by frog
Published in THE ISSUES by frog on Sun, May 6th, 2012
Tags: general debate
General debate, May 6, 2012
Published: May 6, 2012
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Example: Imagine if a prominent member of the Green party openly changed their mind on the idea of problematic AGW, and believed in a reprioritised focus on emissions, etc. They would be sidelined–if not kicked out–of the Green party. It wouldn’t matter if they were actually right and could provide comprehensive arguments, because the Greens need to belive in problematic AGW if for no other reason than they have the professional need to differentiate themselves from other parties.
(note, I am only using the AGW issue as an example for principle here)
This is what’s scary about political parties. Ideas become institutionalised in themselves, because political parties are ultimately professional organisations: they exist to support the livelihoods of their members. If you threaten what a party “stands for” then you threaten the premise that provides for its members. In turn, those who contradict the party’s institutionalised beliefs are naturally sidelined, and more realistically never allowed into the party in the first place. And so the party, which seems so mindful from the outside, may be on a core level mindless. Professional demands institutionalise the conclusions, and from here the thinking becomes just rationalisation.
And this is why it is SO important for the public to think for themselves and to hold ALL political parties critically to account. Because if we don’t do it then no-one else will. We should never relate to a political party like a cherished sports team.
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Ignoring the court of public opinion
Any credible leader would stand John Banks down until the investigation into the so-called “anonymous” donations is concluded.
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Actually, Andrew, Greens debate policy and ideas all the time – if someone “changes their mind” on some policy position, then they have many avenues to put forward a different view and provide evidence etc. What is fundamental is the charter, not the policies as such.
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Labour MP Phil Twyford has a private members bill coming up to make it illegal to sell, handle, transport, test or possess uranium as an armour or weapon in New Zealand. I would support making it illegal to buy, sell, manufacture, test or use such weapons or armour, but I don’t support making it illegal to transport such materials through New Zealand providing the final destination is outside New Zealand and not subject to UN sanctions, etc. However I would require adequate safeguards to be in place for safety and security of such shipments.
This is a pragmatic position. While I don’t like such materials, they are not currently illegal and can be shipped around the world. Why should such shipments be forced to bypass New Zealand and thus restrict the available shipping which could be taking goods to or from New Zealand more cheaply or timely than alternative transport options?
Trevor.
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“Ideas become institutionalised in themselves,”
Not a bad thing – parties should intitutionalise ideas, and disband or fall apart if those ideas are proved lacking. Better than having parties that are in constant flux, with nobody really knowing what they stand for anymore (such as Labour).
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Everyone is excited about the supermoon tonight, apart from John Banks. Guess that coz he is pwned by it.
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I want to have a song for our Invercargill Keep Our Assets March this coming Saturday. Open to ideas and thoughts: http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/05/dont-sell-our-assets-mr-key.html
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I want to have a song for our Invercargill Keep Our Assets March this coming Saturday
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12VUjgYMm1U&list=FLRiqjcO6FHBhgjpL3s8kuQg&index=17&feature=plpp_video
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http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/05/pigs-and-troughs.html
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Janine:
I agree with you, but debate will only exist up to a point. Will the Greens really test things like the idea of government control over education, anti-sprawl and anti-car ideations, and the AGW saga, etc?
I doubt it. It’s too politically costly to change your mind on the more fundamental levels. These things will be sacred cows.
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Unemployment in most parts of the UK is likely to continue to rise over the next five years, according to an economic forecasting group.
The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) says the overall jobless rate could hit 10.7% by 2016, the highest for more than a decade.
The CEBR also believes unemployment could in time rise to levels not seen since the recession of the early 1990s.
BBC business correspondent Ben Thompson says the CEBR warned that areas reliant on public sector jobs and government spending will be badly hit – especially Wales, Scotland and the North East of England.
But in Northern Ireland, where almost one in three people now work in the public sector, the impact could be even worse, he said.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17979559
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Andrew
The science around AGW is REALLY unlikely to disappear in any future I can imagine.
If it were to do so, the Green party would not need to worry about THAT aspect of sustainability. Whoopee. We would concentrate on sustainable economics and clean rivers and saving whales.
It won’t. I am finding the organization of the party gratifyingly free of the sort of troubles you envision. Not sure it can scale up well, but it is nice right now.
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bjchip:
Note I cautiously used the AGW thing as an example of principle only.
But I will make a point. From memory, in the Interest.co.nz forum, Hugh Pavletich said that he had a personal conversation with Russel Norman on housing (un)affordability some time back, and Russel apparently privately agreed with him. Then he continued speaking as though the meeting never happened in public [note: these specifically are my words], pushing the old lines commonly believed by the political left camp.
Personally I have learnt that what politicians say today may have little gravity on what they do tomorrow. Who bloody knows what’s real in their minds and what’s just PR for today. I lost so much respect for National after they turned out to be full of shit. The Greens have yet to be put to the test. What will they do when it really counts, I wonder?
http://www.interest.co.nz/property
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I would say it is generic of all politicians to hold private beliefs that they don’t necessarily espouse in public.
I would go so far as to say most people in fact are occasionally required to express the beliefs of their employer that they don’t agree with on every level.
The difficulty is that political leaders are, rightly, assumed to be in lockstep with policy as they are the personification of the party, and broadly, the majority view of that party whilst they hold tenure.
Furthermore, astute politicians know when to hold a position and when to give ground. They have to balance maintaining their political base while also generating broader appeal. So in effect, it’s best to preach to the converted face to face while not being too threatening to the entrenched ideas of the greater audience you are trying to woo.
To whit, there are two political axioms that remain constant:
1. Power is won at the centre, not the margins
2. You only get to implement policy if you win
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Free to air channels cut by 33%
It’s not only the loss of TVNZ7… free to air has lost SBS one, SBS two, Stratos Television, Australia Network Pacific and BBC World News. That means there has been a reduction of free to air broadcasting by a third since the start of National’s second term in power.
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Jackal’s suggestion that “Any credible leader would stand John Banks down until the investigation into the so-called “anonymous” donations is concluded” is (typicially) nonsensical: John Banks is (regrettabley) the leader of the party!
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We should be trying to eradicate poverty not punish and condemn those who find themselves poor! Well done Metiria, who stood up and said that providing contraception to the poor will have some potential negative consequences.
http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/05/pregnancy-punishment-and-poverty.html
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sprout:
It’s not the poverty that’s the problem, but the psychology that too often goes with it – that is, the ‘type’ of people we want to stop having babies. The serious child abuse victims.
http://andrewatkin.blogspot.co.nz/2011/12/time-to-consider-reproduction-licenses.html
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You really are a fascist aren’t you Andrew.
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Andrew you are treading on very dangerous ground by stating that the state should decide who can “breed” and who can’t. There are so many factors involved in making such a decision that would necessitate many violations of basic human rights, even thinking about it as a possibility is cause for concern.
Rather than such a punitive approach, investing in education, good jobs and providing practical support for struggling families would have a much more positive impact.
I wonder if you would allow any of these people to have children?
1) An unemployed woman whose husband was involved in dubious activities and was rarely home.
2) A homeless drug addict with Aids.
3) An unemployed woman living on welfare who has clinical depression and is suicidal.
4) An unmarried teenage couple with an unstable relationship.
This are the individuals who were born into each situation:
1) John D Rockerfeller
2) Liz Murray (Harvard graduate and inspirational speaker)
3) J. K. Rowling’s daughter
4) Oprah Winfrey
http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-rags-to-riches-stories.php
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Sprout:
1) An unemployed woman whose husband was involved in dubious activities and was rarely home.
PROBABLY NOT
2) A homeless drug addict with Aids.
NO WAY
3) An unemployed woman living on welfare who has clinical depression and is suicidal.
NO WAY
4) An unmarried teenage couple with an unstable relationship.
POSSIBLY. ALL DEPENDS.
This are the individuals who were born into each situation:
1) John D Rockerfeller
PROBABLE PSYCHOPATH
2) Liz Murray (Harvard graduate and inspirational speaker)
PROBABLY DEEPLY REPRESSED WITH EXTREME NEUROTIC DRIVE.(believe me, not all success is born out of sanity)
3) J. K. Rowling’s daughter
???
4) Oprah Winfrey
SUCCESSFUL BECAUSE SHE IS AS SIMPLE AS HER AUDIENCE.
…you should read my included link carefully. Stereotypical examples tell us very little in themselves.
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Sprout:
Someone has to make the decision on breeding – in the end. You can’t have direct population control without eugenics. As soon as you are controlling populations you are controlling what groups/individuals are doing the breeding, by default.
We might as well embrace the developing paradigm.
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solkta:
When you know in your heart you’re a good man, you can think the difficult thoughts without the personal identity crisis.
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Andrew Atkin
New Zealand is currently in a position of having to encourage immigration to ensure our population doesn’t decline, so any eugenics “paradigm” is entirely manufactured.
There is a thing called natural selection whereby people who are suitable to have children will have children and people who are not wont. Singling out a certain section of the community based on incorrect presumptions is a recipe for disaster.
Instead of stigmatizing female beneficiaries, the government should look at ways of ensuring all children have the support they require. They should look at ways of developing social conditions that encourage families to stay together.
The only real solution is a system that is conducive to raising children properly, no matter what their parents social economic status is. That’s what democracy is all about… what you’re talking about Andrew Atkin is fascism!
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Jackal:
You have no idea how fucked up people are. What I am talking about is stopping them from breeding – and reproducing themselves. Call me a fascist if you will – I want to see this world prosper and survive.
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Andrew Atkin
What the? You do realize that offering free contraception just to female beneficiaries stigmatises them? With over 50% of poor people actually working, why hasn’t the government offered them the same free contraception? With men also contributing to pregnancy, why hasn’t free contraception been offered to male beneficiaries?
This policy is wrong on so many levels it’s not funny. But what is really wrong is that people think they have the right to control other peoples reproductive systems just because of their social economic status. Such fascist idealism is backwards, with proven disastrous results.
If you want to see the world prosper and survive, you would not encourage eugenics. You would instead encourage a healthy and supportive childhood for all children irrespective of the wealth of their parents and provide services wherever they are required.
This is actually a copout by National who has no plan to rectify our growing impoverishment. Instead of ensuring children do not fall through the gaps, they want to get rid of children of beneficiaries altogether. So much for National backing families.
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I guess, they don’t really feel they need to, since if they’re working, they aren’t getting the dpb. Do you think it should be more widely offered?
“But what is really wrong is that people think they have the right to control other peoples reproductive systems ”
I may have missed something, I thought people were being offered free contraception. It’s not forced is it?
“If you want to see the world prosper and survive, you would not encourage eugenics. You would instead encourage a healthy and supportive childhood for all children irrespective of the wealth of their parents and provide services wherever they are required.”
You provide services whereever they are require BECAUSE that’s the right thing to do. I don’t see the link to having “the world prosper and survive”.
