I just rewatched the great movie The Big Short that dramatized the sub-prime mortgages collapse that led to the GFC. Years of self-interest and complacency – along with short-term thinking – created all of the circumstances needed to collapse a house of financial cards. The movie highlights that the very few who picked it were able to buy “swaps” – effectively betting against the US economy. They were treated like idiots prior to the collapse – but they were right.
The USA had sown the wind and the world reaped the whirlwind.
New Zealand is sowing its very own wind with how we are caring for young people and our education system. There are two differences to what I describe above. Firstly, there is no way to sell-short on this and profit from the disaster. Secondly, this won’t impact world-wide – it will just massively damage our own people and nation. Many countries are streaking ahead of us on education and care for young people. Our whirlwind has begun for our youth and there is clear evidence that the vast majority of NZ adults (especially politicians) are acting like the complacent Wall St of 2007/08.
A month or so back David Farrer posted results from the IPSOS NZ Issues Monitor.
Report Point:
By strange co-incidence 6 (out of 2,600) is exactly the number of schools who bothered to submit to the Education and Workforce Select Committee into school attendance.
We have little medium-term thinking, let alone long-term thinking. Politicians think within their cycle, kids don’t vote, many families know that their children are doing okay, many others are disengaged and/or worried about food on the table and petrol in the car today. Adults worry about themselves and there is no NZ Education Vision or visionaries for adults to support. Hipkins has been the very worst and most inactive Education Minister in living memory – but he has been allowed to be and is rarely challenged by the opposition.
Rather than bang on in prose I will do what Dr Michael Burry (brilliantly played by Christian Bale) did in The Big Short – just present evidence. The consequence of which is already disastrous – not limited to the 1 million NZers considering evacuation and 3% of our 20-29 workforce having already left (https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2022/07/cost-of-living-myob-poll-shows-more-than-1-million-kiwis-actively-considering-leaving-nz.html_)
Research Points
Sources:
PS – I did read yesterday on a somewhat left-of-centre site that Jacinda had “won the Covid battle”. They must have meant that we are now well and truly heading into the top 50 for covid cases per-million: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
The Independent reports:
A move to include offence trigger warnings on the official parliamentary record has been criticised at Westminster, amid fears it could have a chilling effect on what members say.
The snowflakes even need protecting from Hansard now!
The upper chamber heard the measure stemmed from a proposal by the House of Lords Inclusion and Diversity team.
Of course it did.
A guest post by Lindsay Mitchell:
In April this year the Prime Minister laid out the progress she has made towards child poverty reduction since taking office. She said her government has “lifted tens of thousands of children from poverty and improved the lives of many others.”1
She makes one specific comparison over the time frame since becoming Prime Minister – a “30% reduction in children aged 0-17 who live in low-income households after housing costs, over three years (from 2017/18).”
This was achieved primarily by lifting benefits and family tax credits – and in particular introducing a $60 weekly child payment called Best Start.
She failed to mention she has also overseen thousands more children becoming dependent on benefits.
Between March 2018 and March 2022 the number of children in benefit-dependent households grew by 22 percent or almost 37,000.2 To picture this increase, imagine about one hundred good-sized schools.
I spent a number of years as a volunteer working with dependent families and came to know the tragic circumstances of a typical child on a benefit. But my sample is small so let me construct a profile based on New Zealand statistics.
Let’s call the child Sam. She’s five and lives in Northland (which has the highest % of its working-age population on welfare).3 She is Maori and lives with her sole mother (more dependent sole parents are Maori than any other ethnicity). Sam’s mum has debt to MSD of $4,000 (the average mean debt to MSD at June 2021)4 and receives hardship assistance for food (as one of 364,000 food grants issued in the March quarter). Sam lives in a private rental which is subsidised with a $160 weekly accommodation supplement.5 Sam has one older sibling and her mum has been on the benefit since leaving school (those entering the benefit system under twenty stay the longest)6. Sam’s mum is 25 and will probably remain on a benefit well into her thirties (average future years expected on a benefit is 12.4 at 2021 – up from 10.6 in 2017).7 There is also a high chance Sam will herself become a beneficiary (looking at a group of 83,000 children born in benefit households between 1993 and 1995, 47% had entered the benefit system themselves by age 23.)8
This then is a typical profile of a child in a benefit dependent household.
