Maori women and smoking 2

A few days back I did a post about Maori women and smoking. A belated comment came in and I am going to highlight it because it rings true and appears to have a credible author. I especially liked the comment about do-gooders;

I did several years in social work and 'early intervention' and my pet hate is health promotion forced on this area. Lets not get real with people and say ' he/she is a looser and you can do better', 'this is how to hang out washing', 'you need to get up at seven to get your kids to school, 'lets sit down and take a look at the list of groceries you need this week', how about we take a family trip to the park/beach/pool and make some sandwiches for lunch', 'how about we look into jobs, or courses'.... instead lets take them to expo's and more agencies to address smoking??? Lets do more assessments, lets keep ticking the boxes and insisting that the babies get all their vaccinations and tick all those boxes and if they dont do it' report them to CYFS, lets give grass roots workers impossible caseloads so they end up unintentionally colluding, so the experts with more impossible caseloads can in turn, miss the warning signs of yet another otrocity and blame it on the grass roots workers blah blah. You said it well Lindsay in your blog , and until people can tackle the everyday monotonous living that they probably never experienced consistently, why would they give up what seems their only pleasure at all. Especially with all the do gooders around to bore them and stress them out more!

I'm Maori, single ma, smoke and drink, have great friends and whanau, have a great job and look after us and I enjoy life. I dont see the health promoters knocking on my door :-) GET REAL PEOPLE!!!

Unemployment and crime according to The Standard

Over at The Standard they are talking about unemployment causing crime again.

A Government that really wanted to reduce crime, rather than one that was simply pandering to populism to get elected, would concerntrate on the well-known and understood causes of crime – the biggest of which are unemployment-induced poverty and deprivation.

When I challenged this theory I was directed to the following graph;



This is a really interesting representation. First let me show you what the crime line looks like when fully depicted;



Now, if you can imagine the unemployment measure on a right axis also starting from zero, the line depicting the unemployment rate would deviate a long way from the crime line. It would drop well below it. Here is a crude sketch;



Or let's put it another way. A forty five percent drop in unemployment, which delivered maybe a 10 percent drop in crime, does not show a strong association.

Return to their graph and consider something else. Using their scale, when the right-hand axis reaches zero - or full employment - the left-hand axis will still be showing about 78,000 crimes.

This "conversation" came out of a post they did today which was actually about violent crime and how it has risen under National. But it had been rising under Labour too. The following is violent recorded offences;



Now, one last thing. Imagine if the same treatment was given to this graph as occurred to the first. There would be no correlation whatsoever.

Are we, or are we not, highly taxed in NZ?

Crusader Rabbit drew my attention to the last of these graphs. I am including the two others. The first (or a statistical variation of) is the one that social democrats always use to show that New Zealanders are not highly taxed in the scheme of things. It shows total tax revenue as a percentage of GDP and NZ is just over the OECD average;



But look at tax on goods and services....



And finally, look at tax on income and profit ....



For historical interest, the statistical tables attached to the final graph show that in 1955 (when our per capita income was relatively high) the OECD average tax on income and profits was 9 percent of GDP. NZ's was 9.1 percent.

By 2007 (when our per capita income is relatively low) the OECD average was 13.5 percent and NZ's was 22.3 percent.

And note also that in Canada, Sweden, Finland and the US the percentage has fallen in the past few years. Ours has risen.

Socialist soap

When I read this headline, Socialist soaps wanted, I thought it was about cleaning agents. And for the life of me I couldn't imagine what a socialist soap would look like. How would it differ from any other soap? Perhaps you are told that you can all share it, use it every day, and it will never run out? Or perhaps that you can all share it, use it everyday and the state will give you more when it runs out? Perhaps, and this would make sense of the headline, it is rationed and acquired only by using soap stamps? Maybe socialist soap cleanses the spirit of nasty self-interest? Any other ideas?

How generous are New Zealanders?

Apparently, based on tax files;

Americans gave 1.60 percent of their aggregate personal income to charity, more than double the 0.73 percent that Canadians donated to charity.

This tweaked my interest. Canada has a bigger public sector than the US and my assumption is that where government does more, taxpayers give less to private charity.

So how would NZ compare on this basis?

It is estimated that NZ individuals, as reported on tax returns, give $356 million annually (c 2004).

In 2004 there were approximately 1.494 million households with an average income of $63,384.

So New Zealanders give an average of 0.38 percent of their aggregate income.

On this basis (tax receipts kept) in 2004 our household gave approximately 0.5 to charity but with economic uncertainty I have cut back to around 0.43 percent.

I am now feeling rather stingy.

(Notwithstanding there are lots of ways people express generosity beyond giving cash.)

Labour and risk aversion

This post could get me banned from Red Alert because people do get banned from there, quite frequently.

Yesterday Trevor Mallard posted a brief reaction to Kerre Woodham's column in the Sunday Herald. In full;

Kerre Woodham’s column in the HoS today promotes letting or even encouraging kids to take some risks.

Too often risk averse parents and schools wrap kids in cotton wool to the point where they don’t develop the power to judge risk and make their own decisions.

That was it. Plus 38 comments including a number which were deleted because they were offensive or off thread. The last comment is from Trevor;

expat – every now and again we do a more general post to test reaction to Red Alert and the style people want. What comes through very clearly is that users want a much tighter moderation policy here than at Kiwiblog or The Standard. That includes staying on thread, language and tone. It means that lots of individuals who don’t feel safe on other blogs feel ok commenting here.

That is the end of the debate on moderation on this thread. All further off thread comments will be deleted.

I couldn't post my reaction to this at the site because my comment would be "thread-jacking" as was expat's. But do you see the delightful irony in Trevor's closing remarks?

(While I am on the subject (I think???:-)), a commentor on this blog was upset about comments directed towards them and emailed me about it. There is very little I will delete in the way of comments. Many that are offensive are directed towards me anyway. Eventually I did remove the entire post because one commentor had gone too far. Otherwise I cannot and will not take responsibility for people upsetting one another in the comments section. They have to do that. There isn't a skerrick of authoritarianism in me.)

Crime theory "demolished"

According to the Wall St Journal the theory that crime is caused by "income inequality" and "social injustice" has been "demolished" by continuing falling crime rates coupled with rocketing unemployment.

Over seven million lost jobs later, crime has plummeted to its lowest level since the early 1960s.

The response to the theory is described;

If crime was a rational response to income inequality, the thinking went, government can best fight it through social services and wealth redistribution, not through arrests and incarceration. Even law enforcement officials came to embrace the root causes theory, which let them off the hook for rising lawlessness. Through the late 1980s, the FBI's annual national crime report included the disclaimer that "criminal homicide is largely a societal problem which is beyond the control of the police." Policing, it was understood, can only respond to crime after the fact; preventing it is the domain of government welfare programs.

Of course, it wasn't only the US that went down this path.

