Benefit sanctions reduce by 36 percent

A thirty six percent reduction in benefit sanctions between the September 2017 and 2018 quarters.

And a 7.4% rise in Jobseeker numbers.

My comment in the Taxpayer's Union recent report into benefit sanctions:

Obligations are a reality in the workplace, in schools and in our relationships. Why wouldn’t they be part of the benefit system? Far from being unfair to beneficiaries they ensure integrity and a level playing field for all who have dealings with Work and Income. Beneficiary advocates should support - rather than oppose - obligations because they build public confidence in the benefit system, lift empathy and regard for those who rely on it, and willingness to pay for it. Most New Zealanders believe in a social safety net but also want to trust that it is not being abused.

Sometimes we change our minds

Moral standards in politics

It's odd. I've been around politicians. I know they can be coarse of language, and that they try to bend rules within legal bounds.

Why then am I surprised, even shocked by Simon Bridges comportment?

Simon toured NZ telling us what a wholesome family man he is. Ironically the tour's expenses began (reportedly) this vendetta. (Jamie Lee Ross is well beyond the pale and not the focus of my thoughts.)

This now is his biggest problem.

The persona he was at pains to portray is at odds with the man who we now know casually and crassly passes judgement on those who have stood by him.

There is just something missing in him.He's a sham.

Breaking: MSD won't publish latest child poverty rate due to "uncertainty" and "lack of confidence" in data

Big news not reported in mainstream yet.

From the latest Household Incomes Report, (Headline findings), the source of official statistics for child poverty:

• The 2018 reports do not publish low-income and material hardship rates for children for 2016 and 2017:
o Last year’s reports noted that several of the key rates for children for 2016 were surprisingly low compared with the relatively flat stable trend for the previous three years and warned against reaching any definitive conclusions on the short-run trends using the 2016 figures. The 2017 figures are much the same as the 2016 figures. There are no known factors in the economy, the housing market or policy change that can explain the falls to 2016 and 2017. While sampling error can account for some of the difference, considerable uncertainty remains.
o Stats NZ is scheduled to report on these statistics for children in their new Child Poverty Report in early 2019, using more up to date survey information, supplemented with administrative data.
o MSD has therefore decided to take a pause on reporting these rates for children in the 2018 reports. Stats NZ supports this cautious approach. 

You can read the Minister's briefing for detailed explanation which essentially blames sampling and non-sampling error. This sums it up:

"...the 2016 and 2017 samples may have some sample bias away
from poorer households with children. As noted above (para 17), one way that sample bias can occur is through non-responders being different from the responders in important ways that are not addressed by standard weighting procedures. If, for example, it proves more difficult to get responses from households with low incomes or high material hardship than it does to get responses from better off households, then the sample is likely to be biased and the bottom end will likely look better off than expected. The investigation to date is not conclusive on this, and does not explain why it suddenly appeared, but it does point to something unusual happening with the samples."

To not publish their data is quite extraordinary though labelled a temporary measure:

44 We have briefed the following parties on the decision to not publish low-income and
hardship rates for children, and the rationale for that decision: your office, DPMC, the Child Poverty Unit, the Prime Minister’s Office, the Minister of Finance’s Office and the
Treasury.
45 The relevant staff at MSD and Stats NZ have also been briefed.

Looks like the media has missed this. As per usual the report was put on the MSD site Friday.

Here's the big deal about this.

If the data can't be relied upon for whatever reason what is the point of the Prime Minister's Child Poverty Reduction Bill? Her self-proclaimed raison d'etre.

Sepuloni says:

This year’s report does not include low-income and material hardship figures for children in 2016 and 2017 because of sizeable changes in levels that officials cannot fully explain, even when the relatively small sample size (3500) is taken into account. More information can be found here
From next year, the Incomes Report will use improved data from Stats NZ. From 2020, it will provide greater precision by drawing on a sample of 20,000 households.

You could draw on 100,000 but if the non-responders are disproportionately poor the results will be skewed. 

Taxpayer's Union defends benefit sanctions

The push is on to make getting a benefit and staying on it much easier. That's Labour's idea of 'compassion'. Sir Apirana Ngata would have termed it 'cruelty'.

The Taxpayer's Union released a new report by Jim Rose on Monday this week.

The author takes a straightforward yet quirky and highly readable approach to the subject.

Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director Jordan Williams says, “Beneficiary advocates have good intentions, but their prescriptions – removing requirements to seek work and removing sanctions – are a social and moral failure. The Green Party’s policy to make life on a benefit will simply encourage a culture of welfare dependency and fraud.”
“Rates of welfare fraud are many times higher than most New Zealanders would expect or find acceptable under the current system. The report canvasses the evidence that easing up on sanctions and obligations for beneficiaries would dramatically increase fraud and dependency. That means driving up the cost of the welfare system for taxpayers and leaving less room in the Budget for other forms of social spending.”

More

Explaining the high prison population

The little-known Practice:The New Zealand Corrections Journal, included an interesting but unreported article in its July edition. Below are brief excerpts and a couple of the graphs:

The findings of this paper indicate that New Zealand’s prison population is unusually skewed in terms of sexual and violent offenders...The reasons for this are beyond the scope of this paper and require further research. However, one reason might be that the majority (63%) of sexual offenders in New Zealand prisons are serving sentences greater than five years.

Illustrating the opening observation the next graph shows has much greater proportionally sentencing for  sexual offending is in New Zealand

Given such a high proportion of sexual offenders are in New Zealand prisons, and the fact that they are mostly serving very long sentences, two hypotheses present: that similar offenders in other jurisdictions spend less time in prison, and/or New Zealand has larger numbers of these offenders entering prison....With a high prison population rate, it is clear that some features of crime and justice in New Zealand are problematic. One of these areas is the disproportionate number of people in prison for interpersonal violence. Understanding what drives this requires more research. It may be due to the nature of our judicial settings, it could mean there is a concerted effort to tackle normally under-reported violence, or it may be as a result of some feature of the nature of crime in New Zealand.

Personally I believe our judiciary has clamped down hard on sexual offending and interpersonal  violence (often overlapping or indistinguishable occurrences) because of political ideology (including tough- on- crime and feminist influence - right and left). This may or may not be an over-reaction. Each case has its own characteristics. But just as sure as there are victims on the outside there are some victims on the inside.

The metamorphosis of social security

The metamorphosis of social security and the growth of expectations and entitlement began early...

 ...and continues

How does MSD head get his numbers so wrong?

With the establishment of a new Ministry for Housing and Urban Development the head of MSD is reiterating his department is the first port of call for those needing housing assistance:

"At the Ministry of Social Development we will still provide services such as covering emergency housing costs, providing access to transitional housing, and offering financial assistance such as the accommodation supplement.
"Last year we provided approximately $900 million in rental subsidies for those in need."

Last year MSD spent $1.942 billion on the accommodation supplement and income related rents.

That's a minimum figure for total subsidies. There are other expenses like putting people up in motels ie emergency housing provision.

What is he talking about?

It's welfare Jim, but not as we know it

Let's be clear. There is no need for active nastiness and degradation in the welfare system. Just an even-handed application of the rules. The  benefit system - an alternative source of income to work - features rules, obligations and consequences for failure to meet them just like the workplace.

But the Greens are kicking off their obligation-free welfare campaign today. They want an open slather welfare system.

The party's own policy includes increases to benefits - particularly for low-income parents with children - and removing all of the financial penalties and sanctions currently in place for failing drug tests, not showing up for appointments, or not applying for jobs.

They call it a benefit system governed by compassion.

For who?

The children of beneficiaries whose parents are being enticed into self-destructive behaviours that currently result in sanctions?

Those working in physically hard jobs, labouring long hours and constantly required to meet demands of their bosses, who are constantly required to meet the demands of ever increasing health and safety bureaucracy? The neighbours of the beneficiaries who do as they please daily?

Victims of the crimes that will no longer risk loss of a benefit?

WINZ case workers who will be expected to dish out benefits and other grants to obvious malingerers?

Genuine users of a system that will engender far more reproach from the general public than in the past?

That's compassion?

The voters are amenable to some ideas. Sometimes they can be persuaded in time. Especially if they actually make sense.

This one? Not a show.

