We don't know how lucky we are - at the moment

As the saying goes, there is always someone worse off than yourself. The same can be said of countries.

Look at Ireland. Same population as NZ with current (June 2009) unemployment at 11.9 percent. Last year is was 5.9 percent. Doubled in 12 months. Gulp. Only Turkey and Spain have higher unemployment rates. This table shows unemployment benefit claimants.


(The 'live register' also includes part-timers, seasonal and casual workers entitled to claim a jobseekers allowance.)

Unemployment statistics - who is the recession affecting?

A quick round up;

Unemployment rate up from 5 percent in March 2009 to 6 percent in June 09

Male rate 5.1 to 5.7

Female rate 4.8 to 6.3

15-19 year-old rate 19.1 to 22.9
20-24 no change
25-29 4.9 to 5.6
30-34 4.9 to 4.6
35-39 4.4 to 4.1
40-44 3.6 to 3
45-49 3.9 to 3.7
50-54 2.5 to 3.4
60-64 3.3 to 2.5
65+ 1.2 to 1.3


European 3.9 to 4
Maori only 10.7 to 12.6
Pacific only 13.6 to 12.8
Asian only 6.7 to 7.8

Highest regional jump Taranaki 2.7 to 4.2

Regions;

Northland 8.3
Auckland 6.6
Waikato 6.8
Bay of Plenty 5.8
Gisborne/Hawkes Bay 7.3
Taranaki 4.2
Manawatu-Wanganui 4.5
Wellington 5.5
nelson/Marlborough/West coast 3.1
Canterbury 4.8
Otago 5.3
Southland 3.4

Industries which had drops in employment;

Agriculture, Fishery and Forestry
Other Services

Highest household type with all unemployed;

One parent with dependent children only 46.1

The full-time workforce dropped over the year from 1,691,000 to 1,665,000
The part-time workforce grew over the year from 496,000 to 502,000

NZ is now 9th in the OECD which is the same ranking as June 2008

Abandonment of "constitutional responsibility"

At last. A clear explanation of the unclear.

Jim Evans, emeritus professor of law at Auckland University, on the National-supported Bradford law.

He concludes;

This is not clear legislation. In creating this law, Parliament abandoned its constitutional responsibility to say with clarity just which conduct is criminal.

The section results from a political fudge. Whatever other views one takes about the topic of smacking, that much at least ought to be kept clear.

Thicker than sheep

There are times when my fellow citizens fill me with despair, such is their blind faith in regulation.

The Herald is running a poll;

Should you need a licence to own a dog?

FFS NO. What difference would it make to those who 'own' dangerous animals?

If they don't register them why would they bother with a licence?

The only effect would be to penalise the many animal lovers who take better care of their pets than some people take of their children.

Oh...the result.

82 percent say YES.


AAAAARRRRGGGHHHHH.


Update; The poll has mercifully reversed. The 'baas' now form a minority. That is encouraging.

More misinformation from MSM

Yesterday the DomPost published misinformation about benefit entitlement. Now the NZ Herald is getting it wrong as well.

The main unemployment benefit is not available under 18. The only benefit payable below that age, the independent youth benefit (IYB), was paid to only 1750 teenagers at the end of June.

As I said yesterday, the unemployment benefit is available but only under certain, unusual circumstances. For most intents and purposes it isn't available.

But to say that the Independent Youth Benefit is the only benefit payable below 18 is nonsense. Sickness, invalid, training, emergency and DPB (Emergency Maintenance Allowance) are all available. So too is the student allowance. Remember yesterday's table?



Should 16 and 17 year-olds qualify for welfare? The approach to parental responsibility is mixed. For instance child support is paid until a dependent reaches 18 ( and in some cases 19). Then when it comes to eligibility for a student allowance parental income is means tested until the age of 24.

National needs to bite the bullet on this one and stop dithering. Sixteen and seventeen year-olds should be the responsibility of their parents. As it is, they attract decent family tax credits of up to around $100.

Dole for 16-18 year-olds to be scrapped?

This morning's DomPost front page shouts, Dole to be scrapped for 16-18 year-olds.

Before the release of details I offer some comments.

The signal is good. For those who need to be receiving it.

But I think the headline is wrong. It should read 16-17 year-olds.

[Key] also confirmed National would introduce legislation before the end of the year ending the unemployment benefit for school-leavers under 18.

But under 18s rarely qualify for the unemployment benefit.

The current rules are a person must be 18 years old or over (or 16-17 if you are married or in a civil union or in a de facto relationship and have one or more children you support).

Hence the numbers look like this;



Granted this was two years ago but I would be very surprised if suddenly far more 16-17 year-olds had married, or were in de facto relationships supporting children.

The benefit 16-17 year-olds normally qualify for when unemployed is the Independent Youth Benefit (1,430 at the end of March 2009 but down from almost 4,000 in 2000). Is this being scrapped?

If so, yet the Emergency Maintenance Allowance for 16-17 year-old single mothers remains, isn't there an incentive being set up for young people to become parents to continue to get assistance?

Call me cynical but when eligibility rules change the first thing some will do is look for the loophole, the way around the hurdle, because one usually exists.

(The NZ Herald makes no mention of the 'dole' being scrapped.)

Fancy names for failed ideas

Job Ops and Community Max. Flash new names for government work creation schemes just announced by John Key.

First consideration must be given to the opportunity cost of taking the tax to fund these schemes. Better if the money is left with the private potential employer in the first place. It's pretty illogical to tax the employer and then turnaround and say, if we give it back, could you provide a job?

However the reality is the scheme is going ahead.

I agree with the central idea that if money is going to be chucked at young people, best get a return for it. Best make it an 'investment' in them for all our sakes.

But one has to assume that money is still going to be chucked for no return because no mention has been made of restricting access to the dole, sickness benefit, dpb, ema or independent youth allowance.

No mention of sanctions if young people refuse a placement.

Maybe that is to come but I am not holding my breath. Are you?

Finally there is nothing new under the sun with these sorts of schemes. In the final analysis what they actually achieve is a distortion of the labour market. There are no free lunches and there are no free jobs. Other potential employees unfortunate enough to be older than 24 will be disadvantaged by not attracting a subsidy. They are most likely to be low-skilled Pacific, Maori, and migrants.

Do the job properly Mr Key

Just listening to the Radio Live news reporting that John Key is focussing on young people at the National Conference today. There was a snippet of him speaking about how their lives could be damaged by the recessional environment of few jobs.

Now this catches my interest because it is closely linked to what I said when launching my paper, Maori and Welfare, a few days back; that I feared we were going repeat the mistake of the early 90s when too many young people were admitted onto benefits and subsequently stayed there for years. (In fact their children are now repeating the parent's behaviour.)

In the paper I concluded that the sort of change needed could only happen when there was a consensus that individuals are first and foremost responsible for themselves and their children. To quote it directly;

"As part of achieving that consensus, an agreed priority must be established. For Maori that priority must be to stop the inflow of young people into the benefit system. Many, including exisiting beneficiaries, can be persuaded of the sense and humanity in this. That aim is even more important than dealing with present caseloads."

NewstalkZB is also reporting; He is expected to launch a new youth opportunities package tomorrow.

Key will have to make sure that those opportunities are more attractive than going on a benefit - especially for young females. Or restrict the access of young people to welfare.

He might want to consider the experience of British Colombia;

Teens more successful in school when welfare access is tight, researcher finds

Randy Shore
Vancouver Sun
Thursday, June 05, 2008

Teens as young as 13 are more likely to stay in school and proceed to the next grade when access to welfare is restricted, says a University of B.C. researcher. 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.

