Dodgy numbers

Last week Social Development Minister Paula Bennett issued media releases which said the future focus was helping to reduce the number of people on benefits and benefit figures were under forecast.

Yesterday the Herald on Sunday featured Labour’s Jacinda Ardern saying more people were on benefits.

So who’s right?

Kiwiblog has the figures:

Let’s look at the actual data, in terms of increase or decrease each year. For DPB they are

• 2008 +2,128
• 2009 +9,007
• 2010 +3,576
• 2011 +1,365
• 2012 -5,112

I think we now understand why Jacinda left the 2012 figures off. What I don’t know if why the Herald on Sunday did.

Let’s do the same with Invalid’s Benefit numbers.

• 2008 +3,419
• 2009 +1,537
• 2010 +67
• 2011 -1,062
• 2012 -472

And for those interested in the Unemployment Benefit.

• 2008 +7,760
• 2009 +35,820
• 2010 +756
• 2011 -7,120
• 2012 -6,217

They all show the same thing. The increase in benefit numbers started in 2008 (under Labour) and worsened in 2009 as the Global Financial Crisis struck.  Despite patchy economic growth since 2009, benefit numbers in all three categories have fallen in the last two years.

And Lindsay Mitchell provides more analysis which shows Ardern is wrong.

Opposition MPs are supposed to show up government failings but it’s not at all clever to use dodgy stats to do it.

Reporters are supposed to check facts and provide balance, the one who wrote this story failed on both counts.

The Auckland conundrum

If house prices are high in Auckland because more people want to live there.

And more people want to live there because that’s where the jobs are.

How do you explain the latest Household Labour Force Survey which shows higher unemployment there?

Matt Nolan says other factors are also involved in house prices.

And Lindsay Mitchell thinks that the unexpected rise in the number of job seekers could be not so much about people losing jobs but more about people becoming available for and seeking work.

If that’s the case it would show that expecting people on benefits who could work to do so is already having an impact.

However, the real measure of success will be when they find and keep the jobs.

If some of those jobs weren’t in Auckland then that might take some of the pressure of house prices too.

Address cause or treat symptoms

That there is a problem of children growing up in poverty is unquestioned.

But most of those who are calling for action on it are directing their pleas at the government to address the symptoms.

Lindsay Mitchell points out that most fail to acknowledge the cause:

. . .  “Wilson and Stoughton (2009) report that about 18 percent of New Zealand children are born to a parent on a main benefit (about 13 percent are born to a parent on the DPB). . . .”

Most people are on a benefit temporarily and will join or return to the workforce as soon as they can.

Some people will never be able to support themselves.

The problem is people who could work who don’t, not because they can’t but because they won’t.

The government’s welfare reforms are aimed at these people for their own sakes and that of the society and the economy. Yet among the strongest opponents of the reforms are the people who want action on poverty.

They are short-changing the people on whose behalf they’re purporting to advocate if they want relief of the symptoms without accepting the need to address the causes.

More than 1/5 babies born dependent on caregiver on welfare by year’s end

Lindsay Mitchell has a very sobering statistic: 22.2 percent of babies born in 2011 were dependent on a caregiver receiving a benefit by the end of the same year.

“Over one in five babies reliant on welfare by year-end is a sobering statistic. Almost half of the caregivers were Maori and half were aged 24 or younger.”

“There is an established pattern of childbearing followed by reasonably rapid, if not immediate, recourse to welfare in New Zealand. This occurs during good and bad economic periods.”

“The implications for this high percentage lie in the likelihood of these children remaining on a benefit for many years. . . “

This is the main cause of too many children growing up in poverty and shows why Social Development Minister Paula Bennett is determined to address the causes of benefit dependency.

Hand-up not hand-outs

Quote of the day:

New Zealanders want a welfare system we can be proud of. The system must support people who genuinely can’t support themselves, but those who can work should be available for work and actively looking. Better resources and support to help more people off welfare dependency and into work is a clear priority. The system has failed too many New Zealanders by creating dependence and the Ministry of Social Development is moving towards a more active approach that will see greater support in helping more people off welfare and into work.

Young people are a clear priority within welfare reform. We know that those who go on welfare young tend to stay longer than others and have poorer opportunities as a result. Of real concern are the 16 and 17 year olds who become disengaged from education, employment and training and who are on a collision course with the adult welfare system. . .  Paula Bennett

This comes from the Minister’s forward to the Minsiter of Social Development’s Statement of Intent.

The rest of it is worth reading, signalling that this Minister wants real change which results in big improvements in the long-term outlook for young people who might otherwise be left to languish on benefits destined to a life of poverty.