In fact it seems pretty clear to me that “the world” would be better off with a whole lot less of us.
“New Zealand is currently in a position of having to encourage immigration to ensure our population doesn’t decline” Is a declining population a bad thing?
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Sprout says “Andrew you are treading on very dangerous ground by stating that the state should decide who can “breed” and who can’t.”
The state has been deciding for decades who can and can’t have children, and I haven’t heard you having a big panic about it.
CYFs have 50,000 notifications of abuse every year, and have around 5000 children who have been taken off parents.
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Photonz1 there is a huge difference between establishing who should be allowed to procreate and identifying poor parenting.
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Sprout says “We should be trying to eradicate poverty…”
You dreaming if you think we can eradicate poverty while the poorest 20% of people have babies as a rate 100% higher than those who CAN afford to support them.
We have a problem that those least able to emotionally and financially support children, have the most.
If anyone doesn’t even want to address that problem, then their claims about wanting to eradicate poverty are hollow.
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Sprout says “there is a huge difference between establishing who should be allowed to procreate and identifying poor parenting.”
So you don’t see anything wrong with violent parents abusing their kids, having them taken away, then having more kids again?
Then abusing those babies, having them taken, then having more babies again?
Personally, I think a childs right to have a good upbringing is infinitely more important than a parents right to have children even when they are completely incapable of providing that good upbringing.
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fin
I think it’s decidedly questionable that National is targeting female beneficiaries. Whether people are getting the DPB is not relevant to peoples ability to afford contraception. Many working poor would not be able to afford contraception as well, so why the discrimination?
That is the question. Why give this to case managers to administer when it’s quite clearly a health concern.
You don’t see a connection between having a diverse population that is not restricted from procreating because of their social economic status and having prosperity? Come on fin.
Ensuring a certain segment of the population is discouraged from procreating because of certain peoples incorrect assumptions is a bad thing. Having a declining population would likely adversely effect the economy in New Zealand. Stabalizing the worldwide population is presently a good thing.
It’s like saying lets get rid of all the starving millions in the world and starvation wont be a problem. In fact lets take it a step further… humans are causing lots of problems around the world, lets get rid of them all. It’s insane!
photonz1
Got any evidence of that apart from your quackery?
So you would ensure that the child doesn’t exist just because there are some bad parents around? What about the majority of children from welfare dependent homes that aren’t abused… are you going to discourage them all from procreating as well?
How rich is rich enough to be allowed children?
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For a read on the side, I spotted this on a Melbourne [mostly] public transport blog, reproducing part of the city’s 1929 metropolitan plan, which includes phrases like:
* The tramcar is by far the most economical user of street space.
* The stationary vehicles at the kerbside are one of the most uneconomical uses of street space.
* The use of the private motor vehicle for ordinary shopping purposes or for merely personal transport to and from business, causes a most extravagant use of street space.
It goes on to predict that while restrictions and prohibitions of unnecessary use are impractical, the resulting congestion combined with availability of first class railway and tramway public transport will cause people to use the latter regardless.
On the other hand, oil became cheap and some big vehicle roads were built and Melbourne became a sprawling city without any hard geographic limits on how widely it can spread.
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You dreaming if you think we can eradicate poverty while the poorest 20% of people have babies as a rate 100% higher than those who CAN afford to support them.
Quackery indeed.
The most current info available from Stats NZ (1996 census derived).
Extrapolated from table 48: Avg number of children per woman by income – 1.284m respondents (percentage of respondents by band added)
$10,000 or Less 2.15 (37%)
$10,001 – $15,000 2.10 (19%)
$15,001 – $20,000 1.92 (9%)
$20,001 – $25,000 1.73 (8%)
$25,001 – $30,000 1.58 (7%)
$30,001 – $40,000 1.46 (9%)
$40,001 – $50,000 1.38 (3%)
$50,001 – $70,000 1.40 (2%)
$70,001 – $100,000 1.48 (0.5%)
$100,001 or more 1.83 (0.5%)
Unspecified 2.32 (5%)
Overall avg 1.92
As noted in the report:
“We are completely unable to consider how income affects fertility decisions, because personal income data from a census relates to the current situation of the woman. A woman’s or her current partner’s income at the time of the census need not reflect her/his income at the time that fertility decisions were being made, nor does it necessarily refer to the same partnership.
Clearly, there is a relationship (Table 46) between the number of children a woman has had and her personal income outcomes, except for the small number of women with incomes in excess of $100,000 per annum.
Women who have had larger numbers of children tend to have, on average, lower incomes. It is also clear that nearly 40 percent of the women who specified their income were in receipt of less than $10,000 per annum. This tends to support the relationship between childcare burden and employment options.”
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Gregor says “Quackery indeed.”
Yet you’ve just given figures that show 50% MORE births for those in bottom deciles compared to the average income.
And that’s with the bottom FOUR deciles all compacted into just one statistic. And several statistics for just the top decile.
So you’ve pretty much proved my point.
Have a look at the table on P21 of the following link, and you will see the very strong correlation between deciles and birth rates with around
- 5000 births per year for the top deciles
- 10,000 births per year for the bottom decile.
http://www.hqsc.govt.nz/assets/PMMRC/Publications/Fifth-PMMRC-report-2009.pdf
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Correlation? Yes. 50% more births that avg income? Yes.
Does it prove your supposition that “the poorest 20% of people have babies as a rate 100% higher than those who CAN afford to support them.” No.
The number of children per family, from which we can fairly assume rates of birth, aren’t even close to double.
So in fact, your point hasn’t been pretty much proven at all and you have conveniently ignored the comments from the papers authors that describes correlation rather than causality.
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Correlation? Sure.
50% more births for women in the lowest earning quartile than those on average wage? Yes.
Does it prove your supposition that “the poorest 20% of people have babies as a rate 100% higher than those who CAN afford to support them.”? Not even remotely.
The number of children per family, from which we can fairly assume rates of birth, aren’t even close to double.
So unless you can explain how 100% is the same as 50%, I haven’t “pretty much proved” your point at all.
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sorry for the double post – edit function went screwy.
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No. It’s more like saying lets give all the starving millions access to free contraception to reduce the number of future starving.
Does the gov’t have a right to be part of family planning decisions?
When the gov’t provides a benefit/dpb, it is taking on a kind of parental role. Perhaps this gives the gov’t a right (or even obligation) to ensure the people it is supporting have access to family planning advice etc.
Such family planning services must obviously be delivered/performed by qualified people (doctors/nurses not winz case workers).
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photonz1
Wrong! The figures in no way show that people with lower incomes are deciding to have more children. Here is the part that you ignored:
Most parents accept the fact that their income will reduce when they have children.
The other problem with your interpretation of the graph from the link is that it does not account for more people living in deprived areas and there being more impoverished Moari and Pacific Islanders than Europeans. Of course more Maori and Pacific children are going to be born into impoverishment. The question is how best to rectify the inequality.
A policy that dissuades mainly Maori and Pacific Islanders from having children is quite simply racist!
I agree with Gregor, where did you get your percentages and 5000 vs. 10000 figures from… cloud cuckoo land?
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fin
Well not really. It’s more like giving case workers who are not qualified an avenue to pursue their clients personal information and perhaps pressure them into using contraception.
It’s like saying only females are responsible for their pregnancy and men don’t factor into the equation at all. It’s like saying beneficiaries aren’t people who can think for themselves and cannot use contraception properly.
It’s like saying only the wealthy are allowed kids.
The government should instead look at ways of reducing poverty instead of blaming the victims and using people’s incorrect assumptions and prejudices against those who are welfare dependent.
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Gregor – actually your stats prove nothing. Because stay at home mothers with husbands on high salaries and a single child are mixed into the bottom income bracket.
So mixing the weathiest and poorest into one group doesn’t really tell us anything.
Jackal asks “I agree with Gregor, where did you get your percentages and 5000 vs. 10000 figures from… cloud cuckoo land?”
No. But I put you wrong. They’re actually on P20, not 21.
I find it rather pointless that you are argueing against the existance of something that has been well known, not just in NZ, but in many countries around the world, for decades.
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So let me get this straight, photonz1.
Your provably wrong supposition is OK but my actual statistical information “proves nothing”, is that right?
Because stay at home mothers with husbands on high salaries and a single child are mixed into the bottom income bracket.
That’s funny – where does the SEFF report say that?
What it does say is this:
“A further limitation of the measurement of family income is that it does not capture the true financial contribution towards a child or children. In no case do we know how this income is distributed among the members of the family or indeed other members of the household. We also don’t know how this income is distributed among other commitments or people with a call on the income.”
So once again, you’re making stuff up on the fly.
I find it rather pointless that you are argueing against the existance of something that has been well known…..
The usual hamfisted attempt to shut down a conversation when you’ve been proven wrong by conveniently ignoring the facts and falling back anecdotal ‘common knowledge’ conjecture.
Just admit you overstated your case and be done with it.
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photonz1
You’ve failed to show that poor people in New Zealand are having more children. Your presumption that beneficiaries are having additional children just to gain around $40 per week is a fallacy. Clearly there is no financial incentive to have children on a benefit.
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You’re getting anal Gregor.”That’s funny – where does the SEFF report say that? ”
The figures you give are for “personal income” so the $10,000 and below includes mothers from the extremely poor right through to all stay at home mums whose husbands are millionaires, and everyone in between.
It even says this is a serious problem in reading anything into the data, but I note you didn’t quote that bit.
“A key dilemma is whether to base the analysis on a woman’s income alone, on her current partner’s income alone, on their joint income, or on the household income or the family income.”
Jackal – My ten year old could read that graph. Even if you can’t read graphs, how about the english description that goes with it
“The proportion of babies born in the most deprived decile area in New Zealand (13.8%) is greater than the proportion
in any other decile area, and the proportion of births increases fairly consistently with increasing deprivation.”
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You’re getting anal Gregor.
Not, just calling you on your bullshit, no matter how much you try to squirm out of it.
To even position what you are saying – that $10,000 and below includes mothers from the extremely poor right through to all stay at home mums whose husbands are millionaires – is frankly, hilarious, given your qualifier that the authors suggest there is a problem reading anything into the data.
I could equally suggest that all of the women whose husbands are millionaires fall into ‘Unspecified’ but I would have no basis of fact for that.
You’re basically just guessing.
The statistics and the commentary from the authors speak for themselves – the authors draw very clear conclusions around correlation but not causation of the births to income ratio.
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Perhaps you might like to get your ten year old to explain it to you then photonz1.
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Jackal – what don’t you understand about the lowest decile having 10,000 babies per year and the highest having 5000 per year?
And what don’t you understand about the text supporting the graph, quote
“..and the proportion of births increases fairly consistently with increasing deprivation”.
It’s a well known problem worldwide. You may as well be arguing that the earth is flat.
