Slaves to 'education' programmes

The headline, Booze, drugs kill more drivers, is not news to anyone following trends. The number of drug and alcohol related road deaths is increasing. So I read this story with no other purpose than finding the predictable, almost guaranteed, response from a bureaucrat. I wasn't disappointed. Here it is;

"Were it not for the significant investment in enforcement and education targeting drink-driving, the figures would be much worse," he said.

Of course the above statement can never be proved or disproved. So once set in motion 'education' programmes that spend taxpayer money are almost impossible to get rid of. There are too many interested parties.

It's similar to the anti-family violence campaign. Violence is going up but that's good. The campaign is working. More people are reporting violence. If violence starts going down, then that's good. The campaign is working.

In fact I can think of no reason a bureaucrat might offer as to why any programme should be discontinued. Hence the machinery of the state just hammers on ...

National touting for Maori Party Votes?

Now the claimant is hardly reliable but somebody else must be able to confirm this. Hekia Parata, standing in Mana, is asking people to give their party vote to the Maori Party according to Winston Peters. If so, isn't it saying something that National would rather deal with the Maori Party and their fantastic policy planks, than ACT?

"Who can I turn to?"

"If I can't trust Winz who else can I turn to for support?"

How tragically pathetic. The speaker is a Maori girl who doesn't look more than twenty. She buried her last baby after its death from SIDS and she has a one year-old and five year-old she can't afford to feed.

Where is the whanau? That all-famous, all-loving extended family? Somewhere, I suspect, because she sent the kids "away for the school holidays". Is there a father or fathers of her children she can turn to? Quite probably not. Lame ducks no doubt.

Look, I'm not angry about the taxpayer having to support this girl. That comes a long second. I am angry at the bloody stupid institutionalised practice of letting young women, a majority of them Maori, make their own situations progressively harder. This kid looks like a baby herself. Yes, she makes stupid decisions; yes, she gets used by men not prepared to make an iota of commitment to her because the so-called safety net let's them off the hook. They can play at life, making babies they don't really want and shooting through.

This is the face of lifestyle welfare. And it is not a happy or unusual one. Last year 5,277 babies were added to an existing benefit. Think on that.

Work and Income deputy chief executive Patricia Reade said .... the agency would make sure Ms Kihi received all the support it could give. "I am devastated that this has happened and that Ms Kihi had to go through such an appalling ordeal. I am deeply sorry we got it so very wrong."

Work and Income does get it very wrong but not in the way Ms Reade thinks.

How Labour contributed to the increased family violence

Notice three things;

1/ A ban on smoking in bars

2/ The growth of local retail liquor outlets

3/ An increase in family violence

They are connected.

Thanks

Thanks to you all for continuing to read this blog. Last month visits went over 5,000 for the first time!



Building blog readership is a hard road but I guess it's a bit like losing weight. If you do it gradually the results are more secure. And at least the overall trend is in the right direction.

Send a message to TV3

Go here to tell TV3 what you think about them kowtowing to Clark and Key.

Borrow my message if you haven't the time to write your own.

Tell Clark and Key you will not give them airtime if they refuse to participate in a debate with the leaders of other minor parties. Don't let them run the show. This is exactly why New Zealanders voted for MMP. Because they wanted the diversity and representation that the two main parties couldn't deliver. Stand up to Clark and Key and make it known you are. Who knows what it would do for your reputation and ratings. Show us why private ownership in the media is so important.

Criticising the public service

The good judge speaks out again. Principal Youth Court judge Andrew Becroft makes an occasional habit of grabbing some headlines. But this is a departure from his usual message.

In 2002, 2003 and 2004 he produced statistical reports, the third being largely an update on the data contained in the first two. In all three he comments;

Is violent offending by under 17 year olds increasing?

Yes. And no.

Violent offending attributed to 14-16 year olds has increased since 1991 but much less so since 1995.

Now he is saying;

"Violent offending is increasing. There has always been severe violence, but it is hard to get an accurate picture. We need to have much better statistics from the Ministry of Justice. We need to know [what is happening] early and the extent it's happening."

He is complaining about the lack of information from a government department. This was at the heart of a conversation I was having with a friend last evening as we prepared to listen to an address by David Parker, Minister of State Services, about (and to) the public service. I have appealed to the Ombudsman twice over the past three years (to no avail) because requests previously met under the Official Information Act have been denied.

Parker referred to the OIA saying that it "put a curb on a lack of transparency" but then in a more jocular fashion quipped that it was something of a "curse" because it meant "a lot more work" for departments. Well, no, actually. It doesn't mean a lot of work because the common response is a refusal to generate the requested information under section 18(g) or 18(f) which lets them off the hook. But, as my friend points out, we have paid for them to do exactly this through our taxes.