The writer concludes that policing and incarceration have kept the trend moving in the right direction and looks specifically at Los Angeles and New York;

At the start of the recession, the two police chiefs who confidently announced that their cities' crime rates would remain recession-proof were Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton and New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. As New York Police Commissioner in the mid-1990s, Mr. Bratton pioneered the intensive use of crime data to determine policing strategies and to hold precinct commanders accountable—a process known as Compstat. Commissioner Kelly has continued Mr. Bratton's revolutionary policies, leading to New York's stunning 16-year 77% crime drop. The two police leaders were true to their word. In 2009, the city of L.A. saw a 17% drop in homicides, an 8% drop in property crimes, and a 10% drop in violent crimes. In New York, homicides fell 19%, to their lowest level since reliable records were first kept in 1963.

The Compstat mentality is the opposite of root causes excuse-making; it holds that policing can and must control crime for the sake of urban economic viability. More and more police chiefs have adopted the Compstat philosophy of crime-fighting and the information-based policing techniques that it spawned. Their success in lowering crime shows that the government can control antisocial behavior and provide public safety through enforcing the rule of law. Moreover, the state has the moral right and obligation to do so, regardless of economic conditions or income inequality.

That may be right. But I think there is more to it. There has been a sea-change in US thinking over the past 30 years. Americans were focussing on welfare and its role in society long before Clinton's federal legislation was enacted. For instance from the 1970s people receiving social security because they were drug or alcohol addicted had to attend rehab courses, have a benefit payee and there was a 36 month time limit. I am not saying this was particularly successful but use it as an example of their keenness to prevent long term worklessness. More importantly, various states were trying out different approaches to prevent welfare undermining the institution of family, particularly black families, recognising that strong and enduring families are one of the greatest deterrents to crime.

All of this culminated in the famous 1996 Clinton welfare reform act - PRWORA - the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. It's a mouthful but when you break it down and think about it, the words embody the opposite of what leads to crime. Irresponsibility and idleness.

The state can and does influence moral thinking. Americans do not wince about using the words "personal responsibility". They use them to name laws.

In NZ too many people do wince. For them it means "individual responsibility", which translates to "individualism", which translates to "selfishness and greed" (see a comment from Friday that directed me to "stop thinking only of yourself").

So what do we have as a result. Our crime rate, specifically violent crime, continues to grow. And it would appear we are going to go down the unavoidably hard line of locking up more and more people but without any accompanying move towards instilling in society a different attitude towards responsibility. It has to start with the individual.

As time goes by

Click on this and sit there watching the time you are wasting go by.

ACT and taxpayer-funded privilege

I have been mulling over ACT's scholarship policy which was under attack yesterday. This isn't the vouchers policy but a scheme Heather Roy pushed through as part of the National/ACT agreement. It wasn't campaigned on. She acquired $2.6 million for 150 scholarships for low socio-economic children to attend private schools.

The question I have been asking myself is what part of a classical liberal philosophy does the policy satisfy? And if ACT isn't a classical liberal party which other principles does this policy fulfil? Isn't it simply an example of taxpayer money being spent on privilege or special interest? There is certainly an argument that it is a better use of taxpayer than many others but is this the track ACT should be going down? Isn't that what leftists are all the time doing? Harnessing taxpayer money for what they believe in?

Personally I would have expected ACT to be encouraging private or charitable enterprises to fund scholarships.

Humour in unexpected places

If you want a laugh you wouldn't ordinarily go looking for it at The Standard but this is passably funny.

Garth George should leave child abuse alone

Garth George has chosen to write about child abuse in today's column. He has struck on this theory;

Rodger McDaniel, a lawyer, church pastor and former state legislator who is deputy director of the Wyoming Department of Health, reckons that whenever there is fast growth in an economy it brings with it a variety of social problems, including drug use, alcohol abuse and child abuse.

That makes sense, for all of those have soared with a vengeance since the economic revolution of the mid-1980s.

Rogernomics has been blamed before for New Zealand's seemingly high rate of child abuse. But not because of fast economic growth. Tariana Turia for instance;

“This latest report makes it quite clear - the peak in child deaths was from late 1980s and 1990s - the so-called experimental years in New Zealand’s economy - when unemployment was highest and when benefits were cut” says Mrs Turia.

Poor old rogernomics. Damned if it did; damned if it didn't.

The statistics alone do not support either theory anyway because the death numbers are so low very small differences can substantially change the rate. And any debate about the rate of abuse gets incredibly muddied by changing definitions, changing attitudes and reporting rates, and changing laws and their application.

According to George;

Eight children aged between five weeks and three years died from abuse in the year just ended, which is the average for any year in this country.

Yet deaths from child maltreatment have averaged around 8 a year for a long time.



In 2004,05 and 06 the yearly average was 8.6

Then the statist in George goes looking for a quick fix. The Do something, Anything approach.

And, perhaps, undo the shocking discrimination instituted by the Clark Government that denies the child-related supplement called the in-work tax credit to the poorest children and has left them further behind and well below the poverty line.

Says Susan St John, of the Campaign Against Child Poverty: "It would cost about $450 million a year to extend the in-work tax credit to all low-income children. They would then be treated the same as others regardless of the source of their parents' income - as they do in Australia.

"Money is not everything but it is a very important basic foundation. Society deliberately denies the poorest children adequate financial support and then blames them when their children become social costs."

Certainly money isn't everything, but for God's sake let us start somewhere - and soon.

Unfortunately, to some people, money is everything. Let's strip this thing down.

Children are abused, very occasionally to the point of death, because they are not wanted. They are brought into this world oh so casually by people who do not have the maturity to look after a puppy. Why, when avoiding unwanted pregnancy is easier than it has ever been, does it keep happening? Because 'dropping sprogs' is part of a lifestyle. The same lifestyle that involves the drug and alcohol abuse George refers to.

It's a mean lifestyle that has always existed. But without a doubt, paying people to not only live it, but add children to it, has exacerbated the incidence.

Forget all the crap about slow economy/ fast economy. Like other developed countries, in our 20th century crusade to redistribute wealth - to obliterate need and inequality - we grew this group of disaffected and dysfunctional individuals.

And Garth George is calling for more of the same.

Halfdone blog ratings for December 2009

I like Halfdone's blog ratings because so far I have only climbed the table:-)
Half Done rated 683 blogs in December 2009.

What I can't figure out is what the little yellow icon denotes.

Welfare UK-style

The following is from James Bartholemew, author of The Welfare State We Are In. Which NZ government does the opening paragraph remind you of? Hint. National hasn't even talked big - yet.


Housing benefit provides the biggest discouragement to work


In the great roll call of this government’s failures and blunders, its record on housing benefit deserves to have a prominent place. This was the government that was going to “think the unthinkable” on welfare benefits. Instead it “did the predictable”. Instead of embarking on radical reform like the administration of President Clinton in America, it opted to muddle along. It talked big and acted small.

