The problem for the Maori Party

The Maori Party make a lot out of style. They adhere to concepts or manaakitanga which are enshrined in their constitution.

Manaakitanga is behaviour that acknowledges the mana of others as having equal or greater importance than one’s own, through the expression of aroha, hospitality, generosity and mutual respect. In doing so, all parties are elevated and our status is enhanced, building unity through humility and the act of giving. The Party must endeavour to express manaakitanga towards others, be they political allies or opponents, Māori and non-Māori organisations, taking care not to trample mana, while clearly defining our own.

Yesterday while Hone Harawira was hanging tough, and Dover Samuels was reinforcing what Hone said as what Hone believes, Pita Sharples was elsewhere saying this;

Abuse whether it be physical, psychological, sexual, emotional is an attack against the person, and in doing so, an attack against their whakapapa, their whanau, their identity.

And we must see all violence within that definition – including abusive and offensive remarks; derogatory language; intimidating behaviour. Whether it is in a gang war; a newspaper column; or across the airwaves, abuse of any sort brings shame to us all.

Yet even Pita says forcing an apology out of Hone is not the right thing to do. That's understandable. It would be worthless.

In these days of reduced standards and the unremarkable, regular use of bad language Hone's remarks have been somewhat cushioned. But when I turn them over in my mind again, they are very, very offensive.

Hone is blatantly contravening the constitution of the party that got him into parliament. But more importantly he is undermining the bridge-building that Pita Sharples works so very hard at. He is making a mockery of the philosophy that many thought was important enough to record as central to how members conduct themselves.

The problem is you cannot change what is in someone's psyche. It is now clear what is in Hone's and if the Maori Party keeps him it is will be perceived as political expediency trumping their core values, or a quiet condoning of what was said.

The feminist burden

Here is a very jaundiced view of men and marriage. It asks me some questions so best I answer them;

Lindsay
You are a traitor to the female gender and it gets you some nice misogynist fans and might even pay quite well. Most women who disagree with your points of view do not even speak because of the consequences like loss of career mariage leading to impoverishment etc. Only women who promote vicous victimisation of their own gender are comfortable enough to speak out. They have some ardent male fans.
Just incase you are unaware Lindsay if children are left alone a woman can be jailed for neglect. How do you suggest single mothers pay the childcare fees to avoid this problem. The fathers of their children are not asked to contribute yet often sit on the sidelines and slag off the mothers of their own children who are required by law to provide 24 hour care.
Yes it might be a sensisble idea financially for women to marry before they have children but I think you will find most single parents have been married and are divorced.
According to a Herald poll more than 40% of men have been unfaithfull to their wives and about 16% of married women have cheated. They failed to mention though that wives infideity is usually a revenge affair after discovering a husbands affair.
We get this constant bullshit that men are just different and women are forgiving but the truth is the consequences for a mother having an affair are the end of her marriage and life long impoverishment unless she gets another ( cheating bastard ) husband. Wronged women bury their
anger to keep a roof over theirs and their childrens heads but they shouldnt have to.
Do you think women should put up with infidelity Lindsay please tell me.
You talk about their being less poverty when mothers get off welfare but what are their lives like? Studies in the US show the average mother does about 50 hours housework per week. If you combine this with working say a minimum of 40 hours thats 90 hours per week and many mothers work sixty hours plus for pittance wages. Their children are often left alone. So what should women in the US and NZ do when their partners visit prostitutes, strip clubs, bash them etc Lindsay. The cause of female poverty is often abuse by husbands. If your husband cheats or beats you either put up with it or you pay for the rest of your life.
What sort of quality of life do mothers have working 24/7. They might have a little more moeny but most compalain of complete physical exhaustion. They have no quality of life as is the same for many married mothers doing the same thing. Marriage is not something I would even think about. Its just slavery for many women Lindsay.
I know many mothers who come home from work and start doing the housework while their husband minds the kids. They work untill midnight and dont even get time with their own children. The husband and children have a slave cleaner. Women putting up with this is nothing to do with childrens welfare if all they actually do is work cook and clean.
We are constantly lectured by capitalists that women should sacrifice for children.
Well if they live miserable impoverished overworked lives then their daughters will too. The only benefactors are men.

First, my welfare reform advocacy is unpaid. I have only ever once been paid for my writing. I pay to promote my ideas. I suppose I could even buy into the nonsense of foregone earnings because of spending so much time on welfare research and writing. But I won't because that's my choice.

I have no obligation to the female gender by virtue of being one. Such a blind loyalty would demand a far greater 'sacrifice' than any other the writer rails against. A sacrifice of honesty because all women are not all right all of the time.

Many of the people who read this blog, like myself, have happy and enduring relationships. Believing there are problems with welfare, and the DPB, does not make one a misogynist. To the contrary. It usually accompanies a belief that men and women should rely more on each other, do more for each other, instead of depending so heavily on government assistance.

I wouldn't rely on a Herald poll as an accurate representation of how much infidelity can be accorded to either sex. But no, it shouldn't be tolerated if it hurts one partner very deeply. If a short period of assistance was required to exit a relationship I can live with that. But for how long does the 'help' go on before it becomes a destructive crutch or a weapon to use against the ex? And how many men walk away for the primary reason that the state will fill their shoes?

Poverty levels for single mothers in the US have been (recently) fairly steady but are still lower than before the reforms. Obviously many ex beneficiaries will be in low paying jobs but working for a living has many other upsides beyond income levels. In particular, the children form an expectation that working for a living is expected.

Most people on the DPB have not been married.

Childcare is quite heavily subsidised. The subsidies increased under Labour. The tax credit system was designed so that a single mother would always be better off working. There is a shortage of childcare which is ironically, in part, a result of the female workforce being reduced by over-reliance on benefits.

If women are doing housework until midnight every night they have some sort of obsession. The whole idea that women are slaves to children and men is pathetic. I suspect the writer is clinically depressed and projects her experience on the rest of her gender because misery loves company. In fact, if she really believes this stuff she is better off alone.

Arriving at the right idea the wrong way

This excerpt is from a Times columnist who has, triggered by the ongoing saga of British MPs and their expenses, arrived at the idea that far fewer are needed. If that happens here, great. Unfortunately one of our main offenders is one of the MPs we do need. At least he has apologised and, for what it's worth, I think it was sincere.

Another political female who is comically out of touch on such matters is Helen Goodman, the work and pensions minister. Kelly has recommended that MPs should no longer be allowed to charge for cleaners or gardeners on their expenses. In response to this, Goodman solemnly announced last week that women would be put off standing for parliament unless they could have cleaning ladies on expenses. What’s more, she is accusing Kelly and his reforms of sexism, because it is women who usually do the family cleaning.

The best of the joke is that she earns more than £96,000 a year as a politician at Westminster. I wonder why it hasn’t occurred to her to do as the rest of us do and either clean up ourselves or pay for a cleaner out of our own taxed income. Out of £96,000 one might have thought that should be feasible.

How on earth does this minister for work imagine other working women manage? Perhaps she somehow doesn’t understand that there are millions of women and men out there who are sorting out their domestic cleaning without handouts from the taxpayer and also managing to confront domestic sexism, should they encounter it, without governmental support. A woman who can’t make her husband help with the housework, one way or another, or handle it on her own is hardly likely to have the political skills one might expect even of the humblest backbencher. Yet this is the calibre of minister that the present system does and must raise up.

If social security had been contained how much better off would we be?

