Why the MSD privacy breach matters

It's pretty easy when you see politics as a game to forget that the scandal now known as #WTFMSD is not just about Paula Bennett's competence (or not) as a Minister,  continuing to tarnish a Government that has been just a wee bit beleaguered of late. 

What a massive privacy breach, of really quite gargantuan proportions, means in practical terms is actually fear.

Fear of people finding out your private stuff.  Fear of people who Don't Need to Know finding out your private stuff.  Fear of people who You Don't Want To Know finding out your private stuff.  Fear of people who are Dangerous to You and Your Loved Ones finding out your private stuff. 

Private stuff like your new name, your current address, your beneficiary or CYFS arrangements.  Private stuff which could make it easy to find you.

Emma explains it succintly, clearly, and powerfully, on PAS today:

[quote from someone else, upthread] Mind you, you know exactly who could (would) do what Keith did? Bored, inquisitive, mildly anti-social young men...

[Emma's comment].... who have children hidden from them in CYFS care, and have just been given enough information to find them.

I read this column last night, and had to go to bed and have a wee cry. And it wasn't just because my daughter's had dealings with Youth Specialty Service that involved funded counselling and drugs.

I was one of those kids. For two years in the 70s, my family was in hiding from my father. He had access rights: on one of those visits he managed to trick me into telling him where we were living (I was six, okay), and we had to move. I had to change schools. The very information Keith has detailed here, which would have been on Social Welfare's files about us, would have been sufficient for my dad to at least find my school and wait for me. He could have used me to find my home, and my mother. She could have died.

If we were in that situation now, all he'd need is some unsupervised time on a kiosk, and the technical knowledge to open a file in Word.

The political management of this issue has become the main topic of conversation now.  When did MSD know they had a problem?  A year ago; several months back; last week; on Sunday night; or, like the PM, today?  If they found out earlier than yesterday why didn't they act sooner? 

But please let us not forget just why this breach matters so much; because MSD were not reliable and secure stewards of the information they hold, and have thus made many of the most vulnerable in our society, those MSD is supposed to assist confidentially and with respect, even more at risk.  And even more afraid.

What about the war on greed?

Welcome, those who do not agree with seeing those most impoverished in our society treated like the cause of the recession, to the National Day of Action Against Welfare Reform.  There are peaceful events protesting the Government approach to social welfare at WINZ offices around the country:

NELSON: WINZ 22 Bridge street contact: kayoss2@gmail.com or Facebook

DUNEDIN: Central WINZ Cnr St Andrews & Castle st contact (027) 259218 olive.mcrae@gmail.com or Facebook

TAURANGA: Spring street Tauranga CBD, Facebook.

KAIKOHE: Rally at WINZ Kaikohe contact: ketanasaxon@gmail.com or Facebook

AUCKLAND: Henderson WINZ contact unitewaimata@gmail.com or Facebook

WELLINGTON: Willis St. (Wellington City) WINZ contact Heleyni (029) 4949865, heleyni@unite.org.nz or Facebook

CHRISTCHURCH: Riccarton Rd WINZ contact joanna.wildish@gmail.com (022) 1726120 or Facebook

HAMILTON: WBAHamilton@gmail.com (022) 307 9324 or Facebook

HAWKE'S BAY: Hastings East WINZ Office. contact is msnhuata@gmail.com (022) 6014959 or Facebook

If you think making sure children in the poorest families in Aotearoa are not penalised by ideological decision making designed to stop us paying attention to who continues to be doing just fine during the recession, get yourselves down to WINZ.  See Wellington supporters there.

For debate: Why don't more feminists support libertarianism?

WARNING:  This post and the ensuing thread include a lot of libertarian ranting.  You may prefer to find another time-wasting/procrastinating technique.

Prompted by a discussion in comments in another post, here's a question for debate, and I'll recreate the comments on the matter so far so you can see how it's all come to this:

Mark Hubbard:

To state my ideology, I'm an Objectivist Libertarian. From that point of view, a query.

Guestie: The War on Women

Many thanks to Amanda from Pickled Think for submitting this guest post.

Perhaps these fictional examples look like women you know about to be effected by the latest rounds of the War on Women...err...Social Welfare cuts.

• Erin, early 30s, mother of two. Children aged ten and twelve. Has just left an abusive husband of 15 years. No formal education beyond sixth form. Has not worked for almost all of the marriage because husband insisted on controlling finances and did not like Erin "fraternizing" outside of the home. Last job she held was as a "checkout chick" at a local supermarket at age 17. Currently undergoing counselling for domestic violence she suffered. Moving through the court system in a messy divorce and to gain sole custody of children. Children suffering from behavioural problems at home and school because of family violence and divorce, require careful monitoring and CYFs are watching her, making things more stressful. Is often tracked down at a safe place by partner, and driven to further hiding. Cut off from both sets of parents, her siblings and friends because of controlling ex, so cannot count on them for childcare. Cannot afford a car. Cannot get interim education because of Adult Continuing Education cuts. No one wants to hire someone with an empty CV, unreliable transport and unsteady timetable as she moves from one safe house to the next, and struggles to find and afford childcare.
  
  And this woman is to be forced to find a job why?

