Dodgy Dyson

National MP Judith Collins made a calculating error, according to Minister for Social Development Ruth Dyson. She took total the total number of beneficiaries in debt and divided it by the total number of working-age beneficiaries. Dyson labelled this 'New Maths'.

Dyson prefers to count in superannuitants, of which there are around half a million, even though the vast majority have no debt to Work and Income. The predictable result is that the percentage of beneficiaries in debt is a modest-looking 19.8 percent.

In reality the number of working age beneficiaries in debt is almost half. On the DPB it rises to 60 percent.

Dyson's creative maths is more devious and dodgy than Collin's 'New' maths even if it is statistically correct.

Refuting Rogernomics myths

I listen to a lot of talkback radio because it gives me a feel for where people sit. It's reasonably representative politically. The conversation about the return of Roger Douglas has been substantial over the past week. As you would expect the positions are polarised. But the support is higher than I expected. Sometimes my view of the average intelligence of voters is tarnished by the seeming preponderance of political ignoramuses but this week my faith has been rekindled by the callers who can talk knowledgeably about economic philosophy and are prepared to debate the ideas. What is also needed are a few facts and figures that squash the mindless myths that have grown up around Rogernomics.

Some callers, especially to Willie Jackson, have talked about suicides due to redundancies, the hearts being ripped out of small town New Zealand, with Jackson running the line that Douglas is a 'mongrel'. (The 'mongrel' had the guts to ring in by the way and will appear for a question and answer session some time in April.)

But let's have a look at the claim that Rogernomics caused widespread and devastating unemployment.



Clearly New Zealand was not alone during the early 90s and not the worst-off either in terms of unemployment. None of the other countries experiencing high unemployment had implemented the sorts of economic reforms NZ had. Roger Kerr talks about the effects of 'disinflation' being significant during this period. Why did new monetary policy focus so heavily on controlling inflation? Rampant inflation during the 70s and 80s had a lot to do with the employment slump of the early 90s.

Another caller talked about how New Zealand's GDP per capita tumbled due to Rogernomics. "Rogernomics is why we are now 22nd in the OECD", he said.



We had already fallen from being near the top in the 50s to 18th by 1982.

I don't want this election campaign to be about fighting past battles but ACT must be able to quickly and simply refute the claims made by those who will attack them. Candidates should remember a few statistical facts that can be absorbed and are indisputable.

Without the reforms things would have gotten a lot worse. With them New Zealand's recovery was faster. What a shame Douglas never got the chance to finish the job. What a shame he never got his flat tax in. What a shame Labour have managed to undo much of the achievement by ramping up government spending and regulation.

And isn't it great to be having some real debate between left and right economic theory, debate about the future of the country, instead of a personality contest between Helen Clark and John Key?

Hallelujah

So Roger Douglas would abolish Working For Families. Fantastic. There is so much wrong with that grand redistribution scheme;

1/ Redistribution always involves privilege for one and punishment for another with the government deciding who is the winner and who is the loser. It accords too much power to the state.

2/ The dead-weight cost of redistributing money is utter waste.

3/ When people receive money without commensurate effort they work less. That is bad for productivity.

4/ As an attempt to boost fertility rates redistribution to families with children has not been successful. Note some of the most 'family-friendly' European countries have low fertility rates. The US has the highest in the OECD.

5/ WFF has created very high effective marginal tax rates. In fact some people are no better off if they boost their income through advancement or longer hours, as they move into the top tax rate bracket and lose WFF benefits. WFF dulls ambition.

6/ WFF is the hallmark of Labour governments. It is all the old schemes dressed up in new cloths. These schemes have never achieved their stated goals.

7/ Redistribution creates resentment amongst those who are not beneficiaries. In this case young, childless people. It contributes to their motivation to leave New Zealand.

8/ With WFF being used as a voting bribe, the cost of promoting it has been enormous including ridiculous expenses like megabucks to commission a musical theme.

9/ WFF acts as a subsidy to employers. The wrong people (not those targeted) end up benefiting.

Look. It is simple. Let everybody keep more of their own money. Let individuals take responsibility for their own decisions. The flow-on will be far more beneficial than any government attempts to grand plan society. Thank God someone of influence is talking sense at last. Again - hallelujah!! It's a good day.

Media Release
COMPULSORY DNA TESTING ANOTHER UNWELCOME CONSEQUENCE OF DPB
Thursday, March 20, 2008

The need for compulsory DNA testing to establish paternity is a further unwelcome consequence of the DBP system, says Lindsay Mitchell, welfare commentator.

"Since the introduction of the DPB in 1973, more and more women have resorted to welfare to raise their children. The application process involves naming the father of their child or children, with the state seeking recompense from him by way of child support payments. The father is responsible for these payments, which are calculated by way of an iniquitous formula, until the child turns 18 (and sometimes 19 according to circumstance). Naturally, cases arise whereby the father wishes to confirm his paternity. To deny him this right is indefensible. However that is what the courts have been doing if the mother refuses consent to a DNA test."

"Before the DPB, income for single mothers came from work or temporary social security assistance. There was far less incentive to have a child alone or leave a relationship. Whereas in 1966 only 7.5 percent of families were single parent, today the figure has grown to 28 percent. Consequently the number of disputes over parentage has also risen."

