Angry today

Sometimes after I have a letter published in the paper people react. First I get a message of encouragement left on the answerphone supporting the views expressed. Older man.

Later my 12 year-old answered the phone to someone who has been ringing me since 2001. The caller gives me only her first name. Was a time her son would get on the other extension and they would harangue me doubly. An elderly lady who goes on and on without taking a breath about walking a mile in her shoes, unfairness, rich capitalists,etc etc. Yesterday she knowingly visited it on my daughter. That makes me very, very angry.

Then this message was put on an older post (alerted through e-mail). Probably a further response after searching my name:

The minimum Wage for a 40 hour week is too low.The person on this could also get accommadation benefit and working for families etc if they are elligible.You didnt mention this.Have you ever lived on this amount Lindsay?Where would you live?Would you want to live in a bad,crime ridden neighbourhood with children in your care?How would you like to live with a drug dealer across the road?A convicted paedophile next door who has just got out after 18 months in jail for raping his step children.His wife likes to invite the young children of the street in for biscuits and lollies?I bet you would not.That is the choice some have.Money can help you live in a better area and your children are then able to attend a better school.Life is nice in Eastbourne.Life is nice when you have a nice husband who cares about his family.Life is nice when nothing bad has happened to you or your family.I dont believe in long term welfare for single parents but I do believe in appropriate help to enable people to become independent.But I also dont think children should have to live in crime ridden neighbourhoods.

In essence I agree with this comment. Children having to live in crime ridden neighbourhoods and attend schools with children who are learning their criminal parents ways, but little else, too quickly is appalling. Yes, wages are too low and taxes are too high. More wealth redistribution through the labour market instead of via the government would improve that.

And I agree that I am lucky I live where I live and am married to who I am married to. But is that a reason not to speak out about the problems that the commentor accurately describes? I go into these neighbourhoods so I know they exist. And to a large extent they exist because of long-term welfare.

So detractor and I are actually on the same page. He or she just doesn't think I have any business writing to the newspaper expressing my views publicly. Perhaps he or she would prefer I buried my head in the sand I am lucky to have at the bottom of the street and forget about what life is like for some children. Adopt the ' I'm alright Jack' approach to life? Yes?

The cost of teenagers who end up in prison

This fact is contained in a report released by CYF yesterday:

"The estimated cost to society of the one percent of teenagers who end up in prison is around $3 million each over their lifespan."

There are very roughly 420,000 13-19 year-olds.

4,200 end up in prison.

At a cost of $12.6 billion.

I imagine the cost is based on youth and justice services, policing, incarceration, benefits. The time they spend locked up or on a benefit will probably span decades so $3 million looks entirely reasonable.

And this largely male group will father more offspring than average adding to the next generation of criminality and costs.

Slack, biased reporting

From Page 2 of Monday's Dominion Post:

A leading paediatrics academic has slammed the Welfare Working Group for not considering the well-being of children.

In an open letter to the Government, Professor Innes Asher said important issues were overlooked in the report and she urged that several of its recommendations be rejected.

Welfare cuts in 1991 drove children into poverty, not parents into work, and the same mistakes should not be made again, she said.

"The unpaid work of nurturing needs to be given high value - not just job-seeking and paid work. Parents of babies and young children should not be labelled job seekers."

The Welfare Working Group, led by Paula Rebstock, suggested current benefits be replaced by a universal Jobseekers Support allowance and that all but the very sick be forced to look for work.

It also recommended beneficiary parents be forced to look for work once their youngest child was 14 weeks old, the Government has ruled that out but it was not clear whether it would set a later age, such as 12 months. The current requirement kicks in once a youngest child is three.

More

My response published today under the headline Poverty is not the problem:

Dear Editor

A recent piece about Professor Innes Asher's open letter to the government which "slammed the Welfare Working Group for not considering the well-being of children," contains a number of inaccuracies about work-testing proposals and current arrangements for sole parents. The 14 week recommendation applied to beneficiaries who continue to add children to an existing benefit. The "current requirement kicks in" when the youngest child is 6, not 3 as reported.

Innes Asher believes that material poverty is putting children of beneficiaries at risk. However, the poorest New Zealanders are actually Asians. Asian children are not routinely beset with health and other social problems.

