by frog
Today in the House, Catherine Delahunty posed a perplexing problem to Paula Bennett. Which Peter was she talking about?
Last week, Catherine hit Paula up about the Welfare Working Group and the obvious bias of the people she had appointed. When asked about Peter Saunders’ statement that there is a link between “low average intelligence and low class position”, Ms Bennett replied,
“I say that Peter Saunders is one of many advisers. He has something to offer the group as far as international knowledge is concerned. Members can read his book, Welfare to Work in Practice, which he wrote in Australia. I do not agree with everything he said; I do not agree with everything that a number of the advisers to the group said. But we are open to listening to those views from the Welfare Working Group.”
My emphasis added.
Now the reason why Paula does not agree with everything in Welfare to Work in Practice is probably because the Peter Saunders who wrote it is not the same Peter Saunders she appointed to advise the Welfare Working Group.
There are indeed two Peter Saunders who are working in the same general area.
When not hatin’ on poor people, the one Paula appointed — we’ll call him P1 — has had time to pop out a few books and articles. Here is a small bibliography:
• Australia’s Welfare Habit: And how to kick it
• Unequal But Fair? A Study of Class Barriers in Britain
• Supping with the devil: government contracts and the non-profit sector
• A whiff of compassion? The attack on mutual obligation
• Why capitalism is good for the soul
• Six arguments in favour of self-funding
And my favourite,
Help and hassle: Do people on welfare really want to work?
Somewhere in the construction of P1’s website he got confused and classified the bulk of his work under the non-fiction category. It is quite obvious the policies he promotes are just as fictional as his novel, The Versailles Memorandum; which one reviewer has said “is as important as Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged”.
You interpret that however you want. But read this column by Gordon Campbell from Scoop about just how scary this guy is. He works for the Centre for Independent Studies!
P2 — the one who actually wrote Welfare to Work in Practice — is by far, a more credible source. He is currently a professor at the University of New South Wales. He is actually interested in poverty and inequality and policies to limit the growth of both social problems.
Now you might think: “two guys, the same name, and working on similar things – I can see how Paula got confused”. But this is not a new problem. The Sydney Morning Herald covered the two Peters in 2002 (Hat tip to Alastair Jamieson).
They summed it up quite nicely on October 25 2002,
“Same name, similar titles, but diametrically opposed views.”
One can imagine that some unfortunate researcher in the National Party research unit is getting their bottom raked over some pretty hot coals right now. If only they had clicked this link.
It should also be noted there is a Peter Saunders who does something for Grey Power in Kapiti… I wonder if Paula will be getting advice from him.
The Minister fobbed Catherine’s question off in the House, but has just put out a statement saying, yes they got the right Peter. However, she carefully avoids saying which Peter is the “right man”.
I don’t know if this is a good thing. To be quite honest I would rather they had appointed P2 rather than P1.
And Bennett’s statement still does not address the fact that she was — knowingly or unknowingly — passing off sane and respected research as the product of a biased ex-academic who now works for a conservative think tank and writes vaguely racist fiction in his spare time.
Bennett does leave us with a glimmer of hope that she knows she was mistaken. This is probably as close as we’ll get as an admission she got it wrong:
“This clearly creates potential for mistaken identity,” says Ms Bennett.
Published in Environment & Resource Management | Featured by frog on Wed, May 5th, 2010
Tags: beneficiary bashing, Catherine, inequality, Mistaken identity, Paula Bennett, Peter Saunders, poverty, Welfare working group
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
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Assuming the late Merv Wellington from 30 years ago is not considered a candidate.
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“Bennett must be rivaling Tolley and Brownlee for the thickest Minister ever award.”
Alamein Kopu ?
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I don’t know anything about Parliament’s Standing Orders (and I suspect Bennett will be AWOL tomorrow anyway) but a few simple questions spring to mind:
“Did the Minister intend to appoint the author of ‘Welfare to Work in Practice’?”
Or even:
“Has the Minister read ‘Welfare to Work in Practice’?”
It’s not just about scoring cheap points. The public need to know who’s setting the welfare agenda. It doesn’t seem to be the Minister, who is clearly out of her depth.
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how about wayne mapp..?
whoar..!
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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and roger douglas…
..he did one of his hilarious ‘turns’ today..
..asking bennett why she was pandering to lefties..(or some-gem like that..)
..everyone laughed..including him..
..he was asked if he’d like to ask a real question..to re-word it..
..that seemed past him..so he passed..
..an aide rushed out..tucked the blanket around him..
..and gave him a cup of (not-too-hot) cocoa..
..he settled back..for the rest of the session..
..obviously tired by/from his exertions..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Giz us some detail Phil.
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On Mapp, that is. We all know Douglas’ track record. Sorry, comments crossed.
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watch the replay of question-time tonight at 10…
see mapp sweat..as he does battle with the english language…
..’language’ was not the winner on the day..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Sue Kedgley really had him on the ropes. Even Mapp was finding it funny.
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He didn’t go on to surprise.
