Winners and losers

Bill Ralston lists what is hot and what is not in 2009. He includes in the hot list

Taxpayers
Roll on the next wave of tax cuts.

...and in the not hot list....

Beneficiaries
Because you won't get a tax cut and the Government keeps making nasty noises about how you should get a job.

Two things are happening to beneficiaries which will actually advantage them.

1/ The EMTR will decrease for those who undertake some work. Effectively a beneficiary will be able to work a full day at the minimum wage (or just above) and not lose any of their benefit. 2/ Benefits are going to be indexed and this will be guaranteed by legislation.

As for "making nasty noises about how you should get a job", no more than Labour had been. Both parties agreed that work is the best way out of poverty. Making it happen is quite another thing.

As for tax-payers being hot, tell that to low income earners. Hot under the collar maybe. And for those that do receive them, cuts are likely to be gobbled up as quickly as they are implemented. Think ACC premiums for starters.

New art blog

Spent yesterday updating my artist site. I am doing some marketing and wanted to separate out my art from my politics. Politicos don't mind the art but I am less sure about vice versa. So I had to create a new e-mail address in order to have a separate profile. Then I ran into the problem of not being able to duplicate the blog address so thought I would copy the content to a temporary address and then delete the old blog and change the temporary address to the deleted one. Bugger. Can't be done. Although the old address is not in use blogger tells me it is not available. So my new site is still called "Lindsay Mitchell Artist" but the url is www.mitchelllindsayartist.blogspot.com

Confused? Have a look and let me know what you think.

'More-money' Maharey

And staying in the Manawatu, 'more-money' Maharey has poked his head up again. The Dominion Post has a piece today about his goals as Vice Chancellor of Massey University.

"The top of my tree is that they give us more money...

" ...we can help the government to get outstanding policy, as long as they give us some more money."

"We just can't be world competitive if we are not given more money."

Got your chequebook out?

One man's opinion

A Manawatu 'artist' has been spray painting messages on high traffic walls. He is upset that his art is being described as tagging. I started reading this story feeling antagonism towards the artist but by the time I had finished I was grinning. If his views are not a by-product of religious conviction they are certainly unusual.

"At this time, the message I want to put out there is about love."

He said that for so long he had been saddened to see families torn apart, and husbands and wives or partners being unfaithful to each other.

"It saddens me that people live like this, but more so infuriates me because it happens. Most men are so weak and are just out there trying to impress their peers and all that bulls**t!"

The messages of love he had placed on the wall of the high-traffic area near the art gallery and the City Library were to affirm that love was about being faithful, honest and loyal, he said. This was love's true and only essence.

"It's about how your heart is for one person and one person only.

"People throw their heart around like it's nothing and [part of] a desolate, worthless life."

Men treated women poorly and had no respect for them, but women were even worse to men.

Yes. I quite like this guy. He has his eyes wide open.

It takes time to come to the realisation that love isn't lust, sentimental gesture or statement, physical displays of affection, or obsessive infatuation. It's commitment. I don't believe in a golden age passed but there is certainly a lot less of it about right now.

What's in a year?

Putting to one side that Stuff polls are not scientific, etc, etc, this one reveals something about the psyche of some New Zealanders I find most interesting. I'm not sure why Stuff put the options in the order they appear instead of in a continuum and there are more positive options than negative.

How was your 2008?

Average (2998 votes, 25.2%)

Good (2928 votes, 24.6%)

Excellent (1659 votes, 14.0%)

The best year of my life (511 votes, 4.3%)

Bad (1546 votes, 13.0%)

The worst year of my life (2239 votes, 18.8%)


Only 4 in 100 thought last year was the best year of their life compared to almost 19 in 100 thinking it was the worst. Nearly a third thought it was the worst or bad. It's be interesting to know how those people would have voted at the end of 2008. I suspect many, similarly. Is it events or attitudes? That is probably as futile a rumination as the nature vs nurture argument.

I would be fascinated to see the same poll run in other countries to compare responses. My expectation would be that New Zealanders are comparatively gloomy and pessimistic. Many are spoilt and not particularly resilient. Perhaps also because there is a high proportion of New Zealanders living elsewhere, and they may tend to be more optimistic types, the poll is skewed.

Of course 43 percent had a good (my selection - every day above ground is a good one), excellent or best year so there are still plenty of smiling faces out there.

