The real meaning of welfare
Roger Kerr
27 February 2011 
As with September’s earthquake and the Pike River disaster, the devastating effects of this week’s catastrophe are tempered by only one thing: the compassion, generosity and big-heartedness New Zealanders show to their fellow human beings...  More >>>

Child Support Review – A Chance for Needed Change
24 October 2010
Bruce Tichbon
One of the most volatile pieces of law in our society is up for review again.  The public has till 29th of October to make submissions on the review of child support led by Revenue Minister Peter Dunne... More >>>

The dark underbelly of welfare 
15 August 2010
Muriel Newman 
According to Saturday’s Herald, the co-leader of the Maori Party, Pita Sharples, is trying to save a Black Power gang house from being demolished by the city council because it caters for the "spiritual and cultural needs" of Maori.  More >>>

Welfare reform becomes political football - again
14 August 2010
Lindsay Mitchell
arlier this year the National government appointed a working group to look at ways of reducing welfare dependence. The group has consulted widely, too widely in my opinion. More >>>

Problem or Fact of Life?  
25 July 2010
Muriel Newman  
"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?"... More >>>

Youth Alcohol Abuse is the Symptom of a Wider Disease
25 July 2010
David Seymour
Any good economics student in year 11 will tell you that the cost of everything is what you give up to get it. By that logic the "cost" of a weekend's binge drinking can be 48 hours of life; drinking, recovering, drinking and recovering again ... More >>>

The Road to Hell...
11 July 2010
Karl du Fresne
In a column in The Dominion Post in February 2008, I wrote that a law change requiring intellectually disabled workers to be paid the legal minimum wage was a triumph of human rights ideology over common sense... More >>>

Improving the Lives of Children
27 June 2010
Muriel Newman  
A study released last year by the OECD on child wellbeing painted a grim picture of the status of children in New Zealand. It found that New Zealand children lived in poor conditions – average family incomes in New Zealand were low by OECD standards and child poverty rates high... More >>>

Agenda denial and framing – the Child Support Act 1991
28 June 2010
Stuart Birks
An American politician, the late Eugene McCarthy, described politics as a game. It is a game where the public see the performance, but not the behind the scenes planning. Much of the politics that we see is engineered... More >>>

Welfare bad for Health  
30 May 2010
Muriel Newman  
Last week the Royal Australasian College of Physicians released a report which strongly affirmed something we all know - that work is good for us. The report, Realising the Health Benefits of Work, was prepared by... More >>>

The Social Assistance Bill 
30 May 2010
Lindsay Mitchell
The most pressing problem with the DPB is not the mother who enters the system with a work history fresh from a relationship breakdown. The urgent problem is the young, sometimes very young mothers... More >>>

Social Policy – evaluating success or failure  
16 May 2010
Muriel Newman  
Last Monday, a teacher at Te Puke High School was stabbed in the neck and back with a kitchen knife by one of his students. The boy’s whanau said that the 13-year-old had been brought up by his grandmother because... More >>>

An ugly, greasy stew which is called policy
16 May 2010
Alex Penk
Family dysfunction ruins lives. We all know this; many of us will have personally seen its corrosive effects. Even if we’ve been fortunate enough to avoid this personal knowledge, we can’t escape the effects staring up at us from the pages of our newspapers. More >>>

The Litmus Test of Welfare Reform
28 March 2010
Muriel Newman  
The National Government has just announced their welfare reform package. The crucial question is whether the measures will fulfill John Key’s promise that “dealing with the problems of our growing underclass is a priority for National... More >>>  

Reforms Could Arguably be Worse than the Status Quo
27 March 2010
Lindsay Mitchell
The National government's  long awaited welfare reforms are at best a rehash of previous efforts to reduce the cycle of  dependency. At worst, they may increase it. More >>>

Welfare Reform on the Agenda
21 February 2010
Muriel Newman  
Our welfare system is long overdue for reform. Far too many people are gaming the system. That’s not to deny that there are many deserving people who need the full support of the state. More >>>  

Unemployment Returns as a National Scandal
21 February 2010
Roger Kerr
Recent unemployment numbers were not good news. Contrary to expectations, the overall unemployment rate in the December quarter jumped to 7.3% of the labour force...  More >>>

Prosperity or Poverty?
6 December 2009
Muriel Newman
An extraordinary debate has been raging over the last week about what is probably the most important question of the decade: do we as a nation want a more prosperous future, or ... More >>>

Social security: How much better off would we be today?
6 December 2009
Lindsay Mitchell
Most of today's benefits were created at the point of passing the Social Security Act 1938. During the post-war years benefit levels were reasonably stable despite population growth....More >>>

A Review of the NZ Families Commission Research Report
22 August 2009
Prof. Richard Whitfield
While I am not seriously in touch with political developments in New Zealand over this past 3 years, I have visited the country professionally on 19 occasions since 1974, largely concerned with child and youth affairs, and with the content and holistic balance of educational and related services.  More >>>

