Leaving a benefit lifts income but not life satisfaction

Which is probably a key finding for explaining long-term benefit dependency.

From a sample of 423 people, incomes and the life satisfaction ratings are plotted in the 150 days before and after leaving a benefit:

Source

What the heck is going on at WINZ?

What the heck is going on with WINZ?

According to advice given to the Welfare Expert Advisory Group in February 2019:

Source

Obviously here will be a time lag between writing the statement and publication but we can only assume that the percentage may now be as low as 10%??

Unbelievable.

Hood Aerodrome not

Have been following the horrible news today of  two light aircraft colliding just south of Hood Aerodrome in Masterton. I was flying there at the club a couple of years back and thinking one of the planes is the one I flew. It's not looking good. Tragic for the families.

But whoever put up the following photo is clueless. Someone who has never been south of Auckland perhaps:

Update: Corrected now

Outrageous lie from Tariana Turia

Dame Tariana Turia was interviewed by Ryan Bridge on Magic TalK yesterday evening regarding the removal of Maori children by Oranga Tamariki. Her words:

Dame Tariana calls this "overkill", and disputes Te Puni Kōkiri (the Ministry of Māori Development)'s statistics that Māori children are six times more likely to die from abuse and neglect than non-Māori."The stats aren't telling us that," she says. "In the last few years since 1993, we have had 83 non-Māori children killed, we have had 17 Māori children die, so the fact of it is this is an overkill when it comes to Māori families. Now if you don't want to call it racism, you can call it what you like."

Source

Source

Slightly muddied by the fact that the first set represent children under 15 and the second set, children under 19, combined they show that a total of 105 children (or youth) lost their lives in CAN (Child Abuse or Neglect) deaths over the 14 year period and 51 percent were Maori.

I take no pleasure in these stats but Turia needs pulling up.

How do lies like this happen?

Last week it was reported locally that a Dutch teenager was assisted to end her life. This was grasped by the end of life bill opponents in this country. I heard a little of the discussion on Magic Talk and turned it off tired of hearing people who want to run my life when I am quite happy to leave them be.

As it happens the report was incorrect. The girl died because she refused to eat and drink. Not uncommon for anorexics. She had been rejected from an end of life medical centre.

A little more searching answers my own question (and I've updated my original link). It appears a suspect source promulgated the original news story.

"According to multiple sources at British national newspapers, news outlets were alerted to the story by the newswire Central European News, which specialises in supplying unusual and quirky foreign stories to English-language news outlets.

CEN, which has previously been accused of providing unreliable information, did not immediately return a request for comment."

"Strong economies create wellbeing, not government"

From a plethora of commentary on the well-being budget this is my pick. The author, Bruce Cotterill, is unknown to me but that doesn't matter.


"The Wellbeing Budget left me uninspired and disappointed.

Don't get me wrong. There have been big allowances made for improving mental health services, which are long overdue. A substantial investment into the hospitals of our growing population is a good thing too.

It's just that when it comes to government services, and health in particular, I'm not convinced that much of the new money will get to the patients, and the others that need it.

To me, critical to well-being is a society where people are able to have aspirations and the education to support those goals.

It also means economic growth powered by business and industry that's supported by global demand for the goods and services we produce.

When business is growing and people are capable, we get a society that looks after itself.

Against that background, the trouble with the budget announcements is that we just parked another raft of expensive ambulances at the bottom of the cliff.

In other words, while I don't want to diminish the real needs in terms of mental health for example, the budget focus seeks to help those who have developed mental health problems, rather than stopping those problems from occurring.

Firstly, governments throwing a lot of money around is a inefficient way to get things done.

The trouble with most of this spending is that a lot of it will be chewed up with establishment costs and bureaucracy.

By the time they set up a couple of new departments within various ministries, design a new logo and letterhead, lease some offices and refit them, and establish the ministerial reporting lines, there could be little left for those who need the help.

