There have been lots of reasons to feel proud to be a New Zealander lately. We have hosted what looks to me like a brilliant major sporting tournament (the debacle around the opening notwithstanding) where we have fulfiled the “stadium of 4 million” ideal. And what’s more on the field the All Blacks are poised to break the 24 year drought and make us world champions again.
But today I read two stories in the New Zealand Herald that made me ashamed as a New Zealander. The first is the news that the government has slashed the number of food parcels it hands out by 20% in a year at a time when foodbanks are dealing with more and more individuals and families who need support for the very basics of food. Food parcels are not about anything other than people getting the necessities of life.
Last night in Wellington there was a public meeting on poverty issues where Stephanie McIntyre from Downtown Community Ministry talked about the more than 400 clients they dealt with in the three months to June. They do a great job at DCM, making real and substantive differences in people’s lives, but the current government is making their job much harder by changing policies to make it harder to access food grants.
The government’s approach in my view is privatising dealing with poverty, it is an abdication of responsibility and it is morally wrong.
The second story is an acknowledgement from John Key that the “underclass” he talked so much about in the 2008 election campaign has grown under his watch. He can’t deny the evidence, it is all around from the massive increase in foodbank use, the rise in unemployment to health indicators like the 5,000 extra avoidable hospital admissions among children for respiratory illness and skin infections.
So the PM acknowledges it, great. But he is not a spectator here, he is actually running the government. More can and should be done to directly attack the growth in poverty. It is simply not good enough.
Labour has policies that are directly aimed at addressing this, from the increase in the minimum wage to $15, a fairer tax system including making the first $5000 tax free for everyone, increasing the top tax rate and introducing the CGT. We also will have a comprehensive children’s policy, which as Annette King has already announced will include legislating targets for the elimination of child poverty. And for me that must be the goal. Nothing less is acceptable.
At the forum on poverty last night Brian Easton spoke and he said while it was possible to argue on a technical basis about the best policy response to poverty, the real question to be asked is what are the ethical and moral principles that lie behind the policies. It seems to me to be hard to find an ethical principle that lies behind cutting the number of food parcels or letting inequality and poverty grow.
I think Brian’s question is a legitimate one to ask. So here is my answer. The ethical basis for Labour’s policy at this election is fairness, inter-generational responsibility, inclusion and respect and a belief that if we reduce ineqaulity we will harness all our potential, which common sense tells us will benefit us all. So what’s the ethical basis for National’s policy?
Queue Tribeless turning this thread into a diatribe about imaginary secret police out to steal his hard earned dollars….
GRRRRRR
Maybe Key could go on TV and ask the public what he should have done about it, like the Rena fiasco? He could smile a lot while doing so, of course, and look aspirational and upbeat for New Zealand. Problem sorted. What more could we ever want from a Prime Minister?
I agree with the no tax on under $5,000 policy. It’s just taxing over that amount where we start differing.
Grant, seriously, 80 years of the welfare state, and we still have poverty – why?
I’ve already posted elsewhere my link to Peter Cresswell’s great blog on poverty: I challenge you to respond to the figures given at the end of it, and the conclusion:
http://pc.blogspot.com/2011/10/unbreaking-news-poverty.html
And let’s get to the nub of the issue: of all those receiving food parcels and aid you list in your post, what was the average family size (number of children)?
Let’s have a debate on responsibility and family size. Which is to say let’s have a debate on what’s happened to love and affection within the family.
{deleted. Understand the sentiment, but that language will cause disorder, Grant}
Tribeless, seriously, thousands of years of Judaic Monotheism with the proscription of “Thou shalt not kill”, and we still have murder – why?
And let’s get to the nub of the issue: Clearly the law doesn’t work. Let’s have a debate on responsibility and crime.
Yeah, okay, and let’s link the debate on responsibility and crime to where crime is growing from because people no longer understand responsibility: that is, the welfare state.
NZ is an affluent society, the levers of welfare do push people possibly into the poverty trap, but it does so by subsidising childbirth. If you want to be poor in NZ have a big family on a low paid income, or have a child as a teenage mum, and thereby ensure your children don’t have the resources they need, physically and psychologically, to pursue their happiness fruitfully.
Instead of six children, it makes great sense to invest your resources and love into one, perhaps two. Doesn’t it?
The size families being talked about in the header post, may well be the most significant factor vis a vis poverty. Tell me why I would be wrong Grant?
