UK bad, but NZ worse

The Brits have just issued a gloomy report called the State of the Nation report: Poverty, Worklessness and Welfare Dependence in the UK. It is spilling over with sombre stats.

I have scanned two of the graphs from their section on family breakdown. They should have included NZ. It might have made them feel a tad better.

The first claims the highest European teenage birthrate;




The second claims one of the highest proportions of single parent families in the OECD:



The last is very interesting. It depicts the proportion of children with behavioural difficulties according to their family background. LP = Lone Parent.





It should be also recognised that those with behavioural difficulties also cause and experience a compounding effect because they tend to be clustered together in the poorest deciles. Now someone will tell me that their difficulties are to do with material deprivation. Somewhat. But studies have controlled for this and the poorer outcomes for children with single parents hold when considering families with equivalent incomes.

(Hat tip to Anne Else for bringing the report to my attention.)

WINZ moving more people from invalid's to sickness benefit

Remember this story from last month?

Work and Income has quietly started bumping dozens of people off the invalids benefit, months before tough new work tests officially come into force, say beneficiary advocates...

... Beneficiary Advocacy Federation spokeswoman Kay Brereton said there had been a dramatic shift in the past few months in the way the regional health advisers worked.

"Initially [in 2007] we saw people who were on the sickness benefit being picked up and put on an invalids benefit because their conditions were long-term and severe. Now we are seeing a dramatic shift the other way...

...North Shore advocate Pam Apera said she had seen a huge increase in people being bumped off the invalids benefit in the past four months, with an average of 10 cases a week this year."

I asked for the relevant data under the OIA and here it is graphed;



There's a trend but it is hardly "dramatic" and an average of "ten cases a week" in one area is highly unlikely.

However, there were 767 people transferred from an invalid's benefit onto a sickness benefit in 2009. This is considerably higher than the average annual total for the period 1998 to 2005 of 262. (I don't have data for the interim period.) So it would appear that the instruction to apply eligibility criteria more rigorously has been followed. The Auditor General should be pleased. From last year's report;

As part of the Working New Zealand: Work-Focused Support Programme, the Ministry put into practice a number of changes in September 2007 to improve how it determined eligibility for sickness and invalids' benefits, and to actively manage cases through regular and effective contact with people receiving those benefits...

We recommend that the Ministry of Social Development:

7. Broaden the criteria used to refer benefit applications to regional health advisors and regional disability advisors so that, as resources allow, more cases can be reviewed for ongoing entitlement to the sickness benefit or invalid's benefit

9. Review the circumstances of longer-term sickness and invalids' beneficiaries to better identify those for whom work is an option, and provide them with appropriate case management and employment-focused services;

The changes happened under Labour. Not National. And the advocates that want to take a class action against WINZ for anticipating the Future Focus legislation wouldn't, in my opinion, have a leg to stand on.

Cheaper to leave them on the DPB

More groups have trooped before the social services select committee lambasting the government's Future Focus Bill. Again most of the focus is on the expectation that a single parent should work part-time to help support their children after the youngest turns 6.

Child Action Poverty Group researcher Donna Wynd further questioned the targeting of those who have spent many years on the benefit, saying it would be cheaper to leave them where they were.

Cheaper still not to have let them onto a benefit, and to stay there for many years.

She later clarified that she was referring to long-term beneficiaries who probably suffered from substance addiction and mental health problems, and who needed intensive - and expensive - wrap-around support.

"If you're not prepared to do that, you might as well leave them where they are because no one is going to give them a job, and if they do, they're not going to be able to keep it."

Ah, the soft bigotry of low expectations...

Ms Wynd had earlier told the social services select committee that the reforms "coerced" solo parents into work and had no regard for the 220,000 children living in beneficiary households.

Of all the motivations for reforming the DPB, improving the lot of children is the most important. Again this is CPAG at their most arrogant. Only they know how to improve children's lives and that is through bigger welfare incomes. Never mind that the DPB has deprived many of a resident father or exposed them to a string of poorly motivated substitutes. Never mind that the DPB has caused more poverty than it has cured.

She did not think work was a way out of poverty for those on welfare unless they could get stable well-paid jobs, but most could only find low-paid, often temporary jobs.

So if work isn't the answer then it must be more welfare. But if more welfare is given, more children will grow up on welfare and their expectations will be based on their environment and in 20 years time the advocates will still be calling for more welfare. More welfare is an ever-expanding downward spiral.

