Benefit numbers rise but are 'below forecast'

If she can find something good to say about them, the Minister of Social Development releases monthly benefit numbers;

The number of New Zealanders receiving a benefit increased slightly over the month of May by 0.6 percent, but overall numbers remain below forecast.

"With seasonal work winding up, we expected to see a slight increase in Unemployment Benefit figures, but it is much lower and has occurred later than it did last year," says Social Development Minister Paula Bennett.

All benefit types have increased by 1,887 in total.

An extra 729 people have gone onto a Sickness Benefit, 342 more people on the DPB and 391 more on an Unemployment Benefit.

Two things interest me. First a reason is offered for the rise in unemployment benefits but not for the rise in other benefits. So are we expected to assume that other benefits are a proxy for the dole? A net increase of 729 on the sickness benefit in one month is high. (The way this is depicted by the Minister is incorrect.)

Secondly, the best thing the government can say about the numbers is that they are below forecast. That amused me because at a Treasury session during the Welfare Working Group conference, which addressed the subject of benefits, projections and how to make provision for those projections, the presenter used the word "embarrassing" when he described how the projections are made. They are based on an assumption that the numbers are fixed proportions of age groups. Hence, the forecasts:



Of course, in the past the lines have been far from flat, and will be in the future.

What prison over-crowding really looks like

I had been looking at this photo from a Californian prison for a while before realising that the beds are bunks.



The accompanying article is about the prospect of the Supreme Court intervening in a 3 federal judge ruling that the state must release 40,000 prisoners to relieve over-crowding.

"I don't get out of that bed," said Fernandez, 47, gesturing to the top of a three-tiered bunk in the malodorous heart of a human warehouse. "In a cell, you only have your cellie to deal with. But here, you got 200 different attitudes. Some guy gets a bad letter from his wife and he's going to be a problem for everyone around him."

Mule Creek was designed to house 1,700 prisoners when it opened in 1987. Today it holds 3,900, with two to a cell and 500 crammed into what used to be common areas for recreation. That is typical of all the state's prisons, which hold twice the number of inmates for which they were designed.

It looks bad, very bad. But so does this. Have a look. 302 homicides this year in the LA county mapped. Look at the victims faces.

The violent crime rate is trending down in the US. Unlike NZ.

Borrow for bariatric bypass

Why isn't a loan an acceptable option for people who want a gastric bypass?

If the state can only afford to fund 5 to 7 in 500, it would be fairer to offer interest free loans.

The operations cost between $17,000 and $35,000. Students take out loans that size. People buy similarly priced cars on time payment; take out mortgages 10 times that amount. Assuming a morbidly obese person will have a much greater chance of earning an income if they can get back to a normal weight, why don't they make the investment in themselves?

Aided and abetted by MPs, why does the argument always revert to a demand that the state pay? It doesn't help or advance their cause.

Paula Rebstock's WWG speech

The following is Paula Rebstock's opening speech to the Welfare Working Group forum. Worth reading it all:

