Youth Payments increase by 88.9%

That was sneaky. The March benefit statistics were due out last week. But they were never posted on the front page of the website. If you didn't know where to look, you would never find them.

I do and there they are.

All bad news.

Because the quarters fluctuate it is vitally important to compare year on year to get an accurate picture.

So amidst the glaring shortages of workers eg bus drivers, that are crippling services there has been an almost 11 percent increase in numbers of unemployed. Worse, those jobseekers classified as 'work ready' have risen by 14.5 percent.

While the base number is low Youth Payment has risen a staggering 88.9% from 126 to 238.

There are just 6 fewer sole parent beneficiaries putting the brakes on that downward trend. The same can be said for the ex invalid benefit, now SLP, where there has been a very small increase.

What this illustrates is how the benefit system had now evolved into a bona fide, state-sanctioned alternative to employment for too many. (Recall my earlier post that showed 75% of those in the Growing Up in New Zealand study receiving a sole parent benefit said they had partners.)

It isn't kind or compassionate to admit more young people into a system that traps them and saps any ambition they may otherwise have held. It's just a waste.

Ardern's no Lange

Currently reading David Lange's memoirs, I am reflecting on how different the two Prime Ministers

are. When Roger Douglas had almost unanimous caucus support for a flat tax (Lange: When it came to the crunch only Cullen and I opposed - "Dear God! What a terrible lot of people they were!") he unilaterally scuppered it by announcing an unscheduled press conference and telling the country there would be no flat tax. He'd said nothing beforehand to Douglas who was out of the country, or the rest of the caucus. He put his Prime Minister-ship on the line for his convictions.

If Ardern was as convinced about the CGT (another ideological economic device) she'd take it to the next election and set about right now trying to convince New Zealanders of its merits.

"Jacinda Ardern's economics of blindness": David Seymour

ACT MP David Seymour writes at Magic Talk:

Would you live in a country in which the average age at death is 45, few children attend secondary school, and most people don’t have access to a telephone or electricity?
Sounds awful, right? That was New Zealand in 1913. The difference between then and now is productivity.
Paul Krugman – a Nobel Prize-winning, left-wing economist – once wrote that “Productivity isn't everything, but, in the long run, it is almost everything. A country's ability to improve its standard of living over time depends almost entirely on its ability to raise its output per worker.”
Most serious economists would agree. 

More 

Media Release: Widespread benefit fraud identified by Auckland University

Widespread benefit fraud identified by Auckland University

April 11, 2019

Lindsay Mitchell, Welfare commentator and researcher

Widespread benefit fraud has been identified by the Auckland University of Technology in research published yesterday by the Ministry of Social Development.

For a number of years, and on a number of occasions, I have questioned the longitudinal Growing Up in New Zealand (GUiNZ) data because the level of reported sole parenthood does not match the reported national level. In new research by AUT the authors have made similar observations:

"A weakness of the GUiNZ data is that it may not be population representative and is not linked to administrative data.... Overall, 95% of GUiNZ children are born to mothers who are partnered. The GUiNZ sample seems to have low sole-parent status compared to a 2009 study that found one-third of families with dependent children were headed by sole-parents (Ministry of Social
Development, 2010). This could be because being partnered in the GUiNZ data is not the same as their domestic-purposes benefit status, from which partnership status is inferred by other studies. We find that 70% of those who say they receive the domestic-purposes benefit also answer yes to the question of whether they have a partner – confirming that the sole-parent status derived from GUiNZ is essentially different to those studies which rely on benefit status to infer partnership status." (My emphasis)

Work and Income rules state:

You may get Sole Parent Support if you are:
-aged 20 or older
-a single parent or caregiver with one or more dependent children under 14
-not in a relationship
-without adequate financial support

Claiming a sole parent benefit while partnered is illegal. Based on these new findings the practice may be widespread. It appears however to be tolerated.

The government is currently sitting on the completed Expert Welfare Advisory Group report. It is to be hoped that benefit fraud and better policy to prevent it, will form part of the ensuing discussion.

There are no fathers now - just 'partners' of mothers

Are you a Dad? Do you want to be known as the father of your child or just the 'partner' of his mother?

Research released today by MSD into protective factors for vulnerable children based on the longitudinal Growing Up in NZ study refers only to mothers and partners, not mothers and fathers.

Fathers are only referred to in token reference to overseas research. Barely at all.

There is a huge irony in play here. I doubt the researchers noticed.

Stephen Franks nails it

Stephen Franks utterly nails it using gun control to illustrate how unknowingly incompetent the current crop is:

A general problem when censorious children are elected to govern
I see this issue as yet another where the urban ‘woke’ have utterly tin ears.
New Zealand has avoided many irreconcilable political fights over competing values. Now an ignorant generation are looking for ways to anger their opponents by deliberately kicking  sleeping dogs. Wise politicians pick no unnecessary fights that focus people on differences instead of on values they share.
Gun law has not been a tribal political issue here. My Select Committee 17 years ago reached a cross party consensus. But it is a badging issue in the US. So our “progressives” start the same chants to ape their US betters. They want to stick it to gun owners to show who is in charge – to anger “deplorables”. Whether the changes have any connection to a problem or a solution is immaterial to them. It is not so much ‘virtue signalling’ as IFF – identifying friend from foe.
From the same impulse they are trashing our 50 year old tacit deal  on abortion (‘we’ll pretend we have a law against abortion and leave the issue alone, if you too pretend the same”).
They look for any issue they can to stick the coercive state’s fat finger up the nose  of Christians – while excusing the ghastliness of Islamism, again to ape their US models.
They ended charter schools out of similar vindictiveness, thereby ensuring that whatever Hipkins does now in education will be reversed when he loses power.
And on free speech and so called non-binary gender and many other ‘me too’ (in its original sense) progressive causes their language, their solutions and their reasons are entirely derivative.
A consolation is that they are cementing their distance from the ordinary working people they have long scorned but claimed as the objects of their sanctimonious “altruism”.

