Drug-testing beneficiaries - suspend the sanctioning policy?

The NZ Herald reports:

Last year, there were 31,791 referrals for drug testable positions nationwide and just 55 sanctions for failing a drug test, according to Ministry of Social Development (MSD) figures.

 Seem low to you? No mention of sanctions for refusing to take a drug test.

The article highlights some reasons why the number could be 'artificially' low including people switching to drugs that are non-detectable, or many people's main employability problem being alcohol which won't necessarily lead to failing a drug test.

From the file of ‘unintended consequences’, a 2016 government report released under the OIA noted that, “There has also been anecdotal evidence that increased testing has led to employees and job seekers using drugs that have a shorter detection time but are more harmful.” 

But consider this:

Beneficiaries diagnosed with drug dependency would not be sanctioned under the policy, but would receive the support they needed to deal with their addiction, [MSD representative] said.

There are thousands of beneficiaries who will never be put forward for jobs that require drug-testing because they have a primary incapacity of substance abuse.

Here's the interesting thing though. They have decreased in numbers. The source for this data is my own and one other OIA request.

The number rose through Labour's last term (while unemployment fell) and has dropped under National.

A 'tougher' but more practical approach may be the driver of this fall. (Or the problem could still be there and hidden under other incapacity categories eg psychological and psychiatric conditions which risen 11% since June 2008.)

But that very few people receiving a benefit fail a drugs test is not reason to do away with the sanctions. Nobody should be able to render themselves unable to work and expect to live off taxpayer funding.

How lies get legs

My last post highlighted how Simon Wilson claimed in a column in today's NZ Herald that the average teacher age in New Zealand is 57.

Next on The Nation this morning the interviewer repeated this to the the Minister who made no denial:

That’s true, and we will get to those. We’re talking about the level of remuneration right now. Under your offer, how much will an average teacher get extra?
It depends, because through the Ministry of Education, the offer has been loaded up at the beginning-teacher salary rate. So a beginning teacher, for example, stands to gain almost 15 per cent increase over three years. Those more experienced teachers would get less under the offer that’s on the table at the moment.

And the majority of those teachers are the more experienced teachers. The average age is 57 or something like that. They’re higher into the pay scale. So do you know how much they’re going to get?
Again, it depends on where they’re at on the salary scale, but also about 40 per cent of primary school teachers are earning over the top of the salary scale because they have additional allowances or additional management units or whatever. So it’s quite difficult to put nice clean numbers on it, because the pay scale and the pay system for teachers is quite a complex one.

This morning I linked to data from 2008 which showed the average age was 44.5.

After further probing I have data from the OECD showing the average teacher age in 2015 was 45. What you would expect based on the 2008 number. At this rate, the average age won't be 57 until 2183 AD.... or thereabouts.

My guess is that The Nation presenter simply repeated what he read in the NZ Herald.

Like Chinese whispers.

Don't worry about facts - just rage

Don't think I have come across this commentator before - Simon Wilson writing in the NZ Herald. All gloom and doom and crisis, crisis.

Inequality:

"Council of Trade Unions (CTU) economist Bill Rosenberg calls it a "hollowing out of the wage scale". Inequality is growing and the people taking the biggest hit are those in the middle and the lower middle. Mostly, that includes self-employed people.

It's worse for non-working beneficiaries. We don't have a DPB (Domestic Purposes Benefit) any more, but there is an equivalent payment package in the benefit system.

Rosenberg has calculated that even if we raised that payment by 25 per cent, it would still be no higher, in relation to the average wage, than the level it was cut to in 1991. For the single unemployed and invalids, benefits would need to rise by even more."

But is it facile to talk about just the benefit payment when there are other substantial add-ons. Someone who has a baby and is on a benefit now receives $151 a week for that child. If they have other children  they will receive substantial further payments for each child and,  and if they live in Auckland, can claim up to $305 in accommodation supplement.

As for overall income inequality you don't have to understand all the jargon and workings. If you can tell whether a trendline is going up or down you can see that the official stats show that inequality is not rising.

And he hasn't got other facts right.

For instance he says:

"The average age of teachers is 57.5 years."

He is so out of touch and would know this if he spent any time around primary schools.

The following pertains to 2008 but in it inconceivable such a massive change would have occurred since:

"...the average age of teachers has remained relatively steady at 44 for the past eight years; for the current period the average age is 44.5 years."

On his wish-list he writes:

"So what's next? What about Children First? A programmatic approach that says we identify what children need, from conception, make sure they have somewhere to live where they are warm, dry, safe and preferably loved, and wrap the services around them that will allow them to prosper ... through pre-school and school and into tertiary education or work, and especially if they are abused at home, if they have mental health issues, if they get in trouble with the law."

Identifying and targeting is exactly what  Bill English was doing. It is exactly what Whanau Ora services are doing right now.

"There is rage in the world. Rage in this country too. The big task for Jacinda Ardern and her Government is to set us on a path where hope subsumes the rage."

Yes. I get pretty annoyed when I read hyperbole unsupported by facts.

And here comes a cheer leader:

It may be a "good" overview if it confirms lazy prejudices but it is not an honest overview.

UPDATE:

"Years of neglect and our schools are now in crisis" he writes.

Even Chris Hipkins, on telly, has just denied that the education sector is "in crisis".

Driven to suicide by @MeToo ... apparently

I added 'apparently' because you never know what lengths these obsessives will go to.

While I've never heard of this unfortunate man or his unfortunate wife, as an opponent of the @MeToo campaign I'm inclined to further publicise this tragedy. And it is a tragedy, especially the loss of a father - one much greater than anything he was 'apparently' falsely accused of:

Anne Sofie von Otter, the famed Swedish mezzo-soprano, is speaking out to the press for the first time about the March 2018 suicide of her husband, Benny Fredriksson. She recently gave a lengthy interview to Die Zeit, the German weekly newspaper.

After Aftonbladet, a leading Swedish newspaper, published anonymous accusations that he was guilty of sexual and psychological abuse, Fredriksson resigned from his post at the Kulturhuset Stadsteatern (House of Culture and City Theatre) in Stockholm, the country’s premier cultural center and theater, in December 2017. On March 17, while accompanying his wife on tour in Australia, Fredriksson killed himself.

