What really matters this election – poverty

Written By: - Date published: 11:50 am, September 30th, 2023 - 38 comments
Categories: child abuse, child welfare, crime, Economy, labour, national, poverty, prisons, same old national, Social issues - Tags:

This week National’s cruel beneficiary bashing inclinations came to the fore.

It announced a three strike styled sanction regime on beneficiaries who break new rules.

Possible repercussions include money management by the use of electronic cards and benefit reductions.

To add to this National is changing the way that benefits are calculated.  One of the things that Labour has done is to index benefits to average wage increases.

Previously benefits, apart from superannuation were indexed to the rate of inflation.  As society changes and gets more complex this means that beneficiaries gradually become worse off.

National chose to not upset a core part of its voter base, superannuants, by not applying the change to them.

But to all other beneficiaries it has decided to undo one policy that the Children’s Commissioner urged the Government to adopt, and it is a policy that has made a significant contribution to the 77,000 fewer kids living in poverty that this Government has achieved.

The savings over four years is in the vicinity of $2 billion.  National’s proposed restoration of interest deductibility for landlords will, according to its estimates cost about the same.  Fancy taking money off the poorest of us to give more money to landlords.

If you want to get an appreciation how cruel and heartless National’s announcements are can I urge you to read this piece by John Campbell.

He mentions Professor Richie Poulton who has been the director of the Dunedin Longitudinal Study since 2000 and who was asked about what was the most important thing for a happy and healthy life.

From Campbell’s article:

I asked Professor Poulton whether the study has shown if there’s one thing in childhood, perhaps above all others, that steepens the climb to a healthy and happy adult life?

“Poverty,” he said.

“What was most important about that original finding,” Richie Poulton told me, “was that you can’t really undo what happens during childhood. So the experience of intense or regular poverty is long lasting.”

Anyone familiar with Richie Poulton knows his capacity to describe the science of Dunedin’s longitudinal study in terms that are richly human. But on that August afternoon, he was making it political, too.

“This is where my research enters the personal fray,” he said. “This election is not going to be focused on children in poverty, because we’re bored of that. We’re tired of that. We’re sick of that. We’ve tried that, haven’t we? Have we tried that?

Yet, what do we need to address really importantly, really importantly? he asked, as if out beyond the waves now, looking back to a fading shore. And he answered his own question with a single word. “Poverty.”

Campbell then draws a link between crime and poverty that is that strong and that clear that it is appalling that National do not get it.

In December 2016, Richie Poulton and the Dunedin Study put out a media release headlined: CHILDHOOD DISADVANTAGE STRONGLY PREDICTS COSTLY ADULT LIFE-COURSE OUTCOMES. (The caps were theirs, but they feel appropriate.)

The study has been responsible for so many pieces of work – so many other studies. But this one feels so important, now.

The findings from the Dunedin study’s data had been published in Nature Human Behaviour.

Read this. Please.

“We integrated multiple nationwide administrative databases and electronic medical records with the four-decade-long Dunedin birth cohort study to test child-to-adult prediction in a different way, using a population-segmentation approach. A segment comprising 22% of the cohort accounted for 36% of the cohort’s injury insurance claims; 40% of excess obese kilograms; 54% of cigarettes smoked; 57% of hospital nights; 66% of welfare benefits; 77% of fatherless child-rearing; 78% of prescription fills; and 81% of criminal convictions.”

Twenty-two percent of the cohort – 81 percent of criminal convictions.

And if experiencing “intense or regular poverty” in childhood increases likelihood of criminality later in life, we may actually have achieved the remarkable perversity of having economic policies that create the disadvantage we then spend election campaigns arguing over how best to punish the consequences of.

I can speak with quite a unique perspective.  I have been a lawyer for young offenders out west since the 1980s.  I am at the stage now where I fairly regularly act for the children of earlier clients.  I have the dubious distinction of having acted for a number of ram raiders.  I know these kids and I know their parents.  I have read the reports on them and I have discussed with them what has happened and why it happened.

There are a number of contributions to what has caused them to act in the way they have but poverty is the overwhelming common feature.  It has badly affected their parents and their ability to be parents.  It badly affects the kids themselves.  Through inadequate housing and income it affects their education, their health, their confidence and their view of their place in the world.

Campbell and Poulton are right.  If you want to do something about crime do something about poverty.

National’s move, to make beneficiaries poorer and at the same time to increase funding for prisons is logical but callous.  It does not need to be this way.  If you want to avoid the dystopian future offered by National then vote to keep them out.

And I understand that progressives are disappointed with Labour for not having done enough.  But 77,000 fewer kids in poverty is something to celebrate not belittle.

