Welfare review alone is costing over $2 million

TV1 says the government is spending $170 million on reviews. The government has refused to comment beyond saying it is far, far less.

I can't speak for the rest but I do know that the welfare review is costing $2.1 million.

The estimated total cost of the group for the welfare overhaul for 2017/18 and 2018/19 is $2.1 million. 

Source 

Update:

In a related area, the Whanau Ora review is estimated to cost between $700,000 and $800,000.


Context: $2,900,000 would cover over 7,500 winter heating payments for families with children.

Damien Grant: Prison does not change you – I know from personal experience

Opinion from today's Sunday Star Times:

OPINION: It is hard to go to prison in New Zealand. It took me several attempts but I was finally successful and enjoyed a delightful time touring our penal archipelago in my twenties. Sadly, despite this hands-on insight into the criminal mind, I was not invited to the Justice Summit held in Porirua.

From the media reports over-representation of Māori in custody was a major focus. There are many reasons given for this. Colonialism. Racism. Poverty. The lack of free-to-air Rugby.

A wise person will look beyond race and seek a better explanation. Thankfully we have the dedicated researcher Lindsay Mitchell who has done just that. In a report for Family First published earlier this year she pulls no punches: "A sharp increase in unmarried births during the 1960s correlates markedly with a later rise in the imprisonment rate. Ex-nuptial births made up 79 percent of total Māori births in 2017. For non-Māori, the corresponding figure was 34 percent."

There are a number of causes of this disruption of the traditional nuclear family. Several government agencies point to the rapid urbanisation of Māori in the post-war period but another reason, affecting all races, has been the expanding availability of welfare that makes being a solo parent economically viable, though not especially comfortable.

Very few people's fertility decisions are influenced by the economics of welfare, but some are, and a disturbing number of their children end up in prison. Today there are nearly 59,000 people on a sole-parent benefit, 10,000 of them under 24 and almost half of these are Māori.

That's the cohort where the next generation of prison inmates are coming. Welfare is handed down from parent to child like a poisoned heirloom and nearly 5000 benefits a year are cancelled because the beneficiary is entering prison.

The cause and effect is obvious but Andrew Little and his coterie of advisors only want explanations that are politically palatable. They will not make the hard choices required to get young people off the welfare addiction that is a key factor in our rising crime rates.

I ended my penal tour, after 16 months, no better or worse than when it began. Prison does not change you. It is not a laboratory for crime and it offers no paths for redemption for people who do not want to alter their life's trajectory. It is simply the price we pay for a failed welfare experiment that we lack the courage to end.

The decision to downgrade the Waikeria mega-prison is a mistake. We will need more prisons in the decades to come, not fewer.

Suicide rate continues to increase

The coroner has just released suicide statistics for the period June 2017 to June 2018.

A stand out is the increase in females who have suicided, up by 44 on the previous year.

And I can't help but notice this coincides with the sharp rise in female prison inmates.

Why are (some) women getting more desperate? Is that even the right question?

I've graphed the yearly (June to June) rate:

Half of Maori prisoners are Ngapuhi?

That's the claim by Minister for Corrections, Kelvin Davis. The question mark is mine. RNZ reports:

Mr Davis said Māori make up over 50 percent of the prison population, and he wants that number reduced.
"Of that 50 percent, half again, are from Ngāpuhi, my own tribe, so this is personal.

That's news to me.

At June 2015 only half of Maori inmates expressed an affiliation.

Of these 24% are Ngapuhi.

At the 1999 prison census Ngapuhi made up 17% of sentenced prisoners and 20% of rendered prisoners. So the percentage is rising.But not fast enough to be at half in 2018.

There may be many more prisoners who express an affiliation with Ngapuhi but not as their primary. Also many who have an affiliation but clearly aren't expressing it.

But what does Mr Davis know that the rest of us don't?

Matters regarding Family Violence

There's a report at the NZ Herald about family violence. It's come from NewstalkZB:

Figures released to Mike Hosking Breakfast under the Official Information Act show police launched 121,739 thousand family violence investigations last year - or 333 a day.....Yet as those numbers increase, the number of apprehensions and prosecutions is trending down with 16,764 prosecutions made last year – down more than 2500 from 2008. 

