Cactus on capitalism, caring and Canterbury

I doubt this blog can add to Cactus' traffic but I must link to her latest piece if only to recognise and acknowledge its worth.

The Left's Deluded Monopoly on Caring


...Capitalism seeks to create wealth. Socialism seeks to buy votes by spending it. For years leftist tilting welfarism has destroyed New Zealand's chance of a nest-egg for this rainiest of days. Over-generous dollops of welfarism has spent up the nations inheritance for moments like these...

Blow out in long-term unemployed - Australia

The Age reports a "blow out in the long-term unemployed".

THE number of people on welfare benefits for more than a year has hit its highest since early 2002, with long-term recipients swelling by nearly 40 per cent since the global financial crisis.

Despite claims of skills and labour shortages, 349,806 people have been on Newstart Allowance for more than a year, according to Centrelink data for January, published by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.

I stand to be corrected but surely this was to be expected after people who had been or would have been on the Parenting Payment - DPB equivalent - were required to either go onto or move to the Newstart Allowance.

Imagine if we did the same. Those parents with children 6 or older were moved onto the Unemployment Benefit. The long-term unemployed would increase.

But the journalist makes no mention of this. It seems a shallow analysis. Hence the conundrum of rising long-term unemployment set against falling unemployment.

The response to that welfare report

As the days past last week I became less and less inclined to enter the welfare report debate. Primarily because of the timing, but running a close second to that, the quality of the debate. Here is just one example;

MEDIA RELEASE

Friday 22 February 2011

Celebrate Beneficiaries - The Heroes of the Recession


It is the government who is making bad life choices, not beneficiaries! In fact, Trevor McGlinchey from the NZ Council of Christian Social Services (NZCCSS) says beneficiaries are the heroes who are carrying the country through the recession.

NZCCSS Executive officer McGlinchey was speaking in response to today’s release of the third and final report from the government Welfare Working Group Report.

...“Last year’s Budget offered millions in tax assistance to those on mid to high incomes, many of whom pay relatively minimal tax because they know how to work the system. That leaves low income earners and beneficiaries to pay off the nation’s debts!”

So I apologise for encouraging people to get in and show support for reform and then failing to do so myself.

As it happens the report was overtaken by events and its opponents will be more frustrated about that than the group itself. There is good and bad in it. Now it awaits National to pick up the best and make it policy.

Sneaking into the supermarket to buy my porn... er sorry...wine.

Oswald blogs on the demands of the anti-alcohol apparatchiks;

"...Displaying alcohol in supermarkets should be treated in the same way as dirty movies are displayed in a video store, the Alcohol Reform Bill select committee was told yesterday.

Alcohol Action said the proposals adapted by the Government from a Law Commission report into alcohol reform did not go far enough.

Alcohol should not be easily accessible and should not be displayed at the front of stores or with other products such as fruit and vegetables, the group said yesterday.

"Supermarkets are treating alcohol like it's a commodity rather than a drug," spokeswoman Professor Jennie Connor said.

"It should be treated like dirty movies, they should be in one corner of the supermarket at the back..."

Utter unadulterated hysteria.

Have these cheerless naysayers ever taken a trip to a vineyard to observe the work, the craft and the dedication that goes onto producing wine? Have they no regard for the talent brought to the label design and marketing? The jobs provided to thousands of harvesters, bottlers, distributors, and on-sellers? Have they ever entered a really first class cellar and felt the romance of wine bottled and aged for many years?

How dreadfully insulting to compare wine to "dirty movies" (and even dirty movies have a place, like them or not.)

Painting and making sense of stuff

It's been a shit week. I have nothing to say about the heartache that many people have been condemned to live with. We say, life goes on. But for them, it hasn't and won't. All our moods are affected even if we are only observers. In our own ways we look for things that balance the deficit.

Here's something I have been working on for a while. This character always lifts me up. A life turned around; turning around. Certainly the proof that hope springs eternal both within, and for, seemingly hopeless cases.

DPB work-testing when youngest child turns three

According to the NZ Herald;

It is understood the group will tomorrow recommend solo parents get work from when the child is three years old, One News reported.

This will cause an unholy outcry.

But the recommendation is not radical by international standards.

