Wall sticking her neck out

Labour MP, Louisa Wall isn't going to be making herself popular with Ngai Tahu and other operators of so-called charities.

I blogged about the Shotover tax-free status 6 years ago here.

Just as charitable status for the purpose of exempting donations should be tested, so should straight out tax exemptions for organisations that  look more like businesses than charities.

We all pay too much tax because we have a too-big government. Taxes should be lower, flatter and fairer. Exemptions without obligation don't fit the last criteria.

The budget and welfare-related matters

The government is concerned about the growing student allowance bill so have restricted allowances for over 40s (from memory) to 120 weeks and made over 65s ineligible.

Can't see this saving much as less than 1 percent are over 65 (how come you can get a student allowance on Super but not if you are on any other benefit?)

91 percent of student allowance recipients are under 40 and nothing changes for them.

Next, state housing reviews to ensure people move on when their circumstances change, will be shifted into the realm of MSD. Work and Income probably know more about the circumstances of state house tenants than the landlord and are best placed to assess their needs.

Also, non-government social housing will now receive income-related rent subsidies. Unclear from the speech whether this applies to council-owned housing (if it doesn't already).

The child-related measures seemed confined to already announced extra funding for fighting rheumatic fever and extending house insulation to a further 49,000 low income homes.  No food in schools mention but more funding for mentoring NCEA level 2 students.

And more funding for budgeting services.

Truth column May 9-15

My Truth column May 9-15

Parliament resumed this week.  Why do MPs get school holidays off anyway?  Other working parents have to pay for child care or farm their offspring out to family, though I reckon quite a few break that absurd law that says a child under 14 can’t be home alone. But it wouldn’t do for an MP to break the law.  And if anyone should have to live by some of the claptrap that comes out of Parliament, it should be the claptrap creators.

My youngest went to school in the city from 11, footing it unaccompanied on city streets daily.  Am I expected to believe he’s safer there than at home?  A flying squad could swoop on thousands of homes during the school breaks and find under-age children fending for themselves. Good thing too, learning to take responsibility for themselves. I can’t fathom a law that says developing initiative and becoming independent is a bad thing.

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No gains in learning or behaviour for children fed breakfast in school

Thanks to a reader who sent me a link to a presentation about evaluation research into the programme that already exists to feed children in schools:

  Programme led to a significant decrease in
hunger
•  No effect on other outcomes measured
(attendance, learning, behaviour, food
security)
•  Participation in programme less than expected
– ranged from 5-79% but on average students
attended ~30% of the time (dilution effect)
•  Rather than increasing breakfast consumption
overall many children who previously ate
breakfast at home appeared to swap location
(substitution effect)

So again I'm left asking the same question (spurred by a different reason) as yesterday. Why a 'Feed the kids' bill now?

'Feed the kids' bill starts with a lie

Hone Harawira's bill, Education (Breakfast and Lunch Programmes in School) Amendment Bill, starts with a lie. From the Explanatory note:

"Growing levels of poverty in New Zealand have resulted in too many parents being unable to afford to provide their children with breakfast before school and/or lunch at school, or being unable to afford to provide their children with sufficiently nutritious meals before and during school."

 The latest data available shows that levels of child poverty are declining:

The shaded area shows that the percentage of children living in households with income below 60 percent of the median after-housing costs household income (referenced to 2007) has fallen from 37 percent in 2001 to 21 percent in 2011.

Poverty is though measured in various ways. One is to look at non-monetary indicators of hardship. On that measure children are experiencing increased hardship.

 
However the report says:

"... it is noted that income poverty rates for children remained much the same from 2009 to 2011, yet here material hardship rates are reported as rising.  One of the main reasons for this difference of trend is that families with children with family incomes above the poverty line reported increased hardship, thus increasing measured hardship irrespective of what the income poverty trend was."

From this I understand that increasing material hardship does not relate to the poorest children, presumably those in decile 1 and 2 schools - the target of the bill.

Also,

 

    " The longer-run findings on child poverty reflect the fact that AHC incomes in 2011 for low-income households were around the same as they were in the early 1980s in real terms, but that relative to the median the incomes of lower-income households with children had fallen away (ie higher inequality in 2011 than in the mid 1980s)."

So I keep coming back to the question, why now? Why have we reached a point where children need to be fed breakfast and lunch in schools when they haven't in the past, during times of greater or similar poverty and hardship?

Maori first

 I wonder how widespread the following practice is:

If a respondent reports more than one ethnicity, the ethnicity attributed is determined according to a hierarchical classification of Māori, Pacific Island, Other and then European/Pākehā.

This is out of the Household Incomes Report which uses data from the Household Economic Survey conducted by Statistics NZ.

I was reflecting on Greg Newbold's comments yesterday about Maori violent crime stats being too high.

Statistics NZ also collects and publishes crime stats. Based on the above "hierarchical classification" if you do anything wrong and are of mixed ethnicity, it's the Maori bit of you that did it.