Gregor – EVERY stay at home mother, regardless of if her husband earns $1m, $100g, or $70g will be in the 0-$10,000 bracket for personal income.
That’s why nearly 40% of mothers are in that group, 70% are in the below $30,000 groups, and only a tiny 6% earn over $40,000.
The anal comment was obviously correct.
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photonz1
What don’t you understand about peoples incomes declining when they have children?
What don’t you understand about workers without children living in more affluent areas?
What don’t you understand about more poor people living in low decile areas?
What don’t you understand about the graph giving you a false impression by including mothers who have rich partners?
What don’t you understand about more people living in poor areas than rich areas?
What don’t you understand about having all children start out life on an equal basis irrespective of their parents socio economic status?
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Jackal:
Thanks for your mature reply. Some clarifications:
I totally support backing parents–all of them–once they have a child.
I do not consider socio-economic status a respectable measure of reproductive fitness. I only appreciate the broad correlations between economic status and fitness.
Hitler was a nut – and he (or whoever backed him) took a piece of important truth (mixed with a bounty of crap) and grossly misapplied it, and obviously inhumanely misapplied it. You can do any right thing wrong.
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This is off my Eugenics post:
http://andrewatkin.blogspot.co.nz/2009/06/eugenics_18.html
Take a look at nature. We see males animals beating each other up for exclusive mating rights; we see giant rodents sensing and then killing “defective” newborns; we see nurse sharks eating their siblings (by nature) if they are the stronger-born; we see parents thoughtout the animal kingdom leaving weaker members of their offspring for dead if they are not “up to standard”; we see prospective mates being attracted to prospects on the grounds of their observable genetic profile etc, etc.
Why? Because that is what it takes to maintain the genetic health of a given species. And those examples I brought attention to are, obviously, just expressions of “natural eugenics”. If I may use a blunt expression, natural eugenics is how nature does its weeding and it cannot be argued that the weeding must be done.
Now take a look at Farmers. They isolate their animals with desirable qualities for breeding (er – positive eugenics) and at the same time they isolate their weaker animals to ensure that they do not breed.
Why? Much because a farm is an unnatural environment – it removes natural evolutionary pressures. A farmer with his artificial control-environment takes away the natural eugenic process. In turn, the farmer must *actively* impose himself to compensate for what he has originally undermined. The farmer would otherwise, over time, develop a sickly breed of animals with ever worsening health problems, as he understands.
Now take a look at the human condition (and yes of course I was coming to that – smile!). We are worse than a farm. Not only do we facilitate “weaker” human animals to breed, but we have an extraordinarily advanced socialised healthcare system that allows those who would otherwise die of their shortcomings to go on to have children – passing on their characteristics, for better and/or worse.
Can we allow for this to go on indefinitely, or do we have to humble ourselves to the fact that humans are animals too, not above natural law? The answer, to me at least, is obvious.
To say: There are many people out there who believe our world is being run by Eugenists. Well maybe it is, because I think it ultimately needs to be. I am hardly the first person to make the insights presented in this post.
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No defense for oil industry cowboys
Chief Executive of PEPANZ David Robinson has an article in the increasingly rightwing Dominion Post today, in which he promotes the oil and gas industry in New Zealand as being clean and green. What a load of rubbish!
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Jackal says “What don’t you understand about having all children start out life on an equal basis irrespective of their parents socio economic status?”
If you genuinely cared about children getting a good start in life, you wouldn’t encourage those least able to provide it, to have more children than those who can.
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Just make the damned contraception free.
Period.
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Could you explain exactly how I’m encouraging people to have more children photonz1?
I think you’re being disingenuous with your argument… you don’t want the poor to have children at all. Would you then prefer to spend millions more getting people to immigrate here so that the jobs the poor normally do are able to be filled by foreigners? Or perhaps you will take on those jobs yourself when your neo-liberalism completely destroys the economy?
If you truly wanted children to get the best start in life, you would ensure that they had enough welfare to be able to see the doctor when they needed to, to have shoes in winter, to have a healthy home to live in and to have a good diet. That’s where New Zealand is failing its poor… blaming the victims and trying to limit their human right to procreate isn’t a solution.
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Jackal says ” you don’t want the poor to have children at all.”
I think anyone who wants children should have planned enough so they are able to give them financial and emotional security.
If they aren’t capable of giving a child a reasonable upbriniging, they shouldn’t have them.
Unfortunately some people who are incapable of getting themselves into this position, are even less capable when it comes lookg after their kids when they do have them.
It’s ironic that we’ve got people on benefits who WANT long term contraception but can’t afford it, and when it’s offered for free the Greens are saying it’s all wrong and they can’t have it for free.
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This is an epic fail for the left, it’s almost astonishing actually.
This issue is almost as if someone is standing on a cliff top with a sign saying “cliff top, danger, do not proceed” and the left (without thinking for even a second ) scream: “you can’t tell us what to do” and go running flat stick off the cliff.
Here’s what happened, the left said free contraception is bad, the left said free contraception is bad, THE LEFT SAID FREE CONTRACEPTION FOR THE POOR IS A BAD THING!!
Can you believe it??
They are so tuned to reject everything the government says that they just run off a political cliff top and crash to the bottom.
Not even a moment to think, just a knee jerk reaction.
When someone does this, it can be called many things: bigotry, prejudice, intolerant, arrogant.
Guess who shares their opinion on this issue? American right wing fundamentalist Christians and no body else
Wow.
Just friggin wow.
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But it’s not free contraception for the poor.
That basically exists through family planning.
It’s free contraception for people the current government regards as undesirable.
As others have pointed out, the myth of the plague of second generation beneficiary teen mums also doesn’t hold water as numbers have been declining since the 80s. In fact, this particular contraception option is already free to women up to their early 20s under existing govt policy.
Fundamentally, it’s the Government via a non medical agency, recommending that people on a benefit get long term contraception for ideological reasons.
While offering better access for contraception is not a bad thing, this initiative doesn’t even attempt to address actual issues of passive contraception availability without prescription to say, the working poor, or equal access opportunities to rural women.
Furthermore, it’s a clear bait and switch dog-whistle to get the talkback audience and media pundit’s off the Banks fiasco, not unlike imaginary refugee boat people was last week.
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So it’s the peoples fault that there aren’t enough jobs to ensure that they can get themselves financially well off enough to be able to afford a family?
Tell me photonz1 (because I know how much you love answering questions), does having more people looking for work create jobs? Has our welfare dependence increased or decreased under this National government? Why exactly are over a thousand Kiwis leaving permanently for Australia each week? You don’t see them implementing policy to restrict population growth.
Should people who’ve been impacted by the neo-liberalist and capitalist disaster you espouse just put their biological clocks on hold until the market creates opportunities for them, which under a National government will never happen?
What about the working poor who are on minimum wage that doesn’t even cover their costs properly… under your criteria photonz1, they shouldn’t be allowed families either. You’re now discounting and discriminating against around half the breeding population of New Zealand.
I think the Greens are saying targeted contraception for female beneficiaries is wrong because it is being implemented through WINZ who can use their client’s personal information and may try to influence a beneficiaries decision to have a family, which WINZ has no business being involved in apart from supporting that decision.
How is the government trying to tell people how and when to have families not a nanny state? I seem to recall the rightwing having kittens about energy saving light bulbs… but telling people who can and cannot have a family based on how much money they have in their bank accounts is A OK… Hypocrisy much?
You say that there are people who aren’t able to look after their children properly, but this is usually because opportunities aren’t available and support is inadequate. Most parents try to do the best things for their children. Your argument is in fact based on propaganda that beneficiaries are breeding like rabbits, when there is no evidence this is the case.
In a democracy, all children should have the same opportunities irrespective of their parent’s income. That’s what humanity is all about, and to argue against it is inhumane.
It is the fault of government and failed free market idealism that over 200,000 children live in poverty in this country, not the parent’s. It is also not the fault of the impoverished that there aren’t enough opportunities for them to work themselves out of poverty.
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“I think the Greens are saying targeted contraception for female beneficiaries is wrong because it is being implemented through WINZ who can use their client’s personal information and may try to influence a beneficiaries decision to have a family, which WINZ has no business being involved in apart from supporting that decision.”
Shunda has generously summed-up Jackal’s view, distilling it down to:
“The left said free contraception is bad, the left said free contraception is bad, THE LEFT SAID FREE CONTRACEPTION FOR THE POOR IS A BAD THING!!”
We are all very grateful to you, Shunda, for the service you provide in clarifying Jackal’s clumsy effort.
You’re a brick.
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Thanks, Greenfly, I was going to say something similar. The trouble with the right is that for them life is so simple-many mothers are beneficiaries…so stop beneficiaries from having babies- problem solved!
This simple thinking leads to dumb answers and National does these well:
Testing children to lift achievement.
Selling State assets to make up for cutting taxes to the rich.
Build more motorways to solve our over dependence on cars.
Australia is rich from mining so mine our way to riches.
Government revenue drops so sack 3500 government employees.
It is common knowledge that many National Ministers dislike detailed and complicated explanations, that is why they ignore all the reasoned and knowledgeable advice from the likes of Sir Peter Gluckman, Dr Jan Wright, John Hattie and even their own parliamentary library. The simplistic solutions are so much easier, but look where they are getting us….
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What no body told Sprout and greenfly is that beneficiaries are welcoming this policy.
It seems that they are all alone, on a lofty mountain peak contemplating their “rightness” on this issue.
What’s that over there? why that’s the fundamentalist Americans waving furiously at Sprout and Greenfly!! look at how they are welcoming them!! wave back guys, go on, give em a wave!!
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The trouble with the right is that for them life is so simple-many mothers are beneficiaries…so stop beneficiaries from having babies- problem solved!
This simple thinking leads to dumb answers
The trouble with the left is that for them disagreement on any issue quickly brings about dismissal and polarization of debate.
This simple thinking leads to dumb conclusions and insular contrarian attitudes that reduces important issues to pointless shit fights over obscure ideology and irrelevant concerns driven by irrational fear.
The truth is always the victim, followed closely by the people that really needed that truth.
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I will attempt to use an analogy that may help you understand my point of view.
If the Government said there are too many poor Maori children who are often hungry, so to solve the problem we will offer all Maori children free food. Just like the contraception issue there are supporting facts to show this will meet a very real need and it will probably save health cost down the line. But there should be questions asked if this was introduced:
Why only Maori children when there are many other children who would benefit?
Wouldn’t it stigmatize Maori because it is only them who are targeted?
Who will provide the food and would there be real choice (with contraception, will all methods be available or will women feel pressured to use a limited few)?
It may not be the best analogy because with contraception there are many more possibilities where abuses of power could occur in the delivery of the service, as Jackal tried to explain. You only have to read the right wing blogs and Andrew’s unfortunate views to understand what could occur further down the track, really frightening stuff.
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A poll of 25,000 on stuff found 85% in favour of this policy.
