Tau Henare is right

Tau Henare is right that yet another inquiry into child abuse is a waste of time.

But committee chairman Tau Henare said the committee did not have time to do a proper inquiry before the election due in November.

"We'll take part in it, that's democracy. I'm the chairman and I'll chair the meetings to the best of my abilities," he said.

"But in the last 15 years there have been umpteen dozen reports. I don't think we are going to get anywhere if we continue to sit on our arses and do reports.

But the so-called child advocates insist on pressing ahead wasting time and money;

Maori Party MP Rahui Katene, who co-chairs the group with Green MP Metiria Turei, said she hoped the inquiry would open people's eyes to the fact that many Kiwi children lived in poverty.

And that is why they are primarily wasting their time. Because they persist in coming at it from the wrong angle. Always they pin the essential problem on poverty.

Yes. Many Kiwi children live in (relative) poverty but many, most, do not suffer neglect or abuse.

Look at the figures that Simon Collins provides at the close of his article:

Children in poverty

22 per cent of all children

One in six European children

One in four Maori children

One in three Pacific children


By material measures Pacific children are the poorest.

Let's look at some reliable indicators of child neglect or abuse.

The ethnicity of children in Care and Protection Foster Care Placements in 2006.

7 percent were Pacific (412) whereas 48.7 percent (2,869) were Maori.

At 7 percent, because the Pacific population is very young, that proportion is probably an under-representation.

The number of Pacific children in CYF family homes was 22 compared to 166 Maori - again 7 percent versus 51 percent.

Of those children with Care and Protection notifications requiring further action, 12 percent were Pacific and 44 percent were Maori.

So what now? Poverty is the cause of Maori child abuse and neglect but not the cause of Pacific child abuse and neglect? And let's not even go looking for some Asian statistics.

If the problem is misdiagnosed, a remedy will never be found.

People who lay false rape complaints should be exposed

Some people are very vindictive. Unhealthily so. And it seems the incidence of this form of mental instability is on the rise.

When reading about false rape accusations one can't help but wonder if the accuser, even in the knowledge that she will not succeed in bringing a conviction, is motivated by knowing a trial will make the accused's life miserable. His name will be dragged through the mud whereas she will remain unknown to the larger public.

It really is time that false accusations were punished. If not at least by removing name supression.

Two cases appear in headlines this morning. One in NZ:

In summing up the case yesterday, Murrell's defence lawyer, Fergus Steedman, said his client and the complainant had been friends. Murrell's testimony showed he cared about the complainant and knew her well.

Mr Steedman said the woman was yet to become an adult who took responsibility for her own mistakes. The false accusation had been made to prevent her from having to face her mistakes, Mr Steedman said.

The complainant was a compulsive liar, he said, and throughout the trial her testimony had been contradicted by other witnesses and evidence.

"She lies as a matter of routine. She lies when she doesn't need to. She is a liar, full stop," he said.

And the other in Australia:

A MOTHER has described as a ''gross injustice'' a legal process which she says led her son's life to the edge of destruction over a rape charge found to be baseless.

It was of small comfort to her that a judge has now ordered the Director of Public Prosecutions to pay defence costs of almost $20,000 after the case collapsed.

''We have been traumatised beyond belief by the system,'' she told The Age. ''We've been watching our son's life potentially get destroyed in front of our eyes.'' She had ''lived in abject fear of an injustice'' while her son, now 20, a third-year university student, had had his reputation ruined.

'Life' imprisonment sentences leap

Statistics NZ has just released conviction and sentencing data for 2010. A couple of stand-outs are the increasing use of home detention over its short history, and a leap in life sentences handed down.

In 2010 50 such sentences were imposed.

The closest year to that previously was 1997 when 37 sentences occurred. In the last ten years the average was 27 life sentences.

Is it just an aberration? Brains more familiar with the legal system might have an explanation.

MSD Statistical Report released

If you wanted to do a crash course in the benefit system and current trends this weekend (in-law visit avoidance perhaps) you could bury yourself in the Statistical Report, released today. It is bursting with 300-odd pages of information about trends, expenditures, grants, reasons for leaving, historical data, and much more. Trouble is it only extends to June 2010. A year ago. So not a great deal is newsworthy. Just a few things caught my eye while browsing;

* Nearly two fifths of benefit expenditure was on the DPB and nearly a third on the Invalids benefit

* Older clients - aged 40-64 - account for nearly half of benefit expenditure. More precisely 47-49%.

My comment - why not rephrase that as younger clients account for over half of benefit expenditure? Not a good look really.

* Women accounted for the majority of total main benefit expenditure

That's enough for late on a Friday afternoon.

I have more enjoyable things to do.

ACT, don't forget the 'youths' on the DPB

NZPA reporting about ACT's push for the reintroduction of a youth rate mentions the following statistic:

There were 17,726 youths - people aged 18-24 - on an unemployment benefit as of May.

It would add greater weight to consider also that there are 22,502 'youths' on the DPB.

If paying the adult minimum wage means young males are less likely to get work the same applies to young females. The only difference is they have an alternative benefit to go on. One that pays better and has more perks attached.

Image supression?

Not far below a NZ Herald photo of Chris Kahui's sister, who gave evidence at the Coroner's trial into the deaths of her twin nephews yesterday this appears:

Coroner Garry Evans granted suppression of Ms Kahui's image today, after she told the inquest her children were bullied during her brother's trial for the twins' murder.

Australia moves on welfare for teenage parents

The World Socialist Website reports on a pilot scheme to target teenage parents who receive welfare:

The program will affect some 4,000 parents, predominantly mothers, aged 19 or under who receive the Parenting Payment. When their baby turns six months old, they will be required to attend so-called support and engagement interviews at the government’s Centrelink agency. They will be forced to develop a “participation plan” which will include compulsory activities designed to ready them for the workforce, including placing their one-year-old infants in childcare while they finish secondary school, or engage in other training or paid work. Attendance at regular interviews will be mandatory until the parent completes Year 12 or its equivalent, or their child turns six years old, when they will then be obliged to look for work.

Good job too. The Welfare Working Group made extensive suggestions about conditions that must be put on young parents if they are to receive taxpayer funds.

The source of this excerpt is a socialist site which, naturally, can only see what is designed to enhance the life chance of both young mothers and their offspring, as part of a capitalist plot.

The Labor government’s objective is to increase business profitability and make Australian capitalism “internationally competitive” in order to attract globally mobile capital. The systematic dismantling of the welfare system will facilitate the lowering of business tax rates, while at the same time expanding the pool of exploitable labour, using those cut off welfare to leverage to drive down the wages and conditions of the working class as a whole.

The rationale driving the government’s stated goal of “breaking the cycle of welfare-dependency” is not that of helping the impoverished, but of eliminating the basic right to welfare altogether.

Sounds just like the Greens and soon, the Mana Party.

Seeking redemption or justice? Either way it's a joke

What does Macsyna King expect to achieve through telling her side of the story and naming who she thinks killed her children?

She has no moral compass afterall. So what is motivating her? She obviously liked sex, especially with younger men but didn't like the result. There seems not to be a mothering bone in her body. Does she understand that most people find her indifference to all of the children she has given birth to utterly abhorrent? Or has she changed her ways, perhaps become a Christian and needs forgiveness? That isn't an uncommon transformation and might explain Ian Wishart's involvement.

Don't look here for it.

She may be able to convince readers she is innocent of murder, but she will never convince me she was innocent of ongoing gross neglect and inhumanity. These I consider worse crimes than a murder committed by a child too young to know what he was doing.

If I seem harsh, here is a taste of what the book might read like:

A look of shock passed over the doctor's face as he examined the fatally injured Kahui twins, says their mother.

"His eyebrows raised, his eyes widened," said Macsyna King.

Macsyna King 31, was giving evidence in the High Court in Auckland where her former partner Chris Kahui is on trial for the murder of their three month-old twin boys Chris and Cru.

"I remember thinking that if he's looking like that and he's a doctor, then what else is wrong."

Ms King she decided after talking to Kahui to take the babies to their GP. Cru was due for a follow up visit and she was concerned about what had happened the night before, she said.