What if we put some funding into ambulances at the top of the cliff?

We can fix a lot what's wrong, or even stop some mental health issues from occurring in the first place, by building an economy that is aspirational and growth-minded.

The foundation of doing so is education.

But education is a mess. It's been under-invested for a long time and it's starting to show. Principals are protesting at Government induced curriculum changes. Teachers are striking aggressively for higher pay.

Uninformed students who have been brainwashed by the liberal left are striking too for causes that many don't understand.

Imagine a society where all our kids – not just the privileged few – left our schools informed, educated and aspirational. And then imagine if those aspirations were met by a business community with equally passionate ambitions, and with a need to take on the educated talent on offer.

I spoke to someone who works close to the mental health sector.

She said that "too many kids leave school, or one of the myriad of underperforming tertiary skills development programmes, without the prospect of work".

Many can't get a job. Those that can, often only get something part-time, usually in retail or fast food, with no real prospects.

The trouble with those employers is they only call you when they need you. So, these kids sit around not knowing whether they will be required or not.

Often, they're not, and a feeling of unworthiness can quickly creep in.

Idle minds turn their attention to other pursuits, booze and drugs included. You can see where mental health difficulties can start.

If those kids have somewhere to go, a place that needs the skills and ideas they have developed, they will feel worthy indeed.

Our economy suffers from having a plethora of businesses doing low value stuff at a low level of productivity.

We continue to export logs with the bark on while we import kitset timber furniture or modular houses.

If you have the luxury of owning a house, and you need new window frames, just ask why they will take 12 weeks to be delivered.

It's because they're made overseas. And this is a country that exports timber. Lots of it. How stupid is this?

This need to build a productive economy is where governments, and the Budgets they so willingly trumpet, should start, but often fail.

Let's get education working. Build kids up. Make them believe in goals and aspiration. Feed them accurate information on the state of the world and give them the skills to participate in that world. Enable them to chase and achieve their dreams.

And then let's support and build a business community that can take on those youngsters, give them a career, encourage their greatness and celebrate what they can achieve.

Wellbeing doesn't happen because governments throw money at underprivileged minorities. Wellbeing happens when you create a society and an economy that enables people to help themselves."

Source

Bruce Cotterill is a company director and advisor to business leaders. He is the author of the book, "The Best Leaders Don't Shout". www.brucecotterill.com

"Sign of hopelessness"

This was in yesterday's DomPost. Most columns these days I scan or lose interest in rapidly. I'm not sure if that's a fault with me or the writers. Maybe a bit of both. But this one gripped me; made me profoundly sad. It's written by court reporter Marty Sharpe whose writing has touched a chord with me before.

No more Super for non-qualifying spouses

Below is a post I wrote in 2015:

Most people think you have to be 65 to qualify for NZ Super. But there is a group of individuals who receive Super as 'non-qualified' recipients. A minority are over 65 and don't meet necessary residency qualifications but almost 12,000 are under sixty-five; 3,689 are under 60.

Generally the male turns 65 and can reject the single rate ($345.72 net weekly) for two married rates (2 x $273.82 net weekly or $547.64 combined). The decision to include or exclude  lies with the Superannuitant. The effect is the government has to pay 58% more.

An OIA supplied the numbers at December 2014:




88 percent of non-qualifying spouses are female.

Here's the ethnicity breakdown:





It appears only partners in marriage or civil unions can receive the 'non-qualified' payment. That's borne out by the ethnicity breakdown. Maori have a  low marriage rate.

At the same date there were 650,636 Superannuitants aged 65 and over.  So just under 2 percent have a non-qualified spouse.

Annual payments to non-qualified spouses amount to $133 million.

Now that mightn't be a big deal against the total Super bill, but significant anomalies are occurring.

1/ For the purposes of an unemployment or sickness benefit, the law similarly recognises marriages and civil unions. However it also recognises de facto relationships. How long before under 65 year-old de facto partners of Superannuitants start pushing for Super payments?


