Protection orders were created by the Domestic Violence Act and are one of the key tools in responding to Domestic Violence. They are issued by the Family Court.

The police have also recently been given the power to issue Public Safety Orders, which are loosely 5 day protection orders. These should not be issued if there is evidence of physical violence. Unfortunately a police review of Public Safety Orders showed evidence that they are more than occasionally being used when there is evidence of physical violence.

More than 10,000 people were charged with 21,049 incidents of breaching protection orders between 2006 and 2010.

Of the offenders, 6361 were convicted and 1725 given a custodial sentence. The rest, 4469, were found not guilty or had the charges withdrawn.

In the words of the police “Police do not routinely produce statistics on persons involved in police safety orders, details of the breaches, penalties imposed, number of repeat offenders, the number of complaints from protected people, the nature of the complaints and how they were dealt with … the information is not held by police,”

People in the sector have told me they are concerned about the high number of women reporting breaches only to find they are not considered a breach. For example a text may be made if the content of the text is not considered to be threatening. The nature of psychological abuse in cases of reported breaches does not seem to be understood or seen as an indicator of escalating level of risk to the victim.

They have also told me of protection orders being issued to protect women who have also effectively been given, by the same court, responsibility for ensuring their ex-partner’s access to their children. In this situation it is very hard for a woman to report a breach and very difficult to keep the lines

There are several areas of policy concern here; police use of and enforcement of protection orders and Public Safety Orders, the lack of monitoring and analysis of their use and effectiveness, the apparent lack of a victim’s perspective in the policy feedback process.

If we are serious about ending or even responding appropriately to Domestic Violence we need to ensure our systems are appropriate and working for the victims.

Goodness. I guess all the work of the Expert Advisory Group on Child Poverty, consisting of much esteemed doctors, and professors and community workers, was for nothing. The Minister of Finance does not believe their 72 recommendations amount to a general solution to poverty.

Poverty is created. It is not part of nature. We can see this very clearly when we contrast the wealth of old and young and see that only 3% of people 65 and over live in poverty compared to 25% of children. This difference is directly a result of Government policy and the universal provision of Superannuation.

Nationally and internationally we have seen multiple examples of poverty significantly increasing and decreasing, due to Government policy decisions. Poverty for working families in New Zealand significantly decreased after the introduction of working for families. The in-work tax credit lifted thousands of children out of poverty but has not helped the one in five children whose parents’ study or are on a benefit. The Children’s Commissioner’s expert group, has recommended a universal child payment, which reaches the poorest kids, as an effective way of helping many children in poverty.
Government is responsible for the social and employment environment in which we all survive or thrive.

•  They’re a very local company. They started in Wellington 20 years ago and have been part of Wellington life for all that time including being active in the anti-motorway protests.
• Laurie Foon is a genuinely lovely woman with an eye for beauty that extends much wider than design.
• They were leading the discussion on sustainable fashion. They made the move to design clothing you keep for a long time, made in New Zealand, from fair trade and eco sources.
• They make pretty clothes.

I know they’re expensive clothes and when most people’s pay is so repressed, that people are struggling to feed themselves and their families, it may seem frivolous to mark the passing of a clothing company. But they have paid their staff decently and they’ve been committed to everyone throughout the supply chain being treated decently. If everyone operated like that, everyone would be paid more and maybe more of us could afford their beautiful clothing.

I wish the Government was doing more to support small and medium sized New Zealand business so we could all benefit.

I just want to gloat about one – the motion to liberalise trade was voted down in favour of an amended motion in support of sustainable development.

The Forum heard some very passionate pleas relating to land, identity, and culture along with some strong critiques of unlimited growth, greed, and the importing of social harms in the form of food products that have contributed to the significant increase in non-communicable diseases like obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

New Zealand is a part of this. We earn more from the trade of food products in the Pacific connected to non-communicable diseases than we provide in ‘aid’ for health projects.

We also promote free-trade agreements. The representative from PNG said in response, “They’re trying to pull the wool over our eyes; and Australia and New Zealand make the best wool.”

The meeting affirmed again for me the need for New Zealand to catch up with these global movements towards a new model of development that commits to protecting all people and the planet rather than allowing a few people to become ridiculously rich while everyone else is left scrambling for the crumbs. (This video gives a good explanation of global inequality.)