Toward the end of his life, his widow disclosed, Fredriksson was afraid of going out into the street for fear of being recognized. “Suddenly he turned inward and everything was about ‘what did I do wrong?’” she said, according to the Irish Times. Von Otter criticized the #MeToo herd mentality. “What has happened,” she asked, “to our independent, critical thinking?”

More

A view from Rick's place

I've always had a lot of time for young Rick Giles. Involved first with the Libertarianz and then ACT on Campus, he's quirky, mercurial and acutely intelligent. This video about baby boomers and parenting is challenging but also manages to be very humorous.

I have advised he check his own collectivism (after railing against it during the commentary) regarding labeling an entire generation. 

Rick's place

Poor Prime Minister

I used to think that feminists had a beef with men making the world a tougher place for them to exist in. Now I believe that it is feminists themselves making the world a tougher place for women.

There are boundless contradictions and inconsistencies bandied about. Today's NZ Herald publishes a prime example. Another face of feminism that believes babies need their mothers! That baby's needs should be elevated above those of its natural first carer - not the father by the way.

This one is guilt-tripping the PM big time. With feminist friends like these who needs enemies?

The reaction to this demand from an Australian that the New Zealand Prime Minister should shrink and shirk her political role will be vitriolic. It'll be frighteningly, ferociously ....feminist.

After all the proud celebration of a woman combining motherhood with the most powerful position in the country along comes this treacherous traitor to prick Jacinda's bubble with a loud bang. At exactly the moment when she might be feeling uncertain. How hellish hard will it be to relinquish constant contact and cuddles after 6 intense weeks? I wouldn't hand over my 12 week-old pup to ANYONE.

What we are seeing is yet another inevitable failure of collectivism. If the group is more important than the individual, then the group rules the roost. But just who makes those rules?

Feminism has descended into a cauldron of cattiness; of nasty factionalism. It doesn't empower. It  scrutinises and judges groups within groups. Like extreme left or right politics, the creed is hardest on those most like it - those who should know better but fail. Like our poor PM.

Feminism is eating itself.

Good riddance.

Benefits by ethnicity - note last graph

The last graph reminded me of another recently viewed.

Graphed in the same colours and groups prisoners by ethnicity looks like this:

Quite a close match. Hardly surprising.

Benefit numbers up for first time since 2010

The first June to June increase in benefit numbers since 2010 has been recorded. This sits alongside Carmel Sepuloni's change to the benefit sanctions rules - essentially a softening. Sanctions are down by over 20 percent. The two developments may be related.

The specific benefit numbers that have increased are Jobseeker.

This is concerning when employers are crying put for unskilled workers. We know that MSD are worried about slowing exits from the Jobseeker benefit. They recently commented, "Demand for low skilled labour in the regions is not being readily absorbed by jobseekers in those regions." More than once emergency rules have been invoked to allow migrants to pick up the slack.

More Jobseeker benefits are being granted and fewer cancelled.

Further analysis required.

Update:

The data tables show the increased Jobseeker numbers are accounted for overwhelmingly by 25-39 year-olds.

Maori on Jobseeker have increased by 12% since 2015. They are now the single largest ethnic group receiving this benefit.

Psychological and psychiatric conditions among Jobseekers have increased almost 16% since 2015. This is a standout statistic among health conditions.

Prisoners come from families broken by the state

One of the charts from my latest report, Imprisonment and Family Structure

The rest of the paper argues why this is more than mere correlation traversing Maori urbanisation, whanau and nuclear family disintegration, gangs, state-care and inter-generational dysfunction.

As a society we continue to keep paying for it - the processes and consequences.

One hand in the Labour Party is actively increasing welfare while the other is planning to hold a hui on how to bring down the prison population.

If you think putting more money into dysfunctional families will reduce crime reflect on what children of gangs told the Children's Commissioner. That, despite feeling bound to follow in their footsteps, one of the upsides of living in gang families was not having to live in poverty.

(Post prompted by this piece.)

A child's logic

A little girl asks her mum, 'Mum, can I take the dog for a walk around the block?'
Her mum replies 'No, because she is on heat.'

'What does that mean?' asked the child.

'Go and ask your father. I think he's in the garage.'

The little girl goes out to the garage and says, 'Dad, can I take Lulu for a walk around the block? I asked Mum, but she said the dog was on the heat, and to come ask you.'

He took a rag, soaked it in petrol, and scrubbed the dog's backside with it to disguise the scent, and said 'Ok, you can go now, but keep Lulu on the leash and only go one time around the block.'

The little girl left and returned a few minutes later with no dog on the leash..

Surprised, Dad asked, 'Where's Lulu?'

The little girl said, 'She ran out of petrol about halfway round the block, so another dog is pushing her home.'

Cartoon provokes outrage

The cartoon below was published in the DomPost, Monday, and has provoked letters of outrage.

So I'm adding my two cents worth.

Dear Editor

So Al Nisbet's cartoon touched a nerve amongst some readers. Why? While somewhat blunt it nevertheless describes a very real problem with welfare - that benefit incomes for families with children are too close to incomes from work. The last Labour government attempted to fix this by introducing the In Work Tax Credit making employment financially advantageous. This Labour government has effectively undone that with substantially increased payments for babies born into workless homes.

As for the depiction of neglected children one reader found so offensive, it is a fact that, "Of all children having a finding of maltreatment by age 5, 83% are seen on a benefit before age 2." (Auckland University, 2012)

Lindsay Mitchell

Part of why National lost the 2017 election

It struck me today why National couldn't pull enough vote to stay in government because they can't articulate a clear position.

What highlighted this problem was Amy Adams response to today's commencement of Labour's Family Package. RNZ reports:

To pay for the package, the government scrapped the National government's promised tax cuts, but National's finance spokesperson Amy Adams said that would have helped more people than the families package.
"National's philosophy is people who work hard should get to keep more of their money.
"It shouldn't be taken off of them by government, filtered out to a few and pay a whole lot of extra tax that the economy doesn't need imposed on it," she said.