"We wondered if that was a coincidence," wrote Warburton, executive director of the Child and Youth Development Trajectories Research Unit at UBC.

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. Dropout rates had been rising through the early 1990s as access to welfare expanded and was liberally extended to minors, but the change in policy quickly reversed that trend, he explained in an interview and a written response to a query from The Vancouver Sun.

The effect was stronger the older the student and the closer the student was to being eligible for welfare, he said. But it was also significant in students as young as 13.

"I was surprised at how young the kids were that responded [to the change]," said Warburton. "We found strong evidence that it wasn't a coincidence."

Warburton worked for the B.C. income security renewal secretariat in the mid-1990s and for the research branch of the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance through 2004. He was aware that some regions of the province were "more on board" with welfare reform during the late 1990s.

By comparing data between regions, he was able to determine that the effect was strongest -- that is, kids tended to do better in school -- in areas that put the tightest controls on income assistance for people under 25. The teens' expectations about the availability of welfare is at the heart of the effect, according to Warburton.

"I would have guessed that their decisions would be influenced more subliminally than consciously," he said. But the data showed that teens who left school and went on to collect welfare tended to come from the same schools, suggesting that localized welfare cultures had developed.

The kids talk to each other about how to apply, they see their older friends getting welfare. The data suggests that kids are communicating with each other about the system and how it works, he said.

More on perks

No wonder they need so many parliamentary holiday breaks!

Context;

I haven't been overseas for 8 years, and that was a trip across the ditch. Don't even have a current passport and neither do my children. I wear-out clothes and shoes. Last week I changed my car because it was 14 years-old, had done over 200,000 km and failed its warrant ...seriously. We traded it for a 7 year-old car (which I am in love with). Yesterday I got a tax refund of $143 which is a third of the donations I made to charity last year. I was really chuffed. That's a tidy sum of money to me. When I use my car for volunteer work I don't claim mileage.

My home is large by necessity (we both work from home and painting takes up a lot of space) and comfortable but we haven't turned on the underfloor heating in years because its too expensive. We have takeaways on Friday but eating out is a treat. My husband has inherited land but I have always made it clear to him that is his - not mine. Both of our children go to state schools. One has singing lessons and the other has piano lessons. Like me, they also wear-out their clothes and shoes.

What I am trying to convey here is a modest lifestyle (bar consumption of wine).

So reading about MPs perks, which for some reason I hitherto had not given much thought to, leaves me feeling rather underwhelmed. I am not sure which is more deflating. Discovering a perfectly able beneficiary is getting $715 a week or that we are paying for 90 percent of MPs overseas holidays.

Look, consumerism and consumption make the world go around but to the politicians, for pity's sake, use the money you earn. You are hardly underpaid.

Perks are privilege

Roger Douglas spent his political career opposing privilege - that is the practice of the state forcing one individual or sector to pay for or subsidise the activities of another individual or a sector. In that I fully support him.

The other ex MPs he is now testily pointing to as enjoying the same right and entitlement as him to travel the world on the taxpayer, did not make a holy grail out of attacking privilege. That is why it just doesn't wash as an excuse, recession or not.

What the future holds

These graphs are from a sustainability report released yesterday by Statistics NZ.

The first shows that currently, for every 100 people aged 15-64 there are around 50 younger or older. That allows a rough measurement of dependency notwithstanding that people older than 15 are often still dependent and people over 65 are not.

By 2061, when my children will be in their 60s, there will be around 73-74 dependants for every 100 15-64 year-olds. If nothing changes about the extent of government involvement in health, education and welfare that's a truckload more tax to be paid.




This one simply depicts the increasing diversity of the population. Note that it only projects out to 2026 - not 2061. Not that we didn't know it, but the graph highlights that the Asian population is growing faster than the Maori population. Not something I have a problem with but it is going to bring political tensions and friction.




Finally it has to be said these are projections - they are not written in stone.

$50m to embark on motherhood unsupported

Media Release

$50M TO EMBARK ON MOTHERHOOD UNSUPPORTED
Thursday, 30 July, 2009

Thousands of young women are using the welfare system to embark on motherhood with no partner or financial support.

The claim comes from welfare commentator Lindsay Mitchell who says that figures show that during 2008 2,300 females aged 18-24 years-old transferred from a pregnancy-related sickness benefit to the domestic purposes benefit. "These are young women who had no partner or financial support before or after birth."

"In one year alone the cost of supporting these women would be around $50 million. But that is just a start. Typically those who begin on welfare young, stay dependent for many years, often having more children. Because being long-term dependent on welfare has been shown to produce poor educational and health outcomes for both mothers and their children, the downstream costs to society are ongoing. And females born to young single mothers are far more likely to become single mothers themselves repeating the cycle."

At a time when the government is cutting back on funding for severely disabled children and training allowances it is enormously surprising and disappointing that they are determined to ignore this huge problem. Last week, when the NZ Business Roundtable released a paper suggesting the DPB be replaced with time-limited assistance, the Prime Minister described the proposal as 'draconian'. Yet President Clinton and his democratic government did exactly that in the United States during the 1990s.

"The National Party needs to start paying some real attention to how welfare is being used. The public response to this week's revelations of surprisingly high DPB payments and entitlement attitudes should be taken as a strong indication that many want to see significant change."

Tables released under the Official Information Act attached.

Graceless carping

There has been a lot of reaction today to the Minister of Social Development releasing information about the incomes of two beneficiaries to the media. The story in the NZ Herald is light on facts but the two net weekly incomes given - $715 and $554 - are no doubt correct. It appears the Minister is attempting to expose the culture of moaning that typically emanates from middle-class Pakeha women on the DPB. Here's a comment from another blog which is more of the same;

Also for peoples information those benefits have multiple layers to it.. your core benefit is only about 460, IRD give ALL parents between one to two hundred per week depending on numbers of children and the rest is accomodation that ALL low income earners are entitled too. My benefit is 620 (including ird) with two kids and my rent in Auckland is a cheap (??) 360 per week.. i cant have flatmates, i dont have a partners pay packet and i tell you its fricken hard work.. try feeding two growing kids and the rest in whats left. Im at uni and claim another 80 for transport and pay all my own fees and books.. its all for you to see and if you'd like to walk a few days in my shoes your more than welcome.

That's another receiving $700 a week and resenting it. Someone put a pertinent question to me this morning. How are people like this ever going to get off a benefit because, even armed with a degree, no entry level job in the private sector is going to pay that much? Is that what the public service is for?

So much for a welfare safety net. This isn't somebody experiencing a crisis. It's somebody who has gotten the pieces of her life in the wrong order ie got kids before qualifications, and gracelessly expects the taxpayer to sort it for her. I wonder how those workers who are being made redundant only to find they have no unemployment entitlement would view this outburst?

About the release of the information, Sue Bradford says;

"This form of silencing opposition is simply not acceptable in a democratic society and I hope the Government will urgently reconsider its intimidating tactics," Ms Bradford said.

Nobody is being silenced. They are simply being encouraged to tell the truth. If the full facts are used to protest there is nothing further the government can add.

Criticism from an academic

At last. Some criticism about the content of my paper. It comes from feminist writer, Dr Anne Else, BA Hons, PhD, NZ Order of Merit.

Business Roundtable discovers new contraceptive

I see the Business Roundtable is at it again. They've commissioned a report from one Lindsay Mitchell, who is well known for being a virulent opponent of 'welfare' in general and the DPB in particular. The best way to stop young women - especially young Maori women - getting pregnant is to axe the DPB, she says.