It won’t be easy, nor will it be cheap, but it giving those who need it a hand up  is morally and financially better than giving them hand outs without any expectation that they will become independent.

Hat tip: Lindsay Mitchell

Did you see the one about . . .

Herd thinking meet herd immunity- Aimee Whitcroft at Misc-ience has a great cartoon which illustrates the benefits of herd immunity and dangers of herd thinking.

A daughter’s wedding – Look Up At The Sky shares the joy and love.

Eighties reforms recalled - Lindsay Mitchell shows that many of the “failed” polices of the 80s not only succeeded but are still serving us well.

Random numbers - Keeping Stock counting what counts.

Ode to property law – Skeptic Lawyer proves property is power.

Is cost of children public responsibility?

My mother was a tutor sister.*

She loved her job and was very good at it but when she married she gave it up while my father worked full-time as a carpenter and built their house in his spare time.

Looking back years later, she said it was ridiculous that she didn’t carry on working but that was something very few married women contemplated in the 1950s.

When we married nearly three decades later almost all women continued to work after marriage, though most gave up when they had children, at least until the youngest was at pre-school.

That has gradually changed and now it is not uncommon for women to return to work much sooner after having children.

Some do it by choice, some to keep up professional qualifications, some because they need/want the money.

There are both costs and benefits to taking time off to have children and continuing working.

The benefits of uninterrupted time for bonding and breast-feeding aren’t disputed.

Juggling the care of a baby and the tiredness that goes with it with paid work is demanding.

Women brought up to believe they can do anything can find full-time parenting very challenging.

The loss of a full or part-time income can strain family budgets.

But is it the public’s responsibility to compensate for that?

Proponents of paid parental leave think so and are delighted that Labour’s Members’ Bill to extend PPL to six months has been drawn from the ballot.

There’s been a range of views on whether or not it is affordable given high government debt and the need to return to surplus as soon as possible without threatening essential services.

I’ve yet to read or hear anyone questioning the need for PPL at all and whether the cost of children should be a public responsibility.

PPL is a benefit, paid for from taxes. Like ACC it gives more to those who earn more – at least up to $458.82 per week or the equivalent of $23,858 –   but unlike ACC the beneficiaries have not been levied for it.

Unlike any other non-contributory benefit, except superannuation, it isn’t means tested. A woman, or her partner, earning thousands of dollars a week has the same entitlement to PPL as someone on the minimum wage.

Is that right or fair?

I’m not convinced it is on principle and absolutely sure it isn’t in the current economic environment.

I might accept a case if it was means tested. But paying the equivalent of pocket money to high earners when the country is seriously indebted and the only increased spending in this year’s Budget will be for health and education – paid for by savings elsewhere – is a luxury not a necessity.

Lindsay Mitchell argues the economic case against the extension here.

Cactus Kate writes on parental pay madness.

Lucia Maria thinks PPL just grows the state.

* Tutor sister doesn’t exist anymore – that was a senior nurse who taught the junior ones in training hospitals.

The root of the problem

Lindsay Mitchell gets to the root of the problem of child abuse:

… the incidence of Harm Standard physical abuse was  significantly lower for children living with two married biological  parents compared to children living in all other conditions. An  estimated 1.9 per 1,000 children living with two married biological  parents suffered Harm Standard physical abuse, compared to 5.9 or more  per 1,000 children in other circumstances. In addition, children whose  single parent had an unmarried, live–in partner were at significantly higher risk of Harm Standard physical abuse (19.5 children per 1,000)…

This is not an indictment on everyone whose marriage fails.

Some children will have safer more stable homes with one parent than they had with both.

But that doesn’t change the statistics which show that children with one parent are more likely to be abused and those whose parent has a live-in partner are in even greater danger.

 

You show me yours . . .

Keeping Stock has shown us his stats for a record month and Lindsay Mitchell also recorded an increase in visitors.

There’s no doubt the election was good for readership.

I can’t compete with the popularity of  Kiwiblog and Whaleoil whose stats here and here show almost as many readers a week as I got in the month. But the number of visitors to this blog in November was the highest yet:

UPDATE: Open Parachute has the sitemeter blog rankings here.

Twelve little lies plus one

National’s campaign manager Steven Joyce has a little list.

It has 12 lies Phil Goff has told during the campaign:

• 12.      Labour left the economy in good shape. WRONG - The economy had been in recession all year in 2008, floating mortgage rates were at 10.9 per cent, government spending was up 50 per cent in five years, and Treasury      was forecasting debt to rise out of control forever.

• 11.      National has cut hundreds of millions from early childhood  education.  WRONG – ECE funding has risen 40 per cent over the past three years.