PM selective on the world stage

According to Scoop:

The Office of the Children’s Commissioner received global recognition when Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern spoke about the Office’s work in her speech to the 9th Annual Social Good Summit in New York earlier this week.
As keynote speaker for the summit, hosted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Prime Minister highlighted the importance of viewing the government’s work “through the lens of children”.
“I was struck by the work of our Children’s Commissioner recently,” Prime Minister Ardern said in her speech....
“It was heart breaking for me to read the comments from children, who even at a young age were choosing not to ask their parents whether they could learn a musical instrument or join a sports team because they knew the cost would be too much."

Children's Commissioner research also found that,

"...many young people explained that because they had grown up in gangs with their natural family or whanau, if they wanted to leave this lifestyle behind this would mean leaving behind their families...Many young people saw gangs as a way of being accepted, a possibility of good times and of not having to live in poverty." [my emphasis]

How does that stack up? Gangs are the best way out of poverty? Join a gang if you want to play the cello? NZ doesn't support the war on drugs because the status quo is putting money into families that need it?

Most recently Jacinda's best shot at 'making NZ the best place in the world for children to grow up in'   - her globally expressed goal - is greater redistribution of tax into beneficiary families, who just happen to include gang families augmenting their illicit income with welfare.

Lack of money is not the problem. That's a misdiagnosis. It is not the cause of New Zealand's internationally high levels of child abuse, neglect, youth suicide and imprisonment.

The poorest families will scrimp and save to give their children opportunities. Immigrants from third world countries come here specifically to ensure their children will have educational opportunities and brighter futures despite their own inability to earn more than very modest incomes. And they succeed.

They don't fail their children because they are constantly told they have an excuse: that they are poor because someone else is rich.

Ardern does the country no favours internationally or domestically constantly talking up child poverty. Again, it's a misdiagnosis of what it actually severely hampering the outcomes of around 5 percent of NZ children.

"The blame must stop if we're to break the cycle of family violence"

It's a shame Maanki cannot put her full name to her writing. Nevertheless, that does not detract from the compelling nature of the words. In amidst so much media dribble and dross of late, this is a gem:

OPINION: I am Māori. Tuhinga o mua Ngāti Hāmua a Te Hika a Pāpāuma. Ko taku iwi Ngāti Kahungunua a Rangitāne.

I am Scottish, I am English, I am a New Zealander. I am not defined by the colour of my skin.

I am a victim.

I did not choose to be a victim.

I am a victim of my father's hand. My father was brought up on the Pahiatua Marae. His mother was young, she became a victim of a kaumatua's violence. He was conceived by violence, a tamaiti (child) of rape. The rapist was a family member.

My father was taken from his mother, away from his whānau, his iwi and his marae after his father was incarcerated. He went on to live in state care until a foster family was found. My father was taught violence by the people who were supposed to protect and nurture him. Anger followed him, the violence forever ingrained in his heart. He knew right from wrong, he had a choice. He did not stop the cycle of abuse, and he punished me for the actions of his past.

I was a child when it started, an adult when it stopped. Like his father, he was incarcerated for crimes of child abuse, violence and rape. I did not choose to be a victim, but I chose not to harm others. I broke the ongoing cycle of generational abuse. The cycle of abuse that was carried through three generations of Māori stopped with me.

"Take care of our children. Take care of what they hear, take care of what they feel. For how the children grow, so will be the shape of Aotearoa." Dame Whina Cooper. Mohio ana ahau ko wai ahau, e mohio ana ahau ki te wahi e tu ana ahau. Me puta te huringa – I know who I am, I know where I stand. Change must happen.

At the recent Justice Summit in Wellington,  Cabinet minister Kelvin Davis shared these words: "As Māori we need to take care of our own, rather than closing our doors. We need to face up to and free ourselves from the violence that many of our people, our whānau, struggle with."

If we want to see fewer Māori in prison, our whānau broken apart because dad is in prison and mum is now in rangi (heaven), we must free ourselves and our whānau from the increasing level of domestic violence and abuse in our homes. The drugs must stop, the high level of drinking and violence among our own must be gone.

How many of our fathers are incarcerated, because their fathers taught them the only way to deal with anger was violence, to punch their way through a situation. How many of our whānau have lost a mother, a child, a brother from our people's own hand.

The blame needs to stop. It is not the police, the system, the state, the Government, the justice system or even the Pākehā who made a man beat his wife to death, to rape an innocent stranger, to murder their own child or to sexually abuse a daughter or son.