She collected the car seats and strapped the boys in, not stopping to change their nappies or clothes.

On the way to the doctors, they stopped at MacDonald's for breakfast but could not remember if she took the twins in with her, or left them strapped in their car seats in the car.

They arrived at the doctor's surgery about 1pm and told the reception they needed to see their GP, that it was "about the boys".

They waited about 20 minutes then were shown into the doctor's room where the twins were examined one at a time while they remained strapped in their car seats.

After examining the babies, Dr Nayar said he was concerned about the boys and would write a referral.

"He needed me to take the boys to Middlemore Hospital."

Asked by Crown lawyer Richard Marchant who was the dominant person in the relationship, Ms King replied "I thought I was".

"I would yell the loudest, I would swear at him and I just wouldn't stop till I got my way," she said.

"I've kicked him in the shin, I've slapped his face before."

Kahui, eight years her junior, was a quiet, softly spoken person who would bottle things up.

"That would come out when he'd get really angry – he'd lose it."

Ms King told the court she had three children to two different fathers prior to meeting Kahui in 2004. All three children were now cared for by their respective fathers and she did not have contact with them.

She started living with Kahui shortly after meeting him and quickly fell pregnant, giving birth to a boy, Shayne, in 2005.

In September that year, she split with Kahui for several months and went to live with her sister Emily.

During that time she got into a relationship with another man but then returned to Kahui.

She fell pregnant with the twins soon after her return.

Kahui's sister, Mona, later questioned her about the paternity of the twins.

"She asked me if Chris was the father of the twins" Ms King said.

"I said 'Yes'."

Ms King said she then went to Kahui and repeated the conversation to him and reassured him he was the father.

The next day, after a second argument with Kahui about taking time out, she left again for Emily's place.

About 6pm they went to visit a friend of Emily's where they drank and talked.

As she had only had one or two glasses of wine, Ms King said she drove them home about 1am, and she slept on the couch.

Although she could not recall anyone trying to wake her in the night, her sister told her in the morning that had attempted to, to tell her that Cru had "held his breath overnight", she said.

"That was the very first time I knew about that."

She got home about 10am, to find her brother Stuart King looking after the twins.

As he was telling me what happened the night before, Ms King said she was walking towards the nursery. She dropped the side of the cot, bent down and felt their breath on her cheek.

At the same time, she noticed a fresh bruise on baby Chris's face.

"I stood up and started on my brother about where the hell was he when all this was going on."

Then Kahui arrived and she started yelling at him.

Kahui told her Cru had held his breath the night before and had to be given CPR and that the bruise on baby Chris' face was from Shayne.

He told her he had left the babies on the couch in the nursery after feeding them, while he returned the bottles to the kitchen.

The door to the nursery had been left partially opened and Shayne had pushed it opened, climbed up on to the couch and "got at the boys".

She accepted his explanation but then Kahui started blaming her.

"He said "well you should have been home taking care of the kids," she said.

"He was blaming me. If I had stayed home and looked after the kids this would not have happened, I would know what happened."

KING ADMITTED VIOLENCE, SOCIAL WORKERS SAY

Earlier today, social workers told the court they had discussed referring Ms King to Child, Youth and Family in the weeks before their deaths.

Social worker Nadine Ingham said she first met Macsyna King after the twins were born and were being cared for in Middlemore Hospital’s neonatal unit.

Hospital staff were concerned about the lack of visits to the unit by Ms King and her partner Chris Kahui.

Ms King said she did not like being told what to do by hospital staff and had a problem with their "expectations".

She said she had not been up to the hospital because the house she was living in was unsuitable for the babies and she had to find somewhere else for them to live. She also had to train a new person to take over her job.

During her conversation with Ms Ingham, Ms King said she sometimes hit Kahui – but not around the head or face – and occasionally smacked their one-year-old son Shayne with an open hand. She also said she was attending an anger management course.

She also said she like to go out with her friends and get drunk but would get the babies "out of her hair" first.

Hospital staff had discussed referring her to Child, Youth and Family, but the referral was never made, she said.

'DELIBERATE KILLING'

The Crown alleges the babies were killed deliberately, with the fatal injuries being delivered shortly before an episode in which baby Cru’s eye rolled back, his lips turned blue and he stopped breathing.

Kahui was alone with the babies in the nursery for up to 10 minutes before the episode and was the only one who had the opportunity to harm them.

The babies' mother, Macsyna King, was not home at the time so could not have been the killer, the Crown alleged.

But in her opening address yesterday, Kahui’s lawyer Lorraine Smith said the mother was the most likely killer and had confessed that she "did it".

Medical experts would testify the babies’ injuries could have been caused earlier than the Crown alleged, at a time when Ms King was at home with the babies, she said.

This morning Counties Manukau District Health Board homecare nurse Jane Eyres said the twins showed no sign of being injured in the weeks before their deaths.

They slept in a "beautiful", clean, warm nursery, were feeding well and were putting on weight, she said.

Despite stripping each of the twins to examine them, she never saw bruises or any other sign that the babies were injured.

It was only after they were killed that she became aware one of the babies had an old brain injury and the other an old wrist fracture.

Middlemore Hospital play specialist Kathryn Greenwood said Macsyna King told her the babies had been hurt by their toddler brother.

Greenwood told the court she first met Kahui and Ms King when their twins were in the neo-natal unit in April 2006 at Middlemore Hospital.

She looked after their eldest child Shane, who was 10 months-old.

Miss Greenwood was working on June 13 when Ms King brought the twins into hospital and went to see her in the resuscitation room where the twins were being treated.

Ms King told Ms Greenwood that Shane had climbed onto a couch at home and into the twins cot and "got them".

Ms King talked about how busy she had been and how life was a balancing act, she said.

Initially Ms King was angry but became more in control over the course of the day, Ms Greenwood said.

Her observations of Shane before June 13 was that he was not an "active child" and was not able to hold himself up but could crawl, Miss Greenwood said.

On Cactus standing for ACT

I am pleased to see Cactus is going to stand for ACT. Why? I'm not sure. I have never met Cactus. Not that I am aware of. We have communicated sporadically via e-mail. We seem to favour the same ACT types. Or maybe it was just Rodney. She has been incredibly loyal to ACT whereas I, as she puts it, "chucked my toys". Fair enough. Don't want to revisit why.

Cactus personifies what I value most in people. Honesty. But when she enters politics there will trouble. For everyone, including Kate. I expect she has the constitution to handle it. Although she is deep, I have seen no sign that she is sensitive. Or the trait is well-buried for her own protection.

Unavoidably politics is also about compromise. Does anyone see Cactus as a compromiser? Me neither. My sympathy is extended in anticipation.

But Lordy politics is not going to be dull if she is in the house. And no-one will be left wondering what the heck is going on with ACT. Unlike Heather Roy who essentially wasted her time as an MP and Minister, Cactus will take her portfolio and stamp herself indelibly all over it. I expect she will fearlessly rark up every one and everything she sees as needing it.

The other morning I was watching that awful Jacinda Ardern on television and musing mawkishly that she could be a future Prime Minister, such is the sad state of NZ politics. Now mercifully I can see the perfect foil for her.

Crisis? What crisis?

The Alternative Welfare forum last Monday was addressed by Professor Paul Dalziel. According to Metiria Turei:

Professor Paul Dalziel from Lincoln University pointed out that the Welfare Working Group attempt to portray some sort of “crisis of sustainability” in the welfare system was not backed by the evidence. Welfare payments as a percentage of GDP are actually dropping and will continue to drop, even under the Welfare Working Group’s worst case scenario. As I suspected, the whole basis upon which the Welfare Working Group’s report was based is flawed.

From page 58 of this report you can view the various modelling charts that attempt to estimate what will happen with the numbers of beneficiairies and associated costs. This is what the group found under a 'current trends' projection:

"....if current trends continue, there would be 16 percent of the working age population on a benefit by 2050. This would be unsustainable, particularly in the context of an ageing population, and would reduce the government’s ability to respond to a serious economic downturn."

A rise from the current 12 percent to 16 percent would increase costs by a third.