The reason the WWG targetted sole parents is because at least a third began on the DPB as teenagers. Their chances of leaving welfare are the lowest;and their children have multiple disadvantages primarily caused by familial dysfunction, not poverty.

Increasing benefit payments - Asher's solution - will only lead to more people going on welfare. This has been shown by numerous overseas studies.

The problem for children is not poverty. It is the often chaotic, unstructured and unsafe environments that long-term welfare enables.

Someone I admire

My volunteering went into suspension when I got back into my art full time. But I keep in touch with one ex-client - now a very good friend. When I met her she had never had a job, had been on the DPB around 20 years. I would spend a morning with her once a week initially on practical stuff, getting the household functioning etc. The trust built between us gradually. On my birthday we went to the local pub, played pool and drank raspberry lemonade and hot chocolate. She has a really mean right arm and while a much flashier player than me not as consistent. But you can picture the incongruity of the two of us - someone who had lived on the streets as a teenager while I'd enjoyed (took for granted) a cossetted upbringing.

About two years into our relationship she rang to say she had gotten a job! I was almost disappointed because it would mean curtailing my visits. Naturally though I was as excited as she was but privately cautious about whether she could hold it down.

Three years on and she is still there. I pick her up from work at lunchtime and we go to the local McDonalds. She regales me with the latest gossip. Nearly got the sack when she got into a scuffle with an old enemy from the street days who recognised her at work. I say, workplace or not, walk away. That's the smart, clever thing to do. I am always trying to get her to redefine what is smart; how she can get the edge on someone. What works in her value system.

Now working she gets her family tax credit in a lump sum. Flush yesterday she had decided she needs to get her youngest daughter on-line. She recognises that the daughter is becoming disadvantaged school-wise. So I give her some advice about laptops, vodems etc. She doesn't have a landline so a pre-paid vodem will be perfect.
It's a buyers market, I impress on her. Make sure you get the best deal you can. Ten percent discount might be a hundred bucks left in your pocket. Imagine how many smokes that'll buy.(Yeah, yeah, maybe not in her best interests but as she always says, she can't be perfect. Better is enough.)

I get two texts in quick succession last night. Can't get the sim card in the t-stick. She has a telecom version I am unfamiliar with. I ring and am no help but she manages to sort through the initial problem on the 0800 number. Then she stumbles when trying to register. She has no e-mail address!! Of course she hasn't. This is the first computer she has ever owned. She can't get on-line to get an e-mail address if she can't register. Imagine the frustration. Mr 0800 can't talk her through this one. He keeps going on about dot com dot com she says.

OK. I will get you an address and ring you back with it. That I do and find myself explaining what @ looks like and how to hold down the shift key and punch in the number 2. Unfortunately she cannot even get back to the invitation to register now.

Tomorrow she will be back at ______'s getting them to show her how to use the equipment they sold her. It reminds me of the Plunket carseat service. I watched the women who ran that asking Pacific mothers if they knew how to install the seat. The Pacific people, as is sometimes their way, would compliantly, nod and smile without a clue. Probably did it myself but my English is strong enough to be able to follow written instructions. The Plunket people, happy to take the money, if at all in doubt, should have showed hirers how to use the seats safely.

Anyway, last nights episode brought the 'digital divide' home to me. I am very pleased that my friend is getting her child into a world that is totally foreign to her. And my admiration for the way she has increasingly assumed responsibilities over the past three to four years is genuine. Her childhood experiences would have sent most down a path they would never get off. Yes she had more than once been her own worst enemy but if her eventual move to greater independence and responsibility could be replicated across the country NZ would be a hell of a lot better off. She gives me hope and sustenance.

Disadvantaged youth report relies on incorrect data

A report about disadvantaged youth in NZ contains incorrect data.

The teenage birth rate for 2008 (December quarter) was 33 per 1,000 - not somewhere around 22.

The NZ Institute has relied on OECD data. I have previously written to the OECD pointing out their errors in this particular table but it remains uncorrected. The US total was also considerably higher at 41.5 percent.



Don't have time now to look at the other statistics. They may be OK but I have long since decided not to rely on the OECD Family Database. And the NZ Institute could have easily cross-checked the NZ statistic with Statistics New Zealand.