 2/ In the case of unemployment or disability, the rate for two partners is exactly half of the single rate. For non-qualifying partners of Superannuitants the payment is 79 percent of the single rate. How long before partners of unemployed or disabled beneficiaries under 65 start challenging on the basis of discrimination? 

Beneficiary advocates are notoriously active so it surprises me that this hasn't already become an issue.

Perhaps most people aren't aware that under 65s can collect Super via their 65 or older husband (or more unusually, wife)?

Would appreciate hearing from readers whether they were aware of this. A simple 'yes' or 'no' would be fine.

Yesterday the government announced:

From 1 July 2020, the Government is closing the non-qualified partner provision, and removing the direct deduction of a government-administered overseas pension received by a superannuitant’s partner from that superannuitant’s NZ Super or the Veteran’s Pension...
The changes reflect society today. In most households both partners work. There is no longer a ‘principal breadwinner’ whose retirement marks the retirement of both partners.

Paying for three Labour bribes

(Left click to enlarge)

Source

Labour's universal bribes - Winter Energy and Best Start - account for almost $1 billion by 2023

Family Tax Credit ballooned by 39% in 2019 due to Families Package

Paid Parental Leave  reaches $500m in 2023 extending from 14 to 18 weeks initially and shooting up to 26 weeks in 2020

(All dependent on Labour winning next election of course though who would put money on National abolishing the bribes?)

The vilification of landlords

Yet another story in stuff about the woeful circumstances of a tenant because of the implied greed of landlords. As one person comments these "endless articles blaming landlords"  don't help anyone. Landlords are not raking it in.

 "As shown in Figure 1.3 and Appendix Table 3 rental investment yields have fallen gradually from 6% to 7% in 1997 to 3.5% to 5% in 2017. Such rates of return are now below mortgage interest rates and are close to low-risk deposit rates."

The 2018/19 yields will fall even lower as the current government imposes greater regulation and significant increased costs. Insurance and rates only go up.Yields at this level suggest that rents are not unfairly or unreasonably high. In fact they are too low. I would suggest that at least some landlords are holding rents down to keep good tenants.

Source

Marilyn Waring was bullied and became one

Marilyn Waring keeps popping up on the back of her new book.

I was speaking at a conference, my topic being the US Welfare Reforms and what NZ could learn from them. Just a couple of minutes into my presentation Marilyn Waring put her hand up. I had to stop. She said, "This isn't working for me." I can't remember how I responded. Probably just barreled on. Later she had another go and I remember now what it was about.

Here's a post I wrote in 2013.

Well. 

After years of trying to tell people that sole parents spend many, many years on benefit I see MSD has just released a statement containing this:

"...sole parents spend an average 15.8 years on benefit with a lifetime cost of $234,000."

I have repeatedly talked about Professor Bob Gregory's Australian research which found sole parents spend an average of 12 years on welfare not including benefits they may move to when they no longer had dependent children.

People have derided me for it in public forums. For instance Marilyn Waring sneeringly telling an audience I had included time spent on Super. Time and again politicians, welfare advocates, bloggers etc have sought to convince the population that the average time spent on the DPB is, most commonly, only about 3 years. They look at the available data but don't understand it.

Waring was a Professor of Public Policy at the time. Essentially it was her way or the highway and she plenty of fellow travellers. Their strategy then was to shut down by discrediting what they didn't like. And it continues today. My opposition to the DPB would possibly be classified as hate speech by some.

But I shake my head when I hear Marilyn Waring talking about the bullying she took. She knew how to dish it out.

David Seymour's response to Newshub...

...which they refused to publish. If you haven't already seen it at Kiwiblog here it is:

David Seymour on free speech

“Let it be known, the public beating has not gone out of fashion.” So goes the quote from the movie Thank You for Smoking, as politicians attack the wildly unpopular protagonist, a tobacco lobbyist.