Now I just happen to have been looking up teenage pregnancy statistics recently. Births to teenage women (aged under 20) climbed from 5,315 in 1962 to a high of 9,150 in 1972. That's an increase of 72 percent.

The DPB wasn't introduced until 1973. That was the year teenage births started to fall. By 1982, they had more than halved, to less than 4,500 - well below the 1962 number.

Of course, the number of births is related to the number of teenagers. So let's look at this another way. In the early 1970s, before the DPB, 70 out of every 1,000 female teenagers were having a child. By the mid-1980s, this was down to 30 per 1,000. It stayed between 30 and 35 until the late 1990s, then it trended down again. By 2002, the rate was at its lowest in our recorded history, at 25.6 per 1,000 female teenagers.

That's still high compared with all other developed countries except for the USA and UK. But there's no way you can argue that the DPB is responsible - or that axing it would lower the rate.

Business Roundtable members head up major companies. If this report represents what they consider to be inteligent analysis, it's a bit of a worry, eh.

First, Else's statistics are correct although she could have gone further and looked up the latest figures to find out the teenage birth rate is now back up to 32.9 per 1000. She points out that in the early seventies 70 out of every 1000 female teenagers was having a child. Then she describes how the rate trended down to our lowest rate in recorded history at 25.6 per female in 2002.

A majority of teenage births in the early seventies occurred within a marriage albeit many were shotgun marriages. There were 9,150 teenage births in 1971, 55 percent within marriage. Many ex-nuptial teenage births resulted in adoption which peaked at around this time.

The contraceptive pill became available in the 1960s and abortion in the 70s. Thereafter teenagers with an interest in controlling their fertility were better able to do so. There was every likelihood the teenage birthrate would decrease, as did the general fertility rate, dramatically. This doesn't mean the DPB availability wasn't having any influence.

Looking at the general teenage birth rate alone obscures a great deal. It doesn't tell us about the tenfold likelihood that teenage births will be in the poorest communities when compared to the richest. For unqualified and unskilled girls in poor communities the DPB is an incentive because it pays more than any wage they could hope to command. MSD figures show the average all-up benefit for a sole parent in 2006 was $21,580. It's incentive appeal obviously lessens through the rising deciles as young women's alternatives to the DPB improve. In 2006;

* 65.8 girls per 1000 aged 15-19 gave birth in the most economically deprived areas, classified as decile 10.

* 6.92 per 1000 gave birth in the most affluent areas, or decile one.

Looking at the general teenage birth rate tells us nothing about ethnic differences. In 2000-02 the Maori rate was still up at 70 per 1000 - the same as the general rate in the early 70s. The Pacific rate was 48 and the European rate 22.

As demonstrated, teenage births in the early seventies frequently occurred inside a marriage. Being a feminist Else is opposed to shot-gun marriages. She would prefer the state intervened. Many other teenage births ended up in adoption. Something Else is also strongly opposed to (at least the 'closed' variety). Perhaps she would prefer children stayed with their biological mothers at any cost.

When one considers the indicators for a range of social problems, for example, landing in the Youth Court, coming from an adoptive home is not up there with other factors like being fatherless (top of Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft's list), being born to an adolescent mother, or being moved from one foster home to the next as a result.

I cannot know if stopping lifestyle welfare (what we have now) will reduce the teenage birthrate, particularly that of Maori. The US experience was a decline in African American and Hispanic teenage birth rates from 1990 until 2006 with rises since.

But even if the rate didn't drop, taking babies into the wider family, adoption or whangai, or channelling young mothers into jobs or training where they can combine their parenting responsibilities with work, would be preferable to what we do now.

When welfare becomes a lifestyle

I used to write to Steve Maharey when he was Minister of Social Development trying to persuade him that welfare was no longer a safety net.

He would reply with assertions like,

"...I do not support the view that the DPB is a lifestyle choice." 19 October 2001

"The domestic purposes benefit is necessary to ensure that children are not thrown into poverty when relationships fail." 13 September 2002

Maharey was among the many people who refuse to accept that the DPB is frequently used by single women having babies. But the following statistic proves it. Over 2,300 females aged 18-24 moved off a sickness benefit for pregnancy-related reasons onto the DPB in 2008.

These are women who (officially) have no financial support - no partner or job - before or after the birth.

These females are a subset of the 6,000 plus that are granted a DPB for the first time each year with one child only aged 12 months or younger and in addition to the 5,000 who add a child under one year old to an existing benefit each year.

So 17-18 percent of children are starting out life on welfare. If there was a 'relationship' between the mother and father it was short-lived.

Around half of the total are Maori so around 1 in 3 Maori children start life on a benefit.

Most of the births will be congregated in low decile areas. The problem with that is the 'normalisation' of the behaviour. That's a lifestyle. That's just the way it is.

But it wasn't the way welfare was intended to operate.

My estimate, by the way, ties in with earlier MSD research;

Analysis of longitudinal benefit administration data for New Zealand has shown that by the time children born in 1993 turned seven, half had been supported by one of New Zealand’s main social assistance benefits at least once. While this was a transitory experience for many, approximately one in five children in the 1993 birth cohort spent at least five of their first seven years of life supported by a main benefit (Ball and Wilson 2002).

Pregnancy is hard work

Daisy-up-the-duff does little but eat and sleep as she balloons. The other two went out in sympathy.

Swede "shocked" at NZ violence

Sorry for the repetition but we keep getting Sweden shoved down our throats as a shining example of a peaceful country thanks to the banning of corporal punishment in the home.

Swedish Expert Shocked By NZ's Tradition of Violence

When Swedish psychology student My Wilkstedt arrived at Otago University a decade ago, it wasn't only the fact that her friends had been smacked that upset her. "I was actually quite shocked," she says.

But rugby upset her too.

"I really couldn't watch it," she says from Malmo, near Stockholm, where she now works for the Swedish Corrections Service. "Let's face it, it's a violent game."

I am equally shocked when a finger is pointed at NZ's violence from a country with violent crime statistics that pretty much mirror ours. And she works in Corrections so can't plead ignorance.

Mixed reaction to Maori and Welfare

The launch of Maori and Welfare resulted in quite a few interviews (with more to come), and a great deal of discussion on talkback, most of which seemed positive when I was able to monitor it. Disappointingly, but probably not surprisingly, John Key and Paula Bennett ran for the hills.

But how did Maori respond?

At the launch of Maori and Welfare last Monday, a number of Maori leaders were present and asked questions after I had spoken. I don't believe I offended anyone present; some agreed with my description of the problem privately but there is also a sense off weariness and wariness about what to do. John Tamihere was on the list of expected attendees and I was sorry he couldn't make it. We have talked briefly on radio before and he apparently gave the paper positive publicity on his Radio Live programme the next day.

Although we had hoped to have the Minister of Maori Affairs attending, Pita Sharples, another commitment prevented that happening. It now appears the Maori Party, or Tariana Turia at least, has decided to ignore me according to the closing sentence in the following report from the Wanganui Chronicle which says Tupoho find my paper insulting. This is my response sent to the editor, and copied to the Maori Party MPs adding that I was sorry on both of our behalfs', theirs and mine, that the paper has been misinterpreted. But it sadder still for young Maori because the status quo is not a happy prospect;

Tupoho say that my paper, Maori and Welfare, is insulting to Maori (Wanganui Chronicle, 22nd July.) It certainly wasn't intended to be.