Housing benefit is arguably the worst of all the benefit failures. Why? For two important reasons. One, it costs an amazing amount of money after nearly doubling since Labour came to power to £20 billion. That – for those who can bear the idea – amounts to £692 for every working person in Britain. Most people imagine that Jobseekers’ Allowance is the big, key welfare benefit. Not at all. Housing benefit costs more than three times as much.

The second and even more important reason why this failure matters is that housing benefit is probably the biggest single discouragement to the low-skilled unemployed to getting a job. Get a job and you lose housing benefit at a rapid rate. So housing benefit is one of the most important reason why more one in four people of working age are not working.

The official cost of £20 billion is just the beginning. Nearly all the people who are discouraged from working are also getting other benefits including Jobseekers’ Allowance and – in many cases - Incapacity Benefit or Income Support. But worse even than that is the effect on the morale and culture of those at the lower end of society who get accustomed to welfare dependency. It causes depression and alienation and contributes to uncivil and even criminal behaviour.

There is a simple rule for creating sound welfare benefits. It was described 175 years ago in the report of a Royal Commission into the operation of the poor laws. The commissioners decided that benefits should not be more advantageous than the income that would be obtained by the individual taking on low-paid work. It is as simple as that. Work must always pay. .

On radio phone-ins I have often heard people exclaim: “Do you realise how little you get on Jobseekers’ Allowance? You can’t live on that!” Unfortunately interviewers – being part of the upper middle class - rarely understand that the Jobseekers’ Allowance and other benefits are normally accompanied by other benefits such as a free school meals and, very likely, the big one: housing benefit. Only when they are all added together do they amount to a meaty discouragement to work for the low-paid.

It will come as a surprise to many people to know that not all countries pay housing benefit – or at least not to as many classes of people as Britain does. In Italy, for example, an unmarried teenage mother does not climb up the council housing queue, get income support and housing benefit. She is expected to live with her parents or other relatives or perhaps the father of the child. The result is that there is far less unmarried parenting in Italy than here. They make their decisions and live with them. That means they make better decisions.

If there were prizes for tinkering with the welfare benefit system, this government would certainly win the gold trophy. I used to get press releases from the old Department of Social Security as it was called. If I had had a strange notion of interior decoration, I could have wall-papered my bedroom with them within a few weeks.

To be fair, some reforms have gone in the right direction. James Purnell, when he was in charge, decided that people should only get benefit to pay for a maximum of five bedrooms. Yet you can see from this example just how cautious the reform has been. For people who struggling to afford accommodation with two bedrooms, it will seem outrageous that others can going on having babies and getting more and more bedrooms at the expense of taxpayers. And people sometimes get benefit at a level based on expensive housing. Hence the scandalous case recently of one family getting £2,875 a week.

America was far more radical in its reforms. President Clinton agreed to a limit to the total number of years in a lifetime during which people could claim unemployment benefit. America was determined to do something about the benefits culture. Britain under Labour has merely strutted on the stage – posing, pontificating and making precious little difference.

What could be done? One idea – from the Centre for Social Justice - is to subsume housing benefit with many benefits into just a couple of major benefits. The benefits could be withdrawn at a slower rate than now when someone gets work, thus reducing the discouragement to getting a job. The trouble is that, other things being equal, this would cost a lot more.

The truly radical idea would be do something like that but significantly reduce the amount paid and leave it to the recipient entirely what accommodation is rented – if any. That would provide a powerful incentive to lodge with relatives or to go to a different area with lower rents.

But has Britain got the guts to do this sort of thing? I would like to think so but there is every reason to doubt it. The upper middle class elite does not get the seriousness of the problem. The BBC, the readers of Guardian and the Independent believe that their support for generous benefits makes them into generous, good people. Unfortunately it does not. It results instead in the continuance of a welfare dependant lower class with tremendously damaging social effects both to the poor themselves and everyone else.

(This is the unedited version of an article that appeared in the Daily Express today.)

Maori women and smoking

If one in three Maori women is on a benefit, one in two Maori women smoke, and smoking rates are highest among low income groups, the chances are the taxpayer is paying for their cigarettes or rollies. The taxpayer is also paying for their cessation attempts, on average numbering 14 before successful.

So we pay for Maori women to smoke, and we pay for them not to. There seems a more obvious solution, although there is little political will to explore it.

Quitting smoking is tough. It is doubly tough if you are depressed, bored, idle, with nothing to look forward to and nothing else in your life that gives you pleasure - albeit fleeting pleasure. And when in such a rut the prospect of foreshortening life doesn't hold much sway either.

Kiwiblog recently ran a story about a no-smoking prison that was deterring people from committing crime. They would rather give up crime than quit smoking. Given a choice I am sure some people would rather get a job than quit smoking. Such is their desire to smoke.

While people have multiple problems in their lives, quitting smoking will never be a priority. There are more fundamental issues that need sorting first.

Hectoring ad nauseum

The Australian holiday road toll is 68. The legal minimum driving age is 17. The Australians are blaming the state of their roads and irresponsible driving.

In NZ the holiday road toll is currently 11, which is, on a per capita basis, lower than Australia's. New Zealanders are blaming the minimum driving age of 15.

NZ and Australia are obsessed with holiday road tolls. Perhaps because it fills a gap in news stories. Perhaps because various interest groups want to use the toll as a lever. But do many more people lose their lives over this particular period?

According to the MOT;

The Christmas/New Year holiday road toll period begins at 4pm on Thursday 24 December and ends at 6am on Tuesday 5 January.

The holiday period will be 11.6 days. Last year the 2008/09 holiday period was exactly the same - from Dec 24 to Jan 5 (11.6 days).

11 deaths in 11.6 days is, so far, under the average for that time period.

In 2005 New Zealand's road toll was only very slightly above the OECD average. Per 100,000 population, NZ's average was 9.9; OECD 9.5. The NZ figure has improved since. There are a myriad of factors affecting the rate but, in the scheme of things our rate isn't really, really bad - and neither is it really, really good. Accidents, tragic accidents, happen. But, the trend is heading in the right direction - down.

I guess I am just tired of being hectored about the road toll, along with smoking, eating junk food, drinking alcohol, water safety, sun safety, ad nauseum. No wonder so many New Zealanders are neurotic nutbars. Best just stay indoors and diet. In an unhappy coincidence, Wellington, the home of hectoring, taxpayer-funded harpies, has served up the weather to make you want to do just that.

What happened to Maharey's grand plan?

In 2003, then Minister for Social Development Steve Maharey outlined his vision for people on the DPB. Labour was scrapping work-testing (which National says it will soon re-introduce) in favour of 'enhanced case management'. According to the Minister;

Work and Income will be doing more to help sole parents into work with changes to legislation that comes into effect this month, says Social Services and Employment Minister Steve Maharey.

The Social Security (Personal Development and Employment) Amendment Act, which comes into effect on 10 March 2003, delivers on government promises to develop a social security system that responds better to the needs of individuals and their families.

