Stalled recovery?

Apropos of nothing in particular, here is the current state of unemployment. In terms of pre-GFC it's not pretty, particular for females.

Not to mention the rates for Maori and Pacific which would require a much taller graph.

The current Maori unemployment rate is 12.6% and Pacific is 11.3% (June quarter).

One thing I would note is that pre-GFC unemployment levels were unusually low. That's the only positive (spin) I can find. Oh, and NZ is still faring relatively well internationally. Though I doubt that is much consolation for the unemployed.

Asian upward mobility?

Statistics NZ released the latest Income Survey last Friday.

From the tables, the following caught my eye.

Asian median incomes are rising fast. Over the 2011 - 2015 period, their income from self-employment was also growing at the fastest rate; income from government transfers was the lowest and declining (largely reflecting a younger population).

In part the increases across all groups represent a recovery from the GFC but the Asian increase is a stand out.

('All people' = 15 and older.)

Bennett's biggest contribution

I had cause to make the following graph so thought I would post it here. The drop in Maori teenage birth is quite phenomenal. Though untested, the Youth Parent Payment reforms must be a factor. The point I was making to my correspondent was, I consider this Paula Bennett's biggest contribution as Social Development Minister. (The 10-14 years-old rates barely register but using Infoshare data I couldn't easily or quickly remove them.)

More political bias from DomPost

Page two of the DomPost has a large headline:

Complaints blamed on greater demand: MSD
 "A staggering increase in complaints by Work and Income clients have been written off by a government ministry which blames the increase on more Kiwis using its services.
Since National took office in 2008, the number of complaints about incorrect information being provided by Work and Income has risen by 122 percent - from 537 complaints in 2008 to 1197 this year."

Here is the table:

The first thing I notice is that the number of complaints requiring action has actually dropped from 2,298 in 2008/09 to 2,233 this year. If I were to look at a similar table depicting CYF notifications, I'd be primarily interested in the substantiations as an indicator of actual problems.

The journalist completely ignored the top line though and focused on the worst line - the one that would provide the biggest % increase. Even then, we cannot draw a conclusion because there is no breakdown of the complaints that actually required action.

Next, a journalist seeking to provide balanced information would have requested and published statistics from the  period prior to  National becoming government.(She may have but they didn't suit her purpose?)

At least  each parliamentary representative - government and opposition - was asked for comment.

Carmel Sepuloni duly provides and not unusually shoots herself in the foot in the process.

And it wasn't only beneficiaries having a tough time with Work and Income. "There's a whole lot of New Zealanders out there...like hardworking New Zealanders who should have access to things like childcare subsidies that are getting inaccurate information."[my emphasis]

Could that be 'deserving' New Zealanders?

To be fair the DomPost should be awarded some neutrality points for publishing that comment. Once again it highlights Labour's identity crisis. Who do they represent?

Duff rides again

Alan Duff has a go at Tuku Morgan, his greed and lack of a "self-regulation" button. He proceeds onto the lack of Treaty money spent on creating employment and helping "flax roots Maori."

Then he takes an interesting turn.

You live overseas for a few years and come to realise it's quite an advantage being part-Maori.
There's the warrior bit that makes you feel pretty safe in most situations and not afraid of being mugged or attacked on some dark city street. (And anyway, it just about never happens, or not in France; they're a civilised people, the French. Booze does not give them an excuse to be violent.)
There's the musical side, and when you get a group of Maori and a guitar or two, it is quite a neat feeling all singing together at least knowing you're in tune and by French musical standards pretty damn good.
Just being an expat Kiwi feels great - our friendliness, our love of rugby, the people we know in common.
By French drinking standards, we're a bit thirstier and definitely rowdier. However, we have all embraced the behavioural code here.
But I believe being a Maori in Enzed is a more negative experience. All that compulsion to live by the myth of whanau, hapu and iwi. Ask many Maori who have moved to Australia; they'll tell you living as an individual is infinitely better. If I was a benign dictator I'd pack every Maori off out of the country so they could realise what a wonderful thing it can be to be Maori and Kiwi and individualistic at the same time.
Many of our Maori leaders have to invest in this potential and step away from the Champagne tap.

(The "warrior bit" worked for him second-time around. First time he ended up in a British prison.)

How many second chances when children involved?

The NZCPR has an expanded version of my earlier blog post as their guest commentary this week.

"New Zealand (as represented by the child protection authority and its practices) is currently officially anti-adoption. The anti-adoption groundswell that built over the nineteen seventies and eighties grew out of an abhorrence of the past removal of babies from unmarried mothers. Today most feel repugnance for the practice. 

But isn’t wholesale shunning of adoption an over-reaction? There are many instances whereby newborns go directly into the care of CYF. The prospects for these children are bleak yet their rights seem trumped by the rights accorded to their birth parent and extended family. Babies aren’t simply removed from mothers by dint of being ‘illegitimate’. These babies are removed because their mothers are criminal; are incarcerated or live on the streets; have abused prior siblings and pose a serious threat to their newborn. The principle of redemption or second chances is all well and good when offered to the adult individual. But how many times should a child be exposed to known risks in order to satisfy liberal impulse? 

Children’s lives shouldn’t be gambled with. And they needn’t be if we once more considered adoption."

More

Muriel Newman's associated column provides an excellent summation of the Expert Panel report into CYF and concludes:

"It is an unfortunate fact of life that at the heart of the child abuse crisis are government incentives for women to have children they are ill-equipped to provide for. Until the State stops paying women to have babies, children will continue to suffer. The State is no substitute for a loving mum and dad, and no role model for a child. In fact it’s a tragedy that idealists have exerted such influence on policy and brought us to the systemic failure we have today. 