No, it was a choice, a choice made by a perpetrator. Māori make  up 51 per cent of the male prison population, and 60 per cent of the female muster.

No child asks to be harmed, nor to watch their dads beating their mums. If we were all true to our Māori traditions, our tikanga respecting the mothers of our children, our whānau, our honour, keeping our whānau safe would be paramount. Māori need to take an honest inward look at their own ongoing behaviours first. Our children need to have the chance to grow up safe, educated and free from violence.

Davis went on to say: "We need to do something together to create a different future for Māori and for their whānau."

This cycle needs to stop. The men, the fathers, the grandfathers, the elders in prison who have abused their own need to stand up, take ownership and responsibility and say "Enough". No more blaming everybody and everything for the crimes offenders have chosen to commit.

Prison is a punishment for those who have committed crimes; prison is not based on the colour of your skin. If you are sent to prison it is because you committed a crime, a choice made only by you.

To see a future with fewer Māori men and Māori women in prison will take more than talks and hui. It starts with Māori, rethinking and reteaching the respect, the whakaute, to our children and to one another. It will be a hard, long road but one that will benefit out future generations, to help our tamariki grow not as offenders, but strong, happy iwi that will have a positive influence on future generations to come.

Hapaitia tea ra tika pumua ai te rangatiratanga mo nga uri whakatipu – Foster the pathway of knowledge and strength, independence and growth for future generations.

* Maanki is a victim advocate.

 - The Dominion Post

Dear Editor

At last. Someone who gets it. Victim's advocate, Maanki (Blame must stop if we're to break family violence cycle, DomPost September 26) understands that offenders have to own their offending to stop their behaviour. Blaming extraneous forces for personal violence prevents this from happening. Sentencing discounts for cultural background conflict with this reality. Whether the offender is Maori or non-Maori, only they can decide to change. Making excuses for why people offend only makes it easier for them to continue.

Benefits are too low?

The Child Poverty Action Group said today that core benefits need to rise by 20 percent (doubtlessly timed to guilt-trip JA telling America she wants NZ to be the best place in the world to raise children.)

Below are two slides from my recent presentation to the 2018 ACT conference. I was at pains to point out that these are not 'apples with apples' comparisons but intended to provide context for the claim that benefits are too low.

NB. The second slide is taken from Statistics NZ. In Auckland the median rises to $1,010 weekly.

I use these slides not to argue that benefits should be cut but to explain why single parents default to and get trapped on them, along with their children.

Discounting sentences

Judges can discount a prison sentence due to "Maori cultural background and deprivation". In my paper regarding Imprisonment and Family Structure I briefly touched on the possibility (and evidence of) bias working against Maori in the justice system. I do not reject the notion. But this is clearly bias working for Maori. In the case outlined in today's DomPost a Maori female stabbed her partner multiple times. She received a 30% discount on her sentence for cultural reasons. The Crown appealed because it considered the discount too large.

The High Court ruled against the appeal.

"The judge [Justice Whata] noted the disproportionate number of Maori imprisoned and said the effects of colonisation were well-documented."

So it's official. This is what we tell Maori criminals. That at least some part of the blame for their offending is actually the fault of Pakeha ancestors. Who by the way are also their own ancestors.

Here's a thought. The quickest way to reduce the prison population would be to discount sentences up to 100% due to cultural background. Don't laugh. Nothing can be ruled out in this creeping, twisted travesty of apologism.

Jacinda's latest speech

I could find nothing to say about it.

But ACT has and it's worth repeating:

What Did She Say?
Ardern wants a growing economy that is working for all of us, wellbeing for New Zealanders and their families, and a country we can be proud of....

How to Tell if a Policy is Absurd
If the opposite of a policy sounds absurd, then the policy is absurd. Who would campaign for a shrinking economy that doesn’t work, misery for New Zealanders and their families, and a country we should be ashamed of on the global stage? The opposite of ACT’s policies are more state control in education, heavier handed regulation of the economy, higher levels of taxation and Government expenditure, and more Government ownership. All inferior opposites of ACT’s actual policies, but not absurd.

"Unobtainable dream"

"There was a time, in the not-so distant past, when housing was affordable and buying a house to raise your family was not the unobtainable dream it is today."

Source for both.

Is the text really an objective reflection of the facts?

