Privacy Commissioner sides with fraudsters

RNZ reports:

"[Privacy]Commissioner John Edwards has concluded that the ministry has been unjustifiably intruding on the lives of beneficiaries.
Since 2012, the ministry has been bypassing beneficiaries and going to third parties for information.
Mr Edwards said that's allowed fraud investigators to collect large amounts of highly sensitive information about beneficiaries without their knowledge."

When 5% of sole parent beneficiaries freely admit they have private child support arrangements with partners and 70% of sole parent beneficiaries in our largest longitudinal study ever say that they have partners, is third party investigation really "unjustified"?

MSD responds via new Deputy CE Viv Rickard:

"We take a prevention-first approach, using conversations with clients and data matching agreements to detect and stop anomalies early. We don't investigate lightly," Mr Rickard said.
"We will need to continue to go directly to outside parties for information without going to the client first, where we believe there is a risk of collusion, evidence tampering, witness intimidation, or we can't locate the client."
Mr Rickard said the practice introduced in 2012, in response to the then National Government's approach of taking a harder line on benefit fraud and speeding up investigations.
"Ninety-five percent of the time people didn't provide the necessary information when we asked them directly, meaning we had to go to third parties anyway, delaying investigations," he said.

I am the last person to encourage the state to snoop BUT if people want to live off other people's money that practice needs to be justified.

Children with no identified father much more likely to come to CYF attention

Of children born in 2010-2011 affected by Section 70A reductions, by age six 41% had a care and protection concern reported (P12).

The earlier 2000-01 cohort is depicted below. It's a horrible graph to comprehend hence I provided some context in my opening statistic

('Episide' is a typo - means episode)

(Right-click on image to enlarge)

Proof of the Section 70A rort

That's what Maharey called it back in 2004 when the Labour government increased the penalty rate to try and get more mothers to name the fathers of their children.

Here's proof that for some at least it is a rort.

MSD interviewed 4,000 sole parents who had a Section 70A penalty.

A small proportion (5 percent) said they did not report not applying for child support because they had a private arrangement with the other parent. 

I am surprised that many were honest about it.

MSD ignores own research

To justify removing the penalty for not naming fathers of benefit-dependent children MSD now says:

A developing evidence base suggests that outcomes for some of the children affected are likely to be being harmed by loss of family income associated with the reductions. Recent studies from overseas suggest a causal link between family incomes and care and protection service contact. More broadly, a developing body of international research shows that lower family incomes have a negative causal impact on child development.[my emphasis]

Why look for overseas research when their own and University of Auckland's shows the  care and protection link is not to lower family income but benefit income. At their site, Children in poor families: does the source of family income change the picture?

"...receipt of welfare income is negatively associated with children’s outcomes, even when level of income is controlled. This effect derives not so much from welfare receipt per se, but from parental characteristics that make some parents more prone than others to be on welfare (Mayer 2002).
Taken together, the findings suggest that children in families reliant on welfare may be particularly vulnerable to negative outcomes, being not only relatively poor but also more likely than children generally to have other disadvantages. The findings suggest substantially lower vulnerability among children supported by market incomes who are not poor, with an intermediate level of risk found among children supported by market income but who are relatively poor....To summarise, the findings show that poor children reliant on government transfers, when compared with poor children reliant on market incomes, have lower living standards and a number of compounding shortfalls that can be expected to place them at greater risk of negative outcomes. The findings suggest a need for policies that have a wider focus than just income support."

Yet MSD now argue for a policy based purely on the income support aspect.

But simply asserting the "greater risk of negative outcomes" doesn't prove a link to CYF involvement does it?

No.

So, staying at the MSD website, Vulnerable Children:
CAN ADMINISTRATIVE DATA BE USED TO IDENTIFY CHILDREN AT RISK
OF ADVERSE OUTCOMES?

 "Of all children having a finding of maltreatment by age 5, 83% are seen on a benefit before age two, translating in to a very high "capture" rate."

It isn't low income that puts children at risk of abuse or neglect. It is, to quote the former research, "parental characteristics that make some parents more prone than others to be on welfare."