Transparent Labour strategies fall flat

When the Capital Gains Tax was a 'good news' story Goff was fronting it (and it was getting as much media chat and talkback before the official announcement as after). It struck me that Clark used to leave it to her Finance Minister Cullen to talk economic matters. But it was Goff constantly fronting on the 'game-changer' - the CGT.

Now it has failed to revive Labour in the polls, finance spokesman David Cunliffe is suddenly the face. Looks like a very transparent strategy. Strategies that treat people like fools deserve to fall flat. Probably more from the maladroit Mallard.

A very disturbing account

If you have the time today watch the DVD Family First has just released about cases where parents have been dragged through the courts for 'assault' on their children. I saw the film at the conference and it has impact. After the film had finished three of the couples involvd actually took the stage. These are real people whose lives have become a disorientated nightmare.

These are people whose natural impulse was to tell CYF or the police exactly what had happened in the belief that reasonable fellow adults would be able to put their actions in context. That telling the truth would be the best course of action.

It wasn't. And if you have a look at what 10 lawyers are saying now, if CYF or the police turn up on your doorstep with an accusation of 'assault' on your child, or another, say nothing.

That is the world we live in. Our best and honest instincts must be surpressed because the state cannot be trusted. We rail against cases like the Kahuis where witnesses clammed up but are discovering that we must do the same. In the first instance at least.

So well-intentioned sorts who believe if you have nothing to hide the law can only be your friend, think again.

ACT and last chances - eg Cactus

When Brash took over the leadership of ACT I thought, here's a go. Now there will be some discipline. Some strong economic messages. Strong welfare, health and education policies. Hell, I didn't even care if they veered off the classical liberal track into conservatism if they gave us consistent small government goals. Social conservatism mostly manifests in conscience votes anyway. If some MPs are opposed to abortion, voluntary euthanasia, drug decriminalization, same sex adoption etc., so be it. For the next election, just take us in the right economic direction, for pities sake. In this political landscape, beggars can't be choosers.

But I am badly disappointed so far.

Why is ACT so susceptible to single issue groups or ideology? Law and order, climate change, and now race have featured disproportionately over the past years. Unlike leftists I do not believe in conspiracies or all-encompassing plans in which many are complicit. Infiltration or takeovers for instance. When you get close to the action in any organisation, political or otherwise, you understand that unique circumstances and connections dictate whatever happens next. Believers in the necessary spontaneity of markets see the replication elsewhere.

The only person connected with ACT giving me a reason to vote for them right now is Cactus, whose candidacy is still not official.

So Cactus, no single person can bring demands to the table but, if they (whoever they are) don't start asserting themselves as the lean mean economic party soon, give it a wide berth. Your long-standing loyalty is immensely commendable but don't let it be your Achilles' heel.

"A smaller better welfare state" ?

A smaller and better welfare state
Kristian Niemietz
14 July 2011
Liberals who support a limited public safety net are faced with a dilemma. On the one hand, they want government to fulfil the role of a provider of last resort. They envisage a situation in which people provide for the vicissitudes of life through savings, asset accumulation, private insurance, mutual assistance, the extended family, private philanthropy and an active charitable sector. The government’s job should begin when all these things have failed – but only then.

More

The main problem with this short column is that in the US the spending on Social Security has actually increased. Spending is devolved to individual states with federal top-ups. It may be that socially the returns are better because the dysfunction is reducing - crime, child abuse/neglect, teen birth and abortion(until the recession) all trending down - but the taxpayer is still pouring money in.

So better maybe, but not smaller yet.

Still going

Eight months on and I still have my shop. It's a cold hole during the day but once I am working, I am oblivious. And there is always piping-hot chocolate from the neighbouring cafe to wrap my mitts around and make last for half an hour. Here's a recent sketch. Had to chase this critter around the master bedroom before I got the shot I wanted:

Open letter to Don Brash and Pita Sharples

Dear Don and Pita

I watched you both on Native Affairs last night. You are talking not to each other, but past each other. You are not so far apart in age that it is a generational difference in views. You have grown up in the same times and the same country. But you have grown in different coloured skins and different social environments.

