Hey Big Spender

The Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, 'Herself', spent a whopping 41.5 percent more last year.

In the year to May 2008 expenditure slid in at just under a $ billion (999 million to be exact). In the prior year she spent $706 million.

It's pretty damn disgusting when there are people unable to access life-saving surgery and pharmaceuticals, schools that are in a state of disrepair, businesses being broken by increasing taxes.

The plebeians are expected to prioritise their budgets wisely while government Ministers continue to act like the "rich pricks" they so despise.

Getting rid of the DPB

Yes. The government is going to get rid of the DPB. From April 2009 it will simply be known as income support. As will the problematic incapacity benefits.

Ms Dyson announced plans to scrap "stereotyped" names such as the dpb, and invalid and sickness benefits when the Government moves to a single core benefit next year - a change that will require the ministry to drop the names from all its brochures, letters, websites and training material from April.

This move, originally Steve I-know-of-no-social-science-that-says-the-nuclear-family-is-more-successful-than-other-kinds Maharey's big idea, has been heralded for a long time. The government's plan to introduce one single core benefit is par for the course - if you can't solve a problem, bury it. Minister Ruth Dyson says she wants to get rid of stereotypical names. What that means is she wants to destroy any stigma attached to being on a benefit instead of self-supporting. This has always been Labour's aim. The more people that receive state support the more 'normal' it becomes. So they are equalising everyone on benefits and overlapping them with people working but receiving income support.

A report from 2004 said, The Cabinet papers suggest the move to a single benefit is designed to break down entrenched attitudes and stereotypes about benefits and their purpose. The Cabinet papers: "Too much of the system is still inherited from a past in which jobs were scarce and it was assumed categories of people, and particularly people with health conditions or disabilities, couldn't work and didn't want to work."

So there it is again. This change is primarily about altering non-beneficiary attitudes. More psycho-social engineering. The politically correct process of changing the language to change how people think.

In practice this move will reduce transparency. It will be far more difficult to identify trends and problems. Under the present system we are able to quickly and easily identify that while unemployment has dropped, more individuals are now on other benefits.

At the moment there are a quarter of a million working-age people on various benefits and we can identify where the problems remain; which groups have longer durations dependent on welfare; which groups have dependent children; which groups present the biggest challenge.

National and ACT should both be strongly opposing this move.

Great Expectations

I was just thinking. What a revelation. One which had completely passed me by.

MANY CURRENT NATIONAL SUPPORTERS ARE EXPECTING THE INCOMING GOVERNMENT TO BE LIKE THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT OF THE EARLY NINETIES.

They are wrong. The next National government will be as dissimilar to the early nineties National administration as the current Labour government is to the late eighties Labour administration. They were both aberrations.

Anyone who wants anything resembling the government actions of late 80s/ early 90s needs to vote ACT. Don't take risks. Don't court disappointment. Don't waste another three years. We don't have time to throw away.

Hutt News coverage

(left click on image to read)

New work

Here's a recent effort. I saw this photo of the late Syd Jackson, or I should say, the black and white version used in the Dominion Post obituary. I discovered the internet version more latterly. It was one of those instances when I felt compelled to paint an image. Now I just need to find the right home for him.

Responding to Russel

Excerpt from Russel Norman's maiden speech;

The first item on the agenda of Savage’s first cabinet meeting in December 1935 was a Christmas bonus for the unemployed. This was not popular amongst the bankers in London – it was an act of compassion.

When was the last time we did that for beneficiaries? We punish the children of the poorest by refusing them the in-work payment of $60 per week. The truth is that we have yet to restore Jenny Shipley’s benefit cuts of 1991.

There is another memorial in Auckland. One dedicated to those who turned their backs on ordinary New Zealanders. In the Auckland CBD there is a memorial to Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson, it is a casino in the shape of a syringe. They created a society in which desperate people’s only hopes are pokies and drugs.

You’re gonna reap just what ya sow. And we are reaping in South Auckland and Bridge Pa.

Last month the Child Poverty Action Group said New Zealand had the fastest growth in income and wealth inequality in the OECD. And I’ll repeat that, because I didn’t say fastest GDP growth. I said that New Zealand had the fastest growth in income and wealth inequality. We are becoming more divided.

The latest figures show about 150,000 children in benefit families in significant or severe hardship.

These 150 000 are the children of the poor that have been forgotten. These are the children of the poor Michael Cullen’s last nine Budgets should have focussed on. These are the children of the poor John Key should stop posing with and start telling us how he’s going to offer hope to - assuming he wants to be more than a breathing replacement to a struggling Government.

And these may well become the teenagers and young adults who feature on our TV screens at 6 o’clock in a decade’s time.

We’re gonna reap what we sow.

I fear that the people in this room have forgotten their history. Is this the future Micky Savage had in mind? Is this his ‘applied Christianity’?

Dear Russel,

The benefits instigated in 1938 were paid for by a dedicated social security tax, not general taxation, and included unemployment, sickness and invalid benefits.

Mickey Savage did not give us the DPB. The children you refer to are almost entirely from single parent homes. I doubt very much that Savage's vision for New Zealand included mass separation, unpartnered childbrith and kids having kids.

The only answer your party has to this problem is greater transfer of wealth and more collective responsibility whereas the only real and lasting solution will be for people to take individual responsibility for their lives and those of any children they create. People will not make good decisions, people will continue to act in self-destructive ways, as long as society picks up after them.

Your brand of 'compassion' can only cause more harm to future generations of children. Children of beneficiaries are not being punished by Labour refusing them the In Work payment. They are being punished by a system that encourages their parents to live apart; that encourages entitlement and victimhood mentalities; and that makes meal tickets of them.

The 'last time' we did something for beneficiaries was when we eased abatement rates and introduced the In Work payment which allows them to earn more from work than from income support. You would turn that on its head.

And we would end up reaping what you have sown. More benefit dependence and more discontent on all sides. Widespread welfarism hasn't brought members of society together. It has divided them. Look a little deeper than mere income levels. The greatest inequalities lie in degrees of personal commitment, conscientiousness and caring. You cannot bridge those gaps with benefit money.

Lindsay Mitchell

We want equality - but not here

This is a good example of feminist inconsistency. It's a piece from The Times opining that women are particularly hurt by being imprisoned.

Women are not, on the whole, members of the criminal classes. They are basically law-abiding. Prison is certainly not one of the places where women aspire to equal treatment. The family is central to their world view and their lives revolve round it.

Men are not, on the whole, members of the criminal classes either. Family not being central to a man or a woman is at the core of their criminality.

First and foremost, women bear and look after children. That makes it essential that they serve their sentences within reach of their families.

And men are less entitled to receive visits from their children?

Women's crimes are most often - 36 per cent - theft and handling stolen goods, crimes that may go hand in hand with the men they know who are doing the thieving and asking for a bit of help: “Pop this in the back of the wardrobe, love, until I come and get it.”

All his fault again.

But it is interesting that the worst of all (criminals) - even Myra Hindley and Rosemary West - committed their appalling crimes as the sidekicks of men.

And again.

The attached comments are for the most-part interesting. Here are two.

This article states that women wish to choose where they are equal and where they are not. Several (women) commentators clearly agree with this. It is interesting that the wider world doesn't notice. Proof that you can, in fact, fool all of the people all of the time?

Here we go again. Special pleading for women.So it's equality when it's convenient, and privilege when it ain't.

Equal opportunity in Dannevirke

Dannevirke, a small nothing-to-do Manawatu town was often laughingly referred to as Dannevegas. And with recent meatworks lay-offs things weren't looking too bright. But there is good news. Dannevirke is about to get its first brothel. However it would appear there aren't enough "promiscuous girlz" available in the town as the proprietor is having to go to the nearby mega-tropolis of Palmerston North to recruit staff. But this is interesting. There are going to dannegirls and danneboys available (did she miss a great naming opportunity there or what?)