Jan

I do want to challenge his managers though.

According to the story on Radio NZ this morning, his managers defended their decision to let Julian play by saying: one, it was up to the court to decide his guilt; and two, they asked his partner.

I think they need to learn the limitations of their expertise and perhaps acknowledge their vested interest in these decisions.

To say that ‘the court will decide’ is disingenuous, especially when Julian has apologised. To put the onus on his partner to say that he shouldn’t play put her in a vulnerable position that no woman should need to be in.

I would like them to commit to asking Women’s Refuge in the future before making decisions. It would also be nice if they paid Refuge to do some training with them.

New Zealand has very few checks on the power of Government and minimal tools to fight discrimination. By the response to the marriage equality bill and widespread public concern about the appointment of Susan Devoy, we know human rights are important to New Zealanders.  It seems the Government has conveniently forgotten this.

The Government is also putting through legislation at the moment that was in response to the Green Party’s call for the establishment of a disability commissioner but which they’ve taken as an opportunity to restructure the HRC and enable a reduction in the number of commissioners.

Over the past year I have seen the introduction of welfare laws that clearly breach human rights, new privacy legislation that puts privacy at risk, and of course the latest Immigration Amendment Bill which breaches the Bill of Rights Act and various international rights based conventions.

The Government has ignored the advice of the Human Rights Commission on all of these occasions and I have heard scoffing from the National benches in the House when I have raised their concerns.

The Privacy Commission has indicated they don’t have the resources to investigate all the major breaches we’ve seen over the last year and will have to change the way they respond to complaints, all while the Government is increasing their workload and introducing massive changes to the way information is handled.

Good human rights legislation and organisations protect us all and are vital to holding us together as a society. In a time of growing inequality and significant law reform we need to be strengthening these mechanisms not weakening them.

 The Privacy Commission is the only public organisation in this country with a focus and expertise on privacy rights. 

Privacy is essential for trust in our government and economic systems. If people do not trust a website which cannot protect the security of their credit card number they will not buy products from that site. If people do not trust a Government Department to protect their confidential information, their options are more limited but people will look for ways to limit the information they give or avoid giving the information. This has quite fundamental consequences. 

The Commissioner informed us, that they have not had an increase in funding for 8 years and are operating on a budget of $3.5m. They have also been told by the Government that there is no more money.

 To significantly increase the workload of a Department or Commission and not fund the work can only mean the quality of work is compromised or work is not done. 

The Commission has had a 42% increase in complaints over the last year, they have been asked to be on 12 working groups as Government Departments try to sort out some pretty serious privacy breaches, they are responsible for identifying emerging privacy issues and help avoid problems with cloud data storage, many people have wanted them to investigate the multiple breaches which they have not had the capacity to do, new privacy information sharing legislation was passed last year giving the new responsibility for monitoring a potentially very large number of information sharing agreements between Departments, and now today we also hear about the proposed new Government info hub. 

So in summary we have a growing awareness of multiple systemic privacy problems and vulnerabilities across the government while the Government is embarking on what is arguably the biggest change in privacy legislation and practice we have ever seen and they are not increasing the funding to the one specialist in the system who is their to protect our privacy rights.

The National Government passed the Child Support Amendment Bill and the Social Security (benefit categories and work focus) Amendment Bill  into law this week. Both of these bills will reduce women’s economic and social independence and this will have very real consequences for children.

The most recent estimates are that, around one in two mothers have spent some time as a sole parent, by the time they reach 50, and that a third of children have lived with a sole mother for some time by the time they are 17 years old.

According to the Families Commission research, we know that for many parents receiving child support (the majority of whom are women) the amount they receive is considered to be too little to meet the needs of their child. In 2009, 90 percent of sole parent families had incomes below the median household income for all households with or without children.

Women are already earning a lot less than men.  With a women’s average weekly earnings, there is a gender pay gap of 23%. The annual gender earnings gap is much wider.

And while Child support income is significant for many women, banks do not consider child support as income, because as they say they cannot guarantee you will get it.