These statements remind me of the resistance and admonitions prior to the US reforms. Poverty would grow, crime would escalate, child abuse and neglect would worsen and homelessness would snowball.

Didn't happen. And in general single mothers are better off . Yes, some are struggling but the hard cases are not simply abandoned. Most importantly children are now learning that getting a job is what you do in life. End of story.

Two silly girls

In need of some light relief from the gloomy weather, here are my two silly girls having fun. Coming from a working career as a sheep dog the hairy one has fit in very well. Ordinarily I wouldn't hold with dressing up a dog but this one just loves the play and attention. She is still an overgrown pup.

Hone Harawira on Three Strikes

Hone Harawira speaking against the Three Strikes Bill makes a couple of interesting points;

Mr Speaker, prison statistics tell us that even though Maori are only 14% of the population we are 50% of the prison muster, and have been so for more than 20 years, but if you think that's bad, believe me, this 3 strikes bill is going to make it much, much worse because without decent rehabilitation programs, first strikers and second strikers will carry on getting it wrong because they're not learning anything, they're simply reacting to problems in the only way they know, and they're gonna get hammered.

And because I suspect a lot of people in this house don't believe me, I recommend that they read the countless reports which vividly detail the historical tragedy of systemic bias and outright bloody racism against Maori in respect of arrests, charges, convictions and jail sentences - reports which tell us that given equal numbers of Pakeha and Maori being arrested for similar incidents, the ones who are more likely to get charged are the Maori ones, reports which tell us that given equal numbers of Pakeha and Maori going to court on similar charges, the ones who are more likely to get convicted are the Maori ones, reports which tell us that given equal numbers of Pakeha and Maori being convicted on similar charges, the ones who are more likely to get sentenced to jail are the Maori ones. and reports which tell us that given equal numbers of Pakeha and Maori getting sent to jail on similar charges, the ones who are more likely to get the longer sentences are the Maori ones.

I accept there is a degree of racism inherent amongst the police and in the courts. However the overriding reason Maori make up 50 percent of the prison population is that they are, to use Hone's term, committing crimes and appearing in court in equal numbers. If they were committing crime and appearing in court at the same rate as non-Maori they would be appearing in unequal numbers.

Mr Speaker - it's a short-sighted man who thinks that legislation sending people to jail for a long time reduces crime rates; it's a blind man who sees justice in sentencing people to life for responding to circumstances they have little control over; and it's a bloody fool who thinks that this bill will do anything else but create frustration, anger and violence within our prison population, an anger that will explode at any reason and at any time, because when you're in jail for life, the only question you consider when faced with conflict is not "what can happen to me if I do this" no it's "what else can they do to me?"

And when politicians talk about a safe society, let me ask this question - what about the next generation who have to grow up with the children of those who have been jailed for life, children who grow up with a deep-seated and very real hatred of society for a life below the margins that they have been forced to lead, a hatred that will be visited back upon society through ever-increasing rates of mayhem and murder.

Here I believe Hone is on quite firm ground. If you attend a court and listen to Maori speaking bitterly amongst themselves about the Pakeha system you will quickly realise why their young are likely to follow suit. I even heard one angry man urging another to bring his kids to court to see what they could expect when it was their turn. The chance that a Maori child will follow a parent or other relative to prison is higher as shown by the following table (respondent = prisoner);



I full well know what Three Strikes is supposed to achieve but my instincts about what the unintended consequences will be would have made me vote against the bill.

Report highlights value of work

Media Release

REPORT HIGHLIGHTS THE VALUE OF WORK

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

A paper will be launched in Auckland today by The Royal Australasian College of Physicians entitled, 'Realising the Health Benefits of Work'. According to welfare commentator Lindsay Mitchell the report claims that two thirds of sickness absence and long-term incapacity is due to mild and treatable conditions.

"This claim would help to explain why the number of people who rely on a sickness or invalid's benefit has increased dramatically over recent years. Conditions that might not have kept people from work 20 or 30 years ago are now considered grounds for claiming some form of incapacity benefit."

"Post-war the number of people claiming a sickness or invalid benefit remained steady but fell as a percentage of the population (see below). However, since 1980 the numbers have risen steeply. At March 2010 there were over 140,000 people relying on a sickness or invalid benefit accounting for over 5 percent of the working-age population."