"I think I am a service provider like most people down the main street of town. If you don't want to use the service, you don't have to."

Quite.

Switching from NannyRed to NannyBlue

Just as the Wellington High School children wouldn't eat the healthy food mandated by government, neither will they pick up a bat and ball if they don't want to, which is the assumption underlying John Key's new big idea - spending more on sports equipment and sports clubs.

What this observation illustrates is that New Zealand under National will differ little from New Zealand under Labour. All National is promising is better management.

But as National have spent as much time in government as Labour for the past forty years of steady decline in personal responsibility and prosperity, the prospect fills me with little joy. All we are going to get is a switch from Nanny Red to Nanny Blue.

The sports culture

Here we go again. An All Black goes off the rails and the nation is spurred into red hot debate. The talkback lines are full of opinion. New Zealanders, once dubbed 'passionless', prove they can get as worked up as any other group of people. Should he stay or should he go?

Should I care or should I not? It frustrates the hell out of me listening to grown people putting so much effort and energy into thinking about an issue that is so far down my list of priorities. I mean every day they let Nanny take almost half of their income, tell them where to send their kids, how to raise them and how not to raise them, tell them when and where they can get healthcare and that they just have to put up with being burgled and .... not a squeak. But a 26 year-old acts like a complete tosser and looks like risking his job and the nation rises up in condemnation or defence!

And it doesn't even have to be an All Black. Any well-known sports celebrity behaves like thousands of other mere mortals and the tongues start.

Yes John Key has it right. We need much more of a sports culture in New Zealand. It diverts the people from those issues which actually do affect their lives. All those problems that government are primarily responsible for creating and maintaining. A sports culture provides a substitute life-of-the-mind where people can express their feelings of impotency and anger. A sports culture satisfies emotions poorly educated people have no other outlet for. It gives vicarious arm-chair living legitimacy. Let's all live for the Saturday game which, win or lose, participate or watch, will be followed by an almighty piss-up to enhance feelings of temporary fragile superiority or anaesthetise predictable pain.

What a worthy role for the state to fill. Just as Dear Leader made herself Minister for Arts, John Key should make himself Minister for Sports. How wonderfully symbolic. A Prime Minister who also has the sports culture as his major portfolio.

I can't wait.

How truly awful

Groan. More than groan.

National's latest big idea is more sport for children.

Look. Those children who want to be involved in sport already are.

Those who do not can do without the brow-beating.

This is just the worst confirmation of National being a bunch of socialists. The state owns you. You will be fit.

Really. I cannot express more my disgust with this speech. How on earth can National criticise nanny state in one breath and then make themselves the deepest embodiment of her in the next?

I am truly struck dumb by this awfulness.

In praise of mediocrity

On one hand I understand the impulse to praise children, but on the other I think we do them a great disservice by using flattering adjectives about their performance at every opportunity, warranted or not.

Last Saturday morning my girl Sam tried out for New Zealand's Got Talent, the new series screening on Prime. This was her idea and I supported it. I am not one of those mothers vicariously living through my child. But if she has talent and ambition then I'll give her all the encouragement I can. She can sing but perhaps more importantly, she has self-belief.

We turned up at Avalon at 8.30. It took around an hour to make the main entrance; another 30 minutes to register and be photographed. Another 30 minutes in the holding room. Then a wait of around half an hour in a corridor outside the auditioning room before her number was called. We were surrounded by other singers, magicians, dancers, and fools looking for their moment of fame by being tasteless but outlandish.

Not true to the tv series, at this stage the performers sing for just one judge and they appear to be neither accepted nor rejected but given an indication they will hear later in the week as to whether they will go on further.

Sam had no accompaniment and dressed simply. She's very small but has a surprisingly big voice. She was asked various questions and then the camera rolled. She sang "Tomorrow" from Annie. When she had finished the judge said to her, "You have a great talent". And to me, "Have you got her with an agency? You should get her an agent. She would rock through an audition."

Very nice. But as I began with this post, are these words to be taken with a pinch of salt or acted on? Hence my opening complaint. I hate this PC age of crap and praise for mediocrity because I am not sure I am any the wiser. Then I read this piece from the Times which sums up the new phenomenon of over-praise and molly-coddling.

A recent production of Snow White at a primary school in Japan featured 25 Snow Whites, no dwarfs and no wicked witch, as parents objected to one child being picked out for the title role. In Sweden a boy was prevented from handing out invitations to his birthday party at school because he was “discriminating” against the two classmates he did not invite.

A straw poll in Netmums’ virtual coffee house produced distinctly mixed feelings about the phenomenon. “The cushioning effect of awarding stickers and praise for inconsequential trivia masks what children really need and are looking for – guidance, consistency, self-reliance and love,” said one mother, Liz.

Anyway here we are over a week later and she (of "great talent") still hasn't heard anything and I'm telling her that she has to get used to disappointment. Because if you are an achiever that means having to risk possible disappointment all the time. Life is a rollercoaster.

Actually she doesn't seem all that bothered. A far more stoic being than myself. Which illustrates the conclusion of the article. Children are very resilient.

Margaret Pope's counter-strike

Fascinating. Don't you love a good stoush?

Margaret Pope has hit back at Michael Bassett's version of what happened inside the Labour caucus during the reforms, opening with "...the first time I ever met Dr Michael Bassett I felt my flesh creep". Oh my goo'ness, as a wide-eyed Shirley Temple would say.

Pope rejects Bassett's claim that she was behind David Lange's rejection of the flat tax proposal, etc. She says Lange's rejection of flat tax was "one of principle". What principle was that? The reforms had a clear philosophy underpinning them and flat tax was in keeping with it. Bassett's book (which I haven't completed) makes the point very early that Lange had no strong political philosophy. Whether she stepped into the void with hers, I have no opinion on as yet.

But clearly Pope still doesn't understand the political vision Douglas and Bassett shared and espoused. She says she was "prompted by social rather than economic issues". Sorry but the two are inseparable. What she is actually saying is she was more concerned about the short term than the long term - or the little picture over the big picture. And I think that is exactly what influenced Lange.

"The writing is purple, overheated, even foam-flecked." Um. Anything like "...the first time I ever met Dr Michael Bassett I felt my flesh creep"? I'll be very, very surprised if it is. Certainly I have encountered any examples yet.

She leans on other left-wing reviews (eg Gordon Campbell) that have branded Bassett as fixated with Pope and even anti-women. I find that quite silly.

Bassett calls a spade a spade. Not one for shilly-shallying if I wanted an honest opinion or advice, he is a man I would trust. In fact I wish we could get him back into parliament as well as Sir Roger.

(BTW why is John Roughan credited with this piece? Makes for very confusing reading.)

Prison Debate

On Wednesday I attended a debate between Kim Workman, National Director of Prison Fellowship and David Fraser, author of A Land Fit For Criminals. It was chaired by Mel Smith (who we heard rather too much from in a tight programme). The topic was, What Should Prisons Do?

Mr Workman said;

- prisons do not rehabilitate, re-offending rates are high
- prisons are very hard on the inmates and their families (though the brutality he described derived from other inmates, not the correction's officers)

He concluded that he would rather see more money being put into higher education and poor South Auckland communities than spent on more prisons. What kind of society do you want to live in he asked? His ideal is a Christian, forgiving and compassionate one.

Mr Fraser said;

- prisons do not rehabilitate, re-conviction rates are high (he made the point that Mr Workman was wrong to talk about re-offending rates which we can know little about.)

- prisons do not deter

- prisons do not make people even worse criminals. Most are very bad when they eventually get there.

- prisons do protect the rest of society but there are too few criminals in them.