Most of today's benefits were created at the point of passing the Social Security Act 1938 or after. During the post-war years benefit levels were reasonably stable despite population growth. For instance between 1940 and 1975 the population grew by 92 percent but receipt of Unemployment, Sickness and Invalid benefits grew by only 9 percent. As a percentage of working age people, reliance on these benefits actually dropped.

Compare this to the next almost 35 year period - 1975 to 2009 - and the picture is vastly different. Reliance on the same three benefits grew by 903 percent or 9 times. The population grew by a mere 37 percent over the same period.

What if benefit dependence had stayed at 1975 levels?

Using some rough estimates based purely on total population growth it would look something like this;

Unemployment benefit 3,964
Sickness benefit 10,727
Invalid's benefit 12,897

Add in the DPB created in 1973;

DPB 23,606

That's a total of 51,194.

But the actual total today is 309,717. The difference in terms of expenditure is $5.17 billion.

How much tax per earner (2.154 million)?

$2,400

Unlike purist libertarians I do not advocate wholesale destruction of the welfare state although I understand why they do. It is a too unrealistic proposition to advance the cause of welfare reform.

But a return to respect for benefits and taxpayers, an avoidance of moral hazard through education, and levels of reliance that reflect genuine incapacity or emergency, would see us all much, much better off.

(And yes, I do realise this is a very simplistic calculation and there are umpteen factors and objections that could be made, both statistical and philosophical.)

US unemployment reaches 10.2 percent

October quarter data shows that US unemployment rose from 9.8 to 10.2 percent. This is apparently a bigger jump than was predicted.

Meantime NZ unemployment climbed from 6 to 6.5 percent for the September quarter.

The OECD average is 8.6 percent. NZ ranks 10th and the US 25th.

The full list;

Norway 3.0
Netherlands 3.5
Korea 3.8
Switzerland 4.1
Austria 4.7
Japan 5.5
Australia 5.7
Denmark 5.9
Mexico 5.9
New Zealand 6.5
Luxembourg 6.6
Czech Republic 6.9
Iceland 7.0
Italy 7.4
Germany 7.7
United Kingdom 7.8
Belgium 7.9
Poland 8.0
Canada 8.4
OECD – Total 8.6
Finland 8.7
Portugal 9.1
Greece 9.2
Sweden 9.4
Hungary 9.6
United States 9.8
France 9.9
Slovak Republic 11.6
Turkey 12.3
Ireland 12.5
Spain 18.9

How to avoid poverty

This advice isn't new to me but I thought I would reproduce it in full. Sometimes the way to go is so blindingly obvious entire governments miss it. From NCPA;

HOW TO AVOID POVERTY AND ENTER THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS

The conventional wisdom says that if we want to increase opportunities for children, we should give their families more income. Of course money is a factor in upward mobility, but it isn't the only one; it may not even be the most important, says the Brookings Institution.

According to Brookings:

* If you want to avoid poverty and join the middle class in the United States, you need to do three things: Complete high school (at a minimum), work full time and marry before you have children.
* If you do all three, your chances of being poor fall from 12 percent to 2 percent, and your chances of joining the middle class or above rise from 56 to 74 percent.
* Brookings defines middle class as having an income of at least $50,000 a year for a family of three.

Many American families need supplements to their incomes in the form of food stamps, affordable housing and welfare payments. But such aid should not be given unconditionally, says Brookings:

* The public is concerned that unconditional assistance will end up supporting those who are not trying to help themselves.
* New research in economics and psychology has shown that individuals frequently behave in ways that undermine their long-term welfare and can benefit from a government nudge in the right direction.

Policies with strings attached have had considerable success, says Brookings. One example is the 1996 welfare reform law, which required most adult recipients to get jobs, and dramatically increased employment and lowered overall child poverty. In the midst of a recession, we can't expect everyone to work. But social policies will be more successful if they encourage people to do things that bring longer-term success.

Source: Isabel V. Sawhill and Ron Haskins, "Five Myths About Our Land of Opportunity," Brookings Institute, November 1, 2009.

Reacting to Hone: Grin and bear it

Have just been listening to Willie and JT talking about Hone's latest outburst. Willie maintains his remarks do not pertain to people today but the colonists. JT disagrees. I'm with JT.

Hone says that white men (he used another word) have been "...raping our lands and ripping us off for centuries." It is very hard to believe he isn't talking about a miscarriage of justice that is ongoing.

It doesn't surprise me coming from Hone. But what really bothers me is that lots of people - myself included - who make comment about Maori problems get labelled racists and have nasty prejudices attributed to us that don't exist. Hone comes out with this mouthful and ... well... who knows what will happen. But I am certain that all hell won't break loose in the manner it would if a Pakeha politician expressed similar sentiments about Maori. White guilt requires that we collectively grin and bear it.

US Poverty Rates

The Green blog has taken issue with a claim I made in an op-ed published recently in the NZ Herald. The claim;

When the United States declared war on poverty and expanded welfare in the 1960s, poverty won. When it reformed welfare in the 1990s, welfare rolls dropped dramatically and so did poverty levels.

The following chart is from the US Bureau of the Census




Then Frog says; "...And they started to decline in 1993 – three years before the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act was signed into law by Bill Clinton. Mitchell is wrong again."

US welfare reform began before 1996. That was when federal reforms were legislated. State reforms began in 1989.

And to claim the trifecta of inaccuracy, under the welfare reforms Mitchell lauds poverty levels rose between 2000 and 2004.


Yes poverty levels have climbed but family poverty, especially that of single female led families, is still considerably lower than in the early nineties.

I am a "bullshit troll" apparently

This happens from time to time. Someone has a crack me for not just a view expressed but for living in Eastbourne. I guess Metiria Turei is taking over from Sue Bradford, except, Sue never got personal I must say.

Worse than this however is a comment on the Standard;

Lindsey is incorrect, and so are you. Why do I know this? Because I’ve never seen her do a straight set of stats to date, it is always biased to what result she wants. I don’t think that she will have changed her long term trend just now. For that matter I’ve yet to see her link to the sources of her stats – the sure sign of a bullshit troll.

I know that over the years I have made mistakes but always put my hand up and I certainly don't hide the sources of my statistics. The poster says he will provide me with examples when he gets time.

I hope so because far more people read The Standard than read this blog. If there is substance to the claim, put it up.

Multitude of media contacts

The Welfare State We Are In reports on the mass of media contacts employed by national government in the UK.

There are about 197 full page listings in the booklet and, at a rough estimate, about 20 press officers per page (some room is needed to fit in their grand titles with words like 'head', ''chief', 'strategy' and 'senior' liberally sprinkled around). So that is about 3,940 press officers - and this is exclusively for national government. I wonder how many journalists are left in Fleet Street to ask them anything? It may be a staff-to-customers ratio that the Ritz would envy.

Our Ministry for Social Development has 17 media contacts listed. If a simple x 15 calculation (based on population) was applied that would produce 255. I can't make a direct comparison to the UK equivalent but their Health Department has 145 press officers so perhaps we are similarly blessed.

Blog stats October

Unemployment rises but not for all

The official unemployment rate is released tomorrow. If the Quarterly Employment Survey, released yesterday, is anything to go by then the figure will go up.

But females are faring better than males. I pay attention to this because if more female jobs, particularly part-time jobs, are being created or becoming available, the prospects for getting people off the DPB is better. It also supports the claim that climbing DPB numbers are more a reflection of young women having children than the recession.