Why child poverty claims are all over the place

MSD has helpfully produced a table that shows the extreme variability of official child poverty measures:

Depending on what political barrow is being pushed, the highest or lowest number can be selected.

The highest number - 341,000 - represents children living in homes under 60% of the median equivalised household income after housing costs. The lowest number - 65,000 - represents children living in severe material hardship experiencing eight or more specific deprivations.

Of interest the higher number has increased recently; the lower has decreased calling into question the relationship between the two.

The paper usefully goes on to point out:

Are all children in low-income households experiencing material hardship?
• No.
• The overlap between those in low-income households and those experiencing material hardship is considerably less than 100%, and the actual overlap depends on the measures being compared.

So next time you hear UNICEF for instance talking about one in three children in Aoteroa living in poverty you'll have some context to make sense of the claim.

Violence against women - some balance

Yesterday I received a press release from the White Ribbon Campaign containing the following statistics:

 KEY STATISTICS
·         New Zealand has the highest rate of reported violence towards women in the developed world
·         Police investigated 118,910 family violence incidents in 2016 or about one every five minutes
·         That’s 41% of a front line officer’s time
·         One in three women will experience partner violence at some point in their lives
·         Less than 20 percent of abuse cases are reported
·         Approximately 3,500 convictions are recorded against men each year for assaults on women
·         On average, 14 women a year are killed by their partners or ex-partners
·         Between 2009 and 2015, there were 92 IPV (Intimate Partner Violence) deaths. In 98% of death events where there was a recorded history of abuse, women were the primary victim, abused by their male partner.
 

 For balance here are some further statistics from the most recent 2018 Crime Victimization Survey:

The survey estimates that 16 percent of adults experienced one or more incidents of partner violence at some point during their lives. Women (21 percent) were more likely than men (10 percent) to have experienced one or more incidents of partner violence at some point during their lives.

21 percent is considerably lower than "one in three" so perhaps matters are improving. The correct expression of these percentages  should be one in five women and one in ten men.

 The survey also estimates that 23 percent of adults experienced one or more incidents of
sexual violence at some point during their lives. Again, women (34 percent) were more likely than men (12 percent) to have experienced one or more incidents of sexual violence at some point during their lives

Here we are closer to the one in three claim but note the distinction between 'violence' and 'sexual violence'. And again men are also affected albeit to a lesser degree. Of course these numbers rely on personal subjectivity and the individual's idea of violence. There may be gender differences between perceptions and willingness to acknowledge.

From 2009 to 2015 the Family Violence Death Review  Committee reports

There were 91 intimate partner violence (IPV) death events
Of the 92 deceased and 92 offenders in IPV death events:
• 68 percent (63 deceased) were women and 32 percent (29 deceased) were men
• 76 percent (70 offenders) were men and 24 percent (22 offenders) were women.

Almost a quarter of the offenders were women. Most of the women offenders were considered to be the victim of a history of abuse, but not all. Some cases are described as 'perpetrators in combination' which accounted for 8% in the 2002-08 reporting period.

Based on the above (latest) data, by my calculations, 9 women a year are "killed by their partners or ex-partners". Not 14. Googling 14 turned up this from the Christchurch Women's refuge:

About half of all homicides in New Zealand are family violence. There were 41 family violence homicides in New Zealand in 2010/11. On average, 14 women, 7 men and 8 children are killed by a member of their family every year.

So that claim is based on older data. Statistics are improving then for both women and men.

As for NZ having the "highest rate of reported violence towards women in the developed world," deaths are usually a good indicator for levels of violence, reported or otherwise. I had a quick look across  the Tasman where, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 99 women (and 27 men) were killed by a current or previous partner between 2012/13 and 2013/14. 50 women on average annually versus 9 in New Zealand. With a population only five times larger than NZ's, Australia looks slightly worse.

Causes of Poverty: Bad luck, bad choices and enablement

The Canadian think-tank, the Fraser Institute has just released a paper which suggests an elegantly simple framework in finding three causes of poverty: bad luck, bad choices and enablement. The first two need no explanation. The third is described thus:

We can say that poverty is “enabled” when systems and structures are in place to discourage the kinds of efforts that people would normally make to avoid poverty, i.e., find employment, find a partner (especially if children are present), improve one’s education and skill set, have a positive outlook, and take personal responsibility for your own actions. Ironically, it is government programs (welfare, in particular) that are intended to help the poor but end up actually enabling poverty.

In NZ, many of our current influencers (MPs and media) pooh,pooh the idea that bad choices are responsible for poverty despite this being self-evident. They base their disdain for the idea on a belief that greater systems, for example institutional racism, drive bad choices. Of course when they do this they excuse bad choices and even compensate the person making them. Undoubtedly, most of those sitting on the Welfare Expert Advisory Group would hold views of his nature.

There are people who will resist the suggestion that poor people might be responsible for their own poverty. Isn’t this just another example of “blaming the victim”? Shouldn't we be looking for other causes? Isn’t poverty really a condition of bad luck and something that just happens to people rather than a situation in which people find themselves largely due to their own bad choices? People who take the former view aren’t really looking at the implications of their own beliefs. Were we to live in a world where no one could be held responsible for making bad decisions that adversely affect themselves (and others who depend on them), then no one would be responsible for harm and no one could be held to account for the harm they do. But that is not the world in which we all live and,
indeed, is not a world that anyone would want to live in. The fact is that we all make bad choices from time to time. No one is immune. However, there are some critical choices we can make that will greatly reduce the chance of our being poor. Poverty researchers have identified those critical choices and this paper has discussed them at great length. Those choices are: 1) Finish high school—at a minimum; 2) Get a full-time job; 3) Wait until you are married to have children; and 4) Limit the number of children you have to those you can afford. Each of those four is a choice. This is what Sawhill and Haskins mean when they talk about “playing by the rules.” These choices are not always the easiest path. Making them well often means that you have to take responsibility for your own life, have some degree of self-control, and do some longer-term thinking. But there is certainly a lot of help available: remedial programs for completing high school; employment centres, skill upgrades, and job search apps; and various kinds of birth control. The problem, of course, is that we have institutions that, while nominally intending to help the poor, actually enable bad choices and thereby end up enabling poverty. 

