Kiwiblog

The Business Roundtable has published a paper by Lindsay Mitchell on “Maori and Welfare. It isn’t necessarily BRT policy, but published to encourage debate – which is excellent. We need more, not less, policy debates.

Mitchell has found that Maori were not always over-represented in negative statistics:

One of the few areas for which long-term Maori statistics were kept is crime. At the turn of the nineteenth century, Maori (defined as people having half or more Maori ancestry) made up 5 percent of the population. In 1898, 22,752 charges
were heard before magistrates and only 2.3 percent were against people of the “aboriginal native race”.

And this situation continued for many decades. Then:

By 1957, the Maori share of offences tried in the Supreme Court was 18 percent, but in just five years it climbed to 23 percent.5 In 1959, Maori made up 25 percent of the boys admitted to the correctional Owairaka Boys’ Home in Auckland. By 1969, the proportion had risen to 70 percent, and by 1978 it was 80 percent.6 By 1961, the Maori arrest rate for 15 year-olds and older was almost 5 times the non- Maori rate.7 Young Maori migrating from rural to urban settings were no longer
under the control of their elders. Young urban Maori increasingly joined emerging groups such as the Mongrel Mob and Black Power.

She quotes James Belich:

People avoid crime, not primarily because it is illegal, but because of the disapproval of those that matter to them – in the traditional, rural Maori case, the kin group.

Lindsay goes on to make a link to welfare policies being responsible for some of the problems, especially the DPB. A not inconsiderable number of Maori have said the same at various times. Now many will disagree with Lindsay, but I suggest you at least read her report – it is only 40 pages.

Mitchell states her view on welfare:

There exists an extreme view that the state has no role at all in welfare provision. It is not one I share. Nevertheless, the state should limit its involvement to that of providing a safety net of last resort. Self and family responsibility must come first. Middle class welfare – the provision of cash or services to those who can afford to meet their own needs – must be avoided. Welfare reforms that deter people from behaving in detrimental ways because there is no perceived risk should be made with those basics in mind.

I broadly agree with that proposition. Welfare should be trgeted at those in genuine need. It should not be dished out so families can buy a nicer ipod.

Lindsay then makes six recommendations:

1. replace the DPB with temporary assistance only (max one year);
2. replace state-funded unemployment benefits with private unemployment insurance;
3. tighten eligibility for sickness and invalid benefits;
4. consider assistance-in-kind and income management as stop-gap measures only;
5. consider privatising income support delivery to improve efficiency and incentives and allow for Maori ownership;
6. consider empowering employment entrepreneurs, and increased use of loans and opting-out as features of a future safety net system.

I do support reforms along the lines of what Clinton did, with a maximum time you can spend on a benefit. They have been a huge success. I think restricting the DPB to one year only though is impractical. Recommendations 4, 5 and 6 are worth exploring. The status quo is not exactly producing great results, and we should be open to looking at can we get better outcomes by doing it differently.

This is where I am a bit disappointed by the Government’s response:

Prime Minister John Key had not read the report yesterday but said it sounded “pretty draconian”.

Social Development and Employment Minister Paula Bennett said none of the ideas were on the agenda for the Government.

It would be nice if the response was that while the proposals were not current policy, we will at least read and consider the report, and respond to it after due consideration. As I said, the status quo is nothing to be proud of.

Tags: Lindsay Mitchell, Maori, NZBR, welfare

Lindsay Mitchell blogs:

Don’t miss this. On Friday nights we always watch Homai Te Pakipaki on Maori Television. Last Friday I was floored by this kid. I wrote to Maori TV suggesting they get him up on YouTube – who needs Susan Boyle – and just got a reply saying done, already. I’ve just watched it again and it had the same powerful effect. Made me cry.

He is great – well worth a watch.

Tags: Dane Moeke, Lindsay Mitchell, Maori TV, You Tube

At dinner last night were candidates 1, 2, 3 and 4 on the ACT Party List. Someone joked I should get a photo with them and announce that I am the secret No 5 candidate

There has been some discussion as to why long time stalwart and candidate Lindsay Mitchell was not on the list. Lindsay explains on her own blog that she refused the No 14 spot as she was No 9 in 2005, and didn’t feel her performance warranted a demotion. Lindsay certainly has been tireless in advocating for ACT, and has a lot of sympathy for her position.

Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn compares the 2005 and 2008 lists. His table starkly illustrates the change. Of the top 12 candidates in 2008, only two of them (Rodney and Heather) were even candidates in 2005. In fact only seven of their top 30 candidates were candidates in 2005.

I met yesterday their No 10 candidate, Shawn Tan. Shawn struck me a very nice and dedicated guy, but has been the subject of some criticism as he was a Green Party activist for many years. Shawn has posted a response as a comment on the earlier thread. Some interesting quotes:

No, I haven’t lost my heart; neither have I experienced premature brain growth. My point is, my ideals used to be utopian ones, based on the theories I read during my tenure as an undergraduate university student. Having been in the workforce for approximately two-and-a-half years, and in fact having worked in the union movement for virtually that entire period, let’s just say my eyes have been opened to the disjunct between leftist theory and the workings of the real world. My ideals today are therefore based on pragmatism and common sense – values and principles embodied by the ACT Party.