GDP would have to rise much faster if the increased costs were to account for a lower percentage than now.

And even if working age welfare was consuming a smaller percentage of GDP, Super and the health costs of our ageing population will be consuming considerably more.

But isn't the crisis of sustainability as much about lives impaired by welfare as the financial cost? Is it OK to give our blessing to spending X amount of GDP on welfare and disregard the social fall-out?

The Greens and other adherents of the modern-day welfare state seem to think so.

Turn it up please

This is a good show. Not quite Coro but getting there....

Alternative to the alternative

Here is the one of the up shots of Monday's meeting of the Alternative Welfare Working Group. The one that wants more welfare. The Greens are sticking with their effective use of children (saccharin images) to promote policy. Policy that will unfortunately work against children's best interests.

This is a Green e-card designed to be sent to Paula Bennett. Below it I have used a different image and written some alternative (alternative to the alternative) text. Please feel free to e-mail this blog post to the Minister.



Dear Paula Bennett

Please reject the Welfare Working Group report.

The report's recommendations are extreme and will hurt vulnerable New Zealand families.

New Zealand kids deserve access to essentials and opportunities, especially in hard-times.

Cutting benefits, work-testing parents, and targeting the disabled will leave many people and their children out on the cold.

Please reject this report and give all our kids a chance.











Please accept the Welfare Working Group Report.

The report's recommendations are rational and will improve the lives of New Zealand families, especially in the long term.

New Zealand children deserve access to essentials and opportunities. Most importantly, they deserve parents who will do everything in their power to support and care for them through work, and who will instil similar expectations in them.

As benefits will not be cut where genuine attempts to find and accept work are made, and the small number unable to support themselves will not be targeted, children will not be out in the cold.

Please accept this report and give all our kids a chance.

What Thompson said is not a hanging offence...

...except maybe in this country.

Women Take Almost 50 Percent More Short-Term Sick Leave Than Men

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080204212846.htm

According to data from the U.S. Labor Department released last November, both married and unmarried women with children report a higher rate of absences from work than those without children.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=4241746&page=1

Women take more sick days than men

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8534796/Women-take-more-sick-days-than-men.html


And:

In most Western countries illness-related absenteeism is higher among female workers than among male workers. Using the personnel dataset of a large Italian bank, we show that the probability of an absence due to illness increases for females, relative to males, approximately 28 days after a previous illness. This difference disappears for workers age 45 or older. We interpret this as evidence that the menstrual cycle raises female absenteeism. Absences with a 28-day cycle explain a significant fraction of the male-female absenteeism gap.

To investigate the effect of absenteeism on earnings, we use a simple signaling model in which employers cannot directly observe workers' productivity, and therefore use observable characteristics – including absenteeism – to set wages. Since men are absent from work because of health and shirking reasons, while women face an additional exogenous source of health shocks due to menstruation, the signal extraction based on absenteeism is more informative about shirking for males than for females. Consistent with the predictions of the model, we find that the relationship between earnings and absenteeism is more negative for males than for females. Furthermore, this difference declines with seniority, as employers learn more about their workers' true productivity. Finally, we calculate the earnings cost for women associated with menstruation. We find that higher absenteeism induced by the 28-day cycle explains 11.8 percent of the earnings gender differential.

http://neweconomist.blogs.com/new_economist/2006/07/menstruation2.html

Why won't New Zealanders grow up and engage in rational debate instead of indulging emotion?

What is the 'official' unemployment rate?

On the front page of Statistics NZ the unemployment is given as 6.6 percent for the March quarter.

That is the figure provided by the March quarter HLFS.

Yet when using Table Builder the rate appears as 7 percent.

That is a big difference.

And the sets of figures that produce the rate vary yet my understanding is the source for the data is the same.

Now this all may seem pedantic but when official unemployment rates are released a song and dance is made about them. They are taken as a significant indicator of how the economy is faring and add to or detract from business confidence.

NZ hasn't seen an unemployment rate of 7 percent or over this decade. Sorry, this century (according to TableBuilder). Was it there in March?

I will query Statistics NZ. There is probably an explanation but I want to know what it is.

Update: Very quick response from Statistics NZ. Inside two hours. Big tick.

Both figures are from the HLFS.

The 7.0% figure from Table Builder is the number of unemployed persons
expressed as a percentage of the labour force as of the quarter. These
statistics are averages for the three-month period.


The headline 6.6% figure is seasonally adjusted. Seasonal adjustment aims
to eliminate the impact of regular seasonal events on a time series. In the
labour market, cyclical events that affect labour supply and demand occur
around the same time each year. For example, in summertime a large pool of
student labour is both available for, and actively seeking, work. Demand
for labour in the retail sector and in many primary production industries
also increases.


Seasonal adjustment makes data for adjacent quarters more comparable by
smoothing out the effect on the times series of any regular seasonal
events. This ensures that the underlying movements in the time series are
more visible. Each quarter, the seasonal adjustment process is applied to
the latest and all previous quarters. This means that seasonally adjusted
estimates for any of the previously published quarters may change slightly.

What effect the earthquakes on beneficiary numbers?

With reports of increased domestic violence, stress, workplace bullying, and job losses I thought I would have a quick look at Canterbury beneficiary stats.

The national increase across all benefits was 2 percent. In Christchurch it was 3.8 percent. On the face of it, surprisingly small.

But intriguingly, DPB numbers, against the national trend, have dropped, but only very slightly. 15 to be exact. I suspect this is because single parent families have packed up and left. Beneficiaries have, in some respects, more economic mobility than others. Their registration would shift to whichever region they moved to. There have been some significant DPB rises in places like Invercargill and Timaru.

So if many leave (transfer registration) but quite a lot go on (newly register in Christchurch) we could see either a small net loss or gain. Consequently the earthquake may have contributed significantly to more people on benefits but it isn't immediately obvious by viewing the Canterbury statistics.

DPB - more going on than leaving

Just for the record, Paula Bennett told a Welfare and Social Sector Policy Reform conference in Wellington yesterday:

The number of those coming off the DPB since part-time work requirements were introduced had increased by 22 per cent over the past year - to more than 3,500 people.

Part-time worktesting when the youngest child is six was introduced in September 2010.

Here are the DPB totals for each quarter over the past year:

June 2010 111,689
Sept 2010 112,765
Dec 2010 112,865
March 2011 113,077

Ops normal.

More people going on the DPB than leaving.

(While that conference was taking place so was another meeting of the Alternative Welfare Justice group and supporters. The organiser was the Catholic Social Justice Agency, Caritas. Expect rumblings from that today. The NZ Herald Social Issues reporter did not report on the conference Bennett attended so he may have been at the other.)

Votes needed

I am a big fan of aspiring people seeking sponsorship through the private sector. Rather than via SPARC or Creative NZ or other taxpayer-funded bonanzas.

Here's an inspiring case.

It only takes a moment to register your vote.

A lot of special needs young adults have been stuffed about by poor government policy over recent times. Give this guy a break.

MSD spinning

The glossy Ministry of Social Development's Rise magazine (note to self - ask how much it costs to produce under the OIA) was released during the week, and contains an article about the Manurewa-based Taonga Trust, which works with teenage parents. For a change some statistics, but not good ones, are presented:

New Zealand has the second highest teenage birth rate among the world's developed countries. In 2009 there were 4,670 births to New Zealand teenagers.

In Manukau City around 630 teenagers give birth each year.

We are second only to the US where their rate is also boosted by very high minority teenage birth rates.

The piece continues:

Vulnerable and unsupported teen parents and their children can face a multitude of disadvantages. New Zealand studies show that compared with women who had not become mothers by age 21, teen mothers are:

nine times more likely to have no qualifications
twice as likely to suffer from major depression
twice as likely to be substance dependent
three times more likely to be suicidal at times
and three times more likely to be dependent on a benefit.

Well this is refreshing. An acknowledgement that having babies very young is neither good for the mother nor the children.

But what would I put this unusual frankness down to?

Pleading on behalf of the Trust? They will always need more funding.

But the pleading highlights the way government handles the problem. Pour in more and more corrective resources.