The following table is now out-of-date but I can tell you that the trend is lowering the age of youngest child. Not lifting it. The UK and Australia have moved to 6 as has NZ. The US and Canada have a range of ages according to the state or province, with the US maximum of 1 year. Norway, France, Germany and Switzerland were work-testing at 3 when this table was published.



The Herald's Simon Collins has found a trier who can't get work, or much of it.

But this individual is not what the reforms are about. The reforms are aimed at reducing the sort of long term dependence that persists throughout periods of low unemployment. That's why the focus is on the DPB, the sickness and invalid's benefits.

Also some media commentators yesterday started talking up "benefit cuts". That is scaremongering and unnecessarily worrying those on benefits. The level of payments was outside of the scope of this report. Key has confirmed there will not be cuts.

Maxim - a National Party caucus takeover??

Whale has this extraordinary claim on his blog.

The fun­da­men­tal­ist Maxim Insti­tute have been pointed to as behind this selec­tion jack up, as the first stage for the takeover of the National Party by fundies. Brent is appar­ently one of 37 can­di­dates they have primed around the coun­try to take over cau­cus between now and 2017.

The Maxim Institute seems to have abundant money and was very politically active organising debates around the country prior to the last election. I have regarded them generally as a transparent outfit which produces quite a bit of good, balanced, politically centre-right stuff. Their Real Issues weekly e-mail is usually worth a read. CEO Greg Fleming is a man I like and respect notwithstanding there are issues we would disagree on because I am not a conservative or Christian.

Fundamentalists? A caucus takeover?? Seems fanciful. But its a free country. People are free to organise and free to oppose. Any input or views people have on this matter would be welcome.

Welfare recommendations out tomorrow - pitch in

Two reports herald the publication of the Welfare Working Group's final report tomorrow. Campbell Roberts of the Salvation Army says radical new welfare proposals are set to become a defining moment in New Zealand's history. If only.

And, despite not knowing what is in the report, Sue Bradford is already planning her protest outside Work and Income in Henderson tomorrow.

National is taking the right line on this. Key has repeatedly identified the most important goal over the past few weeks. That is getting children off welfare. It isn't about persecuting or punishing people. And he needs to hold that line because he is in for a barrage of angry, often misguided, and often personal abuse.

What I want to see is more people actually pitching in behind Key. Because when it gets ugly those people who support reform mysteriously clam up and are happy for someone else to take the flack. If we want to see the recommendations become election policy, and in turn actual policy more people need to state the case for them. Write a letter to the editor; make a comment in a newspaper forum; make a comment on talkback; write to John Key. But don't let it look like the reforms are too unpopular to implement just because the very active and very loud left win the day.

Remember the end goal. Better futures for everyone. But especially the child who will be born into a welfare home today, and without change, will spend years living with disadvantage and dysfunction and dwindling chance of breaking the mould.

Welfare reform taking shape in the UK

Hat-tip to The Welfare State We're In.

There has been a lot of talk about welfare reform in the UK since the Conservatives won government. As in this country the changes take time. On Thursday the new bill (175 pages) was introduced. The following is from the Guardian's political live blogging;

Cameron will deliver a speech on welfare speech at about 11.15am. Downing Street released some extracts overnight, and they show that Cameron believes that the welfare state needs to be reformed because people are less responsible than they were 60 years ago.

When the welfare system was born, there was what we might call a collective culture of responsibility. More than today, people's self-image was not just about their personal status or success…it was measured out by what sort of citizen they were; whether they did the decent thing. That meant that a standardised system of sickness and out-of-work benefits – with limited conditions – was effective.

It reached the people who needed that support, and not those who didn't, in part because fiddling the system would have brought not just public outcry but private shame. In other words, personal responsibility acted as a brake on abuse of the system.

And because the ethos of self-betterment was more wide-spread, the system supported aspiration rather than discouraging it. Now let's be honest about where we've travelled to, from there to here. That collective culture of responsibility – taken for granted sixty years ago – has in many ways been lost.


11.40am: Cameron makes the point about people being more responsible 60 years ago. I quoted this extract earlier. (See 8.35am.)

He says the welfare system now operates in such a way as to encourage people to be irresponsible.

But I know this country and therefore refuse to believe that there are five million people who are inherently lazy and have no interest in bettering themselves and their families.

