Health Douglas-style

Another full house for ACT at the Museum Hotel last night. It was SRO shortly after I arrived to take what looked like the last available seat in the front row. Being in the front made it difficult to assess the crowd size but I think easily over 100 people came to hear Roger Douglas. There were many faces unfamiliar to me and some I did know who hadn't been near ACT in years. Roger and John Ansell expanded on what they had delivered at the conference and it is clear they are very much enjoying their work and growing in both confidence and expectation. It is infectious.

Roger again brushed aside the label of 'hard right' reminding us that his old electorate was Otara. When people died on waiting lists it wasn't the 'rich'. It was his constituents. He is determined to make access to operations for all people a reality. His plan (although not official ACT policy) includes a tax-free threshold of $30,000 with the saving going into an individual health insurance policy. Yes, it's a big idea. But the state of the public health service is a big problem. No, it still doesn't remove the government completely because they are controlling the funding through taxation. But that's where the control stops and the market steps in.

Yes, the bogie of compulsion rears its head again. I am not going to ignore that. But some time ago I conceded this; I would rather be compelled to pay for myself and my family than compelled to pay for someone else. It's not a matter of being selfish. It's about getting the incentives right. We have seen the results of 70 years of socialised welfare and health and it is not a pretty sight.

Singing from the same song sheet - again

More synchronicity from National and Labour. This time in the form of Richard Long, prominent Key supporter and Michael Cullen.

In today's Dominion Post Long writes,

"The return of Roger Douglas. You have to admit to a touch of nostalgia. The architect of the 80s reforms suddenly looms. Dracula-like from what everyone assumed was a retirement grave...."

Contrast this to Michael Cullen,

"Just when everybody thought it might be safe to vote National out of the box, like something out of an old horror film, comes Roger Douglas."

Arguably the most important thing Roger's return has achieved is to show up the National Party for what it is. Labour with a different leader. At best a variation on the 'muddle-way' theme.

Dodgy Dyson

National MP Judith Collins made a calculating error, according to Minister for Social Development Ruth Dyson. She took total the total number of beneficiaries in debt and divided it by the total number of working-age beneficiaries. Dyson labelled this 'New Maths'.

Dyson prefers to count in superannuitants, of which there are around half a million, even though the vast majority have no debt to Work and Income. The predictable result is that the percentage of beneficiaries in debt is a modest-looking 19.8 percent.

In reality the number of working age beneficiaries in debt is almost half. On the DPB it rises to 60 percent.

Dyson's creative maths is more devious and dodgy than Collin's 'New' maths even if it is statistically correct.

Refuting Rogernomics myths

I listen to a lot of talkback radio because it gives me a feel for where people sit. It's reasonably representative politically. The conversation about the return of Roger Douglas has been substantial over the past week. As you would expect the positions are polarised. But the support is higher than I expected. Sometimes my view of the average intelligence of voters is tarnished by the seeming preponderance of political ignoramuses but this week my faith has been rekindled by the callers who can talk knowledgeably about economic philosophy and are prepared to debate the ideas. What is also needed are a few facts and figures that squash the mindless myths that have grown up around Rogernomics.

Some callers, especially to Willie Jackson, have talked about suicides due to redundancies, the hearts being ripped out of small town New Zealand, with Jackson running the line that Douglas is a 'mongrel'. (The 'mongrel' had the guts to ring in by the way and will appear for a question and answer session some time in April.)

But let's have a look at the claim that Rogernomics caused widespread and devastating unemployment.



Clearly New Zealand was not alone during the early 90s and not the worst-off either in terms of unemployment. None of the other countries experiencing high unemployment had implemented the sorts of economic reforms NZ had. Roger Kerr talks about the effects of 'disinflation' being significant during this period. Why did new monetary policy focus so heavily on controlling inflation? Rampant inflation during the 70s and 80s had a lot to do with the employment slump of the early 90s.

Another caller talked about how New Zealand's GDP per capita tumbled due to Rogernomics. "Rogernomics is why we are now 22nd in the OECD", he said.



We had already fallen from being near the top in the 50s to 18th by 1982.

I don't want this election campaign to be about fighting past battles but ACT must be able to quickly and simply refute the claims made by those who will attack them. Candidates should remember a few statistical facts that can be absorbed and are indisputable.

Without the reforms things would have gotten a lot worse. With them New Zealand's recovery was faster. What a shame Douglas never got the chance to finish the job. What a shame he never got his flat tax in. What a shame Labour have managed to undo much of the achievement by ramping up government spending and regulation.

And isn't it great to be having some real debate between left and right economic theory, debate about the future of the country, instead of a personality contest between Helen Clark and John Key?