Instead of saying, hang on a minute. This is avoidable. Why are the statistics so high? What has the welfare incentive got to do with it?

Health analysts have no problem grasping the concept of prevention. It is cheaper (and better for the patient) than treating disease.

In the social arena however the attitude seems to prevail that the high teenage birth rate is fait accompli, a cultural tradition even.

And as I re-read the article it strikes me, looking at the cover and the smiling faces, that this is published by the MSD as a good news story. Look at us. Look how well we are doing.

But it isn't. It's a bad news story about a government-created social disaster which provides work for worthies. That's all.

(The number registered on the DPB in Manukau has risen 18.5 percent in the ten years to March 2011. There are 1,621 on the DPB with roughly 2,500 children. That would fill half a dozen good-sized schools. That's just Manukau. In Mangere there are 3,329 and Manurewa 2,929 - attached to which will be around another 10,000 or so children. I don't think 'disaster' is too strong a word.)

National right to put welfare at centre of election

Just posted at "Breaking Views".

Why is wowserism no longer the domain of women?

I usually don't catch up with NZ Herald columnists till the following day, given I read early and they are not published till later. Garth George yesterday called for the drinking age to be raised to 21. If you go back 100 years there are plenty of headlines about the demon drink and expunging it entirely from society. Yesterday I was reading from the Evening Post June 16, 1911 about the Women's Crusade for Prohibition in the Dominion and the eliciting of pledges from men not to drink. The campaign actually had a name. Catch my pal.

But the calls 100 years ago were largely from females. Now there are largely from men. I wonder why.

Oh and I see George is blaming alcohol for so many people being on the DPB. So if we legally withhold alcohol from them under-21s won't go on the DPB? Isn't it just better to withhold the DPB which indulges the consequences of drinking?

George blames alcohol for reliance on benefits and so reasons, take alcohol away from everyone under 21. Even those who drink responsibly.

Whereas I blame benefits for the abuse of alcohol. Nothing like a state income free of obligation to sooth a "shuddering hangover" Garth.

The psychology of the welfare debate

Unusually insightful article here from one Kevin E Schiemsing.

US religionists are in disagreement about proposed cuts to welfare programmes. The disagreement isn't just between various sects but between Catholics. This arises out of how different Catholics view the role of government. Without doubt the same variance of view exists in NZ.

The proponents of government welfare programmes came up with this declaration called The Circle of Protection. It appears that signatories insist that cuts will hurt the poor.

But this is what really struck me:

Defenders of government welfare programs not only cannot conceive of the possibility that government programs actually harm rather than help the people they target; they cannot conceive of the possibility that anyone else could conceive of the possibility. Those of us who sincerely believe that such programs are harmful are baffled at what we perceive to be stubborn resistance to the facts of the matter.

Totally.

This explains why people like me are characterised as selfish and uncaring. Pro welfare types don't actually believe that I believe welfare hurts individuals. In which case I must have another evil agenda. Racism, or eugenics, whatever.

Talking to Leighton Smith the other day, the matter of my paper Maori and Welfare came up. He asked an odd question I thought. Pretty much, do you believe the things you write? Or maybe it was, do you believe the things you write to be true or factual? That was what I took from the question anyway. Which actually made me burst into laughter. Of course I believe them I said. I wouldn't write them if I didn't.

But here's another thing. I don't reflect the other side's disbelief. That is, I do not characterise proponents of government welfare as evil or having secret agendas. I describe them as well-intentioned but misguided. Patronising at best. Dangerous at worst. But nevertheless sincere in their clinging to faith in government efforts to reduce poverty.

Back to the column:

What unemployed and impoverished people really need is not government handouts, but access to, and the capacity and inducement to engage, the market economy—as Pope John Paul II put it, to “enter the circle of exchange.” Government policy should be encouraging companies to hire and potential employees to be hired. Yet, to take but one example of recent counter productivity, economists have shown that extending unemployment benefits beyond a certain length of time correlates with higher unemployment rates. If a safety net becomes too comfortable, people are inclined to remain in it. Welfare program advocates deny this vehemently—everyone wants to work, they say; they just need the chance—but statistical evidence and a realistic understanding of human nature contradict them. It could be that the perfect job is not available; maybe finding work means picking up and moving, or taking a cut in pay, or training to acquire a new skill. People faced with these situations deserve our compassion and assistance. But if we minimize the incentive to do what is necessary to find employment, we do neither the out-of-work individual nor the overall economy any favors.

So, do you think this fellow really believes all that?

You bet. And so do I.

On Whaleoil's latest foray - hurray

When I thought Cameron Slater had hacked into the Labour site I was conflicted. Glad he had (intentionally or otherwise) avenged the Brash burglary, but two wrongs don't make a right.

Now it is clear he merely helped himself to what was on offer through another party's carelessness, the morality changes. And context is everything.

Although his outing of the on-line alias 'Micky Savage' (a person with views that would offend the original name-bearer) may have not been facilitated by his newly acquired database, if it has, I look forward to lots more.

Some of us have put our opinions and addresses and images out there for all to see, for some years. It gives me immense pleasure to see those who haven't, who have used the cloak of either an alias or anonymity to ridicule, malign, lie or bully, get their come-uppance.

More tripe about children in poverty

The DomPost reports that according to the school principal at Cannon's Creek School, "... about three quarters of parents are unemployed." Money is tighter than ever before apparently. It's the worst the principal has seen. In 30 years!

Slightly odd that as there are fewer people drawing an unemployment benefit in Porirua now than there was in 2006*. More on the DPB though.

Hasn't some well-meaning lefty pointed out to her that being on the DPB does not mean a parent is "unemployed"? Parenting is work afterall.

Seriously, when will 'child poverty' start being blamed on family structure instead of unemployment?

And Kidscan, who are supplying raincoats and breakfasts to the pupils only make it easier for their parents to get by on benefits.

*Porirua Unemployment Benefit March 2006 1,421 March 2011 1,261
Porirua Domestic purposes Benefit March 2006 2,108 March 2011 2,152

The Official Information Act for Officials?

Reading a NZ Herald report about households receiving high total benefits due to high total occupants had me thinking...

A report obtained under the Official Information Act shows 14 people, including three children, were listed at one household in Papatoetoe. Collectively it was getting over $4000 a week net in benefit payments - adding up to about $224,000 a year.

... how can the Herald get the sort of specific information I can't? The answer is, they can't. But the Minister can.

She [Paula Bennett]had asked for the breakdown of benefit payments per household as part of work a panel of ministers is doing on welfare reforms following the Welfare Working Group report.

I can provide many examples of refusal to release information by MSD.

Ah, but now I understand. The Official Information Act is so-called because it refers to Information accessible only to Officials.

Kill some local economies

I remember the first ACT 'do' I ever attended. Still a member of the Libz, I had been very active in campaigning against the DPB from the social, economic and philosophical viewpoints. It was 2002. The local candidate had persuaded me to attend this dinner and he would sit me next to Muriel Newman and we could exchanges ideas etc about welfare. It was at the Hutt Men's club, very plush and with many grey-haired, well-heeled in attendance. I was dumbstruck when this gentlemen, who had begun the conversation about welfare, said to me, smugly I thought, "If we took away the DPB it would kill some local economies. Can't be done." Because it was such an unexpected comment with validity, because I was amongst business people who may well share the same attitude, I let it go. If it was repeated to me today I would agree and explain why those particular economies need to be killed off. Economies that survive on the money pumped into them every day by Work and Income. Places like Ruatoria, Te Kaha, Waverley, Flaxmere, Reporoa and Kawerau. And certain suburbs near all of NZ's major towns and cities. Places of hopelessness. Places where inhabitants experience small superficial highs and desperate deep lows. Where life is about day-to-day survival with no capacity to aspire to anything else.

False economies do not work on a large scale, and they do not work on a small scale. The Labour government's official recognition of this manifested in the Jobs Jolt policy, which forbade unemployed people from moving to places where there were no jobs - not if they wanted to receive taxpayer support anyway. But because they never extended the policy to other beneficiaries, particularly those on the DPB who could support a none-work inclined partner, the jobless economies survived.