Increasing abusive parents benefit payments won't make any difference. MSD's justification is hollow.

Labour's 180 degree turn on the responsibility of fathers

On Friday the government announced it will cease applying Section 70 A penalties from April 2020.

Background

"Section 70A of the Social Security Act 1964 requires that the rate of a sole parent’s benefit be reduced for each dependent child for whom the person does not seek Child Support, subject to some exemptions. The benefit is reduced by $22 for each dependent child for whom the client refuses or fails to meet their Child Support obligations. After 13 weeks a further $6 a week reduction may apply. Close to one in five sole parents receiving Job Seeker and Sole Parent Support have these benefit reductions. Reasons include being unaware of the penalties and how to comply and grounds for exemption, and a strong desire to have no contact with the other parent."

From the 1990s the Green Party started to agitate against this penalty. they would argue about women's reproductive rights, the penalising of children etc.

Labour however dug in. Their view was that fathers should provide financially for their children. It should not fall to the taxpayer. The numbers of mothers (and occasionally custodial fathers) who failed to name the father of a child dependent on a their benefit continued to grow. In the early 2000s Labour introduced legislation to increase the penalty. From the parliamentary debates:

Heather Roy: When will he admit that this is just a rort so that fathers can dodge child support, and why should taxpayers always have to pick up the bill?
Hon STEVE MAHAREY: 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.
                                                                    Hansard, August 25, 2004

And later:

“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. It is not a new philosophy.” Steve Maharey, Hansard, October 5, 2004

NZ First, represented by Bill Gudgeon also spoke in favour. The penalty was increased.

But 13 years on a new Minister said:

“The most common reason for not naming the parent was often family-violence related and so, keeping that mind, it’s almost like you’re doubly punishing these women and their children. So, we’re not going to allow that to continue.”
                        Carmel Sepuloni, RNZ, November 14, 2017

That is a red herring as the Work and Income Manual 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.”
                                         

Advice to cabinet said:

“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.”
                  MSD report to Carmel Sepuloni, November 10, 2017

And that has always been the problem.

Nevertheless Labour has been persuaded, along with NZ First (also traditionally of the view  that a father should be financially responsible) by the Greens to drop the penalty at a cost of $113.4 million over 4 years. But that is only estimated on the current number of mothers who aren't naming the father.

In the future, as there is no longer an incentive to name him (or disincentive not to) many more fathers will never pay child support for their children. 

Another Working Group:Another Waste of Time and Money

The Welfare Expert Advisory Group has delivered what the Green-driven government wanted - a recommendation to wildly increase wealth redistribution - an ideological affirmation. The group advises, "The fiscal cost of improving the adequacy and design of income support is estimated to be around $5.2 billion a year." That's an increase of around 50% on current costs.

The report overflows with conceptual phraseology, much of it drawn from Maori culture; words like equity, fairness, justice abound. It lacks however any concrete suggestion as to where an extra  $5.2 billion is to come from. The only justification for such a massive hike comes in the form of:

"It is important to recognise that the current system has costs of its own – those associated with the broader negative effects of poverty including lower educational attainment,imprisonment and poorer health." Which is exactly the approach National had taken under Bill English's actuarial analysis, but without front-loading savings.

Unsurprisingly then, only two policies were announced in direct response to the report and have been scheduled for introduction in April 2020. 1/Scrapping the penalty for not naming the father of a benefit-dependent child (a 180 degree turn from the last Labour-led government's stance), and 2/ an increase in what beneficiaries can earn before their benefit is affected (which National quickly approved without considering  more people getting trapped in a part work/part benefit regime) .

The Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni, says, "The Government can’t deliver on every recommendation at once." Indeed. It can only deliver on two of forty two in a year's time,  just months before it stands to lose any ability to do more.

In that respect alone this working group has been another waste of time and money.

