No? Nothing to learn from others’ experiences? I’d have thought one reason might be that Clinton’s welfare reform worked.

Or are you saying it didn’t?

“Still, if you’re going to try something new, you might want to first really understand the underlying issues first. I don’t think Mitchell’s work does this at all. I’m curious why you do?”

And I’m curious why you don’t Paul.

I was at Lindsay’s presentation. I thought she understood the underlying causes of Maori welfare dependency and the problems it causes very well. So did a number of Maori in the room who made supportive remarks afterwards.

The root cause, as I understood it from her comments, is the availability of a long-term welfare benefit to young mothers, and the incentive that offers those children to have children and rear them without the benefit of a father.

Lindsay’s figures showed that Maori girls were disproportionately likely to choose the welfare lifestyle, which all too often triggers the all-too-familiar cycle of abuse as itinerant boyfriends enter the home and wreak their havoc on the children.

It was courageous, I thought, for Lindsay, as a white woman, to present her findings to an audience that included a number of Maori (including the Roundtable chair), knowing full well that she will inevitably be portrayed as some sort of uncaring harridan to the right of Genghis Khan.

But those who were there, including the afore-mentioned Maori, were, as far as I could tell, hugely impressed by her sincerity in trying to find a solution to one of Maoridom’s – and New Zealand’s – greatest problems.

And I found it ironic that her solution was the same as that successfully pursued by a left-wing government in the US, yet one which our so-called centrist government finds too hot to even read.

Key’s failure to even consider doing what Clinton had the guts to do – and which Lindsay Mitchell had the guts to recommend – shows that our prime minister is a politician first, and a leader not at all.

Guts hey John, that’s important, but so too is insight and judgment. I’m all for reform, experimentation and innovation. There’s no reason why we should be slaves to precedent. Still, if you’re going to try something new, you might want to first really understand the underlying issues first. I don’t think Mitchell’s work does this at all. I’m curious why you do? Guts, is one thing, ill-informed hope another.

No sonic, they won’t just get one term, they’ll get about four – by out-Labouring Labour at the expense of the good of the country.

Key’s failure to even consider doing what Clinton had the guts to do – and which Lindsay Mitchell had the guts to recommend – shows that our prime minister is a politician first, and a leader not at all.

MNIJ

There was this thing back in the French revolution called the “right to work”, meaning society had an obligation to find work etc. Failed miserably. Where society is assisting someone who cant find work and requires something back, i.e. work, there is nothing wrong with that.

Are you saying that Lindsay Mitchells research is flawed Paul? If so please enlighten us with the more rigorous information you are basing your comments on.

Lucy, I said it lacked rigour. By this I mean, there’s no evidence of independent review, no criticial examination of what’s casual and what’s simply a correlation, it mixes personal reflections and opinion with refereed research, the “problem” isn’t clearly defined, the solutions are not developed (no discussion of second round effects), there’s no costing, nothing about the sequence or pacing of implementation, no consideration of alternatives.

At best, it is a selective literature reivew (not a thematic review), a data collation and a handful of proposals.

As I said at the begining, it’s an interesting discussion document that I’m sure will get some media, but not policy, attention. If that’s what the NZBR aspired to achieve, they’ll likely get it but it’s clear the PM’s underwhelmed.

Perhaps you’ll tell me why you consider it significant?

The entire point of welfare is to engineer its own demise through providing a safety net and a leg up. It is not to keep people like phool on a teat in a cycle of imposed failure and guilt.

Enjoy the ten years of opposition.

xxx

HD

Her recommendations 5 & 6 should come first. Then when they succeed move towards dropping the present system away as per her earlier points. Also hopefully as the global recession recedes.

Otherwise politically she is whistling in the wind unfortunately.

“Welfare should be trgeted at those in genuine need. It should not be dished out so families can buy a nicer ipod.”

So why is that WINZ vouchers specifically say that they cannot be redeemed for alcohol or tobacco?

Again David shows us what a wonderful empathic understanding he has of poverty in New Zealand

Unemployment growing every day and your focus is ending welfare, I’d say you lot had lost the plot, however sadly I think you never grasped in in the first place.

Enjoy the one term.

xxx

S

What a big shame.

That, my friends is the guts of the matter. How many Maori families do you know that hold “traditional” values?

Just another reason to fire up the BBQ at Crusher Collins place, Key is nothing more than a gutless pinko wanker, the sooner we get rid of him the better.

Fuck that kind of thinking annoys me. We have had numerous great depressions in the past yet got out of them without the general population, as poverty stricken as they were, resorting to mass stealing. When you start talking that way, you are merely providing people with the impetus they need to move away from morality. You create the very situation you fear by promoting it through your language.

Half of what they get on the dole should be a loan, repayable at 10c in the dollar after the recipient gets a job earning more than $20,000 a year (adjustable yearly for inflation), for the DPB it should be 10% is repayable once in paid full-time employment, repaid at 10c in the dollar.

A practicing lawyer I have heard of ‘went feral’ while studying law and lined on the Wellington Town Belt. He was a teenage delinquent and it took ten years before he could realistically ask a judge for admission (the ‘hard’ route).

Redbaiter – I have to agree. The shareholders are supposed to be the owners of the company, but then the Board and CEO are the real ‘owners’ when it comes to matters of this sort.’

On Kiwiblog, I prefer never to be part of any “consensus”. Include me out.