I discern a distinct closing down on information release over the past three years. Yet Parker waxed lyrical about how independent, efficient, professional, accountable and transparent the public service is. There are, apparently, no "excesses". Oh really. According to the NZ Herald, In Wellington, the public sector workforce leapt from 11,940 in 2000 to 18,530 last year. A 55 percent increase isn't excessive? Then Parker had the gall to claim that "The public service has grown at a slightly lower rate than the private sector as a whole." To put that into some kind of perspective the total number of people employed in NZ has grown from 1.88 in December 1999 to 2.17 million - 15 percent.

It leaves one wondering, if New Zealanders are so delighted with their public services why has Labour failed to cement itself as the natural party of government? That was their overriding ambition. To become like the Social Democrats of Sweden which has held power for most of the last 70 years.

Looks like the damned public just don't appreciate the swag of public servants trying to run their lives for them. Even the judiciary is seeing fit to criticise their performance.

Confused?

15 March 2007

Sue Bradford has confirmed parents will not be able to smack their children after her bill is passed.

When questioned again today about the effect it would have on parents, she was asked whether it would be possible to smack children after her bill becomes law - and she said no.....she says it is *already illegal to smack children* but her bill removes a defence of reasonable force for the purpose of correction.

29 September 2008

Today's Herald poll on attitudes to the Section 59 law change shows just how confused next year's referendum question is, Green Party Children's Issues Spokesperson Sue Bradford says.

"While this survey shows that many of the people polled believe 'a smack should not be a criminal offence', the question fails to recognise that *smacking has never been a criminal offence*, and still isn't..... No offence of smacking or spanking was created, and I believe the proponents of the referendum have deliberately confused the issue. (My emphasis added.)

It is no wonder the pulic is confused. It isn't the proponents of the referendum's fault. The woman is impossible.

Large rise in child maltreatment deaths?

I used this graph recently to discuss the claim that the economic reforms had caused an increase in child deaths from maltreatment. Unfortunately I didn't have statistics post 2003 although Family First has claimed there have been around 7 deaths per year over recent years which sounds plausible.

The Dominion Post magazine, Your Weekend, featured an article about Cindy Kiro. In it was this statement;

Of 88 children killed between 2002 and 2006, 48 were Pakeha, 28 were Maori and the remainder were Pacific Island and Asian.

Do the maths. That would mean child deaths averaged 17.6 per year over that five year period. Far higher than any earlier period.

I will attempt to find the source of these statistics but as the article was about the Children's Commissioner I would expect her office is the source.

It is possible the figures include young people (over 14) as well as children (14 and under) but this wouldn't make a great deal of difference as child deaths are clustered in the younger ages.

Perhaps police data differs substantially from NZHIS.

Police priorities disgust

Last Sunday morning we woke to find David's car had been broken into, along with five others in the street. This is our third experience of vehicle break-ins/theft/vandalism since we have lived in what is a dead-end street. It's bloody annoying having the car out of commission for a week while glass is ordered in. The local cop came but little can be done, as we have come to expect. Anyway the episode hadn't prompted me to write a blog post until today.

One week later I am running Robert out early to Plimmerton in my car. Along the Esplanade in Petone, which has a 50km speed limit even at the industrial end, a cop is pointing his speed gun thingy at traffic and offending cars were being pulled up and ticketed by another three cops about 100 metres on. I wasn't stopped but my blood started boiling as I considered that 4 cops were being paid to harass citizens out and about on a quiet Sunday morning doing nothing more 'criminal' than going a few kilometres over a speed limit which is already too low.

Now I am a simple person. But it strikes me that these taxpayer-funded agents of the state could be far better utilised patrolling the streets in the small hours of the morning attempting to detect but more importantly, DETER, real criminals. Or are they too afraid to do some real policing?

From the smack-free utopia of Aoteoroa...

(Robert's photo-shopping)

Trotter attacks ACT

Chris Trotter has probably done ACT a favour today by attacking them in his Dominion Post column. His point of objection - ACT's slogan to "turn back the clock", as expressed by ACT's number 5 candidate David Garrett. Trotter insists that to turn back the clock to the low crime, full employment New Zealand of the 50s ACT would need to restore the cradle-to-grave welfare state that it rails against. Let's examine that.

Welfare creates a cycle. Just as the economic cycle exists and seasonal cycles exist. But the cycle is far more protracted than either of these. The 1830s in the Britain saw a peak of the welfare cycle, that is, it was at its most destructive. Reforms were instituted which essentially abolished outdoor relief - cash payments to the unemployed and others unable to make their own living. The choice was work or workhouse.