Many of its recommendations are pie in the sky. It wants core benefit levels raised by up to 47 percent. On top of higher abatement rates, paid work for the unskilled would become uneconomical. People respond to economic incentives. For sole parents benefit 'packages' already rival income from employment despite the report's claims about grossly inadequate levels of welfare.

Some recommendations are a straight reversal of the last National government's welfare reform measures. Single parents should only have to work part-time when their youngest is 6 - currently it is 3 in line with eligibility for free early childhood education. Removal of the 'subsequent child' policy, introduced to prevent sole mothers from adding children to their benefit to avoid work-testing, is urged. The compulsory 'money management' aspect of youth benefits should be scrapped with a return to  handing out unconditional cash to 16 and 17 year-olds

Especially cheered by the Greens no doubt, the panel calls for removal of obligations and sanctions for "... pre-benefit activities, warrants to arrest sanctions, social obligations, drug-testing sanctions, 52 week reapplication requirements, sanctions for not naming the other parent, the subsequent child work obligation, and the mandatory work ability assessment for people with health conditions or disability."

Under such a scenario New Zealand would have parallel worlds whereby one group of people - the producers and risk-takers - are constantly expected to meet work, tax, health and safety obligations - to name a few - while the other avoids any and gets paid for the privilege.

Increases to Working For Families tax credits and eligibility thresholds are advised. Child support payments to beneficiary parents, currently kept by Treasury to offset benefit payments, should be passed directly to the custodial parent.

With regard to Job Seekers, here's an odd one: "Establish an effective employment service of the Ministry of Social Development so it is better able to assist people to obtain and keep good, sustainable work." Surely the Ministry has an effective employment service already (though on currently increasing Job Seeker numbers, you may wonder). What constitutes "...good, sustainable work"? I am reminded of a previous Labour Minister Steve Maharey who protested against "dead-end jobs" for beneficiaries. Exactly who is going to do the unskilled yet vital work required by this country's economy? And why a downer on those who do the least desirable jobs? I am thankful for them everyday.

There are multiple vague wishy-washy recommendations like, "Improve the health and wellbeing of people with health conditions and disabilities, along with carers of people with health conditions and disabilities who interact with the welfare system by providing financial support that is adequate to live a life with dignity and is equitable across the social sector." Meaningless.

A call to "increase public housing on an industrial scale" conjures visions of future ghettos based on past experience.  And then of course demands for heavier regulation of landlords feature as if that will magically make rental property cheaper when evidence points to the opposite outcome.

One recommendation makes sense: to index benefits to the cost of living, as is Super. That would be fair inasmuch as beneficiary income would keep pace with inflation. That is the solitary saving grace amidst an utterly unworkable, utopian/dystopian manifesto (take your pick).

Instead of this charade the Green's 2017 welfare policy could've easily been printed and circulated saving over $2 million in the process.

Graph of the Day

Very informative piece in DomPost today by Justin Stevenson regarding the forthcoming Well-Being Budget argues we actually need to focus more on GDP and featured this graph:

Is it any wonder beneficiaries prioritise tobacco and alcohol

Stats NZ have provided interactive data that shows expenditures on 12 items in a variety of households.

Spending on alcohol and tobacco rates 4th highest in beneficiary households. No other household has a rating this high.

In absolute terms most other household types are spending more on alcohol and tobacco but it's lower down the list of items usually appearing 6th or 7th.

The other stand-out obviously is housing. All households bar the highest income/expenditure have housing as their number one cost - even Superannuitants, which is a worry. But the graph above has a pattern unlike any other in that all of the expenditures are close to the left (bar food) with housing hard to the right. Note the vast difference when compared to the highest income group:

Going back to the problem of housing making poor people poorer, look at the change for beneficiaries since 2008:

If I was on a benefit under this scenario I'd be prioritizing alcohol and tobacco too (notwithstanding rising accommodation supplement is meeting some of the increased housing cost).

The housing market is in a real mess. And it happened under a National government. After Labour set up the stifling regulations.

Silly Simon

Simon Bridges is making himself sound silly over the slushy 'scandal'. How much time (taxpayer money) did his staff spend digging up this dirt to throw at Corrections' Minister, Kelvin Davis, who sounds like a man with gravitas for a change?