It seems the Greens have cuddled up and become very cosy with extreme right wing christian fundamentalists on this one.
(what better arguement for contraception?)
See poll at the bottom of
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/6884359/Cracking-it-on-welfare-in-Huntly
The problem is that it can take a lifetimes tax of someone on the average wage, to support a solo mum on the dbp.
That’s a massive massive waste when many don’t want to be a solo mum on the dpb in the first place
(though many also get pregnant deliberately to go on it).
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sprout:
Wanna know what’s frightening? Our nations child abuse statistics.
Do you have any idea what goes on inside a child’s brain when daddy is having sex with his 8 year old daughter? Your Nazi nightmare is already here. It’s just that the raw face of it is hidden behind closed domestic walls, so we find it much too easy to go on thinking our politically correct thoughts.
http://andrewatkin.blogspot.co.nz/2011/12/time-to-consider-reproduction-licenses.html
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Shunda barunda
Have you actually read any of the rightwing blogs concerning this matter? There is unfortunately a section of the community that would welcome forced sterilization of female beneficiaries. Being that this fascism is being openly promoted and published in New Zealand is a concerning matter.
What I find strange about your stance on this issue is that you’re so enamored about stopping poor people having children but so vehement in your disgust about abortion. Do you not see the contradiction in your belief system?
Wanting an equatable childhood for all Kiwi kids irrespective of their parents socio economic status is not obscure ideology. It is not an irrelevant concern that WINZ will pressure solo mothers into taking long term contraception. It is a likely outcome and something that has been openly discussed by the rightwing.
photonz1
The link you’ve given is about whether people would sign Grey Powers petition against asset sales. 58% of respondents would.
You will also note that Alastaire Bone’s article is just as much a commentary on our failing system as it is derogatory of young Maori. It enforces stereotypes and misconceptions, something National has based much of its policy on.
So your argument is that the government can better spend taxes on things like roads of little significance instead of ensuring families can support their children properly. You would rather have tax cuts for the already wealthy instead of allowing younger people to have families.
It can take a lifetimes tax of someone on a good wage to support the drinking habits of one politician.
The other problem with your capitalist ideology is that you think that punishing poor people after the fact that they have had children is somehow going to discourage procreation. You’re pitting peoples biological urge against a far more obscure financial mechanism, which will always lose out to what is a human right… to have children.
Then you think there’ll be some sort of magical increase in productivity under National after ensuring many workers don’t have a good start in life. So again I ask, are you willing to spend millions more to increase immigration to fill the jobs the poor usually undertake when rightwing policy has discouraged them from having children who will become the next workforce? Perhaps you’re too short sighted to even see that eventual outcome, or maybe you just don’t care.
Andrew Atkin
You’re simply fear mongering to try to justify National’s disproportionate and therefore defunct policy. Is it your argument that all beneficiaries are child abusers perhaps… or that the fascist agenda is somehow OK because some people abuse their children? Get real Andrew.
The vast majority of beneficiaries do not abuse their children and therefore there is no justification to impose blanket policies. Likewise there is no justification to target all female beneficiaries because a few choose to have large families that the system does not allow them to support properly.
There’s usually nothing wrong with politically correct thoughts.
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we are questioning the motives, delivery and potential for corruption of purpose
The Christian fundamentalists do this too, they say “the wrong people doing the right thing is actually the wrong thing”
And why? because those well meaning folk are of the devil!!
And everybody just knows that John Key is of the devil, right??
Just keep running off that cliff top folks, unfortunately no one is going to see it your way except the ‘faithful’.
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What I find strange about your stance on this issue is that you’re so enamored about stopping poor people having children but so vehement in your disgust about abortion. Do you not see the contradiction in your belief system?
What the hell are you talking about? if more people used proper contraception the abortion rate would drop!!
Are you insane?
Nobody is going to be forced on to contraception, there is no way to force anyone onto contraception.
And if you are concerned about the right wing blog talk stop reading them! You can rest assured that they represent a tiny minority of NZers on this issue.
The rest of us perhaps see some useful new tools in the shed.
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@AA
Wanna know what’s frightening? Our nations child abuse statistics.
You wanna know what’s frightening. That some people actually murder other people even though it’s abhorrent and illegal.
Shocking I know!
Our only option is to liquidate potential murderers before they can strike, starting with my personal enemies.
To consider anything less than this response is to pander to political correctness.
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Sprout says, quote “Well done Metiria, who stood up and said that providing contraception to the poor will have some potential negative consequences.”
“We should be trying to eradicate poverty not punish and condemn those who find themselves poor! ”
Then comes the backpeddling
Sprout says “Not one of us has said providing free contraception is a bad idea,”
…which contradicts Metiria “The Government has no right to intrude on a woman’s choice to have a child. It should get its hands off our wombs.”…
…whose stand on the issue has been labeled by the Dominion Post as “simply silly”.
Keep backpeddling sprout.
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Shunda barunda
I recall you arguing that abortion shouldn’t be used even when the child is unwanted. However you’re promoting contraception because sometimes children of beneficiaries don’t get a good start in life. One argument is pro-life while the other is anti-life.
So you think a threat of cutting somebodies benefit unless they take long term contraception wouldn’t force them? Earth to planet Shunda.
You might dismiss some of the dispicable things the rightwing has been writing, but I don’t. Publishing and promoting hate speech against female beneficiaries isn’t all that dismissible in my book. Their racist undertones are particularly abhorrent and clearly shows that there is a climate whereby such targeted policy could be abused.
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Gregor W:
Look, it’s simple. Get rid of the ideology and ask yourself what happens with business-as-usual. More kids state-sponsored into existence that will be seriously abused. And those kids will follow on to be hopeless parents themselves, primarily due to their own deep developmental deficiencies and emotional dissociation (via repression).
Do we want a growing or shrinking under-class? What will the long term costs and dangers be of an expanding under-class in the future, for both the individuals that make up the under-class and society at large?
I will tell you. A horrible depressing pigsty. And a dangerous one at that…get ready for the next North Korea style national-scale cult. It only has to grow from the Destiny Church, for example.
I believe that to a degree humanity needs to be managed – yes, like breeding stock. That’s my “ideology”. It’s an ideology of ultimate pragmatic necessity. If it’s to be interpreted as tyranny then so be it. So long as screwed up people aren’t breeding then I don’t give a toss.
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@photonz1
Then comes the backpeddling. Sprout says “Not one of us has said providing free contraception is a bad idea,”
…which contradicts Metiria “The Government has no right to intrude on a woman’s choice to have a child. It should get its hands off our wombs.”…
You do understand what a contradiction is, right?
To form an analogy that should hopefully make this easier for you:
Sprout “Not one of us has said providing free pies for all is a bad idea.”
Metiria “The Government has no right to intrude on a person’s choice about when to eat. It should get its hands off our stomachs.”…
Two totally separate, mutually exclusive ideas.
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@AA
So long as screwed up people aren’t breeding then I don’t give a toss.
But the policy proposition isn’t about stopping screwed up people breeding. It’s implicitly about encouraging poor people not to breed, solely because they are poor.
That’s the only criteria set forth. Do you see the difference?
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If you are a Green supporter and are marching in Invercargill on Saturday, please make yourselves known to our Green team to help collecting signatures.
http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/05/it-is-official-launch-of-keep-our.html
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Andrew Atkin
There’s really only one answer to that, we want a shrinking under-class. You do that by ensuring there are opportunities for the poor to work themselves out of poverty. Implementing a more egalitarian and equal system is the only answer.
Trying to ensure that the poor do not procreate is backwards and will fail on many levels.
The question is who decides and on what grounds? Should a WINZ case manager make a decision based on policy that is formulated out of incorrect assumptions like the one you’re fond of promoting… that all beneficiaries abuse their children?
Perhaps the decision should be made on a persons ethnicity or religious beliefs and not just their bank account. What makes you think you have the right to say who can and cannot have children?
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John Key international embarrassment
Somebody needs to ask whether the Prime Minister is playing with a full deck of cards?
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So you think a threat of cutting somebodies benefit unless they take long term contraception wouldn’t force them? Earth to planet Shunda.
You see, right here is the problem.
If you think this is actually going to happen, I have serious concerns for you mental well being.
You lot are no different to fundamentalist Christians, you really aren’t the least bit different in the way you allow irrational fear to dictate your opinions.
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There are people who would love to have a kid/kids but decide they are not in a position to have any. And there are others that (just) have a kid/s, despite not being in a position to have any. Unless the gov’t can afford a universal child subsidy, then those who decide not to have kids, on the grounds of not wanting to be a burden to the ‘gov’t coffers’, are in effect (if they’re working) paying for someone else to have a kid.
Yes, the gov’t should stay outta the bedroom, and keep their hands off our wombs. I’m glad the Green party is there (17% in the latest RoyMorgan poll) to make sure this policy is not abused. I hope the Greens don’t lose any votes over this. As Gregor said above, John dot Banks/Key should be frontpage.
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Jackal,
“that all beneficiaries abuse their children?”
For a start get it right. I never said that and clearly made the point of it.
Try here: http://andrewatkin.blogspot.co.nz/2009/06/understanding-mental-sickness.html
It’s my “welcome to the real world” post.
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jackal – people with your bludge attitude is why this country will always struggle to get ahead.
You think people have the “right” to have children, even when they have zero capability to look after them, and someone else is forced to pay for them.
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AA@11:42 More kids state-sponsored into existence that will be seriously abused.
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Shunda barunda
I think there’s a potential for it to happen. I would prefer that WINZ did not have another avenue to gain personal information about their clients. This should be a matter between doctors and their patients. In my opinion free contraception consultation should also be available to all who cannot readily afford it, not just targeted at female beneficiaries who are predominantly young Maori.
It’s only an irrational fear for somebody who doesn’t have any idea about how WINZ operates. Speak to any advocate and you will be told of human rights abuses on a daily basis.
Those who live in ivory towers often believe that beneficiaries get a free ride and are rolling in it. This couldn’t be further from the truth, with New Zealand having the fastest growing inequality in the world specifically because of a repressive welfare system.
fin
There are those who don’t have cars and prefer to walk or ride a bike. However their taxes still go towards building and repairing roads. Those who decide to not use a car are in effect subsidizing those who do. So what was your point?
A universal subsidy is a good idea. This would ensure that the over 200,000 children who are currently living in poverty might have more of a chance to grow up healthy with a good education and therefore contribute productively to society later in life.
Andrew Atkin
You say:
…and then say you aren’t implying that all beneficiaries are abusing their children and that all children who come from welfare dependent homes will be hopeless parents. Then you link to a post about mental illness? WTF!
photonz1
The fundamental right for people to procreate is drafted into most countries legislation photonz1. Whether children should be looked after properly is another topic. I think they should, you think they shouldn’t. The love of money has clearly rotted your brain.