Welfare Working Group – June Forum
Paula Rebstock, Chair
Wednesday 9 June 2010

• Minister Bennett, speakers and delegates, I would like to
welcome you all to this Forum, hosted by the Welfare Working
Group.
• The Working Group has been set up to look at long-term
welfare dependence and the growing number of people on
benefits in New Zealand.
• Our terms of reference are clear and require us to address
some big issues, including how work outcomes for sole parents
can be improved; how disabled people and those suffering from
ill health who have some work capacity can be supported into
work and independence; and to learn from the experience of
ACC and the insurance industry.
• Since we started just over a month ago, we have been listening
to a wide range of views. We’ve held a series of workshops
around the country involving people with personal experience of
the benefit system, as well as the providers and agencies who
work in the social services sector.
• This Forum builds on these workshops and brings together a
range of perspectives. We want to broaden the public debate
and provide wider context for what is happening in New
Zealand and internationally.
• By the end of the next two days, the Welfare Working Group
wants to have identified the range of issues that will enable us
to drive real change in the benefit system.
• We need your help to do this.
• So, why is this important?
• Put simply, the New Zealand benefit system affects all of us.
• As of March 2010, nearly 325,000 people or roughly 1 in 8
working age New Zealanders were receiving a main benefit.
• Current expenditure on the benefit system (and excluding the
tax credits) accounts for 11.5% of core government expenditure.
• The large numbers of people currently on benefits reflects longterm
underlying trends, rather than just the recent recession.
• In 2008, after a decade of economic growth and prior to the
recession, New Zealand had reached the point where roughly 1
in 10 working age New Zealanders were receiving a benefit.
• To put these numbers into context: in the mid-1960s about
30,000 people were receiving a benefit. That was only 2% of
the working age population.
• Two central questions the Welfare Working Group therefore
faces are: why does New Zealand have so many people on a
benefit? And why are some people on a benefit for so long?
• We are not alone in looking at these issues. They are being
debated around the world. And the good news is that we can
learn from the evidence and experience of other countries.
• As we begin to define our way forward here in New Zealand, I
want to start by acknowledging the reason we have a welfare
system. At some point in their lives many New Zealanders need
some form of support because they experience a period of
unemployment, or they get sick or lose a partner.
• Importantly, most people who need this support and use the
benefit system in these circumstances, do so for only a short
time.
• But when we look more closely at the statistics about people on
benefits, and discuss these issues openly in our communities,
we see there are also a large number of people who are using
the benefit system more or less permanently. For them the
safety net has become a trap.
• Of the nearly 325,000 people on a benefit in March this year,
roughly 30% have been on a benefit continuously for four or
more years. Nearly 12% have been on benefit continuously for
over a decade.
• And even these depressing statistics mask the true story
around those receiving benefits for long periods of time.
• If we consider the fact that many people have multiple periods
of benefit receipt, the true extent of long-term benefit
dependence becomes even clearer.
• Of the people on a benefit in June 2009, 177,500 of them had
spent seven or more years on a benefit since 1993.
• That’s the equivalent of the entire population of the cities of
Dunedin and Invercargill who have spent more than seven
years on a benefit.
• That we have such numbers of people on benefits for such long
periods of time should be deeply concerning to everyone.
• We know that being on a benefit long-term is a corrosive
experience, and many of the people who are on a benefit more
or less continuously are actually able and willing to work.
• New Zealand has the third lowest measured rate of
employment of sole parents in the OECD, and we have to ask
whether the structure of our benefit system is contributing to
this result.
• For some people with disabilities or illness, we need to ask
whether the benefit system focuses too heavily on what they
can’t do, instead of what they can do.
• According to the evidence, the wellbeing of people who are
disabled or unwell and on benefits could be improved by getting
back into work sooner. But they need the right support from the
community and employers.
• The current system, established in a previous century and
tinkered with by successive Governments, is not effectively
responding to the demographic, economic and social realities of
New Zealand in 2010 and beyond.
• For many individuals and their families we need a fundamental
rethink of the support we are offering to people in need of
income support.
• The old approach emphasised the ‘security’ of a modest benefit.
• But I don’t think the old approach provides real security. It
simply locks many people into life on a benefit and robs them of
their potential.
• For most people, real security is provided by the earnings,
confidence, the social contact, better health and the future
prospects that participation in the workforce offers.
• For those who have no capacity to work, we have a
responsibility to meet the real cost of their support. We also
have a responsibility to ensure they are able to participate
effectively in their community.
• For those whom work is possible, we must refocus our efforts
and resources.
• Children growing up with a parent or parents long-term on
benefit don’t get security. They get limited aspirations and
opportunities.
• The human cost this represents is surely a concern to every
New Zealander.
• The financial costs are also a concern. Right now we are
spending around $7.5 billion of core government expenditure
on benefits.
• We need to consider whether the investment we are making in
the current system is actually delivering the results we expect
or want.
• A recent study estimated that the future fiscal liability of people
currently on benefit in 2009 was in the order of between 24%
and 31% of GDP. This is a very large figure, and we need to
ask whether we are investing enough, and investing in the right
areas, in order to reduce these future costs.
• Our task is not easy. The challenge over the next two days is
for every person in this room is to debate the issues and
contribute to the process in a constructive way.
• We need to confront some complex and difficult questions.
Here are some to kick-start the debate:
• What can be done to reduce the cycle of benefit receipt
between parents and children? We know from research that the
family environment is vital in nurturing hope and aspirations.
One in five children currently lives in a family that is receiving a
benefit. Is this an outcome we want ?
• Why are so many young people leaving school without the skills
they need to support themselves, ending up on a benefit and
staying there far too long? What are the hard questions we
should be asking of our education system?
• And, what do we need to do to improve the prospects for those
who have been receiving sickness or invalid’s benefits for long
periods? What are the supports and attitudinal changes that
need to be put in place?
• We might not all agree on the answers, but these questions
need to be asked. We need to engage in a clear dialogue, as
we cannot keep doing what we have been doing and failing to
address the problem of long-term welfare in New Zealand.
• We need solutions that are innovative, we need the best
possible evidence, and we need to be ambitious for what we
can achieve.
• We have a lot to learn, share and consider over the next two
days. Every one of you here has an important role to play.
• To be successful we need to respect the differences of opinion
and be open to testing the boundaries.
• We have a unique opportunity to challenge some old myths and
engage in a dialogue about one of New Zealand’s most
pressing issues.

Armstong moots a Machiavellian Minister

John Armstrong's interpretation of Paula Bennett's comment that during the Welfare Working Group forum we could see an "ugly side" of NZ is a way from mine. He paints the comment as a manipulative attempt to ostracise the left. I felt it could just as easily be aimed at people like me loosely characterised as libertarian extremists or misinterpreted as racist. Paula Bennett and I are not buddies. She has only once communicated to me directly and that was as an MP and ex DPB recipient, and was a criticism of a media release I issued.

There are a whole bunch of people who seem to think there is some sort of conspiracy occurring, John Armstrong included. I don't know what the word for this psychological phenomena is but where I would once have participated I now observe it. If you have ever worked your way up through large organisation for instance, at the bottom you imagine that management are in cohorts and have a plan. They are invulnerable and omnipotent. As you get closer to the top you understand that you are not necessarily dealing with a group of like-minded individuals at all but individuals with their own agendas, ideas, and varying abilities to make those ideas come to fruition.

I don't believe that National has a radical plan for welfare at all. Various players will be making it up as they go, some winning, some losing. But political inertia is a strong force. Back to Armstrong;

Bennett's remarks should have rung alarm bells in the institute's ivory towers about the highly divisive direction in which the welfare working group's work is likely to move. Rebstock's paternalistic talk of the current system locking "many people" into life on a benefit which "robs them of their potential" is the giveaway of the kind of agenda operating here.

What Rebstock said is undeniable. But not only does it rob people of their potential, it robs their children.

Such talk also does not equate with the facts. Ministry of Social Development data shows those getting the domestic purposes benefit number about 110,000.

But that disguises the stream of sole parents flowing in and out of that category. About 31,000 people signed up for the DPB in the year to March. But in the same period nearly 26,000 came off it.

And? What about the other 80-odd thousand? What about the ones I focus on, who go onto a benefit pitifully young, 16 and 17 year-olds, and stay there for many years continuously, or habitually cycle on and off? And he ignores that most of the people signing onto the DPB are either transfers or returners.

...The figures suggest the current system does not lock people into benefits and that people want to work, but the determining factor is the state of the labour market.

If everyone wanted to work why was the drop on DPB numbers during the economic boom, when NZ had the lowest unemployment rate in the OECD, so small? Because people lack skills and self-discipline; because they lack confidence; because benefits can pay more and offer more security; there are myriad reasons, only one of which is there isn't a job for them.

Armstrong doesn't understand what he is writing about in more ways than one.

