Political realities of welfare reform

This article appeared in the UK Telegraph. It outlines what the UK needs to do about welfare according to Richard Wellings of the Institute of Economic Affairs. His proposals are of the Ruth Richardson variety. James Bartholomew points out the obvious reality that the proposals are politically difficult. And that's the crunch. Unless there is a political consensus, or a government prepared to be very radical within one term (which risks policy reversal by the next government) little can be achieved. Which is incidentally why I abandoned any political ambitions in favour of trying to influence a consensus of opinion (which is how the US achieved abiding change and they have a way to go yet).

Even Margaret Thatcher didn’t manage to dismantle Britain’s disastrous welfare system.

Judging by the policy plans of the Lib-Con coalition, there is little reason to be optimistic that today’s leaders will be any more successful. The timid proposals on welfare are little more than an expansion of existing failed programmes.

It is unsurprising that welfare reform has presented such a problem for successive governments. The six million working-age adults who now receive out-of-work benefits – plus millions more over-60s receiving generous pension credits – comprise a large voting bloc. Labour would have risked losing its core support had it attacked benefit dependency.

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The Crow Indian Chief

It's Reona's birthday so I did a quick sketch for her. She is fascinated by Native Indian culture. With more time I would have developed it more but it needed to be ready today. Unfortunately I put it under glass before taking the final shot but you get the idea.

Budget provisions that barely scratch the surface

Budget provisions that barely scratch the surface. What can be said about them?

There are around 8,000 teenage parents in NZ and the budget has provided funding for 10 more teenage parent co-ordinators in addition to the existing 9.

Around 13,000 inmates leave prison each year and the budget provides funding for 2 halfway houses (whare oranga ake) serving 42.

I suppose the ratio of provision is consistent. In both cases around a quarter to a third of a one percent (accepting that teenage co-ordinators will cater for more than one client).

Yet the system that encourages teenagers to produce babies that not infrequently go on to become troubled wards of the state and eventually guests of Her Majesty remains intact.

OIA response reveals real reason behind drop in the dole

Let me take you back to what Paula Bennett was saying on the 7th of March, 2010;

Benefit numbers fall

The number of people receiving the Unemployment Benefit has dropped by 4,224 over the last month.

"That's the single biggest drop in the Unemployment Benefit since the recession began," says Social Development Minister Paula Bennett.

The number of people on all types of benefits has dropped by 10,816 over the same period.

Over half of that total number, relates to young people on benefits.

"It's really pleasing to see 5,595 young people came off a benefit in just the last month," says Ms Bennett.

"Young people have been among the hardest hit by the recession and initiatives like Job Ops and Community Max have proven vital in keeping young New Zealanders in work," says Ms Bennett.

3,636 position had been filled through Job Ops by the end of February, with 2,927 positions filled through Community Max

Work and Income has continued its work-first approach, using work brokers and its specialised recruitment service Job Connect to match people with jobs.

What actually happened was that in February 2010 7,198 people left an unemployment benefit to go on the student allowance. This compares to 3,996 in February 2008.



When in opposition National used to rigorously and repeatedly rail at Labour for trying to massage the unemployment numbers.

Having spent 9 long years in opposition National certainly had time to observe and learn the art.

Farting at the dinner table and fast-tracked legislation

Yesterday I went to parliament to submit on the Social Assistance (Future Focus) Bill which covers National's latest round of potentially ineffectual welfare reforms. I was there for 2 hours including my own slot of 10 minutes so was witness to many other submissions and the reactions of the committee members. Every submitter I heard was negative about the reforms, most, in a pro-welfare capacity eg there is too much focus on paid work. Before me came the Women's Refuge, The Human Rights Commission, The Christian Council of Social Services, the Presbyterian equivalent, a couple of bodies representing the legal fraternity (Geoffrey Palmer was searingly critical of the complexity of the current social security legislation and further degeneration under this bill), and the Wellington People's Centre. So in the main the usual brothers-in-arms socialists and sold-out-to-the-state religionists. Most stayed on after submitting. So when I eventually spoke the response from in front and behind me was akin to someone farting at the dinner table.

I began by reminding the members that the stated aim of the Future Focus Bill is to "break the cycle of welfare dependency" - it was not a response to the recession which a previous submitter had claimed (the Wellington People's Centre, though I don't think I named them). And as the DPB is critical to that cycle I was going to focus on the proposed changes in that area. I had prepared new material for my submission and that was circulated.

In brief I urged them to focus their attention where it is needed - young, unskilled, uneducated women entering and remaining in the benefit system for years. I cautioned that the proposed work-testing will not deter this group and could see even more children added to existing benefits as an avoidance tactic. Then I presented MSD information that showed the work-testing regime was less effective than the enhanced case management approach anyway, plus graphic evidence that governments have been fiddling with the DPB since the early 90s to little avail, and urged them to get serious and return welfare to being what was intended - temporary assistance only, except for the most disabled. I finished using the example of Norway where the DPB equivalent is limited to three years after the birth of the youngest child.

It wasn't a particularly radical submission. But in the context - all the previous submissions had the left members ( Annette King, Carmel Sepuloni, Rajen Prasad and Catherine Delahunty) falling over themselves to reinforce the sentiments expressed - made it seem extreme.

I have submitted to select committees a number of times. But always under the Labour government. Quite often someone would get slightly out of their tree in their reaction. Philip Taito Field for instance (although he was probably under a great deal of stress at the time). Or Alliance's Liz Gordon (now standing for Mayor of Christchurch against her former boss). Did I expect the process to be any different under a centre right government? As I was criticising their bill, no. But I was surprised that whilst I was in attendance for the 2 hours, two of National's members never spoke. Another spoke once. And obviously the Chair, Hekia Parata spoke frequently, but not by way of questioning. The show was being completely dominated by the other side so naturally I was expecting a real grilling. And I wasn't wrong.

The thrust of their response to me (excepting Annette King) was welfare dependence is an unfounded and unuseful construct. Rajen Prasad used the term a couple of times in a sneering sort of a way. Where is the work? What about women in violent relationships? Would you go back to the seventies or earlier? Hadn't I been listening to all the other submitters?

I told them all I had heard was 'can't do'. And I get tired of hearing 'can't do'. There are existing shortages and looming crises in aged care, disabled care, pre-school care all of which people on the DPB could be filling if they applied some foresight. There were disapproving murmurs behind me which confirmed my suspicion that some advocates for the poor aren't actually looking for work answers but more welfare.

Then I began to tackle the escaping from violence objection. Paying people to escape from violence is a double-edged sword. "The DPB is a magnet..." I got no further. Sepuloni and Prasad immediately jumped in wrongly anticipating what I was going to say the DPB is a magnet for young women. And they wouldn't let me continue. I said, you are not listening to me. At which point the chair stepped in and asked Dr Prasad to show me some courtesy and let me finish. The point I was trying to make is that a young woman with a secure income and roof over her head is a magnet for a man who doesn't want to support a partner or a child or a household. These young women are very vulnerable to being preyed on by men with a propensity for violence. (I later emailed each member the documented evidence of this).

