Husbands and Wives

I received the following press release from my friend Bob McCoskrie:

‘Husband’ and ‘Wife’ To Be Removed From Family Laws

Family First NZ says the Select Committee report on the same-sex marriage bill confirms that the terms ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ will be removed from 16 pieces of legislation as it seeks to redefines marriage.

I sent this quick e-mail:

This pisses me off. I have always held the terms wife and husband dear. I don't refer to my husband as my partner because  it's too ambiguous.

So what is left after husband and wife, 'marriage partner'? You know that I support same-sex marriage but this is an encroachment on my 'culture'.

What has the response been like to this revelation?

Update: Kiwiblog has a post clarifying the situation. "So no the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill does not remove the term “husband and wife” from the law books. It doesn’t remove it from the Marriage Act. It doesn’t introduce the term spouse into the law as a replacement – the term is already used in 136 Acts of Parliament. This issue is a red herring."

Truth column Feb 7-13

The Truth site catching up quickly now. This was my column for Waitangi Day:

In 1987 I left New Zealand. Returning in 1992 two new things struck me: Japanese imports and The Treaty of Waitangi. Asked at a petrol station if my borrowed car was a Japanese import, I drew a blank. Apparently it was. Once alerted, I started seeing cheap imports everywhere.
Next, a friend asked what I knew about the Treaty Principles. The what? 

More

No work-tests for almost two thirds of beneficiaries

The following is an exchange during parliament's question time yesterday:

6. Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (National—Maungakiekie) to the Minister for Social
Development: What impact have the Government’s welfare reforms had to date?
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development): The Government’s welfare reforms are seeing real gains for New Zealanders. Future Focus, implemented in September 2012 as a precursor to our current major reforms, introduced clear obligations and greater fairness to the benefit system. Since Future Focus started, more than 171,000 benefits have been cancelled because people found work, which is a good result in spite of a tough local market and a global economic recession. Over the last 2 years benefit numbers are now reducing by 165 net every week, on average, which equates to about 34 people every working day.
Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: What changes has she seen as a result of the annual reapplication requirement?
Hon PAULA BENNETT: One simple policy change requiring unemployment beneficiaries to reapply if they remain on the benefit after a year has seen more than 21,400 people come off that benefit, with savings of more than $74 million to the taxpayer.
Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: What results have there been to date by increasing expectations and obligations for those receiving benefits?
Hon PAULA BENNETT: Prior to National’s Future Focus changes, 79 percent of beneficiaries had no work-test obligations at all. Because of Future Focus, it is now around 64 percent and will reduce further with the changes coming through in the second welfare bill. There is no doubt at all that expectations mean that we see better results for people.

On current numbers that's 217,000 working-age people with no obligation to become self-supporting.

At least the percentage is reducing.

Quick international comparison

Statistics NZ has just issued this handy table. NZ isn't top or bottom in any category except % population under 15 years old. Ours is highest (due to the Polynesian population):

International comparisons with our top five visitor source countries

Truth column Jan 17-23

Truth's site is coming together. Here's my column from Jan 17-23. Bit out-of-date now but the topic is perennial:

A friend texted to tell me her partner was down at the local cop shop. Making enquiries about an unrelated matter, police had smelt dope and entered his flat demanding he reveal what he had. Was that legal, she asked? Yes, I responded.

More

Ministry of Men's Affairs

A press release about the topic of the day, prosecuting beneficiary partners, has appeared from the MINISTRY OF MEN’S AFFAIRS, MINITATANGA MO NGA TANE

 This proposed legislation reaches a new low in the financial exploitation of men and also represents a giant backward step for women to a past patriarchal era in which men were held legally responsible for their spouses’ behaviour.

 A Domestic Purposes Benefit (DPB) fraudster commits an offence by signing a legal document affirming (s)he is not in a marriage-type relationship. The partner committed no offence but Chester Burrows wants to make the partner pay for the beneficiary’s offending even if that partner in no way encouraged it. Burrows’ law will only apply to the partners of DPB and ‘Sole Parent Support’ fraudsters not to other types of benefit fraud, and his public statements have made it clear this distinction is based on the gender of the beneficiaries concerned. The intention of the law is to make men pay for female offending.

 

Anyone know who's behind this group?

RNZ bias

If you ever wanted confirmation that Radio NZ, or Kathryn Ryan at least, is utterly biased listen to the difference in her treatment of the interviewed lawyer compared to the associate Minister for Social Development Chester Borrows here.

Prosecuting beneficiary partners

National's new law that will see partner's of beneficiaries prosecuted is a good step forward.

Most of the currently prosecuted fraud - after claiming while employed - is claiming the DPB while living in a marriage-type relationship.

Most DPB claimants are women so this change generally affects men though other situations will occur. Same-sex partnerships are now recognised in  the Social Security Act so a lesbian partner could also be prosecuted. And obviously the main beneficiary might be male.  Given there is provision for couples to live together and claim a benefit in their own right - albeit at a reduced rate - the government has every right to start cracking down on people who break the rules. Both of them.

Also this move should reduce the vulnerability that having a secure income and home creates for DPB recipients - especially young, low esteem, malleable types who are all too willing to let a male sponge off her.

It's no surprise that the Maori Party aren't supportive. It's my belief that this sort of living arrangement whereby one half of the couple brings in the DPB and the other has no income, draws a benefit or works, is more common amongst Maori. It might not reflect intent to defraud necessarily. But it does reflect more transient, haphazard living.

In any case there are probably thousands of people who already know their living arrangements are not legit (some because a protection order also forbids them from living under the same roof.) Now it's a matter of changed dynamics as the blame and punishment spreads.

Will it make a difference? These people - mainly men - are risk-takers anyway. They probably have unpaid fines, other debt, previous convictions, child support debt, are possibly unemployable, possibly ex-prisoners, gang members, drug dealers. Is the threat of a $5,000 fine or prison going to change this particular behaviour? I doubt it.

But it does give the female another tool though, if she wants shot of the guy. Perhaps National should go a step further and offer an amnesty to the claiming partner if the other refuses to move out during the period following the new law implementation.

Update: Something was niggling at the back of mind about the business of actually defining someone as a partner. I had forgotten that Work and Income must demonstrate that the beneficiary is in a relationship with the required "emotional commitment" and "financial interdependence" for the other person to be defined as a de facto partner.

"...when considering if a client is in a relationship and the client indicates they are a victim of domestic violence, extra care must be taken when determining if the required level of emotional commitment is present." Here we go again with bad incentives. If he hits her he won't be a 'partner' and he won't go to prison or pay a fine. Good lord. What a mess the benefit system is.

Justice and injustice

Just finished reading Liberty Scott's post featuring a case of carping, chronic entitlitis when I came across this:

Liberty means the security given to each man that, if he employs his energies to sustain the struggle on behalf of himself and those he cares for, he shall dispose of the product exclusively as he chooses. It is impossible to know whence any definition or criterion of justice can be derived, if it is not deduced from this view of things; or if it is not the definition of justice that each shall enjoy the fruit of his own labor and self-denial, and of injustice that the idle and the industrious, the self-indulgent and the self-denying, shall share equally in the product.
 