The child abuse crisis is a national disgrace. Only the State could fail children on such a monumental scale. Anyone concerned should read the Expert Panel’s report. It helps to explain why, in spite of the very best efforts of those who are trying to help, the child abuse crisis continues unabated."

More

60 percent of rental properties subsidised

I frequently use my blog as a filing system. While I don't use 'labels', running a 'search'  for what I want inevitably leads to success.

So the reason for this post is primarily to record a new fact - new to me anyway.

60 per cent of all rentals in New Zealand are subsidised by the Government.

Six out of ten rented homes are subsidised by the taxpayer.

That's all....apart from..... I would also observe the speech from Bill English (source of the information) began with:

I am old enough to remember the mid-1980s. After leaving university, I was involved in farming. At that time we had a number of arrangements in New Zealand that meant people who were involved in farming weren’t getting the right price signals. Then, suddenly, they did. I was a part of communities that were drastically affected by that. Farm subsidy systems were abruptly removed. Our communities changed drastically and dramatically.That was a sharp personal lesson, and one that many New Zealanders also experienced.

A strong focus of our policy is to make sure our markets work.

Yet the rental property market is still heavily subsidised and still not working.

Child abuse hand-in-glove with benefit abuse

Yesterday I was on Larry William's show backing Anne Tolley's call for contraceptive intervention with mothers who have children already earmarked for removal by CYF at birth. I pointed out that many of these children will be damaged in utero by their mother's alcohol or drug addiction.

This morning's NZ Herald features the heart-breaking story of exactly the sort of child who is being failed first and foremost by his mother and father, but secondly, by CYF, who are tasked with the care and protection of children.

The only saving grace in this awful story is that one social worker recognised the mother's use of her child as "a cash cow".That's the next issue that needs open and honest debate (if an honest debate can be had about a dishonest practice). The use of children as meal-tickets. It disgusts me.

A severely disabled child was used as a "cash cow" by his alcoholic mother and her boyfriend to access up to $80,000 in benefits, according to notes in a Child, Youth and Family file.
In it, a social worker said of the boy's caregivers: "It would appear that it's more about receiving financial payment from Government agencies, than actually providing a home for Benjamin*."

Anne Tolley shows some gumption ...sort of

This'll cause an uproar among feminists ("don't interfere with my reproductive rights") and Maori who think like Tariana Turia ("I am intolerant of attempts to control our fertility"):

The Minister for Social Development wants to find a way of stopping the most at-risk beneficiaries from having more children.


Unfortunately Tolley is being somewhat timid.

 ... said she was talking about a small number of families, where Child Youth and Family was removing more than one child at birth, most from homes with a history of abuse and neglect. "I know of a case where they were taking the sixth child from that woman and of course the first question I ask is; 'So what sort of family planning advice is being made available to that woman, is it there immediately for her to think about?'

Every year, one in five children born will be benefit-dependent by the end of it.

In the 6 months to March 31, 2015, 6,347 babies were added to an existing benefit.

In that context Tolley's ambition looks lacking. But still upsetting for some.

Association of Social Workers chief executive Lucy Sandford-Reed said she felt uncomfortable about the minister's comments.

There's a big part  of the problem. A denier. Head of the Social Worker's union no less. She should be applauding the Minister for at least  having the gumption to publicly ask why some women keep having babies when they are incapable of providing for them or worse.

"...stripping the influence of CYFS back to bare bones..."

The Daily Blog is defending CYF and state monopoly of child care and protection. This comment caught my eye:

Inequality may be declining

Thanks to the reader who sent in this very interesting observation from the Economist blog:

ONE of the key aims of taxation and public spending is to redistribute income from rich to poor. The way most statisticians, economists and policymakers think about this is in terms of a cross-sectional snapshot: what the distribution of wealth or income is between different people in a population in a single year. But we might care more about lifetime incomes: in the modern labour market, many people now have very high incomes in certain parts of their lives, and much lower ones at other times.

NZ's Gini coefficient is very similar to the UK's cross sectional so it may very well be similar to their lifetime. I can't think why it wouldn't. In which case inequality may be declining.

Restructuring CYF is not the answer

Watching Paul Henry interview Anne Tolley about the latest CYF report was very dissatisfying. There was no discussion of getting to the real core of the problem. Only the terrible statistical outcome for those children who went into state care in 1991, then a lot of blaming of current hierarchy followed by dogged promises of change.

1/ There will always be children born into circumstances that warrant their removal. But when you pay people to reproduce there will be more.

2/ In the past most of these children were put up for adoption. That outcome wasn't always ideal but it was a better alternative than constant upheaval and removal from one placement to another. Adoption delivered a better result than the philosophy of striving to keep the child with its birth mother or blood family at any cost. Because ultimately the child ends up in state care anyway more damaged than it would have been if adopted out at birth.

A Salvation Army home in the 1950s

3/ Increasingly there are people who want and cannot have children. That's abundantly clear from the burgeoning fertility treatment industry.

I've known a number of people who were adopted out at birth, and have read or heard other people's stories. Most have relished the fact that their adoptive parents raised and loved them as their own and they were provided with stability and security. Some have had emotional and behavioural problems coming to terms with the circumstances of their birth and being 'given up'. One I knew was getting into trouble with the law as a teenage boy; another was getting into trouble with the law because the family he was adopted into had strong gang links. But they were the exceptions.