It just makes me question Bridge's judgement even more. What goes on in his head?

For instance the prison population is on the rise again, despite Labour's pledge to reduce it; despite the Justice Summit which did cost a truckload and seems to have delivered little. Corrections says  a backlog of criminals due to be processed caused the rise. Why a backlog? Justice delayed is not justice. There are a myriad of serious questions the leader of the opposition could be asking but he picks the petty.

Youth Payments increase by 88.9%

That was sneaky. The March benefit statistics were due out last week. But they were never posted on the front page of the website. If you didn't know where to look, you would never find them.

I do and there they are.

All bad news.

Because the quarters fluctuate it is vitally important to compare year on year to get an accurate picture.

So amidst the glaring shortages of workers eg bus drivers, that are crippling services there has been an almost 11 percent increase in numbers of unemployed. Worse, those jobseekers classified as 'work ready' have risen by 14.5 percent.

While the base number is low Youth Payment has risen a staggering 88.9% from 126 to 238.

There are just 6 fewer sole parent beneficiaries putting the brakes on that downward trend. The same can be said for the ex invalid benefit, now SLP, where there has been a very small increase.

What this illustrates is how the benefit system had now evolved into a bona fide, state-sanctioned alternative to employment for too many. (Recall my earlier post that showed 75% of those in the Growing Up in New Zealand study receiving a sole parent benefit said they had partners.)

It isn't kind or compassionate to admit more young people into a system that traps them and saps any ambition they may otherwise have held. It's just a waste.

Ardern's no Lange

Currently reading David Lange's memoirs, I am reflecting on how different the two Prime Ministers

are. When Roger Douglas had almost unanimous caucus support for a flat tax (Lange: When it came to the crunch only Cullen and I opposed - "Dear God! What a terrible lot of people they were!") he unilaterally scuppered it by announcing an unscheduled press conference and telling the country there would be no flat tax. He'd said nothing beforehand to Douglas who was out of the country, or the rest of the caucus. He put his Prime Minister-ship on the line for his convictions.

If Ardern was as convinced about the CGT (another ideological economic device) she'd take it to the next election and set about right now trying to convince New Zealanders of its merits.

"Jacinda Ardern's economics of blindness": David Seymour

ACT MP David Seymour writes at Magic Talk:

Would you live in a country in which the average age at death is 45, few children attend secondary school, and most people don’t have access to a telephone or electricity?
Sounds awful, right? That was New Zealand in 1913. The difference between then and now is productivity.
Paul Krugman – a Nobel Prize-winning, left-wing economist – once wrote that “Productivity isn't everything, but, in the long run, it is almost everything. A country's ability to improve its standard of living over time depends almost entirely on its ability to raise its output per worker.”
Most serious economists would agree. 

More 

Media Release: Widespread benefit fraud identified by Auckland University

Widespread benefit fraud identified by Auckland University

April 11, 2019

Lindsay Mitchell, Welfare commentator and researcher

Widespread benefit fraud has been identified by the Auckland University of Technology in research published yesterday by the Ministry of Social Development.

For a number of years, and on a number of occasions, I have questioned the longitudinal Growing Up in New Zealand (GUiNZ) data because the level of reported sole parenthood does not match the reported national level. In new research by AUT the authors have made similar observations:

"A weakness of the GUiNZ data is that it may not be population representative and is not linked to administrative data.... Overall, 95% of GUiNZ children are born to mothers who are partnered. The GUiNZ sample seems to have low sole-parent status compared to a 2009 study that found one-third of families with dependent children were headed by sole-parents (Ministry of Social
Development, 2010). This could be because being partnered in the GUiNZ data is not the same as their domestic-purposes benefit status, from which partnership status is inferred by other studies. We find that 70% of those who say they receive the domestic-purposes benefit also answer yes to the question of whether they have a partner – confirming that the sole-parent status derived from GUiNZ is essentially different to those studies which rely on benefit status to infer partnership status." (My emphasis)

Work and Income rules state:

You may get Sole Parent Support if you are:
-aged 20 or older
-a single parent or caregiver with one or more dependent children under 14
-not in a relationship
-without adequate financial support

Claiming a sole parent benefit while partnered is illegal. Based on these new findings the practice may be widespread. It appears however to be tolerated.