"Fathers should financially support their children. But while we have a system that encourages women to have babies on the back of welfare, with the estranged father expected to recompense the taxpayer, it is imperative he is able to confirm that he is indeed the biological father. "

"If state assistance was returned to a short term hand-up, far fewer people would become single parents and far fewer paternity disputes would occur."

Background; United Future MP Judy Turner is promoting a bill to allow courts to order compulsory DNA testing to establish paternity

Paternity testing

In light of the post below it is entirely reasonable to expect that a good number of children have mothers who have lied about their parentage. It is sad that social policy which encourages such exploitation had led us to a situation whereby courts now need to be able to issue DNA-testing orders that confirm a child's biological father.

It's a simple matter. Fathers have a right to know. Well done Judy Turner. And Judith Collins, if this law change is what you "have been talking about it for a long time" why didn't you draw up a bill? Don't try and steal United Futures's thunder.

The fairer sex

In this land where feminist doctrine dominates public policy, where men have supplanted money as the root of all evil, where the bond between biological mother and child is sacred but bond between father and child is disposable, isn't it surprising to find that women are almost 3 times more likely to defraud Work and Income? Perhaps the women who cheat and steal are models of good behaviour in every other respect.

Oxymoron

A group of Pacific men band together to persuade others that being tough guys isn't the way to raise a family and they call themselves .... Gladiators??

Wilfil ignorance

National MP Judith Collins is attempting, with a series of WPQs, to ascertain how many people on the DPB began there as a teenager. As part of her answer, the Minister for Social Development, Ruth Dyson, has written,

"I am advised that the Ministry of Social Development's current statistical system only holds complete benefit history for people who commenced their first benefit since June 1996."

This is a departure from their last letter to me (on this subject) dated December 2006;

"The following tables only record benefits that commenced after January 1 1993. As I advised you in my previous response....the Ministry does not hold accurate electronic information on benefit recipients granted benefit prior to this date."

What a piss-poor performance this is. At this rate they will soon hold no data. Or none they are obliged to release.

Based on my information, at December 2006 at least 37,600 or 37 percent of current DPB recipients had first received a benefit as a teenager. If complete benefit histories could be accessed the percentage is likely to be much higher.

The DPB is a trap for teenagers. And it produces families from which much social dysfunction emanates. The emotional and economic costs incurred by these families could be significantly curtailed but nobody has the guts to do anything about current policy.

Breaking the monopolies

First, an explanation of why so little blogging. As mentioned earlier I took a local shop to have a painting sale two weeks ago. The sale went moderately well but the interest in commissioned pastels was enormous. Hence I have extended the arrangement and am working there every day.

But I did want to respond to this comment from yesterday.

Did anything come out of the ACT conference, or from Douglas's mouth to say you're going to reduce the size of the State? NO! Like the socialist Key, you're still talking about merely curtailing it at the level it is now.

The media, as I pointed out yesterday, didn't report on the content of Rodney or Roger's speeches.

The major thrust of Roger's speech was getting politicians and bureaucrats out of education, health and welfare by breaking state monopolies. It was all about competition and choice. I had never heard Roger speak before and was impressed with his conviction about how much better services could be with private providers. This is his holy grail. If ACT is no better than National I am missing something (and so is the PM who yesterday said, "....the National Party only stands for power and people in ACT at least have things they believe in and they believe in them quite passionately....they're not my beliefs, in fact I am quite strongly opposed to them, but I do credit them with having a belief system and that I think is something National just puts aside as being desperate for power.")

While some policies will not go as far as I and other libertarians want them to, a gradualist doesn't take an all or nothing approach. The education policy, detailed in Rodney's speech, doesn't abolish state schools but it does open the door to more private schools and deal with the inequity of taxpayers paying twice for their children's education. Parents would no longer be forced to send their children to substandard schools. It wouldn't be just the 'rich' who would have choice.

National, on the other hand, can't even lend their support to bulk funding any more.

Hell, yes

For the media the ACT conference was all about the return of Roger Douglas. That is what they have covered, speculating on his reasons for returning and the possible implications. The media are not particularly interested in ACT ideas and ACT policies. Or one would have to make this assumption based on their coverage. It's personalities and political shenanigans.

Roger Douglas laid out clearly in his speech what is wrong with this country. As I listened it struck me that Labour has done an awful lot of damage in nine years. But nine years is a long time and much of it has already receded into the murky past and we've forgotten. The results are low productivity, low wage growth, huge rate rises, substantial increased costs to doing business; we trail most other OECD countries in many areas - not just GDP per capita - then we have violent crime increasing, social problems escalating, the loss of so many skilled people. It doesn't have to be like this. But people get up and go, admittedly to countries with some of the same problems, but they feel emotionally disconnected from those problems. It's a relief not to have to care in the same way because it isn't your country that is failing to deal with problems that are fixable.

So am I standing? Hell yes. I don't want to. But I have no choice. As Roger put it, we can't keep standing on the sidelines. And if he can find the energy and time to make a commitment to make New Zealand a better place for everybody then so can I.

ACT is back

National Party Conference - 600 delegates

Labour Party Conference - 700 delegates

ACT Party Conference - 200 delegates



Not bad for a 1% party.

Bugger the polls!

Party pill palaver

Another senseless ban passed in parliament last night.

The bill passed 109 to 11 with only the Green, Maori and Act parties opposing.

Thanks National, the party of individual freedom and choice - huge joke.

And what is it with the contradictory, contrary Greens who want to tell us what we can and can't consume in the foodline but not in the recreational drugline.