There was probably more which has become a bit of a blur but I can best describe the episode as a derisive drubbing. And the National members may as well have not been there.

But there was something highly unusual about this episode. The submissions were due last Friday. Ordinarily one then expects to wait a few weeks to get a call about a time for oral presentations. Imagine my surprise when it came on Monday. In fact the surface-mailed acknowledgement of my written submission arrived in the letterbox after I had presented my oral submission.

That is extraordinary.

Finally one other thing that amused me was Sir Geoffrey Palmer saying that NZ didn't want to go down the same pathway as the US with silly names for legislation. He compared Future Focus to No Child Left Behind. I would very much have liked to chime in that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the name of America's Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act. What could be wrong with legislating for people to take some individual responsibility for themselves and their children?

Bennett on benefits

A make-news piece by Tracey Watkins appears in today's Stuff content entitled;

'Serious questions' over some benefits

The Government is preparing to ask some "serious questions" about invalid's and sickness benefits as the jobs crisis eases.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett is flagging dramatic changes to the welfare system over the next few years as the Government has more room to drive through changes after the focus in its first 12 months being mainly on soaring unemployment.

"I think in the future how we approach welfare ... I do see that it may look quite different [including] quite a different way in which we approach things and help people to get well and get help and be more employable."

Tomorrow's Budget is expected to flag some of the changes, although more fundamental ones are likely to wait until a Welfare Reform Working Group reports back. It was set up to investigate whether the system needs radical change or just tinkering.

The idea that the government sets up working groups to discover whether "tinkering" is the answer is ludicrous, but when one considers how they eventually respond to recommendations made, "tinkering" is usually the upshot.

While the focus had been on unemployment numbers, meanwhile, they were starting to turn around and would "right themselves pretty much" over time.

"It's that invalid's benefit, sickness benefit, that we have to ask ourselves some pretty serious questions about and how and what we want that to look like in 10 years' time."

One of the issues was how agencies helped people to get well and back to work.

"All we do ... is pay them benefits and put them on training courses and hope they are going to get well.

"We are looking at different options at the moment and that is what the welfare working group are doing ... it could mean more [money] up front; spending more to get someone the operation they need, or more drug and alcohol rehabilitation."

And Labour didn't try all this stuff? That is exactly what Maharey did yet the numbers dependent continued to rise.

This problem is being tackled across the developed world but looks like trying to sculpt with melting ice. Governments herald tough new approaches but to little effect.

In the UK and Australia the initial emphasis was on redirecting new applicants into the dole queue. The numbers went up. Now they are reassessing existing claimants or announcing plans to. In the US people on Supplemental Security Income for disability (the uninsured) have been subjected to a great deal of review also. Not surprisingly the US have taken the most stringent approach and at least have numbers tracking in line with the population growth. Here numbers on the sickness and invalid's benefit keep rising as a percentage of working age people. The first graph below represents the sickness benefit; the second the invalids benefit.



The problem is multi-faceted. First we have to acknowledge (as the UK and Australia have) that the disability rolls have taken on many people who should have been on the unemployment benefit. That is a start and shifts the problem rightly into being one about jobs and not health.

Then the mental ill-health juggernaut will require some honest assessment. Instead of spending extra on mending people (which we simply do not have to spend) a redirection of cash assistance into other forms of support, rehab, shared living expenses and accommodation etc is needed. The living in the community experiment has failed for an unknown number.

There are people who, I can only repeat myself, are genuine cases and do not deserve to be stigmatised for their dependence.

Too many are not. And the easy availability of benefit income has assisted them in causing their own 'incapacities'.

The new social engineers

Oh Good Lord. Yes, out loud I said it to no-one but myself. I can't stand this world some days. Or, what is it really? I can't stand all the attempts by governments to 'fix' things. Now they are going to fix kids. You just feel like you are suffocating from their snow-balling social engineering. I am silently screaming.

BECAUSE EVERY TIME THEY TRY TO FIX SOMETHING THEY BREAK SOMETHING ELSE.

Why can't they just leave stuff alone??

Getting airborne again

And now for something completely different...

I made enough profit from my exhibition to fulfil a recently stirred ambition to get back to flying. As I haven't exercised the privileges of my Private Pilot's Licence for just over ten years I had to study and resit Aviation Law which I have just accessed the results of below. Yahoo. My memory may not be as lacking as I sometimes think.

Having completed the arduous medical exam and confirmed that my heart is fine (although at my age, in the second fifty year period, the certificate only remains valid for 2 years) all that remains is to go and do some flying; brush up on forced landings and stall recovery, sit a Biannual Flight Review and bob's your uncle. Talking of bob, Robert can't wait. His interest in aviation is very strong. I shouldn't be surprised. He is my son.

Hope yet for UK Conservatives

When the Conservatives were elected I felt disinterested because on my reading of it they didn't look very different from National. Too close to the centre to be of any use.

However, not only Frank Field, but David Freud is in Cameron's new cabinet. Freud advised Labour on welfare reform but then defected to the Tories. Here he tells why;


“This figure's wrong,” Gordon Brown interrupted as I began to explain my Welfare Report to him. He leaned threateningly towards me, jabbing a stubby finger at a table in my draft.

I looked at it. “No it isn't,” I replied.

“Yes it is.”

“No it isn't.”

“Yes it is.”

This was becoming unproductive. I tried to break the impasse. “I'll make clear that it's a gross figure, if that will satisfy you,” I proposed.

“Yes, yes. Do that,” he growled.

I was in his Treasury office in February 2007. I had been asked by Tony Blair and then work and pensions secretary John Hutton to write an independent report on how to reform the welfare system. They were happy with my recommendations: now I had been sent to explain them to Brown.

It was a surreal encounter. The changes I was recommending were genuinely radical. Yet as our argument veered on for the next half-hour, we went from one inessential detail to another. Try as I might, I could not get him to discuss matters of principle. After this bizarre softening-up exercise, he dumped me into a room full of officials and special advisers, who demanded that I make change after change to the report.

In the end I managed to publish the independent report that I wanted to: one that championed a major effort to roll back the number of people dependent on benefits. In particular, it recommended that substantial resources be directed to helping those 2.6 million people who had been parked on Incapacity Benefit, with the investment financed from the resulting savings to the benefits bill.

When the economic crisis erupted in autumn 2008, the Government's response seemed to show all the top-down characteristics that have failed us over the past 30 years. Gordon Brown had clearly not accepted the reforming principles behind my outcome-led proposals — not surprisingly, given his lack of interest in them during our bruising, nit-picking encounter.

And even where Labour had accepted parts of my approach in principle, the pace they proposed would be terrifyingly slow. They were looking to pilots covering less than 20 per cent of the country — leaving many people without any serious support.

So I was enthralled when David Cameron and George Osborne asked me in February 2009 to join the Conservative Party to help them develop the ideas in my report into real, nationwide policy. They were determined that a Conservative government would launch the long and difficult task of rolling back the extraordinarily high levels of dependency that have developed in this country.

