Juking the stats

Written By: - Date published: 7:44 am, March 16th, 2012 - 12 comments
Categories: john key, national/act government, public services - Tags:

There’s some odd omissions from Key’s new ’10 targets’. There’s nothing hard. Nothing about closing the gap with Australia, formerly goal number 1. Nothing about creating jobs, despite 170,000 being promised. Nothing about the cycleway that was going to end the recession. It invites a closer look at the 10 targets. And then you discover, they’ll all happen anyway.

 

* Reducing long-term welfare dependency – those on a working age benefit for more than 12 months.

–  long-term benefit numbers rose dramatically under National and even slight job growth from here on will start to bring them down. In fact, they’re already falling.

* Increasing participation in early childhood education

– this is still increasing as a lag from Labour’s 20-hour’s free policy.

* Increasing infant immunisation rates and reducing the incidence of rheumatic fever

– credit where it’s due, Ryall’s been good on increasing immunisation and countering this anti-immunisation fad that is endangering kids. Our rate of rheumatic fever is a disgrace but should be starting to fall thanks to Labour’s insulating of state houses and the Greens’ home insulation policy

* Reducing the number of assaults on children.

– reporting of child assault has shot up in recent years due to better policing more than an increase in the actual number of crimes. Cutting money from the Police budget will help those stats go down.

* Increasing the proportion of 18 year olds with NCEA level 2 or its equivalent.

– As children stay at school longer, the level of attainment the average person achieves will rise. And you would expect rising levels of achievement over time among those that stay. In fact, just between 2009 and 2010, the proportion of Year 13 students with NCEA level 2 rose from 92.2% to 93.7% and the stats clearly show even higher levels of achievement coming up through the younger years.

* Increasing the proportion of 25-34 year olds with advanced trade qualifications, diplomas and degrees at level 4 or above.

– This is mathematically certain. The number of people attending tertiary education rose rapidly under Labour. As time passes these younger, proportionality more qualified people will move into the 25-34 age bracket and the older cadres that have a lower proportion with these qualifications will move out of the band. This is like promising that it will get warmer in summer.

* Reducing the rates of total crime, violent crime and youth crime.

–  the crime rate has fallen for most of the past 15 years. That trend is likely to continue as the demographic driver of crime (the proportion of young males in the population) falls. Reducing Police resources will also help reduce the number of crimes that are usually only detected by Police action – eg drug offences.

* Reducing re-offending.

– see above

* Improving interactions with government so businesses have a one-stop online shop for all government advice and support they need to run and grow their business.

– so, a website for Joyce’s new super-ministry.

* Improving interactions with government so New Zealanders can complete their transactions with the government easily in a digital environment.

– That’s a given. Incremental improvements to government websites happen all the time. In fact, each government website I went to for fact-checking this had better access to data than last time I looked.

Previously, Key made the mistake of promising big and not delivering. Now, he’s done the opposite – promised such small that the targets will be achieved without doing anything.

12 comments on “Juking the stats ”

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  1. Dv 1
    16 March 2012 at 9:37 am

    So here is another set of targets.

    Have the Nacts met ANY of thier targets yet?

  2. ghostwhowalksnz 2
    16 March 2012 at 9:56 am

    Catching up with Australia used to be everywhere.

    Like Crown Lynn. But you cant find it anywhere now

    • lprent 2.1
      16 March 2012 at 10:41 am

      It is all over the trademe – as collectibles. My grandparents used to work at Crown Lynn and some of the failed experiments that they got from the seconds sold quite well on trademe when my parents were disposing of their estate.

      • ianmac 2.1.1
        16 March 2012 at 1:26 pm

        We still use Crown Lynn plates after more than 40 years. Trouble was they were too good and from a factory production point of view, bad because they seldom needed replacement.

        • Vicky32 2.1.1.1
          16 March 2012 at 10:48 pm

          We still use Crown Lynn plates after more than 40 years. Trouble was they were too good and from a factory production point of view, bad because they seldom needed replacement.

          I have some! One from a set, the others fell victim to toddlers, and the other set was given to us. Treasures! 🙂

  3. A.Ziffel 3
    16 March 2012 at 11:07 am

    National should’ve publicly abandoned Catching up with Australia as impossible when they backed down over their mining proposals in July 2010.

    I believe there’s some cause & effect relationship between Key’s capitulation to the mining opposition & his subsequent don’t care what you say determination to push through asset sales.

    • tc 3.1
      16 March 2012 at 11:21 am

      Mining is never going to see us catch oz, size, scale and appropriate minerals being some of the many reasons. Oz has a 2 speed economy mining and the rest, the rest is struggling.

      Nice to see that people so easily get conned into this assumption that we have to mine to catch Oz, it’s what they want you to think so they can blame their lack of real economic progress on not being allowed to mine.

      It suits them that people don’t look at the other reasons Oz is ahead, higher wages, CGT/GST/FBT to broaden the tax base, compulsory super, higher taxes to build infrastructure etc but then with such shallow thoughts from folk as no mining means no rich economy then a lot of the works been done already for them by people not seeking to understand the big picture.

      • A.Ziffel 3.1.1
        16 March 2012 at 11:31 am

        I think you missed my point. They failed to link mining with Oz etc. It would have been a easy exit strategy for them.

  4. ghostwhowalksnz 4
    16 March 2012 at 11:18 am

    Notice again Key hasnt appeared on any of the evening news shows to answer questions about his speech.

    Is there to be no accountability for his pledges. Or are we just to hear it all ‘ ex cathedra’

    Maybe there is a real interview on the morning radio . ? But Im not holding my breath

  5. ianmac 5
    16 March 2012 at 1:41 pm

    When our workplace introduced an appraisal system, some of we dishonest workers put in goals that we had already achieved or ones that we were going to do anyway. Very successful we were!