The author, Christopher Sarlo, Professor of Economics, Nipissing University concludes:

Anyone who cares about the poor and wants to eliminate this horrible predicament needs first to understand what causes poverty. This paper suggests that a useful framework for understanding poverty is to look at bad luck and bad choices as the proximate causes, and to enablement as the key explanation for persistent and enduring poverty. I argue that bad choices are the dominant initiating cause of poverty in countries like Canada and the US, and that state policies like welfare are the critical enablers of poverty. 

Ditto New Zealand.

Good on David Seymour...

... who isn't afraid to say:

"You do not defy terrorism and defend our democracy by throwing out democratic procedure such as parliamentary scrutiny and the public's right to submit in full, at the first sign of trouble...

"We're missing out on the opportunity to make better laws and have more details come to light about how we can do better..." 

"But we're also, symbolically, allowing the terrorist to achieve his goal and dishonouring the victims by changing New Zealand away from a place that has a sober law-making process with parliamentary scrutiny and public input, and rushing things through at the first sign of trouble.

"I don't think that's a good way to respond."

Neither do I.

A balance needs to be struck between emotion and reason. Unfortunately, though understandably, the balance is tipped too heavily towards the former right now.

A small voice also nags away at the back of my mind that would-be terrorists will only see this ban as a challenge not in the sense of a hurdle, but a provocation.

But even if this particular passage of law is the correct and popular action, will the next be? What about privacy and hate speech laws? Do we want controversial and wide-ranging legislation enacted in haste with minimal debate?

Immense caution is required about the precedent being set.

Two strongly contrasting views

When I think about Christchurch I imagine what it would feel like if one of those young men were my son and it reduces me. To write any words from outside of and about the mosque members grief feels disrespectful. But plenty are being written. And some are worthy.

Yesterday Chris Trotter spoke on radio saying New Zealanders must not beat themselves up over the Christchurch terror act. His analysis of what happened and how we should react is here:

What happened at the Linwood and Al Noor mosques was horrific, but it wasn’t our doing. As we begin the long journey towards recovery, it is vitally important that we keep that fact squarely before us. New Zealand is a good place. New Zealanders are good people. We are not responsible for Brenton Tarrant’s dreadful crime. This is not us.

Today Anne Salmond writing in the DomPost infers New Zealanders are responsible if only indirectly:

In the wake of this terrible tragedy, let's be honest, for once. White supremacy is a part of us, a dark power in the land....In its hard version, it's violent and hateful, spewing out curses, incarcerating young Māori in large numbers, denying them a decent education, homes and jobs, telling them they have no future, and are better off dead.....The Muslim community has suffered a terrible, heart-breaking loss, and it needs all our love and support. It is not the only group who are targeted by white supremacists, however, and there are more ways of killing and maiming people than with a gun.

Interestingly Chris Trotter predicted this sort of reaction:

 The Prime Minister will, doubtless, come under increasing pressure from angry and misguided persons to curtail the rights of New Zealanders articulating unpopular views concerning Maori-Pakeha relations, the Islamic religion, multiculturalism and immigration policy. In defence of the liberal-democratic values that Tarrant assaulted so violently, Jacinda should calmly resist all such calls. We must not allow the unanimity of our grief to be translated into a demand for unanimity of opinion.

I hope, in this instance, Trotter's pen is mightier than the sword.

The re-abuse of children in state care

One of the longstanding debates regarding the removal of children who have been abused or neglected is whether Maori children should be placed with whanau/ returned to their families versus removal elsewhere. So new data about the re-abuse of children who are already officially in state care is interesting from that perspective alone.

In the quarter to September 2018 there were 200 findings of physical, emotional, sexual abuse and neglect concerning 130 individuals. Fifty nine percent of children in state care are Maori but accounted for 71% of the abuse findings.

A majority of the re-abuse occurred in a family placement (family member) or return to family care (usually parent). Most (60%) of the re-abuse was physical.

Most of the physical abuse occurred in a family or return/remain home placement. Almost all of the neglect occurred in these two categories, and most of the emotional abuse. Only sexual abuse (19 findings) had a different pattern and over half of that had occurred when the child was away from care eg had absconded.

Based on these statistics the evidence for keeping children within the whanau is not great. BUT there are around 6,300 children in state care so 130 isn't a high proportion.

(At this Stuff link there are also stats to December 2018)

The day the music died

Michael Jackson's music has made me and millions of others happy over decades; indeed, over half a century. Whatever else is or isn't true, I know for a fact I will be poorer for not hearing his music.

But apart from my bias, some questions:

How is this new phenomenon of retrospective 'catalogue cleansing' to be administered?

With or without criminal conviction?

Based on what type of crime and determined by whom?

Forever? For how long?

Before or only after the offending occurred?

And what about associated composers and musicians who will suffer from royalty loss? Will they be compensated?

Should Jacinda tie the knot?

Interesting conclusion to a thoughtful column about the forthcoming "well-being budget" that essentially argues people should be making their own well-being choices with personalised saving accounts instead of the government deciding what is and isn't worth spending on:

Marriage, for example, has a large positive effect on wellbeing. So should our Prime Minister be cajoled into it? Citizens must be the ultimate decision-maker.

Nice one.

It has been proven repeatedly that marriage is generally good for people. But all we need there is some acknowledgement, not government interference to boost it.

The point made by the writer sees the PM hoisted by her own philosophical petard, nanny-statism.

My well-being is my business. Butt out Jacinda.

"Rape bias" as titled by NZ Herald

My 550 word opinion piece was too long for publication but a 100 word letter would be accommodated, I was told. The usual word limit for letters is 200.

What are they scared of?

What the Welfare Expert Advisory Group will recommend

Due to report back this week, here's a selection of what I believe the Welfare Expert Advisory Group will recommend:

1/ No more compulsion to name the father of a child dependent on a beneficiary. That's what scrapping the current penalty for not naming the father will mean. So expect the estimated cost of this move to be grossly under-estimated.