The new Child Support Act will result in a disproportionate reduction in entitlements under the child support scheme for female sole parents. Almost 30,000 female parents receiving child support could experience a reduction in their monthly child support receipts.

In one example a sole parent with two children, who spent two nights per week with the other parent would have their annual child support entitlement reduced by 36% or more than $3,000 per year.

The new Act also reduces penalties for non-payment.

The Social Security Bill will further reduce sole parents autonomy and potential income. Sole parents will now be threatened with (and the latest figures are an increasing number of them will actually experience) sanctions of 50% of their income for not having their children in childcare, not getting them enrolled in a Primary Health Organisation and getting wellchild checks done, not meeting work readiness obligations, or taking a suitable job once their youngest child is either 1 or 5 years old, depending on whether they were on or off a benefit when they had that child.

While for those of you who have had no experience of Work and Income, or the stresses of sole parenting, on a below poverty line income, you may think these things seem okay. Let me give you an example of how this can play out. A woman who had fairly recently left a violent relationship and had protection orders on file with Work and Income, who had a baby under one and was trying to study, was sent a letter by Work & Income telling her she needed to attend work training – in three days time. Because she does not have family or friends living  locally she has to try to find a child care centre, that she can afford, that will take a child on a casual basis without much notice – all with the fear her benefit might be cut if she cannot achieve this. While in practical terms she probably would not have been sanctioned for that, it doesn’t take away the sense of threat and insecurity. The stress, the financial cost and the logistics of this are I believe unreasonable for anyone, especially when they serve no purpose, but for a woman who is trying to cope and keep herself and her children safe, this could actually be the last straw that could make her think that maybe he has actually changed – maybe this time it would be ok. This is dangerous.

This loss of autonomy and relative status compared to working or partnered women will have significant consequences.

These two new acts of government will further exacerbate child poverty and the feminisation of poverty in this country.

A sole mothers economic and social status is directly connected to a woman’s ability to leave and stay out of a violent relationship.

And a women’s safety survey conducted in 1996 found that 70 percent of separated women had experienced some form of domestic violence.

Far too many New Zealand fathers—and this is backed up by evidence—have a long history of not paying child support, paying too little, and paying erratically. This bill seems to support, in part at least, the view that child support should be less onerous because liable parents resent paying it. I know women who have traded sex with a violent ex just to get their child support payments.

This bill will make leaving a violent relationship more difficult and will put more power in the hands of abusers.

These two pieces of legislation have been developed as if none of that was true and that puts women and children’s lives at risk.

And it was only a month or so ago that our Minister of Women’s Affairs committed NZ to “a comprehensive approach towards ending violence against women and girls.”

Yet here we are just over a month later eroding the protective factors, inherent in two fundamental pieces of legislation to ensure the safety of women and children in this country. Passing these Bills today, this House is choosing to undermine the economic and consequently the physical safety of women and children in all of our communities. That is a disgrace.

The democracy:
This Bill has the support of the majority in the House. The Government though has indicated they will use their financial veto to prevent it coming in to law. We heard the argument very clearly today that that would undermine the constitutional separation of Executive, legislature and judiciary. We have very few checks on the Executive as it is, to use the financial veto for something that has the agreement of the majority in parliament and only equates to .2% of GDP throws up many questions. It was argued that having control of the Treasury benches gives a Government its power but when this control of the Treasury benches is only enabled by virtue of a majority then to act without that majority is surely questionable.

Funding options:
Laila Harre gave the committee (the Government) alternatives to incurring any financial costs to extending PPL.
She noted that currently paid parental leave is only funded for 26% of the allowed time of one year and then that payment is only up to 48% of the average wage. She compared this to annual leave, sick leave, bereavement leave which are all funded at 100% and even ACC which is funded at 80%. She noted that our employment leave framework was created post war, at a time there were very few women in the workforce and it had yet to catch up.
She pointed out other similarities with ACC and PPL as ACC is also contributed to universally but only used by a small percentage of people for limited periods of time. It also has a marked gender bias in payouts with $641 million dollars pa more, being paid out to men compared to women. (Note the extension of PPL is estimated to cost less than $150million pa.)
She suggested there is capacity within ACC probably even with existing levies to fund an extension to PPL.
I supported an employer levy back in the day when we were fighting to get 12 weeks PPL and I still support it. I think it is an easy, administratively efficient and equitable system, that would enable us to ensure parents and children get the time they need to heal and bond and just cope, without being told they’re too expensive.