I’ve found those words to be true over the past week and it has strengthened my belief in the importance of freedom of expression.

To recap, I was asked about Green MP Golriz Ghahraman’s stance on free speech. In her own words “it is vital that the public is involved in a conversation about what speech meets the threshold for being regulated, and what mix of enforcement tools should be used.”

I believe that such an idea, and by extension politicians who promote it, is a danger to our free society. When asked about Ghahraman’s position, in the middle of a 15-minute radio interview, I responded that I thought she was a ‘menace to freedom.’

What has followed has been extraordinary. It has been a lesson in how beat-ups and witch-hunts occur, and why it’s so important that we retain laws that allow us to express ourselves freely. By Tuesday afternoon, I was being asked by media if I was responsible for Ghahraman requiring a security detail. It was clearly a rhetorical question.

Politicians, journalists and other establishment figures have lined up to denounce my comment.

National’s position is that being nice to people who threaten free speech is more important than defending freedom itself. The Greens have said it’s my fault that a few nutcases are threatening an MP. The Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians wrote, asking me to apologise for my comment. I should have known it was not a sincere gesture because the letter was duly released to the media who happily published it with barely a response from me. Other women MPs told me they’d known nothing about it. Surprisingly, Trevor Mallard went on TV and said I was a bully. The Speaker is supposed to be Parliament’s neutral referee.

A number of journalists have attacked me. The media should be the loudest cheerleaders for freedom of expression. Their job relies on freedom of expression, and freedom and democracy rely on the media doing their job.

Were it not for ACT, Parliament would be sleepwalking towards tighter speech laws. The media wouldn’t bat an eyelid. Only a few brave academics might raise their heads above the parapet.

There is something not right about this situation. If my comment endangered Ghahraman, then the response of media and politicians has multiplied its airplay exponentially. That response has been driven by the very people accusing me of endangering Ghahraman.

Because I do not think anyone should be endangered for engaging in political debate, I am reluctant to respond any further, but it’s difficult when the very people who say they’re concerned are using the situation to attack me politically. After all, the media cited a ‘source,’ then Ghahraman herself, when reporting the new security arrangements and attributing them to me.

My detractors believe that expressing a genuinely held view on an important issue makes me responsible for threats of violence. They are wrong. My comments do not come close to giving me such responsibility. And the current law is easily on my side.

This belief absolves the real perpetrators – those making the threats – of responsibility. It also introduces the worrying implication that some MPs are unable to fully participate or be criticised because there are violent threats. It’s a belief that allows violent thugs to set the agenda.

The response to my comment proves we cannot trust government to enforce hate speech laws. Imagine if the state had even greater powers to punish speech at its disposal. Some state agency would now be using that power to investigate and punish a sitting MP’s genuinely-held views.

Hate speech laws turn debate into a popularity contest where the winners get to silence views they don’t like by using the power of the state. Tighter restrictions on speech can only mean giving some agency the power to punish people for saying things that do not incite harm but are merely offensive or distasteful. In other words, what you can think is determined by what is popular.

ACT will continue to defend the critical principle that nobody should ever be punished by the power of the state on the basis of opinion.

State house waiting list more than doubles in three years

When people apply for social housing or to move to another social housing property they go on the Social Housing Register. June quarter 2018 statistics have just been released. Official reasons for the increase are listed below.

The waiting list has more than doubled in 3 years.

The increase in demand can be contributed to a number of factors:
• Public awareness of support available through increased media and stakeholder engagement activities,
• Increasing financial barrier and the impact of aging have meant that exit rates from public housing have been falling steadily,
• Tenancy Reviews have not yet resumed and the number of tenancies ending influences the number of available public houses

Translated as, renting a state house is much cheaper than renting a private sector property so more people are staying put and nobody is compelling them to move on.

