|
Skip to comments |
Skip to comment form |
 Skip
to this weeks poll |
Send to friend
21
July 2007
Breaking
Through
|
Printer
friendly version (PDF) 
View >>> |
Early
last year a little boy was brutally beaten to death by his
mother and her partner:
“The
child's blood was also found throughout the house. In two
rooms - the living area and his bedroom - the blood had
splattered so high it hit the ceiling”.
Graphic
photographs taken during his post-mortem showed three year old
Ngatikaura Ngati’s body had suffered repeated beatings. His
left arm was so badly damaged that it had swollen to twice its
normal size. When pathologists cut it open they found all the
tissue had already died from the beatings he had suffered.
The investigating Police Officer Richard Middleton said,
"This is as bad as anything I have seen on a child or any
human”.
Ngati’s
mother had given him to childless relatives when he was a
month old. They raised him as their own. But shortly after his
third birthday, his mother wanted him back: “she was
claiming a benefit for more children than were living with her
and she was afraid of being caught out”. Three months later,
the little boy was dead.
(See From Happiness to
Hell, Herald
>>>)
This
shocking case highlights the malevolent nature of child abuse
in New Zealand – a vicious crime committed by a mother and
her partner who were so hungry for benefit money that they
placed their dependency on government welfare above the safety
and happiness of their child.
For that reason, the second
defendant in this case – and in most other child abuse cases
in New Zealand - should be the State. The
worst child abusers in this country are the government which
has knowingly cemented in place social policies that create
the environment for child abuse to flourish. Their social
welfare policies lead to the disintegration of marriage,
family and community as benefit recipients become hooked,
realising that they are significantly better off if they stay
single and on welfare.
Through
unconditional state handouts to vulnerable women with
children, whole communities have been created where the
two-parent family has vanished, where work is rare or
non-existent, and where social degradation – squalor,
alcoholism, drugs, violence, crime - is commonplace.
Just last
week, the Herald on Sunday reported on child abuse cases at
Auckland’s Starship Hospital, stating that last year’s
child abuse admissions were the worst on record. It also
claimed that the figures for head injuries for Maori children
are the highest in the world. (See Doctor
Decries Staggering Level of Child Abuse >>>)
Yet the
Government’s response to this national crisis is a shameful
silence.
In
contrast, the Howard Government in Australia has invoked a
state of emergency to deal with their child abuse crisis -
which is at a level similar to ours. They have introduced
controls on dysfunctional families that include compulsory
health checks on all at-risk children, linking benefit
payments to school attendance, and quarantining 50 per cent of
welfare payments to ensure that funds are used for
children’s welfare, not booze, drugs or gambling.
The
opposition Labour Party, recognising the seriousness of the
problem, has pledged to put in place even tougher measures if
they become the government, withholding all welfare payments
from families that do not do the right thing by their
children.
New Zealand
remains the only country in the world that has wide open
access to the sole parent benefit. Here, girl can get pregnant
as teenager and literally have a benefit income for life. She
can remain on the Domestic Purposes Benefit just so long as
she doesn’t work, doesn’t marry, and from time to time has
another baby to keep her eligibility current.
Yet life on
a benefit is the very worst incentive that any government
could possibly dangle in front of vulnerable young girls as it
creates a perilous home environment for their children. Maori
girls in particular are susceptible to the government’s
anti-marriage welfare ‘bait’ with figures from the
Ministry of Social Development showing that Maori teenage
parents are on a benefit at a rate of 85 per 1,000, more than
eight times higher the non-Maori rate of 10 per 1,000.
Just last
week the Ministry of Social Development released a report
showing that the number of children living in financial
hardship in New Zealand has - incredibly - almost doubled in
two decades from 12% in 1982 to 23% in 2004, with sole parent
households with children being by far the worst off. (See
report
>>> )
That is why
the government’s refusal to fundamentally reform welfare, in
order to move sole parents off benefits into supported work and a
decent life, borders on being criminally negligent.
In
contrast to a situation here, politicians in the US took
action over a decade ago: “The designers of welfare reform
were concerned that prolonged welfare dependence had a
negative effect on the development of children. Their goal was
to disrupt intergenerational dependence by moving families
with children off the welfare rolls through increased work and
marriage.… Ten years after welfare reform became
the law those who have enjoyed the greatest benefits are the
most disadvantaged single parents with the most significant
barriers to employment. In particular, young, never-married
mothers with low levels of education and young children”.
(see The Impact of
Welfare Reform by the Heritage
Foundation >>>)
Figures
from Statistics NZ confirm the dramatic move in New Zealand
away from childbearing within marriage. Historically, only
around five percent of babies were born outside of marriage.
But largely as a result of the introduction of the Domestic
Purposes Benefit in the seventies, the trend changed and by
1990 the rate had increased to 35 percent. As of last year, 47
percent of all babies born in New Zealand were born outside of
marriage, which means that almost a half of all newborns in
this country are being born into family structures that put
them at an increased risk of child abuse.
That is not
to say that all children born into de-facto relationships will
be harmed; of course they won’t. Nor that all sole parents
do a bad job; on the contrary many do an exceptional job and
raise great kids. But just as there are no guarantees that
children raised in two-parent married families will be happy
and safe, on the balance of probability married families
represent the safest of all environments in which to raise
children, with un-married families the most dangerous.
Encouraging
marriage is the approach that has now been taken by legislators
in the United States in order to improve the outlook for
children. It is also the conclusion that has been reached in
“Breakthrough Britain: Ending the Costs of Social
Breakdown”, a new report produced by the British
Conservative Party’s Social Justice Commission. This report,
which builds on last year’s “Breakdown Britain”, finds
that the breakdown of the two-parent family and the decline of
marriage is at the heart of the collapse of values in British
society. It proposes a number of strategies to strengthen
families and encourage marriage through adjustments to the tax
and benefit systems. (To read the report, click
here >>>)
The
report also discusses the significant contribution made by the
voluntary sector, which works at
the coalface of social dysfunction, and it recommends that it
be liberated from the domination of state control.
According
to this week’s NZCPR Guest Commentator Peter Allen, who
founded and headed the Prince of Wales Trust, the situation
here in New Zealand is dire:
“During
my eleven years of involvement with some of the country’s
most complex young people I saw many valuable youth
initiatives destroyed by the government’s youth policies and
bureaucratic pressure. Unfortunately their loss is becoming
increasingly apparent as we see more youth crime, assaults on
elderly people, property damage, theft, drunken behaviour,
increased drug abuse and more truancy from school than ever
before.
He
goes on to warn, “This
Government’s destructive social policies have created
divisions between cultures, within families, and across
communities, and until there is a full realisation that the
problems are politically motivated - and the people of this
country demand appropriate action - the situation will
continue to deteriorate”. (To read his article click
>>>)
Peter
is right. Many of the complex social problems that we face in
New Zealand – like the dreadful child abuse crisis – are
being caused by politically motivated government policy. But
until the public demands action, there will be no breaking
though and as sure as night follows day, more and more
innocent children like little Ngatikura Ngati will die.
The
poll this week asks:
Do
you favour the introduction of policies to encourage marriage
in New Zealand? Go
to
Skip to top |
Skip to comment form |
Skip
to this weeks poll |
Send to friend
Your
Comments:
Reader's
comments will be posted on the NZCPR Forum page click
to view >>>.
Skip to top |
Skip to comments | Skip
to this weeks poll |
Send to friend
To
leave a comment:
NOTE: The forum moderator
reserves the right to edit material that may be objectionable
or offensive.
Skip to top |
Skip to comments | Skip
to this weeks poll
Skip to comment form
Send this
page to a friend:
|