- William Graham Sumner, "Socialism" [1880s]

...and so it came to pass and this is what it looks like.

Child support and teen Dads

I'm writing a belated post about this article from Sunday because there seems to be some confusion over liability.

One rogue 19-year-old is a liable father to 13 kids to different mums.
A source has confirmed the man is named on the birth certificates of 13 children, and is liable to pay child support for them.
Figures released by the Inland Revenue Department show 943 teenage fathers were liable to pay child support at the end of last year. Some were just 15 years old, and already liable for two children.

If this liable teenage father does exist he will be assessed for 13 x $16.30 weekly, the minimum, or $$211.90 in total. With that kind of liability going on for the next 18 plus years he may well have skipped the country and become one of the many the Australian government are now trying to chase - or was that student loans?

In any discussion about the merits or otherwise of child support I inevitably come back to the DPB.

Couples will always split or divorce and courts have always ordered maintenance be paid by the father (or occasionally) mother of any dependent children. That's fair. That morphed into today's child support (around 1991-2). Some couples negotiate the payment privately. Some choose to involve the state and subsequently, there is a good deal of argument over whether the current assessment formula is fair.

But for those fathers supporting a child being raised on the DPB from birth, fathers who were never in an ongoing relationship with the mother; who were never told about the pregnancy, had no opportunity to discuss what to do about it; who may have been knowingly used to provide a child/meal ticket - I am very uncomfortable about their liability. Yes, they are responsible to a point but if the DPB didn't exist, the mothers wouldn't have been using them or making the decision which leads to their 18 year liability.  Let's put it another way. A female finds herself pregnant. She knows if she has the child she will get an income equivalent to the minimum age and a home. She can get it from the state on the condition (and even this is easy enough to get around) she names the father so he can pay some probably pathetic amount to the taxpayer. And it usually is a trifling amount because of the socio-economic group these children are generally produced from.

Get rid of this gaming and a good deal of the child support problems disappear.

(BTW I have no idea why, according to the article, "welfare workers were shocked". There are always a few thousand teenagers on the DPB at any given. It's not surprising at least some of the fathers of those children would be teen Dads. Throw in another known fact - male Sole-Maori identifiers are three and a half times more likely to have a partner pregnant by age twenty than non Maori - and none of this is surprising).

DPB trivia

Around 10,000 sole parents on the DPB have had children to more than one child-support paying partner. (There will be more who have failed to name the father).

This piece of information was contained in an answer to a written question from Jacinda Ardern to the Minister of Revenue.

Wonder why she kept it quiet?

The current minimum child support payment is $16.30 - a mere 3 percent of a typical weekly payment to a single parent with two children living in Auckland.

And the left don't even want that tiny amount to go towards offsetting the DPB bill.

Sally Army report and the Living Wage campaign

It's hardly surprising that the Salvation Army Report, She'll  Be Right, got little media coverage. There's nothing particularly remarkable about the statistics, only the spin that Major Campbell Roberts puts on them. Every year he says something in his introduction that demonstrates his socialist bent. Last year he said the Prime Minister had no moral authority for the welfare reforms (despite having been elected on an overt agenda to overhaul the benefit system). This year Roberts writes:

"...the solutions to our challenges around child poverty, youth employment and housing—The Salvation Amy considers it’s naïve to believe and dishonest to suggest that these solutions do not require more tax dollars. The source of these extra tax dollars is, of course, a problem particularly considering the global economic situation. In our view the need for a society that is just and gives every citizen the right to participate economically and socially is so important, that ways must be found to find this additional tax revenue."

As Michael Laws commented yesterday, when did the Sallies become communist?

And in the related matter of a living wage, at last Bill English is pointing out that many people have their minimum wage topped up with various forms of government assistance.

Here's the problem for the living wage campaigners. If a worker receives a higher wage, he will lose his means-tested government assistance. He'll quite probably be no better off.

I'm quite happy for the employer to pay more so the tax payer pays less. It's is the employer that benefits from the labour purchased. But the bottom line is, the worker is no better off. And isn't improving worker well-being and prosperity the whole aim of this campaign?

Cycling between benefit and prison

There are people who cycle between benefit and prison. It's highly likely that there's significant overlap between the numbers below.

I've just got the data for 2011.

Benefit ceased for reason of 'in prison' numbered 4,304
Benefit granted for reason of 'released from prison' numbered 3,815

The numbers in 2009 were respectively 4,192 and 3,496
2008 - 3,050 and 3,144
2007 - 2,860 and 3,171
2001 - 3,563 and 4,467

There's a trend there. Interesting. Under a Labour government more people were granted a benefit on release than had a benefit stopped on incarceration. Under a National government, that has reversed.

What can be said for certain is that more people on benefits are going to prison. Of course, it's still only a tiny fraction of the beneficiary population.

But it's quite a large fraction of the prison population.

Cop-out by Corrections

Here's a classic piece of public service obfuscation contained in Corrections latest Annual Report 2011/12:

 "The profile of the prison population also provides challenges. Maori continue to be over-represented in our prisons, reflecting the high proportion of Maori population in the crime-prone age range."

The highest crime-prone age group is 20-24.

8 percent of the total male Maori population is 20-24.

7 percent of the total male non-Maori population is 20-24.

Of the crime-prone 20-24 year-old  age group Maori represent only 17 percent.

What a cop-out.

Ethnicity of prison population at September 2012:

Footnote. By coincidence, searching for something else, I just came across the following statement in the 1939 NZ Yearbook:

"The total number of Maoris convicted and sentenced in the Supreme Court during the last five years is only 216, indicating that serious crime amongst the Native race is far from prevalent."

Homeless with $70K

This guy's problem isn't really unemployment - it's mental illness.

If he was able to think straight he'd have worked out that he could buy a small property in rural NZ, claim more in dole payments as a result, and get the taxpayer to pay his mortgage through the accommodation supplement. By 65 it'd be paid off and he'd be collecting Super. Having learned to live off the smell of an oily rag he'd then be able to save and travel on his Super as well as keep his house as his nest egg for "a rainy day."

May as well go down that track because the way he looks after himself - or fails to - he's not going to work again.

"Inequality: A New Zealand Crisis"

A new book about NZ's rising inequality is due to be published in May this year. It's by Wellington journalist Max Rashbrooke. He wrote an article for an international project known as Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI) which is here. Gives you an idea of how the book will pan out.

In New Zealand, a widening gap between the rich and the rest threatens many of the country's greatest strengths, writes Max Rashbrooke, who argues for a new settlement of welfare...

New Zealand's recent history has been marked by an increasingly punitive approach towards beneficiaries, despite evidence of their strong work ethic and desire to fill jobs if they are available.

A more humane – and ultimately more productive – approach would be to invest in them as well, by increasing benefits to enable them to participate better in society, and by matching that with greater investment in personalised retraining and job placement programmes, in order to tackle the low skills that prevent many from rejoining the workforce. This could be funded by higher – and thus fairer – taxes on those who have done well while enjoying the benefits of our common investment in roads, healthcare, education and other public services.