I had to read the report twice cause I couldn't understand the point they were trying to make. Why?

Look at the table they made:

Coincidentally, directly before reading this I was chewing through a research report into Pacific family violence.

Amazingly reference is made to 'family structure' being a contributor:

Changes in traditional family structures and dynamics that may contribute to violence in Pacific families include an increase in single-parent households and the absence of
fathers (and male role models) within the immediate family structure (Pacific Advisory Group, 2009). 

That's highly unusual from anything funded or published by MSD.

Also of interest, the Pacific authors make a point not often heard that 'Pacific people' are grouped together but comprise seven different island groups that do not necessarily share homogeneous cultural or belief systems which results in differing behaviours. Highlighting that is a graph that shows how varying the types of family violence are across the different groups:

(Left click on image to enlarge)

Update: The NZ Herald table has now been corrected.

Not naming fathers a "rort"

MEDIA RELEASE: Not naming fathers a "rort"

MSD Minister Carmel Sepuloni, and Green Party MP Jan Logie are promulgating misinformation about sanctioning mothers who won't name the fathers of their children.

The sanction, which takes around $28 from beneficiary mothers who do not provide the name of the father, is neither cruel nor excessive. If the mother fears risk of violence from a named father, Work and Income already provides an exemption. The Work and Income manual clearly states:

'Your benefit payments may be reduced if you don’t legally identify the other parent or apply for Child Support. In some situations you may not need to do this, for example if you or your child would be at risk of violence. Work and Income can tell you more about this.'

Minister Sepuloni has been advised by MSD:

'Repealing Section 70a could provide an incentive for clients not to apply for Child Support and establish private arrangements with the other parent. This is because clients would retain their full benefit rate and receive the child support paid privately.'

The previous Labour government acknowledged this practice and labelled it a 'rort'. Former MSD Minister Steve Maharey said in 2004,

'It is a rort, and I have said time and time again in this Parliament that fathers must front up to their obligations, and we will make sure they do, as much as we can...It is not unreasonable to expect that single parents bringing up children on their own identify who  in law is the other parent, or to expect that they seek financial support for the child from the other parent. It is not unreasonable to penalise financially those who do not.'

The current government has shifted a long way from their predecessor's position with no good reason.

Whatever fathers do not pay for their children, someone else will have to.

Carmel Sepuloni needs to explain why this is fair.

More children being added to a Sole Parent benefit

MEDIA RELEASE: More children being added to a Sole Parent benefit

Data released under the Official Information Act shows that more beneficiaries on Sole Parent Support are adding children to their existing benefit.

Welfare commentator Lindsay Mitchell says, "The number of children being added to a Sole Parent benefit has risen from 5,384 in 2013 to 6,584 in 2017 - a 22% increase."

The number of children who are dependent on any benefit by the end of their birth year has also recently increased.

"At the end of  2017,  beneficiaries responsible for a child born that year numbered 9,810  - an average of 817 a month. But in the six months to June 2018 that average grew to 937 per month. A 15% increase."

The Ministry of Social Development links lower exits from benefits to higher payments for beneficiary families with children. Staying on a benefit and possibly adding a child is a behavioural response to more money.

The National government lifted basic benefit rates for families with children in 2016. Labour has since lifted Family Tax Credits for children of beneficiaries and introduced Best Start - a further $60 weekly payment for newborns in workless homes.

Children long-term dependent on benefits are far more likely to be abused or neglected; far more likely to grow up to be reliant on a benefit themselves and more likely to receive a community or custodial sentence.

Jobs scheme: just another episode in a long-running saga

Hold on to your hats. Another new scheme has just been announced by the Labour government:

Mana in Mahi - Strength in Work will pay a wage subsidy to employers willing to hire a person receiving a main income support benefit, and offer that person an industry training qualification.

I'm underwhelmed.

This latest 'initiative' by Labour, specifically Andrew Little, is a big yawn. The country has' been there, done that' so many times before. Think 'Compass',  'Community Wage' and 'Jobs Jolt' operating respectively at the middle, end of the nineties and mid-2000s.