Why was my year not excellent or best? I hated the campaign. I have never felt like such a crock in all my life. And it tended to dominate my year. But on the positive side of the ledger my children keep surprising me especially with their musical talents. They have made me very happy and proud when performing. But more than that their developing characters and humour make them fine companions. My husband continues to be my rock. And the rest of my extended family are happy. Perhaps I should have ticked excellent on reflection.

"Fairness" or foolishness?

According to today's NZ Herald,

Mr Maharey - made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit - has a concrete reminder of the measure he considers his greatest achievement during his 18 years in Parliament (nine of them in Cabinet).

In a frame on the wall of his new office is the law - complete with the Governor-General's signature - that introduced Working for Families, a gift from staff at the Ministry of Social Development. "It's not just a piece of legislation," Mr Maharey says. "It represents to me the high point trying to address that issue of fairness. That's what I was in politics for."

This is a politician whose idea of fairness rests on what he and his colleagues decide it is. In other words fairness is an arbitrary line drawn subjectively, not according to any principle of property rights or individual rights.

Under Working For Families it is considered fair to take the fruit of one individual's efforts and give it to another deemed more worthy or deserving.

My definition of fairness (as described in the Concise Oxford Dictionary) is " just, unbiased, equitable, legitimate, in accordance with rules."

Only the last requirement is met because the rules are set by those who do not understand the preceding.

But even putting aside matters people with different philosophies will argue about, WFF will ultimately have negative effects due to the inherent distorted incentives. It will reduce productivity, entrepreneurship and personal responsibility. Is that 'fairness' or foolishness?

Science and Steve Maharey

Kiwiblog has drawn my attention to a post by Steve Maharey, former Minister for Social Development, at The Pundit. He writes about the looming ETS select committee hearing;

Evidence from competing points of view will be heard by New Zealand’s elected representatives. This evidence is to be treated equally. Public officials will be asked if they have been impartial. Those who advance the position that human activity is contributing to climate change are to be set against those who oppose this view – as if they are equals.

Of course they are not. The overwhelming view of the science community is for the former view. A tiny minority oppose this view. They may be right – minority views can be right – but in this instance they will have to work very hard if they are to be taken seriously given the depth of the evidence they are seeking to question.

It is a little like asking for a committee to be set up on the evidence that smoking causes cancer and then treating all submissions equally. It would be funny if it were not so absurd.

Steve Maharey's idea of science is well captured by these words from 2003;

"I know of no social science that says the nuclear family is more successful than other kinds."

When it comes to science, Mr Maharey doesn't look very hard. And he is now Vice Chancellor of Massey. What chance critical thinking?

On columnists

There are not many I read. But two have come to my attention this morning, both with exceptional pieces albeit very different in subject and style.

What is the NZ Herald thinking of letting Colin James go? Are we, the-readers-with-more-than-fluff-between-our-ears, of such little consequence? Just as the Dominion Post made the indefensible botch up of sacking Michael Bassett, the Herald seems oblivious to the vast political knowledge and perspicacity of thought possessed by the endangered likes of these two writers. Ah, but the past is not important. Perhaps James inadvertently confirmed his own apparent redundancy by touching on this phenomenon today. Then again, perhaps that is why we go on and on doing what doesn't work. Because we refuse to listen to - or have a dumbed-down media preventing us from listening to - those who have seen it all before.

I understand Mr James will continue writing his thought-provoking pieces. I have always subscribed to them directly anyway so bugger the Herald. You can too ( subscribe that is) by e-mailing ColinJames@synapsis.co.nz

The second columnist, who helped dissipate - slightly - the anger I am feeling towards the Herald (a letter to the editor may also assist) is Jeremy Clarkson, who has written a hilariously rude piece of advice for street retailers. Brilliant.

The evolution of language

Yet another case of child murder where the alleged perpetrator is a beneficiary. According to the NZ Herald,

The arrested man, a beneficiary, will also face a number of drug-related charges.

Somebody has to say what we all think, " No surprises there."

The term 'beneficiary basher' has developed quite an ambiguous meaning. In an ironic twist, those who coined the term were apologists for lifestyle beneficiaries, the literal bashers. But it was never enough to deter those of us who could see the overlap between welfare dependence and violence widening and worsening.

How awful that our support, voluntary or otherwise, for supposed 'need', enables the sort of circumstances to develop whereby children are now, as Deborah Coddington points out today, at greater risk of death through violence than prostitutes.

The Xmas Card

The birth of my oldest son triggered off artistic attempts to capture his image on paper. That was 14 years ago. The same year I decided to use one of my paintings to create a Xmas card. Being something of a traditionalist I have always loved receiving cards but I thought it would be useful to create something unique and also keep people up to date with events when sending them. Ever since my cards have featured paintings of the children or our animals. I have one friend who tells me she has kept every single one.