Big jump in working-age welfare spending

"The grey columns show historical spending, and the dark blue columns show forecast spending. Since 2002 working-age welfare spending (including main benefits, Working for Families tax credits, and supplementary and hardship assistance) has increased in dollar terms. Part of the increases after 2005 can be attributed to the introduction of Working for Families, and from 2008 to 2010 the impact of the Global Financial Crisis (and domestic economic downturn) can be seen to have increased pending (as unemployment rose).
Between 2010 and 2016 overall welfare spending fell slightly, reflecting the economic recovery and potentially the impacts of welfare reforms, and changes to Working for Families that kept spending and recipient numbers relatively flat. The increased welfare spending forecast from 2018 onwards is largely the result of the Families Package changes (increases to the FTC, AS, OB/UCB and FCA and the introduction of WEP and BSTC)."

The above is from one of the background papers provided to the Welfare Expert Advisory Group.

(WEP = Winter Energy Payment and BSTC = Best Start Tax Credit. Yes, you can receive a tax credit without actually ever paying any tax).

NB Hats off to whoever wrote that background paper. Simple, concise and thorough.

One in 12 doctors publicly say no to assisted suicide

A full page ad in today's DomPost (so possibly in other major dailies) features the names of 1,000 doctors who say no to assisted suicide. To be fair, here is their message.

For context there are 12,000 practising registered doctors in New Zealand.

50 years of fighting family violence

1970s Feminists started to pressure govt to recognise domestic violence as a public concern - not private. The first Women's refuges were established. Their collective body started to seek legislation, research and greater funding for the protection of women which the Social Welfare dept partially provided.
1981 Committee on Gangs - subsidies for rehab for a range of 'difficulties'
1982 Domestic Protection Act introduced non molestation orders. Emphasis still on private resolution and counselling. Low police priority
1983 subsidized emergency housing for street kids.
1985 new funding for those working with violent men on anger management and alcohol treatment; and to victims
1987 Ministerial Committee of Inquiry into Violence recommends domestic violence be treated as a crime. Police adopted a pro-arrest  Domestic Dispute Policy
1991 Hamilton Abuse Intervention Pilot Programme places family violence in the 'power and control' context rather than isolated incidents of anger and frustration. Suspected abusers arrested without complaint and compulsory re-education to address abusive behaviours
1994 Prevention of family violence identified by MSD senior staff as highest priority
1995 Domestic Violence Act definition broadened to include psychological and sexual abuse
1996 Statement of Policy on Family Violence introduced safety and protection needs of young child. Growing awareness of inter-generational violence. Breaking cycles of violence needed early intervention. Welfare to Well-being to promote the strengthening of families
1999-2002 CYF funding increase by 50%
2002 'Te Rito' a five year action plan to address family violence
2003 Care and protection Blueprint
2005 Family and Community Services FACS saw 600 separate contracts funded including family violence education, early intervention and prevention providers
2005 Budget funded 45 full-time child advocates
2006 Taskforce for Action on Family Violence allocates $11 million for nationwide 'its not ok' campaign
2007 Pathway to Partnership injection of $20.4 million to child and family service providers
2008 $446 million (for 4 years) for essential services with an initial focus on family violence and early intervention
2017 Budget extra $37.2 million for family violence and  $434.1 funding the development of the Orangi Tamariki
2019 $320 million on a package of initiatives aimed preventing family and sexual violence and breaking the cycle of violence.

So is this latest initiative aimed at a "violence-free Aotearoa New Zealand" finally going to do it?

(Summary complied largely from Tim Garlicks history of Social Developments.)

Does Winston believe the PM?

RNZ reports:

Ms Ardern said 1,000,000 people - including 300,000 children - were victims of family and sexual violence each year in New Zealand.

I expect these eye-watering statistics come from the Victims of Crime Survey which estimates the level of reports NOT made to police. Otherwise, the usual stat we hear about is the 120,000 plus call-outs to family violence incidents police make annually.

Funnily enough just last week Winston Peters was rubbishing this survey. I wonder if Winston believes the PM?