He concluded it is a utter scandal that so many paroled prisoners are committing violent crime and hurting or killing people. What kind of society do we want to live in? A safe one.

I went with an open mind but came away (depressingly) concluding that David Fraser is right. The priority for the function of prisons must be to keep the public safe because they are failing to either rehabilitate or deter.

Workman used some graphs based on statistics that hide more than they reveal, to Stephen Frank's frustration, who pointed out that while lines on the graph were not showing increasing crime, police tolerance had increased and much crime was now being ignored. I became somewhat agitated myself when he talked about putting more money into Otara and Mangere. I pointed out that these communities were already turning on welfare.

Kim Workman is to be admired for his attempts to reform prisons and their inmates. But his abiding faith and idealism may very well contribute to the degree of danger the rest of the law-abiding community is exposed to. It is not a conclusion that sits easy with me. I believe in giving people a second, maybe even third chance. I want to believe people can change. Some can. But it would appear more cannot.

He claimed many individual views about criminals and prisons are formed young and often by a cataclysmic experience. I imagine this was a reference to those members of the Sensible Sentencing Trust in attendance. That may be but others attitudes are formed by observation of the facts. Public safety is paramount. And, as Mr Fraser alluded to more than once, nobody is forced to commit crime. Free will exists.

Watching political suicide

According to the New Zealand Herald,

Prime Minister Helen Clark says a postal ballot in 2009 is the best course for a potential referendum on the anti-smacking law because having it on election day would cause voter confusion and slow down the vote count.

I hope this is the last piece of corruption we have to stomach from this government.

The Prime Minister's reaction to the anti-smacking CIR is actually worse than her support for the legislation after earlier ruling it out. There is every provision for the referendum to be held at the same time as the 2008 election. How did she manage to procure the advice she wanted to hear?

In a speech to launch my candidacy I observed that my recent canvassing, which comprises superannuitants, has shown there is a large chunk of disillusioned Labour voters. The proverbial straw was the anti-smacking legislation. Here we have an entire generation who have been told they got it fundamentally wrong. And that hurt.

Now she is rubbing salt in the wound by saying voters are too stupid to handle more than one choice on her big day.

And it will be a big but very bad day for Labour. Without the referendum voters will still express their anger and alienation. They will either vote against Labour or stay home.

Minister confirms "urban myth"

From Parliament yesterday;

Russell Fairbrother: What is the main reason for people to move off the unemployment benefit?

Hon RUTH DYSON: The main reason for people leaving the unemployment benefit is to enter paid employment. It is simply not true to allege, as the National Party does, that a large number of people move from the unemployment benefit to the sickness or invalids benefit. Between March 2000 and March of this year there were close to 1 million cancellations of the unemployment benefit; 8.8 percent of those cancellations were because of a transfer to the sickness benefit, and only one-third of 1 percent were because of a transfer to an invalids benefit. The main reason for people leaving the unemployment benefit is to move into paid work.

That means there were 88,000 transfers from the unemployment benefit to the sickness benefit. From there many thousands have transferred to the invalids benefit.

So in March 2000 around 85,000 people were on a sickness or invalid benefit whereas today the total is 130,000. Yet Work and Income deputy CE continues to insist there is no link between these benefits as per this Dominion Post letter of June 13;



To claim there is no link between benefits is absurd. The very fact of being on a benefit can trigger behavioural responses which then necessitate the need to be transferred to another benefit. For instance being on an unemployment benefit long-term can cause people to develop depression, one of the major reasons for the rapid growth in incapacity benefits. Being on an unemployment benefit and relieved of the need to work can lead to people developing alcohol and drug addictions. This then necessitates a move onto a sickness or invalid benefit.

The letter from Work and Income is quite unbelievable. Or do I no longer understand what the word 'link' means?

"Caring about NZ"

That's the title of a webpage Jim Anderton has set up. It is also the headline on a FULL page ad in my local paper;

Typically the statements are highly questionable;

The Government hgas done a lot to help out. Working for families has helped lift more children out of poverty than at any time since the Great Depression. Income related rents for state houses, cheaper doctors visits and much more have helped thousands of families. The minimum wage is up by $200 a week for the very poorest workers. And best of all, around a thousand jobs a week have been created every week for the last eight years. That’s 330,000 more jobs.

For a start 52,000 jobs a year for eight years would be 416,000 jobs and the obvious typo is not mine. The only jobs governments create are those of bureaucrats and public servants. The rest are created by the private sector.

And lifting "more children out of poverty than at any time since the Great Depression"? Even people firmly on Jim's side of the political spectrum would argue with that. For instance,

....an Auckland University public policy lecturer and former Children's Commissioner, Ian Hassall, said the Working for Families package had probably helped reduce child poverty by at least 10%. But he said with possible job losses in the predicted economic downturn, many of these gains were likely to be lost.

And my own response is that it was Jim's lot that was responsible for creating the latter day 'child poverty' with the DPB. It's a bit rich to now be skiting about moving a few people sideways from the DPB onto an In Work payment. And to compare that with the recovery from the Great Depression is just ludicrous.

Interestingly for the newspaper ad the wording has been changed from, "The Government hgas done a lot to help out," to "There has been a lot done to help out."

Is this to avoid creating the impression the advertisement is asking for votes? Has it all been paid for by Parliamentary services? Did we all pay for this bunkum?

I tried sending Dear Jim the following message but the fields have also been set up incorrectly resulting in a failure to submit.

Government gets in the way of people caring for each other by taking tax for so-called 'welfare'; by 'applying Christianity' on behalf of individuals. It is your political allies that created the DPB, that in turn created latter-day child poverty. If you would just stop 'caring' we would all be better for it.

Throw some more money at the problem

What does a Labour government do when throwing money at a problem has only made it worse? Throw some more.

In the UK Gordon Brown is now promising cash grants of 200 pounds to get parents of under-fives to look after their children properly ie teach them to read, feed and vaccinate them.

I would bet any money you like that the problem parents are those who are already welfare dependent.

But no. Let’s have another bet. Which New Zealand party will be the first to pick up this policy? National or Labour?

Editorial misses the mark

Real men don't run
The Dominion Post | Tuesday, 24 June 2008


No father should need to be told that his responsibility does not end at conception, The Dominion Post writes.

It is, however, a sad reality that increasing numbers do need to be told just that. Not enough young men acknowledge fatherhood is a life-long commitment, not a bothersome by-product of a sexual encounter that someone else will take care of.

United States presidential candidate Barack Obama's decision to deliver just that message on the day Americans celebrate fatherhood is a welcome attempt to provide some long-needed reality in a debate that is fogged by a willingness to excuse irresponsibility.

Too often for children at the dawn of the 21st century the narrative of their growing years is drawn not from Father Knows Best, but The Man Who Wasn't There. In this country there are 95,861 people of working age receiving the domestic purposes benefit, nearly 90 per cent of them women. Maori are hugely over-represented in those figures, accounting for 41.4 per cent of those receiving the dpb. In the 2006 census, nearly a third of the children in one-parent households identified themselves as Maori.

No one should pretend that a two-parent household is inevitably better than a solo-parent one. No relationship between parents is infinitely better than an abusive one where the family lives in fear of the next angry outburst and the next beating.

But nor should any notions of political correctness be allowed to disguise the reality that children benefit immensely from having two parents who love and support them, and who provide a stable environment where they canlearn what it is to be an adult.

Boys in particular need to have strong male role models and the natural person to do that job is the father. Mr Obama said as much in his Father's Day address, speaking of the burdens single parenthood had imposed on his mother, of "the hole in your heart when you don't have a male figure in the home who can guide you and lead you", of his own resolve to break the cycle and his determination "that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father to my children".

Too few share his determination and too few understand that the solution is not more money in benefits but more responsibility.