Mitchell observed that, "The government's Future Focus reforms, currently before select committee, will legislate changes to eligibility for sickness and invalid benefits but their proposals have already been tried in Australia and have failed to stem the growth. In the US some progress has been made with their Supplemental Security Income disability recipients now tracking in line with population growth. The US has introduced the most stringent reforms of NZ, Australia and the UK. It would pay the Welfare Working Group to investigate how this has been achieved."

"Work incapacity is amongst the toughest problems developed countries face and the report released today will highlight why it is vital that dependent individuals receive the assistance they need to return to or take up work."

Own goal?

Who generated this story?

A high profile public servant who was found not guilty of assaulting a teenager is furious his name has been released on the internet.

The man was granted permanent name and occupation suppression when the verdict was returned yesterday in the Wellington District Court however his name has already appeared on a website. Details about the case are also suppressed.

The man's lawyer, Mike Antunovic, says procedures are in place to protect the rule of law and orders of the court and he would be surprised if they were not put into effect immediately.

Did it originate with the lawyer, in which case it is surely an own goal. Anybody with rudimentary knowledge of the "internet" knows exactly where to go to find the name.

Or was it a response to a reporter informing the lawyer? In which case what responsibility does the media bear or share in publicising the name? And for that matter, myself I guess, for commenting on it.

Understanding inequality

After yesterday's post about the increasing agitation over growing income gaps, right on queue, here's Tapu Misa with another inequality invocation.

Maybe it doesn't matter that the two-thirds of taxpayers who earn under $40,000 (quite a bit less than the oft-quoted average wage of $50,000) will get between 9 cents and just under $10 a week after GST, while the hard-pressed top 2 per cent who've been struggling to make ends meet on $150,000-plus a year will pocket nearly half a billion in tax cuts.

Auckland University economist Dr Susan St John calls the tax package "a very significant shift from progressive taxation". More of the tax burden will now fall on the lower-paid middle and bottom ranks of taxpayers.

This means we're not likely to lose our ranking as one of the most unequal countries in the OECD any time soon.

It isn't at all clear what is intended by these numbers. One interpretation is that two thirds of tax-payers earn under $40,000.

Roughly two thirds of all the people that receive an income receive under $40,000. That is true. But all those people do not "earn" an income. It is paid to them as Super or a benefit. And yes, technically they pay tax but that only amounts to shifting some numbers on the government's ledger.

The average wage from paid employment was $48,360 in June 2009. People in paid employment pay tax on their earnings. They pay tax on their recompense for contributing directly to the economy. That thing we all rely on to keep us afloat.

Inequality, as epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett argue in their 2009 book The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, hurts us all. As well as links to higher crime, ill-health, shorter life expectancy and a range of social pathologies, inequality drives a wedge between people, corroding trust and raising levels of anxiety. Perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised then that an annual Massey University survey has found we've become more tolerant of income inequality, even as we've become more unequal.

Perhaps the reason New Zealanders have become more tolerant of inequality is because the last 30 to 40 years has shown that even as equality of opportunity has increased many have failed to take advantage. Perhaps they are more tolerant of inequality because they perceive growing numbers of people who appear to be the cause of their own misfortune.

If we lived in a country where the vast majority of people worked, and they were getting pitiful wages I too would be jumping up and down about inequality. Had I been alive in the 1930s I would have been a socialist. But we have been down that track of government intervention to give everyone a fair shake of the stick and it hasn't worked. The result has been the bedding in of a large group of permanently poor people.

325,000 working age people are on a benefit and if their children are counted the number rises to over half a million. And even during the economic boom, when NZ briefly boasted the lowest unemployment rate in the OECD, the number was only 20 percent lower. That's a major cause of New Zealand's inequality.

Some Sunday morning 'big picture' thoughts

How often are you reading about the growing inequality in NZ? The phenomenon is blamed for social ills, crime and poor health. Labour wanted NZ to become a version of a Scandinavian country where people pay high taxes and receive many benefits and that would tend towards equalising incomes. Working for Families was part of the plan to become the natural party of government by locking in the franchise. And it looked like their plan had almost succeeded with National morphing into Labour anyway. However....

The budget did reinforce that National, to a point, are prepared to accept that inequality goes hand in hand with economic growth (as Matt McCarten points out today).

So why can't NZ be like those countries where there is a greater degree of economic equality?