Compare the now known results of "having a care placement" by age 21:

• Almost 90 per cent were on a benefit;
• More than 25 per cent were on a benefit with a child;
• Almost 80 per cent did not have NCEA Level 2;
• More than 30 per cent had a youth justice referral by the age of 18;
• Almost 20 per cent had had a custodial sentence;
• Almost 40 per cent had a community sentence;
• Overall, six out of every 10 children in care are Maori.



It doesn't matter how CYF is structured or how caregivers are reimbursed or how professionalised social workers are. What matters is reducing the incentives for people to produce children haphazardly, but, if they do, acting swiftly to get those children into a nurturing and stable home.

Report on CYF

This post simply offers some cut and paste excerpts from the preliminary report to the Minister from the "independent expert panel" for those who have neither the time or inclination to read it. I've only selected information (largely statistical) that is new to me.

Although the overall number of children coming to the attention of CYF has been decreasing over the past six years, an increasing proportion of these children are already known to the agency. In 2004, most of the notifications made to CYF were for children not previously known to the agency. In 2014, six out of ten notifications were for children the agency already knew about. Many of these children had extensive history with the agency - on average, these children had engaged with CYF on three previous occasions.

This pattern of increasing repeat notifications is associated with an increasing delay between notification and subsequent intervention. In 2014, children having their first care and protection Family Group Conference had, on average, more than four prior reports of concern and this figure more than doubled between 2000 and 2014.

Child abuse and neglect occurs within families across all parts of the community. However, many of the children and young people who come to the attention of CYF are living in families who are experiencing the combined impacts of long-term unemployment, low income, unaddressed physical and mental health needs, parental alcohol and drug addictions and family violence.

To illustrate, of all children born between 2005 and 2007 who had come to the attention of CYF by age five, 70 per cent were in families where the Police had records of at least one family violence incidence involving the parents in the five years prior to the birth of the child and 37 per cent had a least one parent who had served a criminal sentence over that same period. 40 per cent had a mother who had been receiving a benefit for more than four out of the last five years prior to their birth. 

CYF currently works with about 3,500 caregivers, yet there is no national picture of the needs of our care population, the range and needs of caregivers, what works in their recruitment or retention and what kind of support is needed. There is no overarching, nationally co-ordinated approach to caregiver recruitment and there is an inability to predict and plan for future requirements. 

A high proportion of caregivers are in low income households and 42 per cent of the caregiver population are in receipt of a benefit. The majority of CYF caregivers are middle-aged, but a significant proportion are nearing the age of 60 years or older. This is a concern in that children who have complex and significant needs are being placed in households where resources may already be stretched and the capacity of the caregiver to meet needs may be constrained. 

CYF employs about 3,200 FTEs and relies on social work and social workers as the primary means of service delivery. There is currently fragmentation at a national level in social worker qualification and training, which is reflected in a lack of consistent practice within CYF. There is also a lack of workforce planning and reporting capability within CYF that results in a lack of long term planning to address these issues.

No shortage of marriageable men after all

A most interesting piece from Brookings challenges the traditional idea that there is a shortage of men in the marriage market.

The original definition of marriageability, from sociologist William Julius Wilson, was based on the ratio of employed men to all women of the same age. All women of the right age are assumed, under this definition, to be equally marriageable. But this is an outdated assumption, given cultural, economic, and social changes. A high percentage of women participate in the workforce; many have children from a prior relationship.  

On only one definition of marriageability—Wilson’s original one, comparing employed men to all women—do we find a ‘shortage’ of men so often lamented in the media. On all other measures, there is in fact a surplus

However the surplus disappears for black men and women. (Inter-racial marriage rates in the US are very low - in 2010 only 4.6% of married Black females had a non-black husband).

The writer says the difference is due to lower employment prospects, high rates of incarceration and shorter lives.

Terribly sad state of affairs.

Steve Maharey - still waffling

Ex Social Development Minister and "sociologist" Steve Maharey has a column in today's DomPost titled "Centre-Left needs a new vision".

It opens:

Perhaps the most interesting outcome of the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the British Labour Party will not be his 60 per cent support but the 4.5 per cent support given to the "modernising" candidate Liz Kendall.
The need to "modernise" gripped parties of the centre-Left in the 1970s and 80s in the wake of the neo-liberal revolution led by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and US Present Ronald Reagan. Welfare states were one by one replaced by the market.

I've heard this assertion from the academic Left before and it flummoxes me.

The welfare state is one where compulsory collective responsibility for social needs - education, health, and income assurance, especially in old-age - dominates.

While governments have pulled out of funding tertiary education to the past extent, in most English-speaking countries (especially the UK) responsibility for health, education and income assurance remains overwhelmingly in state hands.

Even in the United States, where reconfiguration (aka reform) of welfare was greatest, social security spending continues to grow and cause immense concern.

I struggled on with his waffle about how the centre left needs a new vision but am left with a question. How does it create a vision based on lies about the past?

Just not ready yet

The latest 3 News Reid Research poll has found only one in four people want to change the flag.

The process of change is often gradual. At an individual level people try to change something about themselves multiple times before actually succeeding.

Perhaps changing the flag is like trying to get voluntary euthanasia legalised. Parliamentarians failed in 1995; failed again in 2003, though it was a much closer run result. They failed because the weight of public opinion wasn't behind change.  I believe it'll be third time lucky for that particular battle.

And so it may be with the flag.

Disregard for the facts

Over at the Daily Blog Mike Treen has a post entitled "Benefit cuts designed to help cut wages as well." There is a distinct lack of balance and I've left some corrections in a comment (now published).



Treen "The unemployment benefit was cut by 25% for young people, 20% for young sickness beneficiaries, and 17% for solo parents. "

DPB was cut 10.7% with one child; 8.9% with two children. The only sole parents who received a cut of 16.7% were those without dependent children.

