Lindsay Mitchell: Writing off beneficiary debt

• Lindsay Mitchell writes – 

There is a call from anti-poverty activists for the government to write off beneficiary debt which has grown to over 2.3 billion dollars.

Acquiescing to this demand would create an ever-growing snowball.

Next for consideration would be student debt; debt to the Ministry of Justice for unpaid fines; debt to IRD for unpaid child support payments; debt to Kaianga Ora for overdue rents and more.

After all, many of the people with forgiven Work and Income debt fall into these other categories also. For the sake of consistency, the write-offs should be all encompassing.

In which case, what about debt to the state-owned Kiwibank? Surely it is within the government’s grasp to exercise some clemency there as well.

Lindsay Mitchell on joining the right dots and on the sobering outlook for people who will be lifetime beneficiaries

THE Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister has been braying about the Government lifting “about 66,000 kids out of poverty in the past few years …” 

In its latest annual report the Ministry for Social Development takes pride in its focus on getting people jobs resulting in 226,836 clients moving off benefit into work in the last two years (“our highest recorded result”).

But social commentator LINDSAY MITCHELL points out that 415,266 benefits were granted in the past two years, when more benefits were granted than cancelled.  She writes: –  

• Our leaders need to join the right dots

The Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister says:

“We’ve lifted about 66,000 kids out of poverty in the past few years …”

What he neglects to add is they have also consigned about 37,000 more to life on a benefit bringing the total to over 209,000.

Genetic strength, insults against Māori MPs (on one side of the House) and an analysis of the critical doctrinal divide

The Māori Party, without any apparent blush, makes a provocative claim about the genetic superiority of Māori on its website.

The claim is to be found in a section which sets out the party’s sports policy:

 “It is a known fact that Māori genetic makeup is stronger than others.”

This genetic strength perhaps attenuates when Māori join the ACT or National Parties and express opinions that challenge the Government line on what must be done in partnership with Maori because of obligations supposedly demanded by the Treaty of Waitangi.

Māori Development Minister Willie Jackson earlier this year said ACT leader David Seymour, of Ngāpuhi descent, claimed to be Māori – but “he’s just a useless Māori, that’s all”.

“Absolutely [he’s] Māori but maybe just the most useless advocate for Māori we’ve ever seen.”

He subsequently told Morning Report he did not regret his comment because Seymour was a “dangerous politician” whose views must be challenged.

Lindsay Mitchell: On child poverty, racism and colonisation

A table in an article posted on Bassett, Brash & Hide shows there are 53,000 NZ European compared to a total of 47,000 combined other ethnicities (using the most recent data reported in June 2021).   

Poverty, plainly, has no colour.  There are more New Zealand European children in material hardship than all other ethnicities put together. 

Social commentator LINDSAY MITCHELL – the author of the article  – writes:  

A just-published Listener article asks, “Why doesn’t middle-class NZ care about child poverty?” It gathers views from half a dozen people including a principal, a teacher, an advocate against child poverty, a charity head, a Māori provider chair and Pasifika social worker. Apparently, they told the Listener that the middle-class has become indifferent to child poverty.

Yet a careful reading of the piece finds it is primarily the Child Poverty Action Group advancing the idea that,

“For middle white New Zealand, poverty is equated with being brown. This is where the indifference comes from.”

The Chief Executive of the Auckland City Mission goes further claiming active hostility to solo mothers, especially Māori:

“As a society, the narrative is ‘how dare you raise a child alone? We are going to make it as hard for you as we can – we will punish you.’ And secondly, in our country, poverty has a colour. It is about racism and colonisation.”

In fact, there are more NZ European children in material hardship than all other ethnicities put together.

The table below shows there are 53,000 NZ European compared to a total of 47,000 combined other ethnicities (these are the most recent data reported in June 2021):

Willie Jackson ridiculed Shane Reti on Maori longevity gains – but guess whose numbers were right (and show great progress)?

If  Dr Shane Reti happened to insist the world is not flat, would RNZ see much merit in reporting  he had come under fire from flat earthers?

We ask because a recent RNZ report was headed Shane Reti stands firm in face of criticism of Māori health comments

Oh dear.  What did he say?

The opening paragraphs inform us:

National’s Health spokesperson Dr Shane Reti is under fire for comments he made comparing Māori life expectancy to the 1840s.

It follows his appearance on The Hui where he said the life expectancy for Māori was 30 years in the 1840s but today it is around 73.4 years.

Was Reti really obliged to defend himself, saying he was trying to argue how the life span of Māori has increased over time?

See how Maori have fared under colonisation (not too badly) and how Ardern has fared in averting criticism

We commend social issues commentator Lindsay Mitchell, who tirelessly digs up data that put a different perspective on matters reported by mainstream media or brings government policy and its implementation into question.

