No Right Turn has excellent posts on National’s refusal to set any child poverty targets, when setting targets are the way the operate – as exemplified by the target they set the same afternoon on wild kiwi.
[it’s been noted that, apparently unwittingly, National have signed up to Child Poverty targets – the UN Sustainable Development Goals they signed require a
50% reduction in all measures by 2030…]
The National government loves targets. It has targets for hospital waiting times, for water quality, for renewable energy. One of its core programmes is “Better Public Services“, which sets targets for crime, education, employment, and the cost of dealing with government. It even has targets for climate change and making New Zealand predator-free. It does this, because it thinks targets are a good way of focusing the government’s mind on achieving important policy goals and that it is important for the public to be able to see whether the government is succeeding or failing.
So what are we to think then of John Key’s refusal to set a target on child poverty?
Cut the 150,000 children living in poverty by 10 per cent by the end of next year?
It’s a target the new Children’s Commissioner Judge Andrew Becroft wants the Government to back but Prime Minister John Key won’t put that number on it.
Key told RNZ on Monday that he wasn’t “rejecting” Becroft – someone the Prime Minister says is doing a good job and was appointed for his skill set – but disputes that a number and a target can be put on child poverty.
“We’re very focused on reducing that number. We don’t have one agreed measure…let’s accept (Becroft’s) measure then my point would simply be that I can’t tell you today exactly what it would take to get a five or 10 per cent reduction,” Key said.
“My point is simply…it’s difficult to just have one measure.”
No-one is pretending that a single measure tells the whole story here. At the same time, picking a measure – such as the material deprivation index, or the number of children living in households with an after housing costs equivalised income less than 60% or 80% of the median – and working to improve it would unquestionably do a world of good. And from a government which has targets for absolutely everything else and uses them as a core policy tool, the refusal to use that tool for child poverty sends a very clear message that it is simply not a priority to them. That they just don’t give a shit. That John Key does not care how many children go cold and hungry in this country. And that is simply disgusting and cowardly.
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And in a perfect illustration of the government’s priorities, on the very day John Key refused to commit to a target for child poverty, his government has announced one for wild kiwi numbers:
A strategy to reverse the decline in kiwi numbers has been announced today by Conservation Minister Maggie Barry.
Kiwi numbers currently fall by 2 per cent each year, but the Government wants to turn this into a 2 per cent annual gain, to swell numbers to more than 100,000 by 2030.
Wild kiwi numbers sit just below 70,000, with the annual decline caused mainly by predation from stoats and dogs.
Wild kiwi are important. But wouldn’t it be nice if John Key (net worth: over $50 million) cared about poor kids as much as he did about them?
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But they probably do have a target for poverty – they just don’t tell anyone about it as it’d probably get them hung. It’s probably something along the lines of: High enough to keep wages down and workers dis-empowered while not being too high so as to induce a revolution.
Which is pretty much where they’ve got it.
Listening to Maggie Barry and earlier John Key it seems to me that it is better to be a BIRD than a BOY [ GIRL}.
Our pm’s time is up he will be acknowledged as one of the worse and weakest PM’s in NZ history Jenny Shipley being the worst . He has ruined our country and the sooner we get rid of him and his ilk the better.
There’s been a few bad right wing nut jobs, but Shipley would be third, Keys currently fighting with Muldoon on worst I know of. Those two excelled in making people believe in the spin and BS over and above the call of political duty.
and BTW, on another subject i was musing over when retrospectively changing laws to suit yourself aka the current prisons palava, Labour and National?, being good at rewriting laws and not giving a fuck..will it be ok if the public petitioned the government to be held accountable for their actions retrospectively, since a president ? precident, (spellcheck needed).., has been made?
Because it would be nice to warn Key his actions and those of his cabinet, AKA sky deals, Saudi deals, deals with whaleoil may be um looked at like a fucking murder scene!! Happy to lead the unbiased and pure 100% NZ investigation. wadeable standards.
So why have we upgraded IRD’s system to the tune of $1bn+ in the last 20yrs?
Or what do the Minister(s) do with there massive budgets? Delete information as soon as its received?
The Welfare Budget $24bn/yr. When less than $7bn is spent on welfare(Bene) with the rest made up of Super, Student Loans, Accommodation (A Subsidy) Sup, Training Subsidies ect ….
Or is a bit like the NoMorePay (NovaPay) software problem? An off-the-shelf windows 97 upgrade that’s incompatible with BlinglishWare? Or is it something even simpler? He just doesn’t give a fuck?!
Oh that’s right, I forgot. Child Poverty is an “Aspirational Conceptualisational Value” measured by uninvented technique(s) or witchcraft!
Maybe hes being strategic? Putting up an “issue” to scrap over in next years election with other partys and will solve by sucking eggs and Bill will magically manufacture another bogus surplus then say, “We’re gunnah solve child poverty” by outsourcing a contract too bla bla bla ….a foreign multi-national?
Lets get rid of these fuckers!