Hallelujah

So Roger Douglas would abolish Working For Families. Fantastic. There is so much wrong with that grand redistribution scheme;

1/ Redistribution always involves privilege for one and punishment for another with the government deciding who is the winner and who is the loser. It accords too much power to the state.

2/ The dead-weight cost of redistributing money is utter waste.

3/ When people receive money without commensurate effort they work less. That is bad for productivity.

4/ As an attempt to boost fertility rates redistribution to families with children has not been successful. Note some of the most 'family-friendly' European countries have low fertility rates. The US has the highest in the OECD.

5/ WFF has created very high effective marginal tax rates. In fact some people are no better off if they boost their income through advancement or longer hours, as they move into the top tax rate bracket and lose WFF benefits. WFF dulls ambition.

6/ WFF is the hallmark of Labour governments. It is all the old schemes dressed up in new cloths. These schemes have never achieved their stated goals.

7/ Redistribution creates resentment amongst those who are not beneficiaries. In this case young, childless people. It contributes to their motivation to leave New Zealand.

8/ With WFF being used as a voting bribe, the cost of promoting it has been enormous including ridiculous expenses like megabucks to commission a musical theme.

9/ WFF acts as a subsidy to employers. The wrong people (not those targeted) end up benefiting.

Look. It is simple. Let everybody keep more of their own money. Let individuals take responsibility for their own decisions. The flow-on will be far more beneficial than any government attempts to grand plan society. Thank God someone of influence is talking sense at last. Again - hallelujah!! It's a good day.

Media Release
COMPULSORY DNA TESTING ANOTHER UNWELCOME CONSEQUENCE OF DPB
Thursday, March 20, 2008

The need for compulsory DNA testing to establish paternity is a further unwelcome consequence of the DBP system, says Lindsay Mitchell, welfare commentator.

"Since the introduction of the DPB in 1973, more and more women have resorted to welfare to raise their children. The application process involves naming the father of their child or children, with the state seeking recompense from him by way of child support payments. The father is responsible for these payments, which are calculated by way of an iniquitous formula, until the child turns 18 (and sometimes 19 according to circumstance). Naturally, cases arise whereby the father wishes to confirm his paternity. To deny him this right is indefensible. However that is what the courts have been doing if the mother refuses consent to a DNA test."

"Before the DPB, income for single mothers came from work or temporary social security assistance. There was far less incentive to have a child alone or leave a relationship. Whereas in 1966 only 7.5 percent of families were single parent, today the figure has grown to 28 percent. Consequently the number of disputes over parentage has also risen."

"Fathers should financially support their children. But while we have a system that encourages women to have babies on the back of welfare, with the estranged father expected to recompense the taxpayer, it is imperative he is able to confirm that he is indeed the biological father. "

"If state assistance was returned to a short term hand-up, far fewer people would become single parents and far fewer paternity disputes would occur."

Background; United Future MP Judy Turner is promoting a bill to allow courts to order compulsory DNA testing to establish paternity

Paternity testing

In light of the post below it is entirely reasonable to expect that a good number of children have mothers who have lied about their parentage. It is sad that social policy which encourages such exploitation had led us to a situation whereby courts now need to be able to issue DNA-testing orders that confirm a child's biological father.

It's a simple matter. Fathers have a right to know. Well done Judy Turner. And Judith Collins, if this law change is what you "have been talking about it for a long time" why didn't you draw up a bill? Don't try and steal United Futures's thunder.

The fairer sex

In this land where feminist doctrine dominates public policy, where men have supplanted money as the root of all evil, where the bond between biological mother and child is sacred but bond between father and child is disposable, isn't it surprising to find that women are almost 3 times more likely to defraud Work and Income? Perhaps the women who cheat and steal are models of good behaviour in every other respect.

Oxymoron

A group of Pacific men band together to persuade others that being tough guys isn't the way to raise a family and they call themselves .... Gladiators??

Wilfil ignorance

National MP Judith Collins is attempting, with a series of WPQs, to ascertain how many people on the DPB began there as a teenager. As part of her answer, the Minister for Social Development, Ruth Dyson, has written,

"I am advised that the Ministry of Social Development's current statistical system only holds complete benefit history for people who commenced their first benefit since June 1996."

This is a departure from their last letter to me (on this subject) dated December 2006;

"The following tables only record benefits that commenced after January 1 1993. As I advised you in my previous response....the Ministry does not hold accurate electronic information on benefit recipients granted benefit prior to this date."

What a piss-poor performance this is. At this rate they will soon hold no data. Or none they are obliged to release.

Based on my information, at December 2006 at least 37,600 or 37 percent of current DPB recipients had first received a benefit as a teenager. If complete benefit histories could be accessed the percentage is likely to be much higher.

The DPB is a trap for teenagers. And it produces families from which much social dysfunction emanates. The emotional and economic costs incurred by these families could be significantly curtailed but nobody has the guts to do anything about current policy.

