The ACT saga continues

Heather Roy will apparently appear on Close Up tonight, after turning up unexpectedly at Parliament today claiming business as usual, albeit as an MP rather than a Minister. This is getting worse for ACT. As someone who cared enough to stand as a candidate twice - a bigger commitment than being a member, and much bigger commitment than being a voter - if I am getting increasingly turned off then it's a safe bet many more are. To be fair I was pretty turned off anyway but if the antagonistic factions continue to co-exist I have sod all interest in the party left.

Bored with hysteria

The two following passages are just pulled off the net randomly to illustrate a common train of current thinking;

Stress and addiction - Drug Addiction

Many of us suffer from or will experience stress at some point in our lives. Stress appears to be a condition of modern life and even more so for those of us who are ‘asset rich but time poor’.

But too much stress can lead to addiction.

The pace of life has speeded up over the last decade or so and we find ourselves continually trying to keep up! Juggling the demands of work with family and friends can be difficult and this pressure often leads to stress.

"The fast pace that we live our lives is causing more problems then it is solving. Quality time has diminished while road rage, automobile accidents, and health problems are all on the rise due to our fast-paced lifestyles.


The fast pace of our lives leaves little time for quality time over dinner. When I was growing up we would sit down and spend an hour taking about the day’s events and connecting with each other. With the speed of life as it is my dinners with my family are rushed to an average of 15 minutes, then it is on to the next thing each of us has to do that evening."

The next extract is from an article titled "The Mental Hospitals" and refers to the increasing admission rate.




It was from the Evening Post, September 6, 1910.

I am so bored with hysteria I cannot be fagged blogging about the changes to alcohol laws and what is driving them. Suffice to say the government takes our money to control us in ways that are unnecessary, ineffective, and unwanted.

Paula Bennett - big tick

I have talked before about MSD's habit of quietly posting stuff on its website late Friday. One such document appeared 2 days ago. The forward alone, by the Minister, Paula Bennett, is written in a different style from that to which we have become uncomfortably accustomed. I have not read the full document yet but there are shades of ex-Governor General Dame Silvia Cartwright's farewell speech in which she referred to NZ's "dark secret" ;

Minister’s Foreword: Why you should care

New Zealand is a land of opportunity and for most, a great place to bring up kids. But there is a dark side to this remarkable country which resides within too many homes.

Thousands of children are growing up unsafe and unprotected in chaotic homes. Many are abused and neglected by the very people who should love and protect them. This is New Zealand’s ugly secret.

In the last year Child, Youth and Family received over 125,000 reports from people concerned enough about a child’s safety to notify authorities. In over 21,000 of these cases, child abuse or neglect was confirmed. So that’s over 340 notifications and 57 confirmed serious abuse and neglect cases every day. That’s 2,400 reports of child abuse and neglect every week in New Zealand.

There is no excuse for beating, abusing and neglecting our children. No child’s life should begin this way. And when it does, the harm is substantial and long lasting. The social and economic costs of abuse and neglect are beyond comprehension. A baby shaken in anger and out of ignorance may be left with permanent brain damage, or even die as a result. Children beaten and sexually abused grow up carrying the burden of that abuse. Many driven by anger, low self esteem and distrustful of others, follow a path to crime and violence and many repeat their experience on the next generation.

The neglected child is a silent timebomb. Left alone, unwashed and unloved this child may not be physically bruised or injured but will be deeply affected and is unlikely to grow into a healthy, loving individual who is a productive member of the community unless we step in to help.

What we are discussing here is ugly, it is shameful and it is unpalatable. But it is New Zealand’s reality and one we must all address. Not just the Government, not just Police and Child, Youth and Family, but community, families, individuals, neighbours, teachers, friends, uncles, aunties. We must face this together. We must do everything we can to protect our children from abuse and neglect. This is a challenge for all New Zealanders. It is a challenge for Māori. Māori children
are over-represented in abuse and neglect statistics. Māori clients make up more than half of all findings of abuse. In New Zealand, there can be no excuse for beating and neglecting children.