Statistics show that at least half of Maori single parents currently on welfare started on a benefit as a teenager. My opinion is that many young women default to welfare because their alternatives are not bright, having failed to acquire qualifications or skills. The same could be said of the non-Maori population. The Maori teenage birthrate however, is more than three times that of non-Maori and the teenage birthrate in the poorest decile areas is ten times higher than in the wealthiest. A majority of teenage mothers go on welfare and many stay there for years. Long term dependence on welfare has been shown to produce poor outcomes for both mothers and children in terms of education and health.

My paper explores the historical discrimination and separatism Maori experienced as a reason why welfare has had a disproportionate effect on that ethnicity. Maori were more vulnerable to the damaging aspects of welfare because they have been historically economically disadvantaged. Welfare incomes can equate to an unskilled wage but they create a false economy. Although money flows into a poor community there is no commensurate economic productivity. People are not engaged in producing goods or services. Communities stagnate.

Each year the inflow of young Maori people into the benefit system continues unabated. Stopping that must be a priority for Maori. Hence my suggestion that the DPB be replaced with strictly temporary assistance signalling a strong message that welfare can no longer be viewed as a lifestyle. The paper does not recommend cutting off assistance to those already in the welfare system. It also discusses ways in which Maori could find their own solutions via organisations like Urban Maori authorities if that is what Maori want. There are 6 or 7 suggestions put up for debate. Loans instead of benefits was part of a separate proposal, 'opting-out', which although canvassed, I specifically stated may not best suit most Maori at this time.

Even in a recession there are opportunities. For instance NZ has a chronic shortage of childcare yet 50,000 single parents on the DPB have just one child. They could be employed in community or workplace crèches caring for 3 or 4 other children. Before the DPB Karitane hospitals routinely employed young single mums as staff who could combine their child care responsibilities with work. We just aren't being creative enough when we approach the problem of welfare.

In my work with beneficiaries as a community volunteer I have seen lives transformed by moving off a benefit and into work. It isn't just about financial independence. People gain a great deal from the purpose and friendships that working brings to their lives.

Finally, the paper was extracted from a larger body of work about welfare and the general population. It would be a mistake to give the impression that I consider welfare a problem only for Maori. It is a problem for anybody that gets trapped early and finds getting out nigh on impossible. I cannot accept that anybody believes we do young people a favour by letting this happen.

'The Triumph of Progressive Public Policy'

Busy morning so I'll let someone else do the writing today. This is a succinct piece from the NCPA speculating about the effect of unions and government running the show. (Of course there is also the not insignificant matter of the bottom dropping out of the US auto market);

DETROIT: THE TRIUMPH OF PROGRESSIVE PUBLIC POLICY

Imagine a city where all the major economic planks of the statist or "progressive" platform have been enacted:

* A "living wage" ordinance, far above the federal minimum wage, for all public employees and private contractors.
* A school system that spends significantly more per pupil than the national average.
* A powerful school employee union that militantly defends the exceptional pay, benefits and job security it has won for its members.
* A powerful government employee union that does the same for its members.
* A tax system that aggressively redistributes income from businesses and the wealthy to the poor and to government bureaucracies.

Would this be a shining city on a hill, exciting the admiration of all? We don't have to guess, because there is such a city: Detroit, says Jarrett Skorup, a research intern at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

* In 1950, Detroit was the wealthiest city in America on a per capita income basis.
* Today, the Census Bureau reports that it is the nation's second poorest major city, just "edging out" Cleveland.

Could it be pure coincidence that the decline occurred over the same period in which union power, the city government bureaucracy, taxes and business regulations all multiplied? While correlation is not causation, it is striking that the decline in per capita income is exactly what classical economists predict would occur when wage controls are imposed and taxes are increased, says Skorup.

Specifically, "price theory" predicts that artificially high business costs caused by excessive regulation and above-market labor compensation rates imposed by so-called "living wages" will lead to an increase in unemployment, explains Skorup:

* Detroit's minimum wage is a whopping $7.40 an hour, more than $2 above the federal minimum wage when it was enacted; and pressure groups are pushing for more.
* Additionally, any company contracting with the city must pay its employees $8.23 an hour if they offer benefits or $10.28 an hour if they do not offer benefits.
* The city has the highest unemployment rate among all large U.S. cities.

Source: Jarrett Skorup, "Detroit: The Triumph of Progressive Public Policy," Mackinac Center, July 6, 2009.

Foetal alcohol syndrome - questions

Yesterday a group submitted to the parliamentary health select committee about FASD, foetal alcohol syndrome disorder. The first thing that caught my eye in the report about their submission was their targeting of Glen Innes and East Tamaki for education action. That tells us a lot. They have chosen areas where they know drinking during pregnancy is a problem. Suburbs that feature a high welfare population and high teenage birth rate.

The second thing I noticed was their costing to New Zealand of FASD as "more than $1 billion each year."

By coincidence yesterday I was reading this report;

4.4.1 Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

This study uses recent estimates that 2.0 per 1,000 live births have FAS and that it cost an estimated $1.9 billion in 1992 to treat infants, children, and surviving adults for FAS and its sequelae.

4.4.1.1 Synopsis

FAS is estimated to occur in 2.0 per 1,000 live births in the United States each year (Bloss 1995, personal communication). It is estimated that during 1992, the cost of treating FAS-affected infants, children, and adults was $1,944 million. Most of the cost associated with FAS treatment is incurred while developmentally disabled persons are either institutionalized or receiving intensive home-based services during their adult years. This estimate does not include other effects that result from fetal alcohol exposure that has not been diagnosed as FAS.

So in NZ it is estimated that over 1 percent of babies are born with FAS yet the US estimates the incidence at 2 per 1,000 births or 0.2 percent. These figures are wildly divergent. Which results in correspondingly divergent costings.

Yet I can believe that 1 percent (and much more) of mothers drank considerable amounts of alcohol during pregnancy. The US is probably employing a much higher diagnostic threshold ie they are documenting the most severe cases.

Getting back to where the problem is concentrated as indicated by where the group is focussing their efforts, "teenage girls and their families" in the poorest areas of Auckland. Around 4,500 females were granted a sickness benefit for pregnancy related reasons in 2008. Two thirds transfer to a DPB. 80 percent were aged 18-24 (an unknown number were younger). I wonder how much of their sickness benefit was spent on alcohol?

If society really wants to promote responsible parenting, pre- and post-birth, is putting up cash incentives to anyone with reproductive equipment the best idea we can come up with?

Taxpayer funded trips

Not what you are expecting.

Research from the Centre for Social and Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation shows that from a sample of 1046 frequent drug users, of those injecting drugs in 2008, 77 percent had used an unemployment or social welfare benefit to pay for the drugs; for methamphetamine users the percentage was 43 and for ecstasy users 18. For injecting drug users this was the main way they paid for their drugs.



(Left click to enlarge image)

Work and Income cannot compel people on benefits who abuse drugs to accept treatment. Not even if drug and substance abuse is their primary incapacity for being in receipt of a sickness or invalid benefit.

The taxpayer, on the other hand, is compelled to fund their benefits.

No degree - no debate

At MJ's request I have removed the original post. She says it has personally identifying details despite my having removed her name before publishing it. Initially she emailed me on Tuesday asking for my qualifications. I responded that I was not University educated. Not satisfied with that response she then asked the same question via my blog creating a strong impression that she was keen to expose what she views as my inadequacy publicly.

I have never pretended to have letters after my name. Similarly I have no art qualifications - not even a pass in school certificate art - but because I receive commissions, exhibit and sell my work I describe myself as an artist. This is also, according to one commentor yesterday, unacceptable.