A wrap on the forum and a rap on the knuckles

The 2 day Welfare Working Group conference was not an uplifting experience. My sense was that most of the delegates were lobbyists from organisations that favour greater redistribution and the state playing the quintessential role in the lives of New Zealanders. If not, those were the delegates making themselves most evident.

My own presentation left a lot to be desired and I am rapping myself over the knuckles hard. It began OK but a slide was missing midway which made me lose the sense and direction momentarily. There was quite palpable hostility to my statements which came pouring out during Q and A. A number of Maori, including Cindy Kiro objected to my labelling Maori a minority group and framing the Maori teenage birth rate as a problem. She described my depiction of their birth rate as "unsophisticated", though I am unsure why. The slide showing rates per 1,000 15-19 year-olds from the early 90s to the present was correct in every sense. I was asked for the absolute numbers and didn't have them at my fingertips and made an inaccurate guess which I quickly realised was an error. No excusing that. Lesson to learn. Never guess under pressure. A Catholic representative went on the offensive about abortion and the potential for reform to increase the rate. Would I be happy with that?? No. (In fact the US abortion rate had been increasing before the reforms and declining since but I didn't have that information at the ready). A demographer pointed out that the teenage birth rate was much lower than in the early 70s. Yes, it was, I agreed. But those babies were mainly born within marriage (audible audience hiss) or a supportive relationship and did not go on benefits. My assertions that the US reforms led generally to lower single parent poverty and higher single parent employment were claimed to be non-factual. I cited my source, the US Census Bureau.

It was unclear to me whether the hostility was more towards me or towards the US. Probably a combination of both.

And I was out of step with the OECD presenters who had put up the case that work-testing when children are young correlates to higher employment rates as seen in countries like Finland, Norway and Sweden. My presentation was about how the NZ pathway to long-term DPB dependence is frequently through teenage birth and we should look at similar countries, namely the US. Scandinavian countries do not have to grapple with that particular problem.

If you have a look at what Sue Bradford was saying yesterday, and imagine a audience far more representative of her views than mine, you'll get the picture.

Ms Bradford said shifting to an insurance system here would overturn "a fundamental principle of the 1938 Social Security Act, that there is a community responsibility for making sure that people are helped when economic conditions mean they are unable to help themselves".

She predicted that when insurance payments ran out people would be forced into begging, crime, prostitution or death.

The same alarmist admonitions that opponents of the US reforms (which weren't to their insurance programmes but to their basic social assistance) put forward. Yet the US crime rate is going down. The physical child abuse and neglect rate has dropped. When I put this to the audience at my presentation antagonists reverted to the correlation/causation argument.

However, I will pick myself up, shake myself off and carry on. The best advocate for real reform I may not be, but we are in short supply. The big state, pro-welfarists are not.

Up date: Some NZ Herald coverage of the session by Simon Collins

The Welfare Working Group forum - briefly

There was a great deal to absorb at yesterday's forum (continuing today). But reports thus far contrast. For instance the Green MPs are protesting their exclusion (ironically their not-wanted, Sue Bradford, was invited.) Yet all MPs were excluded. Read Catherine Delahunty's take on matters then compare it to Simon Collins, who was there.

At the end of Day One they tell us it is feels like a closed conversation promoting the Government’s agenda. They tell us that it was opened by Social Development Minister Paula Bennett who said she was there to listen and then promptly left. The keynote speakers have been advocates for a range of depressingly draconian welfare ideas from time-limited benefits to turning welfare into ACC.

My contacts tell me this discussion is ridiculously 1990s and is an attack on the fundamental principles of welfare which include supporting the vulnerable and the poor.

NZ Herald;

An international expert has upset the Government's welfare reform agenda by proposing a universal child allowance to tackle child poverty.

The head of social policy for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Dr Monika Queisser, told a forum organised by the Government's Welfare Working Group yesterday how New Zealand was "out of step with other countries".

She backed up the working group's agenda of addressing New Zealand's relatively high rate of sole parents on benefits and rapidly growing numbers on invalid benefits. But she surprised officials by listing "high child poverty" as a third big issue for New Zealand social policy.

She said New Zealand could be proud of having one of the OECD's lowest poverty rates for the elderly, with only 2 per cent of over-65s living on less than half the median after-tax income here compared with an OECD average of almost 14 per cent...

Child poverty campaigners at the forum welcomed her surprise suggestion. Massey University professor Mike O'Brien said: "They have put some stuff on the table that I don't think the minister wanted to hear."

Unfortunately time does not allow me to comment extensively. A universal child benefit is the last thing we need. With benefits and WFF, the targeted assistance is already well up the scale of income. It is frustrating to listen to experts on the international scene who are not familiar with the NZ situation. Some presenters didn't quite address the question put to them, and others used fairly old statistics. A degree of misinformation and misapprehension has been in evidence amongst delegates (and at least one presenter). But there have been some very interesting perspectives. A demographer from Waikato University is worth heeding. And 81 year-old head of the Kohanga Reo Trust, Dame Iritana Tawhiwhirangi, gave a blinder about more money not being the answer to Maori problems. Paula Rebstock impressed me with her grasp of the breadth of dependence as a grave problem and has caused me to be more hopeful for where the group might go with their recommendations. The many presentations will all be available on the net.

Today, in one of the plenary sessions, I address the question they put to me; Should NZ adopt the sole parent benefit policies of other countries?

Welfare Working Group forum

The Welfare Working Group kicks off an exploratory (my word) forum today at Victoria University. So I'll be tied up for the next couple of days. The programme is here.

I leave you with a letter that appeared in yesterday's Hutt News. It's a response to Frank Macskasy's letter of last week, from someone with an entirely different perspective.

Banks jumps on the band wagon

If there is any upside to the constant banging on about alcohol, it's the relief from the banging on about P and cannabis.

And I wonder if there isn't an unintended and opposite reaction to all the highly public and prolific angst alcohol is creating. Any publicity is good publicity? I am learning more from the protestors about what is available and how cheap it is then from any other source.