Two splendid examples have been posted on her blog in the past few days.

One post (using graphs to underscore the argument) contends the progress of Māori social and economic indicators that has occurred under the process of colonisation stands in stark contrast to the constant barrage of contrary claims

The second post challenges the Ardern Government’s claims to be the most open and transparent government ever.

Greens see red despite benefit increases – but Michael Cullen could tell them (and the Ardern government) what safety nets are all about

The Ardern  government has  made  “well-being”  such  a  focus  of  its  policies  that many  New  Zealanders  think  it  is   now  the  way  forward.

Labour’s ally, the  Green Party, is so enamoured  with  the  “well- being”  philosophy  it  sharply criticised   the  government for raising the  level of  main  benefits  “by less than $8 a week” from April 1.

“We have a poverty crisis in NZ, and we must go further and faster to deliver income support that enables everyone to live with dignity,” says Green Party spokesperson for Social Development & Employment Ricardo Menéndez March.

“The government currently expects a single person over 25 years old to be able to get by on just $250.74 a week, and they’re supposed to celebrate that rising to $258.51. That extra eight dollars isn’t even enough to buy a block of cheese.”

Menendez  March  says it is  “disingenuous”  of  the  government to continue to say indexing benefits to wages is the best thing they could have done, and 

” … even the Children’s Commissioner said they need to be bold and courageous, and actually lift benefits.

“Indexation of benefits to wages means little without a substantive lift in core benefits to close the gap which has continued for decades.”

The right medicine for NZ (we are told) is a matter of Pharmac’s ethnic mix rather than pharmaceutical expertise

Stuff delivered another woke-up call to its readers this morning with a report which presses Pharmac to hire more Maori.

There’s nothing in the article to convincingly explain how current staff ratios adversely affect Pharmac’s job of buying medicines or how they actually undermine the nation’s health.

The drug-purchasing agency’s “appalling” shortcomings instead relate to concerns about cultural inadequacies, systemic racism and a failure to meet Treaty of Waitangi obligations.

The on-line report is accompanied by a video of the PM facing questions about the government’s healthcare policy and its funding of Pharmac.

She will be used to such questioning.  Pharmac is the constant target of grievances about its medicine-buying priorities and of petitioners who quickly muster popular support for demands that certain drugs be bought (typically at great cost) to deal with one life-sapping illness or another.

This time Stuff’s Katarina Williams has discovered –

Just three of Pharmac’s 130 staff members identified as Māori last year, despite the country’s drug-buying agency vowing to prioritise Māori leadership and uphold the Treaty of Waitangi as a way to ensure better health outcomes for Māori.

Readers are left to puzzle about how Pharmac’s drug purchases and the policies underpinning them are adversely affecting the health of people who identify as Maori.  Or how they might unfairly advantage the health of other people.

Oh look – 28 potential good-news stories about young people overcoming challenges (but Stuff has mostly missed them)

The Dom-Post gave front-page treatment today to the government’s declaration of a climate emergency.   This emergency – says Climate Change Minister James Shaw – will be backed with ambitious plans to reduce emissions.

Another of yesterday’s press releases from the Beehive, about an awards ceremony, did not pass muster with the Dom-Post editorial gate-keepers.  This was a statement about 28 young people who have overcome formidable disadvantages – Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis described them as young achievers who have been in the care of Oranga Tamariki or involved with the youth justice system.

Each of them received Oranga Tamariki Prime Minister Awards in recognition of their success and potential.

At the awards ceremony in Parliament, Kelvin Davis congratulated these young people for showing the strength and perseverance to succeed despite facing significant challenges.

The case for putting stability and security above other factors when deciding a child’s best interests (and they are colour-blind)

The inexorable march to separatism – manifest in the political clamour to have Maori children removed from the protection of state welfare agencies – raises questions which most commentators have overlooked or prefer not to tackle. 

Lindsay Mitchell is not so coy.  She asks if the future of a child with a modicum of Maori blood should be decided solely by Maori members of a family and raises the matter of the rights and claims of non-Maori family members.    

Rights were brought smack-bang into the issue when the Human Rights Commission threw its support behind calls by the Children’s Commissioner for urgent action to keep at-risk Māori children with their wider  family.

In effect, these authorities are telling us the rights of Maori family members outweigh the rights of non-Maori family members.   

The Children’s Commissioner this month published the second of two reports on a review of what needs to change to enable Māori aged 0-3 months to remain in the care of their families in situations where Oranga Tamariki-Ministry for Children is notified of care and protection concerns

The key recommendation in the report is for a total transformation of the statutory care and protection system.