“We have hosted what looks to me like a brilliant major sporting tournament”
Really?
How major?
What will be the likely viewership of the most watched game of this event – that is next week’s final?
In 2007 the RWC final only had a world-wide audience of 33 million – less than the audience for an average English premiership game.
Sorry, but that is not ‘major’.
Grant….my first description of Key (and I won’t repeat them here) were as they were shouted by the once Labour deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Michael Cullen in no less a place than the hallowed and revered walls of the House.
My second term was used by Jane Clifton in the Listner…which Trevor highlighted by posting a PDF of it on this blogsite…yet I am the cause of possible disorder for using those very same terms?
Collectively the two terms may seem inciteful for disorder…If I might (dare) venture a frank opinion…it smacks of Lockwood’s OTT censure of the NZHerald running a legitimate news picture of the protester trying to jump in the chamber.
Go figure mate…there’s no consistency here and you wonder why people have turned off Labour?
My thoughts exactly Ehoa
Grant what a shame that the only posts that generate any ‘discussion’ (to use the term loosely) are those that have no real impact.
This is a massive issue – I assume you read my comment before following my request to delete it.
At least people like me come with constructive ideas and in our private lives are doing something very real to make a difference in the lives of our children.
I hope that at the very least you will be encouraged to take up the challenge and sponsor children in the Wellington area through KidsCan who currently feed off “red soup” (left over cherrio water) for dinner. At least until a government is prepared to put in policies that give us tangible results – increased Welfare as a I mentioned originally, is not the answer.
Actually, this issue is far too important to ignore to be limited by politics. As I have said before, I will vote for whoever puts our children first.
In my experience Labour did not do this and while National are coming up short, they have done a lot more (the work on child abuse that PB has done from day one is outstanding compared to the previous Minister’s efforts).
Here is my comment again – please respond:
Grant please provide substance behind your claim that increased welfare will reduce poverty.
In 2006, $1.5 billion of WFF tax credits were paid out to 159,000 people. By 2009, this had risen to $2.7 billion paid out to 419,200 people. Treasury: http://www.treasury.govt.nz/budget/2011/fsr/b11-fsr.pdf
In 2004 Child poverty was 23%. It dropped to 16% in 2007 then increased to 20% in 2008. All despite WFF. Any increases means it is not working. (http://www.everychildcounts.org.nz/)
There is only one reason for the majority of the poverty in this country: people have more children than they can afford to raise on their own merit.
The minimum wage is a liveable wage for a single person and the average wage most certainly covers the cost of living for the average person.
When people choose to bring children into the equation they choose to bring in children that they will not be able to provide the necessities of life for.
This is wrong.
Welfare including food parcels should be for those faced with circumstances beyond their control – accident, illness and natural disasters.
To provide sufficiently for people in these circumstances means we cannot continue to enable people to make bad choices in the form of having children they cannot afford or buying houses based on maximum borrowing capacity (then claim poverty when they & their 10 kids can’t meet the repayments on the $800k Remuera home).
As a family we support KidsCan & their child sponsorship program which provides substantial assistance to thousands of children across the country in the form of shoes, socks, sunhats, thermals & food including breakfast, throughout the day.
It is my view that to break the cycle of poverty & reliance of foodbanks we need to make all children in need of this assistance Wards of the State whereby the parents still retain their rights & need to provide a roof over their children’s head, but the responsibility of feeding, clothing & educating these children is with the State & administered through their schools.
The Working for Families BS role of the Childcare Co-ordinator could be employed at the schools to deal with the admin.
This way every child in NZ would be fed, clothed & educated.
Their parents – whether beneficiaries or WFF could receive additional help in the form of food, medical & petrol vouchers with things like their rent, power & phone all being paid directly to their provider.
In addition to this the WWF would be cut completely (as there would be no need for it) which would put a lid on the sense of entitlement so many NZers have where they think they have the right to do whatever they like because people like me pick up the tab.
Something along these sorts of lines would be far more efficient than our current Welfare model.
What do you think?
P.s the ethical basis for National’s policy is that policies are fair to ALL NZers, not just those reaping the benefits of the work done & taxes paid by people like me.
National recognises the injustice of paying a lot tax yet when you seek public health care for your seriously ill child sick with something like cancer, heart, kidney or a rare disease etc you have to go and fundraise & rely on donations to get the treatment you need whereas those who don’t pay any tax (majority of New Zealanders) get to fall on the safety net of the Welfare State just because they choose to have more children than what they can afford.