This was the mood that prevailled as the early settlers left Britain and other European countries of origination. When they arrived in New Zealand they resisted calls for establishing rate-payer funded welfare although provinces funded what was called charitable aid through hospitals. The rightful provider of welfare was considered to be the family.

But as the cycle progressed and advocacy for an old age pension and thereafter more and more benefits won the day, dependency and slowing productivity started to grow. Societies gradually buy into what's on offer. Values are changed as in the transformation from the morals-based non-abused welfare state (up to the 60s) to the entitlement based highly-abused welfare state, where everyone wants a slice because they are owed. And when their slice isn't big enough resentment and a breakdown in cohesion results. Dysfunction and crime grow.

So I contend we are at another destructive peak in the welfare cycle and have been since the early nineties. Which is why we need to pare it back. And soon.

Trotter is mistaken. More welfarism won't improve matters. But I do agree that we cannot turn back the clock either. Values have changed too much. We can however go forward by acknowledging how much conditions for women have improved (the DPB is unnecessary) how private insurance for unemployment tends to build in fewer disincentives (the dole should go) how the best results in helping the poor come from voluntary one-on-one efforts (harness the potential of our active and youthful ageing population). What we don't want is a reintroduction of tariffs, subsidies, and all the other protectionist facets of phoney job creation Trotter moots.

Yes. Being attacked by a luddite like Trotter shouldn't hurt at all.

Inner Strength

If you can start the day without caffeine,

If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,

If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,

If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it,

If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,

If you can take criticism and blame without resentment

If you can ignore a friend's limited education and never correct her/him,

If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend,

If you can conquer tension without medical help,

If you can relax without liquor,

If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,















...Then You Are Probably The Family Dog

National's lost opportunity

Katherine Rich delivered her valedictory speech to parliament yesterday after three terms as a National MP.

Rich said her "annus horribilis" was 2005, when her disagreement over Brash's views on welfare led to her sacking as welfare spokeswoman and her temporary demotion from the front bench. "Demotion clearly wasn't a career highlight but it was preferable than trying to explain why I, a well-paid mother with all the supports in the world, intended telling a DPB (domestic purposes benefit) mum to leave her baby in childcare to net less than half the minimum wage," she said.

And in making the issue about herself she lost the battle.

Katherine's circumstances were, in fact, irrelevant.

At a recent Grey Power meeting two women talked to me afterwards. They broached the subject. We agree with the letters you write about the DPB, they said. We were both in favour of the DPB when it was brought in. We thought it would be good for mothers and their children. But it has gone too far. Too many are now choosing it as a lifestyle, they said. And that is not good for their children.

Simply put society cannot have it both ways. Unless the DPB incentives are removed the problem of child poverty - spiritual and material - will persist.

There is no need to punish those already on the DPB. But there is a desperate need to tell those who are not, that lifestyle welfare is no longer an option. We have to turn off the welfare tap as the first and most urgent action.

In Katherine's 2004 welfare paper, Saving the next generation from welfare dependency, she wrote;

National is the only party that can make and implement difficult welfare decisions.

Unfortunately she couldn't. Brash could have but that is now all a tragically lost opportunity.

But I wish her all the best for life post-parliament. I am sure she is relishing the prospect.

Politics sans policy

People I talk with or listen to are heartily sick of politics without policy. There is no sense of enjoyment or participation about the coming election. Most just want to see the back of it. The common complaint is, what about the important stuff? What about the things that matter? I've commented before about the media's role in that dearth.

So last night's debate about ICT policies was a refreshing experience and congratulations to TV7. It almost reinvigorated me. But why aren't we seeing more of this kind of debate? The contest of ideas instead of the interminable he said, she said, he did, she did stuff. A friend said to me yesterday about 90 percent of the New Zealand electorate is dysfunctional when it comes to governance and politics and thought they no longer deserved the time he had been putting in for years trying to spread better ideas.I hope he saw last night's debate. What a great result for ACT, especially after the supercilious, smarmier-than-smarmy-from-Palmie, David Cunliffe said nobody cares about what the leader of a 1 percent party thinks. Clearly they did.

Quote of the night from Nanny National;

Question; "Why should the taxpayer who can't even afford a PC pay for broadband to every home"

Maurice Williamson; "Because that's the way we deliver the new citizen of the future."

Life in New Zealand

Somewhere a teacher works in an extremely high risk industry by night. Her health and her safety are however her business and so is how she chooses to earn an extra buck. By day she takes photographs of kid's lunch boxes and makes phone calls to parents warning them of the dangers of peanut butter sandwiches and fat-saturated chippies. At least that is what the Ministry of Education tells her to do.