The Maori Party??? Hone Harawira talks convincingly about the dangers of prohibition creating black markets and crime but wants to ban cigarettes.

How I long for some consistency and principle from the big house on the hill.

(BTW - Who abstained? 11 should be 12)

Aboriginal apology rejected

John Howard, backed by Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson, says Rudd's apology was wrong. A later generation cannot apologise for the actions of a former and the act of apologising risks the 'box ticked' mentality whereby nothing else gets done.

"I think we persevered for too long with the notion of separate development. I think the only way the indigenous people of Australia can get what we call a 'fair go' is for them to become part of the mainstream of the community and get the benefits and opportunities available from mainstream Australian society, whilst recognising … the particular and special place of the indigenous culture in the life of the country," he said.

I agree. The same sentiment should hold for Maori and other indigenous people.

"Children don't come first"

This is a heartbreaker and in my experience the 'authorities' are hitting the nail on the head.

The case has highlighted concerns held by child agencies about child neglect.

Hamilton-based Child Protection Studies chief executive Anthea Simcock said neglect was one of the most under-estimated and under-reported types of child abuse.

"Fifteen years ago if you said `child abuse' everyone would have thought `sex abuse'. In the last seven or eight years we've had so many reports of child death Coral Burrows, James Whakaruru ... and the last year or two people have become more aware of abuse suffered when witnessing family violence, the emotional or physical neglect of being in the way."

Mrs Simcock said with neglect it wasn't what people did, rather "it's them not doing things". "It's often because of ignorance, often because of pressures on their own life and often because children don't come first."

Without getting into discussions about children's emotional needs across their ages, very young children must come first. They are incredibly physically vulnerable and need at least one individual dedicated to caring for them around the clock. That means knowing exactly where they are and what they are doing.

This instance wasn't just neglect. It was gross neglect. And I have seen too much of it. Children given less attention and love than many would give their pets. Readers of this blog (as I do) will take for granted the care and attention they received as babies and toddlers. That's as it should be. And the habit is passed on.

Unfortunately bad habits are also transmitted through generations. People who do not understand the commitment that comes with a child should never be encouraged and incentivised to have babies. But in New Zealand they are. And that's crazy and tragic.

No justification for junket

I cannot come up with any reasonable justification for or defence of this.

Are we more upwardly mobile?

Colin James has a good column in the NZ Herald today in which he argues that upward mobility is important for sustained economic growth.

In his February 7 speech, Cullen argued that Labour's workplace regulation and "fairness" spending in the 2000s enhanced economic growth. He is premature. The boom was in large part debt binge-fuelled. We have yet to live through the bust.

A big reducer of inequality has been the transition of large numbers from benefits to jobs, more a factor of business growth and, in part, 1990s policies than Cullen's spending. Societal changes are likely to affect economic growth rates only after a lag.

There is no denying the movement from benefits to jobs but let's qualify which benefits. The dole. Yes. Sickness and Invalid - some but newcomers or returners have added to overall substantial and steady growth. Although numbers on the DPB have been dropping there are still well over one hundred thousand single parents reliant on welfare. To put that into some sort of context there are just over half a million NZ families with dependent children. Around 22 percent depend on welfare. The vast majority of these are single parents. In low socio-economic schools children from welfare homes can make up the majority.

The left constantly harps on about the growing gap between haves and have-nots as if the greedy 'rich' are somehow to blame. The gap (which is more about values than income) in NZ society is growing because poor, predominantly brown children are growing up without a working parent. All they know is WINZ the provider. They are concentrated in poor areas and the likes of my kids have no experience of them and vice versa. I cast my mind back to growing up in 60s NZ when most families were headed by two parents. My closest friend's parents were Pacific and American and they both worked at General Motors. They lived in a small house which was home to 9 children. It was a different experience to mine and I spent much of my time there. The oldest daughter got pregnant and the child was brought up in the family. Today she would almost certainly have left home and gone on welfare. In other words in the 60s this family produced upwardly mobile children. Today it might not.

Because NZ society has become increasingly segregated due to the growth of one parent families on the back of welfare. Naenae in the sixties was a pleasant suburb with a modern shopping centre. We would visit it most weeks when I lived in Avalon. Now it is to be avoided. Naenae Work and Income is nanny to over a thousand single parents. Sure, many will be struggling to do their best, living in one of the few areas their budget can stretch to. But they have to send their kids to schools where dysfunctional kids make everybody's learning that much harder. Again harder to get an education. Harder to maximise opportunity. Harder to get ahead.

The poorest NZ families are those on welfare. Too many are there by choice, either consciously or sub-consciously. The days of blaming unemployment are over. It is welfare that has driven the re-emergence of a class-based society with a large group stuck at the bottom with poor prospects of being more productive than their parents. With easily available and relatively generous welfare, the left has achieved exactly what they set out to destroy.

PM apologises

This is good. The PM is apologising for the last Labour government. She is reported on NewstalkZB news saying Roger Douglas ran rampant in the last Labour administration, did things he shouldn't have, sold things he shouldn't have and then went off to ACT. Yes. The PM can obviously see value in publicising Roger Douglas and ACT at National's cost.

Not being left doesn't make you right

Deborah Coddington has called for ACT to become the "hard-ass" party. They should select candidates that don't mind being called right-wing because the attempt to explain ACT through the 'liberal' tag failed.