Treen "They abolished the family benefit and made many workers ineligible for the unemployment benefit with a stand down period of up to a six months.......Universal entitlements like the family benefit were eliminated so assistance could be targeted to the deserving more accurately."

The universal Family Benefit was abolished but half was reallocated to into Family Support which went to beneficiary families with children. In other words the money was better targeted and made up some of the money lost through cuts to basic rates.

The six month stand down applied to people who had become voluntarily unemployed or had a redundancy payment.

Treen "Unemployment benefits were stopped for 16 and 17 year-olds and the youth rate for 18 & 19 year-olds extended to the age of 25."

The Independent Youth Benefit was created instead.

Source: Social Developments, Tim Garlick, p146,7.

4 in 10 Superannuitants don't use the internet

MSD launched some new website yesterday. Money to burn.

This surprised me though.

61 per cent of New Zealanders over the age of 65 used the internet last year.

That's a truckload of people missing out on all the wonderful communication, knowledge and entertainment available through the web. Close to a quarter million.

39 percent non-users is higher than I would have thought. An elderly friend of mine recently lost her cat. I thought she would replace it but she feels she is just too old and it would outlive her. Last time I saw her though she was utterly animated and over the sadness. Her son had bought her a tablet and she was buzzing with everything she could do with it. I don't think elderly people actually understand that they can access a wealth of nostalgic material they never thought they'd enjoy again. All they see is the negative aspects of social media, and it's too easy to carp on about people losing communication skills etc.

They don't know what they are missing.

State confiscation of private wealth

State confiscation of private wealth. That's all it is. Appalling.

The Government's rejection of the Lochinver sale causes some issues, not the least being what happens to the station now.
It is owned by the Stevenson Group which wanted to complete the sale to free up capital to reinvest in other businesses such as expanding its quarry in Drury and investing in a West Coast coal mine.
It is unlikely a New Zealand buyer with $88 million can be found, reducing the value of the property on the open market.

Beneficiary advocates could drive this into court

Asked yesterday by Radio NZ for a comment(s) about this incidence of seeming law-misinterpretation by the Ministry of Social Development that has seen new benefit grants paid out a day late, I said that beneficiary advocacy groups were like a dog with a bone. There are precedents where they have forced MSD into court and MSD has lost. So I wouldn't under-estimate what the taxpayer could be up for. By my calculation easily $200 million.  I don't know if the government can successfully retrospectively change the legislation to get MSD off the hook.

But the beneficiary advocates are over-egging the effect of a pay-out citing hardship and child poverty etc. Collectively the sum is large but individually the pay-outs are small. One grant would equate to an average of $40 or thereabouts. And the poorest beneficiaries - those on welfare long-term - would get the smallest payout or none at all.

I have no idea how a 'compensation'  process would work but if WINZ were to invite people to make a claim with the exact date of application and any other relevant details, it might just be too tough to bother.

Though who knows. That option might not be legal either.

I did say to the reporter that benefits, whilst an entitlement, are a privilege. New Zealand's welfare system is among the most generous in the world in terms of the length of time people can claim welfare for, and one day's payment wasn't a big deal in the scheme of things. The beneficiary advocates could find better bones to chew on.

Universities are going to hate this aren't they?

Just announced

Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce has today announced that from 2017 all Universities, Wānanga and Polytechnics will be required to publish information about the employment status and earnings of their graduates broken down by specific degrees and diplomas.
“This Government is committed to providing better information to assist students’ decisions. This is important so students can make the most of their time in tertiary education, and because of the significant investment students and taxpayers make,” says Mr Joyce.

This is a great move. User-pays has incentivised universities to get more bums on seats and, in some areas,  dumbed-down the level of  learning and graduate. But I don't think throwing out user-pays is the solution.

My son (in his last year at Uni) said, "I am going to become a statistic". I observed probably "compulsorily" as with other government surveys. At least this survey will provide really useful information.

Update: A reader sent the following graph which shows 'earning advantages from tertiary  vs secondary education ratio'

A nation of inveterate moaners

New Zealanders are encouraged to moan about how hard done by they are by groups of people with political axes to grind, hobby horses to rock and incomes to generate. The strategy isn't just domestic - it is rife in the first world. Instead of righting any injustice though, it breeds bitterness, animosity and division.

Enough of the rant.

In practical terms, the dividers use statistics to support their chosen cause. But for those who can think for themselves, reference to official data (the best we have) will  always turn up a counter-balancing statistic.

For instance - and this presented itself randomly as I caught up with Statistics NZ latest - median incomes.  (Below is revised on the basis of Census data but the changes are not statistically significant so visually indiscernible).

Median incomes have risen steadily since 1997 except during the GFC.

But without inflation adjustment the graph is meaningless.

At 1998 the income level was around $300. By 2014 it had doubled. But what was $300 worth in 2014 $? Using general CPI here's what the Reserve Bank calculates:

Apart from housing, other goods and services measured -  transport, food, and clothing - cost far less in 2014. For instance, $300 in 2014 would buy double the amount of clothing it would in 1998.

But good news isn't exciting unless it's personal. Almost masochistically, people latch on to the bad news stories - inequality, poverty, disease, violence and premature death.

In reality, Fred Dagg said it best. And New Zealanders once believed it. We don't know how lucky we are.

News flash - it's still true.

"Drinkers subsidise non-drinkers"

Doug Sellman, look the other way now.

A study from IEA finds

"... estimates suggest that the net cost of alcohol to the state is minus £6.5 billion pounds, which is to say that drinkers subsidise non-drinkers to the order of £6.5 billion pounds a year. The government could halve all forms of alcohol duty and still receive more in tax than it spends dealing with alcohol-related problems."