“The legislation abolishes the arbitrary work test on sole parents receiving the Domestic Purposes or Widows Benefits. Currently 19% or 21,924 are subjected to a work test requirement to seek part or full-time work because of the age of their youngest child.

“As a result of the change all people receiving the DPB, Widows or Emergency Maintenance Allowance will receive enhanced case management to help them in training and work planning for their future.

“All 118,098 in the three benefit groups will be required to work with their case manager to develop and implement a Personal Development and Employment Plan. The plan will outline personal development, training and employment goals and the action points required to reach those goals.

I asked MSD how many beneficiaries had a PDEP. By June 2009 the grand total was 35,161. Of those 24,096 were on the DPB. Only 23 percent of all DPB recipients. If you are thinking that the policy had been abandoned because of a change in government, hence the low number, you are wrong. 66 percent had been implemented between June 2007 and June 2008 and the remainder over the next 12 months.

The interesting thing is that only 17 people on the DPB who had a PDEP had had it put in place 3 or more years ago. Which may indicate that 1/ The plans do motivate people to move off a benefit or 2/ The ministry's record keeping is suspect.

If it is the first, no surprise. Around a third of people on the DPB are motivated to get off it. They would probably do so with or without the plan. It is easy for case managers to work with this group.

But what about the rest???

At the time of Maharey's press release there were 108,000 on the DPB.

Now there are .... 108,000 on the DPB.

Blog stats for 2009

Thanks

Does NZ's future success rest on skin colour?

Rawiri Taonui, head of Maori and Indigenous studies at Canterbury University, has written a piece in today's NZ Herald about the flying of two flags, entitled Time for New Zealand to show all its colour.

Whether Pakeha see two flags as divisive or unifying is directly proportionate to the extent of hangups about race. Those who have difficulty relating to Maori, especially if they are dark skinned, physically large and/or overtly ethnic and tribal, and have not spent much time on a marae, will see the flag as separatist simply out of fear of difference and diversity. Fortunately, this lot are in rapid decline. New Zealand will be 50 per cent brown by 2030. Those who are at ease with themselves, respect Maori and like other cultures will see the flags as representative of an over-arching unity, of every colour, hue and creed. They are the New Zealanders of the future.

The flying of a Maori flag does not worry me IF it is a unifying move. Only time will tell.

What interested me here is the statement that by 2030 50 percent of New Zealanders will be brown. According to Statistics NZ data, by 2026 the population will be 5,517,600. European or other will make up 62.2 percent, Maori 14.8, Asian 14.3 and Pacific 8.7. Apart from the Asian number, not much change from today.

But what bothers me is the talk about skin colour in the first place. The title of the piece is not only a reference to flag colour but pigment. What is Rawiri Taonui getting at here? That a group exists that doesn't like Maori because they are brown, but that group, or "that lot", couldn't include people who are also brown? That Maori, Asian and Pacific people will live in a state of harmony and mutual respect because they are all brown?

He is saying that people who respect Maori and like other cultures will see flying both flags as unifying. Maybe. I would probably fit this group (with lots of provisos). And yet....

Why bring colour into it? Does he think that the more brown the country gets the more unity there will be? What, then, about the non-brown people progressively becoming a minority? Or should we hit the magic 50 percent and stop right there?

Then we can all live happily ever after?

Research into casual sex surprises

The Dominion Post reproduced this column today. Essentially new research, with a reasonably large sample, found that young people having casual sex are not suffering ill effects from it. The researchers were apparently taken aback.

I'm not. Morality, values, ethics, whatever label you want to put on it, is changing constantly. Any stigma attached to casual sex is diminishing (interestingly the researchers found a mismatch between the number of males versus females admitting to causal sex and theorised that men are more likely to label their encounter as casual whereas females label it as something more).

But I think there is another reason for the result. There are most certainly people for whom casual sex will cause emotional problems - guilt, self-recrimination, etc - so those people are avoiding it. Those for whom that would be a waste of mental energy just get on and enjoy it on their own terms. Most people, despite contemporary paternalistic wisdom telling us otherwise, are capable of making sensible choices. It would just be better if 'most' was a bigger percentage.

Creative accounting Douglas-style

54 percent of your and every one else’s personal tax goes towards healthcare. The growth is scary, when just two years ago the figure was 41 percent of your personal tax. Saying 54 percent can hide what this means. If you earn minimum wage, you will pay about $2500 every year for healthcare. If you earn the average wage, you will pay over $6000 for healthcare.

That's Roger Douglas on Health. It's from an e-mailed pamphlet that landed in my in-box a few days ago. It also features here.

My immediate reaction is BS. Roger is up to more creative accounting. And I didn't think much more about it.

I was reminded of it again this morning however when reading a well-written op-ed from Des Gorman, head of Auckland University's School of Medicine, and the chairman of Health Workforce New Zealand.

Health accounts for 20 per cent of Government expenditure and half of the new money in the 2009 Budget was allocated to health.

Correct. In which case 20 percent of the tax you pay goes towards healthcare. Unless the government apportions more income tax to health than it apportions to any other area of expenditure. Which it does not.

Whatever tax is paid - income, GST, corporate, excise - goes into the consolidated account and is then allocated accordingly. If we applied Roger's formula across the board government would be spending 170 percent more than it collects. For instance I could calculate that welfare spending is costing you $9,000 a year ($20 billion divided by 2.2 million individuals) or 81 percent of your "personal tax" if you earn the "average wage". See how quickly this is coming unstuck? 100 percent has already been exceeded.

As I have said before I am not totally averse to Roger's ideas - I support individual responsibility but do not like compulsion. However, creative accounting turns me off totally. Why would I trust the rest of the message when I can't trust the numbers?

Lifestyle welfare

Here is the Boxing Day Dominion Post editorial. I was pleased to see the writer using the term 'lifestyle' not only because it is factual, but because it labels the group needing attention as distinct from all beneficiaries.

My response was published this morning (apologies for the unintentional sizing inconsistency).

Another false allegation?

Remember the troublesome two who claimed they had been attacked in New Plymouth earlier this year?

Can't help wondering if this isn't a similar situation. What would two youths want with a Hannah Montana teeshirt?

The disconcerting thing is, I don't know whether to hope I am right or wrong. And I feel uncomfortable about my skepticism, but that's what happens when crying wolf isn't an unusual occurence.

Douglas and ACT

This post wouldn't have happened without prompting. As it stands ACT doesn't interest me but a comment today made me mentally reflect on why.

Chuck Bird has twice made reference to ACT's constitution on this blog. As I am no longer a member I am not sure why. The constitutional excerpt;

“...maintain social and economic support for those unable to help themselves and who are in genuine need of assistance”

defines out what Chuck thinks welfare should be, which includes retaining a welfare state. He was therefore unhappy with a repetitive commentor who harps on monotonously about how we should ZERO ALL BENEFITS.

Chuck thinks he will put off ACT voters. I am flattered Chuck thinks that many people read my blog.