I was really moved by what Darryl had to say and wanted to make sure that other people had a chance to see what he shared with us. Please have a read of his speech, copied below.

Speech from Darryl Evens CEO of Mangere Budgeting & Family Support Services 03/04/13

These past few year’s many New Zealanders have experienced uncertainty in terms of whether they get to keep their jobs or due to the rising financial stresses that life brings. Many have had to seek social welfare or benefit support for the first time in their lives. Families and individuals are coming into services such as Mangere Budgeting & Family Support Services as they seek our support. Many believe the future to be bleak, some face homelessness, some face loss of employment but overwhelmingly most feel they no longer have a familiar and secure future; which is distressing for so many. Having to put your hand up and ask for help can be extremely embarrassing for many but I do not believe there is ‘whakama; in doing so. The Maori word Whakama means to be ashamed or embarrassed. I truly believe that putting your hand up today will mean the difference between feeding your children tomorrow or not

It is those working families who often earn minimum wage who are first at our door seeking help. The reality is that $13.50 an hour before tax simply is not enough to sustain a family and yet the government saw fit recently to reduce the youth rate down to $11.00 an hour for those between 16 and 19 years. I wish to remind John Key and Paula Bennett that many of these 16-19 yr olds are actually married people who are struggling to support families. $13.50 an hour wasn’t enough to live on; so what did they do, they reduced it even further.  Without the ‘working for families tax credit’, more of our families would be experiencing extreme financial hardship.

With the vast majority of our clients renting as opposed to owning their own homes; many are now telling us that they cannot sustain private rentals beyond 3-4 months. Many are only 1 or 2 weeks away from being evicted due to rising rental prices which is the very reason we are now seeing more than one family sharing a home. As families overcrowd our houses, our children are becoming sicker by the day. We all know that overcrowding often leads to respiratory illness and in some extreme cases they are also affected by diseases such as Meningococcal Meningitis, Tuberculosis, Rheumatic Fever and serious skin infections and lesions. As I see it, two of the major causes of child poverty are income inequality and poor housing. Most of the vulnerable families that we work with have been unable to access an affordable home, one which is dry and easy to heat and one where they have some security of tenure.

Of those families who have lost their homes due to the rising cost of living many have ending up in garages, cars, caravans and also in boarding lodges across South Auckland. Boarding lodges for the most part were designed to offer emergency accommodation to those who were trying to reintegrate into society following substance abuse, alcoholism or those recently released from prison but now the vast majority are housing individuals or families who simply can no longer afford private rental accommodation and so the lodges especially in Mangere are becoming the landlords to those most in need.

Of the vulnerable families we see in these lodges, most are living in overcrowded rooms, often paying as high as $240-260 a week for the privilege. A recent visit to one South Auckland lodge by myself and my Strengthening Families Coordinator saw 17 families living in cramped conditions, many of the children were suffering from scabies, coughs, colds, some had recently recovered from pneumonia and one particular child had recently had heart surgery and yet these rooms are small, their cold and most have mould on the walls and ceilings. I would suggest that the vast majority of these lodges should not be allowed to house families with children however many of these families tell us they had no other option on the day they lost their home.  Local government really does need to monitor and regulate these lodges. An important factor to be aware of here is that of those 17 families, 8 were in full time paid employment.

So as not to normalise these living conditions, I remind myself and others; that not so long ago ‘garages were buildings to house cars’. ‘Motor vehicles were modes of transport’. ‘Caravans were something we holidayed in’ and boarding lodges most definitely were not places we housed our needy families and their vulnerable children in.

Only 5 years ago, we all heard the tragic story Folole Muliaga who died in Mangere, South Auckland due to power poverty. A Samoan family who were unable to pay a $168.40 power bill and yet they were disconnected by their electricity provider along with thousands of others in the same year. It is a disgrace that working families, beneficiary families and also our pensioners are too scared to turn on the heaters as they fear these exorbitant power bills and yet the power prices continue to rise.

