Newman Weekly

Dr Muriel Newman

Contact Muriel:

Phone 09 4343 836
or 021 800 111.

PO Box 984, Whangarei

26 September 05
The Conspiracy of Silence Must End

One of the biggest scandals of modern times is the condoning of welfare-induced child abuse by governments. What I am referring to is the situation where New Zealand taxpayers are forced to fund a welfare system, which by encouraging family beakdown and discouraging personal responsibility, leads to increasing numbers of children being abused and damaged on a daily basis.

Each year the number of referrals of children from welfare families to child protection agencies continues escalate, and each year the excuses given are that more people are now reporting child abuse. While there is certainly an element of truth in that, the reality is that most abuse happens to children who are born to parents being paid by the state to be long-term dependents on welfare. These are the children that are knowingly being condemned by state authorities to a lifetime of underachievement and risk.

They are the babies that fail to thrive, the toddlers who are denied basic nutrition and healthcare, the children who turn up at school hungry, with no lunch, no manners, and unable to sit still. At age five these children have not been taught letters, colours, numbers or shapes, but worse, more and more hardly know how to speak.

The question that springs to mind is how on earth in a civilized democracy can this situation be occurring?

The answer is that in our politically correct society, anyone who raises concerns about the long-term damage that welfare inflicts on children is accused of benefit bashing. Typically, sole parents who are doing a great job of raising their children are identified as being deeply hurt by any criticism of welfare. That ignores the fact that such parents who are doing well are not the concern at all; it is the large number of parents who are not doing well, that are the concern.

There is now overwhelming evidence to show that a child born to a single parent in a family where welfare dependency has been a way of life for some generations, is at serious risk of abuse. It is this cycle of intergenerational welfare dependency that is the root cause of the problem: young mothers being funded by the Domestic Purposes Benefit, are unable to form a stable family, and their children are left without a father to protect them. Tragically, it is Maori children that are the most significantly over-represented group and most seriously at risk of abuse.

A second problem that is even more worrying is the failure of those who work in the field, particularly with Maori families, to speak out and expose what is going on.

But the reason is obvious: by using privacy laws as an excuse to hide what is happening from the public, and by threatening anyone who dares to speak up with funding cuts and professional blacklisting, the government ensures that a shroud of secrecy prevails and that the status quo is able to continue.

The trouble is that while welfare was designed as a system that would provide short- term temporary help to people who had fallen on hard times, it is now being used in the long term to fund able-bodied people who could and should be working. The effect of that, because of the perverse incentives that operate, is however, debilitating.

By paying people not to work, by funding parents to break up their relationships, and by paying single women to have children on their own unsupported by the father of their child, the welfare system is now funding failure and undermining the confidence, self-esteem and personal responsibility of its recipients. The end result is a litany of human failure that is bad for the individuals, bad for their children and bad for society as a whole.

Common sense and conventional wisdom tell us that jobs are the foundation of personal and family security, that the two parent, married family is the corner stone of our society, and that what children need more than anything else is a mum and a dad who can give them sufficient love, guidance and protection to enable them to lead rich and fulfilling lives. This is what governments should be incentivising and promoting, not a system that creates victims and failure.

Personally, it breaks my heart to know that while successive governments have understood the nature of the problem, they have been able to get away with doing nothing about it, continuing to force taxpayers to fund a welfare system that destroys the life opportunities of children. It is not only immoral, but it is also time that it was stopped. But to do that, we must ignite a movement for change that is so powerful that politicians and governments will not be able to ignore it.

As the philosopher Edmund Burke once said: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing". If you want to help to make a difference, then please send this message on to others who share these concerns and ask them to email me on muriel@newman.co.nz to request an information pack (put "info pack" in the subject line) containing a petition to Parliament calling for an inquiry into the damaging effect of long-term welfare dependency on children.

Some replies to this opinion piece

Reality check

I don't want to be identified, But you have given us a challenge to speak out - not to stand by why evil happens to children. So here is my contribution ... just a tiny glimpse into an enormous problem:

WEST AUCKLAND -
Sarah ( a Maori child) aged 6, came to school, with a small blanket wrapped around her waist, and blood trickling down her legs. She collapsed in the classroom. The health nurse was called. "This is common with Maori children, and if you interfere, you are called racist". The Principal said the same, as did CYFs: "we have too many of these cases to deal with, and haven't the staff. This happened regularly. Everyone knew it was her older brother. The mother, was contacted. She did not want to know. She ignored what was said.

OTARA -
A similar thing happened with a five year old, rang CYFS "we have only 4 child abuse officers for the whole of Otara, therefore we can only deal with children under five.

Two boys, Peter & John.(from the Pacific Islands) Their mother went to four family courts, she said, until she got custody of them. They were about 9yrs old. The younger one in another class. Hardworking, lovely , caring boys, who were secure living with their father. Their mother was on drugs. She was pregnant. She had the baby in front of the boys, then killed the baby in front of them. The boys somehow went to school, traumatisided, catatonic.

Again, noone could help. "Don't get involved, I was told". They sat staring. They kept talking about the blood. Their mother had a knife. Noone could find their father or any other family member. So at 3 pm they were taken to a local Church in Otara.They cared for the boys, until they found the father.
Their father broke down completely, then the boys cried. They had quite some time off school. The father married again, the boys were surrounded by their extended family who sat with them night and day, going over everything with them, with great love, wisdom and patience. But our system failed them.

A school in South Auckland -
The Maori students were gathered together. They were taught to obey and respect the elders. They had lessons on Maori Culture. Then they were taken to the local Marae.
They arrived back at school . The girls were weeping.
They had been raped. By the Elders. Not one or two.
Nearly all ... if not all of them. They were taught to obey the elders, and they did. The headmaster was crying, the parents were also.. A Pastor's daughter was raped. But the big issue came from the School. Keep it in the Iwi. Don't let others know. We were warned. Not one child would give evidence if we took it outside the Iwi. This happens so frequently in the Maori Culture. "We must keep it in the family, and deal with it ourselves". They did. And it happened again..

Muriel. These children have worth. They deserve to be loved and wanted. They don't deserve this. But as soon as you say anything you are a racist. What has happened to the Maori aroha?

Too much happens in Otara and noone knows how to cope. Too much happens there, too quickly, too often.

So people close their eyes.They care, but they can't cope with it all. Even the police.The Social Workers. Everyone. They do care for certain children, and let people know. But that is the tip of the iceberg. There are so many more hidden underneath.

There is a lot more....

Let’s promote adoption again

I know this may be a radical idea Muriel but a church in Brazil has opened a home for new born unwanted babies to be abandoned "no questions asked " because there is no welfare.

NZ has encouraged abortion to keep family planning and all contractive profits up. These organisations are only interested in social engineering for personal wealth.

Now NZ needs to reproduce itself to care for the elderly so why can't abortion be illegal and all unwanted babies be given to alternative caregivers.

I know that even though I have reared my family I like many others in NZ are sponsoring children overseas through Tearfund and World Vision and if a NZ baby desperately needed a home there would be room in my heart to adopt.

All these empty school could be opened up to teach mothercraft for the teenagers who desire to learn good parenting skills since they have found themselves in that situation. But through counselling it would be determined that they didn't get pregnant for the benefit of being supported by us taxpayers.

I am sick and tired of hearing about abused children. When are we going to get positive steps to end it?