Naturally the newly-adopted failed farm dog had to be the subject this year so I thought it would be good to depict her in a typical pose in our typical environment. Lately I have taken to photographing the sketch or painting as it develops. Might come in handy one day. A 'how to' book perhaps.... so many ideas.... too little time.

This was the result.

Oh, and I was thinking about something I heard the other day. Had been walking the steep hills behind Eastbourne with Robert and I was listening on my walkman to Justin Du Fresne close his last show of the year. It was a glorious day and I was taking in the harbour below. Justin was reading Desiderata to some ethereal music. Ave Maria perhaps. I have heard it before but this time one line jumped out at me.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Amen to that.

To you and yours, Merry Christmas everyone.

S59 and Sweden

I responded to a DomPost published proponent of the S59 legislation which triggered a further response.



Dear Editor

Tom Radley (Letters, December 19) writes that Sweden, "... has taken a far higher number of immigrants relative to its population than has New Zealand." Many, he says, come from countries where violence against children is acceptable, hence Sweden's ongoing problem with child abuse despite smacking being banned in 1979.

In 2007, of the children who began receiving care and protection services in Sweden that year, almost two thirds had one or both parents born in that country.

The problem of child abuse and neglect is not confined to Sweden's immigrant population which is, by the way, proportionately much smaller than New Zealand's.

Lindsay Mitchell

It's not about more money for chrissakes

The Press reports, Parliamentarians will form a group to combat child abuse as a new report shows it costs the country about $2 billion a year.

Well whoopty do.

This is typical modus operandi of the left. A lobby group commissions a report to show how much some form of dysfunction is costing society. Then they use that cost to lobby for more money to be spent trying to reduce it.

Child abuse is apparently costing $2 billion. Infometrics is a credible outfit so I don't doubt the figure they have arrived at.

The report recommends a $1b trust be set up from which private and public groups can apply for money to do innovative child-abuse prevention work.

This assumes that we should simply continue to encourage the creation of at-risk children through unpartnered and, under critical analysis, unwanted childbirth. After which we should pour rescources into intensive monitoring and guidance of mothers who aren't ready to be mothers.

This is how it works. These girls - and older women who started on this pathway years earlier - have all these talking heads coming into their homes telling them 'how' and then going away. But nothing happens. Just as people had previously told them they had to go to school, they didn't and nothing could be done about it.

The best hope for change is that a volunteer goes in, rolls up their sleeves and works alongside them. You can't help get someone's life on track until their physical environment is liveable and healthy for the child. It takes a fair bit of nose-pegging and good humour to get through just that process. Paid social workers , community nurses, plunket nurses, etc don't fulfil this role and neither should they. Hence there is a limit to what paid workers can achieve. A very low limit.

Yet people like Deborah Morris Travers, the lobbyist who commissioned the report, cling to this belief that it's all about a lack of money. That saves them actually confronting the truth. That the only way to help people live better is to get in there and show them how. It's about finding time, having goodwill and hope. That's how to deal with the current crop.

Then we stop growing more. Take away the cash incentive. For goodness sake. The last thing we should do is up it, which is Ms Morris Travers other big idea.

I am so weary of this grand self-deception and grand gesture. Another cross party committee is going to make not a blind bit of difference. It could even make matters worse.

Happy Birthday to us

I have just realised today is the third birthday of my blog. I have never not wanted to keep blogging. But I do struggle with some bitches about blogging periodically. Surly and manic anonymous comments always irritate but are more than made up for by considered and clever anonymous comments. I wouldn't want to restrict commenters and touch wood, so far I haven't had to. Thank you all, self-identifying or otherwise, for keeping on reading and responding.

The impetus for this blog is conviction that a radical rethink of welfare is critical. I am even more committed to that idea than I was three years ago.

Minister must stick to her guns

Media Release

MINISTER MUST STICK TO HER GUNS
Friday, 19 December, 2008

The Minister of Social Development, Paula Bennett, has welcomed the Human Rights Tribunal finding against the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) claim that children of beneficiaries are discriminated against because their parents do not receive the In Work tax credit.

Welfare Commentator , Lindsay Mitchell, noted however that the Associate Minister of Social Development, Tariana Turia, may not join in celebrating the good sense the Human Rights Tribunal has shown. "The Maori Party strongly supported the action of the CPAG. Many children of beneficiaries are Maori and the DPB is an integral part of the Maori community, " she said today.