Today the fruits of that work are launched in a new welfare contract for Britain. Its principle is: do the right thing and we will back you; fail to take responsibility and the free ride is over. As well as using the principles behind my report to help millions of people who have been abandoned for too long, within six months of taking office we will introduce new sanctions for anyone who refuses to look for work.

That way we can have a welfare system that is firm but fair, and we can end Britain's dependency culture. Gordon Brown clearly doesn't want to change the system: we need a change of government to get the job done.

Labour's Frank Field appointed 'poverty czar' by Cameron

New Conservative PM David Cameron has appointed Labour's ex-welfare minister Frank Field as 'poverty czar' in the UK. This is big news for anyone interested in welfare reform. Frank Field is above all a realist. He has better grip on what is causing poverty in countries like the UK and NZ than any other politician I can think of. For a short time he was welfare minister under Tony Blair but there was a falling out with Gordon Brown and he has spent the last few years on the back benches.

But he may be too plain-speaking for the new Tories.

Compare what he says about single mothers...

"I've always believed in a causal link between benefits and the number of single mothers. We've got to change so that people don't become single mothers. For some, they become single mothers by accident, while for others it's a deliberate choice."

...to the Tory prevaricator...

"We have to be careful with this claim of a causal link. When we are giving benefit to the single mother, we are not giving it to her, it's to the child. if you want to end child poverty, then you have to give benefit."

The contrasting views of Coddington and Woodham

The contrast between the columns written by Deborah Coddington and Kerre Woodham in today's Herald on Sunday strongly marks the split between a pragmatic view and a reactionary view. Strangely it is Woodham with whose view I identify. She believes not a great deal has changed over time in relation to young people drinking to the point of death and that kids will always do dumb things.

Coddington, on the other hand, believes that the drinking is far worse and the state has to do something. Both columns are written in the aftermath of the tragic death of young James Webster.

Having a 16 year-old son brings me a little closer to the issue. Nevertheless I am sick and tired of hearing and reading about the scourge that is alcohol and young people's relationship with it. Not because I like a drink or two, especially bubbly, but because the problem isn't actually about alcohol. Teenage years are amongst the riskiest. That's part of the human cycle and human condition. And nobody can expunge that reality. Young people are busting out and they lack judgement. There are some aspects of life that simply can't be changed. Deborah says that she was lucky her kids survived. Well, not really. The overwhelming chances are that our children will survive adolescence and early adulthood. Except in times of war, when the risk-taking nature of the young was harnessed and celebrated, that is blessedly also immutable fact. Not a matter of luck.

The best parents can do is know their children; make home a place their children want to be; be people their children can trust, or at least be some sort of anchor for them, and teach their children that they don't have to run with the crowd, don't have to get involved with doing stuff they actually don't want to do and, for that matter, neither should they try to coerce others against their will.

After that it is in the lap of the Gods.

Going to the media and another apology

There is an growing fashion of people running to the media with silly subjective stories that leave a good number of us yawning. Like, Work and Income tells jobseeker to remove her degree from CV. Big deal.

This is not one of them. Gary Wake e-mailed this story to NewstalkZB, and obviously other media, as a last desparate resort. If you don't want to read the entire e-mail you can hear Justin du Fresne read it in its entirety straight after the 9am news yesterday. Listen (starts at 13:30). As the story unfolds there develops a sense of very black comedy about cancellation after cancellation of surgery as Gary's 11 year-old daughter becomes more and more disabled.

After you have listened consider the response of the DHB;

"We recognise this has caused some distress to the patient and her family and we apologise."

Some. No response at all would probably have been an improvement on that indifferent word choice.

I truly hope Mr Wake achieves a positive result from his action and that his daughter receives the surgery and makes a speedy and successful recovery. The whole episode has been a devastating downward spiral for Kirstie and her family and provides a damning insight into the inadequacies of New Zealand's health system. As parents we are all saying, there but for the grace....

John Key, Tuhoe and trust

I just don't get National's game plan. On hearing John Key slam the door on Tuhoe I felt hurt for them. It would not cost New Zealanders to let Tuhoe take over management of the Urewera National Park. It means everything to them and is just a few lines in the press to the rest of the us. On the other hand, if it was the upholding of a 'principle' there would at least be some rationale behind this, to use Chris Finlayson's word to describe how some Pakeha regard land settlements, 'mean-spirited' refusal to grant Tuhoe the fulfilment of their deep desire to exercise some sort of guardianship over the land they live on.

But it can't be a denial based on principle because elsewhere we have seen National open doors to increased Maori ownership. The re-visitation of the Seabed and Foreshore wrangle looks like it will result in Maori gaining greater resources. The upshot of current proposals will, like the signing of the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People, be far more encompassing than a deal over the Urewera.

Then John Key insults everybody's intelligence (or perhaps he assumes we have none) by saying there will be no separatism in New Zealand. Bull. Of course there is and will be separatism. The question is, how much and will it be a good or bad thing?

Individualists (my tribe if you like) make a great deal about our rights and freedom as individuals. We do not like being controlled by collectives, especially the state. We would actually embrace our own separatism from people who think differently - social engineers, moral relativists, herders etc. So why can't we understand Maori and their yearning to do their own thing?

It doesn't mean that we are permanently divorced from each other. Many successful marriages are based on respect for each other's space; both separateness and togetherness. That is how the relationship between Maori and Pakeha would best strengthen and abide.

But yesterday John Key showed he doesn't really understand this when he made a very big mistake with an unfortunate comment about Tuhoe eating him for dinner. It isn't that the joke was unfunny. It was that he would even think to joke about Tuhoe after just causing them so much pain. That was thoroughly and dismally revealing.

He pandered to those people who do not want Tuhoe to get anything. People who believe that Maori will shut off Pakeha access. They base this on the past behaviour of a few thugs. In fact, their entire view of Maori is based on the worst of Maori and not the best. But do they base their view of Pakeha on the worst specimens instead of the best?

Maori generally welcome strangers and share with them. At some point we are going to have to trust each other if the future is going to be better than the past. But trust took a massive hit two days ago when Tuhoe were told that their dream was over.

Benefit fraud; consistency of sentencing and deterrents

A Feilding District Court judge sentenced a woman who had defrauded Work and Income of $48,000 to one year in prison yesterday with no opportunity for home detention.

Which led me to speculate about the consistency of sentencing for benefit fraud. A recent case was fresh in my mind having received a new comment just a few days ago from someone who claims to know the accused (one of the few advantages of having moderation turned on is seeing incoming comments on old posts.) I have searched for any reports of Georgina Ann Marie Nelson's sentencing which was due in February this year to no avail. If the commenter checks in again perhaps they could update us.

In this case a woman was jailed for one year but allowed to apply for home detention after stealing $85,000.

Here, eight months for $49,000.

Here, 6 months for $40,000, application for HD allowed.

In this one a couple were both sentenced to 8 months for a combined total of $38,000.