Given both these scenarios are a very real part of our country it is clear we can’t afford both so what do you choose – the support for the family of the child who is sick with an illness beyond their control or the family that has 6 kids on an average wage who smoke, drink, have sky, eat junk food etc etc.
It is my view the sick child should always take precedent yet clearly this has never been the view of any government.
Rebecca welfare is a broad concept. Some believe welfare should be only a last resort or a safety net as you have described in length above. Others believe that in order for individuals to be included and valued members of a community, welfare needs to be more than the bare necessities of life. If you want people to be engaged and productive members of society, how is cutting food parcels down by 20% in a recession helping anyone, especially children??
Denying people the choice to have children because of the vast inequality of opportunity and vast inequality in income is abhorrent and contrary to the concept of fairness, which i thought NZ prided itself on.
What you are saying is that: you are poor, you can’t have children. Nevermind the cultural and religious insitutions these people believe in or the fact the reason these people are in poverty is because of the selfish policies of those who have never had to make the choice between buying their children shoes or feeding the family that week.
How is removing the care of children from their parents, and denying decision-making from those in poverty going to solve any of your proposed welfare problems? If anything, dependency will increase. We need to encourage and empower people to make their own decisions, but we are also need to give them freedom of choice. People shouldn’t have to choose between paying the phone bill or buying food for their children.
LIFE SHOULD NOT HAVE TO BE THAT HARD!
Sophie, having children is a huge responsibility, one that includes having both the financial resources to give them every chance you can (therefore only having that number of children you can provide for), plus having the emotional maturity to be able to provide a good home – and if you’re already on the DPB with no stable partner, or you’re a teenager, then it is highly irresponsible to be having children, yet look at what we have in New Zealand. It’s appalling.
Plus it may be everyone’s right to have a child, but it’s a life choice and no one’s right to expect total strangers with no say in that child’s upbringing to have to fund that upbringing.
But chiefly, think of the opportunity and environment you can provide for a child: there’s no rule that says you have to have one, and many shouldn’t be.
Sophie: life IS hard and life is about CHOICES. Why should others benefit from the long hours to get a good education, pay off a student loan & earn a high wage that my husband and I have put in? Why is it they get to work minimum hours (40-45), have loads of kids without the hard choices? The hard work?
Culture is a subjective term and I don’t see why the rights of one culture should ever supersede the rights of others, especially when that other group is most likely to be paying for those rights.
In my culture respect for others is synonymous with consideration for others.
Welfare as a way of life – such as long term benefits & WFF is all about take and never about give. This is disrespectful to me.
More importantly we can’t afford substantive welfare that is a way of life AND a safety net.
We are a small economy reliant on the world for much of our income so there has to be limits.
Look at Denmark – highest rate of suicide in Europe despite a massively high tax rate & Welfare State and well on its way to Sweden re collapse unless they pull back the reigns.
A bulging Welfare State is not a solution for our social ills, it is a cop-out. Personal responsibility where one seeks to do the best they can on their OWN merits is the solution.
I am not saying only the rich can have kids.
I am saying that having children is a privilege NOT a right. If you cannot guarantee your ability to clothe, feed, house & keep safe every child you CHOOSE to bring into this world you are not fit to be a parent. Not PC but it’s the truth.
Having one child and realising the shock of the financial and emotional responsibility is one thing but far too many people go on to have a 2nd, 3rd, 4th or more. This is not acceptable.
So in terms of food parcels – I am happy to help provide food parcels to any family who have always made good decisions, who have lived within their means and for some reason or another have hit hard times.
I am also happy to provide assistance directly to the child like we currently do through KidsCan. But the parents who ‘feed’ their kids “red soup” and fail to provide proper clothing, nutrition and bedding (so not a mattress on the floor with 10 adults in a 2 bedroom house), let alone the ones who have the audacity and lack of moral compass and heart to hurt and abuse those same children, can go to hell.
rebecca, tribeless, how exactly do you propose to stop/limit poor people from having children? im all ears…
@ idlegus – Why is it Labour supporters never come up with solutions? You pick holes in the solutions that I provide yet have none of your own? If you have all the answers then why not communicate them to the rest of us?
And why is it no one in the Labour camp ever answers such questions as who do you choose – the support for the family of the child who is sick with an illness beyond their control or the family that has 6 kids on an average wage?
To answer your question – education. We have managed to change the way people view smoking and by and large, drinking & driving so there is no reason why we cannot teach people that children are a privilege NOT a right.