I invite you to read this document. It shows that Child, Youth and Family is more responsive now than any time in the past two decades and able to respond to increasing notifications and reach out to more at-risk families. It outlines important changes to further improve the way we protect children which are in the pipeline as well as some recent initiatives. It’s clear there is a lot of work being done and more to do because protecting children and keeping them safe will always be a Government priority. Which is why we need to think about the following things:

No matter how efficient and how innovative Child, Youth and Family continues to be,
resources are limited. The organisation and its dedicated, hard working staff are coping well with current demand but in truth that only takes care of the critical cases.

We all know early intervention is the best way to make a difference, but Child, Youth and Family is in the position of having to throw the bulk of its resources into dealing with critical cases when the aim is to be more involved with families before things get really bad.

Surely, the answer ultimately lies in a change in our country’s culture; a change which leads to zero-tolerance for child abuse and neglect. Otherwise, we will continue to lead the world in beating, neglecting and abusing our children.
And we know those children who are abused and neglected are the same adults we
see years later filling New Zealand courts and prisons. Many of those who live ruined lives will ruin the lives of others - the victims of their crimes and also their own children. That is the price for tolerating child abuse. We must work together to protect our children.

Just scanning through the rest of the document, a detailed description of the work CYF is doing, it is similarly-written and shouts transparency. What a change.

And this is what Paula was trying to talk about on The Nation yesterday but the pathetic panel kept steering the conversation back to the Welfare Working Group, the 'manufactured crisis' and the awful spectre of insurance. Then they had the audacity to say she didn't have the intellect to pull it off.

What she can do is get into this child abuse area like no other player can. And I think she can make a difference.

But I return always to my main objection. All of the early intervention, which is clearly being stepped up, cannot combat paying people to lead dysfunctional lives and putting a monetary value on the children they have. Welfare reform is critical alongside the intervention.

My take on ACT - for what it's worth

I have stayed quiet about ACT. Maintaining a distance partly because I know as little about the last few months as most. But I cannot pretend that I have felt indifferent. And I write now if only to get the stuff out of my head that prevents me properly concentrating on other matters.

I have never known Rodney as a bully. And I was relieved to hear Deborah Coddington say the same on NewstalkZB last night. On the other hand I did experience Stephen Franks as a bully over a matter where I chose to put personal loyalty above political expediency and was severely chastised for it. I like Stephen but was very uneasy about his appearance as Heather's 'support person'. It was Stephen who ensured that Heather was placed at number 2 on the list in 2005 to act as some sort of moderating influence or counter to Rodney at number 1. Stephen had lost the mad primary-style leadership election to Rodney and I believe the current problems go back that far - at least. Richard Prebble should carry the can for that piece of insanity.

Rodney would have tried to avoid personal conflict coming to a head because I don't think he handles relationships very well. I still see him as a lone player but a very effective one. His intellect and charisma are substantial. Heather's are not.

As an ACT member and candidate I was overtly loyal to Rodney. I was transparent about voting for him to lead the party and would do the same over again. Realising how deep the division went through 2005-2008, with Heather seeing herself as the only one of the two ACT MPs maintaining party "respectability", my being offered 14 on the list by Heather's clique makes more sense. Thank God it happened or I might have been embroiled in this current crisis.

Because once you are an MP you can never be your own person again. I have come to the view that is it impossible to maintain integrity and avoid being compromised. That is the nature of the beast when you work with people whose motives or priorities may differ from your own. In life there are good people and there are bad people, and we are nearly all one or the other at some point. Thankfully the conflict and dramas remain private. In politics they unfold in public.

Heather probably believes she was well-intentioned; working selflessly for the good of the party (leaving aside any ill-judgement shown in allowing another or others too much influence on her defence associate ministership). But she overestimated her following. Went to that classic place politicians go to when they listen only to people fawning all over them most probably.

Rodney now has to put the facts on the table. Mapp should assist him. Let the court of public opinion do its work with as much objectivity as can be mustered. That's the best hope he has of salvaging his party and reputation. And I don't think salvaging is too strong a word.

What's wrong with National's DPB work-testing policy?

What's wrong with National's DPB work-testing policy which passed into law last night?

The explicit goal of the Future Focus Bill was to " ...break the cycle of welfare dependency".