The government is currently sitting on the completed Expert Welfare Advisory Group report. It is to be hoped that benefit fraud and better policy to prevent it, will form part of the ensuing discussion.

There are no fathers now - just 'partners' of mothers

Are you a Dad? Do you want to be known as the father of your child or just the 'partner' of his mother?

Research released today by MSD into protective factors for vulnerable children based on the longitudinal Growing Up in NZ study refers only to mothers and partners, not mothers and fathers.

Fathers are only referred to in token reference to overseas research. Barely at all.

There is a huge irony in play here. I doubt the researchers noticed.

Stephen Franks nails it

Stephen Franks utterly nails it using gun control to illustrate how unknowingly incompetent the current crop is:

A general problem when censorious children are elected to govern
I see this issue as yet another where the urban ‘woke’ have utterly tin ears.
New Zealand has avoided many irreconcilable political fights over competing values. Now an ignorant generation are looking for ways to anger their opponents by deliberately kicking  sleeping dogs. Wise politicians pick no unnecessary fights that focus people on differences instead of on values they share.
Gun law has not been a tribal political issue here. My Select Committee 17 years ago reached a cross party consensus. But it is a badging issue in the US. So our “progressives” start the same chants to ape their US betters. They want to stick it to gun owners to show who is in charge – to anger “deplorables”. Whether the changes have any connection to a problem or a solution is immaterial to them. It is not so much ‘virtue signalling’ as IFF – identifying friend from foe.
From the same impulse they are trashing our 50 year old tacit deal  on abortion (‘we’ll pretend we have a law against abortion and leave the issue alone, if you too pretend the same”).
They look for any issue they can to stick the coercive state’s fat finger up the nose  of Christians – while excusing the ghastliness of Islamism, again to ape their US models.
They ended charter schools out of similar vindictiveness, thereby ensuring that whatever Hipkins does now in education will be reversed when he loses power.
And on free speech and so called non-binary gender and many other ‘me too’ (in its original sense) progressive causes their language, their solutions and their reasons are entirely derivative.
A consolation is that they are cementing their distance from the ordinary working people they have long scorned but claimed as the objects of their sanctimonious “altruism”.

Why child poverty claims are all over the place

MSD has helpfully produced a table that shows the extreme variability of official child poverty measures:

Depending on what political barrow is being pushed, the highest or lowest number can be selected.

The highest number - 341,000 - represents children living in homes under 60% of the median equivalised household income after housing costs. The lowest number - 65,000 - represents children living in severe material hardship experiencing eight or more specific deprivations.

Of interest the higher number has increased recently; the lower has decreased calling into question the relationship between the two.

The paper usefully goes on to point out:

Are all children in low-income households experiencing material hardship?
• No.
• The overlap between those in low-income households and those experiencing material hardship is considerably less than 100%, and the actual overlap depends on the measures being compared.

So next time you hear UNICEF for instance talking about one in three children in Aoteroa living in poverty you'll have some context to make sense of the claim.

Violence against women - some balance

Yesterday I received a press release from the White Ribbon Campaign containing the following statistics:

 KEY STATISTICS
·         New Zealand has the highest rate of reported violence towards women in the developed world
·         Police investigated 118,910 family violence incidents in 2016 or about one every five minutes
·         That’s 41% of a front line officer’s time
·         One in three women will experience partner violence at some point in their lives
·         Less than 20 percent of abuse cases are reported
·         Approximately 3,500 convictions are recorded against men each year for assaults on women
·         On average, 14 women a year are killed by their partners or ex-partners
·         Between 2009 and 2015, there were 92 IPV (Intimate Partner Violence) deaths. In 98% of death events where there was a recorded history of abuse, women were the primary victim, abused by their male partner.
 