I am still waiting for a substantive argument about the content of my paper rather than attacks on my suitability to produce it.

MJ, if you do not want your emails to me made public, don't send any.

'Maori and Welfare'

The NZ Business Roundtable today published a paper I penned as part of their Te Oranga o te Iwi Maori project. The media attention has been high and I have gone from one interview to the next and then the official launch. On Breakfast TV tomorrow 6:50.

I will link to the paper when it is on-line. Here's the release.

Report calls for major welfare shake-up

20/07/2009 17:44:35

A report has been released which recommends the Domestic Purposes Benefit be scrapped and replaced by a shorter-term support package.

Researcher Lindsay Mitchell has made the recommendation in her study of welfare policy and social problems among Maori, which was commissioned by the Business Roundtable.

Citing the high rates of Maori women receiving the DPB, she says steps should be taken to discourage them from getting pregnant in the first place.

Ms Mitchell says to that end, the DPB should be abolished and the Government should only provide support for one year. She says beyond that period financial support should be provided by the child's mother, father and extended family.

The report also recommends looking at the introduction of contributory unemployment insurance for workers and a restriction on current universal welfare entitlements.

It advises tighter eligibility criteria for sickness and invalid benefits and suggests panels of doctors be used to approve applications as opposed to individual practitioners.

Mrs Mitchell believes steps will have to be taken by the Government at some stage - not because it wants to, but because it has to. She says there is a lot of public concern about welfare dependency becoming a lifestyle among both Maori and Pakeha.

Mrs Mitchell says the state should provide welfare support only as a last resort safety net.

Squawking when their own chickens come home to roost

There is little easier than writing policy in opposition.

Phil Goff wants the dole paid to people whose partners are working. What a hypocrite. It is Labour's pursuit of means-testing egalitarianism which has left New Zealanders with a tax-funded unemployment insurance system which rips half of them off when push comes to shove.

Using the recession to do nothing

I feared this would happen. That National would use the recession to do nothing about reforming welfare, the DPB in particular.

According to the DomPost;

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett said the rise in numbers on the DPB was a reflection of the job market.

Correct in part but not to the exclusion of anything else.

Bennett implies that the 8,000 increase from June 08 to June 09 is primarily about women losing their jobs. Some, yes. But it is more complex than that.

Or is she actually admitting that when jobs are harder to come by women get pregnant to get on welfare? Or that people break up relationships so they can claim both dole and DPB? I don't think she is.

In 2008 over 6,200 first-time mothers with babies under 12 months old were granted the DPB. 55 percent were Maori and Pacific. A third were NZ European.

An important reason why the DPB is growing again is increased fertility rates, especially among the young. Throw in, as well, increasing ex-nuptial births, now approaching half of all births.

If the job market is the most important influence on DPB numbers why, during a period of very low unemployment, did DPB numbers shown relatively little change? The total caseload has averaged around 105,000 for the past decade, with a low of 96,000 and a high of 109,000. It is currently at 104,400. If the job market is the most important influence on DPB numbers then this is as good as it gets.

But she was confident that once the job market had improved, numbers on the DPB would drop again.

Not necessarily. Young mothers entering the system stay the longest. Until National gets a grip on that fact and decides to do something about it, a high DPB toll is here to stay.

I have said it before - the DPB is institutionalised. Numbers on it are affected by more factors than the job market. But if those other factors are not acknowledged, what chance they will ever be addressed?

Finally ask yourself this. If a single mother has been in work and loses her job, why doesn't she receive the unemployment benefit? Why isn't she subject to the same conditions as other unemployed people? There is less pressure to work when on the DPB. That's why. And that is another reason why the Minister's optimism that the numbers will soon drop again is misplaced.

How many genuinely abused children will fall by the wayside?

The following figures just received from MSD show that care and protection notifications to CYF are rising significantly. For the financial year 06/07 there were 71,927 notifications; in 07/08 there were 89,451; and for the first three quarters of 08/09 there have been 82,459. Notifications are therefore on target to rise around 23 percent on the 2007/08 financial year.

This is a result of the social climate produced under the section 59 hysteria. Some will perceive it as welcome.

However, CYF are cutting staff numbers and closing community offices while the workload is rising. Social workers are under increasing pressure trying to manage growing caseloads. What chance the real problems will, to use a hackneyed but useful phrase, 'slip through the cracks'?

Biggest jump in unemployment benefit numbers since late 1980s

Media Release

BIGGEST JUMP IN UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT NUMBERS SINCE LATE 1980s

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Latest benefit statistics just released by the Ministry of Social Development reveal the second largest rise in unemployment benefit receipt since records have been kept.

"Not since the financial year 1988/89 has New Zealand seen such a large rise in numbers on the unemployment benefit, " welfare commentator Lindsay Mitchell said.

Over the year to June 2009 the numbers rose from 18,000 to 51,000 - a rise of 33,000 or 187 percent. "The only other time such a large rise was recorded was over the period between June 1988 and June 1989 when unemployment numbers jumped by 37,000. "

As well, numbers on the sickness benefit have surpassed 50,000 for the first time ever. "There was a 17 percent jump in sickness benefits from 46,000 to 54,000. Receipt of invalid's benefit grew by another 2 percent to reach 85,000 and the numbers drawing the DPB grew by 8 percent climbing to 104,000."

Overall the total number of people receiving a main benefit increased by 20 percent from 258,000 to 310,000.

"While some of the growth is outside of the government's control there are certainly areas in which some reform or rules tightening could make a difference. The OECD has repeatedly warned New Zealand that benefits are too open-ended in comparison with other member countries. There are no treatment requirements on people receiving invalid or sickness benefits for drug or substance abuse problems; no work-testing on the DPB; no benefit time-limits or reducing payments over time. Yet there are still areas of employment that are experiencing shortages. Childcare and care of the aged are two."

"In the past New Zealand maintained almost full employment with government sponsored work schemes whereby local infrastructure projects were subsidised through payments to local government. While it is infinitely preferable for jobs to be created by the private sector, if National is not going to provide the tax relief and incentives to create these jobs, maybe it is time they started looking at options other than simply handing out money for no productive return."

A different approach to assisted suicide

An elderly high profile English couple, one terminally ill and the other struggling with eyesight and hearing problems, travelled to Switzerland where they ended their lives at an assisted suicide clinic.

It is news to me that Switzerland has such an enlightened approach to death.

Switzerland allows assisted suicide by a nondoctor provided that it is not done for profit. That is the most liberal ruling in Europe and its principles were set out as early as 1918: “In modern penal law suicide is not a crime . . . aiding and abetting suicide can themselves be inspired by altruistic motives.”

It is interesting to read the comments that follow. It is not enough that some people want to tell others how to live their lives but also how to end them. Naturally. In severe pain or drugged up to your eyeballs with morphine; in and out of consciousness but sometimes aware of the grief of those watching; slowly, with no control over your bodily functions; powerless . Your life did not belong to you so why should your death?

Welcome to New Zealand. Welcome to most supposedly civilised western nations.

Over half teenage mothers go on welfare

Media Release

OVER HALF TEENAGE MOTHERS GO ON WELFARE

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

New information released by the Ministry of Social Development shows that more than half of first-time teenage mothers giving birth in 2007 and 2008 went on welfare.