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Today was probably the funniest question time I’ve ever seen. Not that there have been many…
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I had thought that such simplistic thinking from education ministers (or welfare ministers) would remain a historical occurance, but I was wrong…
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And just to confuse matters even more…Paula’s identity parade:
http://images.google.co.nz/images?um=1&hl=en&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=1&q=professor+peter+saunders&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&start=0
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@igiveuponpoliticians
Fortunately, Kopu never got to be a Minister.
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The latter.
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It’s all a big misunderstanding.
Paula Bennett actually meant to appoint Peter Saunders, from the original line-up of Dexy’s Midnight Runners. He featured on “Searching for the Young Soul Rebels”. This was one of the sounds of my youth, and still ranks as one of the greatest albums ever, so there. Paula has taste!
She may have been inspired to appoint Peter Saunders after listening to Gerry Brownlee talk about mining Schedule Four. Here’s (part of) the Dexy’s song that Saunders co-wrote, “Thankfully Not Living In Yorkshire, It Doesn’t Apply”:
I’ve never seen it but I still believe it
I’d like to dig it out or maybe wrench it out
There’s no touching
But there’s not much involved in casting doubt
Too hard to think about
I’d relate my thoughts to you
But I’m not so stupid to put my faith in you
I’ll just keep searching
…
I’ve walked around, seen the town and the crowds
I’ve walked about, worked it out, pissed about, tried to shout,
No one’s listening
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Hmmm… Merv, such memories!
Lest we forget school children saluting the flag, daily, as suggested by Merv. Closely followed by an epidemic of chainsawing school flag polls in the dead of night!
Those were the days!
peace
W
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http://davart.net/awg/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/very-fat-woman-eating.jpg
[frog: Too rude!]
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adrianb (10) Says:
May 6th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
“No, Mr Farrar, you’re simply a hypocrite. You’re either in favour of mining in areas of high conservation value or not; if you are, at least have the balls to say so. Your weasel-worded spin here is ridiculous. It’s the most contemptible of political habits, but I’m afraid you’re too practiced in poli-speak to even notice.”
Adrianb – nice call.
Meanwhile, on a bitter and twisted planet all of his own, Big Bro chews on his own lips.
[frog: Watch the thread jacking, fly, there's plenty of mining posts around for this.]
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John Campbell is getting into Paula’s fiasco too:
http://twitter.com/JohnJCampbell/status/13464050808
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Well, Paula did say last weekend that she is “a girl prone to excesses”.
Just how many Peters can she have?
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and she went to the US to study their ‘Welfare Systems’.
It was only a short trip cos they don’t got any (that’s a worry Paula!).
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welcome to the state of Irony… now extended.. from community issues to political people..
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A WILLY OR A SAM?
Well according to Gobsmacked there is now a Peter Saunders 3 !!!!!
It’s just as well it wasn’t Henry the VIII, or would she have a Willy or a Sam???
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Your description is as laboured as MP Delahuntys question in the house. It was so long winded, it got laughed off. She had to be rescued by Mallard arguing it was a real question. Concentrate on core issues and stop trying to play the silly one upmanship game that so demeans parliament.
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….which reminds me….which is the best behaved Party in the house?(It’s not even close).
Those Brave and Noble Greens again!
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***When asked about Peter Saunders’ statement that there is a link between “low average intelligence and low class position.***
Actually, there is a massive amount of research showing that psychometric testing is pretty reliable across cultures and predictive of a number of outcomes. Harvard Professor, Steven Pinker wrote last year in the New York Times (‘My Genome, My Self’ 11 Jan 2009):
“To study something scientifically, you first have to measure it, and psychologists have developed tests for many mental traits. And contrary to popular opinion, the tests work pretty well: they give a similar measurement of a person every time they are administered, and they statistically predict life outcomes like school and job performance, psychiatric diagnoses and marital stability. Tests for intelligence might ask people to recite a string of digits backward, define a word like “predicament,” identify what an egg and a seed have in common or assemble four triangles into a square. Personality tests ask people to agree or disagree with statements like “Often I cross the street in order not to meet someone I know,” “I often was in trouble in school,” “Before I do something I try to consider how my friends will react to it” and “People say insulting and vulgar things about me.” People’s answers to a large set of these questions tend to vary in five major ways: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness (as opposed to antagonism) and neuroticism. The scores can then be compared with those of relatives who vary in relatedness and family backgrounds.
The most prominent finding of behavioral genetics has been summarized by the psychologist Eric Turkheimer: “The nature-nurture debate is over. . . . All human behavioral traits are heritable.” By this he meant that a substantial fraction of the variation among individuals within a culture can be linked to variation in their genes. Whether you measure intelligence or personality, religiosity or political orientation, television watching or cigarette smoking, the outcome is the same. Identical twins (who share all their genes) are more similar than fraternal twins (who share half their genes that vary among people). Biological siblings (who share half those genes too) are more similar than adopted siblings (who share no more genes than do strangers). And identical twins separated at birth and raised in different adoptive homes (who share their genes but not their environments) are uncannily similar.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/magazine/11Genome-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2
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