Young men now fathering children and then abandoning them need to get the message that it is more staunch to hold down a job, raise a family in a loving environment and develop a stake in the community, than it is to strut around wearing a patch and beating people up. Gang culture, with its warped sense of belonging, is a poor substitute for a true family, but that is what many young Maori in particular are left with.

Outspoken black advocate Al Sharpton predicts parts of the US black community will attack Mr Obama for "airing dirty laundry" and say he is beating up on the victims. But he also told the New York Times that not discussing it is not going to make it go away, and Mr Obama's comments were "courageous and important".

What New Zealand needs is for its leaders to be as courageous as Mr Obama, and to speak as plainly. Then its absentee fathers might begin to realise that real men don't run away.



Dear Editor

The message, Real Men Don't Run, is a good one, but fails to appreciate the 'real' situation. Granted some males run away from commitments to relationships. But so do many women. Using DPB statistics tells us nothing about who ran.

Ever since the state assumed the financial role of the absent father, the single mother industry has boomed. Many women choose single motherhood by leaving a relationship or having a child outside of one. The trend is towards the second scenario. Her choice is very much influenced by the promise of indefinite taxpayer support. Her decision made, the man is often left with little but an eighteen year child support bill.

It was entirely predictable that the DPB would change the balance of power in parenting relationships. There is little more important than fatherhood but too many of both sexes discount it and are 'sanctioned' by a benefit.

Unfortunately society cannot have it both ways. If we genuinely want fathers back in their children's lives as the norm, the DPB has to go. It was created at a time when women were not as well-educated, had fewer work skills and barriers to their advancement were greater. It is now time to revisit this policy.

Lindsay Mitchell
ACT Hutt South Candidate

What the boss says, goes

Last week I had to speak at a conference for people who work in the disability sector. Minister for Disability Issues, Ruth Dyson spoke and National MP Paul Hutchison, plus UF and the Greens. I talked about the economy and why it is vital to get economic growth if the country is to support people with disabilities well. Also why ACT strongly supports volunteers like the group I work for. (In his first answer to a specific question about funding Paul Hutchison endorsed "ACT's policy of focussing on economic growth".)

A question came from an older man who wanted to know from the Minister if there was provision to "review the Pathways To Inclusion policy". He explained why he wanted one.

The Minster gets up and says, "There will be no review, " in a way that left no-one in doubt that she is the boss.

I got up and said what I was sitting there thinking. "I am appalled that the Minister is telling you, the people who work in the sector, that there can be no review. This is the whole problem with government monopolising a sector and it is central to ACT's philosophy of less government. You are.... You are government slaves." I had intended to say something a little more moderate like you are captured by government dictates but it wouldn't come out.

This was the first time I had witnessed a Minister wielding her power and I was truly appalled. I was greeted with silence. I don't know whether they were shocked or hurt or disapproving. I so much wanted them to take a step back and consider what is going on here.

People talked to me afterwards which is always a good sign:-) Not about that specific comment though. I was the only candidate who talked about the blow-out of the sickness and invalid benefits and how the misuse of these benefits removed resources from genuinely needy. That people sitting on these benefits unnecessarily were like people who park in disability parks. They make life for the disabled that much harder. Concern about this was reflected back to me privately. The suggestion being that the proliferation of drug and alcohol problems is only going to see this problem get much worse in the future.

Now 'silence' is the scapegoat

This headline alerts us to the new culprit for child abuse, Silence let child abuse continue

Silence is the scapegoat now. This is the inevitable result of the thinking that 'it takes a village to raise a child.' And it's right up there with ideas like Asian women shouldn't carry so much cash in their handbags if they don't want to get murdered. Always the collective conscience is looking for excuses and finding them in the wrong places.

Clearly in a black and white world neighbours will make every effort to help a child they perceive as being ill-treated.

But what if the neighbour has no faith in or their own fear of the authorities they are expected to turn to?

Worse, what if they have been threatened with violence to their own children?



You may not think these are good enough reasons to 'mind their own business'. Frankly I do. I would put my own children before someone else's because that is my job. If other people were doing their job, well, this horrid 'sophie's choice' situation wouldn't arise.

In an almost 'Oh, did I forget to mention...' vein, we get halfway through the story before the real culprit shows up. Another young Maori man looking for a mother substitute but acting out his father's life no doubt.

So thanks to the newspaper's slant I expect today talkback will be abuzz with the gross failure of somebody else to take responsibility and act. Unfortunately most people cannot comprehend the dark and mean psychology that pervades in neighbourhoods where violence is normal.

Reasons to vote Labour

Big News has a post about why he is voting Labour.

The scary thing is that although Dave is tongue in cheek his reasons find their basis in reality. They are exactly the reasons why people vote Labour.

Welfare state spending and imprisonment rates

I was reading a paper which claims a negative correlation between welfare state spending and imprisonment rates ie the less spent on the welfare state as a % of gdp the higher the imprisonment rate. They plotted NZ as having 144 per 10,000 people in prison in 1998 with welfare spending at 21% of gdp.

In defiance of their theory both have increased in the past ten years.

Personally I don't think one can draw concrete conclusions about the relationship by comparing countries because there are just too many variables at play.

But while I was looking at imprisonment rates for NZ I came across this rather sobering fact. On any given day of the year 3.2 percent of male Maori 23 year-olds are in prison.

If welfare is 'hush money ' it doesn't work

Suggestions of radically reforming welfare are typically met with claims that crime will increase (like crime hasn't increased throughout the expansion of the welfare state?)

Now a study has revealed that individuals receiving welfare commit crimes anyway, usually after they have quickly exhausted the assistance received.

This is one of those 'if you didn't laugh' stories. The authors recommend that welfare payments get issued weekly instead of monthly "which will smooth patterns in crimes."

Families Commission is the problem; not the solution

More earth-shattering research from the Families Commission;

New Zealanders are delaying having children, as increasing living costs, debt and work demands begin to take their toll on family life, a study says.

A Families Commission report, made public today, says people are delaying having children as increasing numbers of working families struggle to make ends meet.

The report charts the change in families and conditions since the end of World War II, and shows the standard of family life has dropped dramatically since the post-war baby boom.

In 1970, before the DPB, most families were self-supporting. Let's say 97% with the other 3% relying on a sickness, invalid or widow's benefit.

Today only 80 percent of families with dependent children are 'self-supporting'(and many of those are net recipients receiving WFF assistance).

Simple maths tells us that all will be worse off as a result. If seven families are trying to earn enough productive income to support themselves and three others it stands to reason.

"If families thrive and both produce and nurture future generations, then the workforce, the economy and the social fabric of New Zealand will also thrive."

But many families are not thriving and nurturing which is exactly why the social fabric is looking somewhat worn and tattered.

Welcome to the twenty first century. This is what a socialist 'caring and sharing' society looks like.

And before you start feeling optimistic that maybe at last a government agency is 'on to it' look at their recommendations.

"If we want to maintain the population and help people to successfully balance their work and family life, then it's important to look at policies that would support parents to have children or to have more children."

Paid parental leave should be extended and workplaces made more "family friendly".

More redistribution and more central planning. I don't know how long or how much hardship New Zealanders are going to have to endure before the lesson is learnt. Government is not the cure. It is the problem.

'Church on Sunday' thinking contributes to crime?

Not PC has a post about how to cure what is going on in South Auckland (and many other areas of low decile suburban NZ). Most of it I can agree with but not this;

Perhaps most important of all is this, which is much, much harder: work towards the abandonment of the 'church-on-Sundays' thinking that infests South Auckland more than any other part of the country -- which imparts a superstitious hope that someone else will come along and can solve all one's problems...