The increase through the 1970s and 80s was significantly driven by State Advance loans and the ability to capitalise on Family Benefit. That particularly helped Maori and Pacific families with typically more children. But the boon for large families has also turned into a negative factor in that one family home cannot be passed to 6 or 7 children nor shared inherited wealth stretch to affording home ownership.

But a 10% fall in home ownership over thirty years is not an irretrievable disaster. Neither is it unique to NZ. The UK, the US, and Australia all have similar current rates and all have fallen over the past decades.

WINZ: People believe what they want to

“The Ministry … gets most aspects of service right, for most clients, most of the time. Most clients we spoke with said that good case managers had made a real difference to their lives. When something goes wrong, the Ministry provides clients with good opportunities to seek redress, and the Ministry works well with those who advocate on behalf of clients.”
                        Office of the Auditor General, December 2014

April 2018, MSD Minister, Carmel Sepuloni says the culture at Work and Income is “toxic”:

“The culture under National was to make it as difficult as possible for people to be able to access what they were entitled to at Work and Income, and now our job is to turn that around.”
                              Carmel Sepuloni, Newshub, April 28, 2018

Clearly they can't both be right. 

But people will believe the one they want to. Like this guy writing in today's NZ Herald about what NZ would be like if National had won the election:

 "Beneficiaries would continue to have it pretty bad, with tough sanctions remaining and a mentality from WINZ to cut benefits where possible."

He has ignored that National increased benefits for those with children.

According to MSD  “Exit rates for clients without children are outpacing those for clients with children...the gap is continuing to widen over time . This correlates with changes in benefit policy that increased income for clients with children.” People staying on a benefit when unskilled work is plentiful doesn't point to having it "pretty bad".

He has also ignored that sanctions are entirely avoidable.

People believe what they want to and I am no exception, though I cast around for various evidence and weigh it up. The truth, at an individual level anyway, usually lies somewhere between two extremes.

Helen Clark lives in another world

Source: 

"Men who hit women are really expressing a view, a feeling, that women are inferior to them, and they can do whatever they want," Ms Clark said.

What, then, are men who hit men feeling?

What are men who hit women in self-defense feeling?

Does she understand that outward behaviour is often a culmination of inward anger?

Does she have any idea what Alan Duff's theory of self-hatred means?

Has she any idea about men who are at their lowest ebb ever? Or, in her world, can males, by virtue of being males, never reach the lowest ebb?

I wish she would go away.

Top ten public housing areas

Below are the top ten areas for public housing in New Zealand. I have graphed the area followed by the region it lies in. The highest public housing area is Christchurch City but that is mainly because it holds most of the region's - Canterbury - share within the city area. The Auckland region, conversely, has over 30,000 leases but they are spread over many areas. What surprised me was that Lower Hutt City has the 4th largest number in the country.

There are 67,228 current leases and the government plans to add a further 6,400 by June 2022.

They'll need them the way they are pissing landlords off.

Driver licensing programmes show positive results

Having just reflected on the cost of reviewing welfare and whanau ora at $2.9 million, here's a better use for that money. Driver licensing programmes:

Just released research shows that these programmes are having a positive effect:

_____________________________________________________________

Findings

We compared a group of driver licensing programme participants who completed the programme in 2014 and 2015 with a similar group in the beneficiary population. We found that, over 18 months:

- 30 percent of participants held a full licence compared with 17 percent of the comparison group
participants spent an average of 20 additional days in employment (while off benefit), relative to the comparison group

- participants earned an average of $3,000 more from employment, relative to the comparison group
participants did not spend more time being independent on welfare assistance, suggesting participants continued to receive some form of income assistance while participating in the programme

- while having a driver licence may help people access education, there was no impact on people’s education outcomes

- there was no observed difference in the rate of offending or time spent in the Department of Corrections’ system between the two groups.

- While there is a correlation between participating in a programme and these outcomes, we cannot draw a conclusive direct causal effect from this analysis. There will be other factors, including participant’s individual motivation, which could impact their outcomes.

We continue to fund driver licensing programmes for people on a benefit. This evaluation confirms that there are likely employment and income benefits for people who complete the programmes.

_____________________________________________________________

A cost/benefit analysis may find these programmes wanting, but their outcomes are still more worthy than redundant reviews.

The numbers going through them could be quadrupled or more.

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.