(Hat-tip Gordon Campbell)

Beneficiary discrimination

I'm certain beneficiaries are discriminated against. But it isn't usually the state doing the discriminating because the law makes that almost impossible. It's employers, landlords, retailers, service providers etc discriminating.

But here's another angle to consider. Aren't beneficiaries sometimes discriminated in favour of?

Landlords who prioritise guaranteed rent payments may prefer someone receiving a rent subsidy every week. A secondhand goods dealer may prefer a beneficiary buyer who qualifies for a WINZ grant. A youth employer may prefer a young candidate who has been through one of Work and Income's training courses or mentored by a contracted organisation.

It's conceivable that some employers may even prefer to employ someone on a benefit because of their particular type of social conscience eg the beneficiary needs a job more than the already employed applicant.

Some beneficiaries have been able to jump public waiting lists for surgery to enable them to regain capacity to work. Beneficiaries with children will take priority on Housing NZ waiting lists.

And here's an uncomfortable but feasible stretch. Female beneficiaries in the market for a partner might find potential mates discriminate in their favour because they have a secure income and home (after a fashion).

There's always more ways to look at circumstances than the one stuck under your nose by a self-interested party.

ACT Conference 2013

I was sent a a book of columns by Jamie Whyte, who is guest speaker at ACT's conference in a couple of weeks. The first few columns (all I've read so far) are very entertaining. For instance, in The Good Life With David Cameron, published in the Wall St Journal, he questions the idea of using divorce statistics as a factor in the calculation of Gross National Happiness (the newfangled alternative to GDP) when his own divorce contributed to his  personal happiness. Ultimately, what business does government have trying to measure such things anyway? Along with economist Eric Crampton of the unusually sane Offsetting Behaviour blog, two very apt speakers for an ACT Conference:

Media Advisory

ACT’s Line of Speakers to the Annual Conference on Saturday 23 February at Gibbs Farm, Kaukapakapa

Keynote addresses:

Jamie Whyte - Head of Research and Publishing at the management consultancy firm Oliver Wyman, a fellow of the Institute of Economic Affairs and a senior fellow of the Adam Smith Institute.

Mr Whyte will speak at 12.05pm

Hon John Banks - Leader - ACT New Zealand,

Mr Banks’ Leader’s address is at 2.15pm

Hon John Boscawen - Incoming ACT President, Former ACT MP and Minister of Consumer Affairs

Mr Boscawen’s Presidential address is at 12.40pm


Other speakers:

Alan Gibbs - Businessman, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist
Cameron Brewer - Auckland Council member, Publicist
Greg Fleming - CEO, Maxim Institute
Hon Rodney Hide - Former ACT Leader, Economist and Founding Chairman of ACT
Catherine Isaac - Chair of the Partnership Schools / Kura Hourua Working Group
Dr Eric Crampton - Senior Economics Lecturer, Canterbury University

....any enquiries should go to info@act.org.nz. Or 09 523 0470.Lunch is provided in the rego price and there will be a shuttle leaving Newmarket to the Farm and return also. That will save people having to drive there if they don’t want to do that.

'Life' is a lie

Pardon my naivety but 'life' imprisonment sounds like a very long sentence. One that should encompass the remainder of one's life.

Gwenda Sloane has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Michelle Hoffman-Tamm in Rotorua last November.
The judge has also imposed a minimum non-parole period of 17 years.

Many women could fit 5 such  'lives' into their natural term of existence.

AAAP on contraception for beneficiaries

The Auckland Action Against Poverty group is all mouth and ... no trousers:

Low MSD uptake figures confirm that the contraception programme instigated as part of National’s welfare reforms is all about stigmatising woman on benefits, rather than any genuine kind of support, says Auckland Action Against Poverty spokesperson Sarah Thompson.
“This policy is simply another weapon in the war against women on benefits, implemented as a way of garnering the beneficiary bashing vote in time for the next election.
“It's a deep irony that the outright misogyny of recent welfare reforms, including this one, has been lead by two women- Paula Bennett and Paula Rebstock.

Can we also have a companion press release calling the offer of free vasectomies to male beneficiaries "war against men on benefits" and "misandry"?

“This blaming and shaming tactic can be seen in other proposed policies which attempt to paint beneficiaries as drug users and criminals who don't care for their children."

Thousands of beneficiaries are drug users and criminals. Whether they care for their children, who knows. And whether their idea of 'care' is the same as my idea of care is another point to ponder.

Is inequality growing?

Depends over which period you measure it.
 

Treasury fudges numbers to hide growing inequality

Published: February 1, 2013

The Greens are complaining that Treasury is misleading us about NZ's comparative inequality rating, intimating it is behaving like a "right wing think tank" - dishonestly they say.

(I've commented - in moderation currently - to the effect that recent trends show inequality reducing in NZ and linking to my sources)

NZ First endorses long term dependency on DPB

It's never been clear to me where NZ First stands on the DPB.  Here's an indication:

NZ First spokeswoman for social policy and welfare Asenati Lole-Taylor said ... "I'm one of those people who just don't accept that people can become statistics on the welfare system, knowing full well that they're capable of working. I object to the idea of the welfare system being seen as an easy way of accessing money... Anyone who's on a benefit for more than 15 years, who is not a solo mother with young kids ... it's just madness."

International Housing affordability - NZ rates a mention

I found the following from NCPA fascinating, especially that the US has the best housing affordability, so have cut and paste it for your interest:

The 9th Annual Demographia Housing Affordability Survey for New Geography rates housing markets based on the median multiple, which is median house price divided by pre-tax median household income. Affordable housing markets have a median multiple of 3.0, while severely unaffordable housing markets have a median multiple of 5.1 or over, says Wendell Cox, an adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis and principal of Demographia, a public policy firm located in St. Louis.

• Hong Kong, Vancouver, Sydney, San Jose, San Francisco and London were the least affordable housing markets of the 337 metropolitan markets analyzed in the study. Each had a median multiple close to 8.0 or above.
• Detroit, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Rochester and St. Louis were the most affordable housing markets in the study. Each had a median multiple close to 2.0.

Of all the nations in the world, the United States has the most affordable or moderately unaffordable markets. The United States had an overall median multiple of 3.2, compared with 5.1 for the United Kingdom, 3.6 for Ireland, 13.5 for Hong Kong and 4.7 for Canada.

• Overall trends in the nine years the study has been conducted by the Performance Urban Planning organization indicate that housing affordability has risen most in the United States and Ireland.
• Australia and New Zealand have the most unaffordable major markets that have not shown any sign of improvement. Every major market has been severely unaffordable in every single year.

Empirical evidence suggests that urban containment policies, particularly urban growth boundaries, raise the price of housing relative to income. Cox notes that urban planning results in reduced standards of living, increasing poverty rates and lower discretionary income.
Cox says that urban policy needs to be reset. To make housing more affordable, cities and nations need to shift away from designing urban areas and instead let free market principles allocate land efficiently. With major demographic shifts underway in most nations, access to affordable housing will play a large role in the duration and quality of life of each nation's people.


