than Central Districts.

Green/Maori accord

Late last week there was some talk of a Green Party/Maori Party accord. A reference to it in a newspaper provoked some discussion on talkback. Political commentator Richard Griffin was canvassed on the matter and more or less said the day that happened would be the day hell freezed over. I had to ring and disagree. I can see a number of areas of commonality;

1/ Tino rangatira tanga - the Greens support the idea of self-determination for Maori. Their MP Metiria Turei is very active in this area and the Greens have a Maori campaign to effect this.

2/ I know Maori who voted Green purely on the decriminalisation of cannabis policy. If Hone's tobacco prohibition puts off potential voters then the Greens decriminalisation of cannabis might attract them.

3/ The Green attracts a young vote. Maori are a young population.

4/ Both parties are supporting the Child Poverty Action Group's court action to have the In Work payment paid to parents on benefits. The Greens and Maori are strongly pro-DPB.

5/ Both have collectivist philosophies.

6/ The Maori Party supported Bradford's anti-smacking legislation despite many Maori being against it. Titiwhi Harawira in particular.

7/ The Greens will support repeal of the Seabed and Foreshore legislation.

8/ Both parties (think Hone and Keith) are very vocal in the area of ethic minority rights, here and outside of New Zealand.

9/ They are both on the left of the political spectrum.

10/ They both love reggae and idolise Bob Marley

Sorry, the last was flippant.

But far from being an impossible scenario I can see how these two parties can scratch each others backs politically and together decide which main party forms the next government. "It's not over till the fat lady sings..." could literally have us looking to Tariana Turia to fill her lungs and let rip.

Half the story

HLFS (Household Labour Force Survey) defined unemployment is at its lowest rate since the survey started in 1986. Then, under 7 percent of working-age people relied on welfare.

Today, however, over 10 percent of working-age people rely on welfare.

We have, like most extensive welfare states, a good deal of hidden unemployment.

And to put the current level of dependence in context, in 1970 under 2 percent of working-age people were on welfare and more than half of those were widows.

Using petrol tax to control inflation

Don Brash is suggesting raising and lowering the tax on petrol in order to control spending and inflation.

I bet the oil industry are impressed with that. The idea of using an industry to control the economy of a country is rather bold and interventionist. One day the government subsidises petrol companies and the next day punishes them. How would they react? New Zealand is not a very large market in the scheme of things. I am ever mindful of the way pharmaceutical manufacturers have reacted to Pharmac's interference over the last 15 years.

The objective is for people to spend less on petrol when inflation is low and there is a need to stimulate general spending. Surely the petrol companies would, to some point, drop their prices to protect their sales? But I am no economist. What am I missing here?

Update; I had deleted this post on realising that I had misrepresented the intention of increasing petrol tax being to boost other spending. The increase is intended to damp the economy and lower inflation. It is still arguable that this would happen. It supposes that people will, over the short term, still use the same amount of petrol and spend less overall.

Otherwise I still hold with my concern about how the oil industry could react and the level of interventionism. Interventionism always brings unintended consequences.

But as the Herald on Sunday have mentioned the post and some may be looking for it I have resurrected it.

Can do

And just talking about 'can do' countries. I see the US is going to allow entry to the badly malformed Samoan baby that this stingy, socialist, state refused entry to. Her parents had raised $100,000 for a proper appraisal. The US think this is enough for her care and two Miami Children's Hospital surgeons are offering their services free. On this occasion (and many others) thanks to central and local government, we are a 'can't do country'. Pathetic.

Back!

That's the title of the first post from Rodney Hide for some time. I hope he will be posting regularly. Rodney, the only libertarian in parliament, is also the best political reason for optimism for a freer New Zealand, a 'can do' country. What an amazing transformation, although I have to say, I didn't mind him when he was a rolypoly either. The ideas and energy were always there.



Welcome back.

Swedes on stand by

Although outcomes are rated as 'good', waiting times for health treatment in Sweden are now the longest in Europe.

Long waits are a hallmark of government health care anywhere it's employed. When the perception exists that treatment is free (it is not; Swedes pay more than half their gross income in taxes to support the welfare state), system overuse is inevitable. People can think of no reason to self-ration care. They show up in emergency rooms and doctor's offices with conditions for which they wouldn't seek treatment if they paid directly at the time of service, says IBD.

More.

To party or not to party?

The United Kingdom now has a Libertarian Party.

But here are five reasons (presented by the winner of the Libertarian Alliance Chris Tame Prize) why libertarians should NOT form a political party. Rather persuasive I thought;

Being something of a contrarian, I choose to work up from the least important of my five reasons towards the most important.

First, practical reasons. Party politics is expensive, and we haven't got the money. And it's time consuming too, and most of us haven't got the time—nor many of us the necessary skills.

Second, agreeing our manifesto would be an immensely difficult task. Many policies favoured by one lot of us would alienate another lot of us. We would have, not only disputes between purists and pragmatists, but also disputes between pragmatists of different stripes. For example, there would be those who want to maintain some form of public welfare system, and favour draconian immigration restrictions, and those who want to ditch the welfare state entirely, and can therefore afford to be relaxed about immigration.

Third, the only example in recent times of a new party gaining power in the islands called Britain was the Labour party—and it took them 31 years, from 1893 to 1924. I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't want to wait three decades or more for freedom.

Fourth, a libertarian party won't work anyway. I give you the sad story of the one libertarian party which, to my knowledge, has tasted real success—the Movimiento Libertario in Costa Rica. For many years, they did a great job. They got voter support up to almost ten per cent. They won 6 seats in a 57-seat parliament. They even had a credible presidential candidate. Then, in 2005, the party was taken over by so-called moderates. The libertarians, who had worked so hard for the cause, were branded as radicals and purged from the party. And the party now presents itself as a liberal party. All of which leads to a harsh conclusion. If a libertarian party fails, it fails. And if it succeeds, it fails because it gets taken over and isn't libertarian any more.

Fifth, and most important, politics is old hat.

It is fashionable today, on the far left at least, to say that the state is out of date. That, in an age of technology and nuclear weapons, the state or superstate, with its rulers and ruled, its wars, its re-distributory and confiscatory taxes and its bad laws, is no longer an appropriate way for we human beings to organize ourselves. That new forms of society are needed.