That's enough. It's depressing reading and there are no shortages of examples. In the 2005/06 financial year there were 937 prosecutions for benefit fraud, most of people who were working and claiming.

All of the above cases involved claiming not to be in a relationship 'after the nature of a marriage'. And anecdotal evidence would suggest they probably represent just the tip of an iceberg.

The sentencing looks reasonably consistent. It also looks reasonably lenient. Let's face it, if you have been on a benefit and all that happens is you get to stay on a reduced benefit largely confined to home, it's not much of a deterrent.

Should people who defraud Work and Income get longer sentences? Or should they simply be banned from ever collecting welfare again, including Super? The second option may be more effective.

Student allowances up 63 percent since 2006

These statistics only tell us so much. 67,796 students received an average of $1,157 each in the first quarter of 2010 (during term-time).

These numbers do not tell us if total student numbers are up. Only that far more students are qualifying for allowances and accommodation benefits. This may be a factor of the recessionary impact on their parental incomes. Then again these numbers may include thousands who can't find work and would otherwise have been on the unemployment benefit. In which case this will be positively affecting the unemployment rate and may account for the recent surprise when the March quarter rate dropped from 7.1 to 6 percent. I have an OIA request lodged with MSD which will fill in some of the gaps.

(These statistics make a report in the NZ Herald yesterday obsolete already. It was about the rise in the number of young people without income between 1996 and 2006 ;

Statistics New Zealand spokesman Conal Smith said there were many variables but it looked like a greater proportion of students were neither working nor getting a student allowance.

Blogs are much more up-to-date!)

Fighting back

What a welcome change to read a column by someone taking it to another emerging army of alarmists - the anti-TV terrorisers.

A blind moral panic about television and other electronic media hinders children's potential to realise literary futures that are different from the past.

Why are we such snobs about children watching television?

Anne-Marie Quill has said everything - and more - that ran through my mind last week when I read about 'experts' warning parents not to let under 4s watch any TV whatsoever. Unlike Ms Quill I couldn't find the energy to refute this absurdity so opted to do the next best thing and ignore them (which is incidentally how I advise my children to deal with bullies).

The warning came around the same time that I took my 11 year-old daughter and other team members over to Seatoun school to compete in the annual KidsLit competition. The children first compete to be in the school team, and the winners then square off in the Wellington area rounds. Ultimately a NZ team will compete internationally in Edinburgh.

The competition comprises 10 rounds of 10 questions, with each round covering a particular subject. That was first up was American literature. And a typical question would be, What was the family surname of the girls in Little Women? The children work as a team and eventually the highest score wins. But along the way there are chances to win books and money! The quizz master, in his tall hat, who is completely nuts about the concept, really brought the show alive. There was even a question and prize for the adults at the end of each round. So rather than just being spectators we were participating.

As I listened it occurred to me that the line between books and tv is now very blurred. So many books have become movies and with the advent of video/DVD our children are familiar with far more fiction than they would otherwise have been. That is not to say that these kids aren't readers. They are. And it does my heart good to see their passion for reading being recognised and rewarded. I particularly welled-up with pride and emotion when one of the end-of-round money questions began, I am going to read to you the first lines from a book and if you can identify the book, hand up quick as you can, "This is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child..." and up shot Sam's hand. The audience and the quizz master gasped. "The Magician's Nephew?" she ventured. "Correct!" to much applause and the reward of a $5 note. (The book pictured here was mine as a 7 year-old hence its somewhat tatty state.)

Of course the Narnia books have variously been turned into TV series' and films many times. There was a BBC TV series made when I was a child. I loved to do both; read the books and watch the screen. And that was in the 1960s.

These experts who warn against TV viewing must have stale and unimaginative lives. Perhaps they spend all their time exercising their precious bodies and believe that, for their own betterment, every other individual should be doing the same.

But what about the life of the mind? Frankly they can naff off and more people should join with Anne-marie Quill in telling them to.

Welfare and IQ

There is a fascinating tussle going on between Gordon Campbell and Peter Saunders. Gordon Campbell first drew attention to the writing and ideas of Peter Saunders, who has been appointed to the Welfare Working Group in an advisory capacity. Campbell is strongly condescending towards Saunder's thinking about IQ, how it affects achievement and the role it has played in the developing numbers of welfare-dependent people.

Saunders talks a great deal about class. He is now living back in his native Britain (also my birthplace) where class is part of the wallpaper.

I have always understood that when NZ was colonised there was something of a desire to leave behind the class mentality. Ambitious working class people were lured out here with the promise of land ownership. Many, if not most, 4th or 5th generation NZers come from humble backgrounds. No big deal. I am not so much proud that my great grandfather was an Irish scavenger, but grateful that he got himself out of Ireland looking for better or I wouldn't be around today. On my mother's side, her Dad was a miner. She, against the odds, put herself through teachers training college and made a better life for herself than was expected. When I was young we had IQ tests at school (England). Because my mother was a teacher she was privy to my result which was apparently very good. But I didn't turn out to be academically brilliant. Dropped out of University and cleaned offices. It was never a matter of 'couldn't do' but didn't 'want to do'. And I was always happy hanging out with 'ordinary' people. People from working or middle-class backgrounds. Later in life, when I wanted to challenge what I was seeing around me, then I began the long ongoing process of educating myself.

So where am I getting to with this. People like Gordon Campbell hate the idea of class and IQ. In his circles you can't dare say someone is not smart enough to be a teacher or a doctor. Because that is insulting. (And yet this same troop - although it may not specifically include Campbell - have formed their own brand of elitism. And woe betide if someone without academic qualifications writes something they don't like. Suddenly the pleb has over-reached herself).

IQ is only a measurement of certain abilities. I know plenty of people who wouldn't fare well in the IQ testing stakes who are 'intelligent'. But what Saunders is trying to convey is that intellectual ability is a fact and it very much influences what people can and will achieve in their lives, including social status. Some people have too much and it can wreck their lives.

What Campbell actually thinks is less accessible. He quotes someone called Young at length, about 'meritocracy' which seems to be a theory that people who have achieved on merit then close off opportunity to others to follow suit. Sounds conspiratorial.

But he does question Saunder's suitability to be an advisor to the group on more tangible grounds;

Having displayed this touching faith in the accuracy and cultural neutrality of IQ testing, Saunders ploughs on. Over the course of the last three decades, he points out, low skilled jobs have been shed in many developed countries. “What are governments to do about this?” he asks. “The problem is that one-sixth of the population has an IQ under 85… Pushing them through government training courses makes politicians feel good, but it is not going to turn them into skilled IT workers. Somehow, we have to find new, useful, but less challenging tasks for them to do.”

Having dismissed the value of retraining programmes for welfare beneficiaries on welfare, Saunders then proceeds to criticize measures to improve the equality of opportunity to tertiary education. Again, this is a wasted effort, in his view. To repeat: these are the sort of views that Paula Bennett wants her expert panel on welfare reform to heed. We should be very worried.

