A woman was walking down the street to work and she saw a parrot on a perch in front of a pet store. The parrot said to her, "Hey lady, you are really ugly." The woman was furious. She stormed past the store to her work. On the way home she saw the same parrot and it said to her, "Hey lady, you are really ugly." She was incredibly angry.
When next day the same parrot again said, "Hey lady, you are really ugly," the woman was so ticked off that she went into the store and said that she would sue the store and kill the bird unless it stopped. The store manager apologized profusely and promised he would make sure the parrot didn't say it again.
When she walked past the store that day after work, the parrot called to her, "Hey lady."
She paused and said menacingly, "Yes?"
The bird said, "You know."

Put your money where your mouth is, Dr Cullen

Standing in for the PM this morning, Michael Cullen was asked by Paul Holmes what he thought about the Soulan Pownceby affair. Cullen said if people have done their time, as Pownceby has, they deserve a second chance. He also said that he deplores the "growing" attitude of New Zealanders that once you have committed an offence, you are marked for life and cannot be rehabilitated.

So what are you going to do about the public transport drivers who recently lost their livelihood over historic sexual or violent offences they'd already been punished for? A number of people who heard the interview were quick to put the question. One says he is going to e-mail Dr Cullen. I think I will join him.

Training teachers to spot child abuse

The merits of this sort of suggestion are questionable. It worries me that a paranoia about abuse might be encouraged and over-zealous or imaginative types may raise false alarms. (I won't mention the case which is still the subject of much controversy today.)

Abuse meeting wants teachers' help

"Police, teachers and academics are meeting in Wellington for an Australasian conference on preventing child abuse.

The conference is particularly aimed at showing teachers ways of recognising signs that children are being abused.

Australian-based child abuse expert Professor Freda Briggs says teachers are an untapped resource when it comes to dealing with abuse. Ms Briggs says children will often give off subtle indicators of abuse and teachers need to be trained to look out for them."

Bad news masquerading as good

Wellington's economy is outgrowing others. Rah, rah.

We all know why.

"Jobs growth came from the construction, government, property and business services and retail trades - together creating an additional 8885 jobs in the year to February 2005.

Growth in the government sector has helped fuel a commercial construction boom as developers have moved to build and refurbish offices to house more workers."

More bureaucrats, administrators, policy analysts, consultants. Just what we need.

Keith Locke does it again

Keith Locke makes a habit of defending almost indefensible people. While he is justified in upholding Soulan Pownceby's right to get on with his life, having served out his sentence for the manslaughter of his 5 month-old daughter, he needn't be glowing in his support for the man.

"Soulan was very brave in carrying through his Olympic campaign two years ago, in the face of considerable hostility in New Zealand....I wish Soulan well in his efforts to bring home a gold medal from Melbourne."

Personally I have my doubts about this character. I've read the reports from his trial. But he has been punished and the chances of him staying out of trouble (not posing a danger to anybody he shouldn't) will be better if he is rehabilitated.

Residents advised to be doubly- panicked

A row has blown up in Whitby, a middle-class suburb, just north of Wellington. Unbeknownst to neighbours, a group of mental health patients have been moved into a home in a "quiet" street. Apparently similar community homes have been established in the region over the past three years without problem. But certain residents in the street are very unhappy. Here is what the Mental Health Commissioner, Mary O'Hagan, had to say to them;

"If the residents of Whitby are so concerned about their safety, why aren't they in a panic about the drunk young men, violent husbands, drug dealers and burglars who undoubtedly live in their suburb? They are far more of a threat."

Welfare Australian-style

The Australian Centre for Independent Studies has expanded its operations to encompass New Zealand. Muriel Newman's website features an article from them about Australia's latest welfare reforms and what NZ can learn.

The reforms are tame.

But maybe if CIS continues to publicise their welfare reform efforts our national fervour for beating the Aussies may be usefully provoked. Here is an excerpt from the article:

The government’s preferred answer (to single parent dependency) was to require new Parenting Payment claimants to work part-time once their youngest child turned six years of age (as with the DSP changes, the new rules would not apply retrospectively to existing claimants). However, this proposal met with predictable uproar with single parent groups, welfare groups and opposition parties all howling about the unfairness of expecting single parents to work part-time while their children are in school.