 For balance here are some further statistics from the most recent 2018 Crime Victimization Survey:

The survey estimates that 16 percent of adults experienced one or more incidents of partner violence at some point during their lives. Women (21 percent) were more likely than men (10 percent) to have experienced one or more incidents of partner violence at some point during their lives.

21 percent is considerably lower than "one in three" so perhaps matters are improving. The correct expression of these percentages  should be one in five women and one in ten men.

 The survey also estimates that 23 percent of adults experienced one or more incidents of
sexual violence at some point during their lives. Again, women (34 percent) were more likely than men (12 percent) to have experienced one or more incidents of sexual violence at some point during their lives

Here we are closer to the one in three claim but note the distinction between 'violence' and 'sexual violence'. And again men are also affected albeit to a lesser degree. Of course these numbers rely on personal subjectivity and the individual's idea of violence. There may be gender differences between perceptions and willingness to acknowledge.

From 2009 to 2015 the Family Violence Death Review  Committee reports

There were 91 intimate partner violence (IPV) death events
Of the 92 deceased and 92 offenders in IPV death events:
• 68 percent (63 deceased) were women and 32 percent (29 deceased) were men
• 76 percent (70 offenders) were men and 24 percent (22 offenders) were women.

Almost a quarter of the offenders were women. Most of the women offenders were considered to be the victim of a history of abuse, but not all. Some cases are described as 'perpetrators in combination' which accounted for 8% in the 2002-08 reporting period.

Based on the above (latest) data, by my calculations, 9 women a year are "killed by their partners or ex-partners". Not 14. Googling 14 turned up this from the Christchurch Women's refuge:

About half of all homicides in New Zealand are family violence. There were 41 family violence homicides in New Zealand in 2010/11. On average, 14 women, 7 men and 8 children are killed by a member of their family every year.

So that claim is based on older data. Statistics are improving then for both women and men.

As for NZ having the "highest rate of reported violence towards women in the developed world," deaths are usually a good indicator for levels of violence, reported or otherwise. I had a quick look across  the Tasman where, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 99 women (and 27 men) were killed by a current or previous partner between 2012/13 and 2013/14. 50 women on average annually versus 9 in New Zealand. With a population only five times larger than NZ's, Australia looks slightly worse.

Causes of Poverty: Bad luck, bad choices and enablement

The Canadian think-tank, the Fraser Institute has just released a paper which suggests an elegantly simple framework in finding three causes of poverty: bad luck, bad choices and enablement. The first two need no explanation. The third is described thus:

We can say that poverty is “enabled” when systems and structures are in place to discourage the kinds of efforts that people would normally make to avoid poverty, i.e., find employment, find a partner (especially if children are present), improve one’s education and skill set, have a positive outlook, and take personal responsibility for your own actions. Ironically, it is government programs (welfare, in particular) that are intended to help the poor but end up actually enabling poverty.

In NZ, many of our current influencers (MPs and media) pooh,pooh the idea that bad choices are responsible for poverty despite this being self-evident. They base their disdain for the idea on a belief that greater systems, for example institutional racism, drive bad choices. Of course when they do this they excuse bad choices and even compensate the person making them. Undoubtedly, most of those sitting on the Welfare Expert Advisory Group would hold views of his nature.

There are people who will resist the suggestion that poor people might be responsible for their own poverty. Isn’t this just another example of “blaming the victim”? Shouldn't we be looking for other causes? Isn’t poverty really a condition of bad luck and something that just happens to people rather than a situation in which people find themselves largely due to their own bad choices? People who take the former view aren’t really looking at the implications of their own beliefs. Were we to live in a world where no one could be held responsible for making bad decisions that adversely affect themselves (and others who depend on them), then no one would be responsible for harm and no one could be held to account for the harm they do. But that is not the world in which we all live and,
indeed, is not a world that anyone would want to live in. The fact is that we all make bad choices from time to time. No one is immune. However, there are some critical choices we can make that will greatly reduce the chance of our being poor. Poverty researchers have identified those critical choices and this paper has discussed them at great length. Those choices are: 1) Finish high school—at a minimum; 2) Get a full-time job; 3) Wait until you are married to have children; and 4) Limit the number of children you have to those you can afford. Each of those four is a choice. This is what Sawhill and Haskins mean when they talk about “playing by the rules.” These choices are not always the easiest path. Making them well often means that you have to take responsibility for your own life, have some degree of self-control, and do some longer-term thinking. But there is certainly a lot of help available: remedial programs for completing high school; employment centres, skill upgrades, and job search apps; and various kinds of birth control. The problem, of course, is that we have institutions that, while nominally intending to help the poor, actually enable bad choices and thereby end up enabling poverty. 