In fact we are doing it right now. It's called Flexi-wage subsidy:

If you're interested in hiring one of our candidates, but they need support to gain the required skills for the job, we may be able to help with a subsidy for things like training or mentoring.

Get Jacinda, stealing the limelight yet again,  in the fluro vest no less,  making another grand gesture to her demographic.

You can fool some of the people some of the time....

'Woke'

What is this word now oft repeated to mean something of which I am unaware.  I could google it but some responses from people 'like me' (indulge me) would indicate that they at least get it, and I'm off the pace.

Drug-testing beneficiaries - suspend the sanctioning policy?

The NZ Herald reports:

Last year, there were 31,791 referrals for drug testable positions nationwide and just 55 sanctions for failing a drug test, according to Ministry of Social Development (MSD) figures.

 Seem low to you? No mention of sanctions for refusing to take a drug test.

The article highlights some reasons why the number could be 'artificially' low including people switching to drugs that are non-detectable, or many people's main employability problem being alcohol which won't necessarily lead to failing a drug test.

From the file of ‘unintended consequences’, a 2016 government report released under the OIA noted that, “There has also been anecdotal evidence that increased testing has led to employees and job seekers using drugs that have a shorter detection time but are more harmful.” 

But consider this:

Beneficiaries diagnosed with drug dependency would not be sanctioned under the policy, but would receive the support they needed to deal with their addiction, [MSD representative] said.

There are thousands of beneficiaries who will never be put forward for jobs that require drug-testing because they have a primary incapacity of substance abuse.

Here's the interesting thing though. They have decreased in numbers. The source for this data is my own and one other OIA request.

The number rose through Labour's last term (while unemployment fell) and has dropped under National.

A 'tougher' but more practical approach may be the driver of this fall. (Or the problem could still be there and hidden under other incapacity categories eg psychological and psychiatric conditions which risen 11% since June 2008.)

But that very few people receiving a benefit fail a drugs test is not reason to do away with the sanctions. Nobody should be able to render themselves unable to work and expect to live off taxpayer funding.

How lies get legs

My last post highlighted how Simon Wilson claimed in a column in today's NZ Herald that the average teacher age in New Zealand is 57.

Next on The Nation this morning the interviewer repeated this to the the Minister who made no denial:

That’s true, and we will get to those. We’re talking about the level of remuneration right now. Under your offer, how much will an average teacher get extra?
It depends, because through the Ministry of Education, the offer has been loaded up at the beginning-teacher salary rate. So a beginning teacher, for example, stands to gain almost 15 per cent increase over three years. Those more experienced teachers would get less under the offer that’s on the table at the moment.

And the majority of those teachers are the more experienced teachers. The average age is 57 or something like that. They’re higher into the pay scale. So do you know how much they’re going to get?
Again, it depends on where they’re at on the salary scale, but also about 40 per cent of primary school teachers are earning over the top of the salary scale because they have additional allowances or additional management units or whatever. So it’s quite difficult to put nice clean numbers on it, because the pay scale and the pay system for teachers is quite a complex one.

This morning I linked to data from 2008 which showed the average age was 44.5.

After further probing I have data from the OECD showing the average teacher age in 2015 was 45. What you would expect based on the 2008 number. At this rate, the average age won't be 57 until 2183 AD.... or thereabouts.

My guess is that The Nation presenter simply repeated what he read in the NZ Herald.

Like Chinese whispers.

Don't worry about facts - just rage

Don't think I have come across this commentator before - Simon Wilson writing in the NZ Herald. All gloom and doom and crisis, crisis.

Inequality:

"Council of Trade Unions (CTU) economist Bill Rosenberg calls it a "hollowing out of the wage scale". Inequality is growing and the people taking the biggest hit are those in the middle and the lower middle. Mostly, that includes self-employed people.

It's worse for non-working beneficiaries. We don't have a DPB (Domestic Purposes Benefit) any more, but there is an equivalent payment package in the benefit system.

Rosenberg has calculated that even if we raised that payment by 25 per cent, it would still be no higher, in relation to the average wage, than the level it was cut to in 1991. For the single unemployed and invalids, benefits would need to rise by even more."