However, getting rid of all benefits is closer to what Douglas proposes than what is in the ACT constitution. Douglas has always wanted all New Zealanders to fund their own social security needs through individualised accounts.

From the NZ Herald;

"Sir Roger's Budget would cut Government expenditure by more than a quarter within one year.

People would be expected to pay for their children's primary and secondary education directly; tax credits would be available for those whose tax cuts were insufficient to cover those costs directly.

They would also be expected to take out catastrophic health insurance and meet more minor health costs like GP visits, out of pocket. Accident, sickness and unemployment insurance would also be a matter of individual responsibility."

Now, I am not averse to Douglas' thinking BUT its not going to happen any time soon. He hasn't managed to build any movement for it here or in the UK in 20 years.

Which is why I have always channelled my efforts into realistic (most would call it radical) reform of the current system. There was a period when state social security did what it was supposed to do. Can we ever return to that? Quite possibly not. But the prospect is more palatable to voters than what Douglas wants.

My approach is also what Muriel Newman pushed for a long time. When Muriel was welfare spokesperson EVERYONE knew what ACT policy was. Since Roger assumed that portfolio nobody knows what ACT policy is because he promotes ideas with the rider that "the views expressed are Sir Roger's and do not necessarily reflect the views of Act, but it features prominently on the party's website."

The situation is just mickey mouse. And it was mickey mouse going into the election. If ACT had had concrete policy based on the US reforms it could have negotiated welfare reform as part of its agreement with National. Instead it chose a platform of getting tough on crime. Well, I hate to say this, but crime is only going to increase until welfare is reformed, because welfare is breeding tomorrow's criminals as I write.

National's fault that more people are needing foodbank parcels

That's what Ron Maynard of the Southland Food Bank Charitable Trust says;

Southland Food Bank Charitable Trust co-ordinator Ron Maynard said he had also noted an increase in the number of families needing handouts, which he attributed to a rise in the cost of living and the National Party coming into power.

"I think it is the times we are living in – since National (Party) come in it has got worse. That is one reason if you want to get political about it," Mr Maynard said.

Has National cut welfare benefits? Is National responsible for NZ experiencing a recession? Did National stop adjusting benefits for cost of living increases? Isn't it true that there are fewer people on benefits in Southland than there were 5 years ago, when Labour was mid-term?

Doesn't it just make you want to groan when people dealing with 'need' say such banal things? Instead of some serious analysis we get a political knee-jerk response.

Of course it is not the wont of food bank coordinators to question applicants. But perhaps they should be looking at the underlying reasons why the majority of low income people do not need their services, and a handful do.

Mums matter

A picture for Opinionated Mummy, who could use a lift - not a lecture.

The escalating immorality of the welfare state

I was speed-reading through F A Harper's essay on the immorality of the welfare state. There are too many theological concepts in it for my taste. However this quote is right on the money. It it preceded by a discussion about the moral justification of theft when it is undertaken to 'do good';

Under the welfare state, this process of theft has spread from its use in alleviating catastrophe, to anticipating catastrophe, to conjuring up catastrophe, to the “need” for luxuries for those who have them not.

Tyres on a late model car springs immediately to mind. There is no arguing with this observation.

Best Christmas song ever

Must be my Irish ancestry, with a great granddad officially described a "scavenger" who left Ireland to chance his arm not in the US, but Liverpool.

This song has everything I love; drinking, gambling, dreams, risk, failure, and utter poignancy....



And now I have a gingerbread house to decorate.....

Update;

Seriously "pissed off" with Obama

Obama is rapidly shedding votes across the spectrum. A professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York, is "really pissed off" with him. A very entertaining read. I like this question and Key should take note;

Why does he refuse to make anyone his enemy, thus making everyone his enemy?

Key is still in the upward popularity phase of such an approach. But as sure as winter follows summer....

The Remote Client Unit - the 'too hard basket'

The now infamous Harris family were accessing Work and Income services (dosh) via the department's remote client unit. According to MSD;

The Remote Client Unit has been established to provide an avenue for clients, who have been assessed as posing a high risk to the safety of Ministry staff in Service Centres nationwide, to continue to access Ministry services.

Isn't that a boon for those beneficiaries who do not want to attend planning meetings, who do not want to comply with work-testing, who do not want to co-operate with increased face-to-face intensive case management, which has and will continue to form attempts to reform welfare? That's the cushy number to get onto. Can't be particularly difficult for a manipulative person.

I feel a Xmas Eve OIA request coming on.

Update; Done. I'll drop it in the post when I walk the dog in a moment.

Reapplying for the dole hardly a "radical proposal"

According to the Dominion Post;

The Government is considering cancelling unemployment benefits after a year and forcing beneficiaries to reapply.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett unveiled the radical proposal a day after revelations that 300 long-term beneficiaries are receiving more than $1000 a week from the taxpayer.

It was revealed yesterday that the Harris family in Christchurch had received unemployment and sickness benefits for 25 years and recently received special-needs grants from Work and Income to fence their swimming pool and put new tyres on their 2007 Chrysler saloon.

Of course somebody should have to reapply for the dole if they have been on it a year. But reviews of the recipient's situation should be ongoing. Motivated people, however, aren't the problem. Currently 88 percent of those receiving the dole have been on it less than a year, so only a small percentage would be subjected to a reapplication process.

Paula Bennett's latest suggestion is apparently a reaction to the Harris family. But he wasn't on the dole. He was on a sickness benefit. His case manager had refused an application on the basis of stress, diagnosed by his GP. But after Harris visited a Work and Income 'designated doctor' (paid $106 for each appraisal) he was assessed as addicted to cannabis and granted the benefit he wanted. Thus he would have successfully navigated his way through a reapplication process.

There are over 140,000 people on an invalid or sickness benefit but only 60,000 are on the dole. The numbers seriously suggest that the incapacity benefits are in many cases a de facto dole. It is the case manager who makes the final decision about eligibility. But the doctors provide the certificates, the tacit approval. Any doctor who might be inclined to take a tougher line would probably steer a mile clear of becoming a designated doctor, which is where 'complicated' applicants will end up.

Many case managers have come from the ranks of beneficiaries and are sympathetic; and quite a lot of doctors are inclined towards being socialistic. Those who would take a less compromising line are not motivated to get involved. In fact, we have seen instances of GPs refusing to deal with applicants for certificates required for the purposes of benefit eligibility.

Therein lies the problem.

Slave to state-dominated social welfare

Gordon Campbell is running his usual line about the privatisation of welfare services/benefits lining the pockets of National's ideological mates.

The potential for dehumanizing, intrusive action by private sector agencies in the lives of vulnerable families is quite high. Unemployment, after all, is still rising, and the economy is barely in recovery mode. For many families at risk, the jobs are simply not there – and to use the jargon – ‘the labour market continues to be de-leveraged.’ Cracking down on welfare families at such a time would be punitive, and unjust. Yet, as indicated, this policy is probably less about saving taxpayer money or helping the vulnerable, than it is about creating opportunities to make money from their plight.