Food insecurity has also been a major problem for thousands of families across NZ. In fact Food Parcel Assistance has been our number one request on a daily basis during the past 24 months. Other Food Banks as well as Work & Income offices are inundated with requests for food assistance and yet for many of these working families they are often $2 or $3 a week, over the threshold to get the additional support that WINZ can offer.

The Department of Human Nutrition at the University of Otago estimate that to feed a family of 4, this is an adult male, an adult woman and two children, aged 14 and 5 years should be spending approx $240 per week on a basic diet and yet speaking with families coming into my organisation we are told that similar size families on average are only able to spend $83.33 per week on groceries, this is a deficit of $156.67 each week; this evidences the fact that some our children are going hungry each and every day. The stark reality is that 1 in 4 children living in NZ live in an impoverished home; that is between 240 and 270,000 children and yet 40% of these have at least one adult in the home, who works full time.  These are statistics that we should be ashamed of and yet we continue to give millions of dollars each year in overseas aid and also to NZ sporting groups and yet we have children in our own backyards; going hungry.

This is the very reason that working families are often forced to work between 60-70 hours a week simply to exist. When our children are working paper-rounds or taking on part time work in our supermarkets just to add a few extra dollars to the household grocery budget, then surely something has to be done.

One area that really must be mentioned is the cost of debt in NZ, particularly for working families on the minimum wage. Getting credit can often be far too easy for many of these who simply cannot afford the repayments. We see families borrowing money to pay basic living costs – these costs then blow out of all proportion; as we regularly see interest rates of between 498 and 535% on short term loans, and then on top of this; outrageous fees and penalties are charged for those who fail to meet their obligations. This is deepening the cycle of poverty and costing the government 10fold in dealing with the effects of impoverished communities; made so by the loan sharks who prey like piranhas on our most vulnerable. Families who work hard and budget well are undermined by unregulated controls on the cost of debt and this sends them over the edge. Debt and all its associated costs are a major factor for many of our families deemed vulnerable and living in poverty.

The causes of poverty as I see them are social and economic in nature, and are often outside the control of the individual or family. These may include:

• High unemployment rates
• Low wages
• a lack of affordable housing
• poor housing policies by Government
• low accommodation supplements and
• wider policy developments.

These problems require long-term policy solutions such as changes in the housing benefit system, in housing policy, the building of more affordable homes, and ensuring that a wider cross-section of society benefits from the fruits of economic growth by way of a livable wage. The minimum wage no longer cuts the mustard and people need to earn a wage that is sustainable for them and their families.

Increased private rental charges, higher power and energy prices, higher costs for food and dairy, higher road user charges and increased petrol costs etc etc…..without putting up wages (and I don’t mean by a miserly 25cents an hour) means that we are effectively making our people poorer and ultimately it is costing the nation millions in welfare dollars, which really is a false economy.

I would like too to recognise this earth on which we all stand and the air which we all breathe. Acclimatising to this high altitude I have a new appreciation for the very air we breathe. It has been a good reminder of our absolute interdependence with nature.

All too many of our international and national structures create and recreate systems of exploitation and promote the power of one person and one group of people over the ‘other’, the power of man over nature.

This has been made possible by disassociation and compartmentalisation.

This thinking has given us climate change, environmental degradation, mass poverty, violence against women, homophobia, racism, obscene inequality, genocide and war.

I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that this proudly Catholic country, who has given us Buen Vivir, protects sexual orientation and gender identity in their constitution. I think this recognition of the beauty of diversity and honesty and the relinquishing of the need to control others is the pulse that breathes life into Buen Vivir.
I know many of you are wondering why New Zealand is pushing this issue of sexual orientation and gender identity.

New Zealand is not pushing this to offend anyone.

We are pushing it because we believe in a new model of development where EVERYONE is included.

We are pushing it because we oppose all discrimination and hate based crimes, individual or state sanctioned.

We are pushing it because we were the first country in the world where women fought for and won the vote, and that vision of liberation is ingrained.

We are pushing it because the vision of plurality has been enshrined in our law, through the protection of indigenous sovereignty and we can see the true possibility of that.

We are pushing it because we do not see culture in a separate box from sexuality, and we do not see religion in another box either.