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Jackal says “The fundamental right for people to procreate is drafted into most countries legislation photonz1. Whether children should be looked after properly is another topic. I think they should, you think they shouldn’t.”
So you think people have the right to have children, but then the responsibility for paying for them shifts to the taxpayer.
Just as I said – your bludge attitude is typical of what’s pulling this country down.
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Ok, here’s how I see this situation.
We have problems with unsustainable relationships in this country, a lot of this is based around the lower income bracket and youth/young adults.
This contraception thing will not stop these people ‘breeding’ as some are suggesting, and I think fears of the govt controlling the procreation of the poor is just silly.
What this policy may do is give young/low income NZers in less than ideal circumstances a chance to better structure their lives.
2-3 years may be all people need to develop the maturity to better manage child rearing/mate selection. A lot of growing up can happen in a 3 year period.
This is not stopping anyone from breeding, it is giving them a chance to breed successfully, when they are ready.
It will also likely reduce the abortion rate which has to be a good thing for the shocking statistics of mental trauma after abortion, which many women don’t properly recover from.
A couple of years could make all the difference.
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What this policy may do is give young/low income NZers in less than ideal circumstances a chance to better structure their lives.
Sure. But existing policy already does this hence this whole proposition being nothing more than a dog whistle.
Hat-tip to Laura commenting over @ Dim Post
“In the March 11, 2011 NZ Herald, Simon Collins wrote:
‘The Welfare Working Group appears to be pushing on an open door with a proposal to offer “long-lasted reversible contraception” to all women on benefits.
Family Planning chief executive Jackie Edmond said Pharmac began fully funding a new long-lasting hormone implant called Jadelle for all women last August (2010). The hormone, contained in a tiny match-sized rod implanted in a woman’s arm, is 99 per cent effective against pregnancy for three to five years. It can be reversed by removing the rod at any time.
The only cost is the fee for having the implant. At Family Planning this is free for women under 22.
Ms Edmond said the number of implants done through Family Planning jumped from 109 in the six months to the end of January last year (2010) to 1712 in the past six months.’
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10711489
Also, as the numbers and rates of births, abortions and pregnancies among women under 20 years have been falling since 2008 (see Statistics New Zealand’s Infoshare Health and Population data, it appears that greater use of contraception among young women is already underway.”
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photonz1
You might note that I didn’t stipulate whether children should be looked after properly by parents or government in the sentence you’re responding to. Personally I think it should be both. There is a certain societal responsibility that should ensure all children get the best start in life the country can afford.
Just to clarify; I would prefer that the government implemented policy that built strong communities and families that can look after themselves.
Unfortunately National is failing to ensure there is enough employment and even when people are employed, they often don’t have enough to survive on. This means that there has to be a welfare system to ensure society and the economy continues to function. Without it you will see New Zealand become even more afflicted with third world problems. The question is do you want to live in a first world or third world country?
Interesting that you think I have a bludge [sic] attitude just because I don’t want people to live in poverty.
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I am sure those who do not want to support other peoples children will be the first to have their hands out, to be supported by them, when they are elderly.
Why, with all the problems Government has, is attacking young mothers a priority?
As the number of under 20 mothers on the DPB is 2 to 3% of the total on the DPB, and the teenage pregnancy rate has been decreasing, I think there are more urgent problems. 9% under 24. Most actually had a partner at conception. It does take two! Usually older. Where is their responsibility?
If the RWNJ’s think teenage girls “breeding for the DPB” is such a problem why don’t we use the proven fix, giving them better options.
It is well proven that the easiest and most effective way to reduce pregnancy rates is to increase the income, education and power of young women.
I suspect a few more dollars spent on general remedial education programs in primary school, alone, will do more to decrease teen pregnancy rates than any contraceptive program or right wing meanness.
The sad thing is that most of the people condemning young mums, at one stage, were irresponsible teenage boys themselves.
Sometimes I wonder if it is jealousy. “How come all these teenagers are getting it on when I was too much of a dipstick for the girls to look at me, in my teens”.
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Twitter defends subscriber rights
Twitter has asked a judge to block a subpoena that would force the company to turn over the data of an Occupy Wall Street protester. It’s good to see that Twitter is willing to go into bat for its users and try to uphold its agreement with them. They have a strong case, being that Twitter’s terms of service unequivocally state that its users retain their rights to any content submitted, posted or displayed…
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Jackal – clearly you have a bludge attitude when you think it’s a fundamental right for people to have children whether or not they have any chance of looking after them properly.
Jackal says “Unfortunately National is failing to ensure there is enough employment..”
More employment and higher wages both come from companies making bigger profits – the govt has little direct input to creating jobs compared to that.
Unfortunately most left leaning ideas are about taking money away from businesses and cutting their profits, which does the opposite.
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Kerry says “As the number of under 20 mothers on the DPB is 2 to 3% of the total on the DPB, and the teenage pregnancy rate has been decreasing,”
However the Ministry of Youth Development says “Since 2000, births to 15-19 year olds have been trending upwards again, with the birth rate increasing between 2001 and 2008 from 27.5 births per 1000 women in 2000 to 33 births per 1000 in 2008. The number of births to this age group in 2008 was 5185, compared with 3787 in 2000.”
How do you get a 37% increase of 1400 additional babies every year, and call that a decrease??
In the last few years numbers on the DPB has gone up 13,000 from 88,000 in 2008 to 101,000.
With the average DPB taking every cent of income tax from 2-4 full time workers on the average wage, that means ALL the tax from at least 26,000 workers is needed – JUST TO FUND THE INCREASE SINCE 2008.
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photonz1
It’s not just what I believe photonz1… it’s a fundamental human right that is built into most countries legislation. In fact Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (PDF) states:
So your belief that eugenics is somehow justified is completely wrong!
Businesses will pay low wages to ensure higher profits if the government allows. The government is currently subsidizing peoples wages, while many businesses continue to post record profits. Job growth remains stagnant.
Clearly the government has a direct hand in how well the public can raise children by ensuring a living wage. They basically set the rate of remuneration after all.
How well exactly is your neo-liberal plan working out in comparison photonz1? While Australia under a Labour government posts a $2 billion surplus, National can’t even get close to their budget projections.
I suppose you’re going to say Australia wasn’t impacted by the global recession or something, which seems to be National’s favorite excuse for their failure.
Last week the Nelson Mail reported:
The rightwing hasn’t created any jobs. They have completely failed to ensure families aren’t living in poverty. National have no plan apart from the failed spin we often see ignoramuses like photonz1 repeat ad nauseum.
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This results in people born in captivity who owe someone their labour for life for the privilege of being born.
Reducing humanity to a value system centered around money is truly base.
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Jackal – you’re big on all the rights then dismiss all the responsibility that comes with it.
The fact that you think it’s fine to bring people into the world with no ability to care for them properly says it all.
With that attitude, you don’t stand a chance in hell of solving the problems around people having children when they have zero ability to give them financial and emotional security.
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As to the Colin Craig comment, the evidence is based on polling, that raises issues of sampling and demographics.
We have a lower number of over 65′s to the total population to other OECD nations, because of immigration and the breeding rate of the Maori and Poynesians sector of the population. A younger demographic than aging European nations.
Also the number of young people who do OE is quite high, and we can only guess as to how the activities in London or Sydney explain the average of 20 for women and 16 for men – because clearly some foreign men are involved, and not all tourists here.
Now if only the Maori on the Gold Coast were to return home the men might catch up … . If John Key meant what he said he could work to increase wages and bring them home.
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Reducing humanity to a value system centered around money is truly base.
This is a really interesting statement and I think your post is worthy of much more thought, but do you really think this policy is part of that SPC?
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Photo. On the DPB.
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Shunda barunda,
I have no problem with the policy, I was just commenting on comments.
It would be nice if every women could have a free consultation about the best form of contraception for them etc, rather than just a few. But those few having this free consultation is still better than nothing.
Next, why not extend it to all teens over 16 and any woman with a CS card while on benefits or on a low working income? Not all people have local access to family planning clinic services (most tertiary students would).
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I’m rather bored with your repetative rhetoric photonz1… instead of engaging with your narrow minded rightwing drivel, I’m going to quote an excellent post by QoT:
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…and Phoebe Fletcher at Tumeke:
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SPC – I think I have to agree 100% with your last post.
You says “Next, why not extend it to all teens over 16…”.
There is already some types of free contraception, family planning advice etc, available to girls of any age through their schools.
Each unwanted teenage pregnancy can easily end up with a $200,000+ DPB bill to the taxpayer. So it’s common sense that programmes like the one proposed cut that down to give everyone a better future.
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…and Morgan Godfery at Maui Street:
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…and Tallulah at The Lady Garden:
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…and Deborah Russell at A Bee of a Certain Age:
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…and Chris Miller at The Little Pakeha
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As Tallulah noted there is already a punitive aspect to welfare delivery if those on benefits get pregnant – so helping people avoid pregnancy is in the “clients’ best interest. The client would be fully informed about the relative risk of the contraceptive options at the consultation.
As Morgan Godfery failed to note, the government has already decided to exercise its exemption from the human rights act to deliver welfare aid on a discriminatory basis – designed to deter those who are dependent on welfare from having further children (the limited one year before work testing).
Phoebe Fletcher is right to note the dog whistle aspect to it all – and that is why response to it should be measured and clear on each and every occasion (of policies targeting the weak and the poor or simply support for women). Such as seeking assurances that no one will be pressured to take up contraception, especially long terms forms that involve greater health risk.
As for Q of T, well typically she fails to focus on the real problem, which is the preponderence of the “brown” and the female to be poor and on welfare. And of course help is targeted to those in greatest need. This has nothing to do with eugenics, but there is still a real problem to address and so to mis-state the issue is not helpful.
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Both Deborah Russell and Chris Miller make valid points.
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@ SPC
I tend to to side with Chris Miller that men should also be offered long term contraception, being that it’s often the male who doesn’t have to live with the longterm effects of not using contraception and therefore they naturally don’t have as much impetus to have safe sex.
However apart from that, I completely agree with QoT and many of the other commentators that this targeted policy that will mainly effect young, poor Maori and Polynesian woman is a form of eugenics. Although it’s probably eugenics based on a persons bank balance more than the colour of their skin.
National is basically saying; “We have no solution to remedy poverty, so lets just try to stop the poor breeding.”
There’s no guarantee that the client will be informed of the dangers implicit in the medication they are going to be offered through WINZ. There is for instance a large body of evidence that shows that Depo-Provera causes breast cancer and other health problems, and yet this medication is still being administered in New Zealand often without any disclosure of its danger.
Likewise there is no guarantee that WINZ wont try to coerce clients into having long-term contraception, and I expect to hear stories of this occurring if the backwards policy is implemented.
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I would put it that National is playing to those who don’t want the underclass to breed (whether the support is via welfare or WFF), but its actions are more moderate. Calling something not eugenics, eugenics, is to trivialise it.