"Fortunately Ms Bennett is able to grasp the bigger picture and appreciate that preserving an incentive for parents to work, which is in the long term best interests of children, is vital. As the CPAG is now seeking a meeting with the government to plead its case directly, it is to be hoped that they do not aim to play one minister off against the other."

Beneficiaries are not entitled to In Work payment

The title of this post seems to be a statement that goes without saying. Yet the Child Poverty Action Group has fought a protracted battle with the government to have this overturned because it 'discriminates against the children of beneficiaries'. They want people who do not work to receive an in-work tax credit.

I am very pleased and relieved that the ruling has gone against the CPAG. So is the Minister of Social Development. Her Associate Minister, Tariana Turia, will not be. The Maori Party publicly backed the CPAG action.

These are my earlier arguments against those of the CPAG;

If the CPAG win, essentially we will see an increase in benefit levels. An increase in benefit levels leads to an increase in the number of people going on or staying on benefits. CPAG want a short term gain and refuse to see the long term cost which cannot be in the best interests of children.

There is no guarantee the money reaches the children anyway.

And, most obviously, the incentive effect of the In-Work payment will be nullified if it is extended to non-working families.

The Greens and the Maori Party are supporting the CPAG.

Who is going to win? We have seen the Ministry of Social Development forced to settle out of court previously for discriminating against a single male parent who had full custody of a child (the mother had full custody of the other child/ren) by not allowing him to be on the DPB. But in this case, should the government lose, there would be a significant financial impact. Around $3-400 million more would be paid to parents on benefits. (From the beneficiaries point of view that's about a 14 percent pay rise.)

Beneficiaries already receive family support for each child. It varies according to age and ranges from $57 to $95 per week. Payments increased in April 2005 and April 2007. I wonder if I could take a case to the Human Rights Tribunal claiming discrimination because I do not receive these payments?

Or, more to the point, perhaps I should try discrimination on the grounds that I do not receive the In Work tax credit. The government has set arbitrary conditions on who receives them. The one that excludes me is an income test. The one that excludes beneficiaries is a work test. If the CPAG can get the work test removed perhaps I can get the income test removed.

UPDATE: A couple of months back I put out a media release about the CPAG being "at loggerheads with the OECD" on the matter of what strategy is most effective in reducing child poverty. I was pleased to read in the Dominion Post this morning that the government will be calling two representatives from the OECD as witnesses in its defence against the CPAG.

"Why men don't take messages"

(And I didn't know there was such a thing a pabst beer)

Survival of the fittest time

I bit the bullet yesterday and went Christmas shopping. Never before can I recall 8 shopping days THIS SIDE of Xmas Day, there being the sorts of offers currently available. I ended up spending what I had budgeted for but getting more than I planned.(I make this point because some figures show retail spending holding up against last year's. If buyers are getting more though, somewhere along the line someone is getting less. Profits must be down.) Two for one deals and 30% discounts are everywhere. And no, they are not offers on inflated prices.

But still the shops are not busy. We shopped till lunchtime and there were no queues, except at the Warehouse general counters, but they weren't long. And the CD, DVD counter, the one we usually use, had no queue at all. None of this augers well. I see Woolworths in the UK will close all its stores by January 5. There must be be a fair few NZ retailers sailing very close to the wind right now.

Kahui kidding himself

"It was a fully functioning household. We did the shopping, paid the bills and basically lived a normal life."

Chris Kahui about the home he and Macsyna King lived in.

This is true in his mind. It was a home like any other he had ever known and a home like many others in the neighbourhood. As a volunteer I go into homes that I couldn't live in as they are, but they are 'normal' within those communities of people. Being on welfare is normal, having Work and Income pay your bills is normal, living amongst clutter and grime is normal.

"Like it was said in court, only the primary caregiver could have noticed if something was wrong. My cousin April had changed the baby, she didn't notice anything and she's a grandmother to four kids."

Kahui is 23. His cousin is a grandmother four times over. Roll that around in your mind a while. That is a marker of prolific and very young breeding. But that's normal too.

Although Chris admits he didn't know Macsyna as well as he thought he did, what he saw was a good mother.

Good mothers do not abandon children. Perhaps she never talked about her older children to other men. Still. You don't need to know someone very well to shack up and sleep together. That's normal too.

For now, Chris is happy using his skills to help around the home, fixing broken cupboards or old ceilings.

That's nice. That gives him plenty of time to keep on 'normalising' his lifestyle and past in his head. Someone needs to give this guy a good shake. But that won't happen. The money will no doubt keep turning up in his bank account each week and he can go on playing at life.