2/ Passing on child support to the beneficiary instead of keeping it to offset the cost of their benefit.

3/ Linking benefits to CPI and wage inflation (as per Super).

4/ Scrapping the 'additional child' conditions National imposed - ie work-testing the mother who adds a child to an existing benefit when that child turns one. They will justify this by showing the condition hasn't stopped people adding children anyway.

5/ Extending the In Work Tax Credit to other beneficiary parents. Perhaps it'll be named the Not In Work Tax Credit.

Then some possibilities:

5/ Scrapping the sanctions system.

6/ Lifting abatement rates to allow parents in particular to earn more without losing benefit component.

7/ Scrapping stand-downs which were introduced in the early 1990s

8/ Removing tax from benefits.

That last one is interesting. From memory Roger Douglas introduced taxation on benefits to solve a problem connected with people who work some of the year and are on benefit for the remainder. I can find reference to this as " a major package of tax reform that included the grossing up and taxation of welfare benefits" in October 1986.

(As an aside, in searching for information about the introduction of tax on benefits I came across this Tax Review report presented to Michael Cullen, then finance minister, in 2001. Searching capital gains resulted in the following, "We do not consider that New Zealand should adopt a general realisations-based capital gains tax. We do not believe that such a tax would make our tax system fairer and more efficient, nor do we believe that it would lower tax avoidance or raise substantial revenue that could be used to reduce rates. Instead, such a tax would increase the complexity and costs of our system.")

All of the above recommendations will cost a great deal and I wouldn't put it past the group to recommend lifting the super qualifying age as a means to afford more working-age welfare. I believe we should be lifting the age (as are the UK, Australia and the US) but not to pay for more welfare.

Remember that the welfare review is part of the coalition deal extracted by the Greens. The panel members are almost exclusively politically left. The public response, on the back of the controversial tax recommendations, will be most interesting.

On Jordan Peterson's 'rape' comments and the provocation of outrage

Regarding the views of Jordan Peterson, recently interviewed by NZ Herald journalist, Simon Wilson: "He's said several times it's wrong to believe the victim in rape cases.”

Without wishing to put words in Peterson’s mouth I expect he might have conveyed his intention better if the word ‘automatically’ had been inserted before ‘believe’.

And I suspect that Mr Peterson has talked about this issue on the back of feminist fixation with the issue of rape and consent. It is entirely pertinent to this country.

The message steadily gaining traction is, ‘No women laying a rape complaint must be disbelieved’. Prior to the 2014 election Labour wanted to shift the burden of proof of consent to the defendant.

In any event Labour did not win the 2014 election. But again in April 2017 Labour's sexual violence spokesperson, Mrs Poto Williams called for “…radical reform of the sexual justice system which would see rape accusers believed by police as a starting point.”

This would invert the principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’.

Naturally Peterson would oppose this idea. We all should. The whole point of the justice system is to fathom out the facts and respond accordingly.

To further explain his position he also makes mention of the high number of false rape complaints that occur. There have been numerous examples in New Zealand. Reports from the mid-2000s suggested police put the level of false rape complaints as high as 60-80 percent. The Peter Ellis organization documents many. Not content with second-hand information, I wrote to the New Zealand Police in 2008 asking for statistics relating to false rape allegations. Their response:

“Police record statistics under the offence “False Statement/Declaration Etc”. However, these statistics do not distinguish/identify the nature of the false complaint e.g. ‘Rape’….official statistics for what you have requested do not exist.”

Hit a brick wall there. But in the late 1990s Jan Jordan, Victoria University, wrote a paper Beyond Belief? Police, Rape and Women’s Credibility.

Describing her own interviews with detectives experienced in sexual assault investigations,  Jordan writes estimates of false rape allegations  “…ranged between one detective who said 10 percent and another who estimated that 80 per cent of all rapes reported were false ‘in one way or another’.”

Jan Jordan was given unprecedented access to police files to make her own analysis of rape and sexual violation complaints. Police judgement on 164 cases from Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch were examined. Factors that featured in findings of false complaint included drug or alcohol impairment, a delay in reporting, previous consensual sex with accused, previous rape complaints and intellectual impairment. Jordan observed “…a dominant mind-set of suspicion underlying police responses to reports of sexual assault.”

She also sensibly points out: “The police do, in fact, have to tread a fine line between the victim and the accused as they attempt to preserve the balance of justice and guard against the possibilities of wrongful conviction. However, an over-zealous commitment to the rights of the accused may unwittingly tip the balance the other way.”

The converse is equally true. That is the direction we are heading in, or indeed, a destination we have arrived at - an “over-zealous commitment” to the rights of the accuser.

This, then, provides context for Jordan Peterson’s comments which taken in isolation provoke the outrage the journalist intended.

An 'old white women's' view

My last post was about sole parents and their declining dependence on benefits. It was a public alert countering the messaging from welfare advocates.  My husband asked me, Why doesn't Paula Bennett tackle this stuff, promote her record of welfare reform?

I don't know, I replied.

But today we are privy to what she does spend her time doing My new look and life 12 months after gastric bypass surgery

Of course she is not alone.

Maggie Barry and her bolt hole was a recent DomPost piece Inside Maggie Barry's sea front home

Links for celebrity MPs on the left - especially the PM - can be found but I can't be bothered.

I disapprove of MPs magaziny muppetry. Makes me very old school, I know.

But these individuals are handsomely remunerated by the taxpayer to perform a public service. This fluff stuff is overt vote-buying. It's another form of pork-barreling.

And think about it. It's most commonly female MPs exploiting their gender - and the interest it elicits from their 'sisters' - that pimp themselves in this way.

But they might dismiss me as an 'old white women' clinging to a paradigm of policy over personality. Of service over stardom. Of serious, sustained endeavour over shortcuts.

Welfare advocates start lining up

An article appeared in the DomPost on Thursday, Feb 14.

My response.

If leftists won't believe the Sally Army, then who?

If I had a dollar for every time some individual or organisation claimed inequality was growing, I'd be rich.