Don, you approach matters dispassionately, academically and logically. That is part of your world view. Pita, you approach matters emotionally, pragmatically and intuitively, again a result of your life experiences.

For example on the matter of 'privilege'. Don uses the literal meaning. A privilege is a special right which confers advantage often at someone else's disadvantage. Pita sees privilege in the broader sense. Being privileged as in being born into homes where you are loved, protected and given the best launch in life possible.

Hence, strictly speaking, Maori are both privileged and under-privileged. You are both right. There is little to be gained from going round in circles over a word.

Pita sees the Waikato river as having deep, spiritual meaning for Maori. It has a life force. Don sees it as a body of water. It is an organism.

This is only the difference that has lived between and within cultures and races for time immemorial. It is religion versus lack of it. But faith can never be rejected in another and I think Don would agree with that. Belief is an intensely personal matter. However, for the sake of living together with the greatest degree of freedom possible advanced societies have abandoned allowing religious belief to shape law, for most part. Application of some religious beliefs would make life intolerable for some minorities. As part of a minority Pita would appreciate other minority's rights. Usurping individuals rights to develop their own property because of what are essentially religious beliefs cannot be a good thing.

But denial of another's faith is also doomed. And as long as tolerance is a two way street, unnecessary.

Many Pakeha can or have attempted to try to understand what being Maori means for Maori. The talk of blood parts is superfluous and even offensive when someone has a conviction about which culture they primarily belong to. To varying degrees, Maori feel different and feel differently. It is arrogant to fail to recognise that.

What New Zealanders are looking for is the way in which we can all progress. That is not going to happen when people talk past each other. Or when people intentionally or through ignorance misunderstand each other.

No one-on-one relationship ever truly succeeded without respect, compromise, humility and deep communication.

Don, for all the representations you receive from aggrieved Pakeha I do not think they justify an assumption that race relations are critical and we are headed down a dangerous separatist path which must be halted at any cost.

Pita, your race is generally on the 'up'. Your attention should fall to the deep disaffection felt by a minority of Maori due to urban drift, whanau breakdown and the social ills that ensue from that. The rights you seek regarding extra representation and environmental consultation will not address the disadvantage of your poorest. Resolving that lies largely in their own individual and community efforts.

Despite the fact that last night you talked past each other, at least you didn't talk over each other. You are both men who I have utmost respect for and we need more talking - not less. But it bothers me enormously that ACT and now radical Maori (in the form of the Mana Party) are polarising and subsequently dividing people along racial lines.

As a former ACT candidate I know this letter will alienate some people who have supported me in the past. The One Law For All stance cannot encompass the give and take required to get ahead. Sir Apirana Ngata has been mentioned many times over the past few days. He was not an assimilationist. He took the best from the Pakeha world, eg the acquisition of state loans for developing dairying but urged the retention of the Maori language, spirituality and culture. He is buried under a mountain that for Maori is more than just organic. If Pakeha cannot feel that same regard for natural phenomenon they should at least respect it, or at worst, tolerate it.

The way you are approaching matters differs, as I said. But neither is totally right or wrong. Please resolve to make some concessions so much of the good that has been achieved over the past decades will not be undone.

Lindsay Mitchell

Big call or bad call?

This is a big call from the new Children's Commissioner:

New Zealand's shameful child abuse rates have hit a "plateau" and will nosedive by 2014, our new Children's Commissioner says.

On what does he base that prediction?

...a combination of new campaigns and programmes, better collaboration and an increased awareness of child abuse would see the number of cases drop sharply by three years' time, if not sooner...

Why does he think that NZ has a worse record than other developed countries?

...a high rate of children in poverty, low investment in services to support parents and services that had been allowed "to drift into things that don't work"

There it is again. The Poverty Excuse.

While I can accept that material poverty can lead to poorer child health through over-crowded inadequate housing it is no excuse for child abuse. As I have shown before any correlation between the poorest children and abuse or neglect is inconsistent across ethnicities.

As for supporting parents, good luck. Generally only parents who are amenable to support are positively affected by it. Parents with criminal involvement and addictions will be indifferent to services so long as benefit money keeps arriving in their bank accounts each week and the war on drugs continues.