ReStart could rev-up recession

The government's temporary, boosted assistance for workers made redundant, ReStart, may play a role in deepening the recession. That is because, as usual, with welfare paid out of general taxes there will be distortional incentives.

The package is going to encourage these responses.

From employers;

1/ They will feel more comfortable laying off workers. An employer who might otherwise have worked with staff to share in a decreased return from the business might now mentally justify making one or two redundant. Especially if he is inclined to keep his own returns to a status quo.

The Minister has been explicit in urging employers to ring the 0800 number to find out what support can be provided if employers 'need' to make staff redundant. Some individuals take their 'morality' from the state. They will be assured they are doing the 'right' thing.

2/ Employers will be incentivised to minimise redundancy payments in order that employee qualifies for greater assistance.

From employees;

1/ As the extra assistance is means-tested the redundant worker may be tempted to take a lower redundancy payment, or dispose of any cash assets or investments within 20 days. He will find ways to maximise the assistance on offer even if conditions have been put on eligibility for reasons of 'fairness'.

2/ Employees will be encouraged to take voluntary redundancy where they might otherwise not have. For instance, low paid women who have left DPB to work 20 hours may find a return to benefit will see them in a better financial position (for up to 16 weeks at least).

These incentives then, could drive unemployment higher than it would otherwise have gone, thereby reducing desperately needed productivity. The rise could be compounding.

What will it cost?

The costing of ReStart is based on a 'worst case scenario' of 70,000 job losses over two years. As I have previously pointed out however, if Treasury predictions are right (and they are lower than other economists) and unemployment rises to 5.7 percent by 2010 then the total unemployed is likely to be over 135,000.

The costings of $50 million are far too modest. Even if they are based on 70,000 redundancies the figure assumes an average payout of $714. Using the Ministry's own examples of typical payouts, this assumes each person becomes re-employed within 8 weeks.

There are also difficulties with the concept of self-employed people effectively making themselves redundant. A self-employed person just scraping by, who was considering a move back to being an employee anyway, could be tempted to declare himself redundant in the interim.

Additionally there will be people who miss out on the help because of technicalities. For instance a worker with a long and stable employment history who just happened to have a break during the last 6 months will be ineligible.

In countries which operate dedicated unemployment insurance schemes it is normal to pay one claimant more than another based on the difference in the premiums that have been contributed. But that is not what is going to happen here. The extra assistance qualified for is based upon need, not contribution. Sounds fair but why is one family needier than the next? Perhaps one family has been living frugally in order to pay down their mortgage while the next has been living beyond their means. The family that will be eligible is the second because they have high mortgage repayments and no savings. (A cynical bureaucrat may point out that the first family, which is used to living frugally will manage better on just the basic dole whereas the second is accustomed to chomping through more money.) This is more of the socialist imperative of punishing responsibility and rewarding irresponsibility.

The good aspect of this development is the government employing the principle of temporary assistance. That is something we need to see more of. But not on top of indefinite entitlement benefits.

Crisis? What crisis?

There can be no doubt there is a strongly conservative mood afoot in the early 21st century. The prohibitionists of many flavours are more prevalent than they were during the last part of the 20th. Although certainly not exclusively females they do predominate. Strangely their political colours are varied. Often Green but just as often blueish. Fortunately the blueish ones have failed to secure an effective parliamentary presence with the failure of the Family and Kiwi Party's most recently.

My comments are provoked by the Dominion Post's headlines of the last two editions. Saturdays front page proclaimed, 'We are killing ourselves' and today's 'Weekend of drunken mayhem'. Both are strident rallying cries to clamp down on alcohol.

The voices come from people who work in A & E and alcohol watchdogs. On Saturday the solution pushed was a massive increase in the price of alcohol through higher taxes. Bugger the people who drink responsibly and the people who make their livings from producing and selling alcohol.

But when you look at the facts reported there is room for optimism. A booze bus operating in Levin and Otaki (potentially areas where a high result might be anticipated) only 9 out of 1,000 people tested were over the limit. Not even 1 percent. The Wellington police said the number of calls due to alcohol-related incidents was nothing out of the ordinary. And let's not forget that the number of calls is up due to the 'It's not OK' campaign - apparently. The police had processed all of 22 intoxicated people yesterday.

The front page of the Dominion Post is being used to promote the crusades of those who chose to work in areas where they know they will see the extremes of alcohol abuse but would nonetheless punish the rest of civilised society with their prohibitive solutions.