The problem is National’s, and before them labour, failure to reduce poverty.
We need food in poor area schools, we need more family homes insulated, we need better uptake of Well Child B4 School/better investment in pre school coverage (and catching ip with those arriving at school age 5) and 6 months parental leave at the minimum wage or 12 months at the dole level.
If there is a problem getting those who have (good health and education upbring, good career/work skills and savings/property) to help those who do not in such ways, because of discriminatory attitudes about the have nots – attitudes that are atypical with racism or have their precedent in racism, now made manifest in forms of class division. Well then we as a country have a major problem. Even if part of it simply a form of selfish political partisanship “me and our kind vs them and their’s”, that is covered up under lower tax and smaller government apologetic.
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Jackal, there is no direct link between free consultations and imposed contraception use of any particular type – those providing the consultations are responsible to fully inform people of risks.
The opposition should seek assurances about WINZ practice and question any favour for more dangerous forms of contraception.
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Compared to the 14 billion, minimum, privatisation is costing us.
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All of the worthwhile endeavors you mention SPC come up against the same brick wall… “We can’t afford it.” While National is happy to waste billions on their pet projects that only benefit them and dangle the carrot of more schools if we sell our assets, the fundamental problem is that inequality is and will continue to grow in New Zealand under the current system.
Labour had an opportunity to largely rectify the problem but spent more time fighting organisations like Child Poverty Action Group instead of doing the right thing. National are expected to make changes that give more wealth to the already wealthy, which predictably has further entrench and worsened society, which in turn decreases our economic viability.
The recent government’s of New Zealand should feel highly ashamed for what they’ve done to this country. From being one of the best developed places in the world to bring up a family, we’re now one of the worst. With third world diseases, bad diets and expensive dilapidated housing ensuring that future generations will never reach their full potential… especially if they are stuck here.
Yet we still see no solution from the government… just the same old blame the victims mentality. It’s the people’s fault for being caught up in the disaster that is free-market capitalist.
…and now for a more rightwing perspective… here’s Peter Cresswell at Not PC:
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Kerry says “A few thousand teenage mums are going to bring down civilisation. Get a grip Photo.”
You mean like the end of the world that’s going to happen if we all gain or lose 50 cents a week because of asset sales?
Kerry says for the fiftieth time (but not a single piece of proof) “Compared to the 14 billion, minimum, privatisation is costing us.”
Under govt control, I used to love having to apply then go on a waiting list to buy a phone, wait weeks for it to be installed, saving a weeks wages so I could make a 3 minute phone call to Wellington to book a ferry, miss my ferry crossing home because it was the holidays so there was an inevitable strike, send some of my good home on the railways instead, have some of them stolen, others lost, and the rest turn up a week late, and have to interupt my journey home because it was the wrong day of the week and I was banned from driving on my carless day.
Yes – what fantastic times you want to return to Kerry.
Meanwhile back in the real world, for a few hundred taxpayer dollars teenagers who don’t want to get pregnant, can get free contraception, have a better life, and save the taxpayer up to a quarter million dollars each and more.
Oh how aweful that is.
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solkta:
I said that more kids will be state-sponsored into existence who will be seriously abused. This is entirely different to saying that all beneficiaries abuse their children.
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Jackal says “From being one of the best developed places in the world to bring up a family, we’re now one of the worst. ”
Which shows Jackal will say absolutely anything no matter how absurdly false it is.
Only this week NZ was listed as the 4th best country in the whole world to raise children.
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Still fantasizing, Photo.
Actually I am a bit out of date with the losses from the 80′s privatisations. A recent article in Management magazine, that noted lefty journal, adds them up to over 21 Billion.
And that article was from someone who still thinks, “privatisation is right, in principle”.
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Not a word about taking the train…. though I would not regard the seats on the trains I’ve been on as much better than the seat in the car.
http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/transportation/stories/how-your-commute-is-killing-you-infographic?ref=a1anews.blogspot.com
The time factor IS a killer. I have a 10 minute each-way commute. Not bad… but the gravel is the pits (often)
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The neglected problem is that it USED to be the case that every kid had pretty much the same sort of support from home to community to school.
Now there is a much bigger gap between rich and poor in this country, and there is no plan whatsoever to close that gap. We are losing ground, and the statistics will tell you long after the fact of the mistakes.
National is apparently in favor of making the gap bigger. They won’t SAY that, but their actions overall cannot be mistaken for anything else.
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If everyone who wanted children planned their family so they were financially secure and in an emotionally secure relationship, you would decimate child poverty and massively cut child abuse.
So we can work, coerce, educate, and use social presure to get prospective parents to work towards doing the right thing to give NZ next generation the best chance.
Or (like some here) you can come up with every excuse in the world for them to do the wrong thing.
The former attitude works to improve the situation. The later makes it worse.
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Though poverty will have a negative affect, it’s not primarily the low income that makes people abuse and neglect their children. Poverty is more correlation than cause. It’s the psychological damage that happened to the emotionally ruined parent in their own childhood that’s the central concern. Winning lotto will not take THAT problem away. This is what you people don’t understand.
http://andrewatkin.blogspot.co.nz/2009/06/understanding-mental-sickness.html
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Kerry says “A recent article in Management magazine, that noted lefty journal, adds them up to over 21 Billion.”
Still more big claims. Still no proof.
Without a link, we have no idea if your claim of $14b per year has now been raised to $21b per year, or if you’ve destroyed your own claim as it’s only $1b (not $14b) per year over 21 years.
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photonz1
Well that’s nice for them, but in the real world New Zealand under a National government is going backwards fast. More unemployment, the fastest growing inequality of all OECD countries, more debt, less home ownership, more suicides, increasing third world diseases, more people leaving permanently to live overseas, increasing corruption and hence more social dysfunction.
The only thing National has on it’s statistical side presently is that the crime rate is falling… but hold on a sec, that’s a worldwide trend and has very little to do with their policies.
If New Zealand is such a great place to bring up kids photonz1, why are more than 200,000 of them now living in poverty?
Kerry Thomas
I’ve heard mentioned that the figure is $37 billion lost from the previous round of privatization… which is probably about right. Consider telecom and NZ Rail for instance. Here is a good breakdown of costs vs benefits by the Fabian Society:
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Jackal asks “If New Zealand is such a great place to bring up kids photonz1, why are more than 200,000 of them now living in poverty?”
Because we have a system that encourages people least able to support kids to have the more than anyone else.
If you don’t want to even acknowledge that problem, let alone do something about it, then you’ll never fix childhood poverty in a thousand years.
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Another broken promise
John Key had promised the families of the deceased miners that the government would do all it takes to recover the bodies and money was no object. Todays announcement breaks that assurance and makes John Key’s words mean nothing…
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The primary reason for poverty?
Try here:
http://andrewatkin.blogspot.co.nz/2011/10/getting-rid-of-poverty-in-new-zealand.html
Then here:
http://andrewatkin.blogspot.co.nz/2009/10/explaining-new-zealands-property.html
Poverty in itself is a totally artificial creation in New Zealand. There is absolutely no need for it at all. Probably some kind of barbaric long-range social engineering for pop’ control operation or something.
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Jackal – your quote from the Fabian Society gives a really good idea of the mess the railways was in when the govt ran it, and how much money it was haemorrhaging.
The govt had to pay off $1.6 billion of debt, to get just $328 million as a selling price. Effectively, we PAID $1.272 billion for someone to take if off our hands.
So as a company, it was worth $1.272 billion LESS than nothing.
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Probably some kind of barbaric long-range social engineering for pop’ control operation or something.
Crikey Andrew, you don’t need to go all tinfoil hat on us!
Poverty is pretty simple to explain.
In all instances it stems from abnormal capital concentration including but not limited to the ownership of the modes of production and distribution.
To whit, the more concentrated the proportion of wealth is in any given economy, the more poverty (both absolute and relative) there is.
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photonz1
For starters you’ve not shown that poor people are having more children than rich people. If you really think that people are having additional children for around $40 extra a week in their benefit, you have no idea about the cost of living. You can spend half that a week on nappies alone for instance leaving $20 for the child’s share of rent, food and bills etc. So get real photonz1.
Nobody is choosing to have children to live in poverty. One side of your argument says people a breeding for a benefit while the other says there are 200,000 children living in poverty in New Zealand because the poor are having more children than rich people. Do you see the contradiction? At the heart of the issue is the fact that social welfare no longer meets the cost of living and there are not enough well paying jobs, resulting in growing inequality.
The underclass of people in New Zealand is increasing due to a failure of the system. Expecting people to just stop having children to save money is simply ridiculous! In fact it’s insane!
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Always said it was MORE than 14 billion, and counting, Photo.
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Kerry – you could claim 5 cents or $100 trillion and it means nothing if you can never back up your figures.
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Their children grow up to use ten times more resources than the poor, they remove wealth from our economy and waste it and they contribute to society by following productive and socially useful careers much less than less wealthy people.
From a Eugenics point of view the the wealthy are often lacking in intelligence and general knowledge (Colin Craig), empathy (Key) or sense (Brash). They are often poor physical specimens as well.
We can solve this problem by forceable contraception or we can, say, only allow their first child to go to a private school (Otherwise known as a taxpayer funded integrated school) . After being harassed and treated like dirt by a WINZ staffer.
Hang on. NACT voters have proven to be less intelligent than the general average. Lets sterilise all of them!
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Jackals says “For starters you’ve not shown that poor people are having more children than rich people.”
It’s not my fault if you can’t read a basic graph, or simple english.
http://www.hqsc.govt.nz/assets/PMMRC/Publications/Fifth-PMMRC-report-2009.pdf (page 20)
“The proportion of babies born in the most deprived decile area in New Zealand (13.8%) is greater than the proportion
in any other decile area, and the proportion of births increases fairly consistently with increasing deprivation.”
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Photo. Backing up my figures just takes simple addition.
I know it annoys you because you cannot find anything to disprove the losses from the 80′s privatisation. Even those who generally support privatisation say they were a fuckup. Of course they wern’t to the perpetuaters. They ran away with billions of our money and fucked up our economy enough so they now have an excuse to do it again.
Management Magazine, Brian Gainor, the Fabian society, , The NZ Institute, the CTU’s economist and others have all done the calculation at various times.
By your calculations, how many billions is our roading network hemorrhaging. We should sell that off because it is costing billions of dollars?
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Jackal says “Expecting people to just stop having children to save money is simply ridiculous! In fact it’s insane!”
It’s what the vast majority of people do.
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Kerry – keep back peddling – when are you going to back your claims up?
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For starters you’ve not shown that poor people are having more children than rich people.
To be fair Jackal, photonz1 did claim the poorest 20% are having twice as many kids than those who can afford to support them when the 1996 census suggest at most about 0.5-0.6 children per female difference (depending of course on where you draw your line of child affordability).