I suggest to you that these thinkers, uncomfortable though some of you may be with their ideas, are dead right. Indeed, I go further. I think the state and its political system are already collapsing around us. And what we are living through now is a phase in the collapse, where the statists are desperately striving to shore up their blessed state. That, I believe, is why they are falling over each other in their efforts to do as many bad things to us as they possibly can.

But there is today, both in the islands called Britain and elsewhere, a rising tide of contempt for politics and politicians. The political classes have spent most of the last two centuries trying to persuade us that they and their state are good for us. But people—and not just those already aware of the ideas of liberty—have begun to see this for what it is, a lie. More and more people are waking up from the anaesthetic, and starting to feel the pain. I sense there's the potential for a big backlash building up out there.

So, I think, to try to form a libertarian political party today would be a step in exactly the wrong direction. Not only would we be trying to play the statists at their own political game. But we would also be tying ourselves to a system that is doomed to fail.

Read more

Abortion and teenage birth rise

The number of abortions has risen again. From 2003 it had dropped but the total for 2006 - 17,934 - represents a 2.2% increase on 2005.

The number of births which are ex-nuptial continues to rise. In 2006 it was 47% - up from 45 percent the year before, 42 percent in 1996 and 27 percent in 1986.

Births to teenage mothers numbered 4,373 - up from 4,136 in 2005 - a 6 percent rise. 56 percent were European, 53 percent were Maori, 14 percent Pacific, and 0.2 percent Asian. As a percentage of all births, teenage birth rose slightly from 7.2 to 7.4 percent.

There were 35 births to 13-14 year-olds - two thirds were to Maori.

5 babies were born to women aged 49+

Compensating for the father famine

What a mixed up and conflicted society we live in. It seems to boil down to not so much a breakdown between the genders but the different amount of trust and respect individuals feel towards the opposite sex.

Twenty eight percent of all families with dependent children are being led by just one parent, predominantly female. This has come about through a combination of changed attitudes and changed government provision. As we cannot possibly know the circumstances of all these families I am inclined to accept that collectively there is culpability on both parts. But the overriding ethos of socialists (and male socialists are just as much a part of this attitude) is that men are nearly always at fault when it comes to domestic difficulties. And so the past forty years has seen an increasingly feminist-influenced state compensating for his shortcomings.

Unfortunately there is a tendency for some people to turn into what you repeatedly tell them they are - deadbeat dads. And so, even more recently, it hasn't been enough to just replace fathers - they must also be financially and emotionally punished for their inadequacies.

NOW we have schools crying out for male teachers to compensate for the father famine. Yet the expectations these guys have to meet (and suspicion they must endure) is keeping them well away. Who can blame them?

What worries me is those women who don't embrace feminist fascism in their everyday lives, don't do a very good job of opposing it. I understand why. "If you are not with us, you are against us," is the intimidating reception one encounters if you dare to criticise their cherished beliefs and institutions.

Some men are no angels. But 90 percent of those I have had anything to do with are not womanising pricks, or control freaks, or 'out-of-tune with their feelings' or bad fathers. That may be my good fortune. But I hope that it is more about expectation. We find what we look for. And if women have a singularly low opinion of men, men will reflect it. Heaven knows how the sons of men-maligners mature into anything but men worthy of malign. Behind every bad man is a mother.

Much of the feminist distaste for men, especially amongst the lower socio-economic ranks, has now developed into mutual loathing - except when temporary emotional and physical needs demand a ceasefire. Then babies result. And it becomes the preschool and school and secondary schools job to present the child with a positive male role model. But how is he viewed by the mothers? And what has she already inculcated in her female or male child? Is it ever going to be enough to expose a child to one good male role model she has to share and can only keep for a year? And if she is very young and inclined to physically express her fondness for her daddy-substitute, he has to keep her at a cool and uncompromising arms length. Is that really enough to compensate for a father?

I have a flashback to sitting on the back of my father's easy chair on Sunday afternoons while he watched the rugby, me endlessly combing his ever-thinning hair. He never complained. When I was sick he was very patient and would rub my tummy if I was hanging over the toilet vomiting. When I squashed my pet mouse accidentally, breaking its leg, my father made a splint and brought him back to health. (My ever-practical mother wanted to drown it).

It is just too sad that so many kids will never experience a good and loving father. And it is even sadder that the state, which is partly to blame for this tragedy, is now desperate to correct it through the education system. As I said last week about Key and Clark's youth policies, it is too little and too late for many of these children.

More capacity for remand in custody needed

This judge is wasting his time;

Meanwhile, an unemployed Nelson man charged over the assault of two 19-year-olds at Pioneers Park has been granted bail.

Grant Earl Tihi, 39, was remanded without plea on two charges of wounding with intent to cause grevious bodily harm when he appeared in the Nelson District Court on Friday.

Judge Thomas Ingram remanded Tihi on bail to February 19.

He ordered Tihi not to associate with the complainants, to live at his home address, not to consume alcohol, and to observe a curfew.

Tihi was also ordered not to enter Pioneers Park.

Now go and look at the photograph.

Commissioner confused

This appeared in today's Dominion Post. I am sure some of you will want to respond to letter@dompost.co.nz (Left click to enlarge);



Dear Editor

Children's Commissioner Cindy Kiro is confusing two issues (Keeping our children safe, Feb 4). That of so-called adults who abuse their children because they have problems of their own and adults who are trying to teach children that there are consequences for deliberate misbehaviour. Ironically the first group, typified by Ms Kiro as violent offenders, is a product of the no consequences morality that now dominates. Through the welfare and justice system their problems - abuse of alcohol, drugs and each other - are repeatedly alleviated through benefits and various molly-coddling processes.

In part the commissioner recognises this because she writes that, "adults have to take responsibility for their own problems and not take them out on children." But I put it to her that while the state takes responsibility, their violence will continue to affect both their partners and their children.

Making law that attempts to control existing law-breakers is probably futile. But passing legislation that pertains to the many adults who do care very deeply about their children, who are not busy creating the next generation of violent offenders, is pointless and offensive.