No problem with the first part.

But then she says the money Labour takes will be "filtered out to a few".

My understanding was that is exactly National's position. They were targeting their spending - call it social investment if you like - whereas Labour sprays money universally so as to avoid any stigmatisation of the 'beneficiary' and to buy votes.

The controversial heating payment to all pensioners regardless of income could hardly be described as "filtered out to the few". Neither can the $3,120 a year for babies born as of today in families with incomes below $79,000.

If National had been clearer about what they were doing to help needy and dysfunctional families, more on the centre-left could have been persuaded. It makes no sense to churn vast amounts of tax. It makes no sense to take money off someone only to give it back. All that does is keep an army of IRD workers employed (who are currently agitating for higher wages which will add even more to the dead-weight of taxation).

What a mess.

UPDATE: The $3.120 payment is universal for the first year.

Another nail in the coffin of compassion

This is a man who likes to hurt people. Severely physically hurt people.

He has irrevocably alienated himself from normal society by disfiguring his face. He knows that.

I looked for some hardship this man had faced. He is now 29. No spring chicken in criminal circles.

Here's a report about the crime and sentencing that resulted in his initial ten year imprisonment:

A killer was embraced by the family of his victim before he was sentenced to life in prison.

Adam Robert Gempton, 21, was sentenced to life, with a minimum non-parole period of 10 years, by Justice Chisholm in the High Court in Christchurch yesterday for the murder of Timothy John Constable....

Constable's parents hugged Gempton as he stood in the dock.

Pauline Constable said in her victim-impact statement that she forgave Gempton despite going through a "living nightmare" after her son's death.

She hugged Gempton, who twice whispered, "I'm sorry."

...Gempton said: "It was never my intention to kill Tim. I was just trying to defend my partner and I feared for my daughter's safety. I feared for everyone's safety, and I'm sorry."

After the sentencing, Pauline Constable said she was happy with the outcome.

"There was true remorse shown by Adam and he was very sorry this happened," she said. "It's a shame he'll have to spend 10 years in prison."

My experience of prison and prisoners is limited. But greater than most people's. Volunteers tend to work with the most motivated prisoners and it's natural that our views are coloured by this experience. There are plenty of deserving and salvageable souls to be encountered.

Which is why this individual angers me beyond what is reasonable. Because he makes the public turn feral on inmates.

Prison houses the worst humans. The most damaged and the most dangerous. I recently visited a property where two chained dogs were writhing, straining, snarling and desperate to attack. They have to be taught to be that way. And so do humans.

But humans have mental faculties dogs do not. They have the opportunity dogs are not blessed with;  to think about what they have done and where will they go from there.

This man certainly did. And added the deepest insult to injury possible. He became more violent.

State housing capture

State house tenants are on a good wicket. MSD explains: (note: benefit = advantage)

The benefit tenants receive from subsidised rents (IRR/IRRS) [Income related rent subsidy] is (on the whole) significantly greater than the benefit received by people who get the Accommodation Supplement (AS) - creating pressure on public housing places.

Exits from social housing are decreasing rapidly.

MSD explains some of this effect:

"The cost of public housing to government is very sensitive to growth in rental prices
Rental growth has three key impacts:
• IRRS [Income related rent subsidy] increases directly as market prices increase
• growth in rents above incomes means proportion of rent paid by tenants
falls (IRRS grows faster than rental growth)
• higher level of IRRS means tenants are further from the market > decreased
exits and increased durations.
If rental growth per year is 1% higher than what is already built into Budget
forecasting, costs to government grow by 20% and the number of exits falls by
6% over 20 years."

So part of the housing 'crisis' - the shortage specifically - is the result of the normal flow in and out of state houses becoming disrupted as market rents rise.

State housing is about provision of homes for the neediest, hopefully as a temporary state of affairs, because the housing stock hasn't grown for decades. That can't happen if  current occupants batten down.

Every move the government makes that impinges on the private housing market eg land restriction and bureaucratic interference on many more levels, comes back to bite them at the social housing end.

Now instead of reversing restrictions and bureaucracy they plan to increase the supply of state houses and have increased the accommodation supplement. It's just not a viable solution.

What could be kinder than offering a jobseeker a job?

Apparently the treatment of beneficiaries has become harsh and they are subject to unreasonable obligations. An 'expert' panel has been appointed to review the welfare system.

But what could be kinder to a jobseeker than the offer of a job?

MSD freely admits however that it can't get people off benefits despite a demand for workers. In a just-released publication relating to trends as at 2017 they say:

 "Exit rates for jobseekers are lower than expected. Demand for low skilled labour in the regions is not being readily absorbed by jobseekers in those regions."

This indicates a choice on behalf of  jobseekers despite the eligibility condition, "To receive Jobseeker Support a client must be willing and able to undertake employment."

So the rule is ignored. Nothing new there. Let's face it NZ is a place where most people follow rules in order that a few can ignore them without consequences. (And then those following the rules get accused of undue privilege and power.)

As the unemployment rate is dropping, the likelihood people will leave a benefit is also dropping.

Maori make-up 15% of the population but 35% of beneficiaries. Unsurprisingly, their exit rate from the system is also declining and lower than non-Maori.

There are just under 119,000 people currently on a jobseeker benefit. The number has been fairly static over the past six years, but is at risk of rising, especially with the messages being sent by the current government. The Minister, Carmel Sepuloni,  announced today that benefit suspensions - one of the tools staff can use to persuade people into jobs - have fallen by more than a fifth since she changed the policy to allow only senior staff to apply them.

The last Labour government made a song and dance about not wanting 'dead-end' jobs for beneficiaries (Steve Maharey) - an insult to anyone who works. So getting people into education and training became the holy grail. The current Labour government has perpetuated this ideology with their spectacularly unsuccessful tertiary first-year-free policy.

Yet when MSD tracked those who left a benefit in 2013/14 to study or train they found only, "28% were in employment after 18 months" and "35% were back on a main benefit at 18 months."  Were they still studying? Apparently not, "Only 8% had study or training as their primary activity after 18 months."