• Maggie, 55, no children. Husband recently died suddenly, leaving a business, mortgage and health care bills to settle. Has university entrance and a few correspondence papers under her belt, but most of her skills have been gained working for her husband's business and unquantifiable.  Husband's health insurance and superannuation payouts and sale of business (after debtors settled) is enough to pay off outstanding bills and mortgage with a little left over which she wishes to reinvest for her retirement (as she is in good health) rather than use it as living expenses now and suffer a cut back retirement. She could go back to tertiary education, but feels it would cut into the time and money she has left before formal retirement age. Employers are wary of hiring someone of her age and empty CV.
  
  Why would you penalize or completely remove her benefit  simply because she struggles to find a job under the auspices of institutionalized ageism and sexism?

• Moana, 27, married, 3 children under 10. Left school at 15, no formal education, cannot afford any ongoing education. Lives in an historically high unemployment rural area. Husband works a variety of seasonal jobs that takes him away from the home for weeks at a time, which means their income is not always static and they rely on benefits in between times. She has worked a variety of temp jobs deemed as unskilled labour, often just earning minimum wage. Both sets of parents and a variety of friends are available for child care outside of school hours, though her youngest is not yet school age, and these family and friends also work and sometimes are unavailable to help. She cannot afford child care, and CYFs have unusually targeted her, causing undue stress,  though both are good parents and doing their utmost to earn a living. She has unreliable transport, as the car keeps breaking down. In a particularly low time in job availability, she is offered a job in the next town 45 minutes away, but it is only minimum wage, not flexible in the hours she needs to look after her kids, and not worth it for the amount she must spend on petrol and car maintenance.
  
  Should she be penalized and/or lose her benefit because she accurately weighs up the economic and time costs of this job, refuses it, and suffers from entrenched racism?

• Raine, 25, pre-operative transgender woman, single, no dependents. Not in touch with, and can't rely on, any family. Highly educated. Suffers from bad depression. Has lived on the streets before, but currently in a stable, sympathetic living arrangement - would not like to leave if money runs out, but may have no choice. Has worked a variety of well paid jobs, but has been forced to leave many times after being outed against her will and shunned by employees. Would like surgery, but cannot maintain a steady job to afford it as well as her health regimen.  Recently left a sympathetic workplace because of depression issues. Used up all savings towards surgery as living expenses so as not to deal with social welfare system, but now running out of money. Finds sickness benefits excessively difficult and unsympathetic to deal with. Has high medical bills. Can get a benefit, but demands to get another job are stressful as she deals with health care, decision to stay closeted, and living arrangements.
  
  Should she be penalized because of medical issues and systemic transphobia in the workplace and social welfare system?

• Tina, 42, 2 children aged 12 and 14, recently divorced. Lives in Christchurch.  University education. Parents deceased, siblings live overseas. Amicable divorce finalized just before Feb22 earthquake, with agreed joint custody. Children suffering some stress and behavioural issues from earthquake and divorce. Lost her house and job from earthquake. Currently renting while waiting for EQC and insurance payouts on house. Unable to find permanent work post-earthquake because of shrinking local job market, though has taken on some temp jobs. Finds a job in Auckland, but it is far less money than desirable, will take all her savings to move, finances will be in flux while awaiting insurance payouts, after school care for stressed children and living expense will be more expensive, and will take children away from the childcare base of their father who is secure in Christchurch.
  
  And this is an ideal way to "get back into work" how?

• Sharyne, 17, single, no dependents. Living on her own between a variety of friends houses. Sexually abused from a young age by stepfather. Ran away from home at age 14 after failed CYFs placements. Often needs to leave a flatting arrangement quickly if stepfather and associates tracks her down. Left school at age 15 with behavioural issues. Has worked a variety of temporary jobs but left or been fired each time because of altercations with staff or customers. Family and friends who are trying to keep her separated from her abuser, and helping her contemplate laying charges, helping her towards counselling and various work placement courses that may suit her interests, but when she has a relapse or drinking session ends up on the street and/or picked up by the police. Community services keeping an eye on her, but recommends she needs careful attention before she can return to education or work.
  
  Does the government not realize that by taking control of paying a person's rent and living expenses they tie them up in impractical paperwork that slows down their retreat from an abuser? That by forcing a young person towards work or education when they are not mentally or socially capable will cause more problems?

• Robin, 47, single, 1 grown up child who lives overseas. Never married. University education, computer specialist. Suffered a serious back and neck injury twenty years ago, which now creates recurring pain issues and periods of depression. High medical bills. Unable to sit at a computer for long periods of time, though tries a variety of positions/ergonomic furniture to varying success. Some days are better than others with pain management. Reduced mobility with walking stick and scooter, though can look after herself given plenty of time for daily routine. Has tried to work in the past, but met with frustration from employers at her slow movements and high needs. Some success with self employment, but cannot maintain high enough mobility, mental health and energy to self advertise and manage projects.
  
  Should she be tossed out again into an unsympathetic workplace when she knows how this will end, in more stress, pain, and possible loss of already precarious funds?

These examples just scratch the surface of the depth and breadth of women's needs within New Zealand's welfare system. They're not eating bon-bons and watching soaps, waiting for the next sperm donor to turn up so they can rort the system. But thanks Paula and John-John, you two self-declared products of our welfare system, for that nice little mythology you've chucked out there. Nothing like keeping the rich white voters of the country happy with a few little elitist exaggerations.