In his universe a 200-300% overstatement is pretty close to complete accuracy so I think you do need to cut him some slack here.
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Gregor tries to mislead with his figures that group the bottom four deciles into one category, and include rich housewives in the low income bracket.
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OK Photo. If that is what rail cost. What do roads cost. By the same argument we should get rid of them also?
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Here Photo. Just because you claim you cannot google it yourself.
http://www.fabians.org.nz/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=110:issues-in-privatisation-costs-a-benefits&catid=54:events
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Gregor tries to mislead with his figures that group the bottom four deciles into one category, and include rich housewives in the low income bracket.
You’ve tried that one before photnz1, but you can’t prove it.
As I have stated before, rich housewives could equally have all be represented within the “Unspecified” category which oddly, has a higher per child rate than the poorest. I guess we’ll never know.
So once again, you represent guesses as facts to support your false, unproveable assumptions.
Even your own source doesn’t back up your own position.
It shows the poorest decile contributing 13.8% of live births. It shows the highest decile contributing about 8%.
Even if we were to assume that decile 5 is both a median in terms of absolute population and wealth distribution (unlikely) their percentage of live births sits at around 9%
Neither 8 or 9 doubled is 13. Furthermore, we have no idea from this graph the relative population per decile.
For example, if the top decile contains say 1000 women and the bottom 10000 women, with a live birth number of 63390 then each decile 1 mother would be would have 5.7 kids and each decile 10 mother 0.87 kids.
Equally the reverse could be true in terms of decile population but we have know way of knowing.
So basically without the absolute numbers per decile it tells us very little other than that the very poor contribute more to absolute population than anyone else, but not to what degree and certainly, not for what reasons.
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Kerry – I’ve already quoted from your link. It shows what a mess the railways was in when the govt owned it.
And it doesn’t even come close to backing up your claim that we’re losing $14b a year.
Did you just pull a the $14 billion per year figure out of the air?
If you have anything to back it up, let’s see it.
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photonz1
You may have noticed my comment above that shows the cost to the government of privatizing Telecom and NZ Rail was $9 billion as of 2004. However Telecom has paid over $5.5 billion in dividends since privatisation and its total value – excluding dividends but including $1.5 billion of capital repayments – has risen from $4.25 billion to $16.6 billion. More than 80 per cent of this $12.3 billion increase in value has gone to overseas investors. This represents an additional $8 billion lost wealth for New Zealand taxpayers.
Can you add photonz1? That represents $17 billion of lost wealth for New Zealand from the sale of telecom and NZ Rail alone. There is also:
Ports of Auckland was partially privatized between 1988 and 2002. Between 1995 and 2003 it had returns and dividends of $556 million payed out to POT. The amount it was repurchased for is undisclosed.
Bank of New Zealand’s privatisation process started in February 1987. BNZ had a Government bail out of $380 million in 1990 while Fay Richwhite and Co. had a 30% shareholding to avoid collapse (I think it had another bailout of even more but can’t find documentation). The government sold its remaining shareholding in 1992 to National Australia Bank. BNZ reported $255 million profits for its core New Zealand Banking operations in the six months to 31 March 2010.
Air New Zealand was privatised in 1988 to a consortium but in the early 2000s it got into financial trouble due to a dodgy investment in Ansett and in 2001 the New Zealand Government took up 80% ownership in return for injecting NZ$885M.
Auckland International Airport majority shareholding was sold by the government by public float in 1998. It’s first six-month period in 2011 revenue was $215.867 million, up 8.9% on the previous corresponding period.
Trustpower in 2008 had Revenue of $681 million and is New Zealand fifth largest power producer. TrustPower has approximately 315 million shares on issue as well as $263 million worth of subordinated bonds maturing between September 2012 and December 2015 and $140 million worth of senior bonds maturing between December 2014 and December 2016. One of its main shareholders is privately owned Infratil.
Contact Energy is the second-largest electricity generator in New Zealand (after Meridian Energy), and was sold by the government as a float with a cornerstone shareholder in 1998. In 2011 it made a profit of $150,294,000 with total assets of $5,643,499,000. It was publicly listed in 1999. The Australian energy company Origin Energy holds a 51% shareholding in Contact Energy.
After much of New Zealands forestry was already sold during Forestry Corporation of New Zealand was sold for around $2 billion in 1996 with shares belonging to the Central North Island Forest Partnership (CNIFP), a consortium of Fletcher Challenge Forests Division (37.5 percent partner), the Chinese-government-owned Citic (37.5 percent) and Brierley Investments Ltd (BIL) (25 percent). They soon went into receivership and the assets were on-sold. In 2003 the forests were sold to the Harvard University endowment fund for around half of the 1996 sale price. In 2006 the value of all forestry exports (logs, chips, sawn timber, panels and paper products) was $3.62 billion.
New Zealand Steel was purchased illegally by Equiticorp in 1987 with the crown selling 89.9 per cent stake. In February 1998, after a 198-day trial, the government handed over $267.5 million to the statutory managers in an out-of-court settlement.
Sorry, don’t have time to quantify all the lost revenue.
I can see I’m going to have to explain things. When I said “expecting people” I meant the government’s expectation to save money because less welfare dependent people will be having children.
You’re of the belief that poor people should not be allowed children at all. Therefore you’re arguing once again against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that states that all people are entitled to procreate irrespective of their socio economic status and in fact society and the State is required to protect that fundamental right.
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Gregor says “Furthermore, we have no idea from this graph the relative population per decile.For example, if the top decile contains say 1000 women and the bottom 10000 women, with a live birth number of 63390 ..”
DUH!!!! That’s hilarious.
Perhaps you should go and look up the definition of decile.
(clue – they’re equal amounts so 10% of a population)
Gregor says “So basically without the absolute numbers per decile..”
We have them – IF you read the graph. It shows 10,000 children to the poorest 10% of women and 5000 children for the wealthiest 10%.
And it states in plain english that BIRTH RATES GO UP THE POORER THE PEOPLE.
It’s something that’s well known world wide and has been for decades (you’re not member of the flat earth society, are you?).
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photonz1
However it is not conclusive evidence photonz1. Gregor and myself have mentioned a few reasons why the findings could be wrong. Here are another two:
Younger people of a breeding age are usually poorer. The graph is not age related to exclude older females (who can no longer have children) who are predominantly more wealthy than younger generations. These females would also predominantly live in more affluent areas.
The graph states that decile 10 is impoverished, while every other decile statistic I’ve looked at states that decile 1 is the most impoverished. Could it be that the researchers you’re pitting against Gregors more authoritative research have got it backwards?
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Jackal – You just got an F for failure in economics 101.
You have failed completely to indude both sides of the balance sheet.
That is like giving company results and accounting for expenses, but completely ignoring income.
You completely omit –
- the benefit the govt has had from the sale price
- twenty years of savings on interest on billions of dollars of debt.
- billions of dollars of new private investment that has gone into telecom, contact etc.
- and depite that, telecom and contact are worth no more today than they were when they were sold, when inflation is considered (which you also fail to account for).
- billions of dollars of tax that the govt has collected from these companies over two decades.
And even counting only one side of the ledger, you still can’t even get to a small fraction of Kerry’s claim of $14 billion PER YEAR.
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photonz1
Stupid! As I’ve already shown the lost wealth from just two of the privatized companies is over $17 billion. Who said anything about a yearly cost? Not only does it appear you cannot add, it seems you cannot even read numbers properly. Typical dumb tory.
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Jackal says “However it is not conclusive evidence photonz1.”
Yeah, and it’s not conclusve that the earth is round.
This is entertaining. Jackal says “pitting against Gregors more authoritative research ”
So Jackal thinks statistics from the census are authorative, when
- they themselves state that using a mothers income is completely unreliable as a indication of family income
- they lump 37% of all mothers into one single group
- the group includes everyone earning under $10,000, including millionaires wifes, a large middle class of stay at home mums, and the very poor
- the figures are 16 years out of date
And this is supposedly “more authorative” than a new study by experts in the field using actual numbers of recent births for every decile of deprivation.
You live on another planet jackal.
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Jackal says “Stupid! As I’ve already shown the lost wealth from just two of the privatized companies is over $17 billion. ”
Duh!!! – so you think $17 billion over 20 years is more than Kerrys repeated claim of $14 billion EVERY year.
That’s as funny as Gregors claim that one decile is ten times bigger than another decile.
Jackal says “Who said anything about a yearly cost?”
Kerry did – you remember – the person whose figures you stepped in to defending.
The stupidity level here is rediuculous. It’s like debating with people who are so off their tree they’re brain dead.
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photonz1
You don’t need to prove to us that you’re a dickhead photonz1.
However your research isn’t even about using the mothers income photonz1. Did you realize that?
Here is what the Perinatal and Maternal Mortality Review Committee actually state:
Well this is because overall 34% of the population live in decile 9 and 10 areas (according to the New Zealand Deprivation Index 2006 the study is based on), so of course more children are born in those areas. Your claim that the Perinatal and Maternal Mortality Review Committee are talking about a percentage in the lowest decile area when they clearly state that it is the overall proportion of babies born where it just so happens a higher percentage of the population reside is laughable.
Please don’t apply your own agenda to their research.
As I stated before, the New Zealand deprivation score is not suitable to determine whether more children are being born into impoverished homes than wealthy homes. The deprivation index used applies to areas, not individual people. Not everyone living in a poor area will be poor themselves, and living in a wealthy area does not automatically mean a person is wealthy. The deprivation scale is also not specific to woman between child bearing ages, meaning that the findings are skewed.
The research is not conclusive and even if it was, it’s not an excuse to ignore the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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photonz1
Could you show me where Kerry said that was a yearly amount?
The per year argument is something you’ve claimed photonz1. Tool!
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The stupidity level here is rediuculous. Quack.
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Jackal says “Could you show me where Kerry said that was a yearly amount?
The per year argument is something you’ve claimed photonz1. Tool!”
Quotes from Kerry
“The last lot cost us 14 billion + a year.”
““The 14 billion each year that goes offshore in interest and profits”
“14 billion a year”
“Giving 14 billion a year in overseas exchange to foreign corporate profits ”
“14 billion a year in overseas profits and interest.”
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Jackal – do you think Kerry’s claims of $14 billion a year are a complete load of nonsense?
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What are you on Jackal? I quote the passage that says birth rates increase with poverty.
You say that’s bullshit, THEN QUOTE THE EXACT SAME SENTENCE BACK TO ME.
Keep the gaffs up. This is entertaining.
Oh – here’s another
Jackal says “However your research isn’t even about using the mothers income photonz1. Did you realize that?”
Did I realise that? Are you for real?
Yes. Have you been asleep all day?
A millionaires wife staying at home looking after the single kid is on an income of zero. So are all the middle class wives who stay at home. So tehy fall into $10,000 or less category even though they’re rich.
That’s why you can’t use a mother’s personal income to measure poverty.