I immediately noticed that the study does not consider the economic contribution alcohol makes in terms of job creation for instance (eg NZ's wine industry is purported worth in excess of $1 billion) but the paper later explains why:

We have also ignored all financial benefits except those that go directly to government, i.e. alcohol taxes. In line with Leontaridi’s methodology, we do not include benefits provided by the alcohol industry, such as job creation, corporation tax and income tax, on the basis that replacement goods, services and jobs would fill the void if alcohol did not exist. Since it is unclear whether substitute industries would lead to the government receiving more, less, or the same amount of revenue (aside from the loss
of alcohol taxes), we have ignored the economic contribution of the alcohol industry altogether.

Fair enough.

But with the public-cost arguments against drinking (and smoking) removed, hectoring academics are exposed for what they are. Well-paid agents of Nanny State hellbent on micro-managing your life because they know best.

'Victimhood' contextualised

Here's a plausible hypothesis;

"U.S. society is in the midst of a large-scale moral change in which we are experiencing the emergence of a victimhood culture that is distinct from the honor cultures and dignity cultures of the past. If true, this bodes really bad for future social and political peace."

The concept of victimhood has been talked about for some time but this is a new attempt at context and definition.

(For mine, feminists long postulated that a world ruled by women would be free from war. They failed to add that it wouldn't be free from conflict.)

Original paper noted at Reason

Poor reporting and poor thinking

A couple of items that caught my attention from the NZ Herald:

....health economist Dr Brian Easton says with certain rehabilitative and preventive methods, that figure could reduce over time as more young women learn about the harmful effects of drinking while pregnant.
Dr Easton is one of two keynote speakers at today's annual Research and Policy Forum to highlight World Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Awareness Day.
He has based his estimate on research that showed 1 per cent of the population was born with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) each year.
"Each year about 6000 babies are born with FASD and 600 have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome."

So his estimate for FASD is 10 percent - not 1 percent.

Then this:

Auckland Women's Centre manager Leonie Morris agreed that society under-valued unpaid parenting work, as shown by the "stigma" imposed on beneficiaries who stayed home with children.

When beneficiaries stay home they are paid to look after their children. So society must put some value on parenting work. The "stigma" attaches to using scarce public money, in many instances, quite deliberately and quite ineffectively.

Parkin Prize: Is it art? Who cares

I'd forgotten all about the Parkin Prize until reading this morning on the DomPost front page that the $20,000 prize winner had entered a rubbing of her apartment floor.

Good for her. Is it art? Who cares. She spent hours and hours on her hands and knees, which is more than I did.

It had been literally decades since I'd drawn with a pencil but I had a first-time shot anyway. Left it till the very last minute - in fact I thought the deadline was midnight, not 4 pm. And I didn't get home till after five. But the on-line submission was auto-accepted at 6 pm. Wasn't surprised when it didn't make the cut. 443 submissions. Put up some decent prize money and everyone has a crack. This is the sketch; the finished painting is here.

Actually, as I have pondered over this whilst hanging out the washing, making breakfast etc it occurs that there is a lovely irony inherent in her work. Most artists making any money from their work are earning the minimum wage or less. But in this case repetitive grafting on  hands and knees, day after day reaped a much better hourly rate . Even if she took 300 hours to rub every floor in her apartment it's paid her $66.66 per. Getting up there with plumbers....

"Feminism damages children"

Muriel Newman's latest column at NZCPR, Feminism damages children

Child abuse has again been in the headlines over the last few weeks, most recently following the release of the Children’s Commissioner’s State of Care report into the treatment of children in the care of Child, Youth and Family (CYF). The report contained a number of recommendations, which the Minister of Social Development Anne Tolley has said will be taken into account in the major overhaul of the agency that is presently underway.
 Leading the review is Paula Rebstock, an economist and the former Chair of the Commerce Commission, who has already directed far-reaching reforms for the government into Social Welfare and the Department of Corrections. It is understood that a ‘social investment’ approach is being promoted for CYF, which will put children’s needs at its centre – as well as focussing on what works and how to get best value for money. The report is said to be with Cabinet and is expected to be released in its final form by the end of the year.
 However, no matter what structural changes to the child protection agency are introduced, nor what new processes are brought in, the problems of abused and damaged children will continue until the government stops paying women who are not in loving and stable relationships to have babies. 

  More

 Twinned with mine, Violence made viable

 Lots of people survive courtesy of a benefit. They do so because they are too sick to work, can’t find a job, have children who need feeding with no other source of income, and so on. There are a myriad of reasons why people receive welfare. Most of these people – 300,000 or thereabouts – are not violent. The same can be said of the general population. Yet the odds that violence will occur within the beneficiary population are much higher.
 That’s what the statistical evidence says. Violence – or more particularly – family violence, is relatively common in New Zealand. There are 100,000 family violence reports to police annually, yet the government thinks this represents only 20% of the actual level. The thought that half a million reports would better represent the actual state of affairs in Aoteoroa is chilling. And, frankly, hard to believe. (Perhaps a flag with a fist on it would best portray New Zealand?) 

  More

Marriage maketh the moneyed

Source

Quote of the Day

Whipped from FFF, this one really appealed:

Government! Three fourths parasitic and the other fourth stupid fumbling--oh, he conceded that man, a social animal, could not avoid having government, any more than an individual man could escape his lifelong bondage to his bowels. But Harshaw did not have to like it. Simply because an evil was inescapable was no reason to term it a "good." He wished that government would wander off and get lost!