Bootstraps, eh? Now available in Kiwi Flavour.

We need to talk about jobs

Red pen about to start circling the Job Opportunities in the paper

Today's announcement about welfare reform brings us back to the problem that has been plaguing us for quite some time now; the absolute and urgent need for a proper strategy on job creation.

Last year I attended the Bruce Jesson Memorial Lecture and this time it was all about full employment, and delivered by Professor (of Economics) Paul Dalziel who has been doing a whole heap of research on the matter at Lincoln.

One of the key ideas he talked about, from Jesson's writings, was that when the welfare state was established in Aotearoa New Zealand, all those decades ago, it was set up to work in complementary fashion with full employment.  This muddled along ok, with direct state job creation in lean times and state support for private job creation in the good, until the two concepts were separated under Rogernomics and thoroughly divorced during Ruthanasia.

Nowadays apparently some people think that not only is it Not Cool for us to collectively support each other in the hard times through a welfare system, it's also totally naff to even consider any Government planning to ensure we have career pathways and actual jobs; so that we can get the things made that we need, access the services we require, and also be employed in ways that work for modern life.

Sadly many of the people who hold this view, that Government's role is severely limited and The Market Will Provide, are currently in positions of power in our society.  In particular they seem to populate Cabinet, and those who don't have Ministerial chairs to sit in appear to be given taskforce and directorship and whatnot roles by their mates who do.

It's awfully convenient, to blame people for being reliant on a state benefit AND blame them for the inability to get a job that suits the way their lives have to be lived.  It let's the Government totally off the hook.  What a coincidence.

Let's not forget that the type of work you need when you are the sole parent of a child, whatever the reason for that, or struggling with your own ill health or that of another in your household, is not 9-5 (plus travel) Monday to Friday away from home and with only 5 days of sick leave a year.  We have a huge shortage of affordable quality childcare - and not just for pre-schoolers but crucially for before and after school too (and during the school holidays).  Sure a child may be at school from 9am to 3pm, once they turn 5, but how many jobs do you know of that go from 9.30am to 2.30pm in four convenient ten week blocks a year?  Teacher aide jobs would sound ideal, except that there is a lot of competition for these and the pay is ridiculously low for the level of skill and responsibility often required.

We don't have enough jobs that meet these needs already.  Creating a whole new phalanx of people who need these jobs, in a time when casualisation is increasing and job cuts just keep coming, will suit employers just fine, as it will make prospective employees desperate.  Desperate to get a job, desperate to keep a job, and that is an incredibly vulnerable place to be in, as a worker and as a human being.

Do we actually want to make people more vulnerable than they already are?  Why?

A response to the Can't Feed Don't Breed Brigade

On Monday the NZ Herald started a week-long series looking at the gap between rich and poor in Auckland.  On the first day they examined two families - one well-off and one struggling.  The first had two kids, 10 and 13, the second three children, all aged 3 and under.

The article was widely shared online by leftie progressive types I follow and I was startled by some of the responses, particularly on the issue of the struggling family including three children.

Comments such as these were made:

"Agree though that life is all about choices and looking at the big picture of deciding to have 3 kids (and another from a prior relationship) to support when not in a strong enough financial position points to perhaps the wrong choices being made along the way."

"I agree that an average worker should expect to be able to support a family on average pay, but three or more kids I think is pushing it. You shouldn't enter into a situation you can't afford to maintain, that's irresponsible in my view."

When did we decide that having three kids constitutes a large family?

In the whole of human history there has been a massive period of time with average family sizes of more than 3 children born to one couple.  In many countries in the world now women are likely to have more than two children over the course of their fertile years, indeed the world average fertility rate is a bit over 2.5 on all three measures Wikipedia lists.   Why is it unreasonable to expect to be able to have three children and be able to get by in Aotearoa New Zealand, a comparatively well-off place to live?

What also bugs me is how, like with so many issues that come up through a feminist prism, this is about pretending that you know more about someone else's life than they know about it themselves.  Second guessing the life choices of others is a game I'd rather not play.  There could be many reasons why people have 2< children (or indeed any children, one child, no children).  Maybe there was a contraceptive failure, or cultural pressure to have a big family, or a desire to have children of different sexes, or they had the financial resources at the time of conception, or any range of other reasons that are theirs and not yours, or mine.

And what's are the assumptions made by those saying the equivalent of "you shouldn't breed more mouths than you can feed"?  

• People's financial situations don't change over time - or at least they don't get worse.
• Someone can totally foresee how much more each child will add to their outgoings.
• Contraception is fool-proof and freely available and widely used and not socially, religiously or culturally discouraged for anyone.
• Abortion for economic reasons is legal and accessible.

None of these is an accurate assumption.  Taken together they in fact look quite ludicrous, and the last one in particular I find quite chilling.  Those advocating for the termination of pregnancies which are going to put financial pressure on a parent, based on projected income, well, there's a name for that.  

And if you don't take it that far, if you merely encourage people who are on tight incomes to end pregnancies, then you are actually asking them to break to law, because, as we frequently discuss on this blog, an abortion for reasons other than the physical or mental health of the pregnant person is illegal in this country.  While personally I'll be working to change that law, it isn't likely that abortions on economic grounds will be allowable in the near future.