Less typical but still not statistically uncommon would be for Sam to have moved homes more than once since her birth; to be known to Oranga Tamariki; to have a mother with a substance use problem and/or suffering mental ill-health, and to have a father serving a community or prison sentence.
Benefit dependency is a known risk for children. The likelihood of children suffering abuse or neglect increases in proportion to time spent on a benefit.9 The correlation is probably due to the inherent dysfunction of non-working households. There is no need for a routine, no need to get to a job and no need for kids to get to school (Covid has only exacerbated the malaise.)
This mirrors what I saw as a volunteer called into help families in crisis (some on benefits cope admirably well but they are the exception).
None had any real incentive to change as long as the money came in.
These are the lifestyles of unemployed parents. They themselves have often not grown to adulthood but we pretend they can provide consistent and caring parenting … if only the government just pays them more.
That’s the major thrust behind the Prime Minister’s mission to reduce child poverty. Paying everybody more whether or not they earn it.
That’s the flaw in her plan. More money does not guarantee better child outcomes. In fact it does the very opposite when all it achieves is more children on benefits. She is never challenged on the flaw in her plan.
Who asks the hard questions about where all the extra money goes? Who asks why New Zealand has apparently record low unemployment but over 200,000 children relying on a parent on a benefit? Who asks about appalling and worsening school absenteeism? Who asks why New Zealand ranked last in child mental well-being in the most recent UNICEF report card?10 Who asks why only one in five Maori babies has married parents?
Who cares so long as the PM can pat herself on the back and claim to have achieved what she came to parliament for.
David Leonhardt at the NYT writes:
The evidence suggests that broad mask mandates have not done much to reduce Covid caseloads over the past two years. Today, mask rules may do even less than in the past, given the contagiousness of current versions of the virus.
Aren’t we meant to follow the evidence?
In U.S. cities where mask use has been more common, Covid has spread at a similar rate as in mask-resistant cities. Mask mandates in schools also seem to have done little to reduce the spread. Hong Kong, despite almost universal mask-wearing, recently endured one of the world’s worst Covid outbreaks.
This doesn’t mean though masks are not useful, even if mandates are not.
The idea that masks work better than mask mandates seems to defy logic. It inverts a notion connected to Aristotle’s writings: that the whole should be greater than the sum of the parts, not less.
The main explanation seems to be that the exceptions often end up mattering more than the rule. The Covid virus is so contagious that it can spread during brief times when people take off their masks, even when a mandate is in place.
Airplane passengers remove their masks to have a drink. Restaurant patrons go maskless as soon as they walk in the door. Schoolchildren let their masks slide down their faces. So do adults: Research by the University of Minnesota suggests that between 25 percent and 30 percent of Americans consistently wear their masks below their nose.
So the mandates give false confidence.
Masks hinder communication, fog glasses and can be uncomfortable. There is a reason that children and airline passengers have broken out in applause when told they can take off their masks.
In the current stage of the pandemic, there are less divisive measures that are more effective than mask mandates. Booster shots are widely available. A drug that can further protect the immunocompromised, known as Evusheld, is increasingly available. So are post-infection treatments, like Paxlovid, that make Covid less severe.
Time to end the mask mandates.
A fun video showing NZ PMs that have met the Queen.
Add this to your website today!
CNN reports:
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has died after being shot on the street in the city of Nara on Friday — a shocking act of violence in a country with one of the world’s lowest rates of gun crime.
He was Japan’s longest serving PM having held the post twice for a total of almost nine years.
The assassination is baffling. He was a former, not current, PM. Political violence is almost unheard of in Japan, let alone gun violence. In a country of 125 million they had only 10 gun deaths last year.
The killer has confirmed he killed him because he disapproved of him.
Japan still has the death penalty. It is very rarely used in a case of a single murder. It will be interesting if they seek it in this case.
NewstalkZB reports:
Hospitality New Zealand says it’s at a loss over comments from the new Immigration Minister.
Michael Wood has accepted some concerns the sector’s raised over foreign worker shortages.