— Robert A. Heinlen, Stranger in a Strange Land [1961]

Marriage and income inequality

The institution of marriage is enjoying new popularity - amongst gays.

Left liberals are, though, very reluctant to acknowledge the social and economic benefits of marriage in general. This is highlighted by the AEI where it is pointed out that the concept of two-parent families "May not appeal as much to liberal sensibilities"  as the euphemism, "strong" families.

Richard Reeves of the Brookings Institution found that four out of five children who started out in the bottom income quintile—but who were raised by married parents—rose out of the bottom quintile as adults. Meanwhile, kids raised in the bottom quintile to never-married parents had a 50 percent chance of remaining at the bottom. And Brad Wilcox of AEI calculated that 32 percent of the increase in income inequality since 1979 can be linked to the decline in stable, married families. 


There are societal changes that we cannot turn the clock back on, and most wouldn't want to. But a growing  recognition of the two parent family as the best environment in which to raise children will hopefully lead a return to that structure  (not precluding gay parents from my suggestion).

New paintings

Just updating my artist blog, another return to my favourite subject; historic black and white photos of Maori used to produce colourful portraits.

These two are part of a mini exhibition of Paintings from Historic Photographs hung in the foyer of Revera House, 48 Mulgrave St today. The building is multi-storied and the feedback from occupants as I hung the works was very warming.

Ben Carson tied with Trump

Now I am started to get interested in the US presidential race. A report in this morning's DomPost says, "...this week a Monmouth University poll had [Ben Carson] tied in first place with Donald Trump." (And for balance here is a rejoinder describing Carson as a "Wingnut with a calm bedside manner").

This first I knew of Ben Carson was a lengthy interview conducted by Leighton Smith, who is perfect for that job given his knowledge of Carson.

There isn't enough 'live and let live' about Carson's personal philosophy for my taste but much of what he espouses nevertheless makes perfect sense. The man himself, the way he speaks and the way he comports himself are compelling, as is his life story. He is vehemently against socialism. That apparently makes him an 'extremist'.

When pushed by Leighton Smith on the subject of whether he would stand for president he was non-committal. But I found myself hoping that he would. And the impression he made on me is starting to multiply across the States.

Code for an attack on the govt and welfare reforms

CPAG Summit - Welfare fit for families in a changing world

MEDIA ALERT 
2 September 2015

A Child Poverty Action Group summit in Auckland next week will look at what needs to change for New Zealand’s welfare and child policy to support all children and families in the 21st Century.

In conjunction with the Department of Paediatrics at Auckland University and the Retirement Policy and Research Centre (RPRC), CPAG will host a summit on welfare on Tuesday 8 September on the topic, Welfare fit for families in a changing world. The summit will look at how policies can be a better fit for the 21st century in a time of challenging change in the social and work environment.

CPAG has consistently called for policy which puts the best interests of the child at centre and says almost all social policy would look different if children’s needs took priority....

An exciting range of speakers includes Trevor McGlinchy of NZCCSS, Sarah Thompson of Auckland Action Against Poverty, Moira Lawler of Lifewise, senior researcher Michael Fletcher of AUT, early childhood expert Lesley Lyons, youth ambassador Nardos Tilahun, former Children’s Commissioner Ian Hassall, Deborah Morris-Travers of UNICEF and statistician Len Cook.

In an important session, speakers Reb Fountain and Mike Treen will address the Welfare/work interface, looking at a sole parent’s transition to work and how the changing world of work is impacting on welfare.

Spokesperson Associate Professor Mike O’Brien says, "The basic principles of simplicity, equity, adequacy, neutrality, efficiency and generosity which underpin New Zealand superannuation have served older New Zealanders well. They should also be applied to how we treat our children."

ENDS

There will be no rabble outside protesting, pushing around attendees etc. That's because the usual protesters will be inside. But it'd be nice to see some ordinary sorts quietly holding banners.

Waitangi Tribunal claim against state for failing to reduce Maori offending

My simple understanding of the Waitangi Tribunal was that it existed to put right misdeeds perpetrated on Maori regarding land. So I checked the official description:

The Waitangi Tribunal was established in 1975 by the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975. The Tribunal is a permanent commission of inquiry charged with making recommendations on claims brought by Māori relating to actions or omissions of the Crown that potentially breach the promises made in the Treaty of Waitangi.

Claims have become increasingly imaginative as understandings of what the Treaty "promised" have developed.

Here's an interesting one. A claim against the state for failure to stop Maori offending and reoffending:

Tribunal Claim: Too Many Māori in Prison And Reoffending Monday, 31 August 2015, 9:14 amPress Release: Phoebe Monk

31 August 2015
Waitangi Tribunal Claim Filed Against Corrections Alleges Too Many Māori in Prison And Reoffending
Tom Hemopo, a retired probation officer, has today filed an urgent claim to the Waitangi Tribunal on behalf of himself and his iwi alleging Crown failures to reduce the number of Maori in prison and high reoffending rates.
The ‘Corrections Claim’ targets the Department of Corrections which has failed to reduce high rates of reoffending by Māori and has the support of two Hawkes Bay iwi entities - Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated and Ngāti Pāhauwera Development Trust.
More

Following on from this it isn't difficult to envisage many more claims against the state eg the failure of CYF to reduce the number of Maori children in care.

In fact using Youth Court appearances as an indicator, the number of Maori offenders has halved since 2008. 

"All lives have equal value"

Ross Bell of the New Zealand Drug Foundation, has written a column in today's DomPost about doing more to stop drug overdoses by increasing availability and access to Naloxone, an injectable drug which can reverse an overdose.  Bell loses me with this sentence,

"Our failure to realize all lives have equal value has meant that until now we have failed to prevent unnecessary deaths."