What I want to argue is that the real fault lies with the system itself. The benefit system has created a benefit culture. It doesn't just allow people to act irresponsibly, but often actively encourages them to do so. Sometimes they deliberately follow the signals that are sent out. Other times, they hazily follow them, trapped in a fog of dependency. But either way, whether it's the sheer complexity and the perverse incentives of the benefits
system, whether it's the failure to penalise those who choose to live off the hard work of others, or whether it's the failure to offer the right support for people who are desperate to go back into work, we've created the bizarre situation where time and again the rational thing for people to do is, quite clearly, the wrong thing to do.

11.44am: Cameron is now giving examples of how the system encourages people to be irresponsible.

High marginal deduction rates mean that a single mum has no incentive to work if she is going to lose 96p for every £1 she earns, he says.

And the benefits system makes it sensible for couples to live apart.


You might think, no one would split up because of benefits. But in our country today, there are two million people who 'live apart together' – that is couples who maintain separate homes while being economically interdependent. Can we honestly say the signals in the benefit system have nothing do with this?

11.46am: Cameron says nothing has shocked him more since he has come into government than the situation with housing benefit.

We inherited a system that cost £20 billion a year, with some claimants living in property worth £2,000 a week in rent. That's £104,000 a year. That's the income taxes and national insurance contributions of sixteen working people on median income ...

We've been sending a signal to people that if they're out of work, or on a low wage, and
living in an expensive home in the centre of a city, that the decision to go back to work, or take a better paid job, could mean having to move to a cheaper home, in a different part of the city, in order to escape benefit dependency.

11.49am: Cameron is now talking about how the universal benefit will be. He says it will be much simpler than the current system.

With the universal credit, you would keep 35p of benefit for every extra pound you take home. And because this rate of benefit withdrawal is the same whatever you earn - it's easy to calculate just how much better off you will be.

11.51am: Cameron is now talking about the tougher sanctions that will be imposed.

So if you're unemployed and refuse to take either a reasonable job or to do some work in your community in return for your unemployment benefit, you will lose your benefits for three months. Do it again, you'll lose it for 6 months. Refuse a third time and you'll lose your unemployment benefits for three years.

11.52am: People who can't work and can't be expected to work will be supported, Cameron says. "Full Stop, end of story."

11.53am: Cameron says the government will pay companies to get the unemployed into work.

Don't let anyone tell you this happened before. Under the last government's model, some companies still got a large share of their payment – even if they didn't get someone into work. We're saying: we will withhold the vast majority of these companies' payments until they get someone into work – and they stay in work.

He says that people have been suggesting programmes like this for years. But in the past the Treasury opposed them. Now the Treasury is in favour. Cameron pays tribute to Lord Freud, the welfare minister, for helping to develop this idea. He says he is glad the Tories "poached" Freud from Labour.

11.57am: Cameron says the bill marks the beginning of "a cultural change". It will create "a new culture of responsibility", he says.

The last Labour government took most of its ideas about welfare from the UK. It was always Maharey's big ambition to move to a single benefit. Politically New Zealanders seem more comfortable with following what the UK does as opposed to what the US does. And the Welfare Working Group, which I believe releases is last report next week, have already mooted a single benefit. I have been opposed to such a move in the past. And I am still not persuaded that it isn't just tinkering and political expediency.

One change that is unclear. If people can keep 35 pence of their benefit for every extra pound earned, at what point does that cease? I really hate trying to get to grips with abatement systems. Confounded complicated things. It doesn't appear that any journalist is too keen on it either because I cannot find a simple explanation of the single taper and earnings disregard system being proposed.

Why low income teenagers become mothers

Teenage parenthood, particularly when the mother is under 18, is known to increase risk and poor outcomes for their children.

Whether low income teenagers (responsible for a majority of the births) get pregnant to receive an income and subsidised accommodation from the state is an ongoing debate. It is impossible to say that this is true or untrue given the claim concerns thousands of individuals with their own circumstances and motivations. Most people can quote anecdotal evidence that would support the notion. I tend towards thinking that many of those who get pregnant and give birth do so because there is little reason to avoid it. The upsides outweigh the down. The following passage is interesting;


In "Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage," Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas report the findings of their two-and-a-half year field study of 162 young, unmarried mothers living in Philadelphia's blighted urban neighborhoods. Although considerable research has been devoted to understanding the dramatic increase in non-marital child bearing among young women in low-income communities, Edin and Kefalas saw that the "perspectives and life experiences" of low-income single mothers were mostly absent from the body of scientific evidence. In the course of their interviews and interactions with the women in their study, Edin and Kefalas found that low-income teenagers do, in fact, "knowingly" become pregnant, and many consider early, out-of-wedlock child-bearing as not only a valid life option, but a mature and responsible choice.