Based on quarterly change the only group to drop since June is full-time male employees. Unfortunately it was a big drop compared to previous quarters. Between the same quarters last year the drop was 1.3 percent - in 2009, 2.3 percent.

"Social Welfare Shake-up"

Here's my interview with Paul Henry yesterday. One could always do better:-) I never watch these things but I always review mentally, thinking about what I omitted.

SubStandard comment

I tend to avoid The Standard because they produce substandard comment based on misinformation. Having a crack at English's aims to tighten up on the sickness and invalid benefits they say;

"There isn’t a ‘blow-out’ in the numbers on the Invalids’ either, it’s increasing just a touch above population growth due to the fact the population is aging (most people on the Invalids’ benefit are older – 72% over 40, 35% over 55)."

1999 40+ population = 1,544,000
2008 40+ population = 1,904,000

23.3 % increase

1999 Invalid's benefit = 51,284
2008 Invalid's benefit = 82,879

61.6% increase

Hardly "just a touch".

Benefit changes don't go far enough

Media Release
BENEFIT CHANGES DON'T GO FAR ENOUGH

Monday, November 2, 2009

The government's plans to tighten up on benefit eligibility do not go far enough, according to welfare commentator, Lindsay Mitchell.

"Work-testing parents on the DPB when their youngest child turns 6 will encourage those who want to avoid work to simply expand their families. Currently around 5,000 babies are added to an existing benefit each year. One solution to this might be making additional children ineligible for family tax credits although this will increase hardship."

"What the government needs to be doing is sending a very clear message that, in future, welfare for parents with dependent children can only be provided for a limited time. The shorter that time, the greater the likelihood prospective recipients will be deterred and the tendency to lose touch with the workplace will be reduced."

"Any proposed work-testing on the sickness and invalid benefits could be equally ineffective because it requires a GP to assess the beneficiaries ability to work 15 hours. A recent Auditor General's report highlighted the poor standard of communication between GPs and Work and Income; the lack of information GPs were supplying on certifying certificates and their difficulties in trying to talk directly to case managers. Australia implemented this policy in 2006 but the numbers on their disability pension have continued to rise. "

"The fastest growth area for sickness and invalid benefits is psychological and psychiatric problems. These include drug and alcohol abuse. Stricter measures that the government could consider are 1/ appointing agents for those beneficiaries who have drug and alcohol abuse problems and 2/ requiring those beneficiaries to participate in rehabilitation programmes."

"In the past Work and Income (then the Social Welfare department) imposed tougher eligibility conditions based an whether an applicant was considered to have caused their incapacity to work. As with ACC, it now seems that there is little choice but to tighten up on eligibility. That will require a very strong, mutually supportive working relationship between Work and Income and GPs. The risk of intimidation needs to be acknowledged and actively resisted. If receipt of one of these benefits was widely seen to be much harder to qualify for, some people might think twice about indulging habits that seriously impair their physical and mental health."

"National could also consider 'grand parenting' as Australia has done with their Parenting Payment. That involves changing the rules for new beneficiaries but applying existing rules or less stringent rule changes to those already in the system ."

"Above all what National has to do is change expectations about what any of these benefits - DPB, Invalid or Sickness - is for. They are for emergencies, not lifestyles. Their voters elected them on a promise to tighten welfare and they need to do it in an effective, sustainable way."

Benefit numbers at September 2009:

DPB 107,658
Sickness 56,384
Invalid's 85,015

Talking about talking about welfare reforms

After (but not because of:-)) my agitating over National delivering none of their welfare policy promises to date, Bill English told Guyon Espiner yesterday that they would be going ahead with election proposals. When? Well, when the details are finalised...

I am on Breakfast telly tomorrow to discuss this.

A martyr is exactly what we thought you were

Last night I heard Rodney Hide say to TV3 News, "I am not a martyr".

The reason Hide's tax-payer funded spending on his girlfriend's travel consumed talkback on all channels yesterday is because that is exactly what people thought he was - a martyr.

He used to rail against perks. He cast a lone vote against increased perks. He made himself very unpopular in Parliament. A martyr "accepts discomfit in order to be more highly thought of."

Also last night, a friend rang me. She and her partner voted ACT last year because I convinced them to. That Rodney was the best thing in parliament. A cut above.

She asked, do you still have that painting of Rodney Hide? To which I responded, yes. Well get it out. I wanna throw darts at it.

She's a full-time cleaner with kids to support. Life isn't flash in material terms.

Rodney, you earn 10 times what she does. Nobody is disputing that level of recompense (not yet anyway).

But why couldn't you have paid for your partner's airfares and travel expenses?

Any Kiwi child could be a doctor or brain surgeon

Reacting to Michael Laws' comment that potentially awful parents could be offered cash as a sterilization incentive,

Barnardos New Zealand chief executive Murray Edridge said the comments were part of a pattern of provocative comments from Mr Laws designed to draw attention. "I can't believe that he actually believes this."

Any Kiwi child genuinely could become a doctor or brain surgeon – as long as there was community support for them, he said.

Well, I can't believe that Edridge actually believes that.

Leaving aside that many children are born with invisible handicaps due to their mother's lifestyle during pregnancy, leaving aside that their parents do not value education and cannot transmit a value they do not possess, leaving aside that adoption is now frowned upon by the state, does he really believe that all children have the same chance of reaching their potential?

Sadly, he is a deluded. At some point these Guy Smiley types, with benevolence oozing from every pore, with their oily optimism and perky platitudes, stop being annoying and start being a hindrance. When those entrusted with the job of advocating for children bring to the task this level of self deception you know it's time to pull the plug. His convictions will not improve the lives of NZ children.

Treasury: DPB growth about "Young women having children"

Media Release

TREASURY: DPB GROWTH ABOUT "YOUNG WOMEN HAVING CHILDREN"
Friday, October 30, 2009

In its report into economic long-term sustainability released yesterday, Treasury acknowledged that the recent growth in DPB numbers reflects a combination of a temporary rise in the number of young women having children and the impact of the recession.

Welfare Commentator Lindsay Mitchell welcomed this official recognition but was disappointed with Treasury's attitude.

"The popular political line has always been that the DPB is there for people who experience a relationship break-up. The Minister for Social Development recently defended the DPB saying the vast majority of recipients had come out of a marriage or de facto partnership. But now we have the Treasury acknowledging the growth is coming from young women having babies. 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."

"Unfortunately Treasury seems unconcerned by the rise, predicting it will be temporary. While it is true that there has been a demographic blip in the number of young women of child bearing age, the fertility rate (number of babies born per 1,000 females) has also climbed. In the 15 - 19 age group the rate has been climbing since 2003. Why does Treasury believe that trend is about to reverse?"

Treasury also draws attention to the substantial growth in sickness and invalid benefits and suggests this area as a focus for cutting spending. "While I couldn't disagree with that suggestion, equal, if not more focus needs to go on the DPB. That is because the DPB is the major driver of intergenerational benefit dependence. A report examining the long-term sustainability of the economy that fails to take account of intergenerational dependence is incomplete."

"Still, given the National government is hell-bent on ignoring the main thrust of the report, the reform of Super, its incompleteness is probably neither here nor there."

The long term outlook

Treasury yesterday released a report into the long-term outlook for New Zealand. The NZ Herald has a summary here. However, it provides an excellent overview of current spending in each major area. But for starters this is a summary of how tax is raised and who pays it.