So if the "Can't Feed Don't Breed" brigade don't want to force poor people to have abortions, or even encourage them to break the law, then what's the next thing?  Use contraception?  Not 100% effective, so no guarantee of children resulting to impoverish their siblings and parents.  Oh wait I know, don't have consensual heterosexual sex!  At least not during the fertile years - so that's never for men and not until post-menopause for women.  This would certainly be good for that Homosexual Recruitment Drive we've all heard so much about.  

Let's not lose sight of the original point of discussion that the Herald article was about - the widening income disparity in Auckland.  How about we actually look at the real problem, rather than getting distracted.  The issue here is not too many children but too little money; low incomes, whether it be from paid employment or social welfare or a combination of both.

It's not that long ago that most people in this country could expect a reasonable standard of living for their family based on the income of one full time worker, even with three or more children in the household.  The area I represent at Auckland Council, Puketapapa, had the 18th lowest median income in the Herald's stats, despite having a lower percentage of people on benefits (10.5%) than many of the suburbs higher up.  I live here, in one of the poorer suburbs, and I work all over this part of town.  This gap is not about the choices of individuals, it is about a system that distributes wealth in a way that is all wrong.  We simply must lift incomes.  And we do that not by bagging people for having kids but by investing in education, in infrastructure, in social welfare, in job creation, in innovation, in pay equity and, in the public sector, in actual pay to public servants of all hues.  Focusing on procreation is a distraction, not a solution.

Pro-choice means opposing welfare 'reform'

I don't have time to write a long rant about this - it's late I only have time for the principle:

Being pro-choice means creating a world where every person who is pregnant can make a decision free of any form of coercion whether or not they want to continue the pregnancy.

The welfare reforms proposed by National are economic coercion.*  Supporting women (and all pregnant people's) right to choose, means opposing these reforms and going further and demanding (among other things) a living wage for women on the DPB.

********

I'd like to say more about the 'reforms' themselves and explain why they aren't actually about getting women on the DPB into work, but misogyny and punishment.  But all I have time for is this:

[Text "Want a job, Bro?" "You know I can't do your ghost jobs, John" for context see youtube]

* As are the current DPB levels which were deliberately set at levels that were unable to buy adequate food

Quickie: National's welfare policy

Many thanks to GG for the link to the speech notes from John Key's launch of National election welfare policy earlier this afternoon.

The only thing I've heard so far (and haven't had time to read the speech yet) is that there is a 50% cut to benefits for people who don't find a job within a specified time.  And that those who have an additional child while already on the DPB will only have the obligation to find work waived until that additional child is 1 year old.

Please consider this an open thread for discussion of it.

UPDATE:  Further to Deborah's comment below, here is a quote from the current Work & Income policy on sanctions:

Sole parents on Domestic Purposes Benefit may face part-time work obligations depending on the age of their children. This means, if they don’t meet the requirements to be actively looking, or preparing, for part-time work of at least 15 hours or more, their benefit may be reduced or stopped.

Partners of beneficiaries face full-time or part-time work obligations depending on the ages of any children they have in their care.

People on Unemployment Benefit face full-time work obligations. This means, if they don’t meet the requirements to be actively looking, or preparing, for full-time work, their benefit may be reduced or stopped.

People receiving Sickness Benefit who have been assessed as able to work at least 15 hours a week may also face part-time work obligations.

Invalid's Beneficiaries, Widow's Beneficiaries, and people receiving Domestic Purposes Benefit - Care of Sick and Infirm and Domestic Purposes Benefit - Women Alone, don’t face work obligations.

If you have work obligations, you’ll face the following sanctions:

• a 50% reduction in your benefit payment the first time you don’t meet your obligations (currently people face a 100% suspension)
• a 100% suspension the second time you don’t meet your obligations, as is currently the case, and
• a 100% cancellation for the third time, as is currently the case.

Sole parents and couples with dependent children face a maximum 50% reduction, suspension, or cancellation of their main benefit.

What appears to be changing in National's policy is that there will now be three benefits,divided on different lines from previously, and with increased work expectations:

• Jobseeker (current UB, Sickness, DPB Women Alone, DPB & Widows with children over 14) - full time work expectation as default, part time or temporary exemption if you make a case for it
• Sole Parent Support (current DPB & Widows children aged 0-13) - part time work expectation
• Supported Living Payment (current DPB Care of Sick & Infirm, Invalids') - no work expectation

Does that make sense? Have I understood it properly?  Comments clarifying welcome.

The cost of being a woman in public

Felicity Perry has talked to both Stuff and Nine to Noon about her experience on the Independent Youth Benefit. This is one of the benefits that National is planning to target with its latest scheme to pathologise young people.

David Farrer wrote a post about her (I'm not linking to it). In the comments thread someone posted her cellphone number. In that thread she has been repeatedly denigrated. She has also been harassed by phone.

She told a small part of her life story. Of her experiences on the Independent Youth Benefit, and what these policies would have meant for her. Her experience was not the experience of MPs, businessmen and international financial traders. It was not enough for those who disagreed her to denigrate her and attack her legitimacy to speak; they also had to harass her personally and extract a toll from her for what she'd said.