The trouble is I do mind being labelled right-wing. Not being left-wing doesn't make one right-wing. And extreme right-wing is synonymous with racist and redneck which is why ACT shouldn't accept the label.

But Deborah makes a few suggestions for potential candidates, one being Peter Douglas. From what I remember of Douglas he was one of the rare Maori prepared to speak against welfare. As head of Maori Strategy for CYFS he called for a review of the DPB in 2001 saying, "I think we should be thinking about the damage that those benefits do to some communities. Because it takes away the need for ambition, it takes away a sense of responsibility and sets young people on a trail of entitlement.”

Having a candidate like Douglas would give those Maori who want to vote based on race a real alternative. But he shouldn't be there for that reason primarily. He should be there for the ideas and the ability to implement them.

I was also interested in her comment that Rodney opposed the 'liberal' tag because "it wasn't true". I take this to mean that he thought at the time ACT was still a mix of liberal and conservative elements. It doesn't follow that he should drop it now.

A serious chip on the shoulder

A couple of years back I read a rather raw and extreme speech which I hoped reflected a personal paranoia and not reality. Here is an excerpt;

This place is fucking appalling – men tell you what to do, men make you feel bad – men for the benefit of men shape the system. As students we are objectified – I have been one of the people who have made jokes about “easy first years” and I regret that – I did not do the sisterhood any favours. The reason why I made these jokes is because I bowed to covert peer pressure. I picked up on the language and I existed to be liked by men and envied by women but I was never going to be a fuckable first year so I went to student politics and that made me attractive to a whole other group of men – who run the place, who attack me, who judge me on whether they would fuck me or not.

University is a sad story for women and we don’t fight against it because we ignore it or see it as tough luck cause its normal.

Date rape, gang rape, sexual violence are all a norm here – it’s a joke because men make it so and they are the blokes, the boys club and they are putting us down and taking our jobs.

The place in question was Auckland University. The speaker ex-student President Kate Sutton. I mention this because I have noticed Kate is standing for Labour in Epsom. My knowledge of Epsom extends only to the fact that Rodney Hide is their current MP.

It appears Labour are not seriously entertaining changing that.

Slack

I wanted to read Louisa Wall's maiden speech so went to the Labour Party website. No speech there. In fact she isn't even listed as an MP. Anne Hartley is though.

If Labour see Wall as a draw card for Maori they might need to start supporting her. Then again she may be about to experience the shortest parliament career ever. Can anybody think of a shorter one?

Pot calling kettle.....

And further on education, this is a gem. Rick Giles has locked horns with Stratford High School over the matter of blog accessibility. He received the following e-mail;

===== Original Message From =====
when you are able to determine that you are addressing the Principal of a school about a principle in practise perhaps we can take you seriously.
Regards
Diane ####
Principal’s PA

Notice the delicious irony in this piece of lofty high-handedness?

Paying for problems

The failure of the decile rating/funding system for schools is highlighted yet again by this report which shows one in five primary school children is anti-social, yet at the poorest schools the figure rises to over one in three. The problem is apparently that these schools are not adequately funded to deal with children with behavioural problems. I don't know why not. We have just received a bill for $350 for our local state school 'donation'. In fact this is the subsidy we pay to poor schools who get twice as much funding as ours. And still want more.

In any event it is the home lives of these children which lie at the heart of the problem. I would bet you anything you like that a large majority have come out of dysfunctional families created on the back of welfare. Which we also subsidised. That's the Kiwi way. We don't pay tax to solve problems. We pay it to create them.

'Menacing' but not 'dangerous'

This is a typical 'being seen to do something' farce.

In Palmerston North "There were about 100 dog attacks on living things each year, about 12 of those were on humans."

But council's head of environmental protection services Wayne Jameson said the fact the city had no dangerous dogs was a reflection of "very good dog behaviour".

And so...No one should have to pay extra for their dog registration because there are no dangerous dogs in Palmerston North.

I know. Some days you have to pinch yourself.

A strange case of mistaken identity

I can understand the mistake being made with a kitten or puppy but what gives here?

More teenage single parents on welfare than officially exist

I wonder how many people tell porkies to the Census taker? For some time I have been trying to get a figure for the number of mothers aged 15-19 at March 2006. The figure I have been provided with is 4,107. I have argued with Statistics New Zealand that this is too low given there are usually more births to 15-19 year-olds in one year alone.

Anyway, after double-checking, I am assured that is the figure established through the process of self-indentification. Of these mothers 2,586 said they were single. I pointed out to my contact that at March 2006 there were 2,894 18 and 19 year-olds on the DPB and a further 6-700 16 and 17 year-olds on the EMA. So roughly three and a half thousand teenage single parents are on a benefit for single mothers yet, according to the Census, only two and a half thousand teenage single parents officially exist??

One can only assume the 'missing' 1,000 are telling Work and Income they are single (to qualify for welfare) but telling the Census taker they have a partner.

(In case you are wondering there were only around 40-50 male 18-19 year-old single parents on a benefit so that doesn't account for the difference.)

No silver bullet

Although I appreciate the need to improve saving habits among Kiwis I do not approve of using taxpayer money as an incentive. I don't have a KiwiSaver account. But I know people who oppose it in principle who have nevertheless taken advantage of the 'free' money. Apparently I am an idiot not to.

A study from Waikato Management School has shown however that as a scheme to incentivise saving it may not be very efficient.