On that count it will fail because;

1/ There is nothing to prevent existing beneficiaries adding children to their benefit to avoid work-testing

2/ Six or more years out of the workforce is too long. The longer people stay on a benefit the less likely they are to leave it

3/ There is no disincentive created for teenagers who will view some point 6 or more years into the future as remote

It also falls short in other respects

4/ Many OECD countries faced with the same problem now work-test when children are younger than 6

5/ It implies approval for taxpayers to support sole parents, regardless of their reason for being a sole parent, for long periods of time

6/ Resources will now focus on the most employable who are arguably less in need of them

7/ National can claim to be "doing something". A little akin to fiddling while Rome burns.

Dunne divvies up the dough

MacDoctor asks the question this morning, when will it be enough? He was referring specifically to benefit levels. I'd ask the same about Working For Families;

Transfers via tax credits to families with dependent children have become larger in value and more widespread in recent years. In 1998, an earlier form of payments, also mainly delivered via the tax system and which targeted the same groups as WFF does, went to 280,000 families, with an average annual receipt of $3,500. In 2008, WFF was received by more than 384,000 families at an average annual amount of $6,500. Over the intervening decade, the number of recipient families grew by 37% and their average receipt by 84%. Currently, a working family with three children, all aged under 13 years, would still receive some amount of WFF tax credits provided their annual income is below $106,000.

And in 2009 the annual bill rose again to $2.7 billion.

And now couples with children want income-splitting as well?

It is no wonder we get socialist government after socialist government.

I thought the drive from National was for a simpler tax system yet churning ...churns on. Simple = don't take it off them in the first place. Then we could start replacing dead-weight bureaucrats with productive workers.

But no. We have companies crashing while politicians continue to debate how best to confiscate and divvy up the dough to keep themselves in their positions of power, prestige and privilege.

Beyond silly

Apparently a sole parent is starving on $517 a week. It's that wicked benefit system again.

Hold on. That's equivalent to $13.79 an hour after tax working 37.5 hours a week. Would a worker who chooses to spend 57 percent of their income on rent and then struggles to make ends meet, make newspaper headlines?

It isn't the benefit level that is the problem. It is living beyond means. Get a flatmate.

On a benefit and working

The following is an assortment of statistics. I'll stop short of calling them facts. You will see why.

* According to the latest Household Incomes in New Zealand report the full-time employment rate for sole parents was 35% in 2009.

* According to the OECD the employment rate for sole parents was around 52 percent in 2009




* According to the Household Labour Force Survey, in 2009 the average employment rate for a sole parent with dependent children only was 52.5 percent.

* According to Ministry of Social Development Benefit Factsheets during 2009 only 15.3 percent of people on the DPB had declared earnings (indicating they worked for all or some of the year).

* According to the Household Incomes in New Zealand report 73% of sole parents were in receipt of a main benefit in 2009.

* At March 2009 there were 105,448 single parents on a main benefit (OIA request)

So that means there were around 144,500 single parents.

52 percent were working; 73 percent were on a benefit and 11 percent were officially doing both. Which leaves 10 percent unofficially doing both by my calculations.

(The only information I don't have is how many sole parents on benefits other than the DPB had declared earnings. At best that might add another percentage point onto the officially doing both portion).

Tapu Misa; another NZ Herald journo who doesn't get it

Tapu Misa has taken up the familiar role of defending the DPB citing Child Poverty Action Group research;

According to a recent report from Child Poverty Action Group, most DPB recipients are on the benefit for a relatively short time while their children are young, and most re-enter the workforce when their circumstances allow.

What is it that is said about statistics hiding as much as they reveal?

EXTENT OF DPB DEPENDENCE SURPRISES MINISTRY

Monday, August 16, 2010

The Ministry of Social Development has just published research that finds the length of time sole parents stay on the DPB is greater than previously thought.

"This finding is in line with what I have been saying for many years," said welfare commentator Lindsay Mitchell. "The real level of dependence has been masked by the short-term and often repeat stays many sole parents experience."

The Ministry's new research finds;

On average, sole parents receiving main benefits had more disadvantaged backgrounds than might have been expected:

· just over half had spent at least 80% of the history period observed (the previous 10 years in most cases) supported by main benefits

· a third appeared to have become parents in their teenage years.