But the latest Salvation Army appraisal of the nation (an annual publication) has this to say:

Our prosperity is fairly shared
The past five years have seen increasing prosperity for most New Zealanders and a very modest narrowing of income inequalities. Those living on welfare benefits remain economically excluded, however.

The last statement is  not correct.

The report goes on to acknowledge this by mentioning extra supplementary assistance, the " one-off increase in benefit rates in 2016" and the winter energy payments.

It does not mention increases in the accommodation supplement, changes to benefit abatement rates allowing some beneficiaries to earn more, the significant Best Start payment for newborns and increases to WFF payments to children in beneficiary households.

They draw a depressing conclusion:

... the numbers of working-age adults receiving a benefit remains constant around 285,000, and this is despite the official unemployment rate in September 2018 sinking to a 10-year low of 3.7% of the workforce. The core of those receiving a benefit, around 150,000 adults, do so for health or disability reasons and so are paid the Supported Living payment or the Jobseeker/Health Condition payment. Their needs and this number of people are unlikely to change even in times of low unemployment. This permanence, alongside the economic exclusion suffered by those reliant
on welfare payments, suggest that a radical re-think is required for setting benefit levels. Such a re-think should look at avoiding the need for top-up and supplementary payments, and could consider indexing benefit levels to changes in wages and salaries as we already do for New Zealand Superannuation.

This final recommendation will undoubtedly be a feature of the Welfare Working Group's report due end of this month.

I don't have a problem with such an indexing, which is what we do for Superannuitants. But don't pretend that beneficiaries have been "economically excluded" without it to make the argument.

Flummoxed by latest political poll

I couldn't really give a fig if National tanks. They've been almost as socialist as Labour for a long, long time. They message otherwise then merely manage degrees of intervention and redistribution.

But I am surprised at the latest poll result that has Labour well up and National down. I'm not sensing any warming to Labour or Jacinda. Talkback, letters-to-editors, personal conversations don't find for Labour.

Topical issues have run against Labour. Don't need to spell those out.

Leadership? Personally I lost any interest in Bridges when his 'f...ing useless' descriptive remarks about a fellow MP came to light. Because he had painstakingly painted himself as Mr Nice Guy prior. BUT I am atypical.

Such a sizable swing simply makes no sense to me.

Another racist policy!

The government has announced it will ban smoking in cars that contain children:

Source

Seriously, what about the thousands of children who are affected by drugs and alcohol before they ever get to grace a baby car seat? This move is a superficial scratch on the surface of a much deeper problem.

Govt ignores own research

MSD monitors the effectiveness of its spending on employment assistance. The 2016/17 assessment has just been published.

"$149 million (72%) went on effective or promising employment assistance."

Not all of the spending is effective. Some results are "mixed" and some "negative".

But among the "effective and promising" interventions appears:

"Work obligation focused interventions: interventions that use work obligation requirements to ensure people are actively seeking employment."

In other words, sanctions. A failure to meet an obligation requires a consequence. Otherwise an obligation is meaningless.

In the year to December 2018, this government reduced the use of sanctions by 42.2 percent.

Brief comment on prison population

Based on the most recently available prison statistics the total muster is reducing. The PM says:

"We've seen about 1000 fewer people in our prisons, and so any work that we do on rehabilitation programmes ultimately does benefit Māori."

She must have more up-to-date stats than the public because the September 17 to September 18 reduction was only 418.

Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says:

"...tribes from Ngāti Whātua right through to Ngāti Kuri are working with the department to reduce the prison population in the north and support people when they emerge from prison."

Yet in September 2018 there were 625 prisoners in Northland Region Corrections facility. A year earlier there were 607.

The government is fixated on the prison population.

But they are ignoring where it begins. Births into unstable, dare I say it, unmarried, dysfunctional family situations. I blogged yesterday about Maori accounting for 93% of the increase in births to the year ending September 2018. Around a 1,000 more were ex-nuptial and 300 fewer nuptial.

Marriages (with proven greater longevity than de facto relationships) might not last, but they at least say something about parental commitment at the time of birth. There is no doubt that these babies have significantly lower risks of eventually becoming prisoners.

Maori births account for 93% of year-on-year increase

Ever-interested in the behavioural response to 'incentives' I was looking at recent birth data. Labour promised and delivered greater financial benefits for newborns and families with dependent children.

It is probably too soon to assess any response to this, especially as the latest data available is to September 2018, not December.

In the year to September 2018 there were 59,331 live births. An increase of 837 on the previous year.

Not particularly significant.

However Maori live births rose to 17,118 from 16,341 - an increase of 777.

So of the total increase 93% were Maori.

17,118 is also the highest number of Maori live births since 2012.

The increase is almost totally accounted for by Maori mothers aged 25-34.

Who should qualify for Super?

(Left-click to enlarge)

Sean Plunket ran a show attacking Super receipt today; those taking it while continuing to work, and any taking it when they don't need it. He personalised his attack using morning host Peter Williams, newly qualified.

He justified his argument through concern about inter-generational inequity. The baby boomers are stealing from the following generations.

I rang to make the point that in the 1990s some were making the same accusations about the generation born in the 1920s through 40s. David Thomson wrote a book called the Selfish Generations to this effect. These inter-generational inequities are probably swings and roundabouts.

Regarding Super, my view is that the qualifying age needs to go up to 67-68 with those physically incapable going on a Supported Living Payment. Anyone who is receiving Super and working is effectively paying for it themselves through their own tax. It's like WFF for the over 65s.

Some means-testing sounds good but it opens a can of worms just not worth opening.

Hawke's Bay headed for a 'labour shortage declaration'

What else would you take from today's release?

This is no more than an advance move to ward off criticism about the number of beneficiaries in the East Coast region where there are currently over 7,600 claiming an Unemployment Benefit (aka Jobseeker Support)

From memory, this is the third region to do so.

Historically Maori and Pakeha men moved around in search of work. At a guess, that work paid reasonably well because employers weren't having to meet the high levels of taxation required to meet social security. Maori may have been paid less because of communal living perceptions - and that was wrong.

But was it a model worse than today's?