Lindsay Mitchell

No words

What words could do any kind of justice to describing this sort of atrocity? I can't find them. But I have two thoughts. How will Iraqis be regarding anybody in their midst with Downs Syndrome from now on? What a cruel, cruel blow to normally harmless and happy people. And how would you feel about your own Down's Syndrome child reading or hearing about this act? The consequences of Al Qaeda's evil spread far beyond its immediate victims.

More prisons?

Is this National promising to build more prisons or prison capacity?

If it is, why don't they spell it out. Can nobody speak plain English any more?

If it is, it's the first commendable policy I have heard from them.

The risk of suicide

From the USA Today;

A record number of active-duty soldiers killed themselves last year, according to The Washington Post.

The paper cites an internal Army study that shows 121 soldiers committed suicide in 2007. That's a 20% increase over the prior year, the Post says.

"The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have placed severe stress on the Army, caused in part by repeated and lengthened deployments," the paper reports. "Historically, suicide rates tend to decrease when soldiers are in conflicts overseas, but that trend has reversed in recent years. From a suicide rate of 9.8 per 100,000 active-duty soldiers in 2001 -- the lowest rate on record -- the Army reached an all-time high of 17.5 suicides per 100,000 active-duty soldiers in 2006."

Still not as high as the suicide rate for Maori;

The three-year moving average age-standardised rate of suicide for Maori was 17.9 deaths per 100,000 population in 2003–2005....The three-year moving average age-standardised rate of suicide for Maori males was 28.4 deaths per 100,000 population in 2003–2005, compared with the rate for non-Maori males of 18.4 per 100,000 population, which was significantly lower.

You are more likely to kill yourself if you are Maori, particularly a Maori male, living in New Zealand than if you are on active service in Iraq.

Youth crime and casual childbearing

One of the reasons for the increasing ferocity of youth crime is the breakdown of the family and the dysfunction of relationships within what is left of the family. The most obvious changed aspect of today's families is the absent father. That alone does not produce delinquent youths but a lack of a strong male role model starts a child off in a position of disadvantage. Some children have fathers who they would probably be better off without, and the same can be said for mothers. But the sort of family that is best placed to raise a secure and self-respecting teenager has been steadily eroded by welfare benefits that accrue to broken or incomplete families.

During the 40s, 50s and 60s youth crime was much more infrequent and less violent than it is today. Although many teenagers then had lost a father to war or desertion, they were not raised on a diet of welfare or fed an entitlement mentality. Their mothers received some assistance but many worked and instilled the need to work in their children.

In the 70s this began to change. Babies began being born to women who had no intention of raising them with a partner. Women who, if they thought about it, believed they could do just as good a job as the two parent, working family so long as the government paid them to stay home and parent. Many did.

But a growing group did not. As the negative consequences for unmarried birth disappeared the casual approach to childbearing grew. As more focus fell on ex-nuptial births, surveys revealed these children were more at risk of being abused or neglected. Abused and neglected children have far greater potential for becoming criminals.

Unmarried births now account for 45 percent of all births. Some of these babies will be born into enduring de facto relationships but those circumstances are reasonably rare.

Today's youth workers say that the solution to youth crime is for children to have a quality relationship with an adult or adults. But which relationship is the most predominant in a child's life? The one he has with his mother and/or father, which begins at birth. The chances of that relationship being strong or even existing are reduced by casual childbearing. And casual childbearing is directly related to the elimination of negative consequences. In fact, receiving a steady and guaranteed income from the government is seen as a positive consequence.

Add to this that very young maternal age is shown to further increase a child's risk of becoming a criminal. Yet an income which surpasses the minimum wage is paid to girls as young as 16 who decide to continue with a pregnancy. Half of those young mothers aged 16 and 17 and receiving welfare are typically Maori. Half of our prison population is Maori. This is more than a coincidence but a blind eye is effectively turned by government who make no attempt to research an association.

Because the stream of teenage and un-partnered mothers going onto benefits long-term is steady, even growing slightly, New Zealand can expect the sort of youth violence we are seeing now to continue unabated. In that respect the new plans to fight youth crime are too little too late. Our leaders need to start talking about the prevention of casual childbearing and the removal of those incentives which cause it. Anything else is avoidance of the real issue and political expediency.

It's the same old song.....

According to Jim Anderton,

Around 1.2 people out of every hundred thousand are homicide victims. That is a significant drop from around 1.5 per hundred thousand in the early eighties. In the late eighties, the rate of homicides soared to 2.0 out of every 100,000 population. So New Zealand is a lot less violent today than it was then.

Wouldn't it be better to measure how violent New Zealand is by convictions for violence? Even that measure is inadequate because first the violence has to be reported and then, successfully prosecuted. But below are the violent convictions from 1980 to 2006. On that basis New Zealand is more violent now than in the late eighties.



So why would Jim seek to persuade us that NZ was more violent in the 80s?

Violent death rates rose very steeply in the late eighties, stayed high in the nineties and have since begun to come down. What else was going on that could explain the crime wave?

The pattern of violence follows exactly a pattern of economic devastation. When unemployment rocketed and families were hammered by hard economic times, offending rose dramatically.

But Jim, the pattern of violence, when charted by convictions does not follow your "pattern of economic devastation". How do you explain that?

NZ has, according to you "neared full employment", yet violence is still widespread - and that's just the violence we know about.

You know what Jim? We haven't neared full employment at all. And that is why we still have intolerable crime. We have high unemployment hidden by reliance on benefits other than the dole. We have violent youths coming out of workless, dysfunctional homes which turn on the DPB. We have violent youths coming out of gang homes whose staple diet is welfare. The correlation between benefit dependence and crime is stronger than the one between unemployment and crime.

Give up on blaming the economic reforms and start looking at the individuals who will not help themselves or their children.

Labour's big bribe for 2008?

I originally wrote this post in June last year but I never hit the publish button. Some conceited streak in me must have worried about giving Labour ideas.

It occurs to me that Labour has reintroduced the 1945 Family Benefit (abolished in 1990) with its Working For families tax credits.

The really popular aspect of the family benefit was its capitalisation potential, also the most popular campaign issue of 1957. Walter Nash hoped capitalisation would boost home ownership and the birthrate. All of a child's family benefit could be paid in a lump sum.

So what would be a really popular campaign promise from Labour next year? To allow parents to have family tax credits paid as a lump sum to be used to buy their first home. I wouldn't put it past them.