The tax system
Total tax revenue is the product of what is taxed (the tax base) and the rate at which taxes are levied on that base. New Zealand's main taxes are:
■ personal income tax, levied using a progressive rate structure (raised $28.5 billion in 2009,53% of the tax take)
■ GST, levied at 12.5% on virtually all domestic consumption (raised $11.6 billion in 2009,21% of the tax take)
■ company tax, levied at a flat rate of 30% (raised $9.3 billion in 2009, 17% of the tax take), and
■ a range of excises on petroleum, tobacco and alcoholic products, some tariffs on imports,road-user charges and stamp duties (raised $4.8 billion in 2009, 9% of the tax take).

Issues with the tax system include:
■ Households (with children) in the bottom half of the income distribution effectively pay no income tax or receive tax credits, because of the interaction with the income support system.
■ The top 10% of income earners (those earning more than $70,000) pay more than 40% of all income tax revenues and about 20% of GST revenue.


Half the country is free-loading. That's great. Very sustainable.

ACT pisses me off

There. I said it. I am feeling really shitty because I had to leave a seagull with a broken wing lying helpless on the beach. I tried to right it but it just panicked. The tide is coming in and it'll drown but what the hell does one do? I'm not sure a badly broken wing can be fixed anyway. But it has reduced me to tears because I couldn't do anything about it and it looked at me as if I should be able to. Just beautiful and helpless.

Then I come home and read about stuff that just pisses me off. And at least I can do something about that. Or say something about it. This business of taking DNA from people who have not been convicted of a crime stinks. And ACT supported it. It should be utterly against the principle they claim to uphold and defend; that of individual freedom.

It is inconsistent with the Bill of Right's "provisions against unreasonable search and seizure." It turns on its head the time-honoured (with inestimable good reason) presumption of innocence.

And the Maori Party is right. It will disproportionately affect young Maori men. But that shouldn't be the reason that they voted against it. They should have, as ACT should have, voted against it because the state has no right to forcibly take DNA from someone who has not been proven to have violated anybody else's rights.

Brain development in the absence of fathers

The Wall St Journal has an interesting article about research into the brain development of degu pups that are raised without fathers. These relatives of chinchillas are apparently normally raised by both parents. When the father is taken out of the equation the neurones develop differently.

When deprived of their father, the degu pups exhibit both short- and long-term changes in nerve-cell growth in different regions of the brain. Dr. Braun, director of the Institute of Biology at Otto von Guericke University in Magdeburg, and her colleagues are also looking at how these physical changes affect offspring behavior.

Their preliminary analysis indicates that fatherless degu pups exhibit more aggressive and impulsive behavior than pups raised by two parents...

...Of course, the frontal cortex—where thinking and decision-making take place—is more complex in humans than it is in other animals. Thus, says Dr. Braun, it is important to be "really careful" about extrapolating the recent findings to human populations.

It's official - calm down Sir Geoffrey

The Social Report for 2009 is out and amongst many other findings about various social indicators this appears;

Most recent data

In 2006/2007, 23 per cent of drinkers of alcohol aged 15 years and over had a potentially (my emphasis) hazardous drinking pattern.

Longer term trend

There has been no change in the rate since 1996/1997.

And in response to this 'no change' state of affairs the following have been proposed;

1 Increase the price of alcohol

2 Increase the purchase age of alcohol

3 Decrease accessibility of alcohol

4 Decrease marketing and advertising of alcohol

5 Increase drink-driving measures

...because, we are apparently, "in the grips of an under-recognised national alcohol crisis."

"The value of nothing"

There was some talk around the blogs last week about obsessive ecologists Brenda and Robert Vale who have suggested that, because our dogs have bigger carbon footprints than SUVs, we should eat them. On Friday I gave them my brickbat when participating in the NewstalkZB Face Off panel. But the following is so beautifully written I thought it deserved wider attention. From Dr Martyn Hutt to the Dominion Post;

Spending on welfare - "...engine of the domestic economy."

Did you know that, according to Gordon Campbell;

It seems to have eluded Federated Farmers economic spokesperson Philip York at least – just as it eluded Ruth Richardson – that spending on welfare is one of the engines of the domestic economy. Beneficiaries spend the money that they get from the state in local shops – not on overseas trips or on luxury imports.

So if we want a strong and growing economy, what we need is more spending on welfare. If that were so than during the rapid growth period of welfare (last 40 years) NZ's per capita income would have climbed relative to the rest of the developed world. It hasn't.

Or perhaps he means we just need to maintain current levels of spending, at the very least, to prop up the economy.

But the money being redistributed to beneficiaries is money that cannot be spent in investment and job creation.

It is no good talking up a group's collective consuming power if, eventually, there isn't a commensurate producer. This isn't chicken and egg stuff. The production has to come first. And production requires labour.

Same story with the low paid. It has been estimated for instance, that 2/3 of this year’s wage rise to staff at Progressive’s supermarkets will be spent back at Progressive, on groceries. The money circulates back through retailers, and government gets some of it back in tax.

No. It is not the same story with the working low paid. They add value to the economy with their labour. Their earnings are not taken away from the productive sector with no return. Wealth redistribution through voluntary means - paid employment - is entirely different from redistribution through government coercion.

I do not, and never have, advocated cutting benefit payment levels. However, and I am sorry to repeat myself, a stop to the ongoing inflow of new beneficiairies is urgent. That, and a progressive raising of the qualifying age for Super would see a steady decline in welfare spending. That would drop the proportion of government spending as a percentage of GDP. That will make NZ a wealthier country.

It is impossible to estimate the social cost in crime, marital breakdown and mental health problems that have resulted from this ongoing pressure on benefit levels and entitlements.

Almost as impossible as trying to estimate the cost in crime, marital breakdown and mental health problems that have resulted from benefit dependency itself. Again all of those aspects of life have become more commonplace on the back of the growth in the welfare state. They may have worsened in the early nineties but they were already well-entrenched compared to life before the culture of entitlement and hand-outs arrived.

I am not an economist but this claim is as nutty to me as the one that goes, I may be a beneficiary but I still pay tax. I make my contribution.

I'm out of touch

My age is beginning to betray me. I seem out of touch with the new kind of gung ho approach by politicians. The fostering of solidarity and admiration among an audience that is most impressed by seeing them as 'good sports' and 'a laugh' and 'one of us'. Perhaps they figure that is the best they can do in a recession and a positive contribution to the countries morale is better than nothing.

A newish comedy show screens on TV3 called 7 Days. It's a stock in trade competition between two teams of comedians responding to leading from a adjudicator. It had me laughing out loud on Friday night. Then in rolled the Minister for Social Development (I suppose a new comedy show is a form of social development). Rolled because she had to roll in her own seat and sit in the middle. She then participated in that old game whereby you must never answer a question with 'yes' or 'no'. Probably not much of a challenge for a politician. Questions like "Have you ever done it in the back of a Holden?" answered by, "Who hasn't?". At which point I had stopped laughing and began using all my energy trying to process what I am seeing and figure out why 'we are not unamused'.

It's not very dignified. So what? Stop being such a pompous twit Lindsay. But aren't we supposed to take this person seriously? She is in charge of the government's biggest spending portfolio. In which case she is allowed to have some fun for a change. Give her a break. But I spend so much of my frigging time worrying about welfare and she's positively chirruping. In which case she has a better work/life balance than you and you could do worse than take a leaf from her book. But what would an overseas visitor make of it all? Who is that, they would ask. Oh that's just the government minister in charge of child protection services, the disability sector, care of the aged and reduction of family violence. She must be up to the job because she can make people laugh.