On the bright side, 60 percent of people who exited to go to employment were still employed after 18 months.

Which brings me back to the opening question, what could be kinder than offering a jobseeker a job?

There is an answer: making him or her accept it.

Baby Bumf

Arrived in my letterbox today, this Labour pamphlet:

Featuring:

And:

Talk abut 'milking it'.

She really is all this government has going for it.

'Relaxing bail laws won't increase public risk'

Ex Alliance MP Dr Liz Gordon has apparently "...crunched the numbers on bail" and says the bail laws could be relaxed. RNZ reports:

Dr Liz Gordon a social researcher, who is also president of PILLARS, a group helping prisoners' families, said the average number of murders in New Zealand each year was about 80.
She said when you put that figure alongside the extra 1000 people remanded in custody, it was an emotional over-reaction to suggest Andrew Little would have blood on his hands if he loosened the bail laws.
"The mathematics simply doesn't add up. They're not going to all get out of the prisons and start murdering like mad and if you find good alternatives for them, perhaps you can actually stop them ever having to go to prison again."

Let's give that some context. Police stats for the year to December 2017:

Some portion of the 'serious assaults resulting in injury' could have become murders. In fact there is a school of thought among criminologists that the murder rate today would be higher if not for new life-saving technology. The same applies to the road toll.

If she wants to measure risk, it's not the outcome Ms Gordon should be counting, but the intent.

Maori and Pacific getting more dependent on state housing

Thanks to a publicized  OIA response , I happened across statistics not seen before. The data is from December 2017 and graphed below (n= 65,188):

Always interested in trends I did a quick dig about for earlier comparative data. Here's an answer to a PQ in 2003 graphed (n=61,947):

That's a reasonably substantial change in 14 years.

In 2003 the Maori and Pakeha share were identical at 29%.

Now the Maori share is 50 percent greater than Pakeha.

What I'd like to see is an age breakdown of those pie pieces.

How much is the growing dependence a facet of the ageing population?

Imprisonment and Family Structure

My third report in a series, written for Family First, Imprisonment and Family Structure was released last Friday. I was very grateful to criminologist, Greg Newbold, writer, David Cohen and  ex-detective, Dave Pizzini for reviewing the paper and providing feedback. But apart from Leighton Smith interviewing me last Friday the media seems to have ignored it.

Below an op-ed I produced on the back of it. It is intentionally hard-hitting - more so than the report.

Anyone who would like a hard copy of the report which traces imprisonment rates and family structure statistics over the past 100 years (in order to encompass the period when Maori went from being virtually absent among the prison population to today when they make up half), let me know.

Govt fails public and prisoners alike

Last week the government announced it will add a net total of 174 extra beds at Waikeria prison by 2022. This will fall woefully short of what is needed to fairly serve both the public and prisoners alike because the incarcerated population will continue to increase. How do I know?

Because the population group most prisoners arise from continues to behave as they have for decades.

Corrections has identified that the mothers of those children on the pathway to prison are young, uneducated, suffered abuse or neglect as a child, are, or have been substance dependent, are without family connections and have serial male partners. Treasury says abused or neglected children who spend most of their lifetimes on welfare, with a parent who is or has been a prisoner, and a poorly educated mother are ten times more likely to be prisoners before reaching 21.

Te Puni Kokiri has identified intergenerational imprisonment, particularly among Maori. They report, "...anecdotally we were often told by prisoners that they had children by more than one mother." The renowned Dunedin longitudinal study produced the following observation: "Men who spend time in prison are likely to father a disproportionately high number of children...men who engage in highly anti-social behaviour make up 10 percent of the birth cohort, yet account for 27 percent of babies fathered by the time the men are aged 26 years."

Overseas research finds a causal link between male imprisonment and female multi partner fertility. Father A goes to prison; mother takes a new partner, from a similar background, to whom she has another child. Replaced Father A comes out of prison on a short break (he's a violent serial reoffender, quite possibly a gang member) and in the available time quickly forms a new relationship leaving yet another child set on the trajectory to prison described above.

The enabler of these loveless baby factories is welfare, the ideology behind which is once more on the ascendency. On 1 July the taxpayers will foot a further hefty increase in benefits to these very families.

Last year 17 percent of all registered babies had neither married nor de facto parents listed. For Maori babies, the proportion more than doubled to 35 percent. This fact alone is a reasonable pointer to Maori over-representation in prison. The Department of Internal Affairs estimates 2,600 babies born last year haven't even been registered yet.

Many of these children, from chaotic beginnings, will soon come to the attention of CYF. Some will spend part or all of their lives in state care and will ultimately revisit the terrible hurt they have experienced on innocent parties. Eighty three percent of teenage prisoners have a CYF record.

These are all pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that when assembled reveal an ugly picture of the future.

While this state of affairs continues, there is no hope of lowering the prison population by 30 percent in fifteen years’ time - unless of course these angry young victims-turned-offenders are allowed to avoid custodial prison sentences in the future.

In reality a properly functioning prison system with not just enough cells, but enough rooms and resources for necessary rehabilitative programmes to take place, is vital.

And at the other end, the beginning? If nothing else, to policy-makers, please, reconsider making meal tickets out of innocent babies.

Doggies needing good homes

I've just become 'mum' to one of these pups. The real mum is a smooth coat smallish Huntaway and the father mostly Sharpei. Working/ farm dogs.

Six remain and the owner is very keen for them to go to good homes.

Mine, now named 'Limmy', has been a joy for the half day we have had her. Very calm - sat/slept on my knee for the journey home. Has done some exploring since arriving, said a shy howdy to the first inhabitants (existing Huntaway seems rather intrigued if cautious) but at 8 weeks, still wanting to be cuddled back to sleep - missing her litter.

Anyone interested in giving a good home to one of these pups please email me at dandl.mitchellNZ@gmail.com

(Hat-tip Gecko)

From my Dad

Benefits - the staple diet of gangs

If ever you want a damning example of why unconditional welfare benefits are a bad idea:

This fictional Gang Family Example reflects the Gang Intelligence Centre's research into real gang-related families.