When I was a kid I just couldn't get into Alice in Wonderland. Its preposterousness went beyond entertainment. So does this.

A line in the sand

It seems to me that nobody would willingly argue with the Sensible Sentencing Trust's championing of victim's rights. However also given consideration must be potential victims and their rights to be safe.

Drugs are involved in a great deal of crime, whether they create an unquenchable thirst for money to fund habits leading to burglary and dishonesty crimes or they induce behaviour changes that lead to crimes of recklessness and/or violence or they are a mix of both. The traditional western response is to attempt to eradicate drugs, except where a majority also enjoy indulging in them ie alcohol. That attempted eradication is causing more crime than it is preventing.

If you don't believe me look at the one case whereby we have de facto legalising of a highly addictive drug - heroin. The methadone programme is accepted not as a great success in weaning people of heroin but as a effective deterrent to crime. This programme, which caters to over 4,000 addicts, sticks out like dog's. It is the one exception to the overriding rationale behind the war on drugs. But it would appear lawmakers refuse to learn anything from it.

Instead we continue to create more crime rather than reduce it by acceptance and accommodation of drug use. Hell's bells. What a wet liberal I will be labelled as. One of those pesky ACT liberals who cause problems for the ACT conservatives.

ACT appears to have linked itself to the SST. I have never seen or heard the Sensible Sentencing Trust back an end to prohibition. And any failure to do so actually condones the creation of more victims. Upping the ante will only worsen crime in New Zealand. Add to that the insane welfare policies NZ pursues (ACT's opposition to which is the main reason I support them) and we are never going to see the kind of safety and security alluded to at their law and order launch yesterday.

Maori Party policy - dreamland

According to the NZ Herald today;

The Maori Party, meanwhile, reiterated its hopes of removing gst on food and scrapping tax on income under $25,000. Speaking on TV One's Agenda programme yesterday, Maori Party MP Hone Harawira dismissed suggestions that those two policies alone would cost $5 billion and said they could be funded by the tax on cigarettes.

I have blogged before about the flight of fantasy that masquerades as Maori Party policy.

The tax on cigarettes, last time I checked, is around $1 billion. A black market already exists. Massively hike up current taxation on cigarettes and tobacco and all that will happen is less tax will be collected. And the gangs will get another gift.

Perhaps Hone could arrange for that to be their Waitangi Tribunal settlement.

Campaigning

Yesterday I represented ACT at the Wellington Wairarapa School Trustees conference in Wellington. Other candidates on the panel were Allan Peachey, National MP and Education spokesperson, Grant Robertson, Wgtn Central Labour Candidate and Vaughan Smith, United Future Wgtn, who is the son of Murray Smith, Hutt South UF Candidate. Something of a breakthrough occurred for me when I was asked to speak for around 5 minutes and had nothing prepared. We were advised earlier it was a question and answer format but the chair, ex Listener writer Dennis Welch changed that.

Having two children in the education system - one in the state and one in the private system - and being a keen advocate for vouchers, made the task fairly easy. When I touched on the subject of secondary schools and lack of choice, namely the not uncommon reluctance to send one's child to Hutt Valley High, I was loudly interrupted by a school trustee from that board. It's a great school, she countered. The bad reports are all a media beat up, she said. I responded that I hadn't said it wasn't but it is TOO BIG. It does not suit every child's needs. That is the crux of the problem. State high schools take no account of children's individuality, needs and strengths.

Which took me into Rodney's championing of the Corelli School for Arts right down to accepting a part in their school production (when was the last time anyone wanted Trevor Mallard in their school play?) and why ACT's voucher policy would see schools like this flourish. As always there was considerable interest in the idea. Some cynicism, some approval but no hostility.

The ERO got a right royal drubbing and I now doubt their ability to provide the kind of vital information parents need. The decile rating system is still controversial with trustees worried about the low expectations decile 1,2 and 3 schools build in teachers. Low achievement was raised which I pointed out (at some length) is not going away while long term welfare dependence continues (which elicited some agreement). The lifting of the school leaving age wasn't sitting easily.

But the significant aspect of the 2 hour event was the leaning to the National MP. The Labour candidate was pushing it uphill. Allan Peachey is of course an expert in education given his background. He tackled the questions personally rather than as a party mouthpiece and was credible and sincere.

The mood for change goes beyond the poll indications.

Teaching twaddle

Check out the following NCEA question. It is apparently a compulsory question from a Geography exam. Sounds more like Gender Studies - twaddle from twats.

Thing is I can't even begin to answer it. Perhaps NotPC can help out. Would seem to be rather more up his alley than mine. Yikes. There's a thought.

Do alleys have genders?