I am pushing this because to my knowledge I am the only type of person in this room, who has their very humanity questioned, by entire countries.

You tell me that I must understand your culture, your religion. I do and I will fight hard for your rights to your culture and your religion, but I will never accept that your culture or religion has the right to make people like me in your country, and they do exist, chose between being and being given basic rights.

While we continue to deny the humanity and rights of so many people around the world we will be unable to achieve the balance needed to secure our collective future.

The world desperately needs to recognise our wholeness and our interdependence so we may one day be able to recognise our place in this ecosystem in which we all exist. Buen Vivir to all of us.

I went to that country last year. I was impressed by how many people spoke to me about their hope for peace and democratic reform. The people I spoke to within the country and those living in exile as refugees in Thailand do not yet trust the Government. They have not seen evidence of change. Despite ‘our lady’ now being in Government, the war is not over.

In mid January the Government declared a cease fire in their war against the Kachin peoples, a minority ethnic group in the north, yet in late January there were still reports that the war was continuing.

The Karin people I spoke to talked about an increased military presence in the Karin areas in the south. They want to trust the peace but do not yet.

This week the Islamic Human Rights Commission put out a media release alerting the world to what they fear is an escalation of tensions against the Muslim minority Rohingya people, who are not recognised by the ruling Government.

It is not yet time to treat this Government as an equal trading partner. We cannot put our trade interests before the lives those ethnic minorities living in war and fear.

In an effort to build trade and sell off redundant military equipment, John Key seems to have chosen to make New Zealand complicit in the further arming of a potentially illegal military force who has been responsible for very significant human rights abuses.

Colombia is one of 16 countries that the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is investigating regarding the commission of serious international crimes, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The military is central to those concerns.

These abuses are not solely historical.

Last year, in response to the military complaining about uncertainty due to civil investigations of 12,000 military officers, the Colombian government changed the constitution to exempt many cases of military abuse from the civilian courts.

The reality of the situation in Colombia is that people still have to leave to find safety, and New Zealand is still taking Colombian refugees.

New Zealand has done fantastic work supporting the development of a UN arms trade treaty.

It could certainly be argued that Light Armoured Vehicles fall under the developing definition covered by this treaty, which includes armoured combat vehicles.

For an historical perspective, the now-defunct U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) created the following comprehensive definition of the arms trade, which has been widely used by researchers:

“Weapons of war, parts thereof, ammunition, support equipment, and other commodities designed for military use…dual-use equipment…when its primary mission is identified as military. The building of defence production facilities and licensing fees paid as royalties for the production of military equipment.…military services such as training, supply operations, equipment repair, technical assistance and construction are included where data are available”

It also adds, “New Zealand supports a broad, comprehensive coverage of conventional weapons within the treaty’s scope. Anything less will undermine the attainment of its objective.”

At the very least, New Zealand now needs to follow the proposed protocol outlined in the draft treaty, “…to assess whether the proposed export of conventional arms could (a) be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law;  (b) be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international human rights law…”

If we don’t do this, then it is clear that in a bid to get a place on the UN Security Council, John Key has undermined our efforts towards a comprehensive arms trade treaty.

How are we going to continue to argue strongly for these provisions at the next round of text negotiations in New York this month if our Prime Minister acts inconsistently?

How are we going to have any credibility on the Security Council if our trade and global interests override basic security and international law?

“This Peace Walk for Women was organised to raise awareness of our interconnectedness and interdependence in our hope and work towards the attainment of peace. We invite all women from all walks of life, from different religions and diverse beliefs, from different ethnicities and cultures to join the Walk. Walk to support the protest against violence on women and children. Walk to support protest against wars.”

I even got to release a dove as a symbolic gesture  – I may have to practice that.

It was wonderful to be with a group of women committed to keeping gender on the agenda. To tackle violence against women and children we also need to tackle all the other indicators of inequality because it all works in a system.

To do my bit towards peace in the year ahead I will: continue to consider what everything might mean for women; campaign for adequate funding for sexual abuse support services; support pay equity initiatives especially for aged care workers; continue to promote my equal pay bill; and listen to and speak up for everyone who is marginalised.

UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights and the working group on discrimination against women are warning the cuts could have a detrimental effect on the human rights of up to 100,000 Australians, and could be contrary to some of Australia’s international obligations.

Last year, New Zealand was also warned that the National Government’s welfare reforms amount to discrimination. The UN committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights said that the last round of welfare changes were inconsistent with international obligations and that the Government should reconsider work tests for single parents with children over five.

The Minister said she would consider the committee’s recommendations but clearly decided her view was more valid than that of the panel of international human rights experts, because nothing changed.

The next wave of welfare reforms, about to be reported back from select committee, raised several more breaches of human rights. Enforcing a ‘social obligation’ on beneficiary families is discrimination on the basis of employment and family status, and as I have written previously breaches UNCROC multiple times.

Further, the drug testing in the proposal is potentially inconsistent with the right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure and the right to refuse medical treatment. I also have grave concerns about whether the changes will also be inconsistent with the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.

The Australian example should be a warning to New Zealand.

When filling out the forms this year I will be facing a personal dilemma because one of the first questions asks me to identify my gender as male or female. I do identify as female, but I know a significant number of people who do not identify as either male or female.

It’s a bit like telling me I can’t identify as Pākehā/European because the only options are Māori and Polish. That would be very confronting personally, I would wonder why the state didn’t acknowledge my existence to begin with, and I would also have quite legitimate concerns about the validity of the results.

For several years now, some transgender and intersex people and allies have been lobbying for more accurate gender options to ensure statistical rigour and not to force anyone to fit a box that is the wrong shape. Sadly this lobby hasn’t been successful which makes it really difficult for us to plan for the needs of our trans and intersex communities. There is now a two tick campaign asking people to tick both male and female to bring this issue directly to the statistics department.

While I understand, and respect, the two tick campaign I’m not sure I’ll be able to bring myself to tick both boxes, especially since Statistics New Zealand have said they’ll infer a binary gender based on my other answers.  I will however be pushing for our next census to finally reflect the reality of our gender diversity.

“I also recall dire predictions that Cantabrians would go onto benefits in huge numbers post-quake, but in fact at most there were 6,324 on the Unemployment Benefit in June 2011,” says Mrs Bennett.

“That’s because firstly the Government spent $214 million on work subsidies to keep employers and workers in business and then continued a focus on helping business growth and getting people off welfare into work.”  Paula Bennett 28 Feb 2013

I wonder how the women in Canterbury feel about these statements when they consider the the Human Rights Commission report showing women accounted for 70% of the decrease in employment in Canterbury with the number of women in employment decreasing by 19,200, in the year to September 2011 and of the 4500 jobs that were created in 2011 women only got 8.9% of these.

The consequences of such a gendered impact may well be far reaching and limiting the Government’s response to a PR exercise to try and encourage young women into non-traditional jobs is absolutely inadequate.

“More than 10,600 sole parents on the DPB with children over six years old are now earning more than $100 a week”

What the government didn’t mention though is there is only 0.2% more people on the DPB earning extra income compared to 2008.

Patterns of work for sole parents clearly follow the job market and complementary initiatives such as Working for Families.

The Government also noted that “more than 171,000 benefits have been cancelled because people found work”
What they didn’t mention was the number of unemployed people has increased and the percentage of people receiving income support and working part time has decreased by over 4% since 2006.

And while there certainly are fewer people accessing income support we also know unemployment is at the highest level in ten years.

I know the figures I’ve chosen are equally open to critique but that’s my point really. When it comes to income support and employment I believe we need to look at trends, comparisons and qualitative outcomes and not just arbitrary isolated measures that may make a good soundbite but really tell us nothing.

What I’m hearing all around the country is that people are struggling to get work, and many more people are struggling to pay for the basics; roof, warmth and food, and increasingly it seems there is a section of our population opting out of the formal economy altogether.

If this is getting results, I have to ask what the goal was.

But to their political, if not moral, credit, the government seems to have planned for this and introduced the Social Security (Fraud Measure and debt Recovery) Amendment Bill.  It’s strange how these Bills pop up on certain days.