"Political Correctness is Destroying Philadelphia"

Sometimes it feels as if I am living in a world where up is down and black is white...though I don't think I can say that last bit any more.

A brief but shocking reminder of the ideology infecting the developed world, not just America. For the record I believe in 'traditional values'. That doesn't mean that I didn't also spend much of my younger life questioning and rejecting them.I still don't 'respect' authority and see nationalism as just another form of collectivism. But in time it became apparent to me why family values and acquiring a work ethic are vital. In any case, if people disagree, and they are free to, I don't expect to be persecuted for saying what I think.

Equally nihilistic is a story out of the University of Pennsylvania Law School. On Aug. 9, 2017, tenured Penn Law professor Amy Wax and University of San Diego School of Law professor Larry Alexander co-authored an opinion piece titled “Paying the price for breakdown of the country’s bourgeois culture.”
Its thesis was that the rejection of American bourgeois middle-class culture is the primary reason for most social ills in America today:
[American] culture laid out the script we all were supposed to follow: Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. Go the extra mile for your employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded, and charitable. Avoid coarse language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and crime.
Within a few weeks, a petition was signed by 4,000 people calling for Wax’s dismissal, and the dean of Penn Law, Ted Ruger, wrote an op-ed in The Daily Pennsylvanian, ostensibly about Charlottesville but really about Wax, in which he implied her views were “divisive, even noxious.”
Most significantly, he wrote, “It is important that I state my own personal view that as a scholar and educator I reject emphatically any claim that a single cultural tradition is better than all others” (referring to Wax’s position that those bourgeois values are superior values).

More

Further on the Privacy Commissioner's inquiry into MSD practice

Further to yesterday's post I've done some more reading. The following (you will have to enlarge it to read or refer to p11 here) is the model that MSD uses to investigate reports of fraud.

The ministry investigates between 2300 and 5100 reports a year. When a report is categorised as 'high risk' (which is calculated from the amount of information the person alleging fraud can supply) it is referred to the investigation team.They assess whether informing the beneficiary of the investigation would prejudice the case eg parties start colluding. If the answer is 'yes' they issue  requests for information from third parties.

MSD began to do this more frequently in 2012. Historically in 95 percent of cases beneficiaries did not directly provide the information requested within a specified time-frame.

The Privacy Commissioner is unhappy with the frequency of the bypass of seeking information from the beneficiary first. He wants it stopped, or to be precise has recommended, "MSD immediately cease its blanket application of the ‘prejudice to the maintenance of the law’ exception when issuing section 11/schedule 6 notices."

I would question the use of the term 'blanket application'. His inquiry reads:

The Ministry categorises fraud allegations as low, medium or high risk using the DST. The Ministry has said that after the practice change in 2012, only high-risk cases were deemed to come within the prejudice to the maintenance of the law exception, even though policy documents from 2012 suggest that the exception could be applied to all fraud investigations. In either case, this meant that the Ministry authorised and encouraged investigators to go straight to third parties for information using their compulsion powers, rather than approach the beneficiary first.

In a nutshell the commissioner wants beneficiaries suspected of fraud accorded more privacy.

His note to editors reads:

The Privacy Act 1993 enables agencies to collect, use and disclose information that is necessary and proportionate to their lawful requirements. The Act provides that, in general, information should be collected from an individual directly.
Section 11 of the Social Security Act 1964 provides a mechanism by which the MSD can compel information from persons other than the individual. Before exercising this power, however, MSD is required in the first instance to seek the information required from the individual directly, unless there are reasonable grounds to believe that this would ‘prejudice the maintenance of the law’.

In my view discouraging  investigators from going directly to third parties (in high risk cases) will make benefit fraud easier. And that development will be consistent with the general approach this government wants to take. For example no longer requiring mothers to name the fathers of their children for the purposes of seeking child support (starting next year) and non-application of other sanctions (already happening).

This is a simplified reading and description of the situation. I stand to be corrected.

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.