There was a yearly average of 5,044 births to 15-19 year-olds in 2007/08. According to welfare commentator Lindsay Mitchell;

"Around 2,800 mothers - or 56 percent - went on the domestic purposes benefit*. Of these mothers 48 percent were Maori, 30 percent were NZ European and 10 percent were Pacific. The most common age was eighteen. "

"What's more, an unknown number of babies will have been taken into the care of family or whanau and are being raised with the assistance of an Unsupported Child's benefit. A further unknown number will be second and even third births added to an existing benefit."

"Clearly teenage parenthood is a significant and ongoing cost to the taxpayer. But far worse than the financial implications are the social. Many of these children will be severely disadvantaged by impoverished environments, transience, exposure to the drug and alcohol abuse associated with 'partying' before and after birth, and subsequent poor health and educational outcomes ."

"This state of affairs has been let go for decades now. Although successive governments have played the intervention card via CYF and a host of other non-government organisations, the number of materially and emotionally ill-equipped young girls becoming teenage mothers continues unabated. It is a matter of urgency that the government takes a dispassionate and evidence-based look at why this is happening and what role the DPB plays in perpetuating the problem."

Not pulling on my head or heart strings

Occasionally, when watching something like Nigel Latta's Into The Darklands, or reading an Alan Duff book, it is possible to feel some sympathy for a killer. Taffy Hotene, for instance, suffered severe abuse and alienation from his family, from very young and for many years.

I have yet to experience the faintest twinge for this character. In fact the effect is inverse to the amount of past 'hardship' he parades.

There is nothing feminine about netball nutters

This has got to be a joke;

A Palmerston North netball team that wears shorts instead of skirts is embroiled in a stoush with the sport's administrators after it was told to fall back into the feminine line.

Feminine?? Anyone with any experience of netball coaches and administrators will know they are the most bureaucratic battleaxe butch bitches about. On any scale of reasonableness they are absent. Because they stopped growing vertically but kept on going horizontally their subsequent inability to foot it with the players leads to a deep-seated inadequacy vented through raging authoritarianism. Out of control tubs of testosterone.

And the ridiculous incongruity of their insistence on addressing each other as "ladies" at all times - even little girls on the receiving end of a strident barking are "LADIES". They exhibit a fascinating and appalling combination of militarism and political feminism. Netball Nazis. Utter nutters.

Restraint

Regular readers of this blog will know that in the league of blogosphere rudeness mine just doesn't rate. It is not in my nature to slam and slag people off. I don't find it therapeutic and attention seeking isn't a priority either. However I would not like to give the impression that I never speak ill of people. I do. But I confine my comments to people I know well and trust - making them, that is:-)

That, I feel, is as it should be.

If I was cleverer and quicker remarks such as the following might trip off my tongue. They would also be more than acceptable;

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." - Irvin S. Cobb

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." - Paul Keating

"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." - Forrest Tucker

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." Clarence Darrow

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend.... if you have one." - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one." - Winston Churchill, in response.

"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." - Stephen Bishop

Arguing the law but missing the point

Not that I agree with Rosslyn Noonan, Chief Human Rights Commissioner, but according to this news item we are already back to square one in respect of the anti-smacking law;

She says force can be used when it is reasonable to do so, such as stopping the child from hurting themselves or others.

What the 'yes' vote urgers are missing is this. Because of a combination of media reporting and the controversial debate about banning smacking, the social climate has changed. There is hysteria about child abuse abroad. This isn't dissimilar to the hysteria over sexual abuse earlier. (Sexual abuse similarly underwent a change of definition to eventually encompassing any unwanted touching.)

Many more people are reporting what they personally define as abuse or assault which the police may or may not prosecute. The reports do not need witness substantiation or evidence. If the particular police involved are inclined towards empathising with the current climate, a prosecution is more likely to occur. There have been and will be miscarriages of justice.

People cognisant of what has happened are fearful, with good reason. Worse, I don't think there is any putting this cat back in the bag.

Having kittens - literally

Remember Daisy?

She's up the duff. We first noticed something awry when she started missing her target when leaping. Then Robert, who likes to carry her around cradled in his arms, noticed her tummy getting harder. Then Sam, searching for fleas, noticed her teats changing. Now she is ballooning daily. Sam wants to do a pregnancy test but I asked her how she proposes getting the stick into a constant stream of cat pee? Much less why you would want to. If she isn't pregnant, I'm the pope.

Anyway, it's written all over her face.

Doctor shortage

The OECD has just released a comparison of health data. In many ways NZ is unremarkable. Except for this;

"New Zealand has fewer physicians per capita than most other OECD countries. In 2007, New Zealand had 2.3 practising physicians per 1,000 population, well below the OECD average of 3.1."

By my reading of the situation this is largely a result of political interference. Successive governments have made the role of general practitioner less and less attractive. And of course our general economic standing means physicians are better paid elsewhere. My husband is a health professional (not a physician) but our children have never shown the remotest inkling of interest in pursuing a career in health. With all the dire media coverage, why would they?

Discretionary welfare - the irony and the problem

Last week I commented on the turn-around the Left has made on the issue of discretion in the area of welfare benefits. Having achieved their rules-based welfare, they are now calling for eligibility rules to be bent and discretion used for top-ups.

To illustrate my claim here is a passage written by Geoffrey Palmer, then a Professor of Law at Victoria, later Labour PM and briefly PM, in 1976;

"The message is, in my view, that whatever benefits we decide to pay we should pay them as of right. We should cut down the areas of discretion. We should make the benefits available automatically where at all possible and we should eliminate the screening mechanisms which destroy the dignity of the person receiving the benefit. When the community has decided to spend as much money as New Zealand has on income maintenance the money ought to be delivered by efficient and up to date machinery which aims to serve the recipient of the benefit without making him feel like a beggar."

In 1975 there was a grand total of 54,152 working age people receiving a benefit and nearly a third were widows. The population was 3.1 million.

Today there are over 300,000 with a population of 4.3 million. The results of rules and entitlement-based welfare are clear.

My own view about discretion is that is belongs in the area of private and voluntary charity where it can be exercised rightfully by people who have raised their own money and gathered their own resources. We should have far more of this sort of assistance. The organisation I work for does not carry on providing help endlessly to people who are not making a reciprocal effort.

When it comes to the state, the use of discretion becomes more difficult. How much power should state agents have when it comes to taxpayer purse strings? Hence we should have far less state assistance.

Doctor beat-up

This is an entirely spurious headline designed to antagonise patients and taxpayers;

Doctors prescribe drugs that don't work

Three out of four New Zealand doctors have prescribed placebo medications to patients, new research suggests.

Medical researcher Shaun Holt said the practice could be costing the taxpayer several million dollars.

The placebo effect exists, therefore if a drug improves someone's condition, it has 'worked'. The writer tells us as much in the article;

Placebos are associated with the release of natural painkillers in the brain, including dopamine. Taking a placebo creates a "self-reinforcing feedback loop" in the brain: during pain an individual recalls having taken the placebo and reduced pain reinforces its status as a painkiller. About one-in-three people appear susceptible to placebo effects.

Doctors are quite probably adept at identifying the one in three.

And what about prescribing drugs as a diagnostic tool? If the doctor guesses wrong, the drug 'doesn't work'. But it does eliminate one possible diagnosis so hasn't been a waste of money.

There is a subtle but significant difference between a drug not doing what it is therapeutically supposed to do and it being a waste of money.

Gordon Campbell on Paula Bennett's welfare abuse

This is a column by Gordon Campbell. My comment follows;

Paula Bennett’s welfare abuse
July 1st, 2009

To date, the government’s response to the recession has been faulted on the demand side – for not giving sufficient stimulus to the economy, as reflected in its wilful misdirection of most of the April tax cut money to the top tier of incomes, when low income earners would have spent the money to far better economic effect. The lack of proper planning and funding for social welfare provision has been just as disastrous.