And even better:

ACT’s stance on Law and Order is indeed what convinced me to join, though not the only reason why I joined, the ACT Party. My association with ACT is quite simply the culmination of a journey of self-discovery, ‘quarter-life crisis’ and cultural reconnection that began at the end of last year, and precipitated by the ‘South Auckland saga’.

In fact, my alias ‘bledback2life’ was chosen to educidate my transition (some would say transmogrification) from the Greens and the Left to ACT and the realm of liberalism. I juxtaposed the concept of bleeding/blood loss with that of resurrection, in a deliberate act of oxymoronic temerity, in order to illustrate that it has been the exorcising of my Marxist demons, and the purging of Leftist ideology, from my mind and body which has allowed me to be cleansed and thus feel alive once again.

I’ve always been a civil libertarian, even when I identified with various leftist schools of thought. Now that I have embraced economic liberty too, only now can I truly call myself a coherent and consistent proponent of freedom in a holistic sense.

Yes economic liberty and social liberty are natural partners.

Shaun says one of the catalysts for his conversion was Sue Bradford blaming some murders (in 2008) in South Auckland on the policies of Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson. It was the final straw it seems.

Now NBR has what may become a very big story about Shaun. Shaun is employed by that independent third party, the EPMU. NBR reports Shaun has been stood down because he is standing for ACT. The right to stand for Parliament is a fundamental right, and employers are on very dangerous grounds when they try to limit it, or even worse dictate what parties are acceptable for employees to stand for. The EPMU staff have a clause in their collective contract stating staff must get permission of the national executive to stand for Parliament. It would be a very interesting court case that tested the legality of that clause.

Tags: ACT, EPMU, Lindsay Mitchell, Shaun Tan

Lots to cover in brief. First the Australian political party leader who told off his 17 year old daughter on Facebook, exposing her drunken party photos to the world! Also wonderful is the conversation between two of Alexander Downer’s children on Facebook about why he was so pompous in a photo

Bernard Hickey complains (as I often have done) that we are paying $79 million into TVNZ6 and TVNZ7 yet they won’t make them available on Sky TV. He quotes former TVNZ Head of News Paul Norris in support – they have a reponsibility to make them widely available and could extend them with a flick of a switch to 700,000 households overnight.

Andrew Bolt has a fascinating exchange with an academic over the “stolen generation”. While there certainly is much in Australia’s past that was deplorable (as in NZ), it is apparent that certain portions of it such as the “stolen generation” have been over-hyped. He cites the example of one Aboriginal leader who claimed to be part of the “stolen” generation who was “taken from my family” but in fact was put up for adoption by her father who could not cope with five children.

Lindsay Perigo writes a moving account of his last face to face meal with Anna Woolf, who is dying of brain cancer. Even just reading his account makes the eyes water – I can’t imagine how hard it is for those who are close to Anna, let alone Anna herself.

The Telegraph points out that if Michael Phelps was a country, he would be coming 5th on the Olympic medal table – ahead of Italy, Russia, Australian and Great Britain.

Frog Blog joins Nick Smith on wondering why DOC is spending so much money on a new corporate brand, when it has just laid off 60 workers to save money.

Liberty Scott exposes Sue Kedgley’s scaremongering over cellphone towers. Good God, this debate was settled over a decade ago in terms of science. I’d be more inclined to take Sue’s campaign against the towers seriously if she’d give up her cellphone.

Lindsay Mitchell covers the launch of a second Maori based party. The Hapu Party is led by David Rankin, and three policies to date:

1. To have Maori eligible for the pension at age 56, because of the lower life-expectancy of Maori
2. To introduce a flat rate 18% personal tax and GST rate.
3. To immediately allocate all treaty settlement money directly to hapu and marae

They have me with policy No 2. Policy No 3 is between Iwi and Hapu to resolve in my opinion, and Policy No 1 has no chance. Worryingly for the Maori Party, Rankin also talks of financial irregularities with a Maori Party MP and a SFO complaint.

Tags: Andrew Bolt, Anna Woolf, Bernard Hickey, cellphone towers, DOC, Facebook, Freeview, Frog Blog, Greens, Hapu Party, Liberty Scott, Lindsay Mitchell, Lindsay Perigo, Maori Party, Michael Phelps, Nick Smith, Olympics, Sky, stolen generation, Sue Kedgley

Lindsay Mitchell has this graph. That big blue line at the top is Wellington, where people are now being paid an average $100 a week more than in Auckland.

I’m not sure the data source for the graph, but presume it is the Stats NZ Quarterly Employment Survey.

Tags: Lindsay Mitchell, Wages, Wellington