In my experience the church-goers are not committing crime - except when they reject the church and go back to drug and alcohol abuse. In my experience the church-goers are not fond of welfare. I related some time back the story of the church-goers who came and worked on our property throughout what remained of their Sunday in order to raise money for a rehab unit in their community. They weren't holding their hands out to government and they weren't sitting on their bums.

In fact the party I would most strongly associate with South Auckland "churchies" is one of the few parties prepared to look dispassionately at welfare.

The Family Party is extremely concerned at a prevailing attitude amongst young girls who view the Domestic Purposes Benefit as a valid career choice; not understanding the detrimental affects such a lifestyle has on their children.

If Not PC wants his next suggestion to ever gain traction he might find more support from South Auckland churchgoers than most other groups.

Stop paying no-hopers to breed. We are forced by government to pay people to have children they don't want. The result of all those unwanted children appears on the front page of our newspapers nearly every day.

I am an atheist but I am also tolerant of people with religious faith. It is their business and to presume their faith somehow turns them into potentially dangerous, psychologically-malleable dependants is somewhat far-fetched.

John Key on arming the police

Talking to Mark Sainsbury on Breakfast TV this morning John Key resisted arming police. "Then we will turn into New York" he said. And what would be particularly wrong with that. New York City is a success story when it comes to crime trends.



Which is the preferable trend? NYC or Counties Manukau?




Now I've just read in the NZ Herald : Counties Manukau police, who are investigating the three homicides, say they don't believe crime is escalating.

They don't believe their own statistics. What hope.

Justice delayed is justice denied ...or is it?

It was William Gladstone who famously said, "Justice delayed is justice denied.”

Can't argue with that....unless you are the Minister for Courts Rick Barker who begs to disagree.

"Part of justice not being denied is that due process is done appropriately and not rushed."

The time before a court case reaches a resolution was not a delay, but merely part of the justice process, Mr Barker said.

That is his excuse for most jury trials taking over a year to be heard in court.

To reduce the overload on courts ACT's policy is to operate night courts, a practice employed in the US, Canada and Singapore. I don't imagine jury trials could operate outside normal working hours but other court business could be sped up thereby freeing up resource to reduce jury trial waiting times. Let's have some practical solutions to this problem instead of excuses.

Return of Sir Roger "Adds spice to election"

From the Gisborne Herald,

Re-entry of Sir Roger into active politics adds election interest

Monday, 16 June 2008
By Iain Gillies

Surprising as it seemed when first canvassed, the re-entry of Sir Roger Douglas into national politics has assumed serious proportions with his announcement that he will contest Hunua for the ACT party.

"He's on fire," proclaimed party leader Rodney Hide. "I've struggled to keep up with him."

Mr Hide's enthusiasm is understandable given Sir Roger's track record, so much so that those who may initially have written off Sir Roger as a political has-been are having second thoughts.

Those under-estimating Roger Douglas do so at their peril for there is much truth in the adage that: "No one in politics should ever be under-estimated -- until and unless there is evidence to the contrary."

For Sir Roger, no such evidence exists or ever did for that matter.

More than 20 years after his heyday in the finance portfolio he remains one of the most dominant political forces of the past generation, revered by some and poison to others, but never one to be ignored.

His legacy has been policies which have stood the test of time and never been overturned: floating the New Zealand dollar, introducing GST, halving the top tax rate, establishing state-owned enterprises to be run on business lines and making the Reserve Bank independent to control inflation.

Those who have read his book "Unfinished Business" will appreciate he has not run out of ideas, and the challenge for other parties is to judge the electorate's receptivity towards them.

With Sir Roger in the forefront, ACT has several things going for it in the lead-up to the election, one being space at the Right end of the political spectrum which John Key has seemingly overlooked in his wooing of middle New Zealand.

Another is the sheer radicalism of ACT's policies, including a 20-point pledge card with a plan to out-perform Australia by 2020 and a matching macho slogan: "The guts to do what's right".

Third is Sir Roger's undiminished drive, conviction and personal magnetism. Another is the prospect of luring former supporters back into the ACT fold.

It adds spice to the election!

Selective quoting

About the In Work payment that the Child Poverty Action Group is challenging in court, Tapu Misa writes, "There's little evidence that such incentives work. It's true the number of people on the unemployed benefit or DPB has fallen since 2000, thanks largely to a strong economy, but the proportion of children in severe and significant hardship increased 36 per cent between 2000 and 2004. As the OECD has noted, employment isn't the full solution."

Taspu Misa is possibly unaware that two OECD representatives are appearing for the government.

In 2007, on the back of extensive international research exploring the comparative effectiveness of using benefits or work to reduce child poverty, the OECD recommended to New Zealand 'reforms to reduce joblessness among families with children should be a priority.'

This paper compared the effectiveness of a 'benefit' strategy and a 'work' strategy in achieving reduction in child poverty. It concluded that a work strategy would be more effective in New Zealand. Hence I believe it is the authors of this paper that the government are going to use to defend their current strategy.

It is benefit dependence that creates child poverty. When benefits are increased, more people opt for them over work. Isn't it strange that when carbon emissions are widely accepted as contributing to global warming (rightly or wrongly) there is a clamour from the political left to reduce them yet the same logic is not applied to benefits.

Ironically Tapu Misa's chosen analogous headline, "Kids are not gambling chips" probably provoked a more direct response in many. Exactly. They are not meal tickets for feckless parents looking to increase their incomes to squander on, amongst other things, gambling.

Time for a laugh

How do these people survive?


ONE Recently, when I went to Mc Donald's I saw on the menu that you could have an order of 6, 9 or 12 Chicken McNuggets. I asked for a half dozen nuggets. 'We don't have half dozen nuggets,' said the teenager at the counter. 'You don't?' I replied. 'We only have six, nine, or twelve,' was the reply. 'So I can't order a half dozen nuggets, but I can order six?' 'That's right.' So I shook my head and ordered six McNuggets

TWO I was checking out at the local Wal-Mart with just a few items and the lady behind me put her things on the belt close to mine. I picked up one of those 'dividers' that they keep by the cash register and placed it between our things so they wouldn't get mixed. After the girl had scanned all of my items, she picked up the 'divider', looking i t all over for the bar code so she could scan it. Not finding the code she said to me, 'Do you know how much this is?' I said to her 'I've changed my mind, I don't think I'll buy that today.' She said 'OK,' and I paid her for the things and left. She had no clue to what had just happened.

THREE A lady at work was seen putting a credit card into her floppy drive and pulling it out very quickly. When I inquired as to what she was doing, she said she was shopping on the Internet and they kept asking for a credit card number, so she was using the ATM 'thingy.'

FOUR I recently saw a distraught young lady weeping beside her car. 'Do you need some help?' I asked. She replied, 'I knew I should have replaced the battery to this remote door un-locker. Now I can't get into my car. Do you think they (pointing to a distant convenience store) would have a battery to fit this?' 'Hmmm, I dunno. Do you have an alarm, too?' I asked. 'No, just this remote thingy,' she answered, handing it and the car keys to me. As I took the key and manually unlocked the door, I replied, 'Why don't you drive over there and check about the batteries. It's a long walk.'

FIVE Several years ago, we had an Intern who was none too swift. One day she was typing and turned to a secretary and said, 'I'm almost out of typing paper. What do I do?' 'Just use copier machine paper,' the secretary told her. With that, the intern took her last remaining blank piece of paper, put it on the photocopier and proceeded to make five 'blank' copies.

SIX A mother calls 911 very worried asking the dispatcher if she needs to take her kid to the emergency room, the kid was eating ants. The dispatcher tells her to give the kid some Benadryl and should be fine, the mother says, I just gave him some ant killer..... Dispatcher: Rush him in to emergency!

Life is tough...
it's tougher if you're stupid.'