And in a multitude of areas Labour has worked to improve the plight of those affected by poverty, especially the poor.

There are a whole lot of kids out there whose futures are riding on this election.  Vote wisely.

38 comments on “What really matters this election – poverty ”

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  1. bwaghorn 1
    30 September 2023 at 12:02 pm

    National punishing kids for the sins of their parents, parents who probably suffered the same punishment in their youth.

  2. ianmac 2
    30 September 2023 at 12:18 pm

    This sums it all up so well: From above

    And if experiencing “intense or regular poverty” in childhood increases likelihood of criminality later in life, we may actually have achieved the remarkable perversity of having economic policies that create the disadvantage we then spend election campaigns arguing over how best to punish the consequences of.

    • Roy Cartland 2.1
      30 September 2023 at 12:40 pm

      It's much cheaper to prevent poverty and crime than it is to deal with it. Cheaper for society (or community) that is, but it doesn't create 'value' for any shareholders. You can't make money off it.

      • Colin 2.1.1
        6 October 2023 at 6:19 pm

        Actually, with increased privatisation, making a profit from increased crime and poverty would probably be a thing – a government paid for thing which means a government guaranteed profit.

        It'd be just like the private suppliers that WINZ used to 'teach' people how to look for work. They didn't actually teach people anything or help them in any way but they did get paid quite well.

    • Tony Veitch 2.2
      1 October 2023 at 11:09 am

      I'm not a bible reader, but I recall, I think, from my much earlier days, something about the sins of the fathers being revisited on the children and the children's children.

      Which old testament philosophy would sit well with an evangelical fundamentalist like Luxon and so many of his party!

  3. Barfly 3
    30 September 2023 at 1:05 pm

    The evil of Ruth Richardson's actions – still continuing to deliver societal blight decades later.

  4. PsyclingLeft.Always 4
    30 September 2023 at 1:08 pm

    This week National’s cruel beneficiary bashing inclinations came to the fore.

    They describe this as "love" ? !

    National says traffic light policy for beneficiaries driven by 'love'

    And Nat Louise..Upston with some fkn reckon !

    Its social development spokesperson Louise Upston told Checkpoint on Tuesday the sanctions could be "effective in encouraging movement from benefits to work".

    She said one employer had told her a person showed up for an interview in their pyjamas.

    "Their view was that person was not actively or seriously seeking a job with their business," she told host Lisa Owen.

    She would not reveal who the employer was, and acknowledged she had not independently verified their story.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018908581/national-says-traffic-light-policy-for-beneficiaries-driven-by-love

    The Nats..so called "love", kinda puts me in mind of the bully thugs who have love..and hate, tatted on their fist knuckles.

    If those Nat creeps (and ACT, who will be even more vicious)..gain power…the "love" flurry punches will be followed by the hate knockout.

    Cmon Left…we must stop them !

    • Barfly 4.1
      30 September 2023 at 1:14 pm

      "National says traffic light policy for beneficiaries driven by 'love' "

      Heh – driven by the National Party's love of sadism IMO.

  5. Patricia Bremner 5
    30 September 2023 at 2:24 pm

    When Christopher Luxon said infamously, "We don't want bottom feeders", a picture of a Feudal Lord came to mind.

    The Lord sitting at his table along with his chief cohorts "above the salt. "

    The selected others "below the salt".

    The so called "bottom feeders" taking the thrown scraps with no salt from the straw covered ground. The despised get "the trickle down".

    Now National's budget says the rich can let their dogs in to take some of the scraps in the straw first. Wow!!! just bloody wow.!!!

    We have to vote to beat their destructive plans. Come on the Left, otherwise this will create another desperate generation.

  6. SPC 6
    30 September 2023 at 3:43 pm

    The deliberate choice to make both beneficiaries and workers poorer

    1.Beneficiaries. $2B savings, so they can count.

    2.MW workers to be made poorer, increases zero or lower than CPI increases – ACT wants the MW frozen for 3 years and National wants to increase them minimally.

    3.No FPA or industry awards that would raise the wages of those bottom half of workers (those below the median) offered a risible $10 a week tax cut – IETC adjustment).

    4.Even those above the median wage – who get $25 a week in tax cuts – $15 + the IETC would note that it is less than the rent increases they face each year and the $25 is all it is for the entire 3 years. And those who own are facing large rates and water cost increases in Auckland (because they are at their borrowing cap and cannot offload their water asset debts unless Three Waters goes ahead)

    Everyone renting would do better to have just one Green Party policy applied – a 3% pa rent increase cap delivers more benefit than the tax cuts over the 3 years.