Equality of opportunity is important and I think a great deal more of it exists in this country than in the UK. But what strikes me as I read Saunder's column is his approach to the welfare 'problem' is coloured by his recent Australian and UK experiences. Both countries have had long dole queues for a long time.

Notwithstanding some moved onto sickness and invalid's benefits, NZ's dole queue shortened dramatically before the recent recession. Some may attribute that to the very availability of equal opportunity.

While New Zealand shares similarities with Australia in the welfare-dependence stakes, it is also quite different. Unique in fact. Maori, and to a lesser extent Pacific Islanders, make up a disproportionate share of recipients.

I reject that the Maori dependence is down to low intelligence. Maybe some wouldn't perform well under IQ testing but I know enough Maori well enough to know they are not stupid (apologies for my own collectivising). Maori dependence is long-standing; both complicated and simple; economic and cultural. The bulk of their dependence is through unsupported mothers. I am loathe to call them 'single' because many are not. A further chunk of it is through ill-health, both physical and mental. On the other hand, Maori unemployment is higher in a recession but we have seen it drop to very low levels when the work is there. In June 2007 less than 8,000 Maori were on the unemployment benefit compared to 43,000 in 1999 and many more in the early 90s.

So coming at the NZ welfare problem from an intelligence/ ability angle would not be a priority on any list I had written. Maori are a resourceful people. That has to be unlocked at every level. It gets undermined when the state runs around doing for them.

But I digress. There will always be work (or a working partner) for people who do not aspire or, heaven help us, lack the ability to become academics and professionals. The problem is making it financially viable. Enough to live on. Either the state gets out of the way and lifts the taxation burden off employers (I can't see this happening and part of me distrusts that a free market would bring less inequality) or it tops up people doing menial work. It is still preferable to have people in work, getting topped up or paying no tax, than being paid to be economically unproductive.

There is a danger of over-intellectualising the whole business of welfare dependence. But at least I can understand where Peter Saunders is coming from. I can't say the same for Campbell.

ACT and freedom

These words from ACT Deputy Leader Heather Roy, from a just-written piece entitled Oppressive Government, are mildly encouraging;

The State increasingly seems to feel it has no choice but to take responsibility for those who are not prepared to take responsibility for themselves. Government has assumed the role of saving people from themselves.

The inevitable result - an unintended consequence of State meddling in people's lives - is that those with diminished responsibility have been given the right to be picked up and cared for by the State at the expense and inconvenience of the majority. And the majority seems expected to acknowledge and understand this - even to respect it when, in fact, it should be the reverse.

Our society is slowly being turned on its head. The minority rules - or at least the rules are made for the minority, but imposed on all. The minority must be saved from itself by the State, and the only way the State can do this is by loading increasing impositions on the responsible people - taking away their freedom and choice. How is that right? Well, it's not.

One of the ways in which the state goes overboard is in its surveillance of children. The last Children's Commissioner had a grand plan to screen all children to check for physical or emotional problems. This is a sledge hammer to crack a walnut. But the Commissioner got her way.

Straight after reading the above, I clicked on another release from the same MP. It is from a just-given speech to the Early Childhood Council Conference;

Many of your services will have provided information about a child's social and emotional development through a strengths and difficulties questionnaire. I appreciate that there have been concerns about this questionnaire, but it is an internationally validated tool that was widely looked at by the Ministry of Health before being included as part of the 'B4 School Check'.

The Ministries of Education and Health acknowledge the value of the professional judgement of early childhood teachers, and we strongly encourage you to contribute to the B4 School Check.

So I don't know whether Heather Roy does understand freedom. Or perhaps continuing a developing political theme, there are two Heather Roys.

More likely it is just the inevitable and dissembling result of being the Deputy Leader of an apparently 'libertarian' party but also a government Minister.

Whanau ora - why it will fail

John Tamihere writes that whanau ora risks sabotage by government bureaucrats and it will be "...the Maoris who cop the flak." That may well be but there is a more inevitable reason why it will fail.

Tariana Turia said the following when speaking about whanau ora last week;

For too long, there has been a confusion over the role of the state in relation to families. Government must never become the defacto head of the family by replacing vital functions that we would expect families to do for themselves in caring for their wellbeing as a whole.

But that is exactly what the state has become. Particularly prevalent amongst Maori families, it takes on the role of financial provider. The same happens in other countries and it is always the poorest people who are affected the most because the level of income the government provides is commensurate to the level of income a male would bring in. So the poorest families - blacks, Hispanics, native Indians, Aboriginals, Maori, - suffer the most disintegration. The men are dis-empowered and the women struggle.

My biggest reservation about whanau ora lies therein. With no fundamental change to the benefit system (Tariana is a strong advocate of the DPB) it will remain no more than a different way of picking up the pieces.

One step forward, five steps back

The Minister for Social Development has just issued a statement about the fall in numbers on the unemployment benefit in April. Rather confusing it is too;

Latest benefit figures out today show Unemployment Benefit numbers have dropped by almost 500 for the month of April...

...Maori account for three quarters of the fall in Unemployment Benefit figures.

Over the last month 4,654 people cancelled the Unemployment Benefit and went into work, 1,346 of those were Maori and 346 were Pacific Island people.

Get that?

In plain English, 4,654 unemployment benefits were cancelled but 4,154 were granted. Maori made up three quarters of the difference.

However there has been an overall rise in working-age beneficiaries from 324,814 to 327,462 or by 2,648. As I said, one step forward, five steps back.

Green MP - blinkers on

Catherine Delahunty had this column published in the DomPost today. It contains the following;

"Most people spend less than one year on any benefit and use that time to rebuild their lives and education."

The MP need only refer to the latest Ministry of Social Development factsheets - available on-line - to find that 69 percent of people reliant on any benefit continuously, are dependent for more than one year; 38 percent for more than 4 years. These percentages however take no account of the fact that many people leave a benefit and then return. The clock starts afresh on their new spell.

The Ministry cannot provide information about how long the average or cumulative stay on a benefit is.

The concern of the Welfare Working Group is breaking the 'cycle of dependency'. Except for Green MPs most people can see that it exists and that it is damaging, to children especially.

The cycle exists recession or not. It is immune to periods of strong economic and low unemployment.

I despair of the Greens and their blinkered attitude to welfare. Some of what Catherine Delahunty says is true. Some beneficiaries work in the community; some are too sick or disabled to work. But to use that to justify crying 'beneficiary bashing' at any suggestion of reform is tired and negligent.

Blancmange and navigators

Yesterday Annette King likened whanau ora to blancmange; when you try to get a grasp of it, it slips through your fingers. When the recipe for whanau ora is considered, that's no surprise;



But what about Labour? It's not as if they weren't just as capable of producing wibbly-wobbly recipes for whanau and hapu outcomes;



And here's another none Maori-specific just for good measure;



How many talking heads does it take to come up with this reverse rocket science?

Speaking of which, who can stand up and take a bow for the breathtakingly clever name for whanau ora providers - navigators?? Then again, it was probably the result of a collective brain-storming session.