You can go too

I have seen no media reports about this. (Details here)
If Dyson wanted it in the news, it would be there.

Almost looks as if the government are trying to keep it quiet. Even NZ First hasn't been jumping up and down claiming credit. Perhaps they haven't been told. Or they aren't sharp enough to pick it up.

Perhaps the government is keeping it low key because they don't want superannuitants living overseas to start lodging claims for their increased entitlement.

But they should be making a big noise. If more superannuitants retired overseas the taxpayer could save a fortune on health and care services!

Seriously, with the rate young New Zealanders are leaving at, their parents will probably jump at the chance to follow them. Perhaps that's the political implication the government is trying to avoid being splashed all over the media.

"You can bugger off too!"

Vouchers villified. But why?

In Washington DC teacher unions are trying to stop a voucher system for the poorest black and Hispanic children. Yet 90 percent of parents are apparently very happy with the scheme. What's the problem?

Opponents claim there is no evidence that the D.C. scholarship program is raising academic achievement. The only study so far, funded by the federal Department of Education, found positive but "not statistically significant" improvements in reading and math scores after the first year. But education experts agree it takes a few years for results to start showing up. In other places that have vouchers, such as Milwaukee and Florida, test scores show notable improvement. A new study on charter schools in Los Angeles County finds big academic gains when families have expanded choices for educating their kids.

Does it cost more?

The $7,500 voucher is a bargain for taxpayers because it costs the public schools about 50% more, or $13,000 a year, to educate a child in the public schools.

Does it prevent choice?

Many of the parents we interviewed describe the vouchers as a "Godsend" or a "lifeline" for their sons and daughters. "Most of the politicians have choices on where to send their kids to school," says William Rush, Jr., who has two boys in the program. "Why do they want to take our choices away?"

Because just like New Zealand's teacher union and New Zealand's political left, the US unions are frightened that success in the private sector will mean parents abandon public schools. It's not about children and it's not about parents.

The teachers unions have put out the word to Congress that they want all vouchers for private schools that compete with their monopoly system shut down.

It's about unions protecting their patch, whether it grows weeds or prize winning pumpkins. ACT's education vouchers policy is anathema to monopolists (including National?). We will be pushing it with passion.

Just desserts on both sides

A troublesome 16 year-old schoolboy promises to "shit on" his teacher's lawn and waits outside his home to ostensibly do just that. He waits on hour. The teacher arrives home and first checks his own children are OK. Then an argument develops between the two and the teacher punches the kid eight times. The teacher is prosecuted, given diversion and sent on an anger management course. He was demoted and ultimately fined by the Teacher's Council.

When I try to think about such a case, acknowledging all I know is what the media discloses (How badly hurt was the boy? What were his previous misdemeanours?), I find it useful to put my own players in the picture. My 14 year-old and a teacher for instance. Notwithstanding I am finding it almost impossible to imagine him in this scenario (but teenagers can go off the rails very quickly and kind, patient teachers can be pushed beyond their limits) I feel some sympathy with both parties.

The teacher's reaction is over the top but it is a rare man or woman who hasn't "snapped" at some point in their personal or professional lives. The problem lies in how the explosion manifests. In my younger days, I clearly remember hitting a bathroom wall so hard once I bruised by fist. I have never hit a person. And there seems to be something "missing" when a person hits someone repeatedly rather than taking their enormous anger and frustration out on something inanimate or simply turning their back and walking away. The teacher may have tried the second and been further provoked. We don't know.

As for the youth, if my son was carrying on like this I would think he was off his trolley. That he was in need of help possibly beyond that I could provide. I don't accept threats of that nature and waiting outside someone's home are just "infantile" pranks.

What I really, really, really want to know is, did the teacher's actions make an impression on this boy? Did they make his behaviour better or worse? I suspect that the father may have nullified any positive effect. I would have been very "agitated" if my son had been punched eight times but I wouldn't be making excuses for him. I would be telling him that he just learned a valuable lesson about human nature. Based on the degree of provocation I probably wouldn't have pressed assault charges. But no account seems to be taken of provocation these days. Especially if it is female provocation of a male.

Based on what we do know I am happy that the teacher was allowed to continue in his job. Violence is never desirable but if it had been 'horrendous' I doubt the man would still be teaching. We need all the male teachers we can get.

Silly advice

From the NZ Herald editorial today,

Act, however, must campaign in a way that does not make life difficult for National. Sir Roger and his economic programme may be its chief branding weapon, but it must recognise that every vote lost by National diminishes its own chances of being in government.

What bollocks. ACT has to campaign hard on its ideas and plans. National can take care of itself. Winning matters. This is an election campaign. It isn't kiddies sport where it's the "taking part that counts". ACT doesn't exist to be a bit-player to National. Increasingly the two parties have less in common but it isn't ACT that has moved away from its founding principles. The most important message ACT has for New Zealanders is that a mere change in government will not change the direction of this country. The more MPs ACT has, the more real change we can effect.

Reality

A comment from yesterday,

The rate of crime is a function of the profits divided by the chance of being caught or killed.

Also yesterday my mother rang to tell me that whilst he is in hospital recovering from open heart surgery, my brother's house has been burgled.

The police have not attended and there is nobody available yet to take fingerprints.

Fooling fools

Yesterday I had just read a piece by Roger Kerr in the Dominion Post about the futility of Cullen's tax cuts - "Clayton's cuts" - when I glanced down and saw this.

What followed was one of those 'pass me a bucket' moments.



"The Inland Revenue plays a critical role in improving the economic and social well being of all New Zealanders."

Since when??? The role of the IRD is to collect tax - no more, no less.

Oh get with it Lindsay. The IRD is now a key player in redistributing income to 'needy' families. It is the WINZ of the middle class. And we all know how much Work and Income contributes to well being by the number of security men they employ.

But this is an ad for an Investigator. Not a plunket nurse.

"Serving as an Investigator is highly rewarding through the contribution it makes to improve our customers' understanding of, and compliance with tax and social policy laws."

Seriously now, this is disgusting and scary stuff. If you ever struggle to envisage big government, this is it. First the IRD has recast itself into a so-called social organisation with one of the "largest workforces in New Zealand," when all it should be doing it collecting tax. If we had flat tax most of this workforce could be doing something productive instead of being the monkeys on the back of the engine house.

But almost worse than the size of this monolith is the language it uses to fool itself and the public into regarding it as a bastion of beneficence. In truth most people would behold the visit of an Investigator with great trepidation. We wouldn't be putting on the kettle in anticipation of a nice chat.

We've got to wake up in this country. All big government is good for is producing make-work jobs and make-believe descriptions. Voting National won't put an end to this sort of nonsense.

What now?

Can anybody imagine the grief or anger of the relatives of Navtej Singh.

In the Dominion Post there are pictures of the family of the polish tramper who lost his life just over the hills from us last week. Their pain is palpable; their faces crumple. But he lost his life because of an accident. He was pursuing his passion.

What of poor Mr Singh? Only 30. Gunned down by someone who values booze more than life, or at least someone else's life. Who will step up to make excuses for the murderer? Some bleeding heart counsel will no doubt make submissions about upbringing, poverty and more generically, skin colour. There is every possibility Mr Singh also came from an impoverished background and his race have experienced disproportionate poverty. But he was a worker. He was trying to make a crust legitimately - as far as we know.

He must have thought about the possibility of violent robbery. May have even experienced it before. He must have consciously decided that he would follow police advice and submit to the violation. He took a calculated risk, not just by choosing this course of action but by the very act of living and working in what is purportedly a dangerous area. He lost the gamble. Who to blame?

Where are the liberal left who remonstrate against apportioning blame? It's not about blaming someone, they say. The problems in South Auckland are systemic, they say. It's the gap between rich and poor driving violent crime. But there wasn't much of a gap between the perpetrator and the victim, was there?