• 10.      ‘We will get back into surplus the same time as National.’  WRONG –      Under any straightforward scrutiny of Labour’s revenue and expenditure  numbers over the next four years.

• 9.      ‘We will only borrow $2.6 billion more than National over the next three  years.’  WRONG – Latest calculation is $15.6 billion extra over four  years (excluding the Greens).

• 8.      ‘Labour would forgo power company dividends and reduce prices.’       WRONG – Labour now says it will keep dividend income in government  accounts.

• 7.      ‘National will sell Kiwibank’ – WRONG

• 6.      ‘Borrowing money to buy assets in the Super Fund is not borrowing.’       YEAH RIGHT

• 5.      Fruit and vegetable prices ‘continue to spiral upward’.  WRONG –      currently same price as November 2008.

• 4.      Prices have risen four times faster than wages in past three years.      WRONG – After tax wages up 18 per cent in last three years, prices up 8      per cent.

• 3. Mixed ownership means forgoing dividends of $6-700 million per year.  WRONG      – Actually, around $220 million per year, and save that amount at least in reduced interest.

• 2. The  income gap withAustralia has widened.  WRONG – After tax incomes here have risen faster thanAustralia over the past three years.

• 1. Police recruitment being cancelled for all of next year.  WRONG – One intake only postponed      two months because of increased staff retention.

“Labour said they would campaign on the issues, but in fact they’ve gone back to the old Labour way of making things up, and hoping if they make a false allegation often enough people would start to believe it.”

Lindsay Mitchell has another lie: “New Zealand has the highest youth unemployment rate in the developed world.” . . . .

The rate for 15-24 year-olds is currently 17.3%

This is lower than the US, the UK, France, Finland, Sweden, Chile, the Czech Republic, Italy, Belgium and a few others.

Kiwiblog has a link to Sean Plunket’s interview with Goff  this morning in which the latter refuses to admit he’s wrong about police recruitment.

And Whaleoil has the tweet of the day:

Did Phil Goff really not know his police numbers claims were a sack of excrement? Or was it a lie to scare people into voting Labour?

about 5 hours ago via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@seanplunketzb

SeanPlunketMornings

Welfare Reform on web

Lindsay Mitchell has established a Welfare Reform website.

Her aim is to provide a resource for anyone interested in welfare reform.

Like Lindsay’s blog, the website has a wealth of information including most of the information she has obtained from the Ministry of Social
Development under the Official Information Act since 2001.

It has links to overseas sites, recommended books, press releases and interviews and compares the welfare policies of political parties.

When I clicked on the link for National’s I got a page-not-found message. I presume that is a sign of a website under development still because the information is here.

Let’s all say something

Lindsay Mitchell posts on Mana’s welfare policy which includes:

Provide a one off hardship grant of $1,000 for everyone aged 18 and over who is on an income of $30,000 or less, whether on a benefit or in paid work, to be paid by Christmas 2011.

Lift benefits to at least pre-1991 equivalent levels, ensuring people have enough to live on without constantly going into
debt.

Extend the In Work Tax Credit to the children of beneficiary parents.

The economic, financial and social cost of this would be eye-watering.

Lindsay also points to the Electoral Commission’s website which says:

Any attempts at bribery and corruption have two participants – those who offer the bribe and those who accept it. Anyone who knows about the bribe but says nothing is also implicated.

Lindsay has said something, let’s all say something.

 

Benefits not best for kids

Children do better in families which aren’t dependent on benefits.

This is the view of  Peter Hughes, outgoing chief executive of the Ministry of Social Development, who said::

“We know that for the same level of income, kids do better where that income’s derived from paid work.”

Commenting on this Lindsay Mitchell says:

It is a great shame that the outgoing CE has waited until now to make these observations. And that senior public servants seem unable to draw public attention to matters of considerable national importance to the country within the boundaries of an apolitical civil service.

Quite.

There is a place for benefits for those cannot work, most of whom require only temporary assistance.

But  paying benefits to people who don’t need them and long term benefit dependency by people who could work aren’t good for the recipients, their families or society.

This reinforces the wisdom of initiatives introduced by the government to work-test beneficiaries and help them become work-ready.

Who would be left to pay? – Updated

Susan Guthrie and Gareth Morgan have come up with a grand plan which they say will ensure equal opportunity and choice for all:

A total rewrite of our taxation and transfer policies to correct the tax dodges available to owners of capital, to explicitly recognise the importance of non-paid work, and to foster equal opportunities for all citizens to participate in society and the wider economy, will go a long way to reasserting the values of egalitarian New Zealand.