Source: Wendell Cox, "Demographic and Economic Challenges: The 9th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey," New Geography, January 21, 2013.

Banks' response to PM's 2013 opener

This isn't a bad message - shame about the messenger.

What would your response have been as the single ACT MP holding a ministerial position?

In three sentences, mine:

Direction passable.

Speed not.

Acceleration barely discernible.

Child sponsorship in New Zealand

Variety has started up a scheme for New Zealanders to sponsor a New Zealand child. The money involved is the same as international sponsorship - $35 monthly.

I'm not going to write in criticism of the scheme. It's charitable and voluntary. Whether the need being met could be sorted differently, or whether meeting the need will just grow more of it are issues for consideration. But assuming donors have thought through these it's their prerogative to give.

But this is what I want to point out.

Variety chief executive Lorraine Taylor said donors could write to their sponsored child, receive regular updates about their health and wellbeing, and were provided with a breakdown at the end of the year detailing where their money went.

This is exactly why private charity trumps state aid. The charity has to be accountable, which in turn means the person receiving the donation has to be accountable. Real progress can be made.

So why not apply these principles to government assistance? Heavens no. Imagine the administrative costs, the invasion of privacy,  and the denial of human rights!

Imagine government having to report on the health and well-being of every individual child on a benefit. Some of the reports would be deeply disappointing and deeply disturbing. The donor would immediately withdraw or turn to a different charity with a better track record.

Oh but I forget. We are taxpayers, not willing donors. We must put up and shut up.


(Update. The Greens say, "We shouldn't need to sponsor kids in NZ". Their variety of caring and sharing must be monopolised by the state.)

Damien Grant on child poverty

Damien Grant has written a very unusual column in today's NZ Herald. I don't really follow the logic but was engaged nevertheless. Let's see if I can paraphrase, making some sense of it in the process.

First he says child poverty doesn't exist in NZ. Not by the UN definition. And the NZ definition is  a silly invention, based on the latest Children's Commissioner report.

Then he leaps to poor African children saying he'd rather spend any available money he had upgrading his cellphone than sending it to them. Hence he doesn't care and neither do many others (unless they are sponsoring a child to massage their own ego.)

So if we don't even care about real child poverty in Africa why should we care about invented child poverty in NZ?

Then he ends with an after thought about the office of the Children's Commissioner being abolished.

Um. Well, I agree with some of sentiments, especially the last. But comparing Africa and NZ doesn't work for me.

We've sponsored children for longer than we've had our own. But their photo is not on our $2,000 fridge. Frankly I find the idea of being some sort of phantom parent onerous and worry when World Vision sends cards for you to write a little message to your assigned child. Personally I think it's pointless but do it because I'm concerned that other sponsored children will get messages and photos, and mine will feel left out if they don't. The reason we sponsor World Vision is because we believe in the work they do in making communities self-sufficient or more self-sufficient.

But child poverty in NZ is an entirely different kettle of fish. Here we hand out fish instead of fishing rods. Trite. I know.

My views on how welfare has created child poverty have been well and truly canvassed so no more to say there. But instead of simply not caring we need to be saying to idiots like the Children's Commissioner, I care about the problem (neglect, under-achievement, avoidable ill-health for instance) but I don't give a fig for your diagnosis or solution.

I don't know where I fit into Damien Grant's world.

DomPost on drug test bill "unfairness"

The DomPost editorial this morning claims an "inherent unfairness in drug test bill."

It does so on the assumption that employers with jobs that don't have "obvious health and safety implications" may require a beneficiary to pass a test. Therefore beneficiaries will be subject to an "invasive and deeply personal procedure that most people in the workforce never have to face."

I think the writer is being over-imaginative.

The Ministry of Labour advises:

"If an employment agreement gives an employer the right to require employees to undergo drug testing then, provided the provision in the agreement is reasonable and does not contravene the protections contained in any relevant laws, it is more likely that the employer will be able to require drug testing. Similarly, it will be difficult for an employer to introduce drug testing if that right is not contained in the relevant employment agreement, unless the employee gives the employer informed consent."

Beneficiaries will be covered by the same laws.

Those opposed to welfare reform or National in general are trying very hard to find fault with the legislation aimed at stopping people using drugs to avoid work.

The other problem the new law addresses is the employer bias against beneficiaries who they consider, from experience, won't be drug free, so won't even interview them or list jobs with WINZ. In the past, when employers have drug-tested beneficiaries they carried the cost, pass or fail. Now the cost of a failed test will fall on the beneficiary.

But it should be made clear in the legislation that drug tests can only be required when they are standard practice for that employer.

Peters says Maori do better when all NZers treated equally

Winston Peters went to Ratana and had a go at the Mana and Maori Parties.

Speaking to Ratana elders at the Ratana celebrations today, the New Zealand First leader said it was unsightly and unseemly to watch the four locked in a power struggle while ordinary people are struggling with issues such unemployment, serious health problems, education and housing.

“They have the warped view that Maori will only progress if they have a separate system for everything whereas history shows the most progress has been made while all New Zealanders receive fair and equal treatment.”

I don't know if he has the evidence to substantiate this claim but I am sure it's true. And I'm even more sure it's the only way Maori will progress in the future.

$13 billion on working-age welfare

Here's a useful sort of chart which unusually includes WFF in working-age welfare spending. It's from a January 2013 draft Treasury paper:
 

Employ force if you have to

Hone Harawira has a bill due to go to select committee that legislates for the state to provide breakfasts in all decile 1 and 2 schools.

In their typically co-ordinated efforts the child poverty political activists all issued supportive media releases yesterday.

The Auckland Action Against Poverty had this to say:

“As the Bill recommends, the provision of this food shouldn't be left to charity but should be taxpayer funded - this will ensure greater access country-wide and decrease the dependance on the whims and follies of individual charities and businesses"

So charities and businesses have whims and follies, but government provides surety.

That's because government uses force. Government can force you and me to pay for school breakfasts whether we want to or not. Charities and businesses have to persuade us that it's a good idea.

And AAAP want to "decrease dependence" on willingness and increase dependence on force.

Note too the disdain with which AAAP regards the private sector. Whims (sudden fancies) and follies (foolish actions or ideas). Make no mistake, the child poverty activists are socialists and anti-capitalists through and through. If their bottom line was easing child poverty they'd be appreciating and applauding help wherever it came from.

Finally, by using children as the object of their forced redistributionist campaigns they make it extremely difficult for people to oppose them.

Goodbye Gareth

I'm not giving Gareth Morgan's latest publicity grasp any air. He has progressively pissed me off over the past couple of years with his steady transformation into a redistributionist, statist, sometimes nasty non-respecter of property or individual rights, smug know-it-all.

There is a better way to register my disapproval than writing about it.

This was a welcome arrival in our letterbox today:

PS I realise that GM no longer owns the scheme. But demonstrating against the commercial usefulness of his name is still worth the effort.