Just how unfair is it to expect single parents to work when their children are at school?

NZ and Australia have the lowest employment rates for single mothers, respectively 32 and 30 percent. The employment rates for married mothers are 53 and 48. When did you last hear welfare groups and opposition parties "howling" about the unfairness of married mothers working?

By the way, because of the protests the age of the youngest dependent child was revised to eight. And still no mention of time-limits. If the mother doesn't want to work for a living and the youngest is approaching eight, she'll know what to do.

Why we have big government

"One reason why government grows is that its programs often impose small costs on a wide population while granting substantial benefits to relatively small interest groups. This gives the beneficiaries a powerful motive to support the program, and the cost-bearers little motive to oppose it...... (but imagine that) everyone's taxes will go up by a dime. Now multiply this process by the number of potential interest groups and the capacity of members of Congress to propose laws, and you'll start to understand why we have such a large government today."

Well put by R.W.Bradford who discusses how best to get rid of big government here. His closing comment is interesting.

"The libertarian movement is too decentralized, and libertarians themselves too ornery, for all of us to choose one path. But if we let a hundred flowers bloom, some of those blossoms may well to bring us closer to liberty."

Ornery!! libertarians??

Ashraf Choudhary

OK. I've amended the previous post because the blog linked to is a spoof. But it was provoked by Ashraf Choudhary's comments on 60 Minutes last year when he refused to denounce the practise of stoning homosexuals. My point is that while Ashraf talks about setting up an agency "capable of punishing the media for attacks on minorities" (see Rodney Hide) he was prepared to peddle his own anti-gay views on TV.

Win with Willie!

Yes. That's the slogan that won the Lib Dems Scottish seat, Dunfermline - their first triumph in a Scottish by-election for nearly a century. This is a huge embarrassment to Labour and Gordon Brown in particular, who has a home in the electorate. As far as I can ascertain the Liberal Democrats are further to the left of Labour. They opposed joining the war in Iraq.

New MP Willie Rennie said the result showed the Lib Dems could challenge Labour anywhere in Scotland. "People are fed up with Labour," he said. "They've taken our country for granted for too long - there is too much spin, not enough delivery."

Sounds familiar.

Tragic event

This is an awful story that will grow legs. Yesterday morning, a 40 year-old man, walking with his 16 year-old son, was killed in a hit-and-run incident. They were earlier passengers in a vehicle driven by a young woman whose car keys were confiscated at a drink-drive checkpoint. The man and his son then proceeded to walk 7km home on a state highway in torrential rain. Lots of unanswered questions here.

Update; Relatives say the pair were refused a lift home by police. And the police put their side of the story.

Unemployment rate

People are understandably skeptical about the reported unemployment rate. The rate is produced by the Household Labour Survey which interviews 15,000 households. Each quarter, an eighth of the total sample is replaced by new households. A couple of years ago our household was required to be part of the survey, so I have experienced the questioning firsthand.

The following is the official definition of an employed person;

Employed: All persons in the working-age population who during the reference week worked for one hour or more for pay or profit in the context of an employee/employer relationship or self-employment; or worked without pay for one hour or more in work which contributed directly to the operation of a farm, business or professional practice owned or operated by a relative; or had a job but were not at work due to: own illness or injury, personal or family responsibilities, bad weather or mechanical breakdown, direct involvement in an industrial dispute, or leave or holiday.

An unemployed person;
Unemployed: All persons in the working-age population who during the reference week were without a paid job, available for work and had either actively sought work in the past four weeks ending with the reference week, or had a new job to start within the next four weeks.

These two groups combined make up the Labour Force. The unemployment rate is the number of unemployed persons expressed as a percentage of the labour force.

Note then, people not actively seeking work are not counted as unemployed; people with family responsibilities doing unpaid housework and childcare, people attending educational institutions, retired, permanently unable to work due to physical or mental disabilities are not counted as unemployed.

So, we have this seeming conundrum between twelve percent of the working-age population being on a benefit when the unemployment rate is only 3.7 percent.

But it can be seen from the above that in countries with less generous benefit systems there will be fewer people in the group that is not counted eg without the DPB there would be fewer people not counted because they have family responsibilities.