In short, the following package addresses what is needed to get back on this path, while ensuring no blowout of government finances.

- An unconditional basic income (UBI) for every adult – $11,000 after tax, whether you’re in the paid workforce or not. This enables more people to choose paid or unpaid work – or not to work at all. Most importantly more would be able to pursue what they want to do, rather than what financial penury forces them to do. We are a rich society so to compel people to opt for paid work or face the stigma of qualifying for a benefit has no logic.

Let’s look at that last sentence again:

We are a rich society so to compel people to opt for paid work or face the stigma of qualifying for a benefit has no logic.

It depends on how you define rich.

We are a country blessed with a wealth of natural resources and human talent but we don’t have the income to pay for all the first world services and infrastructure most of us regard as necessities.

That income comes from work, particularly work which leads to exports, savings and investment from which tax is paid.

Anyone is free now to choose not to work with the very reasonable proviso that they don’t expect the rest of us to pay them when they exercise that choice.

Some people are unable to work and that is why we need a welfare system as a safety net.

But giving anyone who could work the option to do so or be supported by the rest of us is madness.

Why would anyone bother to work unless they could get considerably more than they were being paid for pleasing themselves and who would be left to pay not just for them but little things like health, education, roads and other services and infrastructure which we all net taxpayers contribute to now?

This is not a recipe for equal opportunity and choice, it’s a recipe for social and economic disaster.

UPDATE: Lindsay Mitchell points out other flaws - including that invalids and sickness beneficiaries would be much worse-off.

Another wee party dreaming

How conservative am I? The answer I got after completely the newly launched Conservative Party questionnaire was not enough for them to want me.

I agreed with a few of the propositions, disagreed with more and like  Zen Tiger  and Lindsay Mitchell I found some difficult to answer. They were either too black and white to fit my views or multi-pronged.

But I won’t bother taking a further look.

A party needs a lot more than a big ego a a few hot-button ideas to succeed.

It has to get at least 500 members and a constitution before it can be registered and then it has to do a lot of work to persuade voters to support it.

Results from the last election show just how difficult it is for the really wee parties: 

Total Votes Counted:	2,356,536*
Party	Party Votes	% Votes	Electorate Seats	List Seats	Total Seats
National Party	1,053,398	44.93	41	17	58
Labour Party	796,880	33.99	21	22	43
Green Party	157,613	6.72	0	9	9
ACT New Zealand	85,496	3.65	1	4	5
Māori Party	55,980	2.39	5	0	5
Jim Anderton’s Progressive	21,241	0.91	1	0	1
United Future	20,497	0.87	1	0	1
New Zealand First Party	95,356	4.07	0	0	0
The Bill and Ben Party	13,016	0.56	0	0	0
Kiwi Party	12,755	0.54	0	0	0
Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party	9,515	0.41	0	0	0
New Zealand Pacific Party	8,640	0.37	0	0	0
Family Party	8,176	0.35	0	0	0
Alliance	1,909	0.08	0	0	0
Democrats for Social Credit	1,208	0.05	0	0	0
Libertarianz	1,176	0.05	0	0	0
Workers Party	932	0.04	0	0	0
RAM – Residents Action Movement	465	0.02	0	0	0
The Republic of New Zealand Party	313	0.01	0	0	0
			70	52	122

If you find you’re conservative enough for the party to want you (a score of 10 or more in the quiz) it would pay to look around for another party with views which match yours and has a better chance of getting into parliament.

Talking past each other doesn’t solve problems

Quote of the week:

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.

It comes from Lindsay Mitchell in an open letter to Don Brash and Pita Sharples.

If these two could stop talking past each other they’d find they agree on what really matters – the need to solve the problem of Maori being over-represented in negative statistics and under-represented in the positive ones.

Did you see the one about . . .

Why oh why can’t we have a better press corps? Offsetting Behaviour has suggestions for better Budget coverage. Also there is a thesis waiting to be written – on the opportunity for social science research into volunteer work after the earthquakes.

New Zealanders are loose – Michael Edmonds at Molecular Matters on the results of a “tightness “survey.

Who are the real enemies? – Lindsay Mitchell on the evil of envy-politics.

Opportunity to rationalise - Gravedodger (a welcome addition to No Minsiter’s bloggers) has a plan to improve emergency services.

New Zealand politics daily – Bryce Edwards at Liberation’s daily round up of politics in the media is a must-read for political tragics.

Did you see the one about . . .

The tertiary education conundrum - Mydeology thinks it’s time for a rethink.

I wannabe a pseudo scientist - has Michael Edmonds got a deal for you!

21 accents - Zen Tiger on 21 ways to say . . .