"What are we going to call these social workers?"

"We need a name for them?"

"'Course we need a name for them. Otherwise how will we tell the difference between them and all the other social workers?"

"So what do our guys do that is different?

"They find a way."

"Oh, and the other ones don't."

"That's it. So what do you call someone who finds the way?"

"An explorer?"

"Nah. He looks for a way but he might not find it."

"An inventor?"

"Sort of but he makes something rather than finding a way."

"Um. I've got. A navigator. He finds the way. Without the navigator we won't know where we are going and if we don't know where we are going, how will we get there?

"Exactly!"

"So, er, what's the Maori word for 'navigator' then?"

"I'll google it. Urungi."

"Fantastic. So we will call our social workers 'urungis'."

"No. We can't do that."

"Why?"

"Because it has to be for Pakeha too. And they won't know what urungi means. Like, I didn't know what it meant till I googled it."

"So it has to be navigators. Like Kupe eh. What about whanau ora kupes?"

"Nah. There was only one Kupe. Anyway they called a tug Kupe. We don't want people thinking our social workers are tugs."

"I guess. Navigators it is then."

More mistakes from the Minister's office

It is good news that the unemployment rate has dropped back to 6 percent.

But who writes the Minister's press releases?

Unemployed Maori make up 13.6 percent and Pacific island people account for 13.3 percent of those who are officially unemployed.

Wrong. 13.6 percent of Maori and 13.3 percent of Pacific people are unemployed - two completely different things.

If the release statement was correct then Maori would be under-represented in the ranks of the unemployed.

Now that would be be very good news.

Update; Cut and paste into the NZ Herald, Unemployed Maori make up 13.6 per cent and Pacific island people account for 13.3 per cent of those who are officially unemployed.

Maori imprisonment rate climbing

Yesterday I posted about the Maori percentage of the prison population remaining at roughly one half since at least 1987. On the face of it this would appear at least better than it continuing to rise. Then it occurred to me (thanks to some prompting) that with a growing prison population, to maintain a 50 percent share the Maori rate of imprisonment would actually have to be increasing. A commentator said;

For what it's worth, not necessarily because Maori are increasing --- both absolutely, and relatively as a proportion of NZ's total population.

The question is: is the increase of prison population as a %age greater than the increase of maori as a %age. I'd guess, actually, that the answer is no.

To do this properly, don't fuck about with ratios and %ages. Get the raw numbers and work from there.

Never one to shirk a challenge I first looked to see if the statistics were already available. A search turned up this chart.



Note that this represents sentenced prisoners only and the population used was 14 and over.

The last prison census conducted was in 2003. There are statistics available for December 2009 which provide total prisoners and ethnicity but not a gender breakdown by ethnicity. Therefore I have made the assumption that 57% of the female prisoners were Maori (consistent with 2003) and removed 281 from the Maori total.

Prison population at December 2009; 8,244

Maori percentage; 50.8 % or 4,188 (- 281 females = 3,907)

Maori male aged 14 and older in 2009; 223,693

Rate per 1,000 17.47

Total prison population at November, 2003; 6,240

Male Maori prison population; 2,913

Maori male aged 14 and older in 2003; 202,506

Rate per 1,000 14.38

The population statistics used are from Statistics NZ estimates.

So the imprisonment rate per 1,000 Maori males has increased from 14.38 in 2003 to 17.47 in 2009. The only weakness in the data is my assumption about the percentage of Maori prisoners who are female.

(And of course whether more prisoners are simply identifying as primarily Maori is another factor I have no information about.)

Norway - not suffering welfare cheats lightly

Norway may be the best place in the world to bring up children but they only pay a single parent benefit for 3 years and they don't suffer fraudsters lightly;

Police in Bergen have arrested a dozen parents of small children in recent weeks, charging them with swindling the state welfare system. Most have fraudulently claimed they were single parents, and thus collected extra child welfare payments.

Parents in Norway are given a generous lump-sum payment when they have a child, and then receive child welfare payments of about NOK 1,000 a month (called barnetrygd) every month until the child is 16, regardless of their household income. Single parents get double the amount, and can be eligible for extra aid as well, sometimes amounting to as much as NOK 15,000 a month (USD 2,500).

Newspaper Bergens Tidende (BT) reported this week that police and officials at state welfare agency NAV received so many tips of suspected fraud that they mounted an offensive called Operation Trygd. Plain-clothed police officers kept several apartments under surveillance, watching the comings and goings of their residents.

And loosely related, here's an Australian welfare cheat who is currently in prison, but wants her 'right' to receive IVF treatments recognised by the court;

Kimberley Castles, who is serving three years in a minimum security jail for welfare fraud, has only seven months left before she turns 46 and becomes ineligible for in vitro fertilisation treatment.

But she has been denied access by prison authorities to receive such treatment, due to concerns other prisoners would become jealous and also want such treatment, making visits to the fertility clinic hard for authorities to co-ordinate.

Any ideas?

A question is exercising me. Maori make up around 50 percent of the prison population. This has been the case since at least 1987 when the Prison Census showed 48 percent of inmates were Maori.

The question occupying me isn't, why is the proportion so high but, why hasn't the proportion gone higher? What has held it at roughly one half?

Demographics?

The rapidly growing representation in crime statistics post-war reflected the rapid urbanisation of Maori. But the young Maori population is still growing faster than the young non-Maori pop (except Pacific).

The fact that the Maori prison percentage hasn't continued to climb must be a good thing so what explains it?

"Tobacco taxes + disarmed shop-owners = an invitation to violence " x 2

This morning PC writes about Tobacco taxes + disarmed shop-owners = an invitation to violence

“Four masked men have robbed a Palmerston North dairy at gunpoint, threatening the owners and an elderly customer….They stole the cash register and a quantity of tobacco before fleeing and eluding a police cordon…
“The Association of Community Retailers (ACR) today linked the robbery with the Government's sudden hike in tobacco tax last week.
"' ‘They don't need to rob a bank for a mere $5000 when it's easier to rob a dairy of double that amount of value in tobacco products,’ said tobacco spokesman Richard Green.”

Here's another just up the line;

Five youths, two aged 17 and three aged 14, burst into the Belt Rd Dairy in New Plymouth about 6.30pm on Sunday and threatened the owner with what appeared to be a pistol...

...New Plymouth CIB Detective Sergeant Greg Gray said the group grabbed a large quantity of cigarettes and tobacco and cash before leaving the shop.

Another way to reduce welfare dependency

When he announced the Future Focus welfare reforms, including work-testing the DPB when youngest child turns six, the Prime Minister suggested a modest reduction of 5,000 DPB recipients going into work. But what we never hear about is preventing or discouraging people from coming into the benefit system in the first place.

What most people don't understand is that the DPB caseload has a very high turnover. Each year there are around 35,000 grants and a similar number of people go off it. In a period when the numbers have been increasing I have used conservative numbers (35,000 in, 34,000 out) and a baseline of 100,000 to model what difference it would make if, as well as getting 5% off the DPB, influx was also reduced by 5%.