Ruby
• Ruby is in her early 70s. She has had nine children from two relationships. She has been a long-term beneficiary, and is currently the caregiver of several young children who are her family members.
• She is currently partnered to a gang member.
• All of Ruby's 9 children have been beneficiaries. Eight are currently on a benefit, and one is now in employment.
• All five of Ruby's daughters have been victims of family violence. One is also a family violence offender. Two of Ruby's sons are family violence offenders.
• Five of Ruby's adult children have been in prison and/or on probation.
• Two of her daughters are partnered to gang members and one son is a gang member.

Missing the point about 'male, pale and stale' label

Many of you will have seen Karl du Fresne's excellent column either in the DomPost or at his site. The response is still ongoing with another letter appearing today. So belatedly I've thrown my two cent's worth in:

Dear Editor

Most of Karl du Fresne's critics (Male, pale and stale, May 31) have missed his main point - the great irony of  'liberals' using intentionally insulting language about the sex, skin colour and age of an entire group who have no control over these characteristics.

But as so many want to talk about the privilege of the white male baby-boomers, lets do it. As young men they grew up in a society with strict expectations about how they would conduct their lives. Corralled into shot-gun marriages, made the compulsory breadwinner of the family, pursued by the courts if they rejected this task; channelled into menial, repetitive jobs in car manufacturing, the meat works or railways; only a select few went to university and became professionals. Stuck in their economic class because the country was yet to become innovative and export- diverse (beyond agriculture). No cheap cars or cheap air travel.  No internet shopping, decent bars and cafes, or mobile phones. No credit cards. Earning, scrimping  and saving was the restrictive routine for most.

I very much doubt today's generation would exchange their freedom and choice for young adulthood in the 1960s where homogeneity and conformity ruled. Privilege? Not a lot.

More Maori and Pacific medical students

The University of Otago has never seen so many Māori students studying to be doctors, new research from the New Zealand Medical Journal shows.

There are any number of ways this good news story can be negatively interpreted.

Quotas?

Why do Maori patients need Maori doctors?

How 'Maori' are they anyway?


Frankly my interest in the race and reverse discrimination debate is minimal.

However it happens, whatever it means,  I'm happy to  note and broadcast this development.

Pro Vice Chancellor Peter Crampton said the increase in Māori and Pacific students was a positive step in ensuring health workers in the future better reflect the people of New Zealand.
"This is the vision: that when you and I engage with the healthcare system, wherever we may engage, it might be with our own doctor, or with the nurse or with the hospital or with the physiotherapist, or the pharmacist, that there is every likelihood we would be engaging with a Māori health professional.
"We want that to be normal, and in the past that has not been normal."

Lots of 'ifs' and 'maybes'

In 2009 KickStart breakfast programmes were introduced into schools. Fonterra provided milk and Sanitarium cereals. Government provided subsidy. MSD published an evaluation study today.

It appears there is robust modelling to show some improvement in dental outcomes (though modest). But I smile over other findings.

Attempts to find better bone health for instance:

"We see no evidence of a significant association between KickStart intensity and the two administrative indicators of fracture. One possible explanation is that KickStart intensity had no association with bone health. Another is that students who received more KickStart were more active as a result of increased energy intake. Falls may have increased at the same time as the likelihood of fracture upon falling was reduced as a result of improvements in bone health."

Then there is more speculation:

 -KickStart may have improved the nutritional quality of the breakfasts consumed by students. This mechanism is suggested by a study by Bhattacharya et al. (2006) which examined the United States School Breakfast Program. 

-The effect of the breakfasts may have been to displace consumption of unhealthy snack foods, including sugary food and drinks, as suggested by the cross-sectional study conducted by Utter and colleagues (2007).

-Reduced pressure on home budgets as a result of KickStart may have allowed families and whānau to purchase higher quality foods to eat at other times of the day and week. Such spillover effects are suggested by the Bhattacharya et al. (2006) study, which found that both adults and preschool children had healthier diets and lower percentages of calories from fat when the School Breakfast Program was available to school-aged children in the household.(My emphasis)

From this it is then inferred:

 If Kickstart caused improvements in diet and caused sugary food and drinks to be displaced, this would suggest that benefits might also include reduced obesity and improvements in learning, health and development (Thornley et al., 2017a), including
reductions in rheumatic fever (Thornley et al., 2017b). (my emphasis)

I hope all of these improvements come to pass and feel somewhat sorry that the researchers were unable to conclude very much at all.

Apologies

If you have posted a comment recently and not seen it appear, that's because unbeknownst to me it has been sitting in 'awaiting moderation'. Mr Wahlberg kindly drew the 'disappearing' comments to my attention and discussions with a fellow blogger led me to where they were.

I will continue with moderation but ensure that your VALUED comments are published in future.

The 'P' testing hoax

Having dealt with real estate and renting recently, the issue of 'P' testing caught my attention, as matters do when they start to personally effect you. I wrote the following but had sat on it unfinished. Now the Government's chief scientist agrees. So for what it's worth:

Despite concerted efforts to reduce availability of key ingredient pseudo-ephedrine, the manufacture of methamphetamine continues along with a new hysteria - P contaminated houses. This ‘crisis’ suits and serves a new industry of testers and contaminant cleaner-uppers.  Landlords and resident owners however bear the brunt of costs associated with this fledgling ticket-clipping industry.  In late 2017, Ross Bell, New Zealand Drug Foundation executive director, told journalist, Maria Slade,

“As a country we’ve gone down this rabbit hole. I’ve described [meth testing] as the biggest scam that’s ever been run in New Zealand, and I still hold that to be true.” 

There is now a clause in real estate contracts whereby a seller must agree to methamphetamine-testing of their property. Of course most properties will be free from contamination but the clause is there to ‘test’ for willingness to comply. A resistance would indicate a possible problem. But the very presence of the clause draws the attention of the potential buyer who then feels pressured to take up the option. He is unaware that the official level of P contamination considered dangerous is very low and highly contentious. In a risk-averse climate, governments in particular are bound to err on the side of safety.