Get it? Only the state is genuinely interested in the plight of the needy. Any other party is looking to exploit them.

I have commented ;

Many families were ‘at risk’ when the jobs WERE there. It is entirely obvious that thousands of families have defaulted to welfare before acquiring qualifications or work skills and getting a job pays less than growing the family.

The prospect of separatism does not excite me but it would be interesting to see what the likes of John Tamihere can do given control of benefit payments.

Paula Bennett and transparency

Minister for Social Development, Paula Bennett, is obviously attempting to stir up anger about the welfare system to make National's fiddling reforms more palatable to the voters. Lead stories in The Press, DomPost and The NZ Herald are designed to do exactly that.

The Press describes a couple who have been on benefits since 1984 and have claimed hundreds of thousands of dollars.

OK. So why aren't we told how many others have been on benefits since 1984 or earlier? My repeated attempts to source such information are refused because readily accessible information is only available for the period post-1996 and to provide you with this information officials would have to generate new reports based on raw data. Bugger off.

The NZ Herald describes how recipients of very large sums are looking after other people's children.

Are people going to be surprised that beneficiaries are being paid to look after other people's children? I am only surprised that some information has been released. Because whenever I have tried to put parameters on the number, again, my OIA requests are refused. Specifically;

The information you have requested is not held by the Ministry. In order to add a dependent child to a main benefit, the Ministry needs to know that the child is dependent on the caregiver, not the specific nature of the relationship between the child and their caregiver.... to provide you with this information officials would have to generate new reports based on raw data... Bugger off.

Ms Bennett has access to individual records and the staff to interrogate them. And while these stories of individual circumstances are very titillating they give bureaucrats and political defenders of the system an out. These cases are not representative, they will say. They form a tiny minority. They are the price we pay for having a caring and decent welfare state.

However;

"....the welfare system should be open and transparent," she [Paula Bennett] said.


In which case, why are OIA requests constantly refused?

Here is a prime example from this week.

Earlier this year a reader shared with me a letter she received from Ms Bennett which said;

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.

So I asked the Ministry:

Of those single parents currently receiving the DPB, what was their relationship status at the time they applied for their current payment?

I was told they would have been single at the time of the application. My question was misinterpreted. In the past Social Reports have included 'relationship status' as divorced, separated, separated from a de facto, etc so I challenged their answer. Here is their further response;

With regards to your other question on the reporting of the relationship status of single parents currently receiving the DPB, up until 2000 the Ministry included data on the relationship status of clients at the time they were granted Domestic Purposes Benefit in the Statistical Report. However since 2000 this information has not formed part of the Ministry's formal reporting and has not been reported on since 2003. As you are aware the Ministry is not required under the Official Information Act 1982 to create information in order to meet the specific requirements of an individual request. For this reason your request for this information was declined under section 18(e) of the Act.

Do you see the significance of this? There is no tracking of the relationship trends that lead women to the DPB. So there is no monitoring of the effect of this particular social policy on relationship formation and breakdown.

And tell me this. How does Paula Bennett know "the vast majority of DPB recipients are in fact sole parents who have been married or in a relationship..." if her Ministry isn't reporting on it?

Policy will not be reformed on the behavioural response of a few selected cases. Policy is changed based on long term negative or positive trends in behavioural response. In New Zealand the transparency of data has degenerated. Information available in other jurisdictions has no equivalent in this country. Probably the main reason the US led with welfare reform was their willingness to track and study what the data was telling them. Big picture data may not be as sexy as gang associates buying wheels for their late model cars with taxpayer money, but it will create the impetus for wider and abiding change.


(Afterthought; It may be, and I hope it is, that Paula Bennett is being as frustrated in her attempts to achieve transparency as I am. An end of year report card in yesterday's Dominion Post said that she was turning over a lot of staff. Maybe the old iron triangle is at play.)

Now that's what I call "consequences"

Another liar rips off Work and Income. This one gets $124,000 over 8 years pretending to be a solo mum. You got to laugh at the response from the Ministry of Social Development.

Social Development Ministry deputy chief executive Hilary Reynolds said benefit fraud exceeding $100,000 accounted for less than 1 per cent of cases. "Eight years is a long time to practise such deception. Georgina Nelson is now facing the consequences of her actions."

Oooooh. Which are?

"..... repaying the debt at $20 a week from her continuing benefit."

For starters why was she allowed to move to Inglewood where there is no work?? What should happen is a job, and a hefty weekly repayment. At the moment we are paying her to repay us. Madness. And no. I don't favour a jail sentence which will just cost us even more. Anyone who defrauds WINZ should immediately be cut off and left to fend for themselves. That would be consequences.

What is it with this country? We tax the bejesus out of honest, hard working people to pay liars and cheats and call it "facing the consequences". It isn't the liar facing consequences. It is NZ, for having such a soft-touch of a welfare system.

Two birthdays

Yesterday my blog was 4 years old. Every month this year has been better than the previous so a big thanks for dropping by each day.

And today this contented wee baby is 2 weeks old.



And here's their nanny. A dog trained to worry sheep into going where they do not want to go, she is very solicitous of Daisy's kittens. This is Girl with a sleeping Palangi, from the first litter.

High stakes gambling with NZ's future

At the closure of the Copenhagen talks, the Melbourne Age reports;

Liberal Leader Tony Abbott said the result vindicated his party's decision not to support the Federal Government's emissions trading scheme legislation, while Greens deputy leader Christine Milne said Prime Minister Kevin Rudd should be held responsible for ''trying to bully those who wanted a real deal into accepting his greenwash''.

During the passage of New Zealand's ETS legislation I sent the following letter to the Dominion Post. Don't think it was published. Maybe it is too simplistic or ill-informed but at the completion of the Copenhagen talks it seems apt to post it here;

Like many others I simply cannot understand the rush to pass the amended ETS legislation.

Apparently we signed up to Kyoto and have an obligation. Did nobody ever say till death do us part, and then get divorced?

The argument that the global community will punish inaction by not buying our exports is surely a matter of speculation. Wouldn't it be wiser to take the risk of being economically punished rather than embark on the certainty of punishing ourselves?

So that doesn't stack up for me. Then, even if the theory of man-made global warming is sound, New Zealand's cuts will make not a blind bit of difference in the larger scheme of things. So what is the point of our martyrdom?

Oh, because Green religion dictates that 'somebody has to lead the way'. Again there is no certainty that the rest of the world will follow, especially if evidence for anthropogenic warming diminishes or falls over completely. The only certainty is that we and our children will experience lower living standards.

So this whole business is no more than a high stakes gamble. I like a flutter but I wouldn't put my house on a horse.

Neologisms

A friend sent me latest Washington Post neologisms which prompted me to have search for others. These are some I like;


Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.

Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent

Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.

Flatulence (n.) the emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.

Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.

Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified demeanor assumed by a proctologist immediately before he examines you.

Pokemon (n), A Jamaican proctologist.

Bustard (n.), a rude bus driver.