Someone who takes risks with their own life daily by putting dangerous doses of drugs into their bodies by definition values his or her own life less than most. If Bell is arguing for public funding of Naloxone, the debate about lives and relative value will be invoked.

Health is rationed. Funding is limited. Hospitals already practice rationing and age plays a big part. In the health system all lives do not have equal value.

(But I'd have no problem with families of addicts or alcoholics purchasing the Naloxone for emergencies. It is available in New Zealand.)

Only 64 Asian children in state care

Talkback and news yesterday was dominated by the report from the Children's Commissioner citing the inadequacies of state care and CYF.

It has inevitably been heavily politicised, for example by the DomPost this morning. They like to bitch at the current Minister.

A crucial failing: while 58 percent of the children in care are Maori, the system often fails to meet their needs. Some extra senior Maori staff have been appointed, the report notes, but many Maori staff are overworked. Major change is needed here. What is the Minister, a Pakeha with no obvious empathy or experience in Maori issues, doing about it?

So, the "system" often fails to meet the needs of Maori children.

First and foremost their parents and families failed to meet their needs.

All of these problems would disappear if every child had a parent or guardian dedicated to their needs. Pie in the sky? Not really. The Asian community almost achieves it.

The 0-17 Asian population in New Zealand is around 119,500 according to the last census. There were 237,500 Maori of the same age.

So the Maori population is double the Asian yet has 46 times more children in state care.

New Zealand, instead of overtly or covertly disapproving of Asians, should be looking at what they do that keeps their children safe and protected.

That would make more sense then yet another overhaul of CYF.

The latest CYF instalment

The Children's Commissioner has released a report about children in state care, and Simon Collin's coverage extends to the general state of CYF and intended overhaul.

I have read histories of child welfare work in NZ. I've read every author who knows anything worth knowing on the subject. Commissions of inquiry, radical organisational changes, transfer of responsibility between departments, name changes and reforming legislation are the norm.

The nature of CYF is chaotic because it deals with chaotic people. The organisation is in crisis because it exists to respond to crisis. No law changes, or system revamps, or 'best practice' applications will change that.

I feel sorry for the people who work with deeply dysfunctional families. The best of them burn out, and the worst become desensitized.

This latest from the Commissioner, and then Paula Rebstock's panel to "transform" CYF are just part and parcel of the ongoing drama that is chasing the tail of  inter-generational social malaise driven by paying people to have babies.

One particular statistic stood out from the Herald item though:

Maori make up ... 68 per cent of young people in the nine CYF residences, compared with 24 per cent of all children under 15. 

Tragic. Especially when a good chunk of it evolves into 50 percent of adults in state residences.

But you knew that in advance

Simon Collins has a lengthy piece in the NZ Herald today detailing the costs parents face when they want to return to work. 

He describes the case of one young couple whose second child is 8 weeks old with a mum who is considering a return to work,

But if she goes back fulltime, paying for childcare for Bryn plus after-school care for Amelia, and allowing for extra petrol, the family will be hardly any better off than they are on one income.
"I need to work financially because my husband's income is $200 short of our expenses," Mrs Jones says.

But they surely knew this when they decided to have another baby?

 Mrs Jones would like to be able to stay home with her baby for at least his first year."I'd like it to be a choice," she says. "I'd much rather be able to spend at least the first year at home with the baby. It's not fair on them being shoved out the door just because we can't afford to feed them."

It's so depressing hearing this kind of complaint. They will already be in the enviable position of effectively paying no tax and yet somehow it's still "not fair" that more public money isn't provided to subsidize their choice.

Nothing frustrates me more than witnessing people who walk into situations knowingly then whine about the injustice of it all.

Rarely reported in MSM

Jarrod Gilbert calls for a "dispassionate" response to child deaths and provides background for his position:

Children are more likely to be murdered within three years of being born than at any other time during their life. Even more surprising, given the acute gender focus of domestic violence campaigns, women are equally as likely to kill as men and most often the culprit is the child's biological mother.
A Family Violence Death Review Committee reported that of the 37 child homicides resulting from abuse and neglect between 2009 and 2012, at least 41 per cent were killed by their mother. In very young children this figure increases. The other perpetrators - stepfathers, fathers, and female caregivers - lagged well behind.
Given that babies and toddlers are entirely dependent on adults for their survival; that they deprive people of sleep and create significant hardships; and that mothers are the most likely to live with their children, then perhaps these data aren't as surprising as they first appear.

Here's the data Gilbert  refers to:

None of this detracts from the particular danger that non-biological 'dads' pose. Those crimes may be the most preventable.

But for children, especially newborns, the risk from their birth mother is statistically higher. Suffice to say the risks of death are minuscule and volatile.

"Kai time" krap

The government is all over us with their surveys about this; surveys about that. They even want to know how often we eat together.

Kai time keeps Kiwis connected

How good are our family relationships? states that 59 percent of couples-without-children shared eight or more meals weekly. This compares with only around one-third of couples-with-children and sole-parent families. 
“This difference is perhaps a result of staggered meal times, but it’s interesting to see that people without children share more meals together than those with children,” Ms Ramsay says. 

The 'couple without children' will contain a large number of retirees. There are potentially 21 meals a week. Busy households with children and teenagers jostling over bathroom use in the morning won't be sitting down to eat together. And they won't be home at lunch time. Dinner? Very young children eating early, partners working late or doing shifts, teenagers in out-of school activities, etc.