My caution was a waste of time. The following is from Jim Anderton's Orewa speech last night;

Mr Anderton also said families should be allowed to capitalise their family support on their first child - such as Working for Families and in-work payments - for a deposit on a house, saying he knew it could work "because that's how I bought my house".

It's a goer. And I predict National will say 'me too'.

The war on youth crime

John Key's speech.

I am genuinely pleased Key focussed on young, problem people although I think Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft's provided estimate of 1,000 hardened types is a self-deception.

This speech, however, hails the era of the big-state conservatives. Yes, it is full of references to private providers, but the funding comes from the taxpayer. It is replete with commitment to new funding. The Youth Guarantee (free education for 16-17 year-olds outside of state schools), specific catering for teenage parents (one assumes on top of the current provision for around 600), drug and alcohol rehab programmes, mentoring programmes, more youth residential facilities (necessary if sentences are to be lengthened - we only have 3 currently), supervision with activity, Fresh Start programmes to last up to one year using mentors, social workers (of which there is a shortage), the army and others.

Now it may be that the big-spending conservative is more effective than the big-spending left liberal. We shall see. But people wanting less government (more has never been shown to improve matters) will not receive this speech with joyful enthusiasm.

The move to allow the Youth Court to deal with 12 and 13 year-olds (instead of the Family Court) is an improvement. But the power to issue parenting orders - send parents to parenting courses - is worthless. Why? Because the penalty for not complying is community work or fines. Many of these parents will have already shown a finger to both for other misdemeanours. These troublesome kids are more often than not children of criminals. Note, just a few minutes later Key says he is sick of hearing about young offenders who receive community based sentences but fail to comply. That behaviour isn't confined to youth.

What Key is announcing here is the war on youth crime. Yet another campaign akin to the war on poverty and the war on drugs. Neither has seen a victory for the state.

And I think that Clark will pull him apart on 1/ so much extra spending along with tax cuts, 2/ the fact that under National (but not under Key) the numbers of teens sitting around "filling their days with nothing but Playstation and TV soaps" was far greater and 3/ on paper, Labour have monstered unemployment, including youth, while National failed. I don't necessarily agree with these arguments but they are some I predict she will use.

But, I am going to give Key a B for effort. He is clearly listening to people who work with these young people. And no political party, no advocacy group and no individual can supply a perfect or painless solution.

MPs don't make the most rational decisions

Here is an excerpt from a speech ACC Minister Maryan Street delivered on Saturday.

I believe there is a legitimate place for the use of law as a lever for achieving better health outcomes, but there also have to be boundaries - and the truth is that we usually decide where those boundaries lie on a case-by-case basis.

And when I say “we” I mean the Government. I believe Parliament is the most appropriate place for these types of decisions to be made. With all due respect to the lawyers, officials and academics in the room, who may well make more rational or scientific decisions than we politicians, it is appropriate that politicians, who are ultimately accountable to the people, decide the extent to which the state will limit individual decision-making.

I should also say that I do not believe these types of decisions can be appropriately made by “the market”. For example, the makers of “fast food”, tobacco or alcohol will say that people should have the right to buy their products wherever and whenever they choose. Sometimes the freedom to do so is escalated into “the democratic freedoms for which wars were fought”.

The problem is that right now we are seeing whole communities suffering unacceptable levels of obesity, diabetes, lung cancer and other preventable diseases. They were given the freedom to choose but not the information to make an informed choice. So I believe Government has a vital role in ensuring people have the information they need to make informed choices. How should this reality be balanced against the individual freedom argument?

The “individual freedom” argument does not address the issue of collective consequences. When a young person chooses to drink and drive and consequently injures or kills someone else, who pays? When someone chooses to smoke and develops lung cancer, who pays? The answer is invariably the rest of us. And I’m not just talking about the financial cost to organisations like my own ACC or the public health system but also the impact on the families, communities and employers of the people involved. So for generations now, governments have made decisions to use the law to limit individual freedoms and thus reduce the collective consequences.

I take issue with that last sentence. The law has indeed been used to limit individual freedoms but that hasn't reduced collective consequences. Collective consequences increase under collectivism. That is because there is no incentive to avoid risky behaviour when someone else will pay. For instance why do we have over 130,000 people on sickness and invalid benefits when just thirty years ago there were only around 18,000? And it isn't to do with the size of the population. It is partly to do an expectation that the state will support people regardless of the reason for their incapacity. It wasn't always that way and in the past people had to exercise a good deal more personal responsibility in their actions.

The other statement Street makes here is something of a worry;

With all due respect to the lawyers, officials and academics in the room, who may well make more rational or scientific decisions than we politicians, it is appropriate that politicians, who are ultimately accountable to the people, decide the extent to which the state will limit individual decision-making.

This is a worrying admission. According to Ms Street MPs do not make the most rational or scientific decisions. Nevertheless they are still the best people to do so because we voted for them. I didn't vote for you Maryan. And I am sure that you do not feel any need to be accountable to me. Ultimately you will be accountable to your own conscience and ideas. Not a prospect I relish.

Curious metamorphosis

Imagine waking up one day to find that you have become a cinema.

On Saturday I received a letter from the Wellington City Council addressed to Lindsey Mitchell Cinema. They are developing a database of all the community facilities within Wellington and have sent me a 4 double-sided page survey to assist in that endeavour.



What???

So I googled "Lindsey Mitchell Cinema nz"

Here is the page I found. I scrolled down to discover I am indeed a cinema and when clicked on the link was given a graphic illustration of how to find me and a phone number to find out what I am currently showing.

I have no idea how this has come about. I am listed as "Mitchell Lindsay" in the Yellow Pages as an artist. But that is a far cry from being a cinema - "Muritai Cinemas" at that.

Should I be pissed off about this? Who is making money from a site with bogus listings? Any thoughts?

ACT voters and libertarians are not decent people

So says the editor of the Sunday Star Times;

The Right has found a heavy club to beat the government with: a referendum on smacking at the next election. This is a brilliant ploy by the religious extremists of Family First. It will gather not only libertarians, Act voters and other motley fanatics of that kind, but many decent and ordinary people. It is as though the Brethren had found a cause that appealed to the mainstream. The political and social effects are likely to be large and wholly malign.