The study found between only 9 and 19 per cent of KiwiSaver cash was new savings. "The rest is either reshuffling among existing saving and debt by KiwiSaver members, or else taxpayer and employer transfers which decrease national saving elsewhere," Prof Gibson said. "When the deadweight loss of tax incentives is taken into account, along with the administration, compliance and implementation costs, then KiwiSaver is likely to lower rather than lift national saving."

Great. Another grand redistribution plan failing to achieve its purpose. Another Labour policy supported by National.

The "lump of lead"

Chris Trotter so has the knives out for Helen Clark it is almost enough to make you feel some sympathy for her. Almost. But I don't see Helen as a figure who would appreciate my sympathy so I'd best save it for a more deserving cause.

Trotter writes in today's Dominion Post;

"....the government's catastrophic [poll] numbers are being driven by Ms Clark's unpopularity not the party's....she was Labour's greatest asset, the wind beneath its wings. She has now become the lump of lead on its back.....Miss Clark is no Bill Clinton: she cannot look her supporters in the eye and say,'I feel your pain.' At heart, the prime minister is a diligent and rather uninspiring policy wonk, who has never really understood that politics is not about the head, but the heart....Labour's caucus needs to get its head around this - and soon. Because the longer it delays replacing Ms Clark as leader, the more time it is allowing voters to convince themselves (if they have not already done so) that Mr Key is the prime minister they are looking for."

Are Trotter's assertions honest or are they merely part of some ploy to save the Left? It could be a bob each way. If voters really do vote with their emotions to the fore, then his constant kicking of Clark turns her into an underdog and don't Kiwis love an underdog. Alternatively if he spooks Labour MPs enough he might succeed in causing a change of leadership. There is a third scenario too. That nobody gives a rat's arse for what Trotter has to say on the matter.

Around the blogosphere you would have to be blind not to notice that many commentors religiously loathe Clark. They seem to be mostly men. Their obsession with her personal life and looks is very unpleasant to behold. I have never understood this viciousness. What Clark stands for - socialism - is well worthy of stout and sustained attack but getting in a lather over what Clark looks like, or sounds like for that matter, is a waste of energy.

My husband doubts Clark can come back now because that's just not what typically happens. Politically he has more nous than I. But I am wondering how useful history or precedent is, for this reason. Clark is a woman. She is a feminist. The first elected female Prime Minister. The last three decades of NZ politics has been so influenced by women that I can't ignore what their reaction to Clark's sudden unpopularity will be. Simply, I wouldn't discount the women's vote swinging in behind Helen (or the Greens, to shore her up.)

I won't vote for Clark, but I couldn't disrespect someone who does so based on her experience, intelligence and ability to hold her nerve. Unlike Trotter she won't be prematurely....panicking.

We wanna hold your hand

Work and Income are offering financial assistance to people affected by the drought. No doubt it will be strictly means-tested. If the drought results in people having no work then I guess the assistance is similar to the dole. Leaving aside any comment about what might be an improvement on our mandatory taxpayer-funded unemployment insurance scheme, I don't have much problem with genuinely warranted financial assistance.

BUT stress counselling???

Market research

For the next two weeks I will be having a painting sale at 25 Rimu St, Eastbourne. I was faced with the problem of what to do while captured in a shop all day, apart from meeting and talking to people. Working with oils and turps is too smelly and potentially messy in a confined space that does not belong to me. So I decided to bone up on my pastel drawing and offer pet portraits from photos. If necessary I can photograph the pet on the spot and download it to my laptop. I've produced these examples drawn from photos. Question:

How much to do you think is a reasonable price for one of these portraits given they take from 2 - 3 hours to complete? You can see the figure I have suggested but I tend to forget about tax etc (I am not registered for gst.)

Psychologists making sense

Now Deborah Morris asks us to give the anti-smacking law a chance in the NZ Herald. Notice like all of this law's advocates she insists on using the word 'hit' instead of 'smack'. I have never hit either of my children but I did, very occasionally, smack them or threaten to. I am prepared to concede there may have been alternatives but I am also sure that my children feel loved and secure. Which brings me to a piece which appears in the Dominion Post today but isn't on line. It reviews child psychologist Glen Stenhouse's book, You Don't Need To Smack.

The pleasant surprise is that Mr Stenhouse does not see anti-smacking legislation as an answer.

"Good parents object to the Government telling them how to parent and telling them what they can and can't do with their children in an area where they feel they're not doing anything to harm their children."

He believes that legislation isn't going to make any difference to the very small percentage of people who physically abuse their children.

Interestingly he talks about how parents have become so child-focussed they have created a situation where children are more assertive and challenging. Reading between the lines I think he believes children are over-parented.

"Parenting is not complicated. As long as kids have structure, and love and security and predictability in their lives, they will go with the flow."

Exactly. That's the problem for too many NZ children. They lack each or all of these things.

And speaking of sensible psychologists, the programmme with Nigel Latta about Taffy Hotene screened on TV last night was riveting.

Hotene's upbringing was appalling. The youngest of thirteen he was by all accounts horribly and frequently physically abused by parents and older siblings. He took to sleeping under the house to avoid the beatings.

But Nigel Latta doesn't just follow the psychological development of Hotene. He puts it into a moral context. He says (from memory) "We are right to feel sorry for that small child. But the little boy who went under the house never came out. I have dealt with people who have experienced similar in their lives and they never turned into selfish, calculating predators. There were people who were kind to Hotene along the way. He consciously and deliberately chose to murder Kylie Jones."