"The research also finds that of the teenage sole parents who went onto the DPB (or EMA) in the year to June 1996, over half received a benefit for eight or more years of the following ten. These recipients, along with others who became parents under twenty five years of age, were categorised as 'early starters' ; over half were Maori and due to larger family size, their children accounted for 45% of the total reliant on the DPB. The early starters also had the highest benefit-debt level and uptake of special needs grants for food; were also most likely to incur a penalty for failing to name the father of their child(ren); had the highest uptake of child disability allowance and lowest level of educational qualification.

"Unfortunately even the new research has limitations. For example it attempts to identify whether sole parents had become parents as teenagers by matching their age against the age of their oldest dependent child. But if the oldest child was over 18 he or she would no longer be officially dependent and would not appear in the data used."

"It is a great shame the Ministry has taken so long to produce this research which is now being euphemistically described as presenting a 'more disadvantaged profile than might have been expected.' "

Mrs Mitchell concludes, "One now wonders how long it is going to take the Minister and the National government to act on it."

The "fatherless generation"

Radical feminists (and more latterly celebrities) argue that women can ably raise children alone. Most didn't, and still don't, have the financial resources to however. Therefore those with the ability to influence or make policy were happy to swap dependence on the state for dependence on the 'patriarchal' nuclear family.

Certainly some females do raise children well by themselves. We can probably all think of examples. But the evidence is that stable two-parent families provide children with, on balance, greater emotional and financial security. My own instincts have always been very pro-fathers probably for the simple reason that my own dad has been very important in my life. So it dismays me that children today are routinely deprived of their fathers and that the liberal left policy-makers refuse to join the dots. Subsiding single parents breaks down the family unit and makes men redundant.

The weekend Dom Post ran an in-depth article about the marae youth courts that are becoming more numerous across the country. Unfortunately it isn't on-line.

Again the observation appears about the common theme amongst kids in trouble.



Instead of thinking about how the damage the DPB has caused might be undone, the state is all the time trying to deal with the consequences by introducing new family law structures and practices. The proverbial chasing the tail.

Pap

That's the only word I can think of to sum up a column written by Phil Goff in today's NZ Herald (hat-tip to No Minister for pointing it out).

"I'm well experienced at the skills you need to be a minister. Analysing a problem, being sure of your facts, finding solutions that work. I've done it for years and I can do it well. "

Contrast that to his handling of the Long-term Benefit Dependency: The Issues

Labour leader Phil Goff said that rather than a culture of long-term welfare dependency, the numbers on benefits reflected economic conditions.



"It's not that people don't want to work; the jobs simply aren't there at the moment and the situation's getting worse."

Great skills. Superb analysis. Yes, he has done it for years. Too many.

John Armstrong has his own 'ideology'

NZ needs to have the welfare debate because change can't happen without it. But when we have it, it becomes almost insufferable reading the claptrap every man and his dog comes out with.

John Armstrong writes that the working group's prescription for change may be blinkered by ideology such as time limits.

Why is it 'time-limits' are ideology but an absence of time-limits is not? Why does National have ideology and Labour none? Armstrong's own angle on welfare is ideological. Can't he see that? We all have some sort of belief system; principles, ideas, world-view. After criticising the actuarial calculations and describing the paper as "polemic masquerading as analysis" he writes;

Perhaps worst of all, it makes assertions that are just plain wrong.

As part of the discussion paper's emphasis on getting beneficiaries into work, it cites Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden and Ireland as countries where, in contrast to New Zealand, sole mothers have higher employment rates than mothers with partners.

The OECD's family database tells a rather different story. In Ireland. mothers with partners outstrip sole mothers when it comes to paid employment - as they do in France and Germany, though not by much.

Armstrong has used this graph;



The Issues Paper relied on Peter Whiteford's presentation slide;



There is a time difference in the statistics. Unfortunately many of the statistics presented to the 2 day forum were outdated. (Not mine).

The fact remains that NZ has a low rate of employment among single mothers when compared with other single mothers in the OECD. That is an effect of the open-ended DPB. Quibbling about unintentional errors won't make that fact go away.