Breaking the monopolies

First, an explanation of why so little blogging. As mentioned earlier I took a local shop to have a painting sale two weeks ago. The sale went moderately well but the interest in commissioned pastels was enormous. Hence I have extended the arrangement and am working there every day.

But I did want to respond to this comment from yesterday.

Did anything come out of the ACT conference, or from Douglas's mouth to say you're going to reduce the size of the State? NO! Like the socialist Key, you're still talking about merely curtailing it at the level it is now.

The media, as I pointed out yesterday, didn't report on the content of Rodney or Roger's speeches.

The major thrust of Roger's speech was getting politicians and bureaucrats out of education, health and welfare by breaking state monopolies. It was all about competition and choice. I had never heard Roger speak before and was impressed with his conviction about how much better services could be with private providers. This is his holy grail. If ACT is no better than National I am missing something (and so is the PM who yesterday said, "....the National Party only stands for power and people in ACT at least have things they believe in and they believe in them quite passionately....they're not my beliefs, in fact I am quite strongly opposed to them, but I do credit them with having a belief system and that I think is something National just puts aside as being desperate for power.")

While some policies will not go as far as I and other libertarians want them to, a gradualist doesn't take an all or nothing approach. The education policy, detailed in Rodney's speech, doesn't abolish state schools but it does open the door to more private schools and deal with the inequity of taxpayers paying twice for their children's education. Parents would no longer be forced to send their children to substandard schools. It wouldn't be just the 'rich' who would have choice.

National, on the other hand, can't even lend their support to bulk funding any more.

Hell, yes

For the media the ACT conference was all about the return of Roger Douglas. That is what they have covered, speculating on his reasons for returning and the possible implications. The media are not particularly interested in ACT ideas and ACT policies. Or one would have to make this assumption based on their coverage. It's personalities and political shenanigans.

Roger Douglas laid out clearly in his speech what is wrong with this country. As I listened it struck me that Labour has done an awful lot of damage in nine years. But nine years is a long time and much of it has already receded into the murky past and we've forgotten. The results are low productivity, low wage growth, huge rate rises, substantial increased costs to doing business; we trail most other OECD countries in many areas - not just GDP per capita - then we have violent crime increasing, social problems escalating, the loss of so many skilled people. It doesn't have to be like this. But people get up and go, admittedly to countries with some of the same problems, but they feel emotionally disconnected from those problems. It's a relief not to have to care in the same way because it isn't your country that is failing to deal with problems that are fixable.

So am I standing? Hell yes. I don't want to. But I have no choice. As Roger put it, we can't keep standing on the sidelines. And if he can find the energy and time to make a commitment to make New Zealand a better place for everybody then so can I.

ACT is back

National Party Conference - 600 delegates

Labour Party Conference - 700 delegates

ACT Party Conference - 200 delegates



Not bad for a 1% party.

Bugger the polls!

Party pill palaver

Another senseless ban passed in parliament last night.

The bill passed 109 to 11 with only the Green, Maori and Act parties opposing.

Thanks National, the party of individual freedom and choice - huge joke.

And what is it with the contradictory, contrary Greens who want to tell us what we can and can't consume in the foodline but not in the recreational drugline.

The Maori Party??? Hone Harawira talks convincingly about the dangers of prohibition creating black markets and crime but wants to ban cigarettes.

How I long for some consistency and principle from the big house on the hill.

(BTW - Who abstained? 11 should be 12)

Aboriginal apology rejected

John Howard, backed by Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson, says Rudd's apology was wrong. A later generation cannot apologise for the actions of a former and the act of apologising risks the 'box ticked' mentality whereby nothing else gets done.

"I think we persevered for too long with the notion of separate development. I think the only way the indigenous people of Australia can get what we call a 'fair go' is for them to become part of the mainstream of the community and get the benefits and opportunities available from mainstream Australian society, whilst recognising … the particular and special place of the indigenous culture in the life of the country," he said.

I agree. The same sentiment should hold for Maori and other indigenous people.

"Children don't come first"

This is a heartbreaker and in my experience the 'authorities' are hitting the nail on the head.

The case has highlighted concerns held by child agencies about child neglect.

Hamilton-based Child Protection Studies chief executive Anthea Simcock said neglect was one of the most under-estimated and under-reported types of child abuse.

"Fifteen years ago if you said `child abuse' everyone would have thought `sex abuse'. In the last seven or eight years we've had so many reports of child death Coral Burrows, James Whakaruru ... and the last year or two people have become more aware of abuse suffered when witnessing family violence, the emotional or physical neglect of being in the way."

Mrs Simcock said with neglect it wasn't what people did, rather "it's them not doing things". "It's often because of ignorance, often because of pressures on their own life and often because children don't come first."