So my discomfit is without foundation. It doesn't stand up to scrutiny. It can only be explained by my age and the expectations I have because of it. I am a dinosaur with an attitude that says there is a time and a place; portraying a level of discipline publicly is important; maintaining a certain distance and anonymity is desirable; but above all, when there is serious, urgent work to be done there is no time for personality parades.

Abortion - I can't bring myself to do it

I support the right to choose. But personally I cannot choose the termination of life. It's an emotional, deep-seated impulse. But I faced it this week. And I am not trying to be flippant.

Daisy is pregnant again. We wanted her to have one litter and then we would spey her. But while she was still nursing her kittens, and unable to have the op, she got knocked up again. So I rang the vet and asked for some advice. They could spey her now. No problem. And the kittens she is carrying would be aborted during the process. Well I knew that is what they would tell me. Booking her in was really the purpose of my call. But then I couldn't do it.

So here we go again. Take two.

NZ does not exist in a microcosm

Reform UK has just released a report proposing ideas for reforming the current social security system. I thought the opening sentence was spot on;

Responsibility has drained away from the British welfare state, leaving a poisonous blend of entitlement and apathy.

A summary of proposals is;

> Abolish middle class welfare and benefit gimmicks, with immediate cuts that would save £14 billion. Further savings, including from migrating individuals from the state pension onto personal protection accounts, should be made as part of a medium term plan to restore the public finances.

> Hand benefit rules and operation to social enterprises and companies, funded through employee national insurance contributions.

> Develop flexible Personal Protection Accounts, building on the success of ISAs and the introduction of auto enrolment and personal accounts for retirement savings in 2015.

> Where possible, replace social security benefits with private provision, with private insurance being a potentially useful but largely underutilised tool, particularly for disability but also in other areas.

Of particular interest, however, given the overdue debate NZ is now having over ACC, and last week's Auditor General report showing MSD was not succeeding in reducing Sickness and Invalid benefit dependence, is further discussion about insuring for accidents and disability, and international activity;


As well as savings for the costs of retirement, personal accounts have the potential to be used for a range of other social policy purposes. This is the approach taken in Singapore, where, alongside pension funds, individuals contribute towards personal welfare accounts that provide support for unemployment, accident or injury...

A variant of personal accounts has been in place in Brazil for several
decades and has been introduced by several other Latin American countries. Uruguay has a dual public/ private insurance system which covers, among others, old age and unemployment insurance....

The OECD has identified private disability insurance as a potentially useful but largely underutilised tool. Private disability insurance has become an important part of welfare provision in countries such as the Netherlands and Finland. In the Netherlands, for example, the introduction of experience-rated premiums for public disability insurance was a key factor in explaining the recent sharp fall in the rates of inflow onto disability benefits....

The use of private insurance in Switzerland and Canada has also had similar effects on reducing the inflow and costs of disability. These positive effects reflect the financial incentives facing private providers to avoid the liability from people becoming unwell and, if they do become unwell, not recovering as quickly as possible...

So anyone who thinks we should or will stick with our current approach has their head in the sand. Historically welfare provision debates and outcomes have occurred in an ongoing and international fashion. Labour's reversal of ACC privatisation in 1999 was merely a stalling of reform.

The culture of excuse-making goes on

Apparently because alcohol kills 50 times more people than P we should be 50 times more worried about it. If I were 50 times more worried it still wouldn't keep me awake at night.

According to Prof Doug Sellman launching Alcohol Action New Plymouth last night,

"Alcohol has become totally over-commercialised in New Zealand, encouraging a heavy drinking culture that leads to serious health problems, fractured families and increased violence and crime affecting thousands of people.

"Over a thousand people die every year from an alcohol-related injury or chronic disease and there are over 70,000 physical and sexual assaults perpetrated by people who are alcohol affected."

The reasons were clear.

"The easy availability of alcohol at all hours, low prices and continuous bombardment by very clever advertising and highly strategic sponsorship deals are key drivers of our dangerous drinking culture," he said.

Shades of Hone Harawira's attack on the tobacco industry.

I cannot share Prof Sellman's confidence - at all. At the root of alcohol abuse are psychological problems. You can make access to alcohol more difficult but that doesn't address why people want to drink so heavily. Blaming the alcohol industry is just a cop-out.

Add to that the triumph of collective responsibility over individual responsibility, whereby the adverse consequences of alcohol abuse are socialised across society, and we might start getting warm.

When I was young I used to get in trouble with alcohol. I remember waking up in bed with some guy appalled to find myself there. Gutted. But I didn't blame the alcohol. And I didn't blame him. I blamed myself.

Today there are a lot more girls like I was but it seems to me they can't look at themselves and take it on the chin. They blame their behaviour on drinking (abetted by people who would blame accessibility and promotion of alcohol) or they blame the guy and cry rape. What they need to feel is a massive dose of shame, remorse and guilt so as not to do it again. That is how human nature works.

I am afraid Prof Sellman is just contributing to the culture of excuse-making.

I won the bet!

Well, actually, I haven't won the bet yet but I won the bet. Let me explain.

Last Sunday Des Coppins had a draw open to all callers to his Trackside programme. The prize was a bet that the TAB put up. It's a double. Whobegotyou (hot favourite) to win the Cox Plate tomorrow and Viewed (last year's winner) to win the Melbourne Cup, November 3, If they both come in the return is $1000. And I won it.

But I haven't won yet....

The Auditor General's Report

I have now had chance to read the report.

In 2007 MSD instigated a new approach to sickness and invalid beneficiaries. It involved more intense case management and a classification of beneficiaries into three groups - ready to work (don't know why this group isn't on the Unemployment Benefit) ready to plan to work and won't return to work.

GP certifying certificates were redesigned to acquire more information as to what suitable interventions might be and any other helpful input the GP could offer.

The AG's report is a evaluation of the results and it isn't good.

I am not going to quote extensively from it but essentially MSD isn't monitoring the changes, there are inconsistencies of practice across regions, GPs don't fill in the certificates adequately, GPs are very unimpressed with Work and Income case managers, particularly their availability to discuss matters, regional health and disability commissioners are under-utilised, the benefit numbers have continued to climb since 2007 and increased contact between beneficiary and Work and Income is patchy. Much of it is instigated by the beneficiary when extra financial help is required rather than the case manager fulfilling new guidelines.

15 recommendations were made.

Of course none of this addresses the underlying primary causes of ever-growing dependence on these benefits (and neither is it intended to). But all parties have been found wanting - accept the beneficiary.

Stunning

I was caught on the hop yesterday when I received a call from Radio Live asking me to record an interview about my earlier press release regarding National's broken promises. Although I was in a carpark and didn't have the release at hand that wasn't a problem. The problem emerged when the first question related to an Auditor General's report released yesterday. I hadn't heard about it or read it. Which is what I said. I don't bluff. Anyway the interviewer was telling me that Paula Bennett was saying that the problems with the sickness and invalid benefits were of Labour's making. Well, sure. But National campaigned on a whole lot of policy ideas about how to fix the problems and haven't implemented one. I rattled them off. And so it went.

When I arrived home late last night I naturally googled said report and was astounded to find Paula Bennett saying:

“This report confirms the changes we promised before the election are heading in the right direction."

BUT YOU HAVEN'T FULFILLED ONE OF THOSE PROMISES. And the numbers are continuing to head in the wrong direction.

That has been confirmed by your Ministry.