    With the MW increases and FPA industry award policy of Labour alone, there is more to be realised by the government continuing for another 3 years.

    If the electorate votes otherwise, we will have to face a certain reality, some people vote their racism and their class to hold others down beneath them, And these are not well off wealthy privileged people.

    Things left undone

    Windfall profits tax – who benefits from larger margins on food price rises and mortgage rate increases … (obviously those who own shares in companies based in Oz)

    Borrow and make better the National Party policy of a stamp duty on houses worth over $2m, but have it at 5% (the Oz rate at this level of value) and apply it to domestic buyers – and continue the ban on foreigners.

    Announcing that the government will look at restoring an estate tax – at over $2-4M.

    24/36 OECD nations have one of these (it's nearly as popular as a common sense in a modern democracy as the 35 who have a CGT – we have the bright line test up to 10 years).

    It's time for Hipkins to chip in and demonstrate he can lead a progressive government – the polls indicate that part of the loss in support is a concern that Labour has lost its egalitarian vision. Once this happens it becomes a class contest and sometimes the middle class wants to just cut the burden and look out for themselves (and they do get played by fears about the underclass and Maouri being favoured by Labour). This on top of the post pandemic stress to release and the cost of living roadblock in the way is leading people to risk self harm of a NACT government because of the assurances of grifters who sense an opportunity to further their privilege. They prey on people when they are weak …

  7. That_guy 7
    30 September 2023 at 4:53 pm

    So tax me, Chippy. Tax me and end child poverty. Until you do I’m voting Green.

    90 % Wonderful article from JC and I hope it resonates. There’s a bit in there that is yet more evidence that certain issues won’t be available for serious discussion this election cycle or until the lawsuits start and/or people actually listen to women, but whatever. I’ll take it at this stage, because the rest is excellent.

    • Patricia Bremner 7.1
      30 September 2023 at 7:27 pm

      Watch TV1 Sunday 7.30pm. This is the theme.

    • newsense 7.2
      1 October 2023 at 1:35 am

      NZ Herald prepared to put Susan St John top when she criticises Labour’s tax policy, but not when she criticises attacks on the poor and the pitiful work done in their defense.

  8. barry 8
    30 September 2023 at 5:08 pm

    National have costed the saving of $2Billion on benefits, but they haven't accounted for the increase in numbers on benefits due to their austerity measures.

    6% reduction in public service spend results in the loss of thousands of jobs directly and many more indirectly. Plus the PS is not being able to do the jobs the jobs they currently do, put costs onto other people which reduces the amount they can spend. Austerity is a big drag on the economy, and it takes years for the economy to recover. Austerity takes a small recession and turns it into a large, long lasting one.

    The total spend on benefits would be greater under National than it would be under Labour.

    • mickysavage 8.2
      30 September 2023 at 9:43 pm

      Their calculation of increased incarceration costs was based on changes they clearly intend to make to sentencing laws. My take is that the benefit cuts by themselves will cost a huge amount.

      As Bill English said, prisons are a moral and fiscal failure. Shame his view no longer carrys any weight in National.

  9. Ad 9
    30 September 2023 at 6:21 pm

    +1000 Mickey and hats off to your professional defences of the criminalised poor.

    Not enough of you in this world.

    The campaign fight is always worth it.

    • Patricia Bremner 9.1
      30 September 2023 at 7:34 pm

      yes 100% Ad.

    • mickysavage 9.2
      30 September 2023 at 9:41 pm

      Cheers. I enjoy the work. There is always the hope things can be swung around for them. But the politicing sends me spare …

      And yep the last few weeks clearly shows how important this election is.

  10. Hunter Thompson II 10
    30 September 2023 at 6:43 pm

    Recently I watched a Youtube doco about homelessness in Vancouver, BC.

    Pretty depressing stuff, as many of the people in the downtown tent city were wasted on drugs. It seems fentanyl is the main narcotic used. Violent crime had also increased markedly.

    I don't think that the drug has arrived here to any extent, although it surfaced among Wairarapa drug users last year (they thought they were given meth).

    The effects will be dire if fentanyl becomes common; it is many times more powerful than heroin. One reformed heroin addict reckoned it would be impossible to kick a fentanyl habit.

    • Tricledrown 10.1
      30 September 2023 at 11:59 pm

      It's here and doctors are over prescribing it. But nothing like the scale US doctors were pushed by big pharma many of these corporate criminals were nothing more than a drug cartel exploiting their massive power to avoid jail time and bankruptcy having all their assets seized and locked up for the murder of 100's of thousands of preventable deaths of everyday law abiding citizens getting hooked on Fentanyl.