...on Bairds Rd a 330ml bottle of bourbon and cola recently cost $2 - that is almost $1 less than a bottle of water in many shops.

Thanks for the plug Mr Banks.

The following at least provides a smile;

Rangitata "buddy" MP for Labour, Ruth Dyson, said she was impressed by the community response.

"It was really great to hear about so many people turning out to that public meeting, and putting forward such a strong view."

Ms Dyson was not sure whether she would vote in favour of raising the minimum purchase age

Got them back

Yes, it's all a bit boy-scoutish but I got my PPL wings back and I am feeling very pleased about it. The endeavour has, however, pretty much excluded paying attention to anything else.

The weather was atrocious yesterday but I saw an opportunity to get the paperwork done and pick my instructor's brains with no good reason for him to escape. No other fool would be up there. I was right. The place was virtually deserted. We spent an hour or so reviewing the work I had done surrounding the calculating take-off and landing distances, calculating the load sheet, re-learning emergency procedures, etc etc. Around 11 am we were about to give up on the weather when a faint lightening of the skies to the north produced a glimmer of hope. The visibility progressively cleared and the cloud base was high enough for the exercises I still had to complete; a precautionary landing and a forced landing.

So the hanger doors were pulled back and Foxtrot Golf Uniform wheeled out. I am sentimental about FGU because it is the aircraft I took my first lesson in way back in 1986.

We started with shortfield take off which involves sitting on the brakes with the engine at full power, letting it go and rotating (lifting off) at only 50 kts to climb steeply at 54. This manoeuvre is to allow a take-off in a short run and clearance of any impediments ahead. It's a very nose-high attitude.

It was much bumpier than early in the week but that's good. You know you are flying. We tracked up the coast low level and picked a field to simulate a precautionary landing. Was a time that you could go down to very low heights in a low flying area south of the Otaki river but with the advent of complaining lifestyle-blockers that is no longer possible. So it's a bit unsatisfactory but you demonstrate that your judgement is such that you can put it down in said field if the need arises (exceedingly bad weather and visibility). This is done with power which I actually find harder than without because you have to fly around in a bad weather configuration - 10 degrees of flap at 70 kts. Trickier to control. But it went OK. And good thing it did because the sky to the west was starting to look somewhat blue-black and threatening.

So we headed south and climbed up to 3,000ft above the airfield with the intention of doing the forced landing directly below. The wind aloft had picked up considerably. The instructor has a GPS and can measure our progress over ground. He pulled the power and it is my job to get us on the ground safely. I turned unto wind and trimmed for a glide of 60 knots. But we weren't descending very fast. In fact the wind was is so strong that we were almost flying backwards. (That is technically possible because the plane flies relative to the body of air - think the guy who recently crossed the Tasman who some days lost ground).

Instructor suggests, perhaps you will need a faster glide speed. This is very counter-intuitive when making a forced landing because you are all the time trying to conserve height and give yourself time to do a number of things as well as THINK.

So I pushed the nose down turning towards my downwind point and started losing height very rapidly. This combined with a great deal of drift meant I missed the 1500ft point and aimed for 1,000ft. I wasn't worried. To be honest my aim is always to judge instinctively. Although it was all happening a little faster than usual I got through the power restoration checks, the Mayday call, the passenger briefing, the shutdown checks and the radio calls for local traffic. I rounded on to finals where I wanted to be, lowered the last degrees of flaps before shutting down the electrics (simulation) and landed better than at any of my previous efforts. We immediately applied full power to go around, took off again to do one more circuit, this time with a flapless landing (learned in case of electrical failure). By now the wind was really switching and the last landing had a strong crosswind component. More good practice. You come in crabbed and then straighten out just before landing. I was slightly too fast because it was flapless but again I felt well in control, flared at the right moment and landed reasonably gently. And that was it.

We taxied back and then I did the stupidest thing. Turned off the engine using the ignition. A no-no. The engine is always shut down by starving it of fuel; over-leaning the mixture. What got into my head, I don't know. Momentarily I behaved as though I was in a car. Have never done this before in nearly 300 hours of flying.

But I was forgiven. I guess I had satisfied the instructor that I was safe, if not prone to the odd blond moment (like when I suggested the alternator belt was driving the prop???).

So now I can fly to my hearts content, and take passengers. The only constraining factor is money. There's always a catch.

How stupid do they think we are?

Anyone watching Campbell Live last night would have been treated to the police reassuring us that their decision to impose a 'no tolerance' approach to speeding over the Queen's Birthday weekend is all and only about road safety. Campbell ran a simultaneous poll asking the audience whether they thought it was for safety or revenue gathering.

Revenue gathering attracted an 81 percent response.

4 in 5 people listening didn't believe the talking head.

Police have already imposed a 'no tolerance' approach around schools. Yesterday I heard a number of people calling talkback who had received recent speed camera tickets for going 53 - 54 kmph in a 50 km zone. Two were in school vicinity BUT outside term time. One arrived in my letterbox last week for going 56kmph in Days Bay. The notice described the location as near Wellesley College. But the photo was taken at 9.45am and anyone that knows Days Bay knows the school is set a long way back from the road with the sea on the other side. It is unusual for the pupils to be anywhere near where the camera operates, especially in class time. Now I wouldn't be opposed to speed limits being lowered around schools during periods of activity and by all means police it (as well as the drivers of 4WDs that double park to pick up precious in the rain insanely blocking the movement and vision of other motorists and children). But the speed camera operators are exploiting the 'no tolerance' around schools simply to ping more people and gather more revenue.

And when they try to tell us they are not, we get a little bit madder.

There is a location at the western end of the Petone Esplanade where routinely, on Sunday mornings, a bunch of cops hide behind a building, jump out with their radar and then slightly further along, haul in offenders, speed criminals. Grey-haired Sunday drivers who thought they were in a 70 kmph zone, being industrial, when in fact it is a 50 kmph zone. More than a few hefty fines will have been gathered from that little goldmine.