I voted ACT at the last election. I know I am not particularly ordinary (inasmuch as my ideas are not reflected by the majority) but I am decent.

It is this sort of labelling from the 'Left' (which is presumably where the editor's sympathies lie) that make debates turn nasty. And I have to say, in my relatively short time involved in politics, those on the Left are a lot better at it. That is because thinking people can defend their ideas without resorting to personally maligning detractors and there would appear to be fewer of them amongst the collectivists.

And look how little real tolerance there is among the liberal left. Freedom of belief has shut up shop. I am a non-believer but passionate about the right of others to have and hold and cherish their faith. Yet the secular Left increasingly characterise people with religious belief as evil fanaticists.

Finally, this beggars belief.

Family First was an active player at the last election, and it has found an ideal vehicle to drive through the next one. But do you really want to get in the passenger seat with them?

Over the page from this mean piece is a full page advert placed by none other than Family First. The paper will have an editorial policy and an advertising policy and no doubt, never the twain shall meet. Perhaps this column is the editor's lash back at prioritised commercial considerations. Whatever it is, I've had enough.

Unlike Family First I am not willing to pay people to insult me.

Dear Editor

Please cancel our subscription to your newspaper today. It is not without regret that I choose this course of action. News is important to me. Ideas are important to me. But today's editorial, which infers ACT voters, libertarians and people of faith are not "decent" people, is a more extreme view than those you profess to warn against.

Lindsay Mitchell

Trotter advises, dump the leader

The Prime Minister will not be happy with Chris Trotter. He has written a column in today's Dominion Post (a reasonably rational one) explaining why Phil Goff should replace her as leader, if Labour are to have any chance of winning this year's election.

I disagree. Apart from voter's force of habit, Helen Clark is still the best thing Labour has going for them.

Update; Full column here

DPB Numbers rise in many centres

Media Release
DPB NUMBERS RISE IN MANY CENTRES
Thursday, January 24, 2008

Figures just released by the Ministry of Social Development show that DPB numbers have risen in many centres over the past year.

"Nearly half of the Auckland region Work and Income Centres experienced a rise in DPB numbers during 2007," Lindsay Mitchell, welfare commentator said today. "Typically centres are in the most deprived areas like Mangere, Clendon, Glen Innes and Manukau. Other rural towns and cities with high Maori populations have also experienced increases - Hamilton, Hastings, Kawerau and Ngaruwahia for instance."

"While the overall trend in DPB numbers is down, with a 2 percent drop last year, only the most motivated and skilled are taking advantage of the strong labour market."

"The young, poorly educated and unskilled continue to gravitate to the DPB. Not having experienced stability or security themselves, the parenting skills of these mothers are often inadequate or absent. Many will become long-term welfare dependants and so the cycle goes on."

"The overall drop in DPB numbers is masking a much bigger problem. There now exists an entire generation of people who have only ever known a welfare upbringing. They predominate in poor neighbourhoods where crime, violence, drug and alcohol abuse are common. "

"The reforms Labour implemented - requiring individual Personal Development and Employment Plans and abolishing work-testing - are having very little impact in the overall scheme of things. The Minister must now be very concerned about the resistance to reform many families are exhibiting."

Depressing Christchurch

What's with Canterbury?

A quarter of the 16-24 year-olds drawing a sickness benefit for depression live in Canterbury. More than in any other region, including Auckland.

And looking at the invalid's benefit for the same incapacity, the percentage rises to 37 percent!

Canterbury is home to only 13 percent of the population and the demographic is slightly older than the NZ average as well.

(The same disproportionate dependence continues with the invalid's benefit in the older age groups though it is not quite as marked.)

Oh Crikey returns

I have just caught up. Oh Crikey is back blogging regularly. Most original, funny, earthy, crass, clever blog in New Zealand. I can't pick a particular post to link to. It's that good.

But here's an excerpt in case I haven't persuaded you to have a look;

There's another family reunion coming up and I'm petrified about turning up without an escort. Nothing says "failure" louder than arriving unaccompanied to social events. Family gatherings are always bizarre affairs since my relatives are such a schizoid bunch, split between saints & sinners. They're either hard-core Christians or hardened criminals: half of them will bash you with the Bible, the other half will just bash you.

I try to avoid the law-breaking bunch; the biggest pack of thieves you'll ever meet. They'll pinch anything not nailed down. Heck, they'd steal the skidmarks out of your undies! Instead, I mingle with my church-going rellies. Yet without fail, every single one of them - conscious of the obligation to "Go forth and multiply" - will ask about my romantic status. There's no point lying as they've x-ray eyes that bore into one's soul. And how can anyone, in good faith, be untruthful to such honest-to-God folk? I hate to disappoint my family, or feel shamed or inadequate, so you can see why I'm desperate to get hitched - even with someone in cyberspace.

So regarding my anonymous blog troll, I'm wondering, when my relatives enquire, "Is there anyone special?" I wouldn't be lying if I said I met someone on the internet, would I? When they ask, "who?" I can say, "Her name's Ana" (short for "Ananymous"). I mean, my stalker keeps trolling my blog, therefore is obviously obsessed with me, right? Which is similar to being 'infatuated,' correct? Which is practically the same thing as being in love, eh? So in that sense, I can truthfully say that Anonymous and I are 'in a relationship' - and I won't have to lie to my family.

Please say you agree! I'd hate people to think I was just another nameless loser living in a fantasy world on the internet.

ACC Minister makes outlandish statement

Maryan Street, Minister for ACC, has a piece in today's Dominion Post explaining why NZ has an accident compensation scheme. There is no link but this is my response to a statement she makes;

Dear Editor

In principle I have no problem with ACC. People need to make provision for the possibility of an accident resulting in personal injury. Just as they need to make provision for an accident resulting in the loss of their home or their car. Yet the state provides the first and the private sector, the second.

Minister for ACC, Maryan Street says that the people have a contract with the government and that, "Insurance companies have no interest in maintaining that contract."

So why, before Labour re-nationalised ACC, were a number of companies happy to get involved? Far from having "no interest" the private sector is keen to provide accident insurance because that is what they do. And, because they have to compete with each other, they do it well or fail.