Today it's Jacinda Ardern

Every day of late I am having to write posts correcting misinformation put about by journalists. For a change, today it's a politician. Jacinda Ardern  has sprung to life with a very weak criticism of Bill English containing this emotive assertion (she must have been reading the NZ Herald):

"In the meantime the number of young Kiwis not in education, work or training continues to soar."

Here are the NEET (Not in Employment, Education or Training) rates for 18-24 year-olds for the last 9 quarters ending with September 2012:

 

12.9
13.2
14.3
12.8
12.4
13.1
13.5
13.1
13.4

Any line that plotted those percentages couldn't possibly be honestly described as "continuing to soar".

I don't rate Ardern. This isn't the first time I've pointed out her incompetence. Labour needs to get a better spokesperson into that job for what could be National's most vulnerable portfolio this year. Then again, have they got anyone more capable?

NZ Herald misleads again

Last week I posted about the NZ Herald getting it wrong on youth unemployment. Today it misrepresents welfare reforms currently at select committee:

The bill also requires jobseekers to be drug-free, and requires beneficiaries with children to immunise them and have toddlers enrolled in early childhood education.

Not quite. The Bill actually says:

Changes in this Bill give effect to the Government’s manifesto commitment to introduce pre-employment drug testing requirements for beneficiaries. The requirements will apply where undertaking and passing a pre-employment drug test is required as part of a job application, or as part of a training programme to which beneficiaries  are referred by Work and Income.....Beneficiaries will not be referred to jobs with pre-employment drug tests if they are dependent on drugs or undergoing drug treatment. Sanctioning these people for their drug use would be ineffective, as sanctions are about changing behaviour, but those dependent on drugs are generally unable to change their behaviour without support.  Instead, people addicted to or dependent on drugs will be offered support to deal with their addiction.

 The reality is only a minority, probably quite small, of jobseekers will be required to be "drug-free".


And on the matter of immunisation which cannot be administered without parental/caregiver consent, the legislation will,

  ....require beneficiary  parents to take all reasonable steps to have their dependent child:
•        aged 3 years or over, enrolled in and attending early childhood education until they start school; and
•        enrolled in and attending school from age of 5 (or 6) years depending on when the child first  starts school; and
•        enrolled with a primary health care provider; and
•        up-to-date with the core Well Child checks.

The reality here is that a beneficiary parent can refuse to have his or her child or children immunised in the same way as any other parent.

Legal expertise required

Regarding the matter of beneficiaries adding children to an existing benefit, legislation currently before select committee states,

Where a sole parent has a subsequent child on benefit, their
work expectations will be deferred for 12 months and will resume
based on the age of the previous youngest dependent child.

 Further into the bill (pg 16) the following appears:

Beneficiaries   having additional
dependent child:  exempting people
resident in certain overseas countries, and
eligibility for sole parent support


.....The third amendment inserts a new section 60GAE(3A), which varies section 60GAE(2) as applied to a determination of a specified kind of beneficiary’ s eligibility for sole parent support. The variation re-quires an additional dependent child of the beneficiary not to be included in the determination not merely once that child is aged 1 year old or over, but instead at all times after that child is born.

Am I correct in interpreting this as meaning at discretion Work and Income can decide not to include a newborn when assessing eligibility for benefit type? So if a sole parent beneficiary has been assessed eligible for Jobseeker Support, and is being work-tested accordingly, the birth of another baby will not change that?

It's complicated and requires reading of the section from pg 16-17

Politics kills progress

Listen to this interview.

My post title is based on more than the block that is bureaucracy; it's listening to Don trying not to say what he wants to.

You are not a politician any more Don. Just spit it out.

All and any hands to the pump. Amnesty for over-stayers.


(Observation to self: how many times have you self-censored on radio Lindsay?? The lesson is, those outside of political parties with any ability to influence, any skerrick, should exercise their freedom-from-vote-buying  lavishly.)

Another murder - ho hum

I thought I'd heard yesterday about another delayed death as a result of violence, and a subsequent upgraded assault charge to murder. But a search has revealed nothing new since the death of a Kawerau man. Perhaps the report I heard related to the accused's appearance in court.

But here's the thing. There have been so many murders since January 1 - seven - they blur into each other. They are now so common place I struggle to recall the individual details of each case. That in itself is shocking yet I don't feel shocked.

Recently I have started reading bits and piece written by people far younger than me who claim this violent crime stat or that violent crime stat is slightly better than the 1980s and 90s as if cause for celebration. But I go back to the 1960s and 70s when murders were remarkable occurrences.

Plus we are constantly bombarded by the media over road deaths and drownings. Accidents, even if avoidable. By comparison I read little if anything about deaths from violence - excluding domestic violence that is.

I think it's a reality. We are now desensitised to murder. And that very desensitisation means a return to days when murders were rare and  dominated the news is highly unlikely.

Bennett over-egging success of new policy

Further to my last post questioning the drop in sole parents on the DPB, I remain very sceptical about the spin being put on this. Here's why.

Yesterday's NZ Herald headline was:

Bennett trumpets 5000 fewer on DPB 

"The number of sole parents on the domestic purposes benefit dropped by 5000 last year - a drop Social Development Minister Paula Bennett is attributing partly to her new policy requiring sole parents to get jobs when their youngest child turns five...Figures released yesterday showed there were 95,138 sole parents on the DPB at the end of 2012 - down from 100,266 the year before."

Nowhere in the article does it mention that some of the decrease is down to 18 and 19 year-olds being moved onto the Young Parent Payment. I've had that confirmed by a spokesperson from MSD:

The number of sole parents receiving DPB reduced by around 5,000 in 2012; this includes around 1,000 18 and 19-year-olds who transferred to YPP in August.

Bear in mind that for the last quarter no new 18 year-olds could have gone onto the DPB either. Back to the NZ Herald:

More than half of that drop happened in the last three months of the year, after the introduction of Ms Bennett's policy required sole parents to get part-time work when their youngest child turned five and fulltime work for those whose children were older than 14. Ms Bennett said 3221 sole parents had returned to work since that came into force in October.

Now I am going to get quite technical and pedantic here. 5,000 over the year is a net loss. The difference between those who went on and those who went off. So to claim that "more than half of that drop happened in the last three months" is a nonsense.

Typically an average of 13,000 people will leave the DPB each year because they "obtained work". These are the figures for the financial years 2007/08 forward:

Obtained paid work 16,223 14,755 11,706 10,714 12,834

So there is nothing remarkable about 3200 finding work in one quarter.

The numbers of sole parents on the DPB (which excludes carers of the sick and infirm, woman alone and those on the emergency maintenance allowance) for the years 2007-2011:

Domestic Purposes Benefit – Sole Parent

87,601

86,695

93,404

99,284

99,945

A return to 95,000 is a good thing. But to be expected as we moved out of recession.

DPB numbers dropping?

The Minister of Social Development has just announced that there were 339,095 people on benefits at the end of December 2012. She hasn't released much more by way of detail about individual benefits and MSD don't have the data available at their site yet.