The way to stop people coming into the system is to change the incentives. Or more rightly, remove the incentives.

Time's up people

Eating out is something we don't do a lot (unless you count visits to Burger king which is a reasonably regular event in our family). Last night we dined at a Petone restaurant with two couples David works with. It was something of a celebration. About 15 months ago they joined together in business and have done very well in the interim. One couple came over from the Wairarapa for the occasion.

We had a couple of bottles of wine, starters, mains, dessert and coffees. We were seated in a separate area with dimmed lighting. The service was ... unusual. Somewhat brusque.

At around 10.50, when we were the only group left in the annexed area, amiably chatting and laughing but winding up, the lights were abruptly turned up as a clear signal our time was up. Come in group of six.

It wasn't anything I had ever experienced before. It certainly wasn't conducive to securing repeat business, surely the lifeblood of a restaurant, because I won't be returning or recommending the restaurant despite the food being rather good. These days good food is par for the course. Hospitality is, however, even more important. Or am I being an over-demanding customer?

Friendships forged through paintings

Over the years my paintings have led to a number of enduring friendships. I hope this will be one.

My recent exhibition included a portrait of Sir Apirana Ngata.



The phone rang a few days ago and it was Apirana's grand daughter. She had read about the portrait and gone to see it. She was overwhelmed, very emotional but not in an unhappy way. She had sat for some time with the portrait and felt it had an aura. We talked at length, myself also very moved by her reaction to the portrait.

In any event I decided the painting belonged with her and today she arrived to take it home, arms full of baking, flowers, a kete containing a journal about her grandfather and a card. Nothing makes me happier than seeing my work give someone so much happiness.

More melodrama over alcohol

This time from Garth George;

I'm not in the habit of saying "I told you so", but this time I can't resist.

Back in 1999, when Jenny Shipley's tired and frightened National Government decided out of the blue to reduce the legal drinking age to 18, I predicted it would lead to immense social problems.

Whether the idea was to woo 18 and 19-year-old voters or to ensure that the fabulously wealthy booze industry fronted up with loads of cash for the upcoming election campaign I don't know.

But I do know that on the consciences of that Parliament's conscience voters is a legacy of thousands of deaths, injuries and broken lives among this nation's teenagers.

The Social Report 2009 says, on the other hand;

Potentially hazardous drinking

Most recent data

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

Longer term trend

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


But based on his subjective view of the harm caused by alcohol George launches into his typical tirade, a list of what government should do to reduce alcohol availability including bans on advertising, bans on outlets, age restrictions and tax hikes. Understandably sore over this weeks wicked tax hike on tobacco, he drops in this pathetically peevish line;

Since I pay $120-odd for a carton of 200 cigarettes, I don't see why a bottle of whisky, gin, brandy, rum or whatever shouldn't be at least the same price, considering its potential to do far greater damage.

It's potential? Good God. Imagine if taxes started being applied based on the potential of products or services to cause harm.

The paper suggests a health warning on liquor labels and that, too, has been suggested here from time to time. Once again, what is sauce for the cigarette is sauce for the booze bottle (or can or carton).

Oooh he's grumpy. Silly Mr George. You see, when you call for state interference and force against what you hate - alcohol - you have to wear it against the things you love - tobacco. A bit of a pact with the devil.

Smoking-related health costs horribly inflated

What the heck is going on with the estimated health-related costs of smoking? The generally accepted and publicised sum has been about $250 million and remember smoking rates are decreasing;



And here according to the Ministry of Health;

H3) What are the economic and other costs of smoking?

Smoking costs all New Zealanders. It:

* costs our health system over $200 million per year (1992 dollars) to treat smoking-related illnesses

But the DomPost this morning is saying;



This is blatantly about building public support for tax hikes and turning non-smokers against smokers who have apparently overnight incurred a 760 percent increase in their health bill.

A laugh amidst the oppressive government gloom

Good Lord. I need to get on with other stuff but I just spotted this;

. . . I have a fundamental belief that governments should leave people alone, and that the role of the state should be relatively small, and that the state should not be in you life more than it needs to be.

New Zealanders have this natural aversion to being told what to do by governments, both local and central, and I’m pretty much in that camp.

Who said it?

Regressive tobacco tax

A 2002 study estimated that tobacco spending made up 14 percent of low income non-housing budget. Rates of smoking are highest amongst the most deprived. Tobacco taxes are therefore regressive. That means they create a disproportionate burden on the poor.

On the back of this hike, a few people will give up smoking . According to the NZ Medical Journal for a 10% price increase, the demand would fall in the long term by 0.7% to 5.2%.

But the vast majority will not. They will cut spending elsewhere or get deeper in debt. The deeper in debt they get the more worried and depressed they will get and the more they will want to smoke. Vicious circle stuff.

Next time you hear a politician - except for the 4 ACT MPs who voted against the hike - spinning a sob story about under-taxing the rich and over-taxing the poor remember this particular plundering of the already impoverished.

Good on 4 ACT MPs

Well done to the 4 ACT MPs who didn't vote for a tax increase on cigarettes and tobacco products.

But who was the ACT MP that did?

Youth offending - treat reports with caution

I have long since stopped relying on media reports about reports. It is time consuming but if you come across a report about a report that interests, go straight to the horse's mouth. Today's NZ Herald report about a report is a good example of the wrong impression partial reporting can create;

Youth offending falls further in latest figures

That's great, isn't it?

The report is 208 pages long and I think the journalist covering it must have gotten tired about mid-way through. I certainly did. But I was looking for the whole story.

For instance;



OK. So we cannot infer very much at all by falling apprehension rates. Just as we cannot infer much at all by climbing prosecution rates but what the hell, we may as well look at them. They do form the larger part of the report despite the media coverage not mentioning it at all. (It may be that the writer is planning a further instalment.)



So significant increases in the rates of prosecution. This backs up the increasing severity of offending seen in apprehensions.

Of course no report about crime would be complete without some ethnicity analysis. Therein lies a shocking picture. Yes. I am still shocked by the disparity between European and Maori in so many sets of social statistics.



1 in 20 young Maori is prosecuted in court compared to 1 in 100 young European.

So the overall picture looks like this.



Let's finish with a quote from the report on the report from Judge Andrew Becroft;

Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft said the statistics punched a hole in the popular perception that youth offending was "spiralling out of control".

Draw your own conclusions.

John Armstrong backs the call to remove conscience voting

John Armstrong writes that political parties abrogate their collective duty by allowing conscience votes on drinking laws. He obviously approves of the born- again temperance brigade writing that we live in "conservative times".

Nats lose their political nerve over booze law

...Its recommendations aside, the commission's big challenge to Parliament is its call to end conscience votes on alcohol-related measures.

The commission is dead right. Conscience votes on such legislation have traditionally been granted to MPs on the grounds that drinking is a matter of personal morality.

This is a charade which allows parties to abrogate their responsibilities on things like the drinking age where public opinion unpredictably waxes and wanes on raising or lowering it and the politics get too difficult.