But is it facile to talk about just the benefit payment when there are other substantial add-ons. Someone who has a baby and is on a benefit now receives $151 a week for that child. If they have other children  they will receive substantial further payments for each child and,  and if they live in Auckland, can claim up to $305 in accommodation supplement.

As for overall income inequality you don't have to understand all the jargon and workings. If you can tell whether a trendline is going up or down you can see that the official stats show that inequality is not rising.

And he hasn't got other facts right.

For instance he says:

"The average age of teachers is 57.5 years."

He is so out of touch and would know this if he spent any time around primary schools.

The following pertains to 2008 but in it inconceivable such a massive change would have occurred since:

"...the average age of teachers has remained relatively steady at 44 for the past eight years; for the current period the average age is 44.5 years."

On his wish-list he writes:

"So what's next? What about Children First? A programmatic approach that says we identify what children need, from conception, make sure they have somewhere to live where they are warm, dry, safe and preferably loved, and wrap the services around them that will allow them to prosper ... through pre-school and school and into tertiary education or work, and especially if they are abused at home, if they have mental health issues, if they get in trouble with the law."

Identifying and targeting is exactly what  Bill English was doing. It is exactly what Whanau Ora services are doing right now.

"There is rage in the world. Rage in this country too. The big task for Jacinda Ardern and her Government is to set us on a path where hope subsumes the rage."

Yes. I get pretty annoyed when I read hyperbole unsupported by facts.

And here comes a cheer leader:

It may be a "good" overview if it confirms lazy prejudices but it is not an honest overview.

UPDATE:

"Years of neglect and our schools are now in crisis" he writes.

Even Chris Hipkins, on telly, has just denied that the education sector is "in crisis".

Driven to suicide by @MeToo ... apparently

I added 'apparently' because you never know what lengths these obsessives will go to.

While I've never heard of this unfortunate man or his unfortunate wife, as an opponent of the @MeToo campaign I'm inclined to further publicise this tragedy. And it is a tragedy, especially the loss of a father - one much greater than anything he was 'apparently' falsely accused of:

Anne Sofie von Otter, the famed Swedish mezzo-soprano, is speaking out to the press for the first time about the March 2018 suicide of her husband, Benny Fredriksson. She recently gave a lengthy interview to Die Zeit, the German weekly newspaper.

After Aftonbladet, a leading Swedish newspaper, published anonymous accusations that he was guilty of sexual and psychological abuse, Fredriksson resigned from his post at the Kulturhuset Stadsteatern (House of Culture and City Theatre) in Stockholm, the country’s premier cultural center and theater, in December 2017. On March 17, while accompanying his wife on tour in Australia, Fredriksson killed himself.

Toward the end of his life, his widow disclosed, Fredriksson was afraid of going out into the street for fear of being recognized. “Suddenly he turned inward and everything was about ‘what did I do wrong?’” she said, according to the Irish Times. Von Otter criticized the #MeToo herd mentality. “What has happened,” she asked, “to our independent, critical thinking?”

More

A view from Rick's place

I've always had a lot of time for young Rick Giles. Involved first with the Libertarianz and then ACT on Campus, he's quirky, mercurial and acutely intelligent. This video about baby boomers and parenting is challenging but also manages to be very humorous.

I have advised he check his own collectivism (after railing against it during the commentary) regarding labeling an entire generation. 

Rick's place

Poor Prime Minister

I used to think that feminists had a beef with men making the world a tougher place for them to exist in. Now I believe that it is feminists themselves making the world a tougher place for women.

There are boundless contradictions and inconsistencies bandied about. Today's NZ Herald publishes a prime example. Another face of feminism that believes babies need their mothers! That baby's needs should be elevated above those of its natural first carer - not the father by the way.

This one is guilt-tripping the PM big time. With feminist friends like these who needs enemies?

The reaction to this demand from an Australian that the New Zealand Prime Minister should shrink and shirk her political role will be vitriolic. It'll be frighteningly, ferociously ....feminist.