*******

On Friday's New Zealand Next Top Model the contestants were given a "Pacific Blue Courtesy Challenge". They had actors making life hard for the contestants, and this included an actor playing a papparazzi. The fake papparazzi took a picture of one of the contestants, Aroha, in her underwear when she was getting out of the taxi, and when she tried to get away from them she was the most assertive.

Aroha was deemed to fail the "courtesy challenge" and kicked off the show.

She was blamed both for being harassed, blamed for her harassers success, and blamed for fighting back.

*******

Drawing attention to misogyny on either kiwiblog or New Zealand's Next Top Model, is kind of like talking about the wetness of the sea. Women's bodies and lives are treated as public property, and these are just two of an ocean of examples. But as well as being examples they normalise it. NZTM is fun Friday night entertainment, and the huge number of tampon adds on TV3 OnDemand makes it very clear whose its ideas of what it means to be a woman are for. While Kiwiblog is happy to exact a cost for stating opposing views - a cost that'll be higher for those who are more marginalised.

So my opposing narrative is to offer solidarity to Aroha and Felicity. To applaud their strength and resistance. To offer the same to other women who are experiencing variations of the same horrible harassment, whose lives and bodies are treated as public property, and who are penalised for any difference with what the viewer expects.

Observations

Observation the First - If kids are going without breakfast their mums probably are too
I get really fed up with the narrative that seems to go with child poverty, as exhibited by the number of kids going to school without breakfast, that seeks to blame the parents.  When food is short in a household often mum is the first to cut her rations.  This is not a situation where there are gluttonous parents hoovering up all the food and not caring that their kids are hungry.  It is a situation where there are families in our society who cannot afford to buy food.  By framing it as the former we can Otherize it - it's Their fault, they are not like me/us, and it's therefore Someone Else's Problem.  To accept it's actually the latter I guess we may need to step up and recognise that our society is something that we can have some say over - we make choices, particularly political choices, that have consequences for others.  To change society is daunting, but shouldn't the systems we live in serve rather than hinder?

Observation the Second - There are not enough jobs
There's been multi-purpose whining about how the youth unemployment rate is a direct result of the abolition of youth rates.  Employers are supposedly giving jobs to older people instead of youf because they can't get away with paying less than the adult minimum wage for young workers.  Older people are competing for places that traditionally went to the young uns because they are losing their own jobs, or their financial situations have changed resulting in the need for second and third incomes.  I really noticed over the weekend the high number of shops shutting, empty commercial spaces for lease, and a large number of retail sales that looked like the immediate precursor to closing down (shelves emptying out, no new stock coming in, quite big discounts on everything).  I also spotted a lot of older workers in the kind of retail jobs that used to be predominantly filled by those in their teens or early twenties.  The layoffs, public and private, don't seem to be getting much media but they are real, and it's definitely a buyer's labour market at the moment.

Observation the Third - A lot of people are moving to Australia for better prospects
In the 90s most of my friends were people I met through university, where we were studying together, and so hardly anyone I knew shifted to Australia.  Then in the 00s a lot of my peers did the OE thing, and some have not come back, but very very few actively moved across the Tasman as a result of a failure to find work here.  Lately week after week I feel I'm hearing of a new acquaintance, relative or friend who is making the shift.  Then there was the woman on Nat Rad from Christchurch last week who sounded very bitter about the lack of support for her family to stay.

What is this Government actually doing about job creation?  Whatever happened to whatever mysterious wondrousness came out of the Jobs Summit?  The Market is not providing; for kids, for their parents, for young, for old, for inbetween.  When do we start asking questions about the system we live in, not the individuals caught in it?

The other Welfare Forum

You may have noticed that a conference on Welfare and Social Sector Policy and Reform is due to be held in Wellington on 20-21 June. The discounted advance payment cost to attend is $895. So I won't be going to it.

Instead I'll be going to the Welfare Forum being run by the Alternative Welfare Working Group on 20 June. It costs $8.95, or a koha. Beneficiaries can come for free.

The $8.95 Welfare Forum
Monday 20 June 2011, 2.00 – 5.00 pm
St John’s Centre, Willis St, Wellington.
Speakers include Mike O’Brien, Paul Dalziel, Sue Bradford, Wendi Wicks, Māmari Stephens, Kay Brereton.

To find out more or say you're coming, please email lisa@caritas.org.nz or phone 04-496-1765. To see the reports already put out by the Alternative Welfare Working Group, after they held public meetings from Whangarei to Invercargill in the second half of 2010, go to

http://welfarejustice.org.nz/

20 hours childcare =/= twenty hours of work

Cross posted

I want to explain some basic facts of life to our Prime Minster, about how work and childcare fit together for people who don't have a wife at home to keep everything running smoothly.

New Zealand's Welfare Working Group has recommended that people who receive the DPB (Domestic Purposes Benefit), should be subject, in certain circumstances, to work testing. The DPB is mostly paid to sole parents, to enable them to care for themselves and their children, and as it turns out, those sole parents are for the most part, female. According to the Welfare Working Group, instead of bludging off the nation (I'm being sarcastic), those wretched women should be working. In some cases, they should be working from when their child is 14 weeks old, and in all cases, they had been look for work when their youngest is three years old.

Mr Key is a bit queasy about that 14 week requirement. But...

...work testing when the youngest child was aged three was more reasonable. The parent would only have to work 20 hours.