Blue vs Red - I may as well be colour-blind

Sus kindly sent through a letter she received yesterday from the Minister for Social Development, Paula Bennett. Representing National, in the blue corner we have ;

"I think we all agree that children should be provided for, whatever their family situation. If we penalise the caregivers for moral reasons, I can only see this impacting upon the ability of the state to help the children of these caregivers.

The benefit system, including the Domestic Purposes Benefit (DPB), is designed to supply a level of income support to enable parents to provide for their children. Benefit entitlement is based upon a person's individual situation. I could not agree to withholding money from people looking after children. It is the children that would suffer from that type of decision.

You might be interested to know that the vast majority of DPB recipients are in fact sole parents who have been married or in a relationship and who have lost the support of their husbands or partners for a variety of reasons.

As the Minister for Social Development and Employment, I will be looking into solutions that assist people into getting off the DPB and into work. Our policies will support parents while also recognising the value of paid work."

The following are excerpts from letters I received from former Minister for Social Development, Steve Maharey. Representing Labour, from the red corner we have;

"Income Support in the form of DPB contributes to the needs of children, and towards the valuable task of childcare, and is intended to provide a good start in life for children. Children are our country's future.......The government and the law cannot discriminate on moral grounds


The majority of DPB recipients are separated or divorced from a legal or de facto spouse (63% in 2001).


Officials are looking at the best means by which sole parents can be supported and encouraged to balance their work and family responsibilities. The idea is to get alongside them, talk to them about what they want to do with their lives, then help them get there."

Any discernible difference/s?

The overriding message from both is that as long as children are reliant on an individual, the state is obliged to provide the individual with an income. Therein lies the problem.

And regarding the past relationship status of DPB recipients, obviously the vast majority have been "in a relationship". But the Minister knows nothing about what type of relationship unless the recipient states that they were separated from a marriage or divorced. The latest information I have shows only 3,249 recipients were divorced and 29,622 were separated (I am assuming from a marriage because it wasn't from a de facto). Leaving the "vast" majority in the unknown category. The identifiers rely anyway on the accuracy of the recipients own description. For a variety of reasons that accuracy may be dubious.

The DPB is not, on balance, good for children. It can't be when it has created, in the space of a few decades, a whole new demographic of doubly disadvantaged kiddies with no in situ fathers and no money. I am very tired of those people with an ability to do something different simply defending it.

Change the rules

I was wondering whether regional reliance on the unemployment benefit matches regional unemployment rates.

(June 09 benefit data is used because the most recent HLFS data available is June 09.)

This is what I found;



No bloody correlation whatsoever.

So what is this chart telling me?

On the face of it, one would expect that where the unemployment rate is low, reliance on the Unemployment Benefit would also be low.

For example Nelson has low unemployment and a low ratio of dependency on Unemployment Benefit.

Northland, on the other hand, has a high rate of unemployment and a low ratio of dependency on Unemployment Benefit.

Or, expressed another way;

Nelson has low unemployment and a high ratio of dependency on other benefits.

Northland has a high rate of unemployment and a high ratio of dependency on other benefits.

Is it safe to conclude then, that people will rely on other benefits (SB, IB and DPB) regardless of the unemployment rate?

That is, anyway, what recent history tells us. We hit the lowest level of unemployment in the OECD at one point but reliance on other benefits was largely unchanged or growing.

The implication of this is very important. It seems obvious that people are on other benefits for other reasons. Granted. But when it comes to trying to tackle their dependency we are told, but there are no jobs so we can't do anything.

Hon PAULA BENNETT: This Government is committed to helping sole parents into work. We intend to change the work-testing rules to incentivise those parents to get a part-time job when their youngest child turns 6. However, I am committed to setting up domestic purposes beneficiaries to succeed, so we will hold off on making the changes until the economic conditions change and there are jobs for those people to be getting those sorts of opportunities.

But for many unemployment didn't cause their dependency and employment won't necessarily solve it. Many of these people are going to continue on benefits long term regardless.

BUT, Bennett is so hung up on what to do about existing beneficiaries that she is too distracted to think about how changing the rules would effect potential beneficiaries. Can't change the rules because there are no jobs for us to enforce new rules. Doesn't matter. Change the damn rules as a deterrent if nothing else. Change the rules in anticipation of an economic upturn. Get on with it or dependency will be allowed to just keep on growing.

Working-age benefits rise by 21 percent

The number of working-age beneficiaries has risen by 21 percent over the last year.

Here's a breakdown by September 2009 total and annual rise;

DPB 107,658 up 9%
Invalid's Benefit 87,615 up 2%
Sickness Benefit 56,384 up 17%
Unemployment Benefit 60,660 up 161%

All 326,811 up 21%

Some comments;

- Take out the unemployment benefit and the rise in all other benefits is still 8 percent.

- The rise in other benefits is more of a concern than the rise in unemployment because people stay on those benefits much longer.

- The 9 percent rise in DPB represents around 15,000 more children on welfare.

- The combined total of Sickness and invalid benefits represents a new high at 144,000.

- If National had delivered on the election promises I identified yesterday some of the rises may have been contained.

Flawed defence of ACC

There is too much wrong with Tim Hazeldine's defence of ACC's viability in today's New Zealand Herald to take any comfort from his she'll-be-right reassurances. First he likens the cost of funding the results of accidents, to the costs of raising children. We need not possess the total cost up front, he argues. It would be "foolish" to treat children as unfunded liabilities.

Suppose you and your spouse are in charge of a family of, say, three young children. That means you are legally responsible for bringing them up to school leaving age and morally responsible for helping them in further training or education after that.

Putting aside the obvious problem that being 'legally responsible' does not make any New Zealand parent financially responsible if they refuse to be, there are others.

Along with the costs of raising children there are benefits. Parents do not generally end up poorer than non-parents. That is because the lifestyle they adopt as parents tends to accrue wealth. For example, they buy bigger homes and save larger amounts of their income.

So there is a return on raising children that does not exist in funding long-term weekly compensation payouts to accident survivors, where much of ACC's liability lies.

Children are dependent for a limited time. ACC beneficiaries may be dependent for the remainder of their lifetimes. Given most serious accident claims are from young men, their reliance will likely span decades. Because of ever-improving medical technology and a seemingly increasing propensity to take risks (driven ironically by socialising the adverse consequences) the numbers dependent will only grow. This is also evident in the never-reversing growth in invalid beneficiaries that far outstrips population growth.

But Mr Hazeldine is not concerned about future ability to pay because it can easily be funded by government on a pay-as-you-go basis. He says, "...the Government's ability to raise revenue when needed is much more secure than any individual's future income".

Again this is a troublesome notion. Government's ability to tax relies directly on the individual's future income. If his future income is much less secure, then so is the government's. He frames his defence of ACC on the power of forced collectivity but uses the productive individual (the integral cog in the wheel) to demonstrate vulnerability and uncertainty.

There are problems with ACC, but they very much depend on how the issues are framed. Truly, New Zealand can have a decent, efficient, state-run accident compensation system without breaking the bank. Don't fret about it. Get back to figuring out how you are going to pay for bringing up those kids.

So Mr Hazeldine wants us to add ACC to all the other pay-as-you-go budgets like "Vote Health and Vote Education" (I note he avoided any mention of Vote Social Welfare) and not to worry about it. Go back to figuring out how to pay for bringing up your kids, he says.

Frankly the worrying I am doing is how my kids are going to pay for tomorrow's ACC costs, on top of the burgeoning health and welfare costs associated with our rapidly ageing population. Now is not a time for offhanded complacency.