"To most middle class observers, depending on their philosophical take on things, a poor woman with children but no husband, diploma or job is either a victim of her circumstances or undeniable proof that American society is coming apart at the seams," the authors write. "But in the social world inhabited by poor women, a baby born into such conditions represents an opportunity to prove one's worth." While the poor women they studied perceive marriage as a "luxury" -- "something they aspired to but feared they might never achieve" -- having children is viewed as a necessity, "an absolutely essential part of a young woman's life, the chief source of identity and meaning." And while the exclusive rhetoric of Single Mothers by Choice identifies the ideal single mother as a woman who has "completed college," and is "able to support a child without recourse to public funds," the young women in "Promises I Can Keep" express a high degree of confidence in their ability to be excellent mothers despite their disadvantaged circumstances.

Two heading dogs

The lower dog is the mother, the upper, her son. I took the photos used outside my shop. She was very camera shy and it was impossible to get a shot with them posed together so I treated them as individual (but combined) portraits. Lovely temperaments.

Some fundamental misunderstandings about welfare

Gordon Campbell has written a piece called 10 myths about welfare. Some of it is accurate; some is not.

The vast majority of people want to work. The history of the last ten years in particular shows that when jobs exist, people work.

The "history of the last ten years" shows almost the opposite. During the economic boom numbers on the DPB dropped by a maximum of 15 percent and numbers on the sickness and invalid benefits continued to grow. Only the dole total dropped significantly.

"...the NZ figures on DPB recipients do not bear out Key’s specific assertion about ‘significant numbers of very young women going onto the DPB and staying there for a lifetime.”

In fact, only 3.1 % of those on the DPB are under 20 years of age – and that figure has barely flickered since 2005, when the figure was 2.9 %. Put another way, 97% of the people on the DPB are NOT the ‘very young women’ of Key’s lurid imagination. There are in fact, significantly more people on the DPB over 55 years of age (5.6%) than there are ‘very young women’ receiving this benefit."

Campbell repeats a widespread misunderstanding here. If Key's assertion is correct then we would expect to see exactly the kind of percentages Campbell describes. When people stay on welfare a long time they progressively appear in older age bands. The most important fact is that at least a third of current sole parents became parents as teenagers. I have shown that probably around a half of the DPB population first began on welfare as a teenager. The current age of a DPB recipient is irrelevant.

"...more DPB recipients are engaged in part-time work (16%) than those on the dole."

This claim is based on the DPB fact sheet showing 15.7 percent of recipients have 'declared earnings' for the year. It does not necessarily mean that they are currently working.

Most of the people on welfare are unmarried mothers – many of them teenagers – who have extra children so that they can get more money.

Not most. But 27,219 is significant. Certainly the public perception is grounded in reality.

Lots of people are on welfare for years and years, and then their children and grandchildren become welfare dependent.

This myth is based on stereotypes about the chronically shiftless and teemingly fertile poor. Lets stick with the DPB for a moment. Since the DPB involves the care of children who are dependent at least until they are 18, you’d think it would reflect lifetime dependency very strongly. Yet instead, over two thirds of DPB recipients (67.7%) are on the DPB for less than four years. More than a quarter of them (26%) are on it for less than a year, even during the recession. If this is a lifestyle choice, it is hardly a fashionable one.

Again, a fundamental misunderstanding of the data. Campbell has pulled figures from the benefit fact sheets that show current spell on a benefit. Many people have repeated spells thus increasing the time they spend dependent. MSD research most clearly explains this misinterpretation;

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.

This reflects the over-representation of sole parents with long stays on benefit among those in receipt at any point in time, and the longer than average stays on benefit for those who become parents as teenagers.

Had the research considered all people granted benefit as a sole parent, or all people who received benefit as a sole parent over a window of time rather than at a point in time, the overall profile of the group would have appeared less disadvantaged.