The government doesn't have to compete, which is why we are all paying $50 more to ACC this year when we register our vehicles. The Minister also provided some questionable excuse for that hike, claiming the cost of injuries from car crashes is rising despite the increasing number of injuries being commensurate with the increasing size of the vehicle fleet.

There is no rational reason for the state to monopolise insurance for personal injury.

Why so many young rely on a sickness benefit

Last week the high number of young people on sickness benefits was making the news. But the reasons for this were unclear. I had forgotten a report from the Paediatric Society published late last year which I printed out but can no longer find a link to. It shows the causes for dependency as follows;



Looking at the group aged 18-64 at March 2007, the percentage on a sickness benefit for psychological/psychiatric reasons was 36 percent. This confirms that younger people are disproportionately reliant on a benefit for these particular incapacities.

PM says housing study lacks "real meaning"

The Prime Minister is complaining about research that shows housing affordability in NZ is amongst the worse because it is too selective;

She said the survey's sample of countries was too small and lacked enough European nations to have any real meaning.

The survey found New Zealand the least affordable place compared with Australia, the United States, Ireland, Canada and Britain.

Permanent and long term departures by country of arrival shows that main countries are the Australia (33,792), United Kingdom (11,940), USA (2,709) and China (2,695).

It seems sensible and relevant to compare NZ to those countries NZers are most likely to move to.

Helen Clark told TVNZ that the survey cited only six countries, and omitted other countries such as France, Sweden, Austria, Germany and Spain.

But none of these countries rates a mention in the destination list of long-term departures. So OK, Demographia may have been wrong to claim NZ was the worst in the world, but it is probably worst in the 'world' that is relevant to Kiwis. In that sense the survey does have "real meaning."

Information sought

A question for bloggers using blogspot.com?

Should I wish to, I know how to delete my blog.

How can it be saved before deletion?

Hutt Valley High and 'rights'

Cindy Kiro says the offenders at Hutt Valley High are entitled to an education and is supporting the Principal's position.

That has upset some talkback callers. I contributed the following;

As long as we blindly cling to the prevalent culture of 'rights' that has developed over the past 40 years, more disruption and dysfunction will develop.

The system of legally enshrined rights to things like social welfare benefits, electricity, education etc is ultimately troublesome because there is nowhere to draw a line. The only genuine rights that should be upheld are the rights to be free from things like violence, theft and the imposition of force.

The Hutt Valley High situation highlights this very well. The offender's right to an education is trumping the victim's right to be free from violence. That is wrong. There is no 'right' to an education. It is a privilege. And privileges can be withdrawn.

Tax cuts versus tax rebates

Here is a nice, simple commentary from the Washington Times about why tax cuts are preferable to tax rebates. That's an issue which will be integral to this year's election as National offers its alternative to Working For Families.

Remember too that whatever is economically preferable is also, in the long run, socially preferable. The Left seem to think that the goal of 'social justice' through redistribution, can be wrung out of the economy by force and the process isn't damaging.

The current government has two major aims. One is to lift economic growth. They don't like tax cuts so they need to increase the size of the workforce.

But the second aim is to put more money into young families with children with no commensurate work effort on the parent's part. Hence they naturally work less.

These two goals are antithetical through the present method of redistribution. The obvious way to achieve both is to let people keep more of their money in the first place.

A 'game'

This is part of a post from Stephen Frank's blog. I tried to make a comment but the anti-spam thingy told me I had the wrong word and the comment disappeared.

Politicians can not assume an interest in their messages. They must work at the emotional level, even on complex issues that should not be simplified, but must.

Sure it feels like ‘insincerity’. I hated dumbing down my speeches and letters. But if without it you will not be heard at all, where’s the choice? There are boundaries of course. The key thing for me was to ensure the communication did not become false.

People who can’t stand the fact that the floating voters in a democracy may be ignorant and uninterested should play another game. Sadly those voters may be the major important audience in an MMP election.

If Stephen hated dumbing down his speeches and letters campaigning for ACT, I would suggest worse is to come campaigning for National.

But he seems to justify this self-censorship as a "game" worth playing to attract the all-important floating voter.

I wonder if he calculated the risk of losing previously loyal followers who want more than mush? I guess no one has more than one vote and the quality of that vote is irrelevant.

Myths about 'pioneering traditions'

This is today's Dominion Post editorial. My response follows;


Editorial: Labour's lesson in innovation
The Dominion Post | Thursday, 17 January 2008

When Christchurch musician Jimmy Mason "flicked" his three-year-old son on the ear he thought he was giving him a lesson about road safety. Don't ride your bike near the road when you're told not to. What he was actually getting was a firsthand look at the Government's anti-smacking legislation in operation.

A nearby teacher took umbrage at his actions, an off-duty policewoman rang the office and, minutes later, Mr Mason found himself surrounded by six police officers.

"They were going to arrest me and were trying to ascertain whether it was safe for the kids to go home with me," he said. "It was pretty bizarre."

In time Mr Mason may discover, like many parents before him, that there are other, more effective ways to discipline his children and keep them safe.

If the anti-smacking legislation, championed by Green MP Sue Bradford, hastens that process it will have served a useful purpose.

But just as there is no such thing as a perfect child, there is no such thing as a perfect parent. Like children, parents get tired and irritable. Like children, parents occasionally do things they later regret.

But nothing that Mr Mason did appears to warrant the attention of six police officers, at least five more than the ordinary citizen can expect to show an interest when reporting a theft, burglary or assault.

Nor do his actions appear to warrant the warning that has now been placed on his record, though that could change as a result of a police review of discrepancies between Mr Mason's story and those of witnesses.

When the anti-smacking legislation was steered through Parliament last year, Ms Bradford and her Labour allies assured the public that the law change would not criminalise parents who administered a light smack to their children.

Technically they are correct in Mr Mason's case. He has not been charged. But he has been stigmatised, something that is likely to be of almost as much concern to the Government as it is to Mr Mason.

Labour believes the initial furore over the anti-smacking legislation has died down now that it has been in place for more than six months.

But publicity about such cases revives the damaging spectre of a nanny state interfering in the private affairs of citizens.

When voters go to the polls later this year they will not recall that National voted for the legislation alongside Labour, the Greens and the Maori Party as a result of a last-minute deal with its leader John Key, but that it was Labour and its allies who pushed the bill through, just as it was Labour that took the lead in legalising prostitution, establishing civil unions, banning unhealthy food from school tuckshops and outlawing smoking in bars and restaurants.