The remark from the ACT dinner attendee was probably well-intentioned in his view. It may have been self-interested. But it was shallow in its ignorance of 'that which cannot be seen' and a denial of the day of reckoning which must surely come.

The cute things children say - not

Another study from the previously mentioned June issue of the Social Policy Journal of New Zealand is into children's perceptions of violence - physical, sexual and emotional, which is how CYF also categorises abuse by the way. Over 2,000 children randomly selected from 28 schools of "various sizes, geographic areas and socio-economic neighbourhoods" filled out questionairres. Apart from telling us the overall incidence of experience ...

Sixty-three percent of children reported having directly experienced physical violence at some time in their lives. Two-thirds reported having witnessed physical violence directed at other children, and nearly 90% reported having seen violence in the media. Although less common, still more than a quarter of the children (27%) reported witnessing violence against adults.

...there is no breakdown of socio-economic status, gender, age or ethnicity. What I would have been interested in.

Instead, because of the nature of the type of research, the report features many direct quotes from children. If you only like the cute things kids say, stop here.

"I've been punched, grabbed by the throat and hung over a trellis and then thrown on the concrete"

"I get hidings all the time and some people hurt me"

"Kicked by somebody I don't know because my dog went on their land"

"I got into a fight with my Mum and I hit her. Then she hit me with the broom and kicked me out of the house"

"Some kids tease me and do wrestling moves on me and I'm getting scabs and bruises"

"I saw people having a fight. Blood on walls and carpet. Screaming and yelling."

"My Mum and her boyfriend always get in arguments and I've seen heaps of things get smashed"

"I watched my Aunty and my Dad fighting with knives inside at night"

"My Dad hurt Mum in town and made her mouth bleed".

"In the Christmas holidays my family went away with our friends, but Dad wasn't allowed to come because Mum had a something order out on him. But on the third day we were there Dad came because he needed to talk to Mum, and Dad and my Dad's friends got in a big fight with me, all my sisters and the rest of the camp watching."

"I woke up and heard fighting and banging the walls. I thought my Mum's boyfriend was beating her up."

"When my Mum and Step-Dad broke up they started hitting each other. I was in my room in bed."

"I've been hit with metal or any objects my parents pick up. My Dad abused my Mum when I was young"

"When I got beaten up and when I got chased by a man. When my sister got beaten up by my Dad and when my sister got raped"

"I have been followed by a man six times. I got taken off my Dad. Dad went to jail for beating my Step-Mum and assaulting her. I got punched by someone in my family. But I am not telling who. And my Mum is having a bad time at the moment at home."

"People get mean to me because my Mum goes out with heaps of men"

"Dad's girlfriend yells at me and swears at me when Dad isn't around for no reason"

"People said I would be traded for a dog"

"When my Mum and Dad had a fight and my Dad wouldn't stop beating my Mum up and I can't stop thinking about it, but they don't do that any more and when my Dad yells at my brother and the way he speaks."

"I've been scared when my Mum and Dad fight because I don't know who to go to."

"I have been sexually abused and just had it sorted out and I had to move away from all my friends and family. My brothers always hurt me by calling me names about my weight and size."

"My Dad went to jail for raping me."

"My friend got body slammed before my eyes and I was too weak to help him get up."

"Mum has been quite a witch, spelt with a B, and started screaming at me. I've tried suicide two times because of her"

Enough?

You will be interested in the conclusion from the researchers:

The level of children's exposure to violence in this country is relatively high, and New Zealand appears to be a more violent country for children than was previously realised. The perceptions of the children in this study were that their experiences had a notable impact on their wellbeing. Furthermore, observation of violent events was rated as having a more powerful impact on children than their own victimisation. For many children the conclusion can be drawn that bullying is part of their childhood. Reporting the effects of their violent experiences highlighted the special vulnerability of children. Adults must assume responsibility to reduce our children's exposure to violence because New Zealand cannot afford the devastating effects of failing to protect its children.

Servant? Give me a break

"Whatever I do, I would like to continue to serve our community and our country."

And get paid a hundred grand more than the average annual income of those I serve.

So "much to offer". So much magnanimity.

Brash was at the Knowledge Wave Conference too

Fran O'Sullivan was delving through old file boxes and came across one about the Knowledge Wave conference in 2001. Ten years ago already. She writes that is was a lost opportunity:

...Catching the Knowledge Wave project stands out as one of the key missed opportunities that also litter New Zealand's history...

Essentially she says we are all talk. But quotes Helen Clark, mentions ex University of Auckland vice-chancellor John Hood and "political, business and social leaders from countries like Australia, Canada, Ireland, Israel, Singapore, Korea, the US and Taiwan."

She makes no allusion to Don Brash, then Reserve Bank Governor. But I was impressed enough by what he said to also keep a clipping.



The headline reads, Let's get radical, challenges Brash. NZ could only climb back into the ranks of the wealthy with a change of attitude and behaviour but New Zealanders had " deeply ingrained cultural characteristics", a disdain for commercial success, no strong passion for education and a tendency for immediate gratification. The economy would not improve significantly while 350,000 working age people received tax-payer funded income support. He suggested lifetime limits on how long able-bodied people could claim state benefits.

But let me finish with Fran O'Sullivan's words:

In retrospect, Catching the Knowledge Wave was too much about conversation and too little about action. It would be too pat to put this down to the heavy infusion of public relations messaging. Although that is a factor.

The real issue is that New Zealand body politic is still far too slow and far too slack when it comes to implementing a big agenda.

The John Key Government's own growth strategy is a case in point. For example, the shambles over the mining strategy and the failure to put some ballast under the PM's financial services hub project. Until recently, NZTE has been a relative shambles ... the list goes on.

It's unfathomable that a private sector operator like Key doesn't put a few more skilled ministers alongside Steven Joyce and Tony Ryall to form a speed team to get major change bedded down.

After three years of economic crises, endlessly debating is no longer an option.

Brash obviously agrees with the final sentence. But the way Key and National reacted to his political re-emergence illustrates exactly why we are going nowhere fast. Perhaps there should be an age limit on becoming the leader of a country. Too young and there is little or less sense of urgency and certainly less context.

Ten years ago my son had barely started primary school. This week he recieved his electoral enrolment form. Ten years is a bloody long time.

As Brash said ten years ago, New Zealand needs to get radical.

New research into early Maori parenting skirts around the issue of incentives

The Social Policy Journal has just been released and contains a study into the early pregnancy/parenting rate of young Maori using the Christchurch Health and Development birth cohort. It agonisingly pores over the reasons for this and not once considers benefits as an incentive due to the potentially low incomes from work of Maori youth.

What is interesting is new information about the difference between those who identify as sole Maori and those who identify as Maori/other, and the results also include males who were asked if they got a partner pregnant or became a parent under 20.

The following is a quote from the ' discussion':

Two major findings emerged from these analyses. First, respondents having a sole Māori cultural identity had odds of early pregnancy and parenthood that were over seven times higher than those of non-Māori, while those of Māori/other cultural identity had odds of early pregnancy and parenthood that were over three times higher than non-Māori. These results were evident for both males and females. Also, those of sole Māori cultural identity had rates of pregnancy and parenthood that were significantly (p < .05) greater than those of Māori/other cultural identity. Similar findings were obtained using an alternative method of classifying Māori identity. These findings are consistent with the view that cultural identity plays an important role in ethnic differences, since rates of early pregnancy/parenthood increased steadily with increasing Māori cultural identity.

Further analysis suggested that, in part, the associations between cultural identity and early pregnancy/parenthood were due to socio-economic and family-related factors. After adjustment for these factors, those of sole Māori identity had rates of early pregnancy and parenthood that were more than three times higher than those of non-Māori and those of Māori/other identity. Again, similar results were found for males and females, and these findings were replicated in a supplementary analysis using an alternative measure of Māori identity.

Collectively these findings suggest that the higher rates of early pregnancy and parenthood among Māori are a consequence of a combination of socio-economic, family and cultural factors that combine to place young Māori at significantly increased risks of early pregnancy and parenthood. The implications of these conclusions are discussed below.