Inter-generational dependence is a proven phenomenon. Academic research provides evidence. Some part of it works through the much higher likelihood that a teenage parent will have a daughter who also becomes a teenage parent. Additionally it occurs because of the transmission of attitudes towards welfare.

Young people need welfare reform in order to teach them the value of work.

Far from being a myth young people do need to grow up with at least one working parent to understand the value of work. Building an expectation of independence is probably one of the most important goals of reforming the DPB especially.

The current rate of Maori unemployment is a catastrophic 36.7%.

This claim was not intended to be a "myth" but ironically, it is. The Maori rate of unemployment in December 2010 was 15.5 percent.

People are usually in hardship for economic reasons, and not due to a lack of moral fibre. The churn of jobs and the likelihood of multiple careers in one’s working life – ie the labour ‘flexibility’ so beloved by Treasury and its corporate friends – means that it is more and more likely that at any given time in their working lives, more people (and their children and grandchildren ) will be at risk of needing temporary welfare assistance during thedir job transitions.

Granted people are in hardship for economic reasons but also because of personal choices they make. Go back to the MSD quote. Is the economy to be held responsible for a teenage birth that results in many years reliant on a benefit?

Could boot camps increase the risk of re-offending?

The re-offending rate - 53 percent - after completion of boot camp is not looking promising and will probably worsen yet. The fact that it is still "early days" is not a positive mitigating factor. It is a negative. Here is Corrections description of re-imprisonment rates and ethnic breakdown;

The re-imprisonment rate over 48 months for Maori offenders (55%) is considerably higher than the rate for both NZ Europeans (45%) and Pacific offenders (36%). This difference is likely to be a reflection of a number of variables. Maori offenders as a group tend on average to be younger than Europeans (see Appendix 1). Maori are also more likely to be serving time for offences which have base-rates, especially dishonesty offences (burglary, car conversion, theft, etc) 4. Pacific offenders on the other hand tend to be in prison for offences which have relatively low base rates (violence and sexual offences). Although the high re-imprisonment rate for Maori undoubtedly contributes to the disproportionate number of Maori in prison, its impact is likely to be considerably less than that of the very large numbers of young Maori entering the criminal justice system for the first time each year.

Without knowing anything specific about the small sample that has undergone boot camp 'rehab' there is a reasonable question to be posed. Does it increase the risk of re-offending?

The ways in which I am stupid

I don't mind being called stupid when I am. My family calls me stupid when I (re) heat the just-delivered Hell's Pizza salad along with the pizza or when I boil chillies instead of green beans and then make the gravy from the resulting vegetable water. Yes. I can be stupid.

But I don't take kindly to being called stupid over stating an opinion which is based on my own experiences as a volunteer, listening and looking, research and reading. But perhaps I should be humbled that an academic completing a thesis can spare me the time.

I want to talk about Lindsay Mitchell and Dr. Paul Moon, both of whom have said some remarkably stupid things in the last few days. Moon really has no excuse for his ill-considered comments; Mitchell probably just doesn’t know better. Let’s start with her.

More

What's wrong with Win-a-wife competition?

The kerfuffle around a radio station's Win-a-wife competition continues with the Hand Mirror linking to a facebook campaign. Sue Bradford climbed out of her tree over the issue also.

I am assuming that there are women who want to find husbands outside of their own country. Their reasons are their own business. Why is it feminists don't support the freedom of other women to make their own choices? These women might be intent on exploiting the husband; he may be intent on exploiting her. But the attempt to prevent bad stuff destroys the opportunity to create good stuff. So in the final analysis it can only be left to individuals to make their beds and lie (or lie) in them.

This is what I abhor about feminism and other collectivisms. They pretend to more freedom but actually seek to lessen it.

National - do some lateral thinking about childcare

The Government is signalling a big childcare boost under plans to push more DPB, sickness and invalid beneficiaries back into the workforce....."We need to absolutely have a focus on lifting those children out of benefit-based households, but it may cost us money to make it happen."

So says the PM.

The childcare needed to get people off the DPB or more accurately doing something productive needn't be more costly.