Pimple: n., pimp's apprentice.

Discussion: n., a Frisbee-related head injury.

Cabbage Patch: A patch for those trying to stop eating cabbage.

Bustard (n.), a rude bus driver.

Dump Rodney??

Not once have I regretted resigning from ACT. I was very lucky getting the effective heave ho in 2008. It hurt at the time but the environment and personality politics would have driven me up the wall.

Act founder Sir Roger Douglas, with deputy leader and Consumer Affairs Minister Heather Roy, is understood to have led moves in the party against Mr Hide during the controversy over the international travel costs of his partner.

The Act board was told the caucus had issues over the leadership, and a special caucus meeting was called for November 22.

Mr Key is understood to have learned about the moves against Mr Hide shortly before that - between his return from Apec in Singapore and his trip to Trinidad for the Commonwealth summit.

He told Mrs Roy that if Mr Hide were removed from the leadership, her own ministerial position would be in jeopardy.

Oh Lord. What a loss that would be.

What a joke. Without Rodney there would be no ACT today. Sure he made mistakes this year, big ones, but so did Sir Roger. Looks like they are expending more energy on internal power games than advancing political ideas. Pathetic.

It isn't until you are well and truly out of it that you can see how silly this all looks; dump Rodney?? And replace him with whom, pray tell?

At this rate Rodney is going to end up being the Ron Paul of NZ politics. ACT needs him far more than he needs ACT.

Good on Key.

A banana year

Listening to NewstalkZB Face Off this morning, John Morrison, Wellington City councillor (and famous ex-cricketer), was heard describing his 2009 as a "banana" year.

A what year?

A banana year.

How so?

Because BANANA stands for Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.

Mr Morrison gets somewhat frustrated with the anti-s, the environmentalists and RMA and can frequently be heard opining on the subject when he sometimes sits in for Justin du Fresne. I have warmed to him.

A "separate Maori welfare system."

Duncan Garner is reporting that "the Government is close to a decision that would see millions of dollars set aside to fund a separate Maori welfare system."

This is the extension of Whanau Ora. While the details are not known, not a lot can be said. As a rule I am against separatism. But the interaction between Maori and the current welfare system is unacceptable. Any change should be viewed, at least initially, with an open mind.

However, I can speculate. And this is what I think. Whanau Ora is Tariana Turia's baby. Tariana is completely opposed to any interference with the DPB, which is at the core of Maori welfare. She and Sharples have strenuously opposed work-testing which National are insisting they will press ahead with.

If the Maori Party can effectively set up a separate welfare system for Maori they can set their own rules.

The extension of Whanau Ora serves as a political solution for National. They can keep Maori onside while satisfying their own constituents desire for a tightening up on welfare.

Failure

I seem to have a mental block at the moment. It may be that I am pouring any creativity I have into paintings for an exhibition next year (and gnawing over the results). Or maybe the issues that keep coming up are defeating me.

Take yesterday. Ex Alliance MP, Liz Gordon, released a report about the children of prisoners saying she was shocked at their circumstances; their poor physical and mental health and the inter-generational tendency for children of prisoners to also become prisoners. That's hardly surprising.

(Respondents = prisoners)




Yet the paper puts forward no ideas for how to break the cycle beyond an examination of current interventions. Talkback host, Danny Watson tried to elicit comments from his audience yesterday and only got 2. One from a teacher who relieves at a school where having a father in prison isn't remarkable and children seemed to take it for granted. CYF were generally involved and he felt that the only way to prevent inter-generational transfer was the remove the child completely from their current environment but conceded, that action in itself could cause more behavioural problems.

I am tired of pointing out that the incentives to have children, when totally ill-prepared to, have great bearing on outcomes years down the line. Not a solitary politician wants to develop that line of thinking or go down that road. So we seem stuffed.

Or perhaps I am still depressed about my recent failure (officially described as 'their' failure) to engage with exactly this sort of family. The organisation I work for had to pull the plug on the case after repeated missed home visits (I was there but they were not). I very much wanted to help this likeable client, the mother, yet there were other family members making it almost impossible. It makes you want to hit your head very hard against a brick wall when you can't get people to see the potential they have to make their lives better.

So I am at a low ebb.

How benefits create need

Further analysis of Treasury spending projections shows that they are predicting the number of people on the DPB will rise to over 120,000 by 2014. (This allows for a cost of living rise of 2% each year). I wonder what Treasury bases this on? Have they, for instance, factored in work-testing, which should see a drop based on previous NZ experience? In which case, are they predicting growth elsewhere?

There is a subset of recipients, those caring for the sick and infirm, people who would otherwise be hospitalised, which is growing quite quickly. When you think about that group, it is also enlarged by the greater degree of family breakdown. Historically women provided this sort of care unpaid as they were supported financially by a husband. Benefits create a domino effect. Initial uptake leads to further uptake. Similarly a single parent who stays single and welfare dependent can't provide support for a daughter that gets pregnant without a partner. She, in turn, goes on a benefit.

The domino effect is just one way that the welfare state actually creates need.

Welfare spending - the only significant forecast growth area

Here are the forecasts from the Half Year Economic Fiscal Update.

Depressing.

Population growth is estimated at 5.3 percent by 2014.

Note very little extra spending is forecast in health (8.4 percent), education (3.5%) or law and order (7.3%) for the next 6 years, yet welfare is going up by 26.9 percent.



OK, a good part of the additional spending is Super (putting up the qualifying age could reduce that substantially) but so are Sickness (33%), Invalid (18%) Domestic Purpose's Benefits (26%) and accommodation supplement (31%).



As a portion of total Core Crown Expenses welfare will rise from 30.2 to 32.2 percent.

This country's attitude towards welfare, as personified by Treasury and the government, seems utterly defeatist.

Roads and retrospective rose-tinted reveries

All the media hype about alcohol inevitably leads to discussion on radio. Yesterday there talk about young people drinking and driving and a suggestion that it didn't happen "when I was young". That there are too many funerals of young people. One caller said that they attended 5 such funerals. I had Robert in the car with me listening and was telling him the opposite. When I was young, drinking and driving was far more routine.

Now it could be that the people talking about "when they were young" are much older than me but I don't get that sense. There are a lot of middle-aged folk who have forgotten that their generation drank just as much, smoked far more and did drugs, some the same and some different. Media coverage is probably responsible for creating an impression that the youth of today are causing far more mayhem and loss of life on the roads. But that simply isn't true.

Anyway I promised to show him the statistics.


(The injury rate from crashes with driver alcohol/drugs as a factor, pretty much mirrors fatalities.)

The next graph shows the total road toll from 1960 to 1992.

Clearly there is quite a lengthy history of it being much higher than it is today. I do not have matching statistics for specific crashes with alcohol as a factor but can tell you that in 1973, the peak year, the yearbook has a breakdown for the 'nature of accident' but alcohol isn't even mentioned. That isn't because people didn't drink. It's because there wasn't an official acknowledgement of or focus on the link between drinking and driving.