Yesterday I was up flying. It is very easy to become over-fixated on instruments when performing particular manoeuvres and watching height, airspeed, angle of bank and balance, all of which are meant to stay at prescribed values. The trick is to get these right as well as maintaining ongoing visual and aural vigilance. Drivers obsessing about whether their speedometers are reading 100 or less (or to allow for any inaccurate calibration, 95 or less) have their heads inside the car and not outside. And it wouldn't surprise me if psychologically they are in a worse frame of mind for driving than when the 'no tolerance' isn't being preached at them.

But back to the police and their constant road safety refrain.It reminds me of a piece I was reading earlier this morning about how language is used to achieve certain ends. And so it is with the police, telling us that their actions are all about saving lives. Yet most of us are sitting there saying, How bloody stupid do you think we are?

It is not a state of affairs conducive to achieving anything positive.

Madness and grief

An unbelievable story coming out of the UK. Unbelievable? I wish it was unbelievable. That is, so far-fetched, it couldn't be true. A taxi driver who has never shown a hint of trouble or anti-social behaviour in the past has driven around Cumbria (where I spent many childhood holidays) shooting at people from his car. 12 are believed dead and many more badly injured. I suppose it could enter your mind, get categorised as another mad man on a massacre, and forgotten about, but reading the details coming out, it really is horrific and deeply, deeply disturbing. How the people who lost friends and family, who witnessed the carnage, are going to recover... well, some just won't. As I said, unbelievable.

(One aspect of this I will note. Divorced man with two sons. Divorced men with children have a disproportionately high suicide rate.)

Further evidence that increasing benefit payments increases unemployment

I talk a lot about how increasing benefit levels will draw more people onto welfare (see previous post). Yesterday I came across the following which essentially tells us that for every 1 percent increase in welfare there is a 1 percent increase in joblessness. That is, in English speaking countries. But the same relationship in the Nordic countries is a negative one. Hence the futility of trying to emulate policies from that part of the world.

Better off if we "talk calmly"

Economist Susan St John had an article published in my local paper, the Hutt News. It advocated her usual answer to child poverty so I submitted my usual response.


Economist Susan St John writes (Hutt News, May 11) that the In Work tax credit, "...manages to exclude the poorest children, in families on benefits, whose poverty has simply been left to deepen."

Benefits are annually adjusted accounting for cost of living rises and family support payments were also increased when the In Work tax credit was introduced. Children in beneficiary families - the vast majority have mothers on the DPB - have not been completely ignored.

St John, spokesperson for the Child Poverty Action Group, has already led a legal challenge to the government on the basis that this tax credit discriminates (presumably with the aim of having it extended to beneficiary families). The Human Rights Tribunal found that while it is discriminatory, the government has a right to discriminate between those who work and those who do not when forming social policy aimed at lifting employment and income.

If the In Work tax credit is extended to non-working families the incentive to work will be further eroded.

While children can and do suffer from material need, they also suffer from the non-material deprivation that goes with having no dad; lacking the structure, routine and example a working parent provides; and from exposure to the kind of dysfunctional habits not working allows.

Making the DPB more economically attractive, which is what Susan St John essentially advocates, will only result in more parents and children being drawn onto it long-term.


This brought forth three letters which when read together provide a fair bit of irony.

Blog stats

I am pleased my stats have held up (compared to a year ago) because my output has dropped off lately. Frantically busy with work and other stuff but always with a thought or three to share.

Latest Australian unemployment benefit statistics

These are the April 2008 to April 2010 Australian unemployment benefit statistics.

595,458 people are receiving some form of 'Newstart Allowance'. In NZ in March there were 60,211 on the unemployment benefit.

Interestingly where our male/female ratio is 71/29 percent the Australian ration is 61/39. Part of the reason for this big difference is single parents with children 8 or older are now put on the unemployment benefit. If we did that here the same effect would be observed.

The current unemployment rate in Australia is 5.3 percent. Here it is 6 percent.

Ill-equipped to understand Maori, lecturer claims

Its a natural reaction to scrutinise a claim based on our own experience.

One-sided teaching of our history has left New Zealanders ill-equipped to understand the feelings of Maori, the head of Victoria University's School of Maori Studies said yesterday.

Of Maori, and Maori history, I was taught very little. At primary level I remember learning about waka and whares and going to see such things at the museum. We made those stick things out of newspapers and pois and sang Maori songs, which I particularly enjoyed.

By the time we were nominating our subjects I had enough interest in history to chose it in the fifth and sixth form. My memory can dredge up extensive teaching about apartheid in South Africa, the origins of the first and second world wars, the introduction of the old age pension, feminism and women's suffrage - but nought about Maori.

And to this day I still feel my knowledge of Maori history is sketchy - but it's a great deal better than many others.

Things I have taught myself about are the first Maori Party, the paucity of public health services to Maori, the physical separation of the races due to geography and how that changed, the role Maori played in the World Wars (which varied between tribes) and their lack of recognition for it, the actual discrimination against Maori in the granting of old age pensions, the role that missionaries played in Maori education, the cooperative interaction between the Maori and early settlers which enabled the settlers to survive, the fascinating history of Ngati Porou and Apirana's efforts to reform land ownership to Maori advantage (consolidate title to allow for development), the development of the Ratana movement, the ethos behind Parihaka before it was destroyed by the government, what was behind the establishment of Maori 'royalty' and how the royalty isn't universally recognised by Maori, how difficult it was for Maori to get into a hospital, how devastating the introduction of diseases they had no immunity against was, how Pakeha were indifferent to Maori need during the depression because they considered them able to survive off the land, how Maori had their own hierarchical system and treated their weakest quite abominably, how storekeepers ripped off Maori pensions, the barring of Maori from pubs, the institutions of whangai and customary marriage, the acceptance verging on embrace of paternalistic leadership.

I could go on. But the result of learning about Maori history is, I have developed a sympathy for their disadvantage and a appreciation of our differing world-views.