And what next for the police? Don't defend yourselves they say. Call us. Too late. But where were you anyway? A neighbourhood as dangerous as this needs a constance presence. What am I saying. If there was a constant police presence this wouldn't have happened. If the neighbours are too terrified to speak because of gang recriminations the police are probably too scared to police.

I am sick at the state of parts of this country. I am sick at poor people being victims of other poor people who have lost all traces of humanity. But mostly I am sick of our seeming inability to deal with them. RIP Navtej Singh. I am sorry.

Poor Expectations

Sometimes numbers just breeze right past me. Then I do a double-take and think twice. One such number just presented itself in a reply to a written question from Judith Collins to the Minister of Social Development.

3,099 clients aged 16-17 years receive a main benefit (excluding partners).

There are around 120,000 16-17 year-olds. That means more than 1 in 40 is on a benefit. That's like one in a large school class. Hell, that's a lot. And it doesn't auger well for the future because many are just starting on a lifetime habit.

Yesterday a friend sent me some research from the University of British Colombia which shows that availability of welfare encourages kids to leave school.

Bill Warburton had observed that the dropout rate for children at risk of receiving income assistance rose with B.C.'s welfare caseload through the early 1990s and fell when a substantial package of welfare reforms was introduced Jan. 1, 1996, which removed about 100,000 people from the welfare rolls.

Using data from the B.C. ministries of education and employment and income assistance, Warburton found that when the New Democrats began a program of welfare reform in the mid-1990s, high school dropout rates began to fall and continued to fall for several years.

Arguably the most important aspect of welfare reform is it wards off those who would otherwise have become enmeshed. It makes them consider better options.

A good chunk of those NZ 16 and 17 year-olds on welfare are either pregnant and on a sickness benefit or a teenage mum and on the emergency maintenance allowance. Until the system changes expectations the problem-producing benefit lifestyle will continue unabated.

Books

That's put me over my limit. Can I manage two whole books in one year? I can generally get through one. Last year it was Rodney Hide's highly readable biography.

But last week I purchased Bob Jones', Jones on Management which is very good. In fact I may finish it today. I read a good chunk last night whilst not watching the All Blacks.

And tomorrow I will buy Michael Bassett's latest, Working With David. This piece has further whet my appetite.

From the start, the clandestine affair between the married prime minister and his speechwriter aroused feelings of foreboding among his staff.

It was "like a crow on your shoulder all the time, because you're never quite sure when it's going to shit on you", former Lange press officer Ross Vintiner told historian Dr Michael Bassett.

Jolly good. This promises to be a book that goes deep into the ways in which relationships affect thinking. The too real overlay of human frailty on political actions that reach out across populations and time.

Street preventing choice and efficiency

The view of the author is that the privatisation process delivered benefits to:

• ACC by creating a more efficient and focused organisation,
• the overall scheme by properly defining the entitlements,
• insurers who made profits from the experience,
• employers by reducing premium rates,
• employees overall through improved rehabilitation and reduction in injury rates.

That is an excerpt from a review of the Privatisation of New Zealand
Accident Insurance Workplace Cover 1999/2000.

ACC Minister Maryan Street, who loathes the idea of competition and profit, is harassing National over any policy to re-privatise employers accounts. What caught my eye was her snide and petulant claim that National was simply "lining the pockets of their insurance company mates.”

Now that really is a fine example of the 'politics of envy' and what turns thinking people off Labour.

National's nineties record on welfare

A commenter from yesterday disagreed with my statement that National's recent record of getting people into the workforce is worse than Labour's.

The anonymous commenter says;

Again wrong. The single best effort here is Ruth Richardson in 1990 - all else pales beside this.

There seems to be a misapprehension about what National achieved during the nineties in respect of dealing to unemployment and general welfare dependence.

For the period 1990 to 1999 (October) the unemployment benefit numbers went from 139,625 to 143,707 peaking in 1992/93 at around 170,000.

Numbers on all other benefits continued to rise through the same period.

DPB 94,823 to 110,315
Sickness 19,511 to 33,043
Invalid 27,824 to 57,127

We all know that numbers on the unemployment benefit have plunged under Labour. Yes, they have enjoyed strong economic conditions in spite of their increasing regulation and interference. Yes, their achievements in respect of the DPB have been rather pathetic. Yes, there is a very real problem with the growth in the invalid's and sickness benefit, some of which represents what the OECD calls the "medicalisation of labour market problems."

But don't try and tell me National was a world beater at reducing benefit dependence because it simply isn't true.

The "major difference between Labour and National"

John Key was in Taranaki last night talking to supporters;

''I personally believe we're going to win the next election,'' he told the packed conference room.

New Zealanders could see the one major difference between the Labour and National, he told them.

While National's were the politics of aspiration, Labour believed in the politics of envy and it was not taking them anywhere, he said to hearty clapping.

This is the Nats election catch cry. I first heard it from Mark Blumsky sitting on the Face Off panel on NewstalkZB. (Slightly ironic it should come from a disillusioned one-term MP)

I can't disagree that Labour is besmirched with envy politics. A disdain for "rich pricks" and discomfit with private success seems to have gathered momentum this year.

But is National really "aspirational"? It's one thing to lay claim to a moniker but breathing substance into it is another.

There is a world of difference between the two types of worldviews but there is not a world of difference between what happens in New Zealand when either a Labour or National government reigns. I know National-supporting bloggers have listed differences but I can never remember what they are. Not a good sign.

What should a government be aspiring to? Surely to lift New Zealand's comparative economic standing in the world would rank right up there. But we haven't seen the Nats commit themselves to achieving the rate of economic growth it would take.

It is broadly accepted that education is the key to prosperity and independence but National are happy to largely preserve the status quo with the abandonment of their earlier bulk-funding policy and retention of elitist zoning. Meanwhile literacy declines.

It is best practice to let the private sector run services yet the Nats have run a mile from privatisation.

And Working For Families might help people in the short term but it traps them in the long. It is the very antithesis of aspiration. Yet the Nats will keep it.

So what am I left to think? That the so-called "major difference between National and Labour" - the politics of aspiration over the politics of envy - is nothing more than a seductive slogan.

Begging for regulation

Outrageous.

How should unhealthy food be regulated?

Ban advertising during children's TV (1658 votes, 23.4%)

Ban sports sponsorships (166 votes, 2.3%)

Label junk food (624 votes, 8.8%)

Tax junk food (898 votes, 12.7%)

Nothing - what we eat is a personal choice (3745 votes, 52.8%)

Now I ask you. How can what we eat be a personal choice?? It is the responsibility of the state to direct our diets. Everybody knows people are too stupid to look in the mirror and make any connection between too much KFC and being blobby. Last time I had a piece of KFC the fat it was cooked in dripped down my chin. DRIPPED DOWN MY CHIN. What we need is a Ministry of Mustn't Eat. It should be tasked with educating people that just like school choice and health choice, food choice is too much of a responsibility to be shouldered by the individual. It makes no sense for the state to own your life and your money and not your body too. We should all be grateful that those with better instincts than ours are preparing to step in and relieve us of our last vestiges of autonomy.

Bugger the majority.

Yes or no?

My mother was a teacher. She had a habit (and still does) of pulling me up on grammatical errors. A favourite was my misuse of the word 'borrow' when I meant 'lend'.

But one I always got her on is using a double negative. And it's very common. People will often fall into the trap by making a negative statement and then tacking "I don't think" on the end. So what is all this nit-picking about?

A report about Rodney Hide's Regulatory Responsibility left me struggling to draw a conclusion with this statement;

However the commerce select committee said it did not think the bill would not work as it would create legal headaches.