Beating the Aussies

After all the recent talk about catching up with Australia economically, here's one area where we are way ahead.

The facts;

AUSTRALIA - The Bureau of Statistics report shows that 29,300 Australians were in jail on June 30 this year, 1700 more than on the same date in 2008.

NZ - In August 2009 there was more than 8300 prisoners spread across 20 prisons throughout the country.

If Australia caught up to NZ they would be imprisoning 41,500 individuals.

Interesting trivia; In New South Wales, most foreign born prisoners hail from NZ.

Growing up in a state house leads to success

Labour MP, Moana Mackey, at Red Alert, is calling for more state housing in Hobsonville. But, she says, John Key won't have it is his electorate;

John Key has milked his state house upbringing for all its worth, yet he is now denying 500 more Auckland families that same opportunity. Seem contradictory? Not really. I’ve long thought that whereas Labour believes John Key did well because he grew up in a state house, he believes he did well despite growing up in a state house.

That is just the most absurd statement. Labour believes John Key did well because he grew up in a state house. What are the implications of that? If John Key did well because he grew up in a state house then everybody who grows up in a state house should do well? If John Key hadn't grown up in state house he would not have done well?

John Key grew up in a generation when state houses weren't routinely occupied by people without jobs. If parent/s work, children are likely to follow in their footsteps. Having a job is a good enough definition of 'doing well' for me. Whether the house was owned or rented didn't make the difference. What John Key got from his mother was a work ethic.

Both Moana Mackey and John Key make too much out of growing up in a state house.

Awash in alcohol admonitions, etc

Monday morning and looking for real news, I find myself awash in a sea of alcohol admonitions, etc.

Let's start at the bottom, Southland Times, and work our way up;

Alexandra police are warning Christmas revellers to behave after a weekend of alcohol-fuelled offending.

Sergeant Ian Kerrisk said officers made nine alcohol-related arrests and picked up three drink-drivers between Friday and Sunday evenings.

"The silly season is well and truly upon us.

Next, the Timaru Herald:

Alcohol Action New Zealand has praised Timaru's lower rate of drunken offending linked to the earlier closing time of local bars.

Alcohol Action medical spokesman Professor Doug Sellman said the group supported Timaru's efforts and that the drop in crime was "entirely consistent" with previous research.

In October 2007, Timaru bars shifted to a 3am closing from 5am.

Of course Christchurch, capital of drug and alcohol dependence, would have to be in on the action. From The Press:

Christchurch central area commander Inspector Derek Erasmus yesterday pointed to pre-loaders as a significant problem during an otherwise quiet weekend.

"There was plenty happening in terms of drinking ... The biggest issue was that many people were already drunk before coming into town."

Erasmus said an extra 30 police officers patrolled the city on Friday and Saturday nights as part of Operation Unite.

Oh here's a slight deviation from the more sophisticated Oamaru, where the cops opted for focussing on other drugs. From the Oamaru Mail:

Oamaru police have made a number of drugs-related arrests this week.

Detective Sergeant Mike Ryder said 12 people faced charges. Eight had been arrested and the others were still to be located.

Before crossing the ditch it's worth noting Marlborough police are poised to seize the Picton home of a 63 year-old sickness beneficiary for cultivating cannabis. Do him for fraud as he was making a healthy living from his dealing, but otherwise, what is the point? From the Marlborough Express:

In what may be a first in New Zealand, a Picton house could soon be in Crown hands after its owner was convicted of commercially growing and dealing cannabis there.

Gary Walter Tittleton, 63, a sickness beneficiary, appeared in the Blenheim District Court this week and admitted cultivating cannabis and possessing cannabis for supply after police searched his Picton home on September 21.

Like the Oamaru police, in Gisborne the cops have bigger fish to fry. The Gisborne Herald reports:

Early-morning raids yesterday netted a “significant” amount of guns and drugs from Gisborne homes. Police searched 18 houses in and around the city as part of an operation targeting people dealing in cannabis and methamphetamine.

Fifteen people — including five from one family and gang affiliates — face numerous drugs charges as a result of Operation Rattle.

Around 50 police staff were involved.

Then, comfortingly, back to wowserism in Hamilton. From the Waikato Times;

They are already the target of legislative moves to raise the driving age and the drinking age and Hamilton City Council is moving locally by mooting a ban on drinking alcohol in all public places. The ban would come into effect between 10pm and 6am.

Finally the NZ Herald obligingly gives us a round up of nation-wide anti-alcohol activity and some more of the supporting propaganda:

Alcohol-related crime costs New Zealand $1.1 billion and Australia $2.14 billion annually.

(Anybody bother to question why those two figures are so wildly disproportionate? No. Didn't think so.)

So there it is. NZ on a Monday morning. Destined to do what it has done since colonisation. Fight the real and imagined evils of alcohol and other drugs. It's terribly, terribly boring. No wonder so many people want to alter their reality.

Has income inequality grown during the recession?

A great deal is talked about income inequality (and the evils inherent) and there is some MSD research available about it. To satisfy my own curiosity I created the following graphs to flesh out how incomes are distributed in NZ. Using New Zealand Income Survey data I made the first from June 2005 and the second from June 2009. The two sets of data have some differences in terms of the income parameters set and unfortunately the Asian group is missing from 2005. (It largely appears as 'other' but is not distinctly Asian).

2005


2009


The spread of incomes within the ethnicities has stayed relatively stable but I note the number of Maori has increased beyond natural population growth which may indicate that the recession has brought many Maori home.

The most notable aspect of the two graphs is that there is a greater likelihood of a European being in a higher income group and a greater likelihood of a Maori, Pacific or Asian being in a lower income group. That is shown in the inverted shape of the clustered columns.

An effect from WFF is probably showing in the change in the European spread with more people moving into the 4th highest quintile.

The high proportion of low income Asians reflects (I think) the high number of Asian students (the data is for the population 15 years and older) and that families often support their own elderly. In contrast, the high proportion of low income Maori and Pacific reflects reliance on benefits (particularly Maori) and unskilled work.

Accepting for the large low income group, Asians have the least income inequality within the group.

For Maori and Pacific, within their respective groups, the inequality is greatest. That is, the difference between the percentage that are 'poor' compared to the percentage that are 'rich' is greatest.

European 2005 Poor = 16% Rich 22%
European 2009 Poor = 17.5% Rich = 22%
Maori 2005 Poor = 22% Rich = 12.5%
Maori 2009 Poor = 23% Rich = 12%
Pacific 2005 Poor = 25% Rich = 7.5%
Pacific 2009 Poor = 28.5% Rich = 8.5%

And what about between the groups?

In 2005 the average weekly income from all sources was European $637, Maori $471 and Pacific $412

In 2009 the same figures were $728, $548 and $479 . For Asians, $512.

The respective increases for each group were European 14%, Maori 16% and Pacific 16%. So the inequality between the groups is also fairly steady.