The current level is set at 1.5 microgram per 100 square centimetres. Above this level a property is legally ‘contaminated’. But Nick Kim of Massey University says the level is “risibly low”. According to Slade:

“In a 2016 paper Kim advised that the lowest level of daily exposure to meth that could have a remotely plausible health effect on infants, the most vulnerable members of society, was 12 micrograms – about 8 times the new standard.” 

Other academics are more cautious but agree that the level is set low to provide a substantial safety buffer. The Drug Foundation succinctly captures how this manufactured crisis is based on falsehood:

“The debate about the health risks of living in a house where methamphetamine has previously been smoked (‘non-labs’) has not arisen from concerns raised by the medical or scientific establishment. Instead, it has been driven by Housing New Zealand’s ‘zero tolerance’ approach to tenants taking drugs in their properties, by the media response to that and by the methamphetamine testing and remediation industry.”

New Zealand Drug Foundation, 2017:

"New Zealand spent $52 million last year remediating state houses that contained residues of methamphetamine. In fact, there is no scientific evidence that living in a house where methamphetamine has previously been smoked causes harm. The cost is mind-boggling, but so are the social justice implications – many Housing New Zealand clients were forced to leave their homes and are now homeless and facing huge debts, along with their children and dependants."

Thanks government. Just another fiasco associated with the war on drugs.

 

More fact checking on Cindy Kiro

Yesterday Cindy Kiro was interviewed by Chris Lynch, NewstalkZB, Christchurch. I blogged about two statements which were false. Here's another:

"...New Zealand was the first country in the world in the 1930s to have the Social Security Act."

Not true. The US 1935 Social Security Act preceded NZ by 3 years.

And of course the Germans were well ahead of very other country. It was Germany that introduced the first old age pension - not NZ.

Back to Kiro.

"We need to go back to some of the roots ...it was called 'security' because it gave people, families in particular, some security in times of massive uncertainty."

Not all families, and certainly not without conditions and obligations.

For instance:

While the 1938 act did not explicitly discriminate against Māori, the provision for the payment of benefits at a lower rate ‘if the maximum benefit is not necessary for the maintenance of the beneficiary’ allowed officials to pay Māori less than Pākehā. While communal living was often cited as a reason for reduction of Māori benefits, MP Eruera Tirikātene told the minister of social security in 1940 that Europeans living at the Rātana pā got the full benefit, while Māori residents had a reduced benefit.

Additionally, and this would be antithetical to the current panelists, in respect of the 1938 act:

"Moral qualifications have been retained in the  liberalized provisions taken over from earlier legislation." 

Moral qualifications? With respect to eligibility to the invalid benefit:

"...the disability must have been acquired during residence in New Zealand and must not be self-induced."

The only benefit available for mothers without partners was contingent on them being legally 'married' and unable to obtain maintenance through the courts. Family allowances were also only payable in respect of married parents.

With regard to the unemployment benefit:

"...the Commission may postpone the commencement of an unemployment benefit
for as long as 6 weeks or even terminate it altogether if the applicant lost his job through misconduct, left voluntarily without good reason, or failed to accept an offer of suitable employment."

I don't think these are the roots that Kiro wants to return to. In fact I doubt she has any idea about the act or she'd stop idealizing it.

Kiro kicks off badly

Among a lot of disjointed verbiage Cindy Kiro, appointed to lead the welfare review Labour promised the Greens, says to Chris Lynch on NewstalkZB:

"...sole parents constitute something less than 2 percent of benefit dependants..."

She is completely out of touch.

Sole parents who are benefit dependants constitute 2% of the working population.

Lynch, to his credit, tackled her on the issue of mothers not being obliged to name the fathers of their children, by talking about the importance of fathers to families. She then contradicts herself by saying we can't hark back to the 1950s because families have changed so much. But earlier she was pushing the line that we need to go back to the beginning of welfare, when it was called social 'security' and reflect those values. She can't have it both ways

Then she clearly tells him that child poverty has worsened since 2003. From the official government source:

• There is no evidence of any increasing depth of relative income poverty over the last two decades.

Kiro has a track record of telling porkies.

The best I can offer is maybe she genuinely believes her own statements and is merely misguided.

The alternative is unpalatable.

About as Left as it could be

Labour has announced the make-up of the welfare review panel:

The members:

Professor Cindy Kiro (chairwoman) - responsible for Māori/indigenous education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Auckland

Professor Innes Asher – paediatrician and health spokeswoman for the Child Poverty Action Group

Kay Brereton – Welfare advocate and co-convenor of the National Beneficiary Advocates Consultative Group

Dr Huhana Hickey - Member of the NZ Human Rights Review Tribunal and chairwoman of the Auckland Council Disability Strategic Advisory Panel

Professor Tracey McIntosh - head of department for Sociology at the University of Auckland

Dr Ganesh Nana - Chief economist at BERL

Phil O'Reilly – Former chief executive of BusinessNZ and current managing director at Iron Duke Partners

Robert Reid – President of First Union

Trevor McGlinchey - Executive officer of New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services

Latayvia Tualasea Tautai - Young Pacific leader from Auckland and university student

Charles Waldegrave - Founder of the Family Centre Social Policy Research Unit 1991 and co-lead of the New Zealand Poverty Measurement Project

I've been around the welfare 'industry' a long time and can tell you that, with the exception of Phil O'Reilly, and possibly Latayvia Tualasea Tautai, whose name is new to me, this is a strongly politically left group. Each will believe that greater wealth redistribution is the answer to 'inclusivity'; that the haves must be forced to support the have-nots regardless of what that does to the motivation and spirit of the have-nots and their children. That the main problem with benefits is lack of generosity, too many conditions and too many obligations. I am certain each of these panelists would proudly describe themselves as socialists. It is also assured that this group will tell the Minister exactly what she wants to hear.

The best outcome for NZ, including beneficiaries, would be Labour losing the next election and this group's brief to backwards-pedal going absolutely nowhere.

(What to expect.)

Update: Over at Kiwiblog this regarding Latayvia Tualasea Tautai

Ireland's abortion vote

The result of Ireland's abortion vote is the right one. I'd have voted with the majority.