Using 'eating together' as a proxy for relationship quality is troublesome in other ways too. I remember as a child all six of us ate together at six sharp. But we didn't talk. It was news time and woe betide anyone who talked over something Dad wanted to listen to.

Good time with my children is often in the car going into the city. Yes I ferry them in some mornings when their lessons/lectures coincide simply because we generally laugh a lot.

Anyway, what social policy will this revealing research 'inform' as they say?  A major multi-member-meal education campaign? Far-fetched maybe, but so would the very idea of the survey been once, especially using public money.

Australia : "Adoption Advocacy"

The following piece is written in an Australian setting but it is just as relevant in this country. I recall Don Brash behind bagged for suggesting adoption become a more widespread practice. It's kind of odd that people of a leftist persuasion use the argument of 'urgency' for reducing child poverty yet support the CYF philosophy of keeping children at risk with their natural families as long as possible. And it's even odder that adoption by NZ Europeans is almost unmentionable yet whangai (unregulated Maori adoption) is culturally kosher.

A mere 89 children were adopted from 'out-of-home care' last year. At the same time, more than 30,000 children had been in care continuously for longer than two years.

This is a proxy figure for the number of children potentially available for adoption, were adoption not officially taboo within the child protection world. Many children in long-term care have been subjected to prolonged maltreatment at home  and highly damaging instability while in care (multiple entries, exits, and reentries) as endless efforts are made to preserve and reunite dysfunctional families.

The taboo reflects the complex history of adoption, including the legacy of the Stolen Generations and discredited forced adoption practices. But the tragic lessons of these episodes have been learned. Modern adoptions are 'open', meaning adopted children can have contact with birth parents and knowledge of their family and cultural heritages so they do not grow up strangers unto themselves.

A promising sign is that the debate is changing due to the growing realisation that many children would be better off having a safe and permanent adopted family for life.

Diana Bryant, the Chief Justice of the Family Court,  and Megan Mitchell, the  National Children's Commissioner have both expressed support of greater use of adoption for some children in care.

But there is still a long way to go. Political leadership is needed to drive cultural change in child protection authorities, but politicians are wary of supporting adoption for fear of being accused of repeating past mistakes and 'stealing' children all over again.

On controversial issues such as adoption, politicians prefer to lead in the direction the public is already prepared to head. This is why it is crucial for organisations like the CIS, and adoption advocacy groups such as Adopt Change, to lead the debate and build community support for adoption.

Adoption from care will not become a standard part of Australian child protection, as it should be, until the idea that modern, open adoption is a socially acceptable practice is embedded in the hearts and minds of the Australian public. 

Dr Jeremy Sammut is a Research Fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies. His book, The Madness of Australian Child Protection: Why Adoption Will Rescue Underclass Children, will be published by Connor Court in November. He is speaking today at the CIS Consilium conference session Changing Minds to Change Lives: Breaking the Adoption 'Taboo' in Australia.

Drilling down DPB numbers

In Parliament this week the Prime Minister said:

"... through a strong economy and the welfare reform measures this Government has undertaken, we now have the lowest number of people on the equivalent of the old DPB since 1988."

Strictly speaking this is true and surely very good news?

The complication is benefit changes.

To get a clearer picture I asked MSD for the number of sole parents on any benefit and compared it to earlier data. Roughly, this compares pre to post GFC.

At September 2006 there were 107,628 sole parents on welfare. (By December 2007 to number had dropped further to 103,366 but I don't have the additional info for that date.) The following table provides a breakdown of sole parents by benefit type. Note that 88 percent were on the DPB.

By June 2015 the percentage of sole parents on the "equivalent of the old DPB" - Sole Parent Support - had dropped to 76 percent.

So we can frame this another way.

The percentage of sole parents on welfare benefits other than "the equivalent of the old DPB" has doubled. 

That is because sole parents with children 14 and older, and 'women alone' have been moved onto the Jobseeker benefit; and sole parents caring for someone who would otherwise been hospitalised have been moved onto the Supported Living Payment.

Of course, it's good news that there are 12 percent fewer sole parents on welfare since December 2007. The employment rate of sole parents has steadily increased. But as my previous post illustrated, the core behaviour that drives long-term  welfare dependency and child poverty is relentless. Beneficiaries continue to add 'newborn' children to existing benefits, most commonly, Sole Parent Support. 35 every day in the six months to March 2015.

I reserve my excitement for the day that steady trend line, which dates back to at least 1993, starts to decline.

35 children a day added to an existing benefit

In the six months to March 2015 6,347 children under the age of one were added to an existing benefit. That's 35 every day. Half are Maori. Just under half have a mother/caregiver aged 24 or younger.

The welfare reform policy which aimed at stopping this poverty-inducing habit has failed. That's hardly a surprise. The threat to make someone with a child as young as one go to work is empty when there are no jobs.

For context the number is down on the 2014 equivalent (6,634) but still up on the 2006 equivalent (5,854).

All annual births to March 2015 (57,476) are down on March 2014 (58,515) in any case, which will explain the drop at least partially.

Here is an age breakdown. Note these figures pertain to the caregiver so differ from total children ie some caregivers have added more than one child.

And here is the ethnicity breakdown:

Around two thirds are to single parents.

Under 1 year-old is proxy for newborn. It's the best I have ever managed to get from MSD. And children's ethnicity is assumed to be the same as the parent/caregivers. Of course that will not always be the case but information on the child's ethnicity is not recorded.

The point is - and I hammer it again - people with no independent ability to raise a child continue having them. And their actions drive the child poverty problem.

The Left are fond of telling us it takes a village to raise a child (the financial implications of which are clear). It does not take a village to conceive and produce it.