Right now, the government seems intent on forcing more and more of the victims of this recession into fewer and fewer job openings. On National Radio this morning for instance, Social Welfare Minister Paula Bennett could be heard riding off energetically in all directions. Why, she was going to hand the Disabilities portfolio over to Taraina Turia in order to concentrate on getting people into jobs! We were dreaming, Bennett said, if we didn’t think that unemployment wasn’t going to increase.

Fabulous. So, beyond the slogans and empty gestures, would she be relaxing any of the eligibility settings for assistance, in recognition of the scale of the recession? No, not at all. Earlier this year, Bennett refused to instruct her staff to exercise discretion when it came to dispensing help through the Temporary Additional Support (TAS) scheme – which is the last line of defence for people in danger of slipping through the welfare safety net. Now was not a time to ‘tinker’ with the rules, she told me when taking questions about the government’s response to the recession, at a post Cabinet press conference.

In similar vein, Bennett is refusing to revisit the eligibility rules in households where one partner is still working. Currently, as Sue Bradford of the Greens has pointed out, couples with an earner in paid employment need to be amassing below $534 a week before the unemployed partner can qualify for the dole, or the DPB. This rule is, among other things, serving to keep the welfare figures conveniently and artificially low. As Bradford says, the situation is putting pressure on couples to split, in order to gain access to assistance. Shouldn’t Christine Rankin and the Families Commission be having something to say to Bennett about her eligibility rules?

These rules, as Susan St John and Keith Rankin showed yesterday in the NZ Herald, stand up badly to international comparison, and are inherently unfair :

Mary Williams, of Muriwai Beach, who lost her job in a bank in March, said in a letter to the Herald: “Why am I classed as a single earner paying ACC and income tax when employed, but classed as a couple when out of work?”

She and her husband Neville have started selling their possessions. “Because my husband earns just above the income limit for a couple, I cannot register for unemployment,” she said.

So, it is all very well for the government to say it is concentrating on getting people back into work. Already, the inadequacy of this response is evident : because there are not enough jobs for the people, and for the families, most at risk. Eligibility rules for assistance that have been premised on a relatively healthy job market and a ready return to employment are no longer adequate. Still, this government currently seems uninterested in responding to genuine need – it is more about spinning an appearance of concern, for the re-assurance of the majority still in work.

That approach is extremely short-sighted. “Financial pressures that attack the family unit lead to deepening poverty and emotional damage for all concerned,” Bradford says. “In the long term, poor educational, health and employment outcomes for children and adults in sole parent families will cost us more than easing rules on income levels and benefit entitlements.”

It would take five minutes for Bennett to issue a direction that people with partners in paid employment can access the unemployment benefit. She should also be telling her front line staff to administer the TAS benefits with discretion, and according to need. Yet that would be to assume that this government has an interest in steering New Zealand through this recession with anything other than its own welfare in mind.

By Lindsay on Jul 3, 2009 | Reply
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But socialists have traditionally despised the idea of discretionary entitlement. Universal rules and rights-based entitlement is their ideal. In order to provide such, means-testing has to be applied. That allows targeting of the neediest.

“Eligibility rules for assistance that have been premised on a relatively healthy job market and a ready return to employment are no longer adequate.”

The eligibility rules have been premised this way since the first Labour government introduced Social Security.

Welfare benefits are paid from general taxation. If people want better cover, then the country needs to change to a more comprehensive insurance-based model.

Sue Bradford,“In the long term, poor educational, health and employment outcomes for children and adults in sole parent families will cost us more than easing rules on income levels and benefit entitlements.”

So Bradford is now admitting that there is a problem with sole parent families. This is only because, she would counter, their benefits are insufficient and their children live in poverty.

But now she is suggesting that couples be given preferential treatment in terms of how much household income they can acquire via welfare.

You really should be thanking Paula Bennett - not attacking her - for sticking with the welfare philosophy of the Left. State, universal, means-tested, rules-based, entitlement.

MSD take a year to release statistics

Yesterday the Ministry of Social Development released their annual statistical report - 1 year after the most recent statistical information contained therein. It covers the 30 June 07 to 30 June 2008 period. That means we can look forward to having current statistics available in a year's time.

At the end of June 2008 there were 258,317 people on a main benefit. Towards the end of June 2009 there were 302,000. So some trends depicted in the report have reversed.

But here is a smattering of tables and graphs of particular interest;

Firstly this table shows welfare expenditure as a share of gdp.



Note that the total expenditure on pensions and main benefits was $9,285,000. Yet if you check 2008 Crown Expenses tables you will actual 2008 Social Security and Welfare spending at $17,877,000. This includes all of the other expenditure like accommodation supplement, emergency benefits,etc and the cost of running the whole kit and kaboodle. That pushes the share of gdp up to just short of 10 percent. The share of total government spending is 31 percent.

The next is interesting because it illustrates the extent of DPB 'churning'.



These figures relate only to grants - not total numbers of recipients. Of the 36,494 people granted the DPB in 2007/08 only 23 percent had either never received a benefit before or not within the last four years. Over three quarters were transferring benefits or returning. This indicates being on the DPB is more a way of life than an unusual and temporary event.

The next two tables again show grants, not total numbers, and provide reasons for those grants.






There was a big annual increase in invalid benefit grants (36 percent) and psychological and psychiatric conditions continue to trend up with both invalid and sickness grants. Nearly all of the growth in sickness grants was due to psychological/psychiatric disorders and substance abuse.

Objecting to 'good moral character'

Speaking to the medicinal cannabis debate last night Lianne Dalziel said;

The problems I see with the Bill are:

The introduction of a complex regulatory framework - with a Medicinal Cannabis Registration Board being established to issue Medicinal Canabis Identification Cards and Designated Agent Identification Cards - A Designated Agent is required to prove him or herself to be of good moral character. I totally object to that phrase being inserted in NZ law.

What is that about? A facet of the religion of 'non-judgementalism', a dogma adhered to fanatically by the Left and promulgated thoughtlessly through various state institutions?

It is hardly surprising that many people now exist in a moral vacuum. If good moral character is archaic and unmentionable, what are we left with?

More interest in the smacking referendum than the 2008 general election?

In respect of the 2008 General Election;

At 14 October, 2008, "... around 200,000 people still weren't enrolled."


On 4 November, 2008, there were, "...170,000 people who are still not enrolled to vote on Saturday."


So in those 3 weeks preceding the 2008 General Election only 30,000 people enrolled to vote.

In the two weeks since the smacking referendum campaign was launched by the Electoral Commission, over 25,000 have enrolled or updated their details.

While not directly comparable these figures provide some context.

People appear just as, or more motivated, by the smacking referendum.

Key's strategy a flop

Great. New Zealanders are not going to be told that the referendum is a waste of time. Bad call John Key.

Just released;

More than 25,000 people have responded to the call to get enrolled or update their enrolment details to take part in the upcoming referendum - but there are still many more who need to take action today.

In the two weeks since the official campaign started to raise awareness of the referendum on the question “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?” at least 25,000 people have updated their enrolment details or enrolled for the first time.

“We’re recording an average of over 2,000 people a day taking action by enrolling or updating their details to get ready to vote in the referendum,” says Murray Wicks, National Manager, Electoral Enrolment Centre.