But she does say:

The number of sole parents on the DPB dropped 1.6% over the quarter to 95,138 and 3,221 sole parents went off this benefit into work in that period.

What she isn't saying is that single parents aged 18 now go onto the Young Parent Payment.

This will be accounting for some of the decrease. For instance between the June and September quarters the percentage of those on the DPB aged 18-19 dropped from 2.7 to 1.7%. It's never been that low.

While 3,221 left for work, that's typical. People go off, people go on, year long.

No. I reckon the drop the Minister is claiming as a 'positive' is a sleight of hand. Perhaps not intentional.

But I'll ring the MSD media team and find out where the Young Parent Payment statistics are being recorded and published.

PPTA attack charter schools

No surprises really that the PPTA want education dominated by the state. The following full page advertisement is apparently running in major newspapers today. I wonder how teachers feel about paying for these campaigns?

On the subject of the state monopolising education recall my post from Tuesday which quoted research showing those European countries which had the lowest percentage of young people not in employment, education, or training had dual education systems.

But the PPTA displays their stupidity in other ways too. For instance the first line of their ad:

"Family time, beach time, down time...that's the agenda for most of us right now."

If you are a teacher maybe. Most self-employed tradespeople, farmers, shop-workers, factory workers, health service providers etc etc are back with their noses to the grindstone, if they ever stopped.

I have a lot of time for teachers. Most that have taught my kids have been decent, hard-working, capable, sometimes inspirational people. But their union does their public image no favours.

No welfare for Kiwis in Australia? So be it

I'm out of step with public opinion on this one. Australia has every right to its political autonomy. If the government doesn't want to pay welfare and accord other privileges to New Zealanders who move there, that's their call. You can out up all the arguments the NZ Herald is making about paying tax, being productive etc. But the current rules have been in place since 2001. People heading over there should be well aware that they will need to support themselves through work or savings. It's just a damn shame that people prepared to do this are lost to New Zealand.

Herald wrong about NZ's youth unemployment

Writing in the NZ Herald about youth unemployment in NZ, calling for the PM to make it his priority, Fran O'Sullivan said this:

In the European Union, one in five young people under 25 who is willing to work can't get a job. That's Europe's problem, but in fact the ratio is much higher in New Zealand.

What is that claim based on?

Tables here show that in September 2012 of the 15-24 age group, officially unemployed are 65,200 out of a labour force of 376,500 - 17.3 percent.

Data from Eurostat :

In November 2012, 5.799 million young persons (under 25) were unemployed in the EU27, of whom 3.733 million were in the euro area. Compared with November 2011, youth unemployment rose by 329 000 in the EU27 and by
420 000 in the euro area. In November 2012, the youth unemployment rate was 23.7% in the EU27 and 24.4% in the  euro  area,  compared  with  22.2%  and  21.6%  respectively  in  November  2011.  In  November  2012  the  lowest
rates were observed in Germany (8.1%), Austria (9.0%) and the Netherlands (9.7%), and the highest in Greece (57.6% in September 2012) and Spain (56.5%).

The unemployment rate for under 25 year-olds in EU27 in November 2012 was 23.7 percent compared to New Zealand's 17.3 percent. The ratio is not "much higher" here. In fact it is substantially lower.

Could the claim refer to the other measure of youth inactivity - the NEET (not in employment, education or training) rate?

The European Union NEET rate in July 2012 was 12.9 percent. In NZ in September 2012 it was 13.4 percent. Still no basis.

Anyway, this is interesting.

Scanning a European  report about NEETs  I came across this description of those countries with the least problem:

This cluster groups together continental and Nordic countries and includes Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. This is a mix of countries that have pursued flexicurity policies, neo-liberal countries and countries with a dual educational system. With the exception of the UK, all these countries are characterised by a low NEET rate. 

(Flexicurity  definition - "It combines flexible hiring and firing with a generous social safety net and an extensive system of activation policies")

So the government's pursuing more flexible employment laws, putting more stringent work-testing on benefits and avoiding monopoly public education look like the right approach.

Truth column January 3

The Truth website is still being updated.

Here's my first column for 2013. A look at the year ahead in politics:

Ten things that might happen in 2013

1/ Labour MP Maryan Street's bill to legalise voluntary euthanasia gets pulled from the ballot triggering a scorching debate about one person's right to impose their religious beliefs on another. If you thought the smacking and prostitution debates were hot, to quote a famous lyric, "you ain't seen nothing yet".

2/ ACT doubles its parliamentary representation by making Brendan Horan its third leader in as many years.

3/ The mercurial John Tamihere - nicknamed "flip-flop" by his mate Willie Jackson -  ditches Labour for National announcing he'll  challenge Paula Bennett's nomination for Waitakere in 2014 (much less work than actually trying to win the seat as a Labour candidate.)

4/ Russell Norman escalates his demands on prospective coalition partner Labour, from Finance Minister to Prime Minister.

5/ Recently resigned shock-jock Michael Laws founds a new party and calls it Conservative Laws or CLAWS.

6/ Prime Minister John Key continues to say whatever comes into his head, alienating or endearing in equal numbers. Opposition leader, David Shearer continues to over-think whatever he says neither alienating nor endearing anybody.

7/ Green co-leader Metiria Turei is once more observed abusing her political position by campaigning in primary schools.

8/ Tariana 'should I stay or should I go' Turia holds a hui to get a better answer.

9/ The 'expert' group consulting on a constitutional review publishes recommendations that have as much impact as every other powwow required under a government support party agreement.

10/ Justice Minister, Judith Collins hands David Bain a $1.3 million compensation payment - along with an invoice for board and keep provided in error: 13 years @ 100,000 per annum.

Children's Commissioner ignores context

The Children's Commissioner has started the year off with another condemnation of New Zealand's child poverty statistics:

Dr Wills is incredulous as he explains that no other OECD country had the same rise in child poverty or inequality in the 1990s.

Measured by the Gini coefficient one other country did have the same rise in inequality - Sweden.

And many other countries weren't far behind.

Those countries that didn't experience inequality growth - where income became more evenly distributed - were....

...France, Greece, Ireland, Spain  and Turkey. All countries with economies that are in trouble.

Guest Post: Rodney Hide

In response to my post yesterday which suggested blaming government for obesity is an adrogation of personal responsibility, Rodney Hide writes:


I think you are wrong on this one Lindsay.

The government mantra is “calories in, calories out” with massive public programmes to “eat less, move more”.  They are abject failures.

The government likewise has had a massive programme for years all around the world to demonise animal fat.  It has worked.  Animal fat consumption has dropped enormously.

People eat industrially-made margarine instead of butter and sugar laden manufactured cereals instead of bacon and eggs.  Our meat is all low fat.

We have got fatter and sicker.

Homeostasis is the rule -- not the exception -- in the animal kingdom.

Fat metabolism is no different.  It’s been known for years that fat accumulation is caused by dysregulation.

The culprit appears to be insulin spiked by excessive sugar and carbohydrate, which breaks down to sugar.  People are eating more -- and exercising less -- because they are dysregulated.  They can’t eat less because they feel they’re starving -- their brain is telling them they are because of the dysregulation.