That doesn't mean I go for the victimhood approach. But it does leave me with a slightly different mindset to many other Pakeha. With the Tuhoe business, for instance, I was out on a limb.

So the upshot of my rambling is, yes, I agree with Peter Adds.

Mental illness - new hope?

Not often enough do we see an idea or invention that has the potential to solve contemporary problems. This might be one however given that most of the growth in invalid's and sickness benefits is from psychological and psychiatric conditions which the health system does not seem to have the capacity to treat.

Mentally ill Australians are increasingly being diagnosed and treated online in virtual psychiatric clinics, without ever seeing a doctor.

Patients suffering from depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder are being assessed by computer and given ''e-prescriptions'' for online counselling courses instead of medication or treatment sessions with a psychologist or psychiatrist. Doctors who provide e-therapy say it produces better results than face-to-face treatment but at a fraction of the cost...

I began reading with skepticism but finished with optimisim;

More than 360 doctors across Australia are also using a program developed by the University of New South Wales and St Vincent's Hospital's Clinical Research Unit for Anxiety and Depression in Sydney, which allows GPs and psychologists to refer patients with mental health issues for online treatment by buying a $100 pad of 20 e-prescriptions for 20 patients, each providing a six-week counselling course.

The federal government has trialled the program in New South Wales and, with funding extended until June next year, it is expected to be introduced in rural communities nationally.

The program allows people to record their emotions with electronic mood monitors that are tracked by their doctor, who can intervene if they feel extra support is needed.

It has become the hospital's treatment of choice for people with anxiety disorders, and those behind the program are now in discussion with the United States and New Zealand governments which want to replicate it. Gavin Andrews, who heads the online research unit clinic, said more than 2000 patients had been treated and the program had been found to be 13 times more cost effective than face-to-face treatment.

''For every two people you treat, you get one fully better and they stay better for six months. When you're treating depression with antidepressants you get one better for every five patients you treat and for cognitive behavioural therapy you treat four and you get one fully better … The results are quite staggering.''

"Requiem for an Armchair"

Another highly readable post from Winston Smith about the inutterably inane cossetted environment of supported housing for Britains problem youth;

Requiem for an Armchair

I have just returned to work in the Supported Housing project I currently work for after a few days away and have been informed that we need to do more work as a team to ensure that we can evidence that we are complying with the government’s Quality Assessment Framework. This explains the new posters around the building. One of which is trying to promote resident involvement in the running of the project. The poster tries to encourage the young people to become involved by offering such glib pronouncements as ‘No idea is a bad idea’. What about those residents whose ideas lead to ingesting large quantities of drugs and/or shoplifting or disturbing other residents and neighbours? Do I have to appreciate their ideas as well?

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Budget blustering and desperate-for-attention MP

Did you suffer from a lack of information about the budget? Apparently Palmerstonians did and Labour expects government MPs to go up there and explain it to them. At least Palmerston North Labour MP Iain Lees-Galloway does. He is 'OUTRAGED' that National held a $30-a-head breakfast meeting for its supporters where expenditure committee chairman Craig Foss spoke about the budget.

"Information about the Budget and the opportunity to ask questions of a government MP should be accessible to everyone by right," Mr Lees-Galloway said.

So the next few months should see a Budget tour of the provinces?

"It is absolutely deplorable that taxpayers who are funding the Budget ... are being asked to pay for this presentation.

But they aren't! National Party supporters are. Unless of course Lee-Galloway is factoring in the speaker's salary.

Mr Lees-Galloway said the Labour Party would host a no-charge public meeting in Palmerston North about the Budget and its finance spokesman, David Cunliffe, would speak.

So who will pay for that? Don't taxpayers stump up for Cunliffe's salary as well?

Then an apt comment from Craig Foss on hearing that Mr Cunliffe's meeting would be 'free'.

Mr Foss wasn't surprised – he thought people wouldn't want to pay to hear Mr Cunliffe.

Ouch. I imagine the vainglorious Mr Cunliffe will be wishing his colleague had kept his trap shut.

UK bad, but NZ worse

The Brits have just issued a gloomy report called the State of the Nation report: Poverty, Worklessness and Welfare Dependence in the UK. It is spilling over with sombre stats.

I have scanned two of the graphs from their section on family breakdown. They should have included NZ. It might have made them feel a tad better.

The first claims the highest European teenage birthrate;




The second claims one of the highest proportions of single parent families in the OECD:



The last is very interesting. It depicts the proportion of children with behavioural difficulties according to their family background. LP = Lone Parent.





It should be also recognised that those with behavioural difficulties also cause and experience a compounding effect because they tend to be clustered together in the poorest deciles. Now someone will tell me that their difficulties are to do with material deprivation. Somewhat. But studies have controlled for this and the poorer outcomes for children with single parents hold when considering families with equivalent incomes.

(Hat tip to Anne Else for bringing the report to my attention.)

WINZ moving more people from invalid's to sickness benefit

Remember this story from last month?

Work and Income has quietly started bumping dozens of people off the invalids benefit, months before tough new work tests officially come into force, say beneficiary advocates...

... Beneficiary Advocacy Federation spokeswoman Kay Brereton said there had been a dramatic shift in the past few months in the way the regional health advisers worked.

"Initially [in 2007] we saw people who were on the sickness benefit being picked up and put on an invalids benefit because their conditions were long-term and severe. Now we are seeing a dramatic shift the other way...

...North Shore advocate Pam Apera said she had seen a huge increase in people being bumped off the invalids benefit in the past four months, with an average of 10 cases a week this year."

I asked for the relevant data under the OIA and here it is graphed;



There's a trend but it is hardly "dramatic" and an average of "ten cases a week" in one area is highly unlikely.