National's broken promises

Media Release

NATIONAL'S BROKEN PROMISES
Sunday, October 18, 2009

Information obtained under the Official Information Act shows that the National government has failed to implement the welfare policy promises it made during the 2008 election campaign.

Welfare commentator Lindsay Mitchell said that she had been provided with information from the Ministry of Social Development which confirms that none of the promises laid out below has been implemented. The first column shows the promises and reasons for them, as detailed in National's manifesto; the second column provides the information from the Ministry of Social Development confirming none of the promises has been actioned.

"National produced an 11-page benefits policy prior to the 2008 election and they have a mandate and responsibility to deliver. Probably the worst omission is a failure to introduce a part-time work test on the domestic purposes benefit. Australia introduced work-testing in 2006 and a report released by the Centre for Independent Studies last week shows that the number of Parenting Payment (Single) recipients has dropped by 21 percent. The report concludes the drop is due to a combination of movement off welfare and transfer to the unemployment benefit. By contrast, New Zealand's DPB numbers have risen by 6 percent in the past year."

"National also said it would 'address growth in sickness and invalid numbers' yet the total number has increased by a further 5 percent in this year alone."

"To win votes on false promises is fraudulent. National promised an 'unrelenting focus on work' but, after almost a year in government, is not delivering for its voters . Even worse, it's not delivering for people on benefits who need more carrot and stick to become self reliant."

"The welfare bill is the government's biggest at $19.4 billion a year or 30 percent of core expenditure. This is where National needs to be focussing its attention and honouring its promises."

Garrett on gang meeting

Has David Garrett got this right?

So Pita Sharples used taxpayer money to host a meeting with Black Power and Mongrel Mob leaders. Taxpayer money is constantly being spent on gangs and their affiliates.

-Benefits
-Justice costs
-Prison
-Rehabilitation services

What's another $6,000 if Sharples thinks he can achieve something?

What I want to know is, what did they talk about and what's the next move.

Missing kittens

Yesterday was an unseasonably warm day so I latched back the door out to the deck. It wasn't the first outdoor exploration the kittens had gone on and I was reasonably confident that fresh mince daily was enough to discourage them from leaving home. (Yes. We have not one, but two keepers - Jeffrey and Palangi. My last blog post paid off and Eddie and Tabs found a lovely home together.)

Late afternoon a faint twinge of discomfit was felt. So I had a cursory look around the place and then dismissed my concern. They'll emerge at tea time. Teatime came and went and the babies were still absent. Soon it would be dusk, and then dark. Daisy was by this time prowling around, more angry than fretful, searching for the recalcitrant two.

So began the search. Screeds of stuff was hauled out from under beds, the back of the piano was investigated, cupboards emptied, stacks of paintings moved, the fridge searched, toilet cisterns checked, dishwasher checked, beds uncovered, and so on. Then the torches came out. Shone under the house, under the deck, through the thickets of undergrowth, with Daisy in train wherever we went. Of course, all the time calling out the names that seem ever sillier. (Now I know where Robert got the name JefFREEEEE......)

Back inside for the commencement of a second going over and suddenly, there's Jeffrey in the hallway, flicking his wee tail in disdain it would seem. Soon after Palangi appears out of nowhere. Of course in our relief we didn't do a post mortem and spend ages trying to figure out from whenst they had magically arrived.

Until this morning. Breakfast disposed of, again, they disappear. Now last night we noticed their miraculous manifestation occurred in the vicinity of the study. So we figured that the computers and necessary tangles of wires were providing a hidey hole. So we pursued that line of enquiry, to no avail. Then I said, "Could they be in ---," but David assured me they could not. The back is solid. Which is true.










































The back is solid. But the drawers do not extend to the back or the floor.....

Smacking - the controversy shifts

Statistical studies into the effects of smacking are becoming even more controversial than the practice itself. If you can find the stomach to plough through this stuff it's really rather funny. Whole nations IQs are now being checked on the premise that spanking lowers them. The Wall St Journal reports on the latest studies and why statisticians find them wanting;

Martin Wells, a statistician at Cornell University, re-ran the statistical test to check whether regional variations in IQ -- which is lower in Latin America and Africa -- could account for the IQ differences Prof. Straus found. After accounting for regional variations, Dr. Wells found the effect of spanking vanished. Dr. Wells plans to use the Prof. Straus's research in the classroom to demonstrate why it is important to consider alternative explanations.

Where or what would you cut?

Thinking about the previous post, this government needs some ideas about how to cut spending. Can we assist? Substantial amounts are needed so bear that in mind, and make sure you can cost it (roughly). Don't go all radical libertarian on me. Be realistic (yes, I know radical libertarian is realistic, but we live in an unreal world) and let's see how big a total we can build.

I'll kick it off with;

1/ Raise the Super qualifying age to 67 (66,000 pensions x $15,000 = $990 million)

A picture tells a thousand words

Government spending;

Copycat crime

We had a hefty ACC rise last year under Labour.

Now we have an even heftier ACC rise under National.

I still haven't figured out what improved with the change in government.

George Shultz interviewed on the drug war

This is an interesting interview from the Wall St Journal, more because it encapsulates why the drug war won't go away rather than why it should.

In recent years, Mr. Shultz says, "There has come to be more and more of a realization of the nature of the problem. I thought it was interesting six or eight months ago, that three former presidents of Latin American countries, President Zedillo from Mexico, President Cardoso from Brazil and President Gaviria from Colombia made a report basically saying that we have to look at this problem in all of its dimensions if we are going to get anywhere with it. And we have to realize what its origins are."

Yet it is also true that those presidents spoke up only after they left office. I asked him if there is any hope of policy leadership from those in office. "There is a certain amount of evidence that people are realizing the nature of the problem and have more of a willingness to try to deal with it."

But, he says, we still have not created the "political space" necessary to raise the issue in public. "Right now if you are in politics you can't discuss the problem. It's just poison. The result is that we have this giant problem that is tearing Mexico apart . . . and we have plenty of problems here too and we're really not having a debate about it."

Mr. Shultz is a strong proponent of education to reduce demand. "If we want to get serious about this issue, we should start with a gigantic campaign to persuade people that drugs are bad for them. And it has to be based on solid factual material. You can't try to mislead people."

Males dominate ACC claims roughly 2:1

In the past I have examined the gender imbalance in working age Work and Income clientèle. The ratio was running about 60:40 weighted towards females but has dropped back slightly with more unemployment. So in the interests of fairness I should point out that males make far more ACC claims than females (and pay more in premiums).

This is the number of all active entitlement claims in the 2008 financial year.



Females cost $602,323,000 and males $1,343,388,000.

The next is weekly compensation claims;



The cost of female claims in weekly compensation is $247,194,000 and male, $650,978,000.

There is one area where females claims are much higher. Sensitive claims (usually by victims of sexual crime) cost $15,965,000 for females and $3,709,000 for males.

Obviously men work in more dangerous jobs as reflected in work related claims (female) $123,991,000 and (male) $458,799,000.

In sports the male dominance continues at $68,746,000 for females vs $212,956,000 for males. Even with home and gradual onset claims, men are more expensive. And you can imagine who have most of the bad backs and motor vehicle accidents.

There is no gender breakdown for serious injuries caused by fighting(!) but I am picking they would also be dominated by males. They cost only $874,000. A snip.

At last, an upside to NZ feminist equality

According to the BBC;

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne has outlined plans to raise the state pension age for men to 66 from 2016, up to 10 years earlier than planned.