Thank goodness for some acknowledgement of self-determination for a change. There were too many people who thought they could change Hotene along the way. Marie Dyberg, for instance, thought that at a certain age there is always hope. A military style training course operator felt he was turning Hotene around until the police intervened. Latta thinks that they were being duped. Hotene could show a maverick and vulnerable side. He could also use that persona to lure victims.

Sadly giving physical expression to that 'hope' ultimately cost the life of a girl who, as Latta put it, was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was always on the cards that Hotene's history of violence would escalate to murder.

Minimal sanctions imposed

In 2003 the Labour government introduced Personal Development and Employment Plans for DPB beneficiaries in place of work-testing. To increase the effectiveness of these plans case managers can use sanctions for non-compliance eg the beneficiary loses a percentage of their payment (although they are later recompensed the equivalent amount if they do comply). This table shows how many sanctions have been imposed.

The overall picture suggests to me that like any new regime, its administration progressively tapers off.

Last year there were only 32 sanctions imposed for a total of 98,000 beneficiaries. And in Auckland, where a third of beneficiaries live, there were zero. Auckland, coincidentally, is the worst performer in reducing benefit numbers. Nearly half of the Auckland region Work and Income Centres experienced a rise in DPB numbers during 2007. Clearly most people will by now have cottoned on that their PDE plans aren't worth the paper they are written on in terms of how diligently Work and Income will pursue them. No wonder a report written about their implementation found beneficiaries were binning them on the way out.

Unfinished business

TV3 reports Sir Roger Douglas is returning to ACT. Why?

Because Labour and National are too alike.

That's a pretty good reason.

Cradle to grave....

In 2007 Work and Income provided 5,075 funeral grants.

The same year there were 28,520 deaths.

Therefore 18 percent (or near to one in five) funerals are paid for by the taxpayer.

That's a sizeable subsidy.

And it probably rises significantly in certain areas.

Interesting.

I imagine there are some very high profile deaths in amongst the subsidised funerals.

Vacuous comments

Vacuous comments that caught my eye in today's Dominion Post. I thought of ranking them but can't decide which is worse:


Translate as , "I can't wait to be a Minister again."




The police liquor licensing officer commenting on how Easter trading laws will shut down city bars and the impact on the two-day Easter rock concert coming up at the stadium.




And finally Business NZ CE, Phil O'Reilly at the end of a lengthy opinion piece entitled, "All bound up in creeping red tape." Nobody has been thinking harder about the burden of regulation than Rodney Hide. Yet in seven or eight hundred words, Phil O'Reilly manages to completely overlook ACT's Regulatory Responsibility Bill.

The juvenile cat

The Xmas kitten is now a young cat. From these photos you wouldn't suspect that, when awake, she is a lethal killing machine. But she is less efficient than our older cat and occasionally, in the process, loses her prey to inaccessible places. We do not discover this until our noses tell us. Accusations of unwashed feet and breaking wind have been unkindly levelled. Eventually some rather unpleasant discoveries have been made. As you can imagine the heat hasn't helped. She also has a rather peculiar habit. Like young humans who take comfort in sucking on a dummy, Daisy likes to suck the end of her tail. None of this has put off her faithful friend - the dog.

The real debate

Smacking debate has moved on

Today's NZ Herald editorial invites a number of responses. I have only focussed on one aspect of it.

Dear Editor

If you are right and New Zealanders have "moved on" from the anti-smacking debate then that is a real shame. Because the debate is about far more than whether or not a smack is an acceptable way to discipline a child. That should be a matter for private individuals to decide. Not agents of the state who wish to impose their thinking by force.

The increasing intrusion by those who would harness political power to alter morality has gone on for too long now. The 'rights' movement - from women's to human to children's - hasn't been a raging success. Governments have not been able to engineer a kinder, more caring society. In most cases they have swapped one problem for another, usually worse one. It is not the role of the governments to run our social lives. Their job is to maintain law and order and fulfil a very few economic functions that individuals alone can not. It is only relatively recently (in historic terms) that they have charged themselves with the task of telling people how to think and behave.

If New Zealanders have moved on from that debate then we truly are easy meat.

The Commissioner speaks

On the matter of the petition that today exceeded 300,000 signatures and asks that New Zealanders have a say in parenting their children, Cindy Kiro says,

"If the petition backers truly cared about good parenting, they would, like all the reputable national and international child welfare organisations, be encouraging positive parenting. They would acknowledge that we know more about parenting and child health and development now than we did in our parents’, grandparents’ and great grandparents’ times."

We must all be profoundly grateful for the existence of such a wise and all-knowing Children's Commissioner. She recognises there is nothing to be learned from the past (unless it's tikanga passed through her whakapapa). She knows traditions serve no purpose. What came before should be spurned and replaced with the new knowledge.

Because latter generations have increasingly turned out well-adjusted, healthy, law-abiding, independent citizens, while our parents, their parents and grandparents failed to, embracing what Sue Bradford now calls "the forces of ignorance and bigotry".

What a wonderful new age of enlightenment we now live in. Free from youth crime, tagging, gangs, murder and mayhem. None of our children would dream of leaving such a paradise.

Posterity will be forever indebted to you Commissioner.

Utter hypocrisy

What a hypocrite Jim Anderton is. Here he is attacking National for promising an interest free loan to the meat export industry (quite right too);

"...And it [National] won’t say if it intends to use taxpayers’ money to subsidise our most important export companies, which we need to be successful in their own right.”