That’s been said repeatedly all day, but I suppose it’s a bit too complex for you to understand.
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Your ad hom isn’t worth responding to photonz1
Chaos in the Streets
The government should realize that this is going to eventuate is somebody being seriously hurt or even dying if it continues. They should therefore halt the forced evictions and house removals…
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@photonz1
I hate to rain on your parade but check your own source for the decile definition (p16)
It has nothing to do with numbers of women within any given decile. It an area based socioeconomic calculation of deprivation.
So perhaps you should read your own source and understand it before making a fool of yourself. Just saying.
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I’m not suggesting you’re making it up (that wouldn’t be like you at all) but you should reference the other threads to give context if you want to back up your position.
I could be wrong but If I remember correctly from another thread, Kerry was referring to 14bn per annum being the much broader aggregate impact of proportional foreign ownership of NZ domiciled businesses, that is, profits from most of our major retail banks, Telecom etc. leaking from the NZ economy and contributing to balance of payments deterioration.
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Gregor – He’s repeated it so many times I’m surprised you don’t know it from memory. And it’s very clearly avbout asset sales.
Kerrys quote “Asset sales. The last lot cost us 14 billion + a year.”
from
http://blog.greens.org.nz/2012/03/22/creating-debt-to-justify-privatisation/
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Gregor W:
No about the tin foil hat. There are rational reasons to be suspicious about population control.
http://andrewatkin.blogspot.co.nz/2009/06/operation-population-control_18.html
And no it’s not about ownership concentration. This is only one variable in the machine. You can have the scenario of a worker class getting most of the booty over the owner class, all depending on the ratio between assets (real capital) and available labour. You should read that poverty post of mine carefully.
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Gregor – forget about 50-100% higher overall. For teenagers the birth rate is 1000% higher (yes one thousand percent) between top and bottom deciles.
6.8 vs 66 births births per 1000 teenage girls (top vs bottom decile).
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10405499
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Yes Photo. They are two different sets of figures. Sorry if you are to thick to understand.
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photonz1
I’ll explain it again so that hopefully you will finally understand…
The New Zealand Index of Deprivation 2006 (NZDep2006) states:
Overall 34% of the population live in NZDep06 decile 9 and 10 areas*. People in decile 9 are having 10.2% of the overal new babies and people living in decile 10 are having 13.8% of the newborn babies (24%). That means people living in the two poorest areas (decile 9 and 10 comprising of 34% of the population) are having on average less children (24% of the national average or 15,279 of the 63,665 total births in 2009).
So according to the research you’ve presented: PEOPLE LIVING IN THE TWO POOREST AREAS OF NEW ZEALAND ARE HAVING ON AVERAGE 10% LESS CHILDREN.
Anybody with any type of real world experience already knows this. Poor people simply have no incentive to have a family. Finding, romancing and keeping a mate is more difficult for the poor and many poor people choose not to have a family because they cannot afford it.
I find it interesting that the Perinatal and Maternal Mortality Review Committee are presenting figures that paint an incorrect picture.
Most politicians (who are largely removed from the real world) would probably incorrectly interpret the findings as you have photonz1, being that a decile scale is usually divided equally and proportional to the amount of people and not mesh-block areas with the least deprived to most deprived scores not relative to the population.
It must be hard to not have anything to base your prejudices on photonz1.
*Source: Counties Manukau District Health Board.
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You can have the scenario of a worker class getting most of the booty over the owner class, all depending on the ratio between assets (real capital) and available labour.
I don’t thin that that is true in OUR real world Andrew, at least not in the debt-backed fractional-reserve, free market and growth worshiping world we have. Those things all favor the capital owner, and whack the labor sector hard. They also push the system towards ever greater wealth and income disparity.
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Kinda lost the fracking thread… this is perhaps not relevant to NZ directly… but it is a thing to watch.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-big-fracking-bubble-the-scam-behind-the-gas-boom-20120301
My understanding is that the guy behind it was kicked out of the company now, loaning money to himself, has conflict of interest problems due to his offshore hedge fund and has generally landed in a pot of really hot legal troubles.
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Jackal – keep it up – this is funny.
You take the demographics from a poor area like Manukau where 34% live in the bottom two deciles, and apply it to the whole country, where (surprise surprise) 10% of the population live in each decile – hence the term decile.
If you took Queenstown you’d find amlost no one in low deciles and the majority of the populaion in the top deciles.
The you are argeuing against a well known world phenomenon is amusing.
And just so you understand the problem, the teenage birth rate is 1000% higher in the lowest vs highest deciles “PER 1000″ girls.
That’s PER thousand.
I suppose you’ll now tell us that 1000 poor girls is 34% more girls than 1000 wealthy girls?
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bjchip:
It might not be real in (our) practice because our government saturates the labour market with too much immigrant labour too fast (especially the recent Labour government). But if you have not enough workers to run the ‘machine’, then the capital owners of the infrastructure must compete amongst each other for the under-supply of labour, and that will drive up the price of that labour and likewise drive down the returns on capital. This is obviously observed everywhere.
http://andrewatkin.blogspot.co.nz/2009/06/immigration_18.html
This is why business ALWAYS lobbies government for more immigration.
…and did you know it was Don Brash who wrote a speech calling against it? Ah, the left don’t know who the real “working class heroes” are!
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@photonz1
I’ll help you out with the decile thing.
In a population decile calculation, you are correct, one tenth of the population would fall into each container of measurement – 100 people would fall into ten deciles of 10 individuals. Pretty simple when you are dealing with whole numbers.
However, in a socioeconomic decile measurement a number of factors are combined (6 I think here) which calculate a number from 1 to 10 which can then be applied to a population for grouping purposes. In that way statisticians can determine how many representatives from an absolute population (our 100 individual sample above) fit into each decile.
Naturally these numbers would not be equal in distribution. They would in fact almost certainly fit some form of bell curve; in the case of socioeconomic factors (i.e. relative wealth) leaving heavily toward the left or relative deprivation end of the scale.
I hope that clears it up.
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Don’t expect photonz1 to accept the truth Gregor… it questions his entire belief system.
Slater receiving stolen property
Slater is of course not divulging where he acquired the data, but its likely to have come from Blomfield’s stolen computer and therefore Slater could be looking at a bit of jail time…
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Gregor says “Naturally these numbers would not be equal in distribution.”
Wrong. If it is a decile, then the numbers are equal. If they are not equal, then it is obviously not a decile.
Gregor says “In that way statisticians can determine how many representatives from an absolute population (our 100 individual sample above) fit into each decile.”
Wrong again. They KNOW how many fit into each decile, as each has 10%.
Gregor says “They would in fact almost certainly fit some form of bell curve;”
Wrong yet again. Wealth may be a bell curve. But when you chop the bell curve into 10 EQUAL amounts – note EQUAL amounts – you have deciles.
Besides which, none of what you say has any relevance when you are comparing birth rates per 1000 girls from different deciles.(note PER thousand).
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Do you realize that the 1 to 10 scale is ordinal not interval and a third of the population live in decile 9 and 10 areas photonz1? That’s if the Ministry of Health and Counties Manukau District Health Board are to be believed. Personally I would rely on their assessment over yours any day of the week.
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Images from today’s anti-asset sale march in Invercargill, featuring our own Dave Kennedy, Green candidate in the last election.
http://robertguyton.blogspot.co.nz/2012/05/invercargill-anti-asset-sale-march.html
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Jackal – keep it up.
You’re trying to tell us that 34% of the population are in the poorest 20% of the population (the poorest two deciles).
Poor areas like Manukau have more people in poor deciles.
And wealthy areas like Queensown have almost no one in poor deciles.
And you are trying to tell us that because one poor area you have figures for (Manukau) has more people in poor deciles, then the whole country must have the same figures of 34% of people in the poorest 20% of people.
Our education system has failed you.
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Not at all photonz1. The mesh block system incorporates all of New Zealand. That means the 34% of the population that reside in the poorest areas (decile 9 and 10) is not specific to just Manukau or Queensland… so what are you on about?
I realize at this stage that nothing is going to convince you that your prejudices have no reasonable foundation in reality… however please read and try to understand these documents before making any more of a fool of yourself:
MOH: NZDep2006 Index of Deprivation Report (PDF).
CMDHB: New Zealand Deprivation Index (NZDep06).
Wikipedia: Ordinal number.
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I give up.
Over to you Jackal to explain to photonz1 why;
a) socioeconomic decile calculation does not equal wealth but relative equality,
b) the mesh block method allows for decile 1 through 10 factors to exist in the same geographic area though with more relative density of a decile type, and
c) that surprisingly, when you chop up a bell curve into deciles on the x axis, the area describing the representative population per decile is statistically very unlikely to be equal (unless in fact your bell curve is a straight line).
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Jackal shows his education by quoting “is not specific to just Manukau or Queensland”
Pssst – a little secret – Queensland is not in NZ.
Todd – you continually make a fool of youself. You are argueing against a worldwide phenomenon that’s got more hard proof than global warming.
We have rates PER thousand teenage girls that are 1000% higher for poorest deciles than wealthiest deciles.
I actually feel guilty about making fun of you inability to understand basic things like what a decile is – as they say, it’s like shooting fish in a barrrel.
When you give links, it’s normal to give ones that back up your point – you keep giving links and quotes that prove you are wrong.
Todd – Please just try to find out what a decile is.
Then you’ll stop embarassing yourself by insisting that 34% of Kiwis are in the poorest 20% of Kiwis.
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Make them richer!
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Argentina, Iceland, Sweden get it right… The IMF, the bankers and the Eurozone as a whole don’t get it at all.
Comparing Greece to Argentina… what is the right answer?
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/05/bill-black-new-york-times-reporters-embrace-the-berlin-consensus-and-ignore-krugman-and-economics.html
One may examine the situation here in that same light, but the right wing here would have to swallow that light to be able to eventually see it (given the position of their heads).
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Of course I meant Queenstown and not Queensland photonz1. It’s a small Freudian slip if you like… I’ve been thinking of moving to Australia.
I’m linking to the actual study, which states the decile scale they have used is ordinal not interval. 34% of the population reside in mesh blocks decile 9 and 10. I have categorically proven that photonz1.
All you have proven is that you’re a complete tool!
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The visibly poorest and hardest hit by poverty, who wind up on the public benefit, are the single mom’s with kids.
The notion that they volunteer for this condition is the dog-whistle aspect of the policy.
To be sure, there will be some that do. Nothing like the numbers that Photonz imagines. Most simply get caught. Mother Nature has subtle traps for women who reach childbearing age. It isn’t as easy to avoid pregnancy as people imagine.
Offering free contraception and consultation to all women of childbearing age would be good, and being sure of teaching the facts to the kids in school, also quite useful.
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It is not true that 34% of Kiwis are in the poorest 20% of Kiwis, the poor are not having more sex just more babies. Quack.
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