After all the proud celebration of a woman combining motherhood with the most powerful position in the country along comes this treacherous traitor to prick Jacinda's bubble with a loud bang. At exactly the moment when she might be feeling uncertain. How hellish hard will it be to relinquish constant contact and cuddles after 6 intense weeks? I wouldn't hand over my 12 week-old pup to ANYONE.

What we are seeing is yet another inevitable failure of collectivism. If the group is more important than the individual, then the group rules the roost. But just who makes those rules?

Feminism has descended into a cauldron of cattiness; of nasty factionalism. It doesn't empower. It  scrutinises and judges groups within groups. Like extreme left or right politics, the creed is hardest on those most like it - those who should know better but fail. Like our poor PM.

Feminism is eating itself.

Good riddance.

Benefits by ethnicity - note last graph

The last graph reminded me of another recently viewed.

Graphed in the same colours and groups prisoners by ethnicity looks like this:

Quite a close match. Hardly surprising.

Benefit numbers up for first time since 2010

The first June to June increase in benefit numbers since 2010 has been recorded. This sits alongside Carmel Sepuloni's change to the benefit sanctions rules - essentially a softening. Sanctions are down by over 20 percent. The two developments may be related.

The specific benefit numbers that have increased are Jobseeker.

This is concerning when employers are crying put for unskilled workers. We know that MSD are worried about slowing exits from the Jobseeker benefit. They recently commented, "Demand for low skilled labour in the regions is not being readily absorbed by jobseekers in those regions." More than once emergency rules have been invoked to allow migrants to pick up the slack.

More Jobseeker benefits are being granted and fewer cancelled.

Further analysis required.

Update:

The data tables show the increased Jobseeker numbers are accounted for overwhelmingly by 25-39 year-olds.

Maori on Jobseeker have increased by 12% since 2015. They are now the single largest ethnic group receiving this benefit.

Psychological and psychiatric conditions among Jobseekers have increased almost 16% since 2015. This is a standout statistic among health conditions.

Prisoners come from families broken by the state

One of the charts from my latest report, Imprisonment and Family Structure

The rest of the paper argues why this is more than mere correlation traversing Maori urbanisation, whanau and nuclear family disintegration, gangs, state-care and inter-generational dysfunction.

As a society we continue to keep paying for it - the processes and consequences.

One hand in the Labour Party is actively increasing welfare while the other is planning to hold a hui on how to bring down the prison population.

If you think putting more money into dysfunctional families will reduce crime reflect on what children of gangs told the Children's Commissioner. That, despite feeling bound to follow in their footsteps, one of the upsides of living in gang families was not having to live in poverty.

(Post prompted by this piece.)

A child's logic

A little girl asks her mum, 'Mum, can I take the dog for a walk around the block?'
Her mum replies 'No, because she is on heat.'

'What does that mean?' asked the child.

'Go and ask your father. I think he's in the garage.'

The little girl goes out to the garage and says, 'Dad, can I take Lulu for a walk around the block? I asked Mum, but she said the dog was on the heat, and to come ask you.'

He took a rag, soaked it in petrol, and scrubbed the dog's backside with it to disguise the scent, and said 'Ok, you can go now, but keep Lulu on the leash and only go one time around the block.'

The little girl left and returned a few minutes later with no dog on the leash..

Surprised, Dad asked, 'Where's Lulu?'

The little girl said, 'She ran out of petrol about halfway round the block, so another dog is pushing her home.'

Cartoon provokes outrage

The cartoon below was published in the DomPost, Monday, and has provoked letters of outrage.

So I'm adding my two cents worth.

Dear Editor

So Al Nisbet's cartoon touched a nerve amongst some readers. Why? While somewhat blunt it nevertheless describes a very real problem with welfare - that benefit incomes for families with children are too close to incomes from work. The last Labour government attempted to fix this by introducing the In Work Tax Credit making employment financially advantageous. This Labour government has effectively undone that with substantially increased payments for babies born into workless homes.

As for the depiction of neglected children one reader found so offensive, it is a fact that, "Of all children having a finding of maltreatment by age 5, 83% are seen on a benefit before age 2." (Auckland University, 2012)

Lindsay Mitchell