Although it has been argued that early parenting has been constructed as a problem by the health profession (e.g. Barker 1998), there is evidence that draws links between early age of pregnancy and greater likelihood of negative outcomes for offspring and parents (Coley and Chase-Lansdale 1998, Fergusson and Woodward 1999, Singh et al. 2001, Hobcraft and Kiernan 2001, Mantell et al. 2004, Ministry of Social Development 2008a, Robson and Berthoud 2006, Woodward et al. 2006, Boden et al. 2008). The results of the present study suggest that Māori, and in particular individuals of sole Māori cultural identity, are at increased risk of early pregnancy/parenthood. It could therefore be argued that at least some of the social disadvantage experienced by Māori in New Zealand may be due in part to increased rates of early pregnancy/parenthood among those of sole Māori cultural identity.

It "could therefore be argued?"

What are these people frightened of?

What timidity looks like

From Stuff:

The welfare group's February report said the cost of welfare would go from $47 billion to $34b by 2021 if its reforms proceeded - cutting the 360,000 on welfare by 100,000, by putting work obligations on them in exchange for support such as childcare.

Even if the goal is achieved, in simple terms of total number of beneficiaries, the reduction will be a worse performance than under Labour.

Bans to brush gangs further under the carpet

Todd McClay, who I respected for standing by his Dad but was unimpressed with at select committee when in the 3 hours I was in attendance said nothing, is proposing a ban on gang patches in all property owned by govenment. Really it's quite laughable when you consider the underlying silliness.

"There will be people who will say this is an infringement on civil rights. But these are members of gangs; people who attack old ladies in the streets or sell drugs to their grandchildren. Those are bigger violations of human rights than a law that says if you want support from a government department, you must not wear gang insignia".

But it will be OK to wear your patch in your state-owned house, when you are driving on a state-owned highway, visiting your state-owned GP to get a sickness certificate signed off, visiting the chemist to get your kids state-paid prescriptions filled or visiting a cash machine to draw your state-paid benefit.

You can do all that but if you chance to work for a living and it's on government owned property - a forest perhaps - forget it.

This country is so schizophrenic about gangs. This approach can only be described a bumbling attempt to brush them further under the carpet. There still there though. And once again ACT appears to be in support.

Entitlement malaise strikes at any age

The inevitable comment arrived (also inevitably made by 'anonymous') reacting to my post about the extra handouts to over 65s:

And why not,we have paid taxes all our lives.get the young into eork and leave the oldies alone.Remember most of the facilities the young enjoy today were paid for by these oldies.

I think I am fairly even-handed in my criticism of the entitlement malaise. I don't care what age the sufferer is. The world does not owe you a living.

Recently I wrote about how politicians play one group off against the other by using the welfare state. The commenter should read David Thompson's Selfish Generations which is a fairly good crack at showing how people born from around 1925 to 1940 got back proportionately more in benefits (broad definition) than they paid in tax throughout their lifetimes. He doesn't attack the older generation for this. Merely points out that as welfare states age, later generations fare less well. In turn, my kids are going to do it tougher than my generation.

I won't attack oldies for this either, except when they bleat about wanting even more and ignore that it is their children and grandchildren who are paying for it. And if you want to get a whopping big dose of it go to a Grey Power meeting.

If you are a socialist I will oppose your thinking regardless of age.

Extra handouts for some

It isn't unusual to hear oldies bleating about Working For Families and how much money their adult children are getting that they don't need. Probably to each other as they flash their Super Goldcard to get a 'free' ferry trip somewhere. In AUSTRALIA.

Yes. The welfare state now pays out money to enhance Kiwi pensioner's holidays to the Gold Coast. But in a rich irony called 'reciprocity', one of the many ironies inherent in the fiasco welfare has become, holiday-making Aussies over 60 will be able to enjoy handouts same-age Kiwis can't in their own country!! Wah,wah. Quick get Peters onto it. The Supergold card must be available from 60. It's not fair. Wah, wah.

Sickness and invalid benefits - try something different

In regard to welfare reform my focus has always been on the DPB for the reasons that 1/ children are being disadvantaged, sometimes very badly 2/ this benefit is at the heart of inter-generational dependence and 3/ it has the greatest potential for reform and improved lives in the process.

While I am very familiar with the history, statistics, reasons for being on and other aspects of sickness and invalid benefits I have spent far less time talking about them. But a lot of time thinking about them. Their reform is absolutely essential but much more fraught, in terms of hardship and politics. Sometimes I wonder if they aren't being handled by the wrong bureaucracy. That is, shouldn't they be part of the health system? If they were, perhaps more focus would go on getting people better, more rigorous diagnosis and attention to trends.

As it stands well people are lumped together with unwell people and are all seen under the same roof by the same people. People with no expertise in matters physical or psychological. If the money for sickness and invalid benefits was coming out of DHB funding you can bet that the focus on why more and more people are going on them would sharpen up pretty fast.

Which leads me to a further thought. Money is very tight in Health. It is also capped, whereas MSD funding is not. Does Health tacitly sign people over to the responsibility and cost of MSD because there isn't money available for whatever it would take to get them functioning?

This must be right to a degree. That is why various governments have tried programmes like Pathways to Health, bumping beneficiaries up public waiting lists in the Counties Manakau system I recall.

Some individuals may have been helped by these initiatives but overall the trend upwards continues. The percentage of working age New Zealanders reliant on one of these benefits continues to climb.

Suggestion: The existing funding pool for sickness and invalid benefits could be transferred over to the relevant DHB and thereafter managed but capped. Money saved by reducing the caseload (the current levels are artificial) and used elsewhere in the health system or invested in resources to further assist beneficiaries back to good health. Mental health exponents will tell you how badly under-funded their area is. This would give them a chance to up their funding and treat people to the best of their capacity which is surely what health professionals want to do.

Gordon Campbell - is anyone on the left prepared to deal with realities?

There is opinion, and there is wilful misrepresentation.

Yesterday, Key-the-moderate was engaged in the age-old right wing election year rhetoric of welfare bashing.

More in sorrow than in anger though, of course. The current system was “broken”. It was “unaffordable” And it was “unsustainable ” – unless most of the wilder ideas of the Welfare Working Group are put into action. A Cabinet working team and government departments are now to be tasked with furthering the WWG recommendations.

These welfare alarums are bogus, of course. Only three years ago, this same allegedly broken system had benefit levels down at record lows.

Sickness and invalid benefit levels were at record highs and the DPB levels were not far off flat-lining. Only unemployment benefit levels were "at record lows". Yet the welfare reforms, as recommended by the WWG, barely touch on the unemployment benefit.

The main determinant of beneficiary numbers is a functioning economy where jobs are available – and that’s something for which Key takes no responsibility whatsoever. Instead, the government seems to be hellbent on making beneficiaries keep their side of the social contract – while taking no responsibility as managers of the economy, for failing to keep its side of the bargain.

In that respect, the government’s welfare reform rhetoric is as dishonest as the timeframe that Key chose to introduce the topic at yesterday’s press conference. In 1970, Key twice pointed out, only 2% of the working age population were on benefits, while 13% were on benefits today. Conclusion: the system is making it too easy for people to get on, and stay on benefits. No concession that he is measuring those beneficiary numbers at the employment trough of the worst global recession since the 1930s, and in the wake of one of New Zealand’s worst natural disasters.

The main determinant of beneficiary numbers can not be a "functioning economy". If that was the case, after the economic boom under Labour, there wouldn't have been ten percent of the working age population dependent. There would have been 2 or 3 maybe.

The system is making it to "too easy for people to get on, and stay on benefits" regardless of the state of the economy.

Were things really as wonderful 41 years ago as he was intimating? Back in the 1970 that he carefully chose for comparison, there was no Domestic Purposes Benefit at all. Is Mr Moderate saying that the DPB has been a mistake?

Of course it has been a mistake. Any benefit that has 40 percent of all Maori women aged between 20 and 30 dependent on the state is a drastic error of policy.

The Nat's "welfare crackdown" looks timid

Most journalists do not understand the statistics surrounding benefits. Here is an example of more mis-reporting and emotionalism on welfare;

The Prime Minister says the Government will forge ahead with some of the Welfare Working Group's recommendations, aimed at pushing 100,000 beneficiaries into work within a decade.