Because it is peopled by very diverse individuals and groups, with diverse values (which ironically Labour encouraged). And rapid social change like the sexual revolution hit NZ when it was still very young. So NZ does not have a long history of shared values, or even common religion, and there is certainly a 'them and us' class mentality afoot fostered by the left and very pervasive. This results in people treating the redistributive social policies with disdain instead of appreciation. Instead of understanding that social insurance can only operate successfully when it isn't gamed, too many see it as a right or a way of getting back what the nasty capitalists took or kept from them. Or even what the government took from them.

It is fruitless to hanker after the European style social security philosophies and systems, which are coming undone anyway with immigration and changing demographics.

Inequality is NZ's future. The trick is to lift everyone up a few notches rather than force everyone down. And as the country gets older, values will probably become more homogeneous which should act as a counter-balance to extremes of wealth and poverty.

Political realities of welfare reform

This article appeared in the UK Telegraph. It outlines what the UK needs to do about welfare according to Richard Wellings of the Institute of Economic Affairs. His proposals are of the Ruth Richardson variety. James Bartholomew points out the obvious reality that the proposals are politically difficult. And that's the crunch. Unless there is a political consensus, or a government prepared to be very radical within one term (which risks policy reversal by the next government) little can be achieved. Which is incidentally why I abandoned any political ambitions in favour of trying to influence a consensus of opinion (which is how the US achieved abiding change and they have a way to go yet).

Even Margaret Thatcher didn’t manage to dismantle Britain’s disastrous welfare system.

Judging by the policy plans of the Lib-Con coalition, there is little reason to be optimistic that today’s leaders will be any more successful. The timid proposals on welfare are little more than an expansion of existing failed programmes.

It is unsurprising that welfare reform has presented such a problem for successive governments. The six million working-age adults who now receive out-of-work benefits – plus millions more over-60s receiving generous pension credits – comprise a large voting bloc. Labour would have risked losing its core support had it attacked benefit dependency.

More

The Crow Indian Chief

It's Reona's birthday so I did a quick sketch for her. She is fascinated by Native Indian culture. With more time I would have developed it more but it needed to be ready today. Unfortunately I put it under glass before taking the final shot but you get the idea.

Budget provisions that barely scratch the surface

Budget provisions that barely scratch the surface. What can be said about them?

There are around 8,000 teenage parents in NZ and the budget has provided funding for 10 more teenage parent co-ordinators in addition to the existing 9.

Around 13,000 inmates leave prison each year and the budget provides funding for 2 halfway houses (whare oranga ake) serving 42.

I suppose the ratio of provision is consistent. In both cases around a quarter to a third of a one percent (accepting that teenage co-ordinators will cater for more than one client).

Yet the system that encourages teenagers to produce babies that not infrequently go on to become troubled wards of the state and eventually guests of Her Majesty remains intact.

OIA response reveals real reason behind drop in the dole

Let me take you back to what Paula Bennett was saying on the 7th of March, 2010;

Benefit numbers fall

The number of people receiving the Unemployment Benefit has dropped by 4,224 over the last month.

"That's the single biggest drop in the Unemployment Benefit since the recession began," says Social Development Minister Paula Bennett.

The number of people on all types of benefits has dropped by 10,816 over the same period.

Over half of that total number, relates to young people on benefits.

"It's really pleasing to see 5,595 young people came off a benefit in just the last month," says Ms Bennett.

"Young people have been among the hardest hit by the recession and initiatives like Job Ops and Community Max have proven vital in keeping young New Zealanders in work," says Ms Bennett.

3,636 position had been filled through Job Ops by the end of February, with 2,927 positions filled through Community Max

Work and Income has continued its work-first approach, using work brokers and its specialised recruitment service Job Connect to match people with jobs.

What actually happened was that in February 2010 7,198 people left an unemployment benefit to go on the student allowance. This compares to 3,996 in February 2008.



When in opposition National used to rigorously and repeatedly rail at Labour for trying to massage the unemployment numbers.

Having spent 9 long years in opposition National certainly had time to observe and learn the art.

Farting at the dinner table and fast-tracked legislation

Yesterday I went to parliament to submit on the Social Assistance (Future Focus) Bill which covers National's latest round of potentially ineffectual welfare reforms. I was there for 2 hours including my own slot of 10 minutes so was witness to many other submissions and the reactions of the committee members. Every submitter I heard was negative about the reforms, most, in a pro-welfare capacity eg there is too much focus on paid work. Before me came the Women's Refuge, The Human Rights Commission, The Christian Council of Social Services, the Presbyterian equivalent, a couple of bodies representing the legal fraternity (Geoffrey Palmer was searingly critical of the complexity of the current social security legislation and further degeneration under this bill), and the Wellington People's Centre. So in the main the usual brothers-in-arms socialists and sold-out-to-the-state religionists. Most stayed on after submitting. So when I eventually spoke the response from in front and behind me was akin to someone farting at the dinner table.