Let me explain by going back to what happened before the DPB when single mothers had to find ways of combining their childcare responsibilities with work. Karitane hospitals, for instance, employed young single mothers before and after the birth of their children. They paid them very little but accommodation, meals and childcare were provided. After the advent of the DPB those workers left. Maybe not directly as a result but ultimately the hospitals closed.

What people on the DPB need is a way of earning their income whether from the public (health, education) sector or private. If they want to keep their young children with them they could work in pre-school childcare centres or even offer child-minding in their own homes. Those who want to work in other caring roles (remembering the National government cut back on aged care in the community) can move into that sector at no extra cost to the atate if the government were to re-instate higher hours. Something has to give in respect of the rapidly ageing population and allowing elderly people to stay in their own homes is the best social and economic option. So a large movement of funding out of MSD and into Health makes sense. A reversal of what happened in the first place.

More creches in rest homes are needed; more creches in schools; more creches in large centres of employment.

The nub of it is the country needs to either stop paying the DPB or get a return for the money that is being spent. For small government advocates, even the latter would be an improvement. The change would be neither punitive nor, most importantly, hurt children. And with the non-working lifestyle no longer an option the number of single parent families might just stop rising.

The objection to reforming the DPB that comes up constantly is 1/ there is no childcare and 2/ there are no jobs. With half of those on the DPB caring for just one child the solution is blindingly obvious.

There's the problem - right there

The family Mr Key befriended a couple of years back are still struggling.

But it's not their fault.

Mrs Nathan just had her sixth child while on the DPB.

"Bread, milk, everything that we need that is a basic necessity for us is going to be more expensive. It's going to be harder for us to feed our kids."

See, the DPB doesn't pay enough Prime Minister, "arsehole".

Around the time she had her latest child her oldest was removed from her care.

"...which Mrs Nathan said was better because "it's a life I can't give her"."

Poor thing. Poor things, both of them. The eldest "got in with the wrong crowd". Nothing to do with Mrs Nathan who likes to call people arseholes because they won't give her the extra money that she surely deserves. No. Her values are very sound.

I don't know what's wrong with this country. The government should make rich arseholes like me, people who work hard and plan their families, pay more tax so Mrs Nathan can get a bigger benefit and her new baby doesn't end up like her oldest. Because if we aren't made to fork out now, we will only end up forking out more later.

Welfare justice for all! That's what we need.

ACT's position on the Foreshore and Seabed

I think I'll stick to welfare. Trying to sift through the arguments and counter arguments put by National and ACT regarding the Coastal and Marine Bill has defeated me. But my claim that ACT has reversed its position since 2005 is apparently wrong. Fair enough. I was still distracted by their insistence that Maori shouldn't be able to block, or charge for, access to private property (as proven under customary title).

Here is what Rodney Hide said a while back on Kiwiblog;

ACT is the only party never to have flip-flopped on the foreshore and seabed. Our position has never changed.

ACT opposed Labour’s discriminatory Foreshore and Seabed Bill 2004. I joined the Hikoi in Wellington. We argued that iwi — like every NZer — were entitled to their day in court.

In our discussions with both the Maori Party and National Parties, ACT’s position has always been the same:

1. Repeal the Foreshore and Seabed Act;
2. Return iwi and hapu to their pre-2004 legal position with respect to the Foreshore and Seabed;
3. Enable claims for customary title to be heard by the High Court, not the Maori Land Court. As I understand it the Maori Land Court is not equipped either to (a) hear claims for customary title; or, (b) recognise customary title. Their only redress is to award fee-simple title;
4. Legislate public access.

Instead the Maori Party and National Party have agreed to a confusing and confused legislative solution. It is to be Parliament, i.e. politicians and politics, determining the extent of customary title (of course, it is to be no longer customary title, but statutory title), and the test for granting title. It won’t be the Courts determining customary title based on the law and the facts, but politics.

Worse, National’s new Bill gives the Attorney-General the power to negotiate deals carving up the coast with iwi in his office in secret. It’s a disgrace. Politics will determine which iwi get in the door — and what they get.

The objection to ACT’s position from both parties is that the courts would take too long and may determine that iwi and hapu claims are without merit, i.e. that the courts would not award title. That’s certainly what the Court of Appeal judgement suggested and that would be consistent with the 1963 90-mile beach claim. The test under customary law is a high one. Perhaps an impossibly high one.

