Category: Social Issues
Reforming the country's failing welfare system has been a priority for John Key’s Government. It was clear there was a serious problem with welfare when, during the boom years of 2004-07, 15 percent of employers found it difficult to fill basic jobs in labouring, production and transport, despite 10 percent of the working age population being on a benefit.
There are many forces that influence policy development in New Zealand, and prime amongst them is public opinion. If anyone had any doubt about that, the recent decision by the government to withdraw all legal highs from sale, can be directly attributed to the strong action of citizens.
There is a real problem with welfare when a country that has more than 11 percent of its working age population dependent on benefits, has to import unskilled labour. Statistics show net migration to New Zealand is at a 10 year high. Canterbury was the second most popular destination, with a net gain of 5,100 migrants - many of whom were labourers going to Christchurch for the rebuild.
Since the National government took office late 2008, welfare reform has formed a large legislative programme much of which has now been completed. It is perhaps too soon to expect benefit numbers to start reducing, complicated by the global financial crisis driving up unemployment in 2009-10.
If Labour and the Greens - and all of the other advocacy groups that are rallying behind the child poverty cause - really cared about those children who are living in poverty, their primary target would be families on welfare, rather than working families, since all of the evidence points to children living in single parent families that are reliant on welfare in the long term, as being at the greater risk of deprivation and poor outcomes.
Something about the way the Left is presenting the ‘child poverty’ problem doesn't stack up. When interviewed, Green co-Leader Metiria Turei repeatedly stresses that 2 in 5 of officially poor children come from working homes. But for Turei and other anti-poverty advocates to continually highlight this group when attempting to influence voters implies there is something less laudable about being benefit-dependent. Not a sentiment normally associated with the Left.
Ideas shape nations. Many big ideas are borne out of a country’s history and tradition. New Zealand’s pioneering heritage gave us our number 8 fencing wire “we can do it” approach to life that defines our Kiwi attitude.
When history is said to repeat itself, it is never for good reasons. George Bernard Shaw captured this when he said: “If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.”
The rate of child abuse in New Zealand is a national disgrace. According to the Department of Child, Youth and Family, in the year to June 2012, there were 152,800 recorded notifications of potential abuse against children. However, after removing duplicate notifications for the same children and Police family violence referrals, which require no further action, there were 95,532.
A recent Child Poverty Action Group report about child abuse claimed that, " ...the Ministry of Social Development and its predecessors have been researching and writing about child abuse for almost quarter of a century."
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