While I admire optimism my own prediction would be far less so. And I don't suppose he is going to be paid on performance anyway.

Update: Bob McCoskrie just sent through this:

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 5:47a.m.

RadioLive has obtained shocking new statistics on child abuse.

Figures released to RadioLive under the Official Information Act reveal Maori children are being abused at a higher rate now than ever before.

Maori make up more than half of the 21,000 children harmed in the last year, and the number abused over the last five years has also more than doubled to 11,000 in 2010.

More than half of the 4000 children removed from families and put into foster care were also Maori.

Social Development Minister, Paula Bennett, says programmes being rolled out like Whanau Ora will help.

The figures also show 64 children have died while in the care of Child, Youth and Family over the last 10 years. A third were recorded as suicide.

Answers at the Family First Forum

I attended the Family First Forum as a speaker yesterday.

Bob McCoskrie conducted a sit down interview with John Key for an hour, and later in the morning repeated the exercise with Phil Goff.

The contrasting answers to a common question stuck in my memory are:

Who are the wisest, most influential people in your political lives?

Goff answered Mandela (and explained why), Ghandi (ditto) and Michael Joseph Savage.

Earlier John Key, with little hesitation answered his mother (and elaborated). And Wayne Eagleson, his chief-of-staff and a "clever" lawyer.

Make of it what you will.

Questions re NZ Herald-DigiPoll

Apparently:

Most New Zealanders are against sending solo parents back to work before their children start primary school, according to a new poll.

The Government is looking into the Welfare Working Group's recommendations on reforming the welfare system into a work-focused programme, with an eye towards campaigning on welfare reforms at the election.

Among the group's more radical suggestions were having solo parents work 20 hours a week when their youngest child reached three years old, and if they had a subsequent child while on welfare, they would have to look for paid work when the child turned 14 weeks.

A New Zealand Herald-DigiPoll released today found just 9.8 per cent of New Zealanders were in favour of solo parents on the DPB having to look for work when their child turned three.

That compared with 31.6 per cent support for sending solo parents back to work when their child turned five, and 54.2 per cent when they turned six - the current age. Some 4.4 per cent said they did not know.

The poll had a margin of error of 3.6 per cent and an unstated sample size.

Why unstated?

And where is the group that doesn't believe in work-testing at all? The policy setting up until last September.

Where are the people who want an even shorter term of assistance or would get rid of the DPB completely?

Lumped in the tiny 4.4 percent of 'don't knows'?

I was wrong

I said it wasn't a hanging offence but I was wrong.

Note to self: be very cautious about alluding to overseas research that NZ women in particular do not want to hear about. Be very careful not to make attempts to 'explain' something come across as, or be interpreted as, attempts to 'justify' it.

Second thoughts, just keep your damn trap shut.

Then again, no-one can sack me.

Average DPB payment versus 40 hours at minimum wage

Some members of the public are mislead into believing that someone on the DPB only receives $288.47 per week.

Or:

The alternative group, chaired by Massey University social policy expert Mike O'Brien and including former Green MP Sue Bradford, says current benefits of $194 a week for a single adult or $366 for a sole parent with one child are "simply too low to live on".

In fact they receive considerably more because all parents or caregivers receive Family Tax credits for dependent children and the majority receive an Accommodation Supplement (or live in a subsidised state house).

Under the Official Information Act I asked what are the average accommodation supplement and family tax credit payments made to DPB recipients.

Calculated at the end of March 2011 the respective payments provided to me were $89 and $135.76

That totals $513.23 net

The minimum wage for a 40 hour week is $520 before tax

The new entrants or training wage for a 40 hour week is $416 before tax


You do the maths.

(Even this calculation is inadequate because it does not include other available allowances.)

Tau Henare is right

Tau Henare is right that yet another inquiry into child abuse is a waste of time.

But committee chairman Tau Henare said the committee did not have time to do a proper inquiry before the election due in November.

"We'll take part in it, that's democracy. I'm the chairman and I'll chair the meetings to the best of my abilities," he said.

"But in the last 15 years there have been umpteen dozen reports. I don't think we are going to get anywhere if we continue to sit on our arses and do reports.