Without getting into discussions about children's emotional needs across their ages, very young children must come first. They are incredibly physically vulnerable and need at least one individual dedicated to caring for them around the clock. That means knowing exactly where they are and what they are doing.

This instance wasn't just neglect. It was gross neglect. And I have seen too much of it. Children given less attention and love than many would give their pets. Readers of this blog (as I do) will take for granted the care and attention they received as babies and toddlers. That's as it should be. And the habit is passed on.

Unfortunately bad habits are also transmitted through generations. People who do not understand the commitment that comes with a child should never be encouraged and incentivised to have babies. But in New Zealand they are. And that's crazy and tragic.

No justification for junket

I cannot come up with any reasonable justification for or defence of this.

Are we more upwardly mobile?

Colin James has a good column in the NZ Herald today in which he argues that upward mobility is important for sustained economic growth.

In his February 7 speech, Cullen argued that Labour's workplace regulation and "fairness" spending in the 2000s enhanced economic growth. He is premature. The boom was in large part debt binge-fuelled. We have yet to live through the bust.

A big reducer of inequality has been the transition of large numbers from benefits to jobs, more a factor of business growth and, in part, 1990s policies than Cullen's spending. Societal changes are likely to affect economic growth rates only after a lag.

There is no denying the movement from benefits to jobs but let's qualify which benefits. The dole. Yes. Sickness and Invalid - some but newcomers or returners have added to overall substantial and steady growth. Although numbers on the DPB have been dropping there are still well over one hundred thousand single parents reliant on welfare. To put that into some sort of context there are just over half a million NZ families with dependent children. Around 22 percent depend on welfare. The vast majority of these are single parents. In low socio-economic schools children from welfare homes can make up the majority.

The left constantly harps on about the growing gap between haves and have-nots as if the greedy 'rich' are somehow to blame. The gap (which is more about values than income) in NZ society is growing because poor, predominantly brown children are growing up without a working parent. All they know is WINZ the provider. They are concentrated in poor areas and the likes of my kids have no experience of them and vice versa. I cast my mind back to growing up in 60s NZ when most families were headed by two parents. My closest friend's parents were Pacific and American and they both worked at General Motors. They lived in a small house which was home to 9 children. It was a different experience to mine and I spent much of my time there. The oldest daughter got pregnant and the child was brought up in the family. Today she would almost certainly have left home and gone on welfare. In other words in the 60s this family produced upwardly mobile children. Today it might not.

Because NZ society has become increasingly segregated due to the growth of one parent families on the back of welfare. Naenae in the sixties was a pleasant suburb with a modern shopping centre. We would visit it most weeks when I lived in Avalon. Now it is to be avoided. Naenae Work and Income is nanny to over a thousand single parents. Sure, many will be struggling to do their best, living in one of the few areas their budget can stretch to. But they have to send their kids to schools where dysfunctional kids make everybody's learning that much harder. Again harder to get an education. Harder to maximise opportunity. Harder to get ahead.

The poorest NZ families are those on welfare. Too many are there by choice, either consciously or sub-consciously. The days of blaming unemployment are over. It is welfare that has driven the re-emergence of a class-based society with a large group stuck at the bottom with poor prospects of being more productive than their parents. With easily available and relatively generous welfare, the left has achieved exactly what they set out to destroy.

PM apologises

This is good. The PM is apologising for the last Labour government. She is reported on NewstalkZB news saying Roger Douglas ran rampant in the last Labour administration, did things he shouldn't have, sold things he shouldn't have and then went off to ACT. Yes. The PM can obviously see value in publicising Roger Douglas and ACT at National's cost.

Not being left doesn't make you right

Deborah Coddington has called for ACT to become the "hard-ass" party. They should select candidates that don't mind being called right-wing because the attempt to explain ACT through the 'liberal' tag failed.

The trouble is I do mind being labelled right-wing. Not being left-wing doesn't make one right-wing. And extreme right-wing is synonymous with racist and redneck which is why ACT shouldn't accept the label.

But Deborah makes a few suggestions for potential candidates, one being Peter Douglas. From what I remember of Douglas he was one of the rare Maori prepared to speak against welfare. As head of Maori Strategy for CYFS he called for a review of the DPB in 2001 saying, "I think we should be thinking about the damage that those benefits do to some communities. Because it takes away the need for ambition, it takes away a sense of responsibility and sets young people on a trail of entitlement.”

Having a candidate like Douglas would give those Maori who want to vote based on race a real alternative. But he shouldn't be there for that reason primarily. He should be there for the ideas and the ability to implement them.

I was also interested in her comment that Rodney opposed the 'liberal' tag because "it wasn't true". I take this to mean that he thought at the time ACT was still a mix of liberal and conservative elements. It doesn't follow that he should drop it now.