"That makes sense because it ties up the the Government's 20 free hours... I think that basically makes sense.

Source: Key: Work-testing when child three makes sense

In other words, because you can get 20 hours of free childcare, then you will be able to work 20 hours a week.

Mr Key has come up with this thought in response to the Welfare Working Group's final report on how welfare should be reformed in New Zealand. It is, as you would expect, nasty. But oddly enough, it is not unrealistic with respect to childcare. Unlike Mr Key.

What our Chief Executive Officer Prime Minister doesn't understand is that 20 hours of child care doesn't equal 20 hours at work. Even if you are lucky enough to have childcare provided at your place of employment (and hey, good luck with finding that), you still need to allow a few minutes each day for dropping your children off, and collecting them again. More realistically, if you need to take your children to childcare, and settle them in, and then get from their childcare centre or preschool or kindergarten to your place of work, you need to allow extra time. My guess is that you need to allow an hour a day, depending on where you live. I suppose that if you are lucky, you might be able to find a job where you work your 20 hours over three days, so that you limit your drop-off-and-travel time to 3 hours. But then you will need to allow time to take lunch breaks, but of course, your child still has to be cared for. My conservative guess is that in order to work for 20 hours a week, you need 25 hours of childcare.

But that only works if you have pre-school children. If you have school age children as well as a pre-schooler, then you'll need to arrange school holiday care, for the 12 weeks of the year when schools are closed. You will be able to cover four weeks with your own leave, but that's still eight weeks when you will be juggling children and childcare and work. Not an easy task at all.

The Welfare Working Group itself acknowledged these problems. Even though it recommended that sole parents receiving the DPB be required to look for work, this was only possible:

...subject to the Government addressing issues with the current availability and affordability of childcare and out-of-school care which we recommend are urgently addressed...

The final report also noted that:

We have proposed that sole parents (and other carers of children in the welfare system) be required to work at least 20 hours per week once their youngest child turns three years old. To meet this work obligation, these parents may need more than 20 hours of care per week, once travel time to work is factored in.

And:

The expansion of out-of-school services would enable more parents to work full-time and have hassle-free care for their children before and after school and in the school holidays. Increased availability and affordability of these services is critical to enable a full-time work expectation to be introduced for sole parents once the youngest child reaches school age. In addition, it may be necessary to require schools to open earlier to give parents more flexibility about when they can start work. We propose that the Ministry of Education urgently develop proposals to facilitate the expansion of out-of-school services on school property, including during the school holidays.

(Emphasis mine)

Whatever else may be, shall we say, problematic in the Welfare Working Group's report, at least they were not unrealistic about the connection between a parent's ability to work, and the availability of good childcare.

Unlike our Prime Minister, who clearly has little idea about just how much work it takes to combine paid employment with parenting. And that worries me. The Welfare Working Group's report is just that - a report. Now it is up to the government to read and understand that report, and decide which bits it will adopt as policy. And the leader of our government has just demonstrated, in one simple little phrase, that he has no understanding of the reality of day to day life for working parents.

***************

I realise that it's been a week since the Welfare Working Group's report came out. But take a look at the datestamp on the article I linked to: 11.16am, on Tuesday 22 February. Slightly over an hour and a half later, Christchurch was torn apart by a lethal earthquake. All this last week, we have been watching and waiting and grieving with the people of Canterbury. However as I said last Friday, something we need to do now is get on with it. Get on with working and thinking and writing, because "they are depending on us to keep the place running and to support them while they work to get their lives, their homes, their communities, back together again."

I hope to write some more about the Welfare Working Group's report in the next few days.

exactly what it was supposed to do...

a quick post to direct you to a rare piece that has something positive to say about single mums and beneficiaries:

The two-dollar heroes bagging her out make me sick. You roll in here with your lynch ropes and your nail-studded clubs screaming for vengeance against some woman you think dudded you out of your hard-earned. Two words. Bull and shit. You paid about one tenth of 1 per cent of bugger all to keep her children fed when she couldn't find work.

[...]

If a woman like Sandra Reynolds needs a hand up via the welfare system when she's at her lowest point, I'm happier to see my tax dollars spent on her than I am on the middle-class welfare you've probably got your hands out for. Your baby bonuses. Your family tax benefits. Your private school subsidies. Your superannuation tax breaks. Your private health insurance rebates. Your first-home owner schemes. Shall we go on?

The attack on Reynolds reminded me of a Henry Kissinger quip about academic in-fighting. The fighting is vicious because the stakes are so low. There are so many other, worthier, targets than a single mum who used the long, dark teatime of unemployment to fashion herself a slightly alternative income stream. News flash: that's what welfare does. It helps people until they can help themselves. It didn't fail in the Reynolds case. It wasn't rorted. It did exactly what it was supposed to do, and now she'll pay it all back and then some when the ATO [Australian Tax Office] does its sums at the end of financial year.

please do go read the whole thing. and the comments are worth a read as well. hat tipped to my very cool facebook friends.

easy targets

with the government deficit blowout, there's going to be a push in the next budget to cut spending (of course, given that tax cuts haven't worked in pushing the country out of recession, it would be heresy of the government to consider reversing them). one of the biggest areas of spending is on social support - for the unemployed, the ill, the elderly, and sole-parents.