Wealth redistributed voluntarily and constructively?

Individuals with a sense of worth, camaraderie and autonomy?

It wasn't perfect.

But is the replacement?

Maori perspective on welfare offices and procedures

PUAO-TE-ATA-TU (day break)
THE REPORT OF THE MINISTERIAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON A
MAORI PERSPECTIVE FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL WELFARE 1988

 "People felt the Department’s offices were unwelcoming and impersonal, lacked privacy and adequate soundproofing. Counters were seen as creating barriers between “them” and “us” and children were not catered for in waiting rooms."

"It was suggested that training programmes should be designed to raise the level of awareness of Maori culture and should also incorporate training in personal skills and some knowledge of New Zealand history. A compelling need was for front-line staff to be fully aware of the range of assistance available and to have the authority to make decisions and give authoritative advice."

Yesterday MSD released their latest attempts to consult with Maori about their experiences with WINZ and the responses are strikingly similar:

"You said that our offices needed to be brightened up and have
spaces where you could meet with your case managers privately.
You didn’t like open plan set ups as other people could easily
overhear your business. You want access to toilets and tea and
coffee facilities so that when appointments are running late, you
can freshen up and have a drink. You also wanted play areas and
changing facilities for your children and access to free Wi-Fi at
service centres. You didn’t mind the presence of security guards
and understood why they were there. However you said that
kaumātua or Māori wardens could also fill those roles as they were
less threatening to Māori and would likely diffuse situations before
they even began. With some site closures it has been harder for you
to get to other service centres."

"You said that it was stupid that we don’t tell you about all the different supports that you are entitled to receive when you register with us – instead we wait for you to ask."

"You told us you wanted to hear Māori being spoken/greetings | See Māori imagery around | Choose to have a Māori case worker | Be offered training on Māori things."

I can find no on-line data for benefit ethnicity during the 1980s. Currently Maori account for 36.4 percent of all working age beneficiaries. In 2003 the percentage  was 30.4 and in 1998 25.2 percent.

In 20 years the figure has risen from a quarter to well over a third.

Make what you will of that.

The best of times and the worst of times...

In recent history, the NZ unemployment rate saw the best of times in the latest quarter - December 2018.  It saw the worst of times when the Great Recession of 2008/09 took hold.

(Click on image to enlarge)


From a welfare viewpoint - the % of working-age dependent on a benefit - this is what the two extremes look like:

There is a 2 percentage-point variation between the two polar points.

Is 10 percent of the working age population dependent on a benefit now as good as it gets?

Here is some context for you to digest.

There was a decades-long period post 1938 (when Social Security was created) when the norm was consistently around 2 percent of the working age population dependent on taxpayers.

Now we are expected to celebrate 10 percent.

Sanction reduction extraordinarily inconsistent across country

Nationally, since December 2017, the number of benefit sanctions has reduced by 42 percent. But the reduction is extraordinarily inconsistent across the regions.

For instance, the East Coast region has seen a 70% reduction in sanction application whereas Northland beneficiaries have experienced only a 17% reduction.

These two regions represent the highest and lowest reductions. Yet they are reasonably similar in profile. Which leads to the conclusion that there is a degree of arbitrariness occurring in the decision-making.

There is also speculation that the increased sanctions are leading to an increase in the number of people receiving a Jobseeker benefit.

Is any correlation showing by comparing the regions? No.

Canterbury had the highest growth in Jobseeker numbers but one of the lower reductions in sanctions. Northland and EastCoast have virtually the same increase in JS benefits but the highest and lowest sanction reduction.

This doesn't conclusively disprove that fewer sanctions lead to more Jobseeker dependence simply that other weightier factors are in play.

I come back to the glaring inconsistency between Northland and East Coast. Why has the East Coast taken a much softer line than Northland? 

Whatever your feelings are about welfare, beneficiaries should be entitled to a consistent application of rules.

Unplanned pregnancies

NewstalkZB reports that NZ has a "shocking" rate of unplanned pregnancies, 6th in the OECD apparently. There is almost certainly a link between this and our high rates of child poverty, neglect and abuse.The major reason given for this state of affairs is that long-acting reversible contraceptives are far more effective than other forms of contraception but not financially accessible for many.

Coincidentally yesterday I was studying the dramatically increased rate of hardship assistance granted in the past couple of years which the left say indicates greater need. It may just indicate that under the changed culture at WINZ - far fewer sanctions for instance - that fewer requests for hardship assistance are declined.

But I noted one interesting stat.

Of 344,771 grants in the September 2018 quarter only 41 were for long acting reversible contraceptives. (0 in December but I'm picking that is a delay in reporting.)

If the latter number increased substantially the former should fall.

Benefit numbers continue to climb

Released today, benefit numbers continue to climb even as so many industries are experiencing shortages of workers. The aged-care sector, and the lack of labour resource is dominating talkback today.

Yes, there is a regular seasonal rise to the end of the December quarter. However at December 2017 there were almost 10,000 fewer beneficiaries than at December 2018.

All of the increase is in Jobseeker Support. Heard on radio this morning Shane Jones' trees will not be planted because there aren't enough people to plant them. Travelled around the North Island over summer and saw multiple signs for workers - apply within.

And the reason for this according to MSD:

Cancellations
The number of benefits cancelled has decreased by 4,136 from the December 2017 quarter, to 35,710 in the December 2018 quarter. Most of this decrease came from a decreased number of Jobseeker Support cancellations. Obtaining work is the main reason for benefit cancellations, however this reason fell by 2,682 when compared to the December 2017 quarter.

So the upshot is New Zealand is a country rich in work opportunities yet one in ten people can't support themselves.

Update: Minister's headline: Benefit rates remain low

Thursday, 17 January 2019, 10:49 am

Press Release: New Zealand Government

ACT and National respond

Socialists describe the junior doctors' strike

"The doctors’ strike is part of an upsurge of working class struggle internationally in opposition to brutal austerity measures imposed over the past decade."

The idea that doctors are part of the working class is a hoot.

So is the idea that NZ has undergone "austerity measures".