The problem is this: cut out the fat and the carbohydrate goes up.  In fact, the government mantra is “healthy, whole grains” a food we didn’t eat for 99.5 percent of our existence.

The food manufacturers love it.  “Fat-free” is manufactured food.  Pharmaceutical companies love it.  Look where the big expenditure is on drugs.

Tragically, it now appears that poor eating by parents epigentically affects their offspring.  Adult onset diabetes has had to be relabeled as type 2 diabetes.

It’s the same as “global warming”.  The government has invested and built a bureaucracy around “unhealthy” eating and failed nutrition advice.  It’s hard to imagine that bureaucracy admitting it’s wrong.

I have turned the food pyramid upside down.  And never been better!

Rodney Hide

What else can we pin on government?

Here's food for thought. The Freeman claims government has made Americans fatter through pushing bad diet advice and being captured by food lobbyists. Summarised by NCPA:

The government, with its accomplices in the food lobby, has helped to make and keep us fat. Through subsidies and misguided food suggestions, Congress, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have made it more difficult for Americans to make smarter dietary decisions, says Jenna Robinson, director of outreach at the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.

• Americans spend $33 billion on weight loss products and services.
• Sixty-five percent of adults are overweight.
• The prevalence of obesity increased from 14.5 percent in 1980 to 30.5 percent today.

One reason for why this is the case is that the government spreads misinformation about healthy eating. For example, in 1982 the government told Americans to reduce fat consumption from 40 percent to 30 percent of daily intake, according to the food pyramid. However, this resulted in Americans eating more carbohydrates, which have contributed to the increase in obesity rates.

Surely there comes a point when blaming government just becomes as bad as blaming anything else for what is largely a matter of personal responsibility. But...

...ultimately the most significant state contributor to obesity is public health. If someone else is going to pay for the consequences of your over-eating and under-exercising, that's one big disincentive out the window.

Not so broken...not so fast

The Economist has a piece titled British Society: Not so broken (hat tip NotPC):

"... society is not broken, at all. If anything, it's healthier than ever. In this week's issue, we've published a story about the current generation of young people—those aged between around 15 to 25. This generation of young people is the best behaved in decades. They drink less, smoke less, take fewer drugs, and have fewer teenage pregnancies. They get better exam results and are more likely to go to university. Frankly, they're incredibly well-behaved. All this has happened despite a huge and ongoing increase in levels of single-parenthood and a similarly large decline in marriage, not to mention the lack of discipline in schools that Mr Cameron mentioned."

My main problem with this assertion is it treats those aged 15-25 as a single entity. If you broke behaviours and characteristics down into socio-economic sub-groups different trends may exist. Amongst the poorest, the products of the benefit society, there may be a flat-lining or even escalation of drug-taking, drinking and teenage pregnancies. They really need to disprove this before dismissing the following claim  by UK Welfare Secretary Iain Duncan Smith:

"All too often, government’s response to social breakdown has been a classic case of 'patching’—a case of handing money out, containing problems and limiting the damage but, in doing so, supporting—even reinforcing — dysfunctional behaviour."

Anyone want to take issue with him? It's a fair summation in my view.

Laws tells beneficiaries to grow veges

This is a welcome development, Michael Laws' column on-line the day it's published. Today he describes growing his first ever (as a grown-up) vegetable garden and advises beneficiaries to do the same so they too can eat better. They have the economic requirement and they have the time apparently.

I started growing stuff last year. Seedlings can be purchased dirt cheap (excuse the pun) from The Warehouse and save on growing time. For weeks we've used my home grown lettuces. The brocolli was a collosal failure with flowerheads that started to seed before they were the size of a good  mouthful. But the capsicums look promising and the spring onions are good.

Yet I think growing stuff is generally a life phase. You can't help but notice it's mostly older people who hang out in garden centres. I've a standing order in with my husband to stop me when I start talking plants and veges. It's just too boring a topic of conversation. And once you start getting obsessive about it, like all hobbies, it can cost a fortune. Before you know it you're hankering after a greenhouse.

So it isn't necessarily the best budgeting advice to give to someone on a benefit. Market produce, if getting to one is feasible, is probably more cost-effective. Besides which, growing stuff out of sheer necessity might take away the pleasure, with experiments and failures too costly.

And let's be realistic. Vege gardens require two things; discipline and optimism. I recall a 'client' from my volunteering days. A sole mother of two whose major battle was mental. She was depressed and as low on motivation as I have ever witnessed. A kind church goer put in a wonderful vege garden for her. Spent hours digging over and preparing the ground. Tended to it while things got going. But I think a falling-out between them ensued and the garden went to wrack and ruin thereafter.

Gardening is like anything else in life. You've got to want to do it. And the problem with non bona fide beneficiaries is there's a long list of things that they just don't want to do and a very short list of things they do.

The trouble with the way Laws approaches the beneficiary problem is that he thinks he can make them like him. I used to think that. That I could make people see the world through my eyes; see the opportunities, experience the satisfaction of a job well done, look forward to tomorrow. But the potential for that to happen is too often  destroyed by being locked in the benefit system.

I'm sorry. Here I am going into my 8th year of blogging still saying the same thing. It's welfare and the associated mentality that's the underlying problem. The other symptoms - Laws identifies poor parenting -  generally stem from it.

Cato on the fiscal cliff sidestep

Here's a cut and paste from Cato. Quick and easy read:

Grading the Fiscal Cliff Deal: Terrible, but Could Be Worse

By

Daniel J. Mitchell

 

 

The faux drama in Washington is finally over. The misfits in Washington reached a deal on the fiscal cliff.
Republicans and Democrats managed to come together and decide that they should get a bigger slice of what the American people earn. Gee, what a surprise.
First, the good news:
…
…
Oh, wait, there isn’t any.
Now for the bad news.

• The top tax rate will increase to 39.6 percent for entrepreneurs, investors, small business owners, and other “rich” taxpayers making more than $400,000 ($450,000 for married couples). This is Obama’s big victory. He gets his class-warfare trophy.
• The double tax on dividends and capital gains climbs from 15 percent to 20 percent (23.8 percent if you include the Obamacare tax on investment income).
• The death tax rate is boosted from 35 percent to 40 percent (which doesn’t sound like a big step in the wrong direction until you remember it was 0 percent in 2010).
• The alternative minimum tax will still exist, though it will be “patched” to protect as many as 30 million households from being swept into this surreal parallel tax system that requires people to use a second method of calculating their taxes – with the government getting the greatest possible amount.
• Unemployment benefits are extended, ensnaring more Americans in joblessness.
• Medicare spending is increased as part of a “doc fix” to increase reimbursement payments for providers.

This is sort of like a late Christmas present, but we must have been naughty all year long and taxpayers are getting lumps of coal.
That being said, I was expecting the final outcome to be even worse, so this deal almost seems like a relief.
Sort of like knowing that you were going to have your arm amputated, but then finding out that at least you’ll get some anesthetic. You’re not happy about the outcome, but you’re relieved that it won’t be as bad as you thought it would be.
But let’s not delude ourselves. This deal is not good for the economy. It doesn’t do anything to cap the burden of government spending. It doesn’t reform entitlement programs.
And we may even lose the sequester, the provision that was included in the 2011 debt limit that would have slightly reduced the growth of government over the next 10 years.
What a dismal start to 2013.