Hang on. What about Creative New Zealand and their looonnng list of grants? The Ministry of Economic Development with all their hand-outs to business? Why doesn't he apply his logic and indignation to all those beneficiaries who also "need to be successful in their own right"?

Mr Anderton is on very shaky ground here. He shows he understands the principle of letting enterprises fail or succeed on their own merit but only applies it when it suits his political purposes.

This is the kind of absurdity we will have to endure this year while leftists try to defend their patch against the marauding copy-cat National party.

Murupara

Murupara College is apparently plagued by violence, drug use and abuse of teachers and students.

Now, whenever left-wing politicians and other various advocates talk about the issue of family violence they always drop in the obligatory, "Family violence is not unique to any one community. It happens across all cultures and social classes." Strictly speaking that may be true but the statement should be qualified with, "...but it predominates among poor, brown, incomplete families."

We know that the issues affecting the home, violence and drug/alcohol abuse, spill over into the schools and community. So let's have a look at what else is going on in Murupara.

38.1 percent of people in Murupara were under the age of 15 years, compared with 27.2 percent in Whakatane District and 22.7 percent for all of New Zealand.

It is a very young population.

23.8 percent of people in Murupara said they belong to the European ethnic group, compared with 67.0 percent for Whakatane District and 80.1 percent for all of New Zealand.

Almost 90 percent say they belong to the Maori ethnic group (explained by identifying with more than one group.)

The median income of people in Murupara is $11,900, compared with $15,900 for Whakatane District and $18,500 for all of New Zealand.The total average annual spending for households in Murupara was $30,529 compared with $38,351 for households in Whakatane District and $43,682 for the whole of New Zealand.

They are relatively poor. The school is decile one. The poorest.

And finally the most common family type is one parent with children at 43.3% of all families compared to a national average of 18.9 percent.

Murupara is just one of many small North Island towns with a similar profile and no doubt similar problems. Their lifeblood is welfare. They are a bit like gangs. Sure there are other sources of income but these are sporadic. The regular "pay" comes from Work and Income. And probably a good number of the men are shacked up with the women who identify as single parents and depend on the DPB.

That's just the way it is.

NB The stats are from Census 2001. Between 2001 and 2006 the population of the district was pretty much static. I would be surprised if there was significant change in Murupara.

OECD reports on NZ Youth

The OECD has just released a report, Jobs For Youth, New Zealand. Some of it is positive but this is not;

"....there is a hard-core of youth who are at high risk of poor labour market outcomes and social exclusion. Among them are most of the 11% of youth aged 15-24 who are neither in employment nor in education or training. This rate is in line with the OECD average, but it is still much higher than the best-performing countries – notably Denmark, Iceland and the Netherlands – where it stands at 6% or less. Among the hard-core group, Māori and Pasifika youth are more than twice as likely not to be in employment, education or training as Pakeha youth (those of European descent). There is evidence that some of the young people neither in employment nor in education or training in New Zealand find it very difficult to get a job or go back to education. About one-third of youth who were not working or studying in 2003 were in the same situation two years later."

No surprises there. Unfortunately this hard-core group have plenty of time on their hands for making babies. Thus ensuring another generation that will follow in their footsteps. And New Zealand makes this a moral and viable option.

Art and politics

This is my entry into the biennial National Portrait Competition. The exhibition opened this evening at Shed 11 and runs until April 2. Around 100 paintings were selected from 300 entries. Rodney was good enough to pose for me and I really appreciated it. We had rather a few laughs in the process....with a serious moment caught in between. I wanted to catch the intensity that he often conveys in his expression or just a look. When the painting was still sitting in my studio I had a plasterer doing some work in there. He said to me, "Your paintings are awesome. That politician guy is scary. Every time I look up his eyes are staring at me and they are so real."



The awful thing about the opening was the chappy who sponsors the whole thing (Mr Adam and good on him for it) actually believes the government should be doing it - or at least paying for a permanent portrait gallery. Every opening (I've been in each since 1998) he tells us so. So it turns into a bit of a bitch session against politicians. Rodney brought along Katherine Rich so the two of them had to endure the audience enthusiastically applauding this man chastising them and government - not that I thought it was bothering them particularly. For me, his words couldn't have fallen on less sympathetic ears. The artists all paid an entry fee regardless of whether their painting was hung or not and the gallery will pocket commission on any sales. The gallery I usually exhibit at doesn't rely on the government. Any commercial enterprise could sponsor a NZ Portrait Gallery. But, really, artists seem to be predominantly elitist, gimme, whingers. And their private patrons would gladly pass the task onto government. Another band of state-lovers who just don't understand that government funding corrupts the best intentions. We don't need it. If it's good, if it has value, someone will pay - willingly.

Lessons in life

This is an e-mail from nearly 3 years ago. I wrote it during the 2005 election campaign;

Yesterday I went calling on businesses in ____. I spent a long time talking to a man (who wants to remain unnamed for obvious reasons)
who runs, amongst other transport operations, a towing and salvage outfit. He does contract work for the police.

Frequently he tows vehicles that belong to beneficiaries. They ring up to find out how much recovery costs. They can't pay. Then they ring WINZ and plead they need the car for getting the kids to creche or doctor etc. Next thing is WINZ rings him for his bank account number and they deposit the fee on behalf of the beneficiary. He mentioned a figure of around $300. He says this happens frequently. So, in his words, the govt pays to tow away and impound the vehicle and then pays for its recovery to the owner.