The target is to have 100,000 fewer people on benefits in 10 years. The pool of beneficiaries is far from static. People are constantly flowing in and out of it. 1/ The target would also include discouraging people from going onto benefits 2/ Many people leave a benefit for reasons other than to go to a paid job so 3/ the target does not rest on ' pushing' 100,000 people into work.

That is why, by the way, the target is far too low. Only a few years back, early 2008, there were 80,000 fewer people on benefits but the deeply entrenched dependency remained. Reform has to focus sharply on the long-term, inter-generational group.

The only recommendation he ruled out immediately yesterday was for solo mothers who had another child while on the benefit to return to work when that child was 14 weeks old.

But he would not rule out setting another age for that to happen - indicating the Government could be considering the group's second option of a return to work when the child was 1.

There is an obvious reason I don't need to spell out why one year is too long if a beneficiary is in the habit of producing babies to avoid work.

Work-test at the earliest opportunity. Then the disincentive to add children is strongest. 14 weeks was picked because it falls in line with what most working parents face. 14 weeks paid parental leave and then a return to work or make their own arrangements. If work and childcare is available why should sole parents be any different?

He said significant reform of the system would be steered by a group of high-ranked ministers and the proposed reforms set out before the election.

I am more hopeful about that statement only because it indicates that Key understands he will need a group to push through reforms. One person alone will have a great deal of difficulty dealing with the opposition (remember what happened to Katherine Rich). What opposition?

Auckland Poverty Action Group spokeswoman Sue Bradford said the line-up of high-powered ministers charged with the reforms showed National planned significant change.

"They are clearly going to do a 'beneficiaries and bludgers' dog-whistle campaign. And we will fight them on it the whole way. We have to because we can't afford to have those recommendations in place." She said it amounted to semi-privatisation of the welfare system and would worsen the plight of children who were already struggling.

The Welfare Justice Group is a collection of many named and unnamed welfare advocates who will pull out all stops to turn the public against reforms. When churches and so-called child welfare advocates start crying foul the impact cannot be under-estimated. They think they are well-motivated. They think they have God on their side. But their short-term easy remedies for reducing the poverty of beneficiaries will only aggravate the problem of welfare dependence further. Their's is the recipe we have been following for four decades.

The Budget set aside $40 million for the reforms, likely to be the system's largest shakeup since it began in 1938.

Dear me. Already spending money to save money? Looks like government business as usual. Oh, I suppose I could go along with a massive media campaign to tell New Zealanders that there will be no more DPB from April 1, 2012. Could you live with that?

Extreme - yes

This word extreme is a strange one. On the one hand New Zealanders seem to embrace the idea of extreme activities or extreme sports or extreme fun. Extreme branding brings adventure tourists to our shores. Imagine what bland bungying, safe snowboarding, moderate mountain climbing, or pedestrian paragliding would do for us.

Yet when it comes to politics the connotations are negative.

Perhaps instead of fruitlessly trying to point out that Don Brash' ideas are NOT extreme it would be better to go with it. Yes. ACT the extreme party. You want extremism in your sport, in your leisure time, why not in your real life? Too chicken to try it?

Just what this country needs. A bloody good dose of extremism. The yellow bellies can stick to National or Labour. All those types who are scared of their own shadow, the risk aversionists, the can't-even-hold-a-candle-to-a-hobbit mob. Shame on them.

Brash is the choice for rugged individualists - now a rare breed in dire need of revival.

Is Maori secularism ever offered?

I suppose you and I will be paying for this:

A new parenting programme targeted at Maori tells them they are inherently loving and nurturing caregivers and family violence has arisen only because of European missionaries.

Whatever.

The pivotal point is should the way people behave be based on reason or faith? Or perhaps a mix of both?

"Maori people want to see their own culture reflected in programmes. This is uniquely Maori and is based on our history and legends. It gives us a whole lot of values that possibly many of us didn't realise we had."

Plans are under way for Plunket to pilot the programme in Hamilton. The report researched the treatment of children using oral histories, poems, and European observations.

It traced Maori history from the separation of Ranginui the Sky Father and Papatuanuku the Earth Mother through to early Europeans' reports of children's relationships with whanau.

Mythology has long been used by all cultures to teach and provide meaning. This practice seems to particularly appeal to Maori. Or is that just the imression we get?


Surely Maori secularism also exists? But I remember a recent post where I referred to the Maori all- or- nothing view, "the scared or the profane", acknowledged in a public service policy document. So is secularism only ever bad in Maori eyes?

My secularism is based on reason. I trust myself before I trust anything I can't see or hear evidence of. But I don't think I am lacking in some degree of spiritualism which I find in music, art and nature. And, when I think about it, my love for my children who are an essential part of my wholeness emotionally.

So why would I ever abuse or neglect them? My reason tells me to do so would be an act against myself.

Isn't that what troubled people need to understand? Forget all the extraneous stuff about "you are like this because aliens taught you to be a hundred years ago."

You are in control. It's your life and you own it. The change has to come from within the individual. Otherwise when it all goes pear-shaped the out is to go on blaming someone else.

Maori culture, as described in this article, is positive. But its absence leaves a vacuum. Maori need to work on filling that vacuum with some grounded, here and now, cause and effect, education.

Who are the real enemies?

Labour's post-conference pitiable policy announcements have depressed me.

What will it take to break the accursed connection between keeping people expectantly dependent, one way or the other, and political power-grab?

I deplore the contemporary 'victimhood' society but hell, we are all most certainly victims of one particular group. Politicians. Our franchise makes us victims of their boring bribery. Yes, they aren't even imaginative in their cajolery any more. The bribes are recycled and renamed; bribes that are enabled by forced wealth redistribution which all must submit to or face the legal might of the state.

But here is the very worst aspect of this despicable process.

The politicians turn people against people. Groups against groups; individuals against individuals. They do it knowingly and purposefully by manipulating one of the most powerful human emotions - jealousy - and its companion - resentment.

So, conveniently for the politicians, we start hating each other instead of hating them. But why? Especially when the abhorrence results from the leftists stirring loathing of the so-called 'rich'. After all, Labour and Green politicians are well within their own prescribed boundaries for qualifying as 'rich pricks'.

But low income people are too busy glowering about the unfairness of farmers supposedly not paying tax, to recall that politicians don't risk anything or produce anything. Politicians don't have incomes subject to the cruel vagaries of the weather. They aren't subject to the harsh physical realities of farming. Or the see-sawing economy.

Unbelievably politicians are even accorded recognition and kudos by dependent voters for revealing just who isn't pulling their weight. Like the employers. The very people who provide us with jobs and livelihoods. They are the greedy bastards, they say. Not us politicians, consumed by playing you off against each other to ensure our continued comfortable circumstances and regular ego massages.

And don't tell me National didn't bribe voters in the latest budget. Of course they did. They continued the handouts and hampers of various goodies despite their patent lack of affordability.

We are played for fools. We delegate our responsibilities gladly and take perverse pleasure in the battles that result. The battles that the biggest bandits, politicians, orchestrate through the most cynical play on human nature - evocation of the politics of envy.

Are we really so devoid of self-respect, so pathetic, as to keep submitting to this embittering exploitation? Would we let others in positions of relative power blatantly play us off against each other for their own gain? Isn't such an utter milking the hallmark of dysfunctionalism?

My faith in democracy is vanquished. I am squashed beneath the heavy abeyance of individual autonomy. I am surrounded by unseeing fools. And worst of all I don't know how to end this post.

An exhortation to rise up and throw off the shackles of dependence? Bah. All we are seeing around the developed world is revolt against the loss of entitlements.

The only people who will read my post and empathise belong to a minority so small we cannot even obtain a piffling, paltry portion of parliamentary presence. Let alone power. And how distasteful. To need to join the game to have the merest chance of scuppering it.

Bad news, good news - take your pick

The bad news is that the number of jobs continues to fall. The good news is at a slower rate.