Ryall has a point

Being badgered about child poverty measures by Jacinda Ardern yesterday in parliament, Tony Ryall, answering for Paula Bennett, made this statement:

"We put a lot of time and effort into dealing with poverty and we consider it far more of a priority than the members opposite, who have given their spokesman the opportunity to ask questions in this House on only three occasions this year."

Now that rather surprised me so I thought I'd check the veracity of the claim. It's right and it's wrong. Prior to yesterday she had asked all of  4 questions this year -  3 relating directly to poverty and another indirectly.

10. Child Poverty—Minister’s Statements

JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) to the Minister for Social Development
11 Apr 13

5. Welfare Reforms—Progress and Beneficiary Numbers

JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) to the Minister for Social Development
28 Feb 13

8. Child Poverty—Government Actions to Address and Measuring Numbers Affected JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) to the Deputy Prime Minister 13 Feb 13 7. Child Poverty—Prime Minister’s Statements JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) to the Prime Minister 30 Jan 13

'Arts, recreation and other services' adds more than 10,000 jobs?

I was just having a look at the HLFS tables released today.

Table 7 (cont) shows that the 'Arts, recreation and other services' sector added over 10,000 jobs in the March quarter. That's an 8% percent rise.

But I'm suspicious because the jobs were nearly all male. The male numbers went from 64,700 to 74,900 from Dec 2012 to March 2013. They look entirely out of place sequentially. The rise for females went from 66,200 to 67,100.

Can anyone think of something that's occurred to explain the leap for males?

When I look back, a similar jump happened to females in the same period Dec 2011 - March 2012. Does Creative NZ suddenly release a lump of funding? But again, why the big difference in genders?

10,000+ is a big jump when you consider the total increase across all employment was 34,700.

Only one other sector out-performed Arts etc and that's the largest (Professional, scientific, technical, administrative and support services) with one quarter million employed. Their increase of around 12,000 jobs was only a 0.5% rise.

Update

I queried the number with Statistics NZ and received a very prompt reply:

 Hi Lindsay

Just returning your email re the HLFS Arts,recreation and other services estimates.

Firstly, yes those numbers are correct.

Secondly, we advise looking at the change in unadjusted data , such as industry estimates, over the year rather than over the quarter. This removes any seasonal pattern from the data.

So that you have an idea of what types of industries are included under the broad 'Arts,recreation and other services' label, the following sub industries are included:
-Heritage activities
-Creative and Performing Arts activities
-Sport and recreation activities
-Gambling activities
-Repair maintenance
-Personal and other services
-Private households employing staff and Undifferentiated goods-and service-producing activities of households own use

Although breaking down this industry by sub industries means the estimates are quite small, we did see a notable rise in the repair and maintenance, the artistic activities and the gambling activities sub industry groups over the year.

Again, who should pay for political advocacy?

In an editorial not dissimilar to my post earlier in the week about who should fund political advocacy, the NZ Herald says, not taxpayers. There should be no rebates for donations for political advocacy and there is no need for a debate.

A problem remains and I've commented to this effect.

What would you do then about an organisation like the Salvation Army, which does charitable work by your definition but also a good deal of political advocacy?

The issue is not as clear-cut as the writer would have us believe.

Truth Column May 2-8

My Truth column May 2-8 (the print edition carried the photo):

It’s my son’s 19th birthday. So I retrieved the newspaper kept from the day of his birth.
My younger daughter reads the TV schedule over my shoulder.
“You had Oprah then?”
“Yep.”
“But why was she on at one o’clock in the morning?”
“No, silly. That’s one in the afternoon. TV shut down at midnight.”
“WHAT?”
Then we laugh over a photo of a very young Helen Clark aiming to make Labour “… the biggest party in Parliament”.
She did, temporarily, but she’s been and gone. Like Margaret Thatcher though, she left a legacy.

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Who should pay for political advocacy?

I asked the question yesterday, how come an advocacy outfit like the Child Poverty Action Group retains charity status while an advocacy outfit like Family First loses theirs?

Simon Collins is doing pretty much the same in the NZ Herald and has listed a few others.

It seems to me that either all political advocates should get charitable status, or none. There are plenty of taxpayer funded political advocates like the Families Commission and the Children's Commissioner. We have no choice about 'donating' to these lobbyists. So perhaps it could be argued that we should also be able to easily donate (meaning get a rebate) to groups who represent our own particular viewpoint.

But then why shouldn't other commercial interest representative groups also claim charity status? Outfits like Federated Farmers or Business New Zealand? Their members pay for political advocacy on their behalf. But I am forgetting. They are about profit, and profit and political advocacy should never be mentioned in the same sentence.

(For the record I've never solicited donations to do my welfare reform advocacy, as low profile as it is. In fact, it costs me.)

The underlying problem is the size of government. If it didn't pretty much monopolise spending in the social sphere,  there would be no need for the degree of political pleading that goes on.