This isn't Cuba or France.

This is New Zealand under a government primarily led by a party puppet-stringed by the unions. The strings might break but they will be tested.

Road spikes kill

In 2007 the police introduced a new kind of road spike that, according to the NZ Herald,"....can penetrate all tyre types and are designed to prevent blowouts by allowing for the slow release of air - allowing drivers to come to a safe and controlled stop."

It's ironic that as I read that article a headline is moving across the top of the page informing that three lives were lost in a car fire resulting from a crash into trees after police lay road spikes to stop a speeding vehicle in Christchurch last night.

There is a sound argument to be made for protecting lives that speeding vehicles may endanger. But what about the lives of the passengers in these vehicles? And indeed the life of the driver, foolish in the extreme but young and impetuous. In other scenarios a strong case is made to get these young people safely through to adulthood because their brains don't mature until mid twenties. Are road spikes a legitimate part of that endeavour?

Questions with no satisfactory answers I am afraid.

And pity the poor officer who made the decision to lay the spikes. He has a life sentence of anguish to live with.

Crime down

RNZ reports:

The country's first crime and victims survey suggests almost two million crimes were committed last year, about seven times the number reported to police.

This isn't the country's first crime and victims survey. It may be a new format or design but over the years the Crime and Safety Surveys have consistently shown far higher rates of offending than police recorded crime rates. In that respect the results of the latest are barely newsworthy.

What is of interest is comparisons to earlier years. RNZ did not pursue that. The latest shows that:

The survey suggested there were just under 1.8 million criminal offences in the past 12 months - that compares to about 256,000 reported to the police.

The 2014 survey found:

 1.9 million incidents of crime were identified in 2013
– down 30% from 2.7 million in 2008.

So the trend is down.

You wonder why the RNZ reporter didn't bother to look for the salient story.

Relationship breakdown most common reason for homelessness

Thanks to Bob McCoskrie who sent me this Australian research which finds that relationship breakdown is  the most prolific cause of homelessness. While public perception is that drug taking is the major cause, when people who have actually experienced homelessness are asked, the reasons given are quite different:

"....this research ... shows that people who have experienced homelessness have a more reliable sense of why they found themselves in that situation than the general public.
They cited ‘relationship breakdown and conflict’ as the main cause for homelessness six times more often than substance use (64 per cent vs 10 per cent). In contrast the general public cites ‘marriage or relationship breakdown’ as being the main cause for homelessness less often than that of substance use."

(Naturally public perceptions and research findings are predicated on the definition of homelessness.)

Are talk hosts like politicians?

This personal question arose on the back of my comments regarding the demise of Radio Live.

Hosts I like and listen to are genuine. Others are taking a pay cheque to be a mouthpiece and channel the chat. It's not hard to discern the difference.

Which led me to reflect on a parallel with MPs.

I aspired to the House of Representatives twice (with less enthusiasm on the second occasion).

My action was driven by my convictions about how destructive the welfare state is.

But many successful aspirants are purely concerned with the machinery of governing and representing. They are practitioners. It's comfortable (though not for the lazy) to assume this role. These aren't troubled questioners. They are cogs in the machine.

But what happens when we have too many cogs and not enough questioners?

Worse, what happens when the questioners turn into cogs overpowered by the sheer size of the machine?

I fear that would have been my fate if I had become an MP.

Link between poverty and marital status

This graph is from the US. NZ likes to think it is 'classless.' It isn't.

I have to say though, this graph raises questions. The labeling is confusing.

On further investigation I found it is a conglomerate of three separate graphs.

The blue column is  'Share of Adults Age 18–55 Who Are Currently Married, by Class'

The green column is 'Share of Adults Age 18–55 Who Are Currently Cohabitating, by Class'

The red column is 'Share of Children Born out of Wedlock, by Mother’s Class'

Personally I wouldn't have graphed them together because it presumes a relationship between the columns. Labelling 'Children born out of wedlock'  as 'Baby first' implies their mothers (and fathers?) went on to marry or cohabit. Also, some of those currently married or cohabiting will be childless.

But sticklers for accuracy don't necessarily make great communicators - visually or otherwise.

I'll miss Mitch Harris

Radio Live is kaput

Haven't listened to them during the day for a long time. Not since Sean Plunket departed.

Back in the day Paul Henry was a great morning host (or was that when they were Radio Pacific?) Anyway, before he made the transition from normal human to over-weening human

JT and Willie was listenable when JT was steering but when Willie was in control,  an air of flippant insincerity prevailed.

When JT departed and Alison Mau joined Willie she brought an ugly element of female bullying to the afternoon. Opinions she cared not for were loudly talked over.

Why they picked up Nissen Windell (correct me please for I have never paid enough attention to remember) is unfathomable.

But Mitch. Mitch Harris combined a compelling mix of humour, self-deprecation, true two-way communicative skills and great musical appreciation and knowledge.

By no means a religious listener, many a night I have drifted off to sleep to his thoughtful utterances and  dulcet tones. I'll miss that.

Update: The idea of a radio station that combines talk and music - in this case Magic Talk - is doomed IMO. If I want to hear how people are reacting to something topical I'll tune in to NewstalkZB; if I want music, I tune into Coast. And even Coast irritates when the hosts start prattling. Most music stations like to boast they have more music and less chat because that's what the punters want. A talk/music channel is a hair-brained idea.

Making light of a serious subject

In my recent paper about  Imprisonment and Family Structure,  I touched on the phenomenon of multi-partner fertility and how it increases prison populations.

If you don't know what multi-partner fertility looks like...

Updating artist blog

Just updating artist blog with this pastel of Wesney, who is now the grand age of 15.

Unemployment numbers that don't stack up

The unemployment rate has dropped to 3.9% - a great result for the government.

But since the non-publication of latest official child poverty data due to "uncertainty" and a "lack of confidence" in the Statistics NZ  Household Economic Survey sampling, I am wary. More wary than I was anyway.

The unemployment data comes from the Statistics NZ  Household Labour Force Survey.

I had a dig into the tables looking for any stand out development.