Political management or political cop-out?

Did anyone notice that the Minister for Social Development did not commenmt on the Welfare Working Group's Issues paper? First the lack of comment was put down to her not having read it yet. Then the PM made a response that at least some of the recommendations from the next paper would be adopted. Then... that was it. (Nobody front-footed a defence of the paper against opposition criticisms.)

But on Wednesday morning the Minister went on Breakfast TV to announce a "new" scheme, Home For Life. The scheme would see more permanency for children whose own parents could not look after them. Certainly a good news story with little political risk.

The scheme has in fact been operating for a while.

March 24, 2010

Finding a ‘home for life’ for children and young people
in care is a primary focus for Child, Youth and Family.
This means that as soon as a child comes into care, we
will work towards finding them a permanent home,
either with their own family, extended whänau, or a
new family they can call their own.

“We know the best thing for children in care is a
safe and stable place to call home, where they have
the opportunity to build a strong and nurturing
attachment to the people who are caring for them,”
says Ray Smith, head of Child, Youth and Family.

“This makes the single greatest difference in helping
children in care grow into secure adults.”

A ‘home for life’ project has been established to look
at ways we can strengthen our efforts in finding
permanent homes for kids in care. “We want to
identify ways we can remove uncertainty and provide
support for caregivers so they can be confident about
offering a home for life,” says Karen Petrie, who is
leading the project. “It’s our job to do what’s best for
children and young people in care, and keep them at
the centre of our decision making at all times.”

Last month, Ray met with Family Court judges, to talk
about how we can work together to keep the child at
the centre of decision making. “It’s about building a
relationship of trust, so that we all feel confident we
are doing what’s best for the child,” he says.

“Being in care should be a process towards finding a
home, it should never be the end point for children
and young people,” says Ray. “All children and young
people deserve a family who will keep them safe and
well cared for, a home to call their own, and a sense
that they belong.”

Brian Rudman also in denial

In a response to the Welfare Working Group paper, Brian Rudman has joined the naysayers this morning:

They've tried to put the fear of God into every right-thinking taxpayer by conjuring up the nightmare that if everybody currently on a benefit stayed on it for the rest of their lives, the cost would be $50 billion.

And that's ignoring all the yet-to-be sick and unemployed and pregnant, bludgers who are queuing round the corner, waiting to sign up for their lifetime of sponging off the taxpayer. Shock, horror and pass the smelling salts.

The discussion paper concludes "If current trends in benefit receipt continue unabated, 16 per cent of the working-age population could be receiving a benefit by 2050. The social and economic cost of this will be unsustainable."

It forgets to mention about 16 per cent of working age people were on benefits for most of the 1990s, thanks to high unemployment, yet somehow we managed to survive without marching the beneficiaries off to work camps.

During the 1990s a much greater share of the people on benefits were on the unemployment benefit. An annual average of 159,000 using end of year totals. On the sickness and invalid benefits combined there was an average of 63,784. DPB was pretty much the same as it is now.

At the end of December 2009 there were 66,000 on the unemployment benefit and 144,000 on the sickness and invalids benefit. The numbers have pretty much reversed on the 90s average and the latter number is constantly growing.

The significance of this?

The sickness (often a gateway benefit) and invalid benefits, and unchanged DPB, harbour most of the long-term dependence. The future costs of people currently on the unemployment benefit are far less than the future costs of someone on the invalid's or domestic purpose's benefit. So the situation today is not the same as it was in the 1990s.

Looking at point-in-time numbers or percentages of the population on a benefit only tells us so much. The Issues Paper addressed this by calculating future liabilities based on the current beneficiary population make-up. An exercise not previously undertaken.

Long-term benefit dependence is growing and it grew in spite of the good economy of the early 2000s.

How many times does this need explaining to people who refuse to take off their blinkers and stop carping on about "beneficiary bashing"?

You know I actually agree that NZ can afford to carry on as it is BUT it will be to our economic detriment, and worse, to the detriment of the children and adults who never realise their potential in life. The left-leaning advocates, politicians and media are showing just how little they understand or care about the big picture.