Why did John Key change his mind?

 What will be happening with welfare in 2013?

The major event that springs to mind is changes to the names  of all main benefits. I still consider this a major waste of time and resources. And in August 2008, before John Key became Prime Minister, so did he:

Labour's pursuit of a "single core benefit" has ended in a complete farce. The different benefit types will still exist, and will be different from each other, but will all be simply called "income support". The Labour Government is going to issue a directive telling case managers and government officials that they are forbidden from using use terms such as "DPB" and "invalids benefit".
Ruth Dyson has one opinion about this. She says this will "remove the stereotyped language and bureaucracy of a bygone era [and] will ensure that Work and Income responds to people as individuals rather than as categories".
I have another opinion. I say that is a load of politically correct rubbish, it will waste money in rewriting everything, and it will not help beneficiaries in a single way. National will not be making those changes.

Well actually in July 2013 National will be making those changes:

Three new benefit types will replace the seven current benefit categories, in addition to the new Youth Payment and Young Parent Payment introduced in August. The new categories included in this Bill are:
• Jobseeker Support for those actively seeking and available for work
• Sole Parent Support for sole parents with children under 14 years
• Supported Living Payment for people significantly restricted by sickness, injury or disability.

Just for a moment reflect on the ongoing problems that the government has had with their IT data systems  - ACC, Education, Work and Income and Corrections. 300,000 plus people will have to be recategorised and  transferred from one benefit to another. The data recording systems all change; the continuity of data will be lost. There's a Census running this year. Information about income sources will be collected in February which by July will be meaningless. There will be confusion, challenges from people unhappy with their new categorisation, and given the teacher salary debacle, it wouldn't surprise if benefits go under/over or un-paid.

It's all going to distract from what WINZ should be concentrating on. Getting people into jobs.

Ashley Mundee - a life worth living

By coincidence I had backed the horse Ashley Mundee was riding on December 30 so was watching the race. Elleaye was around mid-field when he suddenly went down. I thought he'd broken down but later learned he'd clipped heels with another horse. It was a horrible spectacle watching the jockey go under the hooves of those following and a further jockey fall from her mount. I drew a very sharp intake and must have made some sort of sound because the dog start barking.

When I heard she had later died I shed tears for the sheer misery it will cause her family and friends for the rest of their lives. What I can't get out of my head is whether, as her mother, I would want to watch the footage of Ashley before the race. Milling around behind the gates, happy and chatting with the other jockeys and handlers as the horses loaded. Because that's what I would want imprinted in my mind. The pleasure and pride she would have taken in her abilities; the sheer exhilaration of riding along on the back of an animal reaching speeds of 50 mph; the wonder of getting paid for what you love doing most.

Her life was cut short but what a life it was.

Hauraki became crap

New breakfast host Martin Devlin says Radio Hauraki is "crap".

It's been crap since they dumped Nick, Deano and Mel from the morning slot. They were genuinely funny and ran some great competitions like 'Scar Wars Wednesday' which asked listeners to ring in and describe how they got their worst scar. That resulted in outrageous tales like testes being caught in girls' bicycle chain as a  child and a whole host of strange down on the farm antics often related by not very bright people. Driving the kids to Uni and high school we'd often laugh till we cried. The music was what you'd expect on Hauraki but the in-between stuff was better. Then sometime during the middle of the year the threesome vanished.

So what to listen to? In Wellington The Breeze is so PC and safe, even though Sam and I can tolerate their play list, we can't stomach the simpering DJs. Think Wiggles. One morning we were behind a bus advertising The Sound. So we switched and are  permanently parked there. The music is brilliant and they promote themselves as "no silly BS chatter" although Geoff Bryant's news-reading interjections are often very wry. So, no, I won't be tuning in to Hauraki even out of curiosity.

(Though it has to be said, if I'm by myself of a morning, walking the dogs, I might have Mike Hosking in my ear.)

Devlin says, "It's bitterly competitive, and there's a lot of money at stake, and there's a lot of pride and ego at stake."

Somehow trying not to lose money and not to lose face don't seem like very good starting point to me. So a New Year's prediction. Devlin won't save Hauraki.

John Key finished?

That's what Matt McCarten says in his Herald column today:

This year has finished him. His evasiveness over Kim Dotcom, his shonkiness over the SkyCity casino deal to give more pokies for a convention centre, his weakness managing his ministers and his forgetfulness on details of his job is starting to form real doubts that he's on top of his job. We like nice guys but we expect them to know what they're doing. This is the year he became a two-term prime minister.

All this prediction  reveals is McCarten's  left bias and according wishfulness. Let's try and analyse Key's chances objectively.

1/ Who else? 

Like it or not most New Zealanders are middle-of-the-road moderates. When it comes to matters political, they think at a superficial level employing emotion over reason. But occasionally the 'wisdom of the masses' asserts itself as when Green co-leader Russell Norman suggested printing money. Without understanding economics too deeply people just instinctively knew this was a stupid idea. Sometimes good ideas are the most simple ones - but not in this case. And people aren't going to accept a leader with radical ideas, even sound ones. That's why Key doesn't do radical.

Neither will people accept a leader with NO ideas. Well, to be fair, no new ideas. And anyway, Labour is too ramshackle at present to give swing-voters any confidence that they can govern.

2/ Better the devil you know. Key is still in this ballpark. When Clark went, she'd stepped outside it. People were saying any devil is better than her. National has upset large  groups of people. Teachers for example. But mainly they have upset the leftists which is their job.

They have pissed off people like me in many ways BUT not enough that I would vote for more redistribution of wealth from the productive to the non-productive; more punishment of effort and reward for fecklessness; more economic regulation and welfare reform reversal.

3/ Key appeals to both males and females. That sort of appeal is reasonably rare.

4/ Key is still looking like a solid family man. Also reasonably rare and something we admire I think.

5/ Key has a winning leadership style. While McCarten says Key is weak at managing his ministers, the other side is, he doesn't over-manage.  My preference is for the second style. Most of us want a boss who gives us space and respect.

So barring startling developments - Labour recruiting Richie McCaw as a potential future leader - voters are going to go into the 2014 election prepared to accept the status quo. The reality is most people's lives are ticking over satisfactorily despite the recession and they will entrust another three years of management to National.

When Masterton went dry

When there is no current news, perusing papers from the past is sometimes entertaining. The Truth had the best articles. Here's one about what happened when Masterton "entered into the land of Wowserdom".

People drank even more as secret bingeing occurred causing "absence from work...lying and deceit..."

"There is more now solid and systematic 'silent'  sosselling going on now than ever before in the history of the district."

The writer also describes the hypocrites who voted for the "no" licence status in order to line their own pockets through sly-grogging.

Charmingly written. And a lesson for today's prohibitionists.