But that’s not an argument for lowering the test and extending the extent of the rights that can be awarded.

ACT is the only party that has stuck to its principles throughout.

Both the National and Maori Parties promised that iwi would not charge the public for access to the foreshore and seabed in statutory title. But, of course, the Bill as drafted doesn’t preclude that.

ACT is attempting to make sure the government delivers on that promise by proposing an amendment accordingly.

Commentators referring the situation of land held in fee simple or rights granted by the courts are making a straw man. The title being granted under the proposed Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill is not fee simple, and is not customary title being granted by the courts under customary law; but rather is title granted by politicians in parliament and the Attorney-General in his office.

ACT will oppose this law for the reasons outlined above but in the meantime will propse amendments to ensure it does what the politicians promise it does!

Rodney Hide

Dunne proposes compulsory DNA testing

Peter Dunne gave his own State of the Nation speech which outlined what he would be campaigning on this year no doubt.

The first is that families should be able to capitalise their Working for Families payments to buy a house. I predicted Labour would put up this policy at the last election and I was wrong. It's just a return to the days when Family Benefit got many people into their first homes. People capitalising their WFF payments makes the assumption that the policy is here to stay. Let's not forget that the two parties Dunne is in government with both opposed the introduction of WFF on principle. It is still bad policy even if used to encourage property ownership.

The second is an extension of Paid Parental Leave to 13 months. This would cost millions yet as Eric Crampton recently pointed out, there is no evidence to support it being an 'investment'.

The last is a bit more from left field;

Mr Dunne said compulsory DNA paternity testing in cases where claims, counter-claims and doubts exist over the parentage of a child would “unnecessarily excite certain civil libertarian tendencies” but commonsense needed to apply.

The idea doesn't excite my civil libertarian tendencies. Currently, as I understand it, DNA tests require the mother's consent and we have the tragic scenario of fathers(?) stealing samples and sending them overseas for testing. From memory statistics show around 1 in 5 fathers turn out not to be, yet a man named in a child support application has to compulsorily make payments for 18 years with no requirement for the mother to prove he is indeed the father. That state power disturbs me more than requiring a mother to prove paternity.

What Prebble said in 2004

First, good column from Deborah Coddington this morning.There has been too much of this individual-rights-robbery going down under the current National government. (From an earlier post) trying to turn NZ into a 'soft' police state by increasing police discretion. Non reversal of the very unpopular anti smacking legislation. Introduction of on-the-spot DV orders, requiring DNA swabs from non-convicted people, three strikes which encompasses non-violent crimes, patch bans, looming alcohol clampdowns, upping war on P, car crushing, loss of right to elect trial by jury, confiscation of property upon just the mere suspicion of a crime committed. Enough to make me even feel a twinge of dismay at Keith Locke's departure because he is one of the only MPs that advocates for civil liberties since ACT dropped the classical liberal ball and started voting for more state power over the individual.

And harking back to yesterday, I mentioned ACT's reversal on the Foreshore and Seabed issue. Another instance where they have ceded classical liberal principle. Here again is what Richard Prebble said in 2004;

ACT is a party that believes in private property rights, the rule of law, the citizens’ right to go to court for justice, and one law for all...

The bill discriminates against Maori, by removing the right that the Court of Appeal has found, that Maori have to seek a declaration from the courts that the seabed and foreshore is Maori land....

Let me make it clear that in upholding the rights of all citizens to go to court I am not lending support to claims that Maori under the Treaty own all the foreshore and seabed around New Zealand. As a lawyer it is very clear that in law, whether it be legislation or British common law or Maori customary law, it is very clear that Maori do not own the vast majority of the foreshore or seabed of New Zealand....

Both Maori and British common law require continuous occupation and control for common law ownership. If Maori controlled and occupied Takapuna beach I am sure we would have noticed.

But it does not follow that it is not possible there are some parts of the foreshore and the seabed that is still owned by Maori, and indeed I think it is likely that Maori do own some parts of the foreshore and seabed.....

Any claim by anyone to the foreshore and seabed should be brought in a proper court, and the appropriate court is the High Court...

I realise that the position the ACT party takes is not a populist one.

It is now.

National has a special on-line article about the Marine and Coastal Bill here. I wonder where Prebble stands on that?