A gift for Goff

The creation of the welfare working group has turned out to be a gift for the left. As the group issues their papers and recommendations Phil Goff can repeatedly return to a tried and trusted refrain, what is the government doing about unemployment? Let's quickly revisit what he said yesterday:

"It's not that people don't want to work; the jobs simply aren't there at the moment and the situation's getting worse."

That is true of some. But not all.

Connie Raiwhara, who runs the Pikorua community house where Ms Heremaia attends a sewing class, said many sole parents had no qualifications and would not give up the benefit for a minimum-wage job.

A sole parent with three young children paying the $332 average rent for a three-bedroom house in Papakura would get $206 in family support and $165 in accommodation supplement on top of the $278 DPB, a total of $649 a week.

"A lot of our solo parents get well in the $700s. They are not going to go from $700 to $400," Ms Raiwhara said.

"Even if you're in a fulltime job on $400-$500 a week [after tax], childcare is $240 a week. You're working to pay for someone else to look after your child.

"Maybe they should put the wages up and maybe that would give people the incentive to go back to work."

This explains why people stay on the DPB even during good economic times. And it's a rational response. Nobody has been taught that welfare is actually supposed to be a last resort. They haven't been taught about the ethics of citizenship or economics. They expect the faceless state to put money into their bank accounts every week. That's just the way it is.

And when I think about that phrase it was also the title of a Bruce Hornsby song from the mid-eighties and referred to coloured people being unable to get jobs due to racial discrimination in the US. Not quite the same problem as we are seeing in NZ today.

The Standard plays down dependency

According to The Standard the Welfare Working Group's Long-term Benefit Dependency; The Issues paper is about creating an "air of crisis" where there is none and as usual "Tory welfare bashing". Their latest post is a selection of quotes. So I thought I would pull out some of my own extracts and tables.

At the end of April 2010, almost 13 percent of the working age population was receiving a benefit. Of the people who were on a benefit at the end of June 2009, more than 170,000 had been on a benefit for most of the past ten years.

This graph should ideally show columns that are decreasing in height from left to right.

The numbers of people that are entering the benefit system at a young age each year (and remaining there) is significant. Each year around 5,700 people enter the benefit system at 16-17 years of age, and a further 4,600 people enter the benefit system on their 18th birthday.

How many of the 4,600 entering the system on their 18th birthday are graduating from their caregiver's benefit?

... among young Māori women in their twenties, around 40% were receiving a benefit.

Here's why;



This is a double whammy. First, according to census data, NZ has the second highest percentage of children living in sole parent households in the developed world and second, nearly half of the parents don't work.

No. There is definitely nothing here that should cause alarm.

(Here is a comment that has just be posted over there; The money paid out on benefits doesn’t just disappear, it’s spent on rent, food, power, phone… All of that money goes straight back into the economy, it’s really a subsidy for the whole of NZ in some kind of trickle down and around process.

Now that's neat. You and I are being subsidised by beneficiaries!)

Opposition and state media in denial

After completing an interview with Larry Williams last evening I listened in to the talkback response - all in favour of welfare reform - and then caught Wendy Petrie announcing that TV One would also be covering the Welfare Working Group Issues Paper, had talked to a young solo mum and had done some of their own number crunching which might surprise.

So I tuned in. They led with the unemployment benefit showing, with graphics, that the duration of stays on it are not that long. Then they interviewed a sweet young mum who studies and has been raising her much loved child on the DPB but is determined to get off it and repay the taxpayer.

First the paper is titled Long-term Benefit Dependency: The Issues. Paula Rebstock said yesterday that it is not about the unemployment benefit which has actually been operating quite well over recent years. The focus is on the DPB, sickness and invalid's benefit. The report shows (3.6) that at June 2009 170,000 people on a benefit had been on a benefit for most of the last ten years. So for TV One to "number crunch" the unemployment benefit was just a dishonest disgrace.

Second, the solo mum they interviewed is the exception to the rule. The report shows clearly that teenagers going on a benefit have the greatest risk of staying there long-term. That never got a look in.

Repeatedly yesterday I heard the complaint that, there are no jobs or, the government has manufactured a crisis.

Labour leader Phil Goff said that rather than a culture of long-term welfare dependency, the numbers on benefits reflected economic conditions.