All are initiatives that fit with New Zealand's tradition of pioneering social legislation, a tradition that began when New Zealand became the first country to give women the vote.

But politicians with long careers in mind know there is only so much innovation the public is prepared to put up with.

Labour could yet pay a price for going too far too fast.


Sir

Your editorial about the effect of Sue Bradford's anti-smacking legislation claimed the law change was one of many, "initiatives that fit with New Zealand's tradition of pioneering social legislation..."

New Zealand was by no means first to ban corporal punishment in the home. Just as it wasn't first to introduce civil unions, ban smoking in bars or legalise prostitution. Neither were we first with an old-age or widow's pension and other social security benefits that followed.

This mixed bag you describe as "innovation" is happening throughout the developed world, much of it at the behest of the United Nations and other champions of 'the state knows best.'

If New Zealanders wanted to legitimately lay claim to being pioneering front-runners, they would start by rejecting governments that regard their major role as controlling the social and financial lives of citizens. That really would be revolutionary.

"Ending unconditional entitlement"

Chris Grayling is a Conservative MP in the UK. Here is his plan for their incapacity benefit ( which has proportionately more recipients than our sickness and invalid benefits);

120,000 more people claim incapacity benefit than 10 years ago and 52 per cent more under-24s are claiming than in 1997. Half a million people under 35 are now claiming the benefit. More than half of the people now claiming incapacity benefit have been receiving it for more than five years.

The majority of people signed on to this benefit by filling in a form and sending in a note from their doctor. Most claimants are then simply left to their own devices. We will change that. We will contact every single one of those 2.6 million people as quickly as possible. We will carry out face-to-face interviews with all of them, to assess what they can do, and how we can help them back into work. It's a big task, and it won't be done overnight, but it has to be done, and as rapidly as possible.

Our initial aim will be to offer most people a place on a structured programme of support to find them a job. We know that as many as a million people claiming incapacity benefit say that they hope to get back into the workplace. We will offer them the help they need to achieve that.

Those who don't want to accept that offer will be expected to undergo a full medical check to confirm what they can and can't do now, and what they might, with the right support, be able to do in the future. It will be done by someone independent, so the relationship with a family doctor doesn't affect the outcome.

Those found to be perfectly capable of working will lose their entitlement to incapacity benefit immediately. Many have been abusing the system. They will be transferred into the normal process for Jobseekers and will be expected to start looking for work straight away. Based on the experience of other countries, we expect at least 200,000 people to be affected.

Those who have the potential to get back into work - even if it's a different kind of job - but still have mental or physical hurdles to overcome will be required to join a return-to-work programme. Only those whose incapacity makes it impossible or unrealistic for them to work will be able to continue to claim the benefit without conditions.

For Britain such an approach marks a revolution in our welfare state. It marks an end to a situation where the receipt of incapacity benefit is an unconditional entitlement. In the future it will carry with it the responsibility to do everything that you can to get back into work and help lift yourself out of the poverty trap that incapacity benefit represents for so many people. It's already happening in places like New York. It's something we should aspire to in Britain.

A country where a young man and his family regard it as an achievement to get onto the "sick" is one that desperately needs reform. A country that brings in millions of workers but can't help people out of the trap that incapacity benefit has become, is one that desperately needs change.


Ending unconditional entitlement is the most important phrase here. The principle of discretionary granting must replace universality with some sort of appeals authority backing up the system. That's a start but I think that the Tories may have to change laws first. Ultimately incapacity benefits should be part of health funding and, as such, covered by insurance and even operated by competing private sector companies to prevent abuse.

Only a small group would have no means to contribute. Treat them separately. I have said it before. We (and the Uk and Australia) have our entire social security system designed around the worst case scenario with everyone lumped in together. Hence it is out of control.

Until the individual is responsible for insuring himself for adverse outcomes (with a commensurate tax cut) the distortionary and corrupting incentives will continue to make systems more damaging than useful.

Fake legs faster

What a peculiar story this is. An athlete has been banned from competing at the Olympics because his prosthetic limbs give him an unfair advantage.

He can hardly compete at the disabled Olympics.

'Presumed consent'

'Presumed consent' means, in the event of your death, you would be assumed to be an organ donor unless you have opted out. UK PM Gordon Brown is in favour and the subject received some coverage on TV3 yesterday. Andy Tookey, who petitioned parliament for the establishment of an organ donor register, is also for the idea. Apparently it operates in Spain and France.

But look at Brown's actual position;

Mr Brown voiced his sympathy for the plan and is urging a national debate on the change, although he believes that the families of dead relatives should have the right to block the use of organs.

But that is the crux of the existing problem. People expressly put 'donor' on their driver's licences and then their families override their wishes.

So even under 'presumed consent' Brown says the family can still block the donation.

Personally I think presumed consent would improve the situation for those on waiting lists for organs and I would enjoy watching people having to get off their backsides and do something about their beliefs. Nobody would be forced to donate - just forced to opt out.

Ultimately, however, if I had to vote on it, I would vote against. With my head and not my heart. I couldn't accord the state that much power, even over dead bodies.

What needs to be dealt with in law is what putting donor on your licence (or a specific donor card) means. My family are under strict instructions not to disregard my wishes - that if I died and anything is of use to someone else, they are most welcome to it.

I think we can increase New Zealand's donation rate without presumed consent. I see the US rate is more than double ours. A register would have been a good start.

"Are you a workaholic?"

An Auckland telephone technician is taking a stand against workaholism - with his own life as his prime exhibit.

This guy is behaving just like a reformed smoker. He is the Mark Peck of workaholism. Having 'saved' himself he's coming to save you.

Have a look through these questions. Apparently if you answer 'yes' to three or more you might be .....shush..... a workaholic.