“What we are seeing in the March 2010 year is a slowing of the recession’s effect on the labour market in New Zealand. Jobs have continued to decrease, but at a slower rate than in previous quarters, and more people are now moving between employers," project manager of employment and education statistics, Guido Stark, said.

The bad news is notifications of child abuse continues to rise. The good news is, as a percentage, fewer need investigating.

"CYF figures show that between 2003-04 and 2009-10, the number of notifications nationally increased by 200 percent from 40,939 to 124,921."

"But in the same period the amount of notifications requiring further action has increased by just 56 percent. In Hawke's Bay the figures are even better. Notification jumped 236 percent but the number requiring further action increased by just 10 percent." Russell Wills, new Children's Commissioner.

The bad news is the Horizon Poll has NZ First at over seven percent.The good news is ACT polled over 5 percent.

Act continues to poll over the vital 5% threshold needed to win seats in Parliament if it does not retain the Epsom electorate. It has 5.1%, compared with 5.3% on May 14.

Or we can flip it the other way.

The good news is Labour's new ingenious policy of a minimum wage puts extra costs on employers. The bad news is employer pass them on through price rises.

Minimum wage rise would put costs onto employers rather than taxpayers

"Recent discussions about Labour's plans to increase the minimum wage seem to have missed an important point" Says Kay Brereton of the Wellington People's Centre.

The good news is the number of criminal sentences and orders being served has dropped. The bad news is the prison population continues to grow.

Bits and pieces

Bits and pieces this morning.

The Welfare State We're In looks at welfare in Italy:

In Italy, pensions are the biggest item. Social assistance or tax-fund benefits for the unemployed, lone mothers, children etc are very small compared to the UK. Low benefits for lone parents surely has had a major influence in the very low rate of lone parenting. (There are Catholic countries which have far higher rates.) In fact a professor told me, “The lone mothers are wealthy”. He did not mean they get high benefits. Only wealthy women can afford to be lone mothers.

NCPA covers off the problem with social entitlements:

Freedom and entitlement are largely two different paradigms to think about the fundamentals of economic development. Depending on the balance between free choices and more coerced decisions, individual opportunities to learn, own, work, save, invest, trade, protect and so forth could vary greatly across countries and over time, says Jean-Pierre Chauffour, lead economist in the International Trade Department at the World Bank...For developed countries, they suggest that prioritizing economic freedom over social entitlements could be an effective way to reform the welfare state and make it more sustainable and equitable in the long run.

Don Brash sticks to economic matters addressing a Federated Farmers meeting in Southland. Good. Less pleased to see latest polling but its very early days.

Mr Brash criticised the National Government for not having the courage or willingness to repeal some of the previous Labour government's "dopier policies", such as interest-free student loans and KiwiSaver subsidies. They did not help from a government policy point of view and required more overseas borrowing to afford the schemes.

If ACT gained power or influence, it would aim to cut out "sillier programmes" that Labour had introduced, he said.

The National Government might not have created the economic mess the country was in, but it failed to draw it back. It should not have taken three budgets to introduce a more austere one when the global financial crisis was developing, Mr Brash said.

Many of ACT's policies were what National had been promoting at the previous election.

And Tariana Turia goes all flowery launching the WE CARE SOCIAL AWARENESS campaign. What a lot of bollocks.

Some of you in this room may be gardeners. For those who are not, let me share with you a little secret.

There is no such thing as a green thumb.

There are gardeners who care – whose gardens reflect the quality of care they are exposed to. That care might extend to some pretty unorthodox approaches – gardening under moonlight; with mood music; with teabags or potato peelings as fertiliser….but whatever it is, the quality of care is immediately observable by the vibrancy and the strength of the plants.

Today we are talking about a different garden – the garden of humanity.

It isn't so much what she says that I object to but that government is all over the issue and arena of caring. It is their interference that breaks down the natural networks that provide care. Which takes me back to where I started, with a further quote from James Bartholemew about the Italian welfare system:

The Mediterranean system. This is centred around the ideal of the family as the first resort for welfare. Children and the elderly are considered firstly as the responsibility of the family. The state’s role is only to assist the family in doing this task.

Update on Working For Families (WFF)

Reading Helen Kelly in the DomPost this morning it struck me that many people do not fundamentally understand what WFF consists of. Kelly describes it as "effectively a tax cut aimed at those who need it most."

The $2.7 billion WFF bill is mostly made up of family tax credits to beneficiaries with children. If a family pays no tax they cannot receive a cut. Family tax credits used to be more accurately called Family Support. But when they started being paid to higher income workers the named was changed.

Here are some facts from Treasury:

In 2006, $1.5 billion of WFF tax credits were paid out to 159,000 people. By 2009, this had risen to $2.7 billion paid out to 419,200 people.

In 2006 the vast majority of recipients were parents on a welfare benefit. There are more now than there were in 2006.

To buy votes (and to be fair, try and entice more beneficiaries into work with the In Work tax credit) Labour introduced WFF.

National is not prepared to seriously risk fickle votes so has tinkered with various thresholds and payments slightly. Then trumpeted that they are saving almost half a billion.

Like most touted government savings they are the difference between forecasts if they do and forecasts if they don't and calculated over years, not annually. Back to Treasury:

These changes are expected to generate $448 million of savings over the four years to 2014/15. As a result, the total cost of WFF will reduce from $2.8 billion in 2011/12 to $2.6 billion in 2014/15.

Thoroughly underwhelming. I would put money on it that if no further cutbacks or complete repeal of WFF is made, by 2014/15 the forecast figure of $2.6 billion will be well under actual spending.

Kiwis choose to be poor

So Sir Paul Callaghan makes a point from the view of scientist. But there is another aspect to this statement which is just as worthy of debate.

When I heard that Newt Gingrich was going to run for the US presidency the first thought that jumped into my head was a quote about how to avoid poverty. As it turns out it wasn't attributable to Gingrich but exactly the sort of thing he might say.

It comes apparently from the Economist but certainly that is not where I first came across it:

"An American's chance of staying poor is less than 1/2 percent if he or she does the following three things: (a) completes high school; (b) gets and stays married; (c) stays employed, even if initially only at the minimum wage. Americans who fail these three requirements have an up-to-80 times greater chance of staying for a long time below the official poverty line, and breeding sad generations there."

But I think there is another version that includes children somewhere. Ah, yes. Walter Williams' rules for avoiding poverty:

* Graduate high school
* Get married before you have children
* If you get married, stay married
* Get a job, any job. A minimum wage job is a stepping stone
* Avoid engaging in criminal behavior

Sounds a bit fusty?

Even acquiring some NCEA credits and sticking with a de facto partner would probably boost the chances of avoiding poverty significantly.

But thousands fail to meet even those conditions. Maori in particular. The education levels of people on the DPB for instance are woeful. Let me look them up.

Sole Parenting in New Zealand: Understanding sub-groups of sole parents receiving main benefits

Educationl attainments for sole parents reistered as jobseekers December 2005

None 48
School qualifications 44
Post-school qualification 6
Unknown 2

So returning to Sir Paul:

Kiwis are poor because they choose to be, says Sir Paul Callaghan, one of the country's top scientists.

This assertion was part of a series of attacks he has directed at the Government's plans to develop the economy.

If the government stopped "planning" so much, the economy and the lives of people perceived as needing their assistance, NZ would be richer for it.

More obvious alarm from National supporters

Here's a letter I sent earlier this week to the DomPost. Hardly a surprise it went unprinted as I was criticising one of their columnists. Sorry there is no link to Long's column but the gist of it is covered in the letter:

I read with amusement columnist Richard Long's pseudo letter to Don Brash in the name of John Key, (Dominion Post Tuesday, May 17.) In it he lays out Key's superior conciliatory credentials regarding race relations. Thus Long joins other National cheerleaders in attempting to warn disaffected National voters away from Brash.

Why the amusement? In a 2005 North & South Warwick Roger article about the rising popularity of then National leader Dr Brash, Richard Long, his chief-of-staff at the time, was described as "gleeful at all the pre-publicity" Brashs' Orewa speech was receiving.

Seems the expedient Mr Long is happy to change tune to suit whereas Brash has been consistent in his criticism of government policies since his days as Reserve Bank Governor.