However, there were 767 people transferred from an invalid's benefit onto a sickness benefit in 2009. This is considerably higher than the average annual total for the period 1998 to 2005 of 262. (I don't have data for the interim period.) So it would appear that the instruction to apply eligibility criteria more rigorously has been followed. The Auditor General should be pleased. From last year's report;

As part of the Working New Zealand: Work-Focused Support Programme, the Ministry put into practice a number of changes in September 2007 to improve how it determined eligibility for sickness and invalids' benefits, and to actively manage cases through regular and effective contact with people receiving those benefits...

We recommend that the Ministry of Social Development:

7. Broaden the criteria used to refer benefit applications to regional health advisors and regional disability advisors so that, as resources allow, more cases can be reviewed for ongoing entitlement to the sickness benefit or invalid's benefit

9. Review the circumstances of longer-term sickness and invalids' beneficiaries to better identify those for whom work is an option, and provide them with appropriate case management and employment-focused services;

The changes happened under Labour. Not National. And the advocates that want to take a class action against WINZ for anticipating the Future Focus legislation wouldn't, in my opinion, have a leg to stand on.

Cheaper to leave them on the DPB

More groups have trooped before the social services select committee lambasting the government's Future Focus Bill. Again most of the focus is on the expectation that a single parent should work part-time to help support their children after the youngest turns 6.

Child Action Poverty Group researcher Donna Wynd further questioned the targeting of those who have spent many years on the benefit, saying it would be cheaper to leave them where they were.

Cheaper still not to have let them onto a benefit, and to stay there for many years.

She later clarified that she was referring to long-term beneficiaries who probably suffered from substance addiction and mental health problems, and who needed intensive - and expensive - wrap-around support.

"If you're not prepared to do that, you might as well leave them where they are because no one is going to give them a job, and if they do, they're not going to be able to keep it."

Ah, the soft bigotry of low expectations...

Ms Wynd had earlier told the social services select committee that the reforms "coerced" solo parents into work and had no regard for the 220,000 children living in beneficiary households.

Of all the motivations for reforming the DPB, improving the lot of children is the most important. Again this is CPAG at their most arrogant. Only they know how to improve children's lives and that is through bigger welfare incomes. Never mind that the DPB has deprived many of a resident father or exposed them to a string of poorly motivated substitutes. Never mind that the DPB has caused more poverty than it has cured.

She did not think work was a way out of poverty for those on welfare unless they could get stable well-paid jobs, but most could only find low-paid, often temporary jobs.

So if work isn't the answer then it must be more welfare. But if more welfare is given, more children will grow up on welfare and their expectations will be based on their environment and in 20 years time the advocates will still be calling for more welfare. More welfare is an ever-expanding downward spiral.

These statements remind me of the resistance and admonitions prior to the US reforms. Poverty would grow, crime would escalate, child abuse and neglect would worsen and homelessness would snowball.

Didn't happen. And in general single mothers are better off . Yes, some are struggling but the hard cases are not simply abandoned. Most importantly children are now learning that getting a job is what you do in life. End of story.

Two silly girls

In need of some light relief from the gloomy weather, here are my two silly girls having fun. Coming from a working career as a sheep dog the hairy one has fit in very well. Ordinarily I wouldn't hold with dressing up a dog but this one just loves the play and attention. She is still an overgrown pup.

Hone Harawira on Three Strikes

Hone Harawira speaking against the Three Strikes Bill makes a couple of interesting points;

Mr Speaker, prison statistics tell us that even though Maori are only 14% of the population we are 50% of the prison muster, and have been so for more than 20 years, but if you think that's bad, believe me, this 3 strikes bill is going to make it much, much worse because without decent rehabilitation programs, first strikers and second strikers will carry on getting it wrong because they're not learning anything, they're simply reacting to problems in the only way they know, and they're gonna get hammered.

And because I suspect a lot of people in this house don't believe me, I recommend that they read the countless reports which vividly detail the historical tragedy of systemic bias and outright bloody racism against Maori in respect of arrests, charges, convictions and jail sentences - reports which tell us that given equal numbers of Pakeha and Maori being arrested for similar incidents, the ones who are more likely to get charged are the Maori ones, reports which tell us that given equal numbers of Pakeha and Maori going to court on similar charges, the ones who are more likely to get convicted are the Maori ones, reports which tell us that given equal numbers of Pakeha and Maori being convicted on similar charges, the ones who are more likely to get sentenced to jail are the Maori ones. and reports which tell us that given equal numbers of Pakeha and Maori getting sent to jail on similar charges, the ones who are more likely to get the longer sentences are the Maori ones.

I accept there is a degree of racism inherent amongst the police and in the courts. However the overriding reason Maori make up 50 percent of the prison population is that they are, to use Hone's term, committing crimes and appearing in court in equal numbers. If they were committing crime and appearing in court at the same rate as non-Maori they would be appearing in unequal numbers.

Mr Speaker - it's a short-sighted man who thinks that legislation sending people to jail for a long time reduces crime rates; it's a blind man who sees justice in sentencing people to life for responding to circumstances they have little control over; and it's a bloody fool who thinks that this bill will do anything else but create frustration, anger and violence within our prison population, an anger that will explode at any reason and at any time, because when you're in jail for life, the only question you consider when faced with conflict is not "what can happen to me if I do this" no it's "what else can they do to me?"

And when politicians talk about a safe society, let me ask this question - what about the next generation who have to grow up with the children of those who have been jailed for life, children who grow up with a deep-seated and very real hatred of society for a life below the margins that they have been forced to lead, a hatred that will be visited back upon society through ever-increasing rates of mayhem and murder.

Here I believe Hone is on quite firm ground. If you attend a court and listen to Maori speaking bitterly amongst themselves about the Pakeha system you will quickly realise why their young are likely to follow suit. I even heard one angry man urging another to bring his kids to court to see what they could expect when it was their turn. The chance that a Maori child will follow a parent or other relative to prison is higher as shown by the following table (respondent = prisoner);



I full well know what Three Strikes is supposed to achieve but my instincts about what the unintended consequences will be would have made me vote against the bill.