1. Do you get more excited about your work than about family or anything else? SOMETIMES
2. Are there times when you can charge through your work and other times when you can't get anything done? YES
3. Do you take work with you to bed? On weekends? On holidays? YES
4. Is work the activity you like to do best and talk about most? SOMETIMES
5. Do you work more than 40 hours a week? SOMETIMES
6. Do you turn your hobbies into moneymaking ventures? YES
7. Do you take complete responsibility for the outcome of your work efforts? YES
8. Have your family or friends given up expecting you on time? NO
9. Do you take on extra work because you are concerned that it won't otherwise get done? YES
10. Do you underestimate how long a project will take and then rush to complete it? NO
11. Do you believe it's okay to work long hours if you love what you're doing? YES
12. Do you get impatient with people who have other priorities besides work? NO
13. Are you afraid that if you don't work hard you will lose your job or be a failure? NO
14. Is the future a constant worry for you even when things are going very well? NO
15. Do you do things energetically and competitively, including play? SOMETIMES
16. Do you get irritated when people ask you to stop doing your work in order to do something else? YES
17. Have your long hours hurt your family or other relationships? NO
18. Do you think about your work while driving, falling asleep or when others are talking? YES
19. Do you work or read during meals? YES
20. Do you believe more money will solve the other problems in your life? NO


9! I'm definitely in the running.

But look. For a change an academic is making more sense.

... psychologist Dr Lynley McMillan, who surveyed 421 employees and their partners for her doctoral thesis at Waikato University, found that those with "workaholic" symptoms, such as finding it hard to stop work and thinking about work outside work hours, did not meet key tests for an addiction.

Unlike alcoholics or drug addicts, the workers' ratings of themselves on measures of workaholism closely matched their partners' assessments of them, and both they and their partners reported relationships that were just as good as those of workers without any "workaholic" symptoms.

Dr McMillan concluded relationships could thrive as long as both partners had "matching working styles".

So what we need is more 'workaholics' producing lots of potential partners. If I needed one I'd be looking for a 9. But more importantly I'd be looking for one that knew how to mind their own business, understood the meaning of freedom and choice and didn't lecture me about how to run my life. Rare as hen's teeth. Fortunately I've already got one.

Please Mr Price leave us alone. It's bad enough with nanny incessantly hectoring us about work life balance. Enough.

Holiday job

I've decided to try my hand at growing veges. A small patch was required. Where to put it? Out of the way. Vege gardens aren't the most aesthetic things. Putting in a few more steps is no big deal. Here it is.



You wouldn't want to suffer from vertigo but the view is fantastic. Hope my carrots and broccoli appreciate it (if they survive the possums.)

On the way up to the skyline vege patch is this resting spot. The cabbage trees are from the 2005 ACT conference. My contribution to the stage decoration. They have grown rather well, unlike our parliamentary representation. But 2008 is another year. And I am ever the optimist.

Putting the statistics in context

Earlier this week the Minister for Social Development, Ruth Dyson, was reported as being "unconcerned" about the large increase in young people on sickness and invalid benefits, saying the overall increase was "hardly a change at all".

Welfare commentator Lindsay Mitchell today offered to help the Minister put the statistics for young people in context.

"At the end of October there were 1,250 16-17 year-olds receiving an invalid or sickness benefit. In the United Kingdom, also experiencing a huge problem with dependency on incapacity benefits, there were 6,600 16-17 year-olds on the equivalent benefits."

"The population of the United Kingdom is 15 times greater than New Zealand's yet they have only 5 times as many 16-17 year-olds receiving an incapacity benefit. This difference should alert the Minister to a problem urgently warranting concern - not indifference or complacency."

Minto and "myths about poverty"

From John Minto's column in today's New Zealand Herald;

The US has the highest levels of poverty in the Western world (more than 30 million) despite one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. Why would this be?

Poverty in the US is relative poverty. The US has a very high number because it has a very large population. 30 million is around 1 in 10.

One way to measure relative poverty is to base it on average median income, draw the line at half and count those falling beneath it. This report tells us that using that method 1 in 10 Australians is also living in poverty.

Another way of measuring relative poverty is based on calculating average household income (usually equivalised for size of family), drawing a line at 50 or 60 percent and counting every household that falls beneath that line.

According to MSD, the proportion of New Zealanders living in families with incomes less than 60% of the median income, adjusted for family size, housing costs and inflation since 1998, has fallen from 22% in 2001 to 19% in 2004.

At 50 percent the number falls to around one in ten also.

Now let's look at Minto's answer to his own question;

Last year in the US the increase in income of the top 1 per cent of income earners was greater than the entire income of the bottom 20 per cent of the population. What this staggering statistic means is that the bottom 20 per cent of US citizens, all of whom live in poverty, could have had their incomes doubled if the wealthiest 1 per cent had simply forgone an increase in income last year.

That's not an answer. It's a tired clapped out leftist assertion. The poor are poor because the rich are rich and if money was taken off the rich and given to the poor, then the poor wouldn't be poor any more. Ah yes. We've seen how successfully that theory works in practice.

As Minto acknowledges, the US has the highest incomes per capita in the world. Their relative poor are the relative rich by third world standards. Their relative poor are richer than New Zealand's relative poor. The US is a much richer country than New Zealand. That's because too many New Zealanders have spent too much time listening to and believing fallacies promoted by the likes of Minto.

And he has the audacity to end by saying,

"(Mike) Moore has no excuse for peddling more myths about poverty."

What's yours John?

Pathetic

I shook my head as I watched and listened to Jhia Te Tua's father on TV3 tonight;

The mother of murdered Wanganui toddler Jhia Te Tua says she plans to leave the country to start a new life with her new baby boy.

Ria Gardiner will leave behind her Black Power partner Josh Te Tua, who says he sees no other option but return to Wanganui and avenge his daughter, who was killed during a drive-by gang shooting last year.

Te Tua has been undergoing counselling in the wake of his daughter’s death, but his anger at the 12 men charged over Jhia’s murder remains deeply entrenched.

The 22-year-old says revenge is inevitable and no plans to return to Wanganui and the Black Power.

While the 12 charged over Jhia’s death face a depositions hearing in Wellington next month, Te Tua himself will also be before the courts in Wanganui for an unrelated incident.

He, along with three associates, is charged with using a firearm against police and could face jail.

Jia Gardiner says she is awaiting her baby boy’s birth certificate and then plans a new life in Australia with family, away from the conflict.

During the interview he said, struggling, It's the anger thing......

More like it's the excitement thing. Exacting utu is more exciting than being a dad caring for his son. Pathetic and very sad.