But he says businesses should be considering how to make low-wage jobs with insecure working conditions more attractive places to work.
Hospitality New Zealand Chief Executive Julie White told Mike Hosking they’re certainly paying more than they were, with average hourly rates in the sector above $24.
She says they need government help in accessing more migrant workers to fill gaps.
Michael Wood always say that any shortage of workers is because employers do not pay enough. So by that logic, the massive shortage of doctors and nurses in hospitals is because his Government isn’t paying them enough?
I don’t know why Labour is so anti-immigration.
If you want to submit on the Three Waters legislation, the TU have set up a website which you can use.
You have two weeks to submit on what will happen to $100 billion of community assets.
The submission tool makes it very easy for you. Just click on one or more of the following issues that may concern you and it will create a draft submission for you, that you can edit.
If you make a submission, also ask to be heard by the Committee, This makes it harder for them to ram the law change through quickly and hearing face to face from thousands of New Zealanders may make them reconsider or compromise.
The June 2022 Roy Morgan is out.
Party Vote
Governments
Direction
This is the seventh Roy Morgan poll in a row to show a change of Government if there was an election.
NewstalkZB reports:
Wellington mayor Andy Foster has announced on Newstalk ZB’s Wellington Mornings he wants another term in the city’s top job. …
Referring to his fellow councillors, Foster said he hasn’t always had the team to back him, but he thought they were now working reasonably well together.
“We’ve done a lot for the city and I’d really like to take that forward.”
He said he saw the situation as a two horse race between himself and Rongotai MP Paul Eagle.
Foster added the council has delivered more in the past two weeks than most councils would deliver in three years.
This included signing off on the year’s budget, the proposed district plan, a sludge treatment option, agreeing to create a community housing provider, and opening the St James Theatre.
I’m not sure I’d call it a two horse race. But anyway as it is STV, one can get to rank all the candidates.
He has struggled to find the numbers around the table- leaving majorities to form elsewhere, often resulting in council decisions being influenced by a left bloc of councillors.
The Mayoralty is important, but electing Councillors who will not cripple the city with rate hikes and debt is also important.
The best comment I’ve seen on Boris Johnson this week was the one stating how remarkable it was that he would be brought down by a sex scandal that didn’t involve him!
Once he lost support from senior Ministers it was when, not if, and he has finally conceded.
He lasted almost three years in office. His great achievement will be actually implementing the will of the people in the Brexit referendum. By coincidence his tenure of 2 years and 348 days is the same as Neville Chamberlain.
The Conservatives have gone through a lot of leaders. The duration of recent leaders is:
On the plus side 10 of the 13 of them got to be Prime Minister.
Labour has only one leader, Tony Blair, win an election since 1974!
Stuff reports:
It involves a new four-lane tunnel under Mt Victoria, with two lanes each for cars and buses, a change of traffic patterns around the Basin Reserve, and new mass rapid transit system – most likely light rail – running from the city out to Island Bay in the city’s south. It would also convert the current Mt Victoria tunnel into a pedestrian and bike tunnel.
This is, with respect, nuts.
Going from two lanes to six lanes is good. But to spend what will be over a billion dollars on a new tunnel, and not have any extra capacity for motor vehicles is nuts.
I’m all for a dedicated bus lane, and pedestrian and cyclist lanes. But to have as many lanes for pedestrians and cyclists as for motorists is crazy. Around 50,000 cars use the tunnel. Unless you are having a daily marathon through the tunnel, you don’t need the same space for pedestrians.
On an average weekday there are 300 cyclists and 45,000 cars. And they are giving the same space to cycling as cars.
Again we should have cycle and pedestrian lanes. But we need four lanes for motorists also also.
The silver lining is that if a new four lane tunnel gets built, it will be simple enough to turn it in the future into a tunnel for cars. You then turn the current tunnel into a bus rapid transit tunnel and the current bus tunnel into a pedestrian and cycling tunnel.
I’ve calculated when Labour will achieve its key promises, based on progress to date since 2017. Five of them are listed below in a quiz where you have to match them up to the year they are projected to achieve them. Vote below and check back next week for the answers.