It is only 7 months since the election when most motivated people would have been up-to-date. Around 33,000 young people will have turned 18 during that time and many people will have moved. But I think 25,000 is quite significant. Especially when it is also quite typical for people to wait until the last minute to take action.

From better pay to no pay

Back in 2005 one of the most controversial issues was the passage of legislation that would force sheltered workshops, which employ intellectually disabled people, to pay the minimum wage. This was a Labour move, backed by the unions, besotted with equal pay. ACT in particular, led by Muriel Newman, warned that the change would lead to the closure of workshops and the loss of jobs. The arrogant Ruth Dyson sailed on undeterred by the pleas of families whose main concern was to keep their sons and daughters employed and with purpose and meaning in their lives.

And so it has come to pass.

The Hutt News yesterday reported that after twenty four years Packworx would close leaving 23 intellectually disabled workers without jobs. In 2006 it had employed 60 people.

At the time Labour announced it was repealing legislation that covered sheltered workshops, around 3,000 people were employed in the sector. Mrs Gray said some workshops closed immediately and a good number of others shut up shop when the legislation came into full effect on December 1 last year.

I suppose the women that marched on Parliament yesterday want similar equalising legislation. How does the saying go? Be careful what you wish for because you might just get it.

Welfare mentality creep

It is official.

When in need, most New Zealanders now believe that strangers, rather than their own families, should support them.

The radical feminist, the minority rights activist, and the Marxist succeeded in putting the machinery in place whereby the state would be a more influential institution than the family. The machinery was the law coupled with insidiously growing welfare benefits.

Now minds and psyches have been infiltrated and most people won't even realise what has happened.

While I am not much on conspiracy theories, there were handfuls of people who had active agendas at various times and over time. On the whole, however, the process has been a haphazard series of what appeared to be good intentions (with resulting political and public buy-in) gone bad.

Here is a smattering of comment from the NZ Herald website;

The dole threshold level must be increased to help working people in these extra ordinary financial times..... it is really important that our government act with speed on this matter.

I hope all the people that are saying that the situation is fine the way it is could live on $534 a week to cover all their costs of living and someone else's.

Reality is these days if you are paying off your own home and one person in the relationship loses their job then 1 income isnt going to pay the bills.

Many married couples keep their finances seperate these days.The $80 earning limit is now also a joke while power, insurance and petrol esculate. The $80 limit plus the connection with what the wife is earning will end up making us all get a divorce to get the dole which nobody can live on anyway.

Of course you should be able to get the dole if you have paid taxes you are entitled to it, should have no bearing upon whether you have a partner or not.

The dole system should not discriminate against anybody. It shouldn't matter if one partner is still working. That partner is still contributing tax and the more they are earner the more tax they are paying.

Why this discrimination is allowed to continue, I have no idea, but marital status shouldn't enter the equation, when one partner loses employment and the other is still working.

Yes, if one partner is made redundant and the other is still employed, then the redundant partner should definitely be able to claim the full dole payment (but only when redundancy occured).

Yes I think everyone should be entitled to something, to be able to contribute to their portion of the weekly costs. Even the basic costs these days are barely covered by a reasonable full time wage.

I think there should be some kind of assistance for people who are made redundant and are married or in a relationship...I think it just takes one look at the mortgagee sales to realise people need more help than what is on offer!

I think it should be decided on the income that is left coming into the house and probably the threshold in NZ needs increasing with living costs sky rocketing.

Yes, you should be able to get the dole if your partner is working.

McDonalds scam

I do not expect any readers of this blog will be silly enough to fall for this .... but, I just received the following e-mail.

Dear McDonald's Customer,

We are planning big changes for 2009 at McDonald's Australia chain of restaurants and because your opinion is very important to us, we invite you to take a short Customer Satisfaction Survey that will help us improve the quality of our food and services.

We know your time is valuable, so we will give you a $50 bonus just for taking our quick 7 question survey. The entire process will take no more than 5 minutes.

Terms and conditions apply. Click here to take the survey.

You can participate in this survey only once.

It takes you to a very authentic looking site. The give away is the spelling mistakes. But if you can't spell, a widespread affliction as indicated by the comments people make on the net, you might not notice. After filling out a survey it then asks for your credit card details in order to pay you the bonus.

I was going to let McDonalds know but they are on to it.

It has been brought to our attention that a fraudulent email relating to a customer satisfaction survey has been circulated claiming to be from McDonald's New Zealand. This email was not sent by McDonalds New Zealand.

The survey requests amongst other things, credit card details, citing that participants will be credited with a $50.00 voucher. Please be aware that McDonald’s NZ only use reputable research companies and would never request bank or credit card details. Hoax emails come from known and unknown sources and email addresses in most cases can be 'spoofed' (term for a spam email whereby spammers make the email appear from someone other than the actual sender).

Please disregard and delete this email if you happen to receive it.

Unemployment chickens coming home to roost

Keith Rankin and Susan St John want the dole to be available without the means-testing of a partner's income. However, the choice New Zealand made way back in 1938, was to create an unemployment benefit (paid for initially through a new tax but later - c 1964 - out of general taxation) that was available to all, with no time-limits or reducing payments over time, regardless of how much or whether recipients had paid in. The price for this was means-testing.

If we want a more generous unemployment benefit, with more generous entitlements, then we need tailored unemployment insurance. In fact, people can already take out loss of income insurance privately, but many argue, why should I pay twice?

I have every sympathy with those people being made redundant and finding they do not qualify for the dole because their partner's income is too high. They have paid taxes only to find they aren't supported in return. It isn't fair. But then I have spent years arguing that the welfare system isn't fair.

By the way, the Australian income test limit provided in the NZ Herald doesn't look right to me. Here is the NZ limit of $534. That's right.

But the following is how the limit is calculated in Australia.

Partner income which exceeds the cut-out point also reduces your payment by 60 cents in the dollar.

The cut-out point looks like $775 per fortnight or $387.50 per week.

So you can get the dole if your partner works but it will be abated at the rate of 60c in the dollar if you partner's income exceeds $387.50 per week.

The dole pays $204.50 per week. If 60 cents is lost on every dollar of income your partner earns over $387.50 your eligibility would cut out when their income reached $728.33 - not $1069.

I could be wrong but wild variations eg $534 versus $1069 invite suspicion.

Update; NZ Herald - In Australia, the dole is reduced by only 60c for every dollar of a partner's income above A$387.50 ($485) a week, so a partial benefit is available until the partner earns A$1069 ($1340) a week.

Now I see the mistake. The writer has used the fortnightly dole figure of $409 to calculate a weekly cut-out point. Did this piece go out in the hard copy NZ Herald?

NZ Parents Under the Microscope

A 9 and 4 year-old left to play in a park by their father, George Kenton. Would I do that? Probably not because I am an overly anxious parent. I envy the parent that can make that decision, who is confident the 9 year-old is able to adequately care for the 4 year-old. Maybe if the park was nearby I would be comfortable. The 9 year-old is no problem but 4 year-olds can be unpredictable.

But surely it isn't the business of the state to scrutinise parents to this degree? Sure, we can go on about "what-if". But what-ifs rarely happen and if we proceed on the basis of what-if, nobody would be doing anything. We would all be in a state of paralysis.

I am bloody sick of the state and the evolving law it devises to impose a suffocating strait-jacket culture on parents. I really don't know what those of us who feel this way can do.

(At least it looks like this guy had the benefit of being cleared by CYF before the police got involved. Last weeks dad was prosecuted for shoving before CYF had chance to clear him. So, to make matters worse, in its zealous need to interfere, the state and its institutions are bungling the process.)