    • newsense 10.2
      1 October 2023 at 1:36 am

      Kid died at a festival because of it iirc? Very nasty potent mess of a drug.

  11. Johnr 11
    30 September 2023 at 6:44 pm

    Mickey, I've followed you for some time, and I value your thoughts. You talk good shit, keep on keeping on.

  12. Tricledrown 12
    1 October 2023 at 12:02 am

    The community spirit of NZ has been ground down by a selfish pursuit lifestyle where inanimate objects have become more important than our fellow human beings!

  13. newsense 13
    1 October 2023 at 1:20 am

    Well said Mickey!

    When asked about the evidence for his policy working Luxon said ‘I think it does.’ Yesterday more than 60% of kiwis polled said it mattered if National could pay for their tax policy.

    When they see a tax policy that is made up, so much punishment of the poor and ACT stealing our summer, among many other bizarre cuts Kiwis will take another look left and many will decide to stand with good kiwis like yourself.

    Please get out volunteering for a party on the left, take a friend, get out the vote- get everyone enrolled and make sure they vote…It’s not over yet.

  14. Wei 14
    1 October 2023 at 5:35 pm

    In the end poverty is eliminated by heaving a flourishing and growing economy.

    Yep, change the taxation regime so that the rich pay their fair share. But in the end that constraints on national wealth is national output.

    Yet many on the left hate farmers, are against oil and gas exploration, are lukewarm about the international student market, tourism etc. In the end the most important determinant of a country's wealth is how much we money we can bring in through the front door, like any other business. That is where our priorities should lie.

    And in the end that wealth does trickle down, not as much as many would like but it does trickle down somewhat at least. Afterall we all benefit from living in what is still a first world country.

    • Barfly 14.1
      1 October 2023 at 7:09 pm

      "Yet many on the left hate farmers"

      I disagree and would say that many on the left hate the polluters not the farmers.

      "are against oil and gas exploration"

      My understanding is that to avoid absolutely catastrophic climate change the world can't afford to extract all the aleady known reserves of gas and oil let alone identify more of it to destroy ourselves with.

      "are lukewarm about the international student market"

      I am against corrupting our immigration legislation to give profit to private 'education' providers who supply garbage courses to exploit the desperate 'customers' who come to New Zealand to work for money as supermarket shelf stackers et cetera.

      "And in the end that wealth does trickle down"

      I have read that the "bottom" 50 % of New Zealanders collectively own 2% of the wealth of the country. So I consider that claim to be utter bullshit.

    • Mike the Lefty 14.2
      1 October 2023 at 7:53 pm
      1. There is no war on farmers – this is just National Party hyperbole
      1. The most important determinant of a country's wealth is how the wealth is distributed.
      2. Wealth does not trickle down, this is pure fantasy dreamed up by the rich to justify their wealth.

      If your priorities are what you say they are, then "pied piper" Seymour is the bloke you should be following, and don't blame anyone else when you find he has led you dancing and singing into the depths.

    • roblogic 14.3
      2 October 2023 at 2:26 am

      In the end the most important determinant of a country's wealth is how much we money we can bring in through the front door, like any other business. That is where our priorities should lie.

      This tired old line is a false analogy.. Sounds reasonable. But it's quite inaccurate, both fiscally and morally. Our wealth is much greater than a singular small minded number like GDP. The wealth of a nation is in its people, its values, and its natural ecosystems.

      What kind of business can print money, set laws, run an army, or imprison people? Much different from the constraints on the average business.

      (Yes some multinationals like BlackRock have this sort of power – which is quite dangerous to democracy IMO)

      Not to mention the fact that Labour governments have a better economic record than National – look it up. Spending into the economy stimulates growth. Austerity and cuts take us backwards

      An economy is a complex beast, it is sad that the right wing relies on false analogies & silly metaphors. However Kate Raworth's 'Doughnut Economics' model is one of the more thoughtful and accessible introductions to broader systems thinking than the small minded (chicago school) economists

      National voters seem to think we can’t afford to fix poverty – that is a filthy lie and an immoral choice to punish vulnerable people for their misfotunes.

    • roblogic 14.4
      2 October 2023 at 2:40 am

      It would be nice if you could provide evidence for some of your outlandish claims about the economy, the government's supposed hatred of farmers, and trickle down theory.