Perhaps we can find out exactly what is happening to this bill today when Rodney takes Leighton Smith's place for the morning as talkback host on NewstalkZB.

For Wellington and Christchurch listeners live-streaming is available here. Select Auckland.

Effects of raising benefits

This is a summary of some of the research into the effects of increasing benefit payment rates. It is from the Colorado Independence Institute during the early 90s. AFDC was the US equivalent of the DPB.

Though the issue is contested, many researchers believe there is a direct link between welfare and illegitimacy, and therefore a long-run link between welfare and crime. For example, a study by M. Anne Hill and June O'Neill (currently director of the Congressional Budget Office) found that a 50 percent increase in afdc and food stamp benefits led to a 75 percent increase in the number of women enrolling in these programs, a sharp rise in the number of years spent on afdc, a 43 percent increase in the number of out-of-wedlock births, and a 117 percent increase in crimes perpetrated by young black males. Researchers from the University of Washington found that a difference of $228 in monthly welfare benefits more than doubled a white teenager's probability of bearing an illegitimate child. Other U.S. and Canadian investigations show that even small increases in welfare benefits raise the odds of women going on welfare and becoming single parents. Roughly half the increase in black illegitimacy since the mid-1960s can be attributed to increased welfare benefits and easier eligibility standards, according to Hill and O'Neill.

Removing any incentive to work

According to the Dominion Post today a solo mother with two children on the domestic purposes benefit received $23,000 net a year - less than 55 per cent of the average income...

Currently working a 40 hour week on the minimum wage nets $24,960; a 30 hour week $18,720. The effective rate of taxation on earned income is slightly higher than on the benefit sum.

So it is easy to see why moving from a benefit to a low wage job is not "worth it".

Now if the In Work payment was added the net benefit income would rise to $25-26,000 - more than working a 40 hour week on the minimum wage.

People used to work because they had a work ethic. They wanted to pull their weight and be seen to be independent. Poor but proud. Today many will only work if it is financially advantageous. The government has to work with that reality. The CPAG wants to ignore it.

Discrimination?

The Child Poverty Action Group begins its case against the government tomorrow. They want the In Work payment (now In Work Tax Credit) paid to beneficiary families as well. They claim the exclusion of beneficiary families is discriminatory.

This is my argument against the CPAG (repeated);

If the CPAG win, essentially we will see an increase in benefit levels. An increase in benefit levels leads to an increase in the number of people going on or staying on benefits. CPAG want a short term gain and refuse to see the long term cost which cannot be in the best interests of children.

There is no guarantee the money reaches the children anyway.

And, most obviously, the incentive effect of the In-Work payment will be nullified if it is extended to non-working families.

The Greens and the Maori Party are supporting the CPAG.

Who is going to win? We have seen the Ministry of Social Development forced to settle out of court previously for discriminating against a single male parent who had full custody of a child (the mother had full custody of the other child/ren) by not allowing him to be on the DPB. But in this case, should the government lose, there would be a significant financial impact. Around $3-400 million more would be paid to parents on benefits. (From the beneficiaries point of view that's about a 14 percent pay rise.)

Beneficiaries already receive family support for each child. It varies according to age and ranges from $57 to $95 per week. Payments increased in April 2005 and April 2007. I wonder if I could take a case to the Human Rights Tribunal claiming discrimination because I do not receive these payments?

Or, more to the point, perhaps I should try discrimination on the grounds that I do not receive the In Work tax credit. The government has set arbitrary conditions on who receives them. The one that excludes me is an income test. The one that excludes beneficiaries is a work test. If the CPAG can get the work test removed perhaps I can get the income test removed.

UPDATE: A couple of months back I put out a media release about the CPAG being "at loggerheads with the OECD" on the matter of what strategy is most effective in reducing child poverty. I was pleased to read in the Dominion Post this morning that the government will be calling two representatives from the OECD as witnesses in its defence against the CPAG.

Mad Matt

What a load of codswallop from Matt McCarten today. If he was right about ACT than I would be an utter misfit. I would never have been placed on last election's list, let alone within cooey of becoming an MP. First he launches into the Business Roundtable;

Its ideology is quite simple: we're all essentially greedy and we should be free to make as much money as we can. If we exploit others in the process - well, that's just the free market at work. Now it seems Labour may be defeated this year, it appears to be getting ready to get back into the driving seat. No doubt it would have been behind the recent manoeuvre to bring Douglas back into Act.

We are all essentially self-interested. Greed and self-interest are completely different things. They produce different outcomes. The NZBR would concur with Adam Smith's defence of self-interest. In a personal sense I am self-interested. Those things that matter most to me are to be protected and cared for or I will become unhappy. I am protecting my own interests when I protect those of my children, family and friends. Business is the same. Self interest in one's own business success requires creating an environment where everyone employed or traded with is gaining something. When exploitation occurs - personally or professioally - unhappiness and failure result.

The NZBR is behind Roger Douglas's re-emergence? The person behind Roger's re-emergence is Roger. I am sure some people have been persuaded to stand for ACT indirectly via the NZBR simply because they promote (very well) sound ideas similar to those ACT promotes. We share the philosophy of individualism. This grand plan conspiratorial stuff is just self-gratification of the loopy left temperament.

It would have been devastated when John Key, a moderate, took out Don Brash as leader. Therefore it had to resort to a Plan B and coax decrepit Douglas out of retirement. With the support of his Roundtable cronies, Douglas is now effectively co-leader of the Act Party. I'm wary of political ideologues who claim our economic and social ills can only be cured if we adopt their plan. Apparently, Douglas and Act have a new 20-point plan. Most of us are probably tempted to roll our eyes about this nuttiness. But don't think they are harmless fruitcakes.

So what's your plan Matt? Drive New Zealand right off the bottom rung of the OECD ladder? All pre-election policy is a plan. Could we have some credit for being transparent about ours? No. I didn't think so. Because that blows another right-wing conspiratorial theory - the cloak and dagger hidden-agenda one. That's the one you now save for John Key.

Unfortunately for the far right, there is a major block to their success - the Maori Party......Therefore it should be no surprise the Business Roundtable released research it has sponsored which runs along the supposedly reasonable line that as we now have MMP, the Maori seats are unnecessary and allow a disproportionate number of Maori in parliament. Funny how the Roundtable didn't produce a report about the over-representation of white males in parliament.

.....The Business Roundtable doesn't give a fig about the role of Maori - good or bad. The report is merely propaganda to influence the public so National sticks with its promise to hold a referendum on Maori seats. Ask our country's 86 per cent non-Maori population if these seats should remain and the answer is a foregone conclusion. They will go, as the Roundtable intends.

This has nothing to do with Maori. It's the far right removing obstacles so it can get in a government it can influence to finish off the neo-conservative agenda begun in 1984.

That the NZBR (and by implication ACT) "doesn't give a fig about the role of Maori" is a ugly misinterpretation. One can care about people as individuals without agreeing to tribalist, collectivist notions and practices. That is the most important concept and maybe Matt McCarten just can't comprehend it. If New Zealand prospers (and prosperity is undeniably linked to freedom, not government) the people who will experience the greatest improvement in the quality of life are those who currently have the least.

Matt, if you are right, and the Business Roundtable and ACT are run by 'greedy, white, rich men' wouldn't they also be of the selfish 'I'm- alright- Jack ilk?' Why would they be spending their time and energy and MONEY bothering with ideas, philosophy and politics? Especially in their 60s and 70s. It doesn't stack up Matt.

I wish

From an interview with the Sunday Star Times,

Brash says while he was largely happy with National's policy platform in 2005, seeing it as a necessary compromise, he wonders whether he might have gained more votes campaigning as a conviction politician.

We will never know. But it's not too late to have another go Don. All you need is people around you who share the convictions you hold about what is needed to turn this country around.