So, although the HLFS is used in other countries we compare ourselves to, because social security systems vary so much, we are still comparing apples with oranges. Claiming to have the lowest unemployment rate in the OECD begs qualification.

Satellite spies

The British government has instructed council- tax inspectors to use satellite photography to find out if people have added extensions or developments to their properties, thereby adding value which should be taxed at a higher rate.

How low will they go......or high, as the case may be.

Water on the brain

Is there a better example of irrationality than the craze for bottled water?

The Earth Policy Institute of Washington says;

The global consumption of bottled water reached 154 billion liters (41 billion gallons) in 2004, up 57 percent from the 98 billion liters consumed five years earlier. Even in areas where tap water is safe to drink, demand for bottled water is increasing—producing unnecessary garbage and consuming vast quantities of energy. Although in the industrial world bottled water is often no healthier than tap water, it can cost up to 10,000 times more. At as much as $2.50 per liter ($10 per gallon), bottled water costs more than gasoline.

Can you teach an old horse new tricks?

No, like this.

Heading in the wrong direction

Roger Kerr, NZBR, assesses economic growth, freedom and outlook in this article;

"New Zealand greatly improved its rankings for economic freedom as a result of reforms that were implemented 10-15 years ago. Since then governments have lost their way. The 2006 rankings, just published by the Heritage Foundation in conjunction with the Wall Street Journal, saw New Zealand fall from 5th equal position in 2005 to 9th equal with Australia. Both government spending and taxation are continuing to surge. By 2010 government taxes and levies are projected to be $14,400 per capita, nearly 70 percent higher than the 2000 level of $8,500. A very large proportion – around 60% – of the ‘growth dividend’ is being appropriated by the government."

...and Super sanity

By contrast, here is what the Scotsman is saying about old-age pensions. Unfortunately the full article is premium content but you get the gist.

What is the truth about your pension?

THE vast majority of the population will find it virtually impossible to save enough money to maintain an average standard of living in retirement, The Scotsman can reveal.

Millions of people face old age on the breadline because plugging the pensions "black hole" is simply unaffordable - a fact that will have a hugely detrimental, direct...

Brash back to welfare

Good on Don Brash for putting the focus back on welfare.

National are pledging to "put some flesh" on the bones of welfare policy by 2008. Does that mean their 2005 policy was a bit thin? To be honest I wasn't paying that much attention. Once they dropped the idea of time-limits I lost interest.

Super silliness

A survey shows 88 percent of Kiwis believe the state should provide for their retirement. The capacity of the human mind to fly in the face of fact never ceases to surprise. But politics is about exploiting such shortcomings. Population projections show our 65+ group growing by 73 percent by 2051 - that's an extra 1,325,000. The workforce on the other hand will increase by a mere 7 percent. And 0-14 year-olds will decrease. Do the maths. State super is unsustainable, with or without the Cullen fund.

(And on the subject of shuffling off this mortal coil, did anyone see the final episode of Six Feet Under last night? What an eerie ending.)

Good News

From the good news files;

From the Adam Smith Institute's We Told You So department comes the news that serious violent crime has fallen by over a fifth since the UK's pub licensing laws were liberalised. Police in cities, seaside resorts and market towns alike are reporting dramatic falls in alcohol-fuelled assaults since the new laws came in.

Of course, the anti-liberalization lobby had claimed that such crime would rise. And that people would drink a lot more, thanks to the later opening hours. That has not happened either – brewers report only a tiny increase in sales.

In fact, a lot of the argument over the liberalization plan was simply uninformed. Scotland dropped its strict 10pm closing regime in the late 1970s, and in some places the pubs were permitted to stay open round the clock. Suddenly, Scotland's pubs changed from being grim male drinking dens into relaxed bar-restaurants where families are welcome. Alcohol-related crime fell – with staggered closing times, the police were no longer stretched too thinly to control the crowds streaming out of the pubs – and alcohol-related disease and accidents fell too.

The benefits were so clear that the Scottish political economist Douglas Mason advocated exactly the same liberalisation for England in his ASI report Time to Call Time. It prompted Mrs Thatcher's government into bringing in a degree of liberalization, and now Tony Blair has taken things a step further. It was always obvious to anyone who had studied Mason's report that more flexible pub opening hours would bring a general improvement. Why did it take the politicians so long?