Here's one.

In the Manawatu-Wanganui region, the unemployment rate (2nd to last column above) between June and Sept 2018  dropped three whole points from 6.6 to 3.6 percent.

This should be reflected in benefit statistics, no?

It isn't. The number on Jobseeker Support rose.

I checked out the number for the Manawatu-Wanganui region - a different stat which slightly more closely matches the region surveyed in the HLFS.

In June 2018 there were 8,352 people on a Jobseeker benefit: in Sept 2018, 8,532.

The Taxpayer's Union has also questioned the broader opposing trends.

We can measure unemployment three ways: through the HLFS, through the numbers on unemployment benefit and via the Census. Obviously the last count is too infrequent and time-lags terribly.

Just be aware that the positive HLFS result is not mirrored in the benefit data result.

The HLFS result is probably a facet of the growing working age population and labour force. The denominator is increasing faster than the numerator. But it could also be a 'rogue' result.

No beneficiaries will be forced into jobs

The aged-care sector is asking government to change rules to allow more immigrants to fill the shortage of care-givers. Apparently some beneficiaries are being trained but according to MSD Minister, Carmel Sepuloni:

"...no one would be forced into jobs."
"First and foremost it's about making sure that MSD clients are going into work that is sustainable and meaningful to them. We know that that makes the difference with respect to how long they stay in that employment and whether they end up back on benefit. This is not a situation, and we won't be getting into a situation, where we are forcing people to take up particular work," she said.

So beneficiaries won't been "forced" to take available jobs, but the taxpayer will be forced to keep them.

There are over 70,000 work-ready JobSeeker beneficiaries and another 58,000 on Sole Parent Support.

While the Greens love this indulgence of the lazy,  how does the NZ First/Labour coalition deal with the conflict? Labour doesn't want to force New Zealanders to take the jobs and NZ First doesn't like immigrants taking the jobs.

What a shocker of a government.

Increased cash hand-outs reduce incentive to work

Seems obvious to you and I, but a fact that the Left has long resisted. Their response is always to indignantly insist, "...people want to work."

But MSD doesn't necessarily agree. At least the actuarial arm which produces an annual Benefit System Performance Report.

Below is a graph tracking exit rates among Jobseeker-Work Ready (JS/WR) beneficiaries. The associated commentary notes that recent exit rates are lower than during the GFC!

But notice also the bold type sentence below the graph. Paying those JS beneficiaries with children MORE has reduced their exits off welfare.

This slowing exit rate is further broken down into with or without children:

The report goes on to state:

 Establishing causality is difficult, though the widening of the gap appears to correlate with the introduction of the Child Material Hardship Package (CMHP) in April 2016. Benefit rates were increased by $25 for families as part of this package. 

It then speculates:

 Changes to the accommodation supplement from 1 April 2018 could have similar effects, although accommodation supplement is also available to low income families.

It doesn't mention the significant increase to Family Tax Credits (including the Best Start $60 weekly baby bonus) from July 2018 but presumably the same applies.

Further into the performance report comes another gem of commonsense:

IRRS is more generous than AS and can act as a poverty trap.

This means that Income Related Rents - whereby the state house tenant only ever pays a fixed percentage of his income - is a more generous subsidy than paying part of a tenant's rent in the private sector. 

The "poverty trap" describes what happens when the tenant is disincentivised to improve his income (through employment) because he will lose a substantial portion in increased rent. It's similar to the disincentive Child Support imposes. Not infrequently the two disincentives coincide.

There is a very real concern that state housing turnover has slowed up considerably due at least in part to this 'generosity' (causing lengthening waiting lists and recourse to emergency accommodation.)

This sentiment is reiterated later:

In previous reports we highlighted that the design of IRRS, AS and TAS creates financial disincentives for clients to move out of public housing and into the private market and employment.

Yet greater generosity of benefits and other assistance is synonymous with the current government which steadfastly ignores that the associated disincentives come at a devastating social cost, particular to children.

The socialist approach to alleviating poverty merely entrenches it.

Travesty over child poverty stats breaks at last

NZ Herald reports today:

Child poverty rates unknown as targets about to become law

I blogged about this over 2 weeks ago but far more 'important' issues have dominated. A fine example of how personality politics suppress matters of important policy.

This is the PM's priority policy. And it's based on statistics. It's bad enough that relativity defines 'poverty' but when the relativity is not even reliably measured, policy only deteriorates from bad to worse.

Graph of the Day

(The first bar is 2017; the second, 2018)

Maori now account for the highest share of Jobseeker dependence, reflected in the regional differences.

MSD comments:

We can and must do better to support Māori clients. While there are many programmes and services that are successful in achieving positive outcomes for Māori clients, the outcomes gap between Māori and non-Māori is getting worse. 

Source

Gobbledygook

MSD has rewritten the old Social Security Act. Today they publish some legislative terminology changes.

Example:
Old term     
Attention and supervision substantially in excess of that normally required 
New term
Substantially more attention and supervision than is normally required.
Reason (for change)
Plain English

OK.

Then:

Old term
Normal functions
New term
Everyday functions
Reason
More inclusive language

Is 'normal' ok or not? Probably not but you can't say 'everydayly'.

What concerns me is the time and expense that went into the exercise bearing in mind:

The new Act replaces some outdated terms with more inclusive language and plain English. MSD is updating all its websites, forms and letters with the new terms.

Heavens to Murgatroyd!!

Yikes. That dated expression should no doubt also be 'updated'.

Any ideas for a 'plain English' or 'inclusive' alternative??

Nailing it

Final paragraph from this week's Free Press, ACT's weekly email newsletter nails it:

New Zealand’s real problems are not identity politics, no matter what the left may think. They are that the welfare state has failed. Too many kids don’t get educated. Too many working aged adults are on welfare. Too many are in jail because there is too much crime and they’re never rehabilitated. Housing has gone from a commodity to a ponzi scheme. Our productivity growth is anaemic. With government's and councils’ approach to regulation, it’s amazing anyone still does anything. That’s why we need an ACT Party in New Zealand.