Young adults staying home longer

The graph below comes from the Household Incomes Survey and shows that a decreasing percentage of 18-24 year-olds are partnering and setting up home together. Increasingly they are staying home (almost half) and a similar percentage to 1984 are going flatting. The pattern is certainly borne out in my family. I left home to live in a flat with my boyfriend at 18. My oldest is now 19 and showing no signs of leaving home.

Monday Morning Questions

Why can  the US report jobs data for April while in NZ we are still waiting for jobs data from March?

Isn't bullying just as bad when the mob turns on the bully?

Is the rapid rise in the use of long-acting contraceptives partly to blame for the drop in births from 64,315 in 2010 to 61,568 in 2012?

And on that issue, what's worse? An STD or an unwanted pregnancy?

How come an advocacy outfit like the Child Poverty Action Group retains charity status while an advocacy outfit like Family First loses theirs?

Is being made to pick up dog faeces abuse? I have to do it every day.

Aren't pukekos native birds? So where's Gareth Morgan now?

Another high profile arrest on suspicion of rape

Yet another high profile person arrested on suspicion of rape. This alleged incident is more recent and the MP is gay. But you've got to wonder where this 'phenomenon' is going and how big it will get. There must be a fair few prominent people trawling through their memories wondering whether they crossed a boundary at some point in their lives...

Voters react to Labour/Green power policy?

The latest Roy Morgan poll shows surge of support for National and notes that

National Party rebounds 6% to 46.5%; Labour down 4% to 31.5% As New Zealand passes laws to legalise same-sex marriage

Strangely it fails to mention the Labour/Green power policy also announced during this period (April 15-28) which is likely to have far more effect on voter choice.

Truth Column April 25 - May 1

My Truth column published April 25 - May 1:

Apparently the electricity market isn’t operating correctly so consumers pay too much. Like petrol, it seems suppliers have formed unofficial price-fixing cartels. While each operator maintains an acceptable market share and profits are good, they don’t compete hard. The wide price variations seen in clothing or food (two other essentials) don’t occur.

With power the retailer buys from the wholesaler – or generator.
Norman Shearer (let’s call him Little Norm) says forcing down the generator’s price with state legislation – or price-fixing – will stop the problem of … price-fixing. Why?

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Excusing thuggery

The Greens are promising to repeal the Three Strikes law because it's apparently rendering punishments too severe for the level of offending.

In this case a 20 year-old with 20 convictions was given his first strike for violent aggravated robbery in 2010. Now he has been given a second strike for two further charges of aggravated robbery. It would appear that some people think kicking and robbing people is small beer which didn't warrant a second strike (meaning any subsequent similar  conviction would receive the maximum sentence possible - 14 years.)

Greens justice spokesman David Clendon said: "Judges know the detail and context of each case, but they are hamstrung by this legislation that says no matter what the circumstances they must impose the highest possible sentence ...
"Fourteen years is a sentence for manslaughter, a sustained beating, an assault on a child or even attempted murder."
The Greens would "definitely" seek to repeal the law if they came to power, Mr Clendon said.

Just one name.

Philip Cottrell.

Violent aggravated robbery can easily result in significant physical or mental injury, even death.

And the judge who deals with this type of criminality daily says Whaanga's offending is escalating.

I'm relieved he has been sent to prison for two years with no parole and a very large incentive to stop being a dangerous thug when he comes out. I care more about his past and potential victims than his rights.

Paid Parental Leave : Just a drop in the ocean?

There are always people looking for a hand-out prepared to argue that the cost to the taxpayer is "just a drop in the ocean". What's $100 million in a budget of $70 billion?

Come on Bill. Stop being so tight. Think of the public good.

Actually, it isn't a drop in the ocean. It's a drop in a shot glass.

100 million: 70 billion represents 1:700

There are 12 drops per ml or 700 drops per 58 ml.

(Without much forethought I expected this exercise would reveal a large bucket or bottle. Just shows the power of idiom.)

What happened to Tapu Misa?

I've only just noticed that long-time NZ Herald columnist Tapu Misa hasn't produced anything since February 2013. Is she gone burger or just on leave?

Swedes reject Save the Children claim about child poverty in their country

In 2011 Save the Children put out a report claiming 250,000 Swedish children were living in poverty. But some Swedes didn't accept the claim. Early this year a TV research team investigated:

According to charity organizations, Save the Children, there are a quarter million poor children in Sweden. But when the Swedish television made an investigation into such claims, it turned out that child poverty in Sweden conducted by these organization, tend to be based on issues that are not considered a necessity for child welfare in a typical Swedish environment. Therefore, the picture presented by the Swedish television research give a different picture.

Another report says the ensuing TV programme has prompted the three largest child organisations to abandon their use of the term "child poverty".

The organization Bris, which also started using the term in 2011, has now decided to abandon the term “child poverty” for Swedish children and replace it with "social and economic vulnerability".

Also Save the Children, who first launched the term in 2011, has admitted that it gave a misleading portrayal of the situation and has since abandoned the campaign.

I wish NZ media would be a little less compliant when international and domestic advocacy groups make claims about child poverty in NZ.