Parties should act as a body and predictably on matters they have campaigned on. Did National campaign on reversing alcohol consumption laws?

Did it campaign on removing conscience votes?

John Armstrong is only taking this line because it suits his position on the issue.

Contrast what Armstrong writes above to what he wrote about the Civil Union Bill and conscience voting;

Labour's gay MPs have been told to take a back seat to prevent critics accusing the Government of pandering to the "pink vote".

And she [Helen Clark] has stressed this is ultimately a conscience measure and thus Parliament's decision, not the Government's.

It hardly adds up to a rip-roaring celebration of the measure's intent.

But both Helen Clark and David Benson-Pope, the minister in charge of the bill, have kept their nerve, not least because the left faction in the Labour caucus will be furious if they buckle.

So nerve was kept in this instance but lost when it comes to alcohol laws.

There are very good reasons why parliament has conscience votes on moral issues. They are too important to relinquish.

The whys and wherefores of waste

There is a report in The Press claiming that 50 percent of drugs are being wasted. That wouldn't be happening if they were recreational drugs notice. Try to envisage people turning up to tinnie houses with bags stuffed to bursting with unused cannabis. No. It is too silly.

First, 50 percent seems high when I do a mental check of my own medicine cabinet. 10 or 20 maybe, but then that's just my family.

There are valid reasons why medicines remain unused. Death. Often people are on massive amounts of medication at the point of death.

Recovery. Some medicines should be taken as a whole course but many will do the job and no more is needed.

Over zealous prescribing. Patients can be very passive and let a GP prescribe for them medicines that they have no intention of taking.

Bad reaction. Sometimes the patients rightly or wrongly perceive a bad reaction to a drug and stop using it.

And there are other things that come to mind which lead to waste. The rules around pharmaceuticals and dispensing. Over cautious best-by dates. The non-recyclability of returned medicines.

And of course subsidies. Human nature is such that often people do not value what they do not pay for. There-in lies the paradox. The state makes medicines more accessible so that people's health is preserved and they do not become an economic cost at the secondary level. But by doing so, waste taxpayer's money at the primary level.

In my opening comment I drew a parallel with recreational drugs. Are they comparable? I think so. Genuinely sick people should be just as motivated to take their medicine as people looking for a high. So why, apart from the reasons of death and recovery, aren't they? Because they didn't really need or want it in the first place? If food was subsidised there is no doubt in my mind that the waste of it would be colossal.(I have seen people wasting food from charity parcels - mince, still in the tray, left on the floor for the cats to chomp their way through.)

So the waste of pharmaceuticals is, to some degree, a product of taxpayer subsidy and unnecessary bureaucracy. Death and recovery are immutable factors. Subsidy and over-regulation are not.

First-hand account about Maori and social security post-war

The best way to find out what happened in the past is to read first-hand accounts. The following excerpt is from a book called Nurse in the North and is by Barbara Ancott-Johnson, She worked in the Hokianga with a well-known doctor G M Smith - "Jock" - and writes here about her efforts to enforce his expectations about social security in Maori communities. As you read try to imagine such an approach happening today. Oh the screaming over privacy rights there would be;

Tapu Misa on private enterprise

Motivated by the government's plans to allow the private sector into prison management and accident insurance Tapu Misa today wades into the evils of privatisation. She ends with this;

As a former comptroller of the US, David Walker noted in 2007: "There's something civil servants have that the private sector doesn't. And that is the duty of loyalty to the greater good - the duty of loyalty to the collective best interest of all rather than the interests of a few. Companies have duties of loyalty to their shareholders, not the country."

There is something else civil servants have that the private sector doesn't. And that is access to funds that are guaranteed through the force of the state. Their jobs do not rely on producing either a good or service that customers will voluntarily meet the cost of.

I hope at some future date Tapu Misa is going to write a column slating private ownership of the media because companies only serve the interests of a few and profits go offshore. She could cite her own employer as an example.

Coddington on Bennett

Deborah Coddington says Paula Bennett, despite being "not unintelligent", comes across as "a bit of a bint." I confess I had to consult a dictionary to confirm the meaning of bint which is a 'not too bright' woman. This is, according to Deborah, because of the content of her speech. For example, she (and John Key) over-use the word 'actually'.

We are all too familiar with lazy speech. Like, er, like, basically, it's er sort of, well, actually, like that. Absolutely, awesome (never with the -ly), piss poor communication.

I must just drop in a story here. My son's cousin knows a girl who goes to my son's school. The cousin asked her if she knew Robert. The girl replied, "He's that guy that uses big words that nobody can understand". Now that tickled both Robert and I. Robert uses interesting language because he reads a lot. Her inability to understand him isn't his problem. It's hers. Robert isn't about to change to accommodate her because he likes words. Yesterday I had cause to say to him "For goodness sake you," to which he quickly retorted "Don't you 'for goodness sake you' me," which instantly dispelled my annoyance.

Anyway here's the guts of it. We speak like the people we live with and spend time with. My message to the children is, don't use that word when there is a better one available. Don't overuse words until they lose all meaning. Don't swear often. Save your cursing for when it really matters, otherwise what will you have when the need arises?

The English language is rich. I have a responsibility to use it fully and sometimes, painstakingly. The way I communicate with my children is more important in my view than the way I feed them. The way I converse with my husband rubs off on them enormously.

But we are not conformists. We don't try to be like other people. The degradation of language and communication is a product of conformism and, a phenomenon Theodore Dalrymple identifies; the conformism is going in the wrong direction. A physical analogy is tattoos. Once a mark of lesser educated working-class men, now so-called intelligent middle class women flock to affect them. It is a sad fact that some politicians are downward conformists, not only because that is their inherent nature, but because they think it will buy votes.

I agree with Deborah Coddington. It's not good enough to say, speak how you like; that's freedom of expression isn't it? It's just evolving culture isn't it? 'I'm a Westie and proud of it'.

No. Freedom of thought and freedom of expression rely on the ability to think and communicate. Language is the tool by which we achieve both.

I am sick of the dumbing-down process. Never have I said so before because 'dumbing down' is, of itself, one of those hackneyed overused phrases. Apparently IQs are rising as the world becomes wealthier. If so, it's not particularly apparent.

Some of the worst displays of ungrammatical, grating, dull and repetitive language appear in and around sporting endeavours, from both commentators and players. Many times I have cursorily reflected to myself, all brawn and no brain (naturally a 'gender neutral' comment for those academics who do possess healthy linguistic repertoires, but nonetheless fill their written and oral communications with woolly concepts and overladen sentences). Still, the players at least use their physical abilities to best effect. The same cannot be said for commentators.

And it cannot be said for politicians.

Which brings me back to Paula Bennett. If there is merit in having an ex-beneficiary Maori single mother as Minister because she represents realised aspiration, then why not try to inspire people further? For any politician, there is no shame in being articulate.

It is a sad indictment if politicians are merely there to reflect ordinariness and lack of ambition - the characteristics that often go hand-on-hand with low-grade communication.