But I feel very sad too. Ideally, any smidgen of life should be able to fight its way to fruition. A pregnant mum should want to safeguard her unborn baby, to give it life, even against odds. As an older mum I knew the three month test could show I was carrying a child that was 'imperfect'. I had already resolved to continue should that be the case.

But that's just my situation. My values (not to mention fortunate circumstances and lack of privation) produce a personal decision that cannot be imposed by law on every other female.

Watch out for a spike in prem babies

I wrote in my last column for NZCPR that the baby bonus came in on April 1, 2018. It did not. It kicks in on July 1, 2018. Apologies.

Too late for the PM but every other family will receive an extra $60 a week regardless of their family income.

What is a Best Start tax credit?
Best Start tax credit is a weekly payment of $60 (up to $3,120 per year) per child for a baby born on or after 1 July 2018.
For the first year of the baby's life the family's income is not taken into account. For families earning less than $79,000, Best Start will continue at $60 per week until the child turns 3. If the family income is above $79,000, payments will reduce or stop depending on your income.

This is going to get very messy though.

My baby is due after 1 July 2018, what happens if it comes early?
If your baby's expected due date is on or after 1 July 2018 and is born before this date you're still eligible for Best Start. Depending on your circumstances, you may be eligible for the parental tax credit and you may choose to receive this instead of Best Start.
Parental tax credit is a weekly payment of up to $220 (total of $2,200) paid for the first 10 weeks after your baby was born. It is only available for babies born before 1 July 2018 whose due date was on or after 1 July 2018.

 There are going to be a lot of calculators out.

The difference between $9,360 (3 years of $60 a week) and $2,200 is large.

Who decides what the official expected date is anyway? Many women can't remember the details required to calculate a specific date. Some do not discover they are pregnant until well into the gestation period. Or has some sort of science emerged since I was a expectant mum whereby an exact official date is declared and written in stone? Neither of mine was born on the predicted date. The first was very early and the second quite late.

Prediction: the number of 'premature' babies is going to rise significantly next month.

'Poverty' improperly blamed again

NewstalkZB is reporting on new Australian longitudinal research that links childhood background to the risk of being placed on anti-psychotic medications:

The study will be presented today during the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists Annual Congress in Auckland in front of a national and international gathering of experts.
The study was led by social policy researcher Amy Kaim from the Robinson Research Institute at the University of Adelaide using data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), cross matched with information from Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
"The preliminary findings indicate that a larger proportion of children and teens from disadvantaged families are being placed on antipsychotic medication than others in the general population," she said.
"A larger proportion of children and teens taking the medication were boys, in lower-income families, with an unemployed primary caregiver, who were living in single-parent households.

My contention is always that the family type is more important than the level of income. But the headline for this article reads:

Poverty link with children's mental health 'unarguable'

Noting that error isn't just a frustration on my behalf. It has ramifications.

Because the solution to alleviating the plight of these children automatically becomes putting more public money into their homes.

When told about the research Children's Commissioner Andrew Becroft (who I used to rate as the Principal Youth Court Judge but has been disappointing in his present role) responded:

"There is an absolute desperate and long term need to right the wrongs of the last 30 years. It's all in our power to reduce the rates of income-related child poverty and material deprivation in New Zealand."

He's with those advocates who date 'poverty' back to the benefit cuts - "30 years".

I go back 50 years. 1968. Or thereabouts. The first DPB (the emergency benefit introduced by National). There has been a 50 year experimentation with funding one parent families and the results have been dreadful.

Here's a scenario for you. A young female, from an abusive family, herself now a single mother with three kids from different fathers all of whom have a smorgasbord of convictions, debt, periods of unemployment or imprisonment, drug habits and/or violent tendencies. Do you honestly think putting more money into her weekly benefit is going to change anything for those kids and their prospects?

Why are employers bearing responsibility for family violence?

It's refreshing to see National MP Mark Mitchell talking about unintended consequences.

Jan Logie's family violence bill makes employers provide leave for employees to take time off work if they need to leave a relationship. RNZ reports:

When the bill first came up at Parliament it had a strong National Party backing, but following a select committee process in which amendments were made to reduce an employer's say in the matter, the party got cold feet.

Justice spokesperson Mark Mitchell said that was mostly because of the impact it could have on small-to-medium sized businesses which, he said, could end up in arbitration or strained for time or finance.

National now plans to introduce a SOP and the Employers and Manufacturers Union supports them. Small enterprises account for 29% of all employees.

But beyond these concerns I am somewhat befuddled by the need for this legislation.

We know that extricating oneself from a violent relationship can be extremely difficult and dangerous. Assuming the violence is on the male side, just after leaving him is when she is most vulnerable. He is insanely jealous at the idea he can't have her and control her any more and this is when he is most likely to harm her. The RNZ article alludes briefly to a particular typical case of this.

He will try to hunt her down. And her workplace is a target. If she is not there, having been granted leave, all well and good (though her colleagues may be exposed to danger when he turns up and is thwarted).

But why would she ever feel safely able to return there? Or how long before she can feel safely able to return? Weeks, months?

Surely it is better to deal with the threatening ex? Isn't that why the nature of protection orders was changed, to allow police greater powers of arrest?

And I'm no fan of an over-empowered police force but find myself arguing for it when faced with unpalatable alternatives.(I could go into a complete rant here about the expanding welfare state; the undermining of stable two parent families and the advent of young males being raised in single mother, serial 'fathers', abusive environments that render them thugs in turn, but will refrain).

It seems manifestly unjust that employers are having to bear this level of responsibility for family violence. Left to me I would oppose the bill.

Why more mothers and babies die in the US

Political left-wing commentator Gordon Campbell writes a column in my local paper, the Hutt News. Last week's (I can't find it on-line)  was essentially about the Royal and Jacinda babies; the price of maternity care in the United States and despite the cost, the "dire"quality of care resulting in extraordinarily high infant and mother deaths. A typical anti-capitalist making the numbers tell his story.

My response:

Gordon Campbell, Hutt News, May 8, blames "dire" quality of care for the relatively high US infant mortality and maternal death rates. It is my experience that whenever statistics diverge strongly from the 'norm' there are sound reasons why, often based on how they are derived.