I guess the payments may be "grants" but when you see how much deeper into debt many beneficiaries are getting (see growth in special benefit) I doubt they get repaid.


My son was watching National MP, Judith Collins expounding on the issue on the news last night. He said to me, "Do you think that when I get a car and a job if I go into WINZ they will give me the money to get my car back if it gets towed away?"

I think he was being sarcastic but I replied, only if you were on a benefit and then they would wipe your bottom for you if you asked. He disgustedly screwed his nose up. I think I have permanently put him off the idea of asking Work and Income for anything.

"A welfare state revolution"

I am afraid I have gotten a bit out of date with what is going on in the UK. Their welfare system is very similar the ours.

The great-grandson of Sigmund Freud, an investment banker who apparently gets given all the dirty jobs, was hired to review the British welfare system. Here is some of what he found;

"It's a mess nobody understands or can manage."

"There are about 3.1 million people not working, I think we can get about 1.4 million back to work."

"The system we have at the moment sends 2.64 million people into a form of economic house arrest and encourages them to stay at home and watch daytime TV. We're doing nothing for these people."

"If you want a recipe for getting people on to IB [incapacity benefit], we've got it: you get more money and you don't get hassled. You can sit there for the rest of your life. And it's ludicrous that the disability tests are done by people's own GPs - they've got a classic conflict of interest and they're frightened of legal action."

Mr Freud's recommendation? Privatise the unemployment problem. Pay employers a huge fee to keep a previously unemployed person in a job for 3 years. Treat everyone on benefits not working the same (except for lone parents with children under school
age.)

"We can pay masses - I worked out that it is economically rational to spend up to £62,000 on getting the average person on Incapacity Benefit into work."

"[There is] one simple reason why it's got to be the private sector. You cannot incentivise someone on payment-by-results if the person who is paying is the Chancellor of the Exchequer. There has to be some risk."

"The point about my approach is you don't need to make a huge fuss about categorising people - everyone should be able to work."

Mr Freud has now been hired by the new Secretary for the Department of Work and Pensions (WINZ equivalent) to help implement "nothing less than a revolution in the welfare state."

I will watch with interest.

Source: The Welfare State We're In

The smacking debate goes on

"I had not expected a serious campaign to overturn last year's amendment to Section 59 of the Crimes Act to be part of the election year, but now we have at least one political party, ACT, who seems prepared to go to the polls on a platform of re-legalising the hitting of children."

So says Sue Bradford.

ACT wants parents to be able to raise their children as they see fit, not as the state sees fit. If parents inflicted harm on their children laws existed to deal with that.

There are a number of countries which have rejected calls for anti-smacking legislation - Australia and the UK are just two - preferring the status quo. Public opinion has held sway. In New Zealand public opinion lost. ACT should make no apologies for standing, in this case, firmly with the majority. And they shouldn't tolerate that position being misrepresented by Sue Bradford.

Just a theory

In 1990 for every 24 road injuries there was one fatality.

In 2006 for every 38 road injuries there was one fatality.

More people are surviving road crashes.

Where am I going with this?

What if we replaced road injuries with assaults and concluded more people are surviving assaults? That would mean the murder rate would be dropping irrespective of the assault rate.

In fact that is what is happening. That is what Jim Anderton bases his specious decreasing-violence claims on. The rate of death through intentional injury has fallen. But the rate of serious and grievous assault is climbing.

The same can be seen in the rate of child death due to intentional injury. It has dropped. But the rate of known child abuse has not.

The medical fraternity are getting better at saving the lives of injured people. Whether the injury was the result of an accident or inflicted intentionally is irrelevant.

The argument would be that the injuries from car crashes and/or assaults are not as serious or life-threatening today. That would take some proving. It is more likely that the survival rate is higher regardless of the seriousness of the injury. This is also evidenced in the rapidly climbing number of invalids.

Where there's a will, there is a way

Source: Police Department City of New York

New York law enforcement classes murder, rape, robbery, felonious assault and GLA (I think) as violent crime. Between 1998 and 2007 the change was -53%.

New Zealand's violent crime rose from 40,221 in 97/98 to 52,883 in 06/07 - a change of +31%

Squabbling over paying state school fees

The principal of one Hamilton school refuses to pay the "donation" due for his two daughters who attend another Hamilton school. He says,

"...the way Te Pahu School was getting money off parents was ethically and morally wrong."

He says the school should make it clear that the fee is voluntary. It is a "donation" and not a "fee" or "levy".

Here's the bit I found interesting (but the reporter didn't pick up on). The objecting principal is Mr Shane Ngatai.

Mr Ngatai said instead of asking parents to pay, principals should "cut their cloth" according to their resources. They should budget to be without the extra money.

But Mr Ngatai is the principal of a decile 3 school, which means his school will be receiving considerably more funding from the ministry per head than the school he is criticising, which is a decile 9 school. Here's the response from the 'richer' school.

Te Pahu School principal Jeff Falconer said the school ran at a deficit and this year had to find 20-30 per cent of its income through fundraising.

So the 'winner' from the variable funding system is criticising the 'loser'.

What they should both be criticising is the state funding system. It attempts to equalise outcomes but fails miserably (decile 10 schools have double the NCEA pass rate of decile 1). What it succeeds at is creating envy and resentment.

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.