If you want a hundred trillion dollars – Anti-Dismal on hyperinflation.

What makes some people vote – Lindsay Mitchell on the power of positive personality.

Science journalism is not the same as science - Larvatus Prodeo on the science news cycle.

91863 – Credo Quia Absurdum Est deals with a spam phone caller and also has a funny story about Mummy’s job.

Don’t give up on the children Kerre

Friends had a celebration for several milestones at Easter – they are both turning 60 this year and his father will be 90.

All his parents’ descendents were there- children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. A few close friends had the pleasure and privilege of joining them for a barbeque on the Sunday evening.

Next day our great niece and great nephew (aged 9 and 10 months respectively) came to have lunch with us. They brought their parents, grandparents and an aunt.

On both occasions I looked at the children, recognised the love and support which surrounded them and wondered how it could be any other way.

Just a few days later news broke of yet another baby killed as a result of  ”non-accidental” injuries. That’s what you and I would call deliberate abuse and it’s something with which New Zealand is sadly all to familiar.

Kerre Woodham blames the mothers:

. . .  let’s turn the spotlight on those mothers who are abject failures. All those mothers who haven’t got a clue who their children’s sperm donors were. All those mothers who have children because they get paid to – and, let’s face it, they wouldn’t get paid to do anything else. Those mothers who stay with men who hurt them and their kids because they’re so pathetic and useless that any shag – even when it comes with a biff – is better than being alone.

This Mother’s Day, I would plead that every mother who has had a child that they don’t care about or can’t cope with gets the help that they need.

If they can’t cope with the children, ring family – or ring the Cyfs helpline if they can’t trust their families.

If they’re in an abusive relationship where they’re being harmed and their children are being indelibly scarred, again, seek the help of family and friends or seek the help of the multitude of agencies that are there for you.

I appreciate that breaking the cycle is difficult if you’ve always been the victim, but come to terms with what being a mother is. My definition, and that of all the mothers I know, is to love your babies and keep them safe. And yet so many women in this country fail at the job of being a mother.

It’s not that simple.

A friend met a young, unmarried mother through sport. She’d grown up in a violent home and deliberately got pregnant when she was 16 so she could get away from home.

What does it say about her home and her life that education and work didn’t appear to be options that would give her independence; and that pregnancy and bringing up a child on a benefit were the only way she could see to have a better life?

If “normal” isn’t the love, support and encouragement of extended family; if your sense of self-worth is so low that violence and abuse are better than life alone; if your experience and personal resources are so limited you can’t see any opportunities for change and improvement you simply don’t know there is a better way for yourself and your children.

Kerre’s had enough:

When you look at the hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent by desperate women going through IVF procedures to become mothers, and the millions of dollars being spent by the taxpayer because dumb, stupid, needy, dysfunctional slappers are failing at being mothers, surely even Christians must wonder if there’s a god.

I’ve been writing columns and banging on on talkback for more than 13 years about this and I am so, so sick of railing against the abomination that is child abuse in this country.

So this will be my last column on the subject. What I do is utterly futile. . .

No it’s not. Words aren’t enough but they are something.

Radio is a powerful medium.  Who knows who might be listening, a mother or child, someone in the wider family, a neighbour, someone, anyone who knows something untoward is going on and who might then be prompted to seek help.

As  Lindsay Mitchell says:

 Fight back and keep fighting. Not for a return to the past but for a new approach. Women today have so much more opportunity. They don’t need these state crutches which if anything turn them into victims rather than empowered beings.

Take a breather and wait for the energy to return. It will.

Edmund Burke said all it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.

Child abuse is evil. Talking about it, by itself, won’t stop it. But if we don’t talk about it, keep saying it isn’t normal and condemn it we will be admitting defeat.

If  people who know what’s wrong give up, we’ll be abandoning children to those who don’t know what’s right.

UPDATE: Dim Post suggests:

She could educate herself on the numerous policy solutions to the problem of child abuse and advocate for them. I’ve written before about how identifying at-risk children and funding home nurse visitations has a huge impact on child abuse rates, in addition to other negative outcomes. If someone who had, say, a weekly column in a major newspaper wrote about projects like that they might effect some real change.

You choose

Quote of the week from John Armstrong:

Key’s mischievous matchmaking, however, has him defining the election as a contest between a forward-looking National Party versus a rearwards-looking Labour Party beholden to the whims of NZ First.

In short, Key’s not-so-subtle pitch is one of stability versus chaos. New Zealand, you choose.

This is what I said yesterday – ruling out Peters gives voter, not the would-be king maker, the power.

Lindsay Mitchell made a a similar point in honest John vs perfidious Peters.