But the so-called child advocates insist on pressing ahead wasting time and money;

Maori Party MP Rahui Katene, who co-chairs the group with Green MP Metiria Turei, said she hoped the inquiry would open people's eyes to the fact that many Kiwi children lived in poverty.

And that is why they are primarily wasting their time. Because they persist in coming at it from the wrong angle. Always they pin the essential problem on poverty.

Yes. Many Kiwi children live in (relative) poverty but many, most, do not suffer neglect or abuse.

Look at the figures that Simon Collins provides at the close of his article:

Children in poverty

22 per cent of all children

One in six European children

One in four Maori children

One in three Pacific children


By material measures Pacific children are the poorest.

Let's look at some reliable indicators of child neglect or abuse.

The ethnicity of children in Care and Protection Foster Care Placements in 2006.

7 percent were Pacific (412) whereas 48.7 percent (2,869) were Maori.

At 7 percent, because the Pacific population is very young, that proportion is probably an under-representation.

The number of Pacific children in CYF family homes was 22 compared to 166 Maori - again 7 percent versus 51 percent.

Of those children with Care and Protection notifications requiring further action, 12 percent were Pacific and 44 percent were Maori.

So what now? Poverty is the cause of Maori child abuse and neglect but not the cause of Pacific child abuse and neglect? And let's not even go looking for some Asian statistics.

If the problem is misdiagnosed, a remedy will never be found.

People who lay false rape complaints should be exposed

Some people are very vindictive. Unhealthily so. And it seems the incidence of this form of mental instability is on the rise.

When reading about false rape accusations one can't help but wonder if the accuser, even in the knowledge that she will not succeed in bringing a conviction, is motivated by knowing a trial will make the accused's life miserable. His name will be dragged through the mud whereas she will remain unknown to the larger public.

It really is time that false accusations were punished. If not at least by removing name supression.

Two cases appear in headlines this morning. One in NZ:

In summing up the case yesterday, Murrell's defence lawyer, Fergus Steedman, said his client and the complainant had been friends. Murrell's testimony showed he cared about the complainant and knew her well.

Mr Steedman said the woman was yet to become an adult who took responsibility for her own mistakes. The false accusation had been made to prevent her from having to face her mistakes, Mr Steedman said.

The complainant was a compulsive liar, he said, and throughout the trial her testimony had been contradicted by other witnesses and evidence.

"She lies as a matter of routine. She lies when she doesn't need to. She is a liar, full stop," he said.

And the other in Australia:

A MOTHER has described as a ''gross injustice'' a legal process which she says led her son's life to the edge of destruction over a rape charge found to be baseless.

It was of small comfort to her that a judge has now ordered the Director of Public Prosecutions to pay defence costs of almost $20,000 after the case collapsed.

''We have been traumatised beyond belief by the system,'' she told The Age. ''We've been watching our son's life potentially get destroyed in front of our eyes.'' She had ''lived in abject fear of an injustice'' while her son, now 20, a third-year university student, had had his reputation ruined.

'Life' imprisonment sentences leap

Statistics NZ has just released conviction and sentencing data for 2010. A couple of stand-outs are the increasing use of home detention over its short history, and a leap in life sentences handed down.

In 2010 50 such sentences were imposed.

The closest year to that previously was 1997 when 37 sentences occurred. In the last ten years the average was 27 life sentences.

Is it just an aberration? Brains more familiar with the legal system might have an explanation.

MSD Statistical Report released

If you wanted to do a crash course in the benefit system and current trends this weekend (in-law visit avoidance perhaps) you could bury yourself in the Statistical Report, released today. It is bursting with 300-odd pages of information about trends, expenditures, grants, reasons for leaving, historical data, and much more. Trouble is it only extends to June 2010. A year ago. So not a great deal is newsworthy. Just a few things caught my eye while browsing;

* Nearly two fifths of benefit expenditure was on the DPB and nearly a third on the Invalids benefit

* Older clients - aged 40-64 - account for nearly half of benefit expenditure. More precisely 47-49%.

My comment - why not rephrase that as younger clients account for over half of benefit expenditure? Not a good look really.

* Women accounted for the majority of total main benefit expenditure

That's enough for late on a Friday afternoon.

I have more enjoyable things to do.