Report highlights value of work

Media Release

REPORT HIGHLIGHTS THE VALUE OF WORK

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

A paper will be launched in Auckland today by The Royal Australasian College of Physicians entitled, 'Realising the Health Benefits of Work'. According to welfare commentator Lindsay Mitchell the report claims that two thirds of sickness absence and long-term incapacity is due to mild and treatable conditions.

"This claim would help to explain why the number of people who rely on a sickness or invalid's benefit has increased dramatically over recent years. Conditions that might not have kept people from work 20 or 30 years ago are now considered grounds for claiming some form of incapacity benefit."

"Post-war the number of people claiming a sickness or invalid benefit remained steady but fell as a percentage of the population (see below). However, since 1980 the numbers have risen steeply. At March 2010 there were over 140,000 people relying on a sickness or invalid benefit accounting for over 5 percent of the working-age population."

Mitchell observed that, "The government's Future Focus reforms, currently before select committee, will legislate changes to eligibility for sickness and invalid benefits but their proposals have already been tried in Australia and have failed to stem the growth. In the US some progress has been made with their Supplemental Security Income disability recipients now tracking in line with population growth. The US has introduced the most stringent reforms of NZ, Australia and the UK. It would pay the Welfare Working Group to investigate how this has been achieved."

"Work incapacity is amongst the toughest problems developed countries face and the report released today will highlight why it is vital that dependent individuals receive the assistance they need to return to or take up work."

Own goal?

Who generated this story?

A high profile public servant who was found not guilty of assaulting a teenager is furious his name has been released on the internet.

The man was granted permanent name and occupation suppression when the verdict was returned yesterday in the Wellington District Court however his name has already appeared on a website. Details about the case are also suppressed.

The man's lawyer, Mike Antunovic, says procedures are in place to protect the rule of law and orders of the court and he would be surprised if they were not put into effect immediately.

Did it originate with the lawyer, in which case it is surely an own goal. Anybody with rudimentary knowledge of the "internet" knows exactly where to go to find the name.

Or was it a response to a reporter informing the lawyer? In which case what responsibility does the media bear or share in publicising the name? And for that matter, myself I guess, for commenting on it.

Understanding inequality

After yesterday's post about the increasing agitation over growing income gaps, right on queue, here's Tapu Misa with another inequality invocation.

Maybe it doesn't matter that the two-thirds of taxpayers who earn under $40,000 (quite a bit less than the oft-quoted average wage of $50,000) will get between 9 cents and just under $10 a week after GST, while the hard-pressed top 2 per cent who've been struggling to make ends meet on $150,000-plus a year will pocket nearly half a billion in tax cuts.

Auckland University economist Dr Susan St John calls the tax package "a very significant shift from progressive taxation". More of the tax burden will now fall on the lower-paid middle and bottom ranks of taxpayers.

This means we're not likely to lose our ranking as one of the most unequal countries in the OECD any time soon.

It isn't at all clear what is intended by these numbers. One interpretation is that two thirds of tax-payers earn under $40,000.

Roughly two thirds of all the people that receive an income receive under $40,000. That is true. But all those people do not "earn" an income. It is paid to them as Super or a benefit. And yes, technically they pay tax but that only amounts to shifting some numbers on the government's ledger.

The average wage from paid employment was $48,360 in June 2009. People in paid employment pay tax on their earnings. They pay tax on their recompense for contributing directly to the economy. That thing we all rely on to keep us afloat.

Inequality, as epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett argue in their 2009 book The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, hurts us all. As well as links to higher crime, ill-health, shorter life expectancy and a range of social pathologies, inequality drives a wedge between people, corroding trust and raising levels of anxiety. Perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised then that an annual Massey University survey has found we've become more tolerant of income inequality, even as we've become more unequal.

Perhaps the reason New Zealanders have become more tolerant of inequality is because the last 30 to 40 years has shown that even as equality of opportunity has increased many have failed to take advantage. Perhaps they are more tolerant of inequality because they perceive growing numbers of people who appear to be the cause of their own misfortune.

If we lived in a country where the vast majority of people worked, and they were getting pitiful wages I too would be jumping up and down about inequality. Had I been alive in the 1930s I would have been a socialist. But we have been down that track of government intervention to give everyone a fair shake of the stick and it hasn't worked. The result has been the bedding in of a large group of permanently poor people.

325,000 working age people are on a benefit and if their children are counted the number rises to over half a million. And even during the economic boom, when NZ briefly boasted the lowest unemployment rate in the OECD, the number was only 20 percent lower. That's a major cause of New Zealand's inequality.

Some Sunday morning 'big picture' thoughts

How often are you reading about the growing inequality in NZ? The phenomenon is blamed for social ills, crime and poor health. Labour wanted NZ to become a version of a Scandinavian country where people pay high taxes and receive many benefits and that would tend towards equalising incomes. Working for Families was part of the plan to become the natural party of government by locking in the franchise. And it looked like their plan had almost succeeded with National morphing into Labour anyway. However....

The budget did reinforce that National, to a point, are prepared to accept that inequality goes hand in hand with economic growth (as Matt McCarten points out today).

So why can't NZ be like those countries where there is a greater degree of economic equality?

Because it is peopled by very diverse individuals and groups, with diverse values (which ironically Labour encouraged). And rapid social change like the sexual revolution hit NZ when it was still very young. So NZ does not have a long history of shared values, or even common religion, and there is certainly a 'them and us' class mentality afoot fostered by the left and very pervasive. This results in people treating the redistributive social policies with disdain instead of appreciation. Instead of understanding that social insurance can only operate successfully when it isn't gamed, too many see it as a right or a way of getting back what the nasty capitalists took or kept from them. Or even what the government took from them.

It is fruitless to hanker after the European style social security philosophies and systems, which are coming undone anyway with immigration and changing demographics.

Inequality is NZ's future. The trick is to lift everyone up a few notches rather than force everyone down. And as the country gets older, values will probably become more homogeneous which should act as a counter-balance to extremes of wealth and poverty.

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??