Look after the children we have now and turn off the tap for the next generation. Young Maori are 5 times more likely to get pregnant than non Maori and over 90% of these young Mums come from beneficiary families. These are the statistics that quantify 30% of all NZ children are being born into low income families.
Young people are smart – guaranteed there are a lot of young Mums out there who are thinking this is not quite the fabulous life they had in mind. Use them to teach the next round of horny teens.
Sure there will always be some but target this group and you no only reduce poverty, but you reduce child abuse – the majority of (reported) physical torture seems to be committed by young parents, especially young Dads.
For the middle class NZ who see government assistance as a matter of right just because they want to live the ideal of one parent at home and/or have that magic 2.5 or 3 kids, the big 120sqm house etc they just have to go back to pre 2004 and do what all our parents did: if you wanted something you EARNED it. If you couldn’t afford it, you didn’t BUY it.
Doing something (handing out more money is not doing something) is better than nothing. National’s tinkering with reducing the thresholds on WFF & additional benefit entitlements like food grants is a good start. Note the Nats haven’t stopped food grants, just reduced them, made them less discretionary.
Sure those same poor budgeters will always go to the next tap of handouts (food banks), but given that donations are down those people are just going to have to learn that reliance on others is not meant to be a way of life.
And once they get this message FINALLY there will be enough food grants, food parcels & any other assistance for people like Pike River, CHCH earthquakes (and now flooding) etc.
People who assume they have the right to made demands at the expense of the taxpayer are the ones you should be mad at. They are the ones reducing the assistance for people experiencing real & genuine hardship beyond their control.
You want to point fingers – point it at them, money does not grow on trees.
Bottomline most New Zealanders want to see ALL our children clothed, fed, housed, loved & kept safe. Welfare does not do this as it removes the one ingredient that makes for a good parent – pride. Pride in yourself, pride in your own achievement.
Money never solves money problems. “massive increase in foodbank use, the rise in unemployment to health indicators like the 5,000 extra avoidable hospital admissions among children for respiratory illness and skin infections” has all happened DESPITE Welfare continuing to increase.
Would-be & current sperm & egg donors must begin to take responsibility for their own children. Only then will we see the end of poverty and only then do such people deserve the privilege of being called parents.
We lovers of freedom, idlegus, understand, in a way our politicians don’t (want to), the non-initiation of force principle. That is, we don’t stop people having children: no one has the right to do that. Just as no one has the right to have children knowing they don’t have the financial or emotional resources to cope, and that they will be reliant on me, a total stranger, to pay for what is their responsibility.
All the State has to do is stop subsidising childbirth, the subsidy forcibly taken from me, and my family’s table. That’s it, no force involved at all, just expecting individuals to make responsible decisions: the harm of the welfare state is it has broken the link to responsibility in far too many broken households.
One thing I’ve noticed on Red Alert in my week here is how many of the Statist posters seem to have no clue of the difference between a voluntary/free transaction or relationship, and a coercive one (which can only be dealt out by the fist of the State). One poster actually thinks because his body forces him to eat in order to survive, then transacting to buy food from ‘capitalists’ is a coercive transaction. It depresses me that the left mire me in a system that is run by politicians who are as stupid as this poster, and this is deeply significant of what has gone wrong, and why the classical liberal society was dismantled. Because under our State education system, the Left no longer have the intellectual wherewithal to comprehend the difference between compulsion and freedom, they jump instantly to State coercion and bullying to solve ‘their’ perceived problems (which are usually a result of the welfare state in the first place) without a thought to the long term implications this has had, which has been to destroy the freedom of every Western individual before their almighty States.
Great post, Rebecca.
@ Tribeless
Again you consistently misrepresent.
One poster actually thinks because his body forces him to eat in order to survive, then transacting to buy food from ‘capitalists’ is a coercive transaction. It depresses me that the left mire me in a system that is run by politicians who are as stupid as this poster…
You harp on about the only coercion being generated by the State for the States purposes.
The example I gave is that compulsion comes in many forms, some natural some manufactured; the example of eating was used to specifically demonstrate that.
I didn’t even mention ‘capitalism’ in the analogy. What I did state is that in order to fulfil this ‘voluntary’ transaction for food at a supermarket, I am coerced to pay by the law. My only other ‘voluntary’ choices are theft or starvation (or as you pointed out in response, growing everything I eat).