The author, Christopher Sarlo, Professor of Economics, Nipissing University concludes:

Anyone who cares about the poor and wants to eliminate this horrible predicament needs first to understand what causes poverty. This paper suggests that a useful framework for understanding poverty is to look at bad luck and bad choices as the proximate causes, and to enablement as the key explanation for persistent and enduring poverty. I argue that bad choices are the dominant initiating cause of poverty in countries like Canada and the US, and that state policies like welfare are the critical enablers of poverty. 

Ditto New Zealand.

Good on David Seymour...

... who isn't afraid to say:

"You do not defy terrorism and defend our democracy by throwing out democratic procedure such as parliamentary scrutiny and the public's right to submit in full, at the first sign of trouble...

"We're missing out on the opportunity to make better laws and have more details come to light about how we can do better..." 

"But we're also, symbolically, allowing the terrorist to achieve his goal and dishonouring the victims by changing New Zealand away from a place that has a sober law-making process with parliamentary scrutiny and public input, and rushing things through at the first sign of trouble.

"I don't think that's a good way to respond."

Neither do I.

A balance needs to be struck between emotion and reason. Unfortunately, though understandably, the balance is tipped too heavily towards the former right now.

A small voice also nags away at the back of my mind that would-be terrorists will only see this ban as a challenge not in the sense of a hurdle, but a provocation.

But even if this particular passage of law is the correct and popular action, will the next be? What about privacy and hate speech laws? Do we want controversial and wide-ranging legislation enacted in haste with minimal debate?

Immense caution is required about the precedent being set.

Two strongly contrasting views

When I think about Christchurch I imagine what it would feel like if one of those young men were my son and it reduces me. To write any words from outside of and about the mosque members grief feels disrespectful. But plenty are being written. And some are worthy.

Yesterday Chris Trotter spoke on radio saying New Zealanders must not beat themselves up over the Christchurch terror act. His analysis of what happened and how we should react is here:

What happened at the Linwood and Al Noor mosques was horrific, but it wasn’t our doing. As we begin the long journey towards recovery, it is vitally important that we keep that fact squarely before us. New Zealand is a good place. New Zealanders are good people. We are not responsible for Brenton Tarrant’s dreadful crime. This is not us.

Today Anne Salmond writing in the DomPost infers New Zealanders are responsible if only indirectly:

In the wake of this terrible tragedy, let's be honest, for once. White supremacy is a part of us, a dark power in the land....In its hard version, it's violent and hateful, spewing out curses, incarcerating young Māori in large numbers, denying them a decent education, homes and jobs, telling them they have no future, and are better off dead.....The Muslim community has suffered a terrible, heart-breaking loss, and it needs all our love and support. It is not the only group who are targeted by white supremacists, however, and there are more ways of killing and maiming people than with a gun.

Interestingly Chris Trotter predicted this sort of reaction:

 The Prime Minister will, doubtless, come under increasing pressure from angry and misguided persons to curtail the rights of New Zealanders articulating unpopular views concerning Maori-Pakeha relations, the Islamic religion, multiculturalism and immigration policy. In defence of the liberal-democratic values that Tarrant assaulted so violently, Jacinda should calmly resist all such calls. We must not allow the unanimity of our grief to be translated into a demand for unanimity of opinion.

I hope, in this instance, Trotter's pen is mightier than the sword.