      As it stands your comment is just baseless RW propaganda

    • Colin 14.5
      6 October 2023 at 6:35 pm
      1. A country is not a business and thus doesn't actually need foreign income
      2. The massive amount of pollution in our waterways is proof that the countries farms have gone beyond the lands ability to support them
      3. The decreasing fish stocks are proof that fishing is beyond what the seas can support
      4. The several hundred people that die early deaths due to pollution in Auckland alone is proof that we're burning hydro-carbons beyond the ability of the atmosphere to support it

      Significant evidence shows that we, as a country, are living beyond our means and its all driven by the profit motive.

      And I don't have any issue with looking for oil and gas exploration – I just don't think that it should be burnt once its been brought up which kinda puts a damper on selling it.

      • pat 14.5.1
        6 October 2023 at 7:04 pm
        1. A country is not a business and thus doesn't actually need foreign income.

        It does if it wants access to the trading system that underpins international transactions…..probably what the overwhelming majority of kiwis desire as we dont produce hardly any of the products we desire/need….therein lies the problem.

      • Belladonna 14.5.2
        6 October 2023 at 7:45 pm

        A country is not a business and thus doesn't actually need foreign income

        While this may be arguably true in theory, it fails the practical test immediately.

        NZ imports virtually all of the infrastructure, and the tools to build the infrastructure, which keep us as a first world country, rather than emulating Venezuela.

        Do you really think that you (and everyone in your family/community) can do without things like: medical drugs, medical technology, communications infrastructure, computer chips (both high end, and basic), batteries, even mechanical spare parts.

        While it might be possible to manufacture some of what we import – it would be neither quick to transition, nor cost-effective. And many components are simply not possible to source from within NZ (Lithium for batteries, for example)

        All of those imports, require a level of exports to pay for them. And, no, the countries which supply them aren't going to take kumbaya in exchange.

        • Colin 14.5.2.1
          6 October 2023 at 9:59 pm

          While it might be possible to manufacture some of what we import – it would be neither quick to transition, nor cost-effective. And many components are simply not possible to source from within NZ (Lithium for batteries, for example)

          1. It most definitely is possible to make everything that we import using locally sourced resources. As far as I can make out, it would actually be more sustainable.
          2. Some 500 tonnes of lithium is washed down the Waikato every year from geothermal power generation. And, of course, we do have a lot of sea water within our borders as well.
          3. The pricing system is there to ensure that resources aren't wasted and that a country lives within its means (this is actually the main reason for a floating exchange rate) and yet, as I said, there's a lot of evidence to show that we're living beyond ours mostly in pollution and declining resources brought about by our present import/export model.

          Instead of continuing to do what we were doing in the 19th century we need to look to the future and shifting to a sustainable economy.

          • pat 14.5.2.1.1
            6 October 2023 at 10:35 pm

            Which ignores the major resource we dont possess…the time/energy/labour/expertise to convert those scarce physical resources into useful/desired products at the required scale

          • Belladonna 14.5.2.1.2
            7 October 2023 at 10:26 am

            I think you are confusing what is available in trace amounts, with what is able to be commercially extracted. Lithium is only one example. Cobalt, rare elements (needed for chip manufacture amongst other uses), the list goes on. NZ certainly doesn't have extractable quantities of most elements.

            And the willingness of New Zealanders to tolerate mass factories. Given the NIMBY reactions to on-shore wind farms – what do you think the reaction would be to a massive increase in mining or manufacture?

            Perhaps you could kick in with which imported products 'we' should do without?

            Easy ones are things like clothes and shoes – which are certainly possible to manufacture here. Though we might have to be satisfied with wool and leather, rather than cotton and plastic-derivatives. Have you considered that the cost would put new clothes and shoes out of the reach of many Kiwis? And that we'd be going right back to the protectionist days of the mid-20th century (tariffs on imports, captive market for NZ companies).

            But, much more difficult to do without computer chips (which NZ doesn't have a hope in hell of manufacturing), and drugs. Most people are not willing to let family members die, in order to follow a philosophical self-sufficiency pathway.

            Try spending a day or so, looking at everything that you and your family use – and figure out how you would replace it – from resources only available in NZ.

  15. Mike the Lefty 15
    2 October 2023 at 9:07 am

    National seeks to keep its REAL agenda hidden from the voting public by basking in its default populism of being tough on crime, tough on gangs, tough on benefit fraud, etc. with the quiet nodding approval of the corporate lunches wealthy rural townie brigade, otherwise known as the "squeezed middle class".

    National's (with the enthusiastic support of ACT) real agenda is to stick it to the poor and the disadvantaged. Examples are reinstating the odious 90-day job dismissal act, reinstating the rights of landlords to be feudal squires, allowing loan sharks to once again make money off the vulnerable.

    And the most impressive policy of all: National will REDUCE the cost of living!

    Who wouldn't vote for a party that promises to REDUCE the cost of living?