And it works for them. This story is now the lead political story on TV 3. What political reporter could resist this quote from Chester Borrows:

 “Let’s be clear – welfare fraud is a crime, committed by criminals, for their own benefit at the taxpayer’s expense, and we treat it as such without excuse,” says Mr Borrows.

 “National promised to clamp down on welfare fraud, and I’m pleased to deliver on that promise today.”

 So what’s actually in this little populist piece of political camouflage?

 1)      “The first initiative is to amend the law to create a new offence targeting partners or spouses of beneficiaries who are convicted of fraud.”

This is good to the extent it will lessen an abusers ability to control his partner with the threat of dobbing her in to Work and Income. He’s not as likely to use that as a threat when he might be liable for costs.

It’s also good to the extent it will share the financial burden of the debt. Currently it is women who are typically carrying all the liability.

BUT we do not believe women in violent relationships should be considered fraudsters and we’re not convinced the systems are in place to exclude women in this situation from being prosecuted.

2)      “introduce new ways of working with beneficiaries who have previously been dishonest with MSD.  These new measures include greater verification of information and less access to self-service transactions, and will cover around 1000 beneficiaries each year.”

This has apparently been trialled within the department and the reports I get are it has been messy; people have been required to attend a lot more face to face meetings, at increased cost, and their case managers haven’t really seemed to know what they were doing. This does seem like a very expensive and ineffective measure, likely to build frustration. The government has suggested these measures will apply to around 1000 beneficiaries pa but last year the department only prosecuted 789 people. I’m not sure how many were found guilty.

3)      Enable the department to investigate complaints of fraud without informing the beneficiary and increase information sharing between departments.

This is in part creating the legislation to enable current practice. The current legislation requires a beneficiary to be informed of allegations unless there is ‘reasonable cause’ to believe that to do so would be ‘likely to prejudice the maintenance of the law’.  

This law change will mean investigators can go straight to external sources such as Housing NZ, IRD or an employer to investigate an allegation by-passing the person who is most likely to be able to resolve the issue. Ninety five percent of benefit fraud allegations don’t have grounds for prosecution let alone conviction yet this law seems to amount to a presumption of guilt and may well create prejudice and concern about the person for no reason. While protecting against fraud we also need to ensure we’re not undermining the privacy and human rights of those receiving income support.

 In 2011 the beneficiary fraud rate was 0.1% and while yes there are over 16,000 allegations of fraud every year only 4.2% result in prosecution.

 Tax discrepancies, including fraud, are estimated to be over $1.2 billion pa. The Government tell us that benefit fraud might be around $60million.

The role of a Member of Parliament is to represent diverse communities, but Prosser has shown he is incapable of this. His bizarre reaction to having his pen-knife confiscated (in accordance with air safety regulations!) has not only caused embarrassment for his Party and New Zealand as a whole, but it has done very real damage to the 36,000+ Muslims in this country.

Saziah, a Bengali Muslim (and New Zealand citizen), has eloquently discussed this harm in her blog post, Sticks and stones and weed and bombs, Mr Prosser. She says:

This hurts particularly because, on an official level, it goes to the heart of the question of my identity.

…

I am a Bengali New Zealander. I am also a feminist, a bookworm, a foodie and a cinephile. Some days I have good taste in music and some days I have bad taste in music. I love the beach but hate getting sand everywhere. I speak several languages. I still get upset at the thought that Dumbledore dies. When I lived in Auckland, I thought of West Auckland as home. Now that I live in Wellington, I think of Auckland as home, and of Wellington as “my city,” whatever that means. I bake decent brownies (oh the irony).

Oh, yes, I am also a Muslim.

You would think that would be the only thing about me that would be relevant to this conversation. But it is not. We are a sum of all our parts. Reducing us to one characteristic, especially one that is viewed with a lot of prejudice and misunderstanding, dehumanizes us. It is destructive. It is destructive to our personhood, in your eyes. And it is destructive to my identity in my own eyes.

Meanwhile, in today’s NZ Herald, Auckland couple Jason (Naveed) Kennedy and Khayreyah Wahaab have written an open letter to Mr Prosser, inviting him to their house for dinner to discuss his views. I commend their stance, and hope Mr Prosser takes them up on their generous invitation. Perhaps, through exposure to other cultures, he may finally begin to genuinely change his bigoted views.