I began by reminding the members that the stated aim of the Future Focus Bill is to "break the cycle of welfare dependency" - it was not a response to the recession which a previous submitter had claimed (the Wellington People's Centre, though I don't think I named them). And as the DPB is critical to that cycle I was going to focus on the proposed changes in that area. I had prepared new material for my submission and that was circulated.

In brief I urged them to focus their attention where it is needed - young, unskilled, uneducated women entering and remaining in the benefit system for years. I cautioned that the proposed work-testing will not deter this group and could see even more children added to existing benefits as an avoidance tactic. Then I presented MSD information that showed the work-testing regime was less effective than the enhanced case management approach anyway, plus graphic evidence that governments have been fiddling with the DPB since the early 90s to little avail, and urged them to get serious and return welfare to being what was intended - temporary assistance only, except for the most disabled. I finished using the example of Norway where the DPB equivalent is limited to three years after the birth of the youngest child.

It wasn't a particularly radical submission. But in the context - all the previous submissions had the left members ( Annette King, Carmel Sepuloni, Rajen Prasad and Catherine Delahunty) falling over themselves to reinforce the sentiments expressed - made it seem extreme.

I have submitted to select committees a number of times. But always under the Labour government. Quite often someone would get slightly out of their tree in their reaction. Philip Taito Field for instance (although he was probably under a great deal of stress at the time). Or Alliance's Liz Gordon (now standing for Mayor of Christchurch against her former boss). Did I expect the process to be any different under a centre right government? As I was criticising their bill, no. But I was surprised that whilst I was in attendance for the 2 hours, two of National's members never spoke. Another spoke once. And obviously the Chair, Hekia Parata spoke frequently, but not by way of questioning. The show was being completely dominated by the other side so naturally I was expecting a real grilling. And I wasn't wrong.

The thrust of their response to me (excepting Annette King) was welfare dependence is an unfounded and unuseful construct. Rajen Prasad used the term a couple of times in a sneering sort of a way. Where is the work? What about women in violent relationships? Would you go back to the seventies or earlier? Hadn't I been listening to all the other submitters?

I told them all I had heard was 'can't do'. And I get tired of hearing 'can't do'. There are existing shortages and looming crises in aged care, disabled care, pre-school care all of which people on the DPB could be filling if they applied some foresight. There were disapproving murmurs behind me which confirmed my suspicion that some advocates for the poor aren't actually looking for work answers but more welfare.

Then I began to tackle the escaping from violence objection. Paying people to escape from violence is a double-edged sword. "The DPB is a magnet..." I got no further. Sepuloni and Prasad immediately jumped in wrongly anticipating what I was going to say the DPB is a magnet for young women. And they wouldn't let me continue. I said, you are not listening to me. At which point the chair stepped in and asked Dr Prasad to show me some courtesy and let me finish. The point I was trying to make is that a young woman with a secure income and roof over her head is a magnet for a man who doesn't want to support a partner or a child or a household. These young women are very vulnerable to being preyed on by men with a propensity for violence. (I later emailed each member the documented evidence of this).

There was probably more which has become a bit of a blur but I can best describe the episode as a derisive drubbing. And the National members may as well have not been there.

But there was something highly unusual about this episode. The submissions were due last Friday. Ordinarily one then expects to wait a few weeks to get a call about a time for oral presentations. Imagine my surprise when it came on Monday. In fact the surface-mailed acknowledgement of my written submission arrived in the letterbox after I had presented my oral submission.

That is extraordinary.

Finally one other thing that amused me was Sir Geoffrey Palmer saying that NZ didn't want to go down the same pathway as the US with silly names for legislation. He compared Future Focus to No Child Left Behind. I would very much have liked to chime in that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the name of America's Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act. What could be wrong with legislating for people to take some individual responsibility for themselves and their children?

Bennett on benefits

A make-news piece by Tracey Watkins appears in today's Stuff content entitled;

'Serious questions' over some benefits

The Government is preparing to ask some "serious questions" about invalid's and sickness benefits as the jobs crisis eases.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett is flagging dramatic changes to the welfare system over the next few years as the Government has more room to drive through changes after the focus in its first 12 months being mainly on soaring unemployment.