So I wasn’t making an ideological point. I was undermining your weak position.
If you think you have ‘freedom’ to eat, that it is a voluntary transaction and not compelled, then good luck living past the next few weeks.
So likewise, it depresses me that you are too ‘stupid’ (to coin a phrase) to see this position was analogous and an attempt to disprove your assertions, rather than treating it as axiomatic or similar to your line of arguement which tends to be dogmatic and fact-free.
And you prove my point yet again, Gregor. Cheers for that.
Stunning comeback and unsurprisingly, nonsensical.
Similar to all your other posts so at least you are consistent. Cheers for that.
You actually think that living on a benefit isn’t hard? And isn’t full of hard choices? What planet do you live on? Your patronising rant about how hard you work, poor people work 40 hours a week and earn minimum wage and are struggling and I don’t think that’s right or fair. Why can’t everyone have a livable wage? Yes people who are working their guts out 40 hours a week, just like you, have to ask for food parcels, the fact that this is happening should be ringing alarm bells for anyone with a conscience!
Your culture is subjective argument is a cop out. You can use that argument on anything in the world. I never said that one culture should supersede the rights of another, I was merely asking EVERYONE cant have same treatment as everyone else. It’s called human rights, we are all human and we all have cultural and religious rights. How do food parcels affect your cultural and religious rights?
And please “especially when that other group is most likely to be paying for those rights.” people who have received food parcels pay tax. Hell even beneficiaries pay tax so get off your moral high horse.
Throughout this entire discussion you show no consideration or sympathy to the plight of others. You harp on about the children, but all you want to do is rip them away from their parents, indicating that you think all poor people are bad parents.
If you talk to the majority of beneficiaries you will know that most of them don’t want to be beneficiaries so this “Welfare as a way of life” is a load of crap. Stop regurgitating all of Nationals spin. Back it up with facts.
So wait you are correlating welfare with suicide? I think you have the concept of causation slightly confused. Welfare does not cause suicide. But I would like to see you prove me wrong with FACTS you know those things that are generally based on the truth.
“I am not saying only the rich can have kids.” YES YOU ARE! You set so many patronizing criteria that is subjective, oooh there’s that word again “who have always made good decisions, who have lived within their means and for some reason or another have hit hard times”. Who gets to decide this, you? How about just raise the minimum wage? How about realize that they system must be flawed when there are thousands of people who have to swallow their pride and ask for assistance like this. Poor budgeting is not a good enough answer anymore, it doesn’t highlight the actual problem that we have. And until you recognize that nothing is going to change.
Also please educate yourself on welfare statistics, like the fact that only 3.1 % of those on the DPB are under 20 years of age – and that figure has barely flickered since 2005, when the figure was 2.9 %. Put another way, 97% of the people on the DPB are NOT the ‘very young women’. There are in fact, significantly more people on the DPB over 55 years of age (5.6%) than there are ‘very young women’ receiving this benefit.
Read this, you may become enlightened! Heaven forbid.
http://werewolf.co.nz/2011/02/ten-myths-about-welfare/
Sophie, I couldn’t care less about the myths of welfare. They’re irrelevant to me. This is a philosophical and ethical argument regarding my freedom from the brute State (and your’s and your childrens and your grandchildrens) and the protection of the property rights of the smallest of all minorities, the individual, versus my slavery to the needs of total strangers over whom I have no control, but am expected to sacrifice myself, and the earnings that provide for my loved ones.
You need to answer to the quotation in my post here:
http://blog.labour.org.nz/index.php/2011/10/19/everyones-talking-about-it/comment-page-1/#comment-209947
And to my example of the tyranny of the majority here:
http://blog.labour.org.nz/index.php/2011/10/19/everyones-talking-about-it/comment-page-1/#comment-210081
Though, by the by, if I gave some personal information on this blog, Sophie, that I am not prepared to do, because it might well bust my extended family up – and I won’t go there – but if I could then I would demonstrate to you what evil our out of control welfare state does. I know welfare in practice and how the natural love and affection within families is broken so easily by the State offering impressionable teenagers a cheque for life, and what looks like an easy road (and it’s too late when they mature enough to see it was only a road to their serfdom). It’s a sick society we’ve been building, and failed by, for 80 years now.
Why don’t more people notify the UN of whats happening here?
United Nations Slams Canada For Letting People Go Hungry
http://thelinkpaper.ca/?p=16536
All it take is for more people to notify the UN and things might change.