In 2016 Science Daily pointed out that some countries treat babies born after a very low gestation period and with very low odds of surviving as 'stillbirths'. In the United States these babies would be considered 'born' despite their high chances of death. Accordingly, "These premature births are the biggest factor in explaining the United States' high infant mortality rate."

Similarly, maternal deaths are also measured differently. According to the Economist, 2017, standard definitions used to make international comparisons are not used in the US. The World Health Organisation mandates a measurement based on a maternal death from pregnancy complications  from when the mother becomes pregnant to six weeks after the birth (or termination of pregnancy). New Zealand adheres to this. The US, however, measures deaths up to one year after the birth. As suicide is a leading cause of death among pregnant and new mothers in NZ and the US, extending the period of measurement to one year would make a significant difference to the recorded death rate.

Additionally, The Economist explains:"In rich countries, [maternal] deaths are tallied from vital-registration systems which in turn compile data from death certificates. These, however, are known to undercount maternal deaths, partly because doctors must select a cause of death from thousands of codes. They are more likely to consider the subset reserved for medical problems caused by pregnancy when the form has a checkbox asking whether the woman had been pregnant.
America added this checkbox to its standard death certificate in 2003, though it took more than a decade for all states to adopt it. It has been a mixed blessing, says Andreea Creanga of Johns Hopkins University. A recent study found that its growing use accounted for 80% of the steep rise in maternal mortality recorded in 2000-14."

The United States generally outperforms other countries in the collection and dissemination of rigorous data. Its information systems produce exhaustive, accurate and accessible statistics through which a proper understanding of matters can be achieved. They cannot though control a critic's lack of comprehension about comparability across countries.

Paying the Pipers

Just published at NZCPR:

According to the Dominion Post, April 25, ” … the Government is setting up a welfare overhaul ‘expert advisory group’ supported by a secretariat of officials from different departments.” 1

Labour has promised the Greens an overhaul. The ghost of Metiria Turei hovers. Lest we forget, the ex Green co-leader  pleaded poverty as a sole parent student to vindicate fraudulent claims to WINZ. Her eventual replacement, Marama Davidson played rear-guard soon after Turei’s resignation (at a South Auckland rally attended by both) saying, “… the party would raise benefits by 20 percent – including student allowances and all core living payments – if elected.”2

But back to 2018.

“The agreement between Labour and the Greens … commits the Government to overhaul the welfare system with the aim of lifting families out of poverty and ensuring that ‘everyone has a standard of living … that enables them to live in dignity and participate in their communities’.”3

No kudos for originality here. This is exactly the sentiment expressed by the 1972 Royal Commission on Social Security. That commission gave us the DPB, which was followed by an explosion in unmarried births (but wasn’t enough for Turei to live on.)

Now in government, albeit with a muddled mandate, Labour has a long list of Pipers to pay beyond just the Greens: they are beneficiary advocates, unionists, academics, and even government agencies like the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, all of whom have sought benefit reforms along the following lines:

More

Suicide patterns vary dramatically

The following graph (P60) depicts the worst of statistics - suicide among young people. The ethnic/age information is new to me however and is exercising my brain. The peak for Maori suicide is much younger than for European. And the differences are inverse and large before and after age 16. I understand that some suicides are due to broken relationships. Does the variation reflect the tendency for Maori and Pacific youngsters to enter intimate relationships earlier? What else is behind these variances? (Bearing in mind they span 14 years so may mask differences between what was happening in 2002 compared to 2016).

#MeTooNZ getting out of control

Just a few weeks ago I posted about the vigilantism of #MeToo arriving in NZ

Today's new-format trash-tabloid DomPost has its front page emblazoned with:

Doctor accused of sex with patients

Note that the on-line headline has been significantly modified to, "Wellington Doctor accused of having sexual relationships with women patients".

One of them even became his wife!!

This 'offending' has occurred over three decades and involves 3 women and the estranged wife.

The main complainant (not the wife) admits she entered into a consensual sexual albeit brief relationship with the apparently very popular doctor.

He pursues  patients he finds attractive. Buys them gifts, takes them on trips, buys them dinner. Not once is there any mention that he forced himself on one of them.

The Medical Council are investigating because it is unethical for doctors to enter into sexual relationships with patients.

Main complainant says she is not vindictive but doesn't think he is fit to practice. Well hello? He isn't practicing.

He is 64 as is the main complainant.

Clearly this is a publicity piece to draw out any other 'victims'.

Because it serves no other purpose.

The doctor with poor judgment sounds like a hopeless romantic looking for love in all the wrong places.

How far is this witch hunt going to go?

What is actually happening with crime rates

We are told that the rising imprisonment rate and population is mostly about sentencing policy because crime rates are falling.

That is only partially true.

For instance, as of  March 2017:

-violent crime in public places had decreased 17% since June 2011

but...

-violent crime in dwellings had increased 9% since June 2011

Overall the violent crime rate hit a low point in June 2014 and has climbed since.

The general crime rate bottomed in September 2015 and reverted to growth. Youth crime hit its lowest rate in June 2015 and then started to increase.

Is there any update on March 2017, now over a year ago?

Published by the Police in February 2018, some data up to December 2017 shows overall 'victimisations' were down 1% from the previous 12 months:


- Theft victimisations reduced by 0.5% compared with the previous 12 months

- Burglary victimisations decreased by 2.9% compared with the previous 12 months

- Assault victimisations decreased by 0.4% compared with the previous 12 months

But...

- Serious assaults resulting in injury increased by 12.4% compared with the previous 12 months

Overall this results in a rather flat trend line hiding the fact that violence is worsening (the two spikes are Jan 2017 and Jan 2018 - undoubtedly holiday family violence):

But the police say, "New Zealand is a safe place to live", because "...three quarters of New Zealanders reported no victimisation in the previous 12 months."

I am relieved to be among the 75 percent.

But kudos to the police for improving their statistical tools and making them publicly available.

Have a play. There are numerous categories which once clicked on and loaded can then be examined further by district, trend, demographics etc.