"I think in the future how we approach welfare ... I do see that it may look quite different [including] quite a different way in which we approach things and help people to get well and get help and be more employable."

Tomorrow's Budget is expected to flag some of the changes, although more fundamental ones are likely to wait until a Welfare Reform Working Group reports back. It was set up to investigate whether the system needs radical change or just tinkering.

The idea that the government sets up working groups to discover whether "tinkering" is the answer is ludicrous, but when one considers how they eventually respond to recommendations made, "tinkering" is usually the upshot.

While the focus had been on unemployment numbers, meanwhile, they were starting to turn around and would "right themselves pretty much" over time.

"It's that invalid's benefit, sickness benefit, that we have to ask ourselves some pretty serious questions about and how and what we want that to look like in 10 years' time."

One of the issues was how agencies helped people to get well and back to work.

"All we do ... is pay them benefits and put them on training courses and hope they are going to get well.

"We are looking at different options at the moment and that is what the welfare working group are doing ... it could mean more [money] up front; spending more to get someone the operation they need, or more drug and alcohol rehabilitation."

And Labour didn't try all this stuff? That is exactly what Maharey did yet the numbers dependent continued to rise.

This problem is being tackled across the developed world but looks like trying to sculpt with melting ice. Governments herald tough new approaches but to little effect.

In the UK and Australia the initial emphasis was on redirecting new applicants into the dole queue. The numbers went up. Now they are reassessing existing claimants or announcing plans to. In the US people on Supplemental Security Income for disability (the uninsured) have been subjected to a great deal of review also. Not surprisingly the US have taken the most stringent approach and at least have numbers tracking in line with the population growth. Here numbers on the sickness and invalid's benefit keep rising as a percentage of working age people. The first graph below represents the sickness benefit; the second the invalids benefit.



The problem is multi-faceted. First we have to acknowledge (as the UK and Australia have) that the disability rolls have taken on many people who should have been on the unemployment benefit. That is a start and shifts the problem rightly into being one about jobs and not health.

Then the mental ill-health juggernaut will require some honest assessment. Instead of spending extra on mending people (which we simply do not have to spend) a redirection of cash assistance into other forms of support, rehab, shared living expenses and accommodation etc is needed. The living in the community experiment has failed for an unknown number.

There are people who, I can only repeat myself, are genuine cases and do not deserve to be stigmatised for their dependence.

Too many are not. And the easy availability of benefit income has assisted them in causing their own 'incapacities'.

The new social engineers

Oh Good Lord. Yes, out loud I said it to no-one but myself. I can't stand this world some days. Or, what is it really? I can't stand all the attempts by governments to 'fix' things. Now they are going to fix kids. You just feel like you are suffocating from their snow-balling social engineering. I am silently screaming.

BECAUSE EVERY TIME THEY TRY TO FIX SOMETHING THEY BREAK SOMETHING ELSE.

Why can't they just leave stuff alone??

Getting airborne again

And now for something completely different...

I made enough profit from my exhibition to fulfil a recently stirred ambition to get back to flying. As I haven't exercised the privileges of my Private Pilot's Licence for just over ten years I had to study and resit Aviation Law which I have just accessed the results of below. Yahoo. My memory may not be as lacking as I sometimes think.

Having completed the arduous medical exam and confirmed that my heart is fine (although at my age, in the second fifty year period, the certificate only remains valid for 2 years) all that remains is to go and do some flying; brush up on forced landings and stall recovery, sit a Biannual Flight Review and bob's your uncle. Talking of bob, Robert can't wait. His interest in aviation is very strong. I shouldn't be surprised. He is my son.

Hope yet for UK Conservatives

When the Conservatives were elected I felt disinterested because on my reading of it they didn't look very different from National. Too close to the centre to be of any use.

However, not only Frank Field, but David Freud is in Cameron's new cabinet. Freud advised Labour on welfare reform but then defected to the Tories. Here he tells why;


“This figure's wrong,” Gordon Brown interrupted as I began to explain my Welfare Report to him. He leaned threateningly towards me, jabbing a stubby finger at a table in my draft.

I looked at it. “No it isn't,” I replied.

“Yes it is.”

“No it isn't.”

“Yes it is.”

This was becoming unproductive. I tried to break the impasse. “I'll make clear that it's a gross figure, if that will satisfy you,” I proposed.