He said the move was needed to help reduce the UK's debts, saying "hard choices could not be avoided" because of the dire state of public finances.

The pension age for women will rise to 65 by 2020 under Tory proposals...

Under the government's existing plans, the state pension age for men will rise gradually from 65 to 68 between 2024 to 2046. For women it will gradually rise from 60 to 65 over ten years from 2010.



Why are UK women allowed to qualify 5 years before men???

Look at the NZ comparison;


Now if NZ women qualified for Super at 60 that would add up to another 120,000 pensioners or push the total up to nearly 15% of the population.

What is wrong with the poms? I always thought their sheila's were soft. Seriously, I cannot think of any reason why women are paid a state pension to retire at 60, when men are not.

The degradation of values linked to benefits

The following graphs are from a recent study by the London School of Economics which charted the change in values by examining waves of survey questions put to people born in different decades. The paper theorises that the work ethic has been 'wrecked' by benefits, as Mail Online puts it.

Abstract: Jean-Baptiste Michau argues that a declining work ethic helps to account for raising European unemployment from the 1970s.

Link to study

He defined work ethic by a belief that work came first and honesty. One question asked was, is it OK to claim benefits you are not entitled to? The base point is 1930. Beyond that shows the likelihood of change in the answer given. So someone born in 1980 was 24 percent more likely to justify cheating.




Then he looked at how high unemployment benefits/insurance payments were and if it affected the change in values.



Is there anything that would indicate NZ would show a similar result? The 1988 Royal Commission on Social Policy did exhaustive surveying on values and one of the questions asked was, people should have to look after themselves more with less help from the government - do you agree, disagree, etc. That is a different question but relevant, perhaps.

The result shows that the older people were the more likely they are to agree, with a spike for those born during the depression/ WW11. But because this is just one survey (as opposed to waves) it is impossible to control for age, which the above graph has.



(Hat tip to KG for the media link)

Liable parents foot 7 percent of DPB bill

Media Release
LIABLE PARENTS FOOT 7 PERCENT OF DPB BILL
Monday, October 12, 2009

In 2008 the Inland Revenue Department transferred $136 million from collected child support payments to the consolidated fund. This money offsets what is paid to custodial parents on benefits.

Welfare commentator Lindsay Mitchell says this is a small percentage of what custodial parents are costing the state. "In 2008, the basic DPB bill was $ 1.479 billion. However, when other top-ups like the accommodation allowance are added, the all-up bill exceeds $2 billion. The transfer from IRD represents 6.8 percent of the total."

"Forty five percent of liable parents (58,423) have annual incomes below $20,000 and pay only the minimum rate of $2.19 per day per child. During April this year 35,675 liable parents, usually fathers, paid child support from their own benefit income."

"DPB claimants are required by law to file a child support application or face a penalty for not doing so. At June 2009 no application had been filed for 19,400 children included in a sole parent benefit."

Mitchell said the traditional political response is to demand fathers face up to their financial responsibilities. "However, the child support problem is only a spin-off from the DPB system. If there was no DPB, which acts as an incentive to single parenthood, there would be nowhere near the current number of liable parents - 130,762. The state has effectively replaced many fathers who are nevertheless expected to pay the bills for children they often have no role in raising. "

"As a general rule fathers should take responsibility for their children but the state has to stop skewing the morality of this by putting up cash rewards to prospective single mothers."

"Before the DPB it was difficult for mothers to chase maintenance through the court system and fathers ran the risk of conviction and imprisonment for reneging on a court order. But that was forty years ago. Today, avoiding becoming pregnant and giving birth is much simpler. And in respect of relationship breakdowns, women, who now make up half of the workforce, are much better equipped to handle being a breadwinner and men are much better equipped for sharing parenting."

"Until the DPB is reformed to suit the times, the taxpayer will continue to foot the lion's share of its cost."

Another look behind unemployment statistics

Reading the following from today's NZ Herald one could be forgiven for thinking that we have come a long way.

Numbers on the unemployment benefit declined from a postwar peak of 177,000 in 1993 to 17,710 in June last year, but rose almost four-fold since then as the world plunged into recession.

Unemployment only a tenth of what it had been. Marvellous.

But wait.

In 1993 there were 63,700 people on sickness and invalid benefits. Add that to unemployment and you get 240,700.

Today add the 140,800 on sickness and invalid to the 60,660 on unemployment and you get 201,460.

Let's chuck the DPB in as well, 96,300 in 1993 compared to 106,600 now to get new totals of 337,000 in 1993 and 308,060 in 2009.

Just an alternative look at some numbers.

On the plus side one could argue that the picture is still much better because the population has risen by 25 percent since 1993. True.

One could also argue that the higher numbers on benefits other than unemployment mean total dependency is worse. How's that?

If we measured dependency in weeks (Sweden manages to) rather than at a point in time, today's statistics are almost certainly worse. That is because people spend much longer on invalid, sickness and domestic purposes benefits. That explains, in part, why the social security bill (now nearing $20 billion) continued to rise while numbers on the unemployment benefit dropped drastically.

The following show percentages of total caseload according to the periods spent continuously on that benefit alone (add in other benefits to account for transfer between benefits and the durations rise);

Invalid

Less than one year 10.3
Between one and four years 31.0
Between four and ten years 29.9
10 years or more 28.8

Sickness

Less than one year 52.5
Between one and four years 33.5
Between four and ten years 12.4
10 years or more 1.6

DPB

Less than one year 30.4
Between one and four years 36.1
Between four and ten years 23.4
10 years or more 10.2

Unemployment

Less than one year 88.9
Between one and four years 8.8
Between four and ten years 2.0
10 years or more 0.4

As you can see the stays on unemployment benefit are much, much shorter, as you would expect. In the early 1990s stays were comparable with 79 percent of recipients reliant for less than 1 year and 94 percent reliant for less than 2 years.

There are people on invalid's benefit with medical conditions that make it impossible for them to work. But there is growing acknowledgement that sickness and invalid benefits (called disability support pension in Australia and incapacity benefit in the UK) are de facto doles. Many gravitated to them over the past ten to fifteen years because of the physical and mental impacts of being long-term unemployed.

So make your own mind up. Have we come a long way since 1993? And have another quick look at the link. Should the Minister of Social Development really be looking so jolly?

Question for you

Doing a little market research here.

What percentage of the welfare bill for sole parents do you think liable parents are footing?

A quarter of NZ babies and toddlers rely on welfare

These are the latest statistics for children relying on a benefit. They do not include children whose caregiver is younger than 18.




Five points of interest;

1/ The number of babies (0 years) relying on welfare has grown 17 percent since 2005 whereas the growth in total births has grown by around 11 percent. More people are going on welfare from the time their child is born.

2/ Many people seem happy with mothers (usually the benefit recipient) receiving a benefit when their children are very young. Yet 67 percent of the children are 5 or older.

3/ The number of children on welfare has dropped since 2001. Labour made a big deal out of reducing 'child poverty'. But given the period featured record low employment and good economic growth (so we are told) the drop in the number of children on welfare was relatively small.

4/ According to NZ Statistics population estimates there are 1,149,000 children aged 18 or younger. So around 1 in 5 is on welfare. In the poorest areas this will jump to 2 or 3 in 5. That means being on a benefit is normalised and thus the tendency is towards more benefit receipt.

5/ In the 0-2 age group the ratio rises to 1 in 4 children being on welfare. That is fairly sobering stuff.