unsurprisingly, mr key has been pretty forceful in protecting payments to the elderly, refusing to contemplate raises to the age of eligibility of superannuation & making no mention of cutting or keeping constant the amount paid out. yet the government cut payments to the cullen fund and cut support for employers who paid into kiwisaver, thereby ensuring that there will be less money in the future to meet the expected rise in super costs. but it's hard to vilify older people as a class, because everyone gets old & there's not much that can be done about it.

the unemployed, the ill and sole-parents are much easier targets, even though many who fall into these groups are there through circumstances beyond their control. in some cases, the circumstances may have been better controlled, but the decisions taken were the best in the circumstances. and of course, there are some cases where people are rorting the system. it's usual to use a few examples of the latter to vilify entire groups of people, to try to minimise or erase any sense of empathy, social responsibility or inclusion for these groups.

sole-parents, being largely female, become the easiest target in a society ready to label these women selfish & promiscuous. expect to see a lot more of the same in the coming months, and for life to become increasingly difficult for sole-parents & their children as the state seeks to punish them for failed policies that have led to the recession and budget blowout. as this is a group that is often underpaid & overworked and struggling to keep afloat, there are few opposing voices. those who have dared to oppose government policies have been targetted by a minister of social development who has been willing to reveal partial personal information & has yet to face any consequences for doing so. this is an effective strategy to silence any kind of dissent.

given this, it's nice to see a reasonable response in the herald by donna wynd to a piece from lindsay mitchell that i haven't the stomach to read:

What, then, do we know about sole parents? There are about 160,000 sole-parent households in New Zealand. About 113,000 of these are on a benefit. The number of sole parent beneficiaries has increased markedly since the onset of the recession in late 2008.

This is as expected, as sole-parent employment is highly sensitive to labour market conditions. Despite this, more than 40,000 sole parents, or more than a quarter of the total, are not on a benefit. Clearly there is little economic gain in being on a benefit for a significant proportion of sole parents. This is supported by data that shows consistently that on almost every measure, sole-parent beneficiary households are the most impoverished.

The benefit data shows that most sole parents have children aged under 5, and are off a benefit within four years. Those who stay on benefits for longer periods tend to be older, or much younger.

There has been little research on this but discussions with social workers suggest that some parents are looking after older children who have been de-institutionalised. These older children often have high needs and require constant care.

i'd really recommend the whole piece, though a warning about the comments which are pretty hostile. i continue to be amazed at the vitriol and hatred some people are willing to dish out to others, without even bothering to learn about their individual circumstances. yes, i know i should be used to it, but it's something i never do want to get used to. i hope to continue to be shocked and appalled by this kind of nastiness as long as i live.

Benefit below subsistence level

This story in the Herald today horrifies me:

...Sara, a 35-year-old West Auckland mother in her second year of an applied science degree at Unitec, gets $517 a week in welfare but needs $668 a week to pay rent, drive to her classes and run a home for herself and her 12-year-old daughter - a shortfall of $151 a week.

Her doctor advised her to go to the Waitakere office of Social Development Minister Paula Bennett because her weight had dropped from 59kg to just under 50kg since early last year as a result of her not being able to afford food.

Ms Bennett's office made an appointment for her with Work and Income's Westgate manager, but the agency could come up with only an extra $4 a week.

She cannot use her surname in print because she is afraid of a violent ex-partner. But the Herald supplied her full details to Ms Bennett and to Work and Income's head office in Wellington, which confirmed that she is receiving her "full and correct entitlement".

Beneficiary advocate Pam Apera said cases like Sara's were common and she was fielding a growing number of calls from beneficiaries who could see no way out except suicide...

Click through for the whole thing.

I don't have time to write about it properly, so hope one of the others will if they can, but in the meantime check out Idiot/Savant's post about how this goes back to the benefit cuts of the 1990s which deliberately went 20% below subsistence level.

Asking the wrong questions

The Welfare Working Group has a discussion document out today (links to what they've released) and it shows they are still asking the wrong questions.

Paula Rebstock and co are very concerned, as the Government asked them to be when the WWG was established, about long term welfare dependency.  They've found, unsurprisingly given their brief and the backgrounds of WWG members, that the welfare system as it stands is out-dated and unsustainable.

Seems to me that they are looking at this the wrong way around.  All of the effort is going in to looking at the supply side of welfare - how people access benefits - as opposed to examining the more useful demand side - why do people need benefits in the first place.

If we look at the why then surely we will find that what is in fact out-dated and unsustainable is our approach to paid work, in particular the way we structure our society to make part time work impractical for many individuals and employers.

Sadly it seems the WWG will continue down the wrong path, and possibly enable this Government to make changes that take us in the wrong direction to resolving these issues.

Update:  For more nuanced analysis, rather than just my grumpiness, Idiot/Savant has excellence. 

alarm bells

please read this - all of it. it's sue bradford on the work of the new welfare working group. here's a brief excerpt:

The provision of welfare is not a business, any more than running the country is not simply a business. On the other hand, the provision of insurance is a business, and the fact that we have businesspeople without a background in social policy, much less experience of living on a benefit, running this working group, makes me fairly apprehensive about the outcome of the current process.