“Yes, yes. Do that,” he growled.

I was in his Treasury office in February 2007. I had been asked by Tony Blair and then work and pensions secretary John Hutton to write an independent report on how to reform the welfare system. They were happy with my recommendations: now I had been sent to explain them to Brown.

It was a surreal encounter. The changes I was recommending were genuinely radical. Yet as our argument veered on for the next half-hour, we went from one inessential detail to another. Try as I might, I could not get him to discuss matters of principle. After this bizarre softening-up exercise, he dumped me into a room full of officials and special advisers, who demanded that I make change after change to the report.

In the end I managed to publish the independent report that I wanted to: one that championed a major effort to roll back the number of people dependent on benefits. In particular, it recommended that substantial resources be directed to helping those 2.6 million people who had been parked on Incapacity Benefit, with the investment financed from the resulting savings to the benefits bill.

When the economic crisis erupted in autumn 2008, the Government's response seemed to show all the top-down characteristics that have failed us over the past 30 years. Gordon Brown had clearly not accepted the reforming principles behind my outcome-led proposals — not surprisingly, given his lack of interest in them during our bruising, nit-picking encounter.

And even where Labour had accepted parts of my approach in principle, the pace they proposed would be terrifyingly slow. They were looking to pilots covering less than 20 per cent of the country — leaving many people without any serious support.

So I was enthralled when David Cameron and George Osborne asked me in February 2009 to join the Conservative Party to help them develop the ideas in my report into real, nationwide policy. They were determined that a Conservative government would launch the long and difficult task of rolling back the extraordinarily high levels of dependency that have developed in this country.

Today the fruits of that work are launched in a new welfare contract for Britain. Its principle is: do the right thing and we will back you; fail to take responsibility and the free ride is over. As well as using the principles behind my report to help millions of people who have been abandoned for too long, within six months of taking office we will introduce new sanctions for anyone who refuses to look for work.

That way we can have a welfare system that is firm but fair, and we can end Britain's dependency culture. Gordon Brown clearly doesn't want to change the system: we need a change of government to get the job done.

Labour's Frank Field appointed 'poverty czar' by Cameron

New Conservative PM David Cameron has appointed Labour's ex-welfare minister Frank Field as 'poverty czar' in the UK. This is big news for anyone interested in welfare reform. Frank Field is above all a realist. He has better grip on what is causing poverty in countries like the UK and NZ than any other politician I can think of. For a short time he was welfare minister under Tony Blair but there was a falling out with Gordon Brown and he has spent the last few years on the back benches.

But he may be too plain-speaking for the new Tories.

Compare what he says about single mothers...

"I've always believed in a causal link between benefits and the number of single mothers. We've got to change so that people don't become single mothers. For some, they become single mothers by accident, while for others it's a deliberate choice."

...to the Tory prevaricator...

"We have to be careful with this claim of a causal link. When we are giving benefit to the single mother, we are not giving it to her, it's to the child. if you want to end child poverty, then you have to give benefit."

The contrasting views of Coddington and Woodham

The contrast between the columns written by Deborah Coddington and Kerre Woodham in today's Herald on Sunday strongly marks the split between a pragmatic view and a reactionary view. Strangely it is Woodham with whose view I identify. She believes not a great deal has changed over time in relation to young people drinking to the point of death and that kids will always do dumb things.

Coddington, on the other hand, believes that the drinking is far worse and the state has to do something. Both columns are written in the aftermath of the tragic death of young James Webster.

Having a 16 year-old son brings me a little closer to the issue. Nevertheless I am sick and tired of hearing and reading about the scourge that is alcohol and young people's relationship with it. Not because I like a drink or two, especially bubbly, but because the problem isn't actually about alcohol. Teenage years are amongst the riskiest. That's part of the human cycle and human condition. And nobody can expunge that reality. Young people are busting out and they lack judgement. There are some aspects of life that simply can't be changed. Deborah says that she was lucky her kids survived. Well, not really. The overwhelming chances are that our children will survive adolescence and early adulthood. Except in times of war, when the risk-taking nature of the young was harnessed and celebrated, that is blessedly also immutable fact. Not a matter of luck.

The best parents can do is know their children; make home a place their children want to be; be people their children can trust, or at least be some sort of anchor for them, and teach their children that they don't have to run with the crowd, don't have to get involved with doing stuff they actually don't want to do and, for that matter, neither should they try to coerce others against their will.

After that it is in the lap of the Gods.