For some reason a decision by the US Supreme Court on whether abortion is a constitutional right under their constitution has lead to claims this means NZ could change our abortion laws, if there was a change of Government.
This is farcical. We have had a liberal abortion regime for over 40 years and in 2020 went to an even more liberal regime (and one I support). The third reading had 68 votes in favour and 51 against.
But that was before the 2020 election. Now only 26 MPs remain of the 51 who voted against, and the vast majority will have been replaced by MPs who support the current law. I’d say a vote today would be around 90 – 30. And that isn’t a vote between abortion being legal and illegal – that is a vote between the current very liberal law and the previous law.
Of the 26 MPs remaining who voted against the 2020 law change nine are Labour MPs and 17 are National MPs.
I’d say the chance of abortion laws in New Zealand being made more restrictive in the next five years is less than 1%.
The Herald reports:
New Immigration Minister Michael Wood is standing by a decision to leave nurses off a fast-track residency pathway even after the boss of the new health agency said changing that would be a “priority”.
On Friday, Health NZ interim CEO Margie Apa told Today FM they were working with officials to support more nurses coming into the country.
It comes after nursing and midwives unions called immigration settings that leave their workforce off a green list guaranteeing residency for certain professions “sexist”.
Nurses, of which the main nurses union estimates the country to be about 4000 short, have to work two years here in the profession before getting residency. Meanwhile, under the fast-track system, specific other professionals including doctors can receive it immediately.
So the Government is discouraging nurses from coming to NZ by not allowing them to have the certainty of residency should they move here to work, despite NZ being short of 4,000 nurses? The head of the new Health NZ says the policy is wrong.
So why are they doing this?
During the meeting, Wood said applying the degree of specialisation to a sector meant they were less likely to leave that profession once they arrive here.
“On the whole it seems less likely someone who works in a highly-specialised area will find employment in a different role.”
So Wood says nurses are more likely to leave nursing? And on what basis does he conclude this?
National’s Immigration spokeswoman Erica Stanford questioned Wood about the settings during an Education and Workforce Committee meeting today.
Stanford said there was no justification for making nurses wait the two years.
She asked for Wood for evidence, but he responded the policy was “based on logic and common sense rather than any particular evidence”.
We’re short of 4,000 nurses and the policy to discourage them from coming to NZ is based on common sense, rather than evidence!
Interesting data from a parliamentary question asking how many people presented to an emergency department each years during May. The data is:
So the numbers presenting are broadly in line with 2017 and 2018. The problem isn’t increased demand, it is not enough doctors and nurses due to our immigration policy and abolishing ED waiting times targets.
ACT released:
“2016/17 saw 450 prosecutions carried out, this was down to 60 by 2020/21 and 2021/22 is set to be even lower with only 30 recorded so far.
“Somehow despite plummeting prosecution rates, spending on investigations has increased from approx. $2.9 million per quarter in 2016/17 to $4.2 million per quarter in 2021/22.
This is great. The level of benefit fraud must have fallen by a massive 85%, as prosecutions have fallen by 85%. This is a terrific achievement by Labour to have almost eliminated benefit fraud.
I assume this is the case. I mean it is unthinkable that benefit fraud is still occurring at the same or greater levels, and instead no one is prosecuted for it. I am sure that is not the case.
Radio NZ reported:
Victims of serious crime are going without the financial support they’re entitled to so the government can keep within budget.
“Untenable and unethical” are the words used to describe a deliberate strategy to exclude crime victims from accessing the Victim Assistance Scheme (VAS).
More kindness.
“The Ministry and Victim Support have managed the cost pressure by deliberately under-promoting the scheme to minimise access and uptake,” it reads.
“This approach is untenable because victims are being deliberately excluded from accessing support they are entitled to receive. If this was widely known, it would erode public confidence and undermine the stated ethos of access to justice.”
This is very bad stuff. You are a victim of crime. That is bad enough – what the criminal has done to you. But now the Government is trying to hide from you that you could be eligible for financial support.
“Currently the scheme has extremely low uptake: grants are paid out on average for only 4 per cent of the 104,190 eligible victimisations reported to police each year.
The Government seems to care more about the criminals that the victims.