"It's not that people don't want to work; the jobs simply aren't there at the moment and the situation's getting worse."

Shame on you Phil Goff. This is why you will never be Prime Minister. You don't deserve to be.

Let's re-group here. Again, the report is about long-term welfare dependency and what drives it - the type of dependency that persists during good economic times. As it points out, in 1960 about 2 percent of the working age population was on a benefit. In 2007, after a period of very low unemployment, the figure was around 10 percent.

Unemployment is only one factor driving long-term dependency and not even the most important. There are more people on the DPB than on the unemployment benefit. There are more people on the invalid's benefit than the unemployment benefit. Long-term dependence is about people having children with no means of supporting them; about making themselves unemployable through drug and alcohol abuse or unhealthy lifestyles; about a passive system that allows people to stay on welfare long-term.

Crucially the report identifies that teenagers going on welfare is a significant factor and teenagers have consistently entered the system during good and bad economic periods.

It is utterly defeatist to say there are no jobs so that's an end to it. The report, for the first time ever, has accurately described the dimensions of dependence and identified chronic dependence amongst certain groups. But those who are best characterised as 'on the left' are still in denial.

Data deficiency and disability insurance

At last the deficiency of the Ministry of Social Development's data is getting a public airing. The loss of individual benefit history pre-1996 is a serious systems failure. As a result, only estimates can be made about how many current single parent beneficiaries started on welfare as teenagers. MSD's latest official line is;

"We expect that the proportion of DPB clients who first received any benefit as a teenager is somewhat higher than a third, particularly as receipt of a benefit is such a common experience in people's teenage years."

I am sticking by my own estimate of over half. And I think that is conservative. I base it on two things;

1. The rate of teenage dependency on welfare in the late 80s and early 90s, during a deep recession, was very high. Those people are not captured in the current one third estimate.

2. Many single parents stay on benefits for a long time. Over half of the people on the DPB spent at least 80 percent of the last ten year period (at December 2005) on welfare.

The completeness of statistics aside, this whole business is very important because it shows that if the steady inflow of young people could be stopped the problem of long term dependence on the DPB would be largely diminished.

But I see that the welfare working group is preferring to focus on promoting insurance for sickness and disability. Paula Rebstock has prioritised this for the media since the group was created.

Employers may be asked to pay part of the costs if their employees have to go on sickness or disability welfare benefits under an insurance-based reform of the welfare system flagged in a new report today.

Insurance is fine. But employers can't be expected to stump up for sickness insurance and pay tax for the state-provided sickness benefit as well (not to mention ACC). Or are we looking at another of the National private/public partnership ideas?

I can hear struggling employers all over NZ groan as they read this latest bright idea which essentially tells them the government is going to punish them if their employees get sick. What about the responsibility of the individual in all this?

Update; To be fair, the DomPost is reporting about suggested individual employee premiums.

The Issues Paper is here.

A good day

Took the kids flying yesterday. Sam took this from the ground after take-off.



Originally she wasn't going up - "scared of heights". But once she sighted the plane and got caught up in the excitement Robert and I share she wanted first dibs (much to Robert's annoyance). We flipped a coin and she won. Always does. But the weather was closing in as I fiddled and faffed about familiarising myself with a plane I had never flown before. For instance their was no push-to-talk button on the control column so it took me some time to figure out how to transmit. Two tx buttons were on a second panel below the radio, which seemed blindingly obvious in hindsight. These planes are very old with updated electronics and nothing is ever standard. Consequently I only got one circuit in. Despite that Sam really enjoyed it except for when we were over the sea and I banked. Then she must have closed her eyes on landing asking me, "Have we landed yet? Have we landed yet?"

Avoiding the rain, we went off to Burger King, the best way to mollify Robert when he is angry, now thinking he wasn't going to get to fly at all. After an hour the wind had gotten up slightly but the rain had cleared so we returned to the field and Robert got his turn. As we lined up on runway 34 and I applied full power my previously virtual-reality-only co-pilot commented, "The graphics and sound effects are much better." Flying is beginning to look more attractive to him than law. And I am pleased about that. It was a good day.

Tom Scott pulls no punches