I’ve also seen comment around the theme that ‘Government alone cannot replace the social support that close knit villages once provided.’ This sounds major alarm bells for me. There are many dangers in the concept of going back to the village, including the excuse it provides for the withdrawal of state support, and the propagation of the myth that somehow there was a golden age when people automatically cared for the sole mother and her children, for the sick, the injured, the impaired and the aged.

In fact village and traditional society often meant –and still do mean in many parts of the world – ignorance, contempt for those who are different, ostracism and the simple abandonment of those who don’t have the means to support themselves to a life of poverty, illhealth and an early death. When you hear about the glories of the village and how a return to localism will solve our social ills in relation to the welfare debate, I’d advise extreme caution.

my admiration for this woman continues to grow.

Every sperm is stolen

There's been a lot of discussion recently, as there seems to be whenever we have a Tory government, about those who are receiving the domestic purposes benefit (DPB), which exists to give sole parents who need state assistance a very modest income to provide for themselves and their children.

Note that the DPB is for those parenting on their own, not just mothers. Yet so much of the dialogue is focused on women, and on some very vile hating on women.

For example, when TVNZ 7's Simon Pound tweeted "You know what I'd like to see? Everytime the DPB is attacked how about attacking the missing deadbeat dads as the problem, not the mums" he inadvertently provoked a Facebook commenter (not Pound) to write on his wall some really misogynistic crap about women, and how we are "sperm stealers."

This Men's Rights Activist has such insight into the female of the species that he reckons not only do we steal sperm, we are also operating under a biological imperative to lie to attractive men about the success rates of contraception. He also believes that we live in a PC Feminist State (that'll explain that gender pay gap then), ladies recycle sperm harvested from blow-jobs to impregnate ourselves (after all, that is the most effective way to get preggers), and "promiscuous behaviour" leads not only to sexually transmitted infections, but also rapes and domestic violence (and Climate Change?).

Our MRA star wants the law to somehow enforce women informing men of their fertility status prior to intercourse so that males can make informed choices about whether to spend their sperm or not. Shame we don't get red bums like baboons do I guess.

The MRA doesn't get away with this crap unchallenged, thankfully. But the reality is that sadly there are people out there who have such a warped view of women, and of those who are on the DPB in particular. This guy would be right at home in many Kiwiblog comment threads for instance.

People, men and women, end up on the DPB for a wide variety of reasons. While no doubt many are there as the result of an unplanned pregnancy with no long-term partner around, others were probably in relationships when they had their child(ren) but aren't now. It actually doesn't matter why someone needs the DPB, what matters is that they get enough to support themselves and their children in their time of need.

Yet again I find myself asking, why oh why do we moralise about this one benefit and no others? Could it be because this is a benefit primarily accessed by women, and worse than that, women who have had S.E.X and aren't married!!11!!

Finally, I would be prepared to bet money that there is not a single mother on the DPB right now who stole sperm honestly donated by a man solely for the purposes of oral sex and willfully misused it to get herself up the duff. It scares me that there is someone out there, and sadly probably more than one person, who believes this kind of rubbish is real.

Thanks to the eagle-eyed reader who emailed me this tip.

The Single Mother's Manifesto

Subtitle: I *heart* JK Rowling

In which the author of Harry Potter takes Mr David Cameron, Conservative Leader in the UK, to task for his policies on single parents; policies which are quite similar to the approach John Key and Paula Bennett are advocating in New Zealand.

Here's a snippet:

I had become a single mother when my first marriage split up in 1993. In one devastating stroke, I became a hate figure to a certain section of the press, and a bogeyman to the Tory Government. Peter Lilley, then Secretary of State at the DSS, had recently entertained the Conservative Party conference with a spoof Gilbert and Sullivan number, in which he decried “young ladies who get pregnant just to jump the housing list”. The Secretary of State for Wales, John Redwood, castigated single-parent families from St Mellons, Cardiff, as “one of the biggest social problems of our day”. (John Redwood has since divorced the mother of his children.) Women like me (for it is a curious fact that lone male parents are generally portrayed as heroes, whereas women left holding the baby are vilified) were, according to popular myth, a prime cause of social breakdown, and in it for all we could get: free money, state-funded accommodation, an easy life.

An easy life. Between 1993 and 1997 I did the job of two parents, qualified and then worked as a secondary school teacher, wrote one and a half novels and did the planning for a further five. For a while, I was clinically depressed. To be told, over and over again, that I was feckless, lazy — even immoral — did not help.

Click through to read the whole thing.

Wasn't it John Key who claimed some women on the DPB were "breeding for a business"? And someone pointed out to me recently that had Ruth Richardson had her way with benefits in the early 1990s, Paula Bennett would had to give her child up for adoption*? Compassion FAIL from the Tories, both here and abroad.

Bonnet tipped to Sophia Blair, via Facebook.


* The quote from Richardson, which was in the Dominion Sunday Times on March 20th 1988, reads: "If the 16 year old engages in sexual adventure and there’s an unintended pregnancy, she has to make choices. If she chooses to have an keep the child that must be a family decision. A 16 year old is a dependent child, not an independent adult. If her family doesn’t want her and if she is not able to get her partner (who is liable to be the same age) to support her economically, she must look at other choices, which is adoption. That is not a forced choice, it’s the choice young women made before the domestic purposes benefit was available as of a right."

I suppose that's one solution

From the Weekend Herald on Saturday.