The DPB: The Unfortunate Experiment
16 August 2009
Muriel Newman
The recent furore over the generosity of income support paid to sole parents on the Domestic Purposes Benefit (DPB) is symptomatic of an undercurrent of discontent within our society... More >>>

Welfare needs more than a bit of tweaking
14 August 2009
Lindsay Mitchell
John Key has told the country he doesn't want to see any 16 or 17 year-olds on the benefit, a sentiment I am sure will find a good deal of sympathy, especially among National voters... More >>>

Increased Need for Welfare Reform
7 June 2009
Muriel Newman
While socialists have blamed capitalism and the free market for the global financial crisis, economist Richard M. Salsman holds “altruism” responsible. He describes the welfare state as the political ideal of altruism.... More >>>

Incentivising Welfare 
7 June 2009
Luke Malpass
The Key government campaigned on reforming welfare, but as the recession bites deeper we shall see if John Key and Paula Bennett are serious or not. This government campaigned on the welfare state helping people... More >>>

Creating a Wealth Revolution
17 May 2009
Muriel Newman
As National faces its first budget our Prime Minister and Finance Minister must not lose sight of the fact that families and small businesses are hurting badly. Many will have voted for National’s tax relief, since the tax cut promise, to drive economic growth and lift living standards, was central to their election campaign... More >>>

Welfare Reform in a Recession  
22 March 2009
Lindsay Mitchell
During a recent radio interview I was asked, is this a bad time to be talking about reforming welfare? No, I replied with little hesitation. There is no bad time to be trying to reform welfare...  More >>>

Time for Action
11 January 2009
Muriel Newman
The next few months will be critical for the new government. It’s a time when the expectations of change must be honoured. For many, that change can’t come soon enough! We simply cannot have another nine years like the last...  More >>>

Social pathology: disaster or goldmine?
11 January 09
Theodore Dalrymple
Whenever we try to assess the meaning and significance of particularly horrible cases, such as that of Nia Glassie in New Zealand or Baby P in Britain (between which there are several parallels), it is important to bear in mind that there is nothing new under the sun, that some people have always done terrible things to others, that some humans have always behaved with the utmost cruelty, that there has never been a golden age of universal benevolence and good will to all men, and that no social system will entirely eliminate the human capacity for evil. More >>>

Re-defining Compasion
22 November 08 
John Sax
In the wake of the Nia Glassie case, New Zealanders across the country are asking “How on earth did this happen?”  The death of the gorgeous three year old and the details that have emerged during the trial have left us, as a nation, shaken to the core and in a state of disbelief. More >>>

A Top Priority
9 November 2008
Muriel Newman
Congratulations to our new Prime Minister, National Party Leader John Key, and his support parties Rodney Hide’s ACT New Zealand and Peter Dunne’s United Party, on a successful election outcome. More >>>

Where Welfare Dependence and Public Health Collide
9 November 08 
Luke Malpass 
Governments, no matter how well-intentioned, have limited control over personal behaviours which ultimately depend upon people deciding to modify unhealthy habits. Instead of funnelling more public money into behaviour-modification programs, we need to undertake an honest and frank examination of what fuels a lot of this behaviour—including New Zealand’s culture of dependence. More >>>

Lifting Children out of Dependency
17 August 2008
Muriel Newman
The release of the National Party’s welfare policy has brought a predictable clamour from the defenders of the present welfare system. Such was the protest that one could be mistaken for thinking National was proposing to abolish welfare entirely! Hardly. More >>>

Welfare Reform
17 August 08 
Tommy Thompson – former Governor of Wisconsin  
We in the United States have had considerable successes with welfare reform in helping many families to become economically independent. Let me share with you the progress of our welfare reforms... More >>>

Moral Neutrality
20 July 2008
Muriel Newman
Earlier this month Britain’s culture of “moral neutrality” came under attack. In a speech in Glasgow, Conservative Party Leader Rt Hon David Cameron said that the obese, drug addicts and the poor have no-one to blame but themselves. More >>> 

Fixing our Broken Society
19 July 08 
Rt Hon David Cameron MP, Leader Conservative Party (UK) 
I think the time has come for me to speak out about something that has been troubling me for a long time. I have not found the words to say it sensitively. More >>>

Restoring Fatherhood
6 July 2008
Muriel Newman
The fact is that endless studies from around the world show that virtually every major social pathology we face can be linked back to the breakdown of the family: violent crime, drugs and alcohol abuse, truancy, unwed pregnancy, suicide, psychological disorders – these all correlate more strongly to the absence of a biological married father in the home than with any other single factor.  More >>>

Homo Degeneratus
5 July 08
Bob Jones
Five years ago Reeds published my novel True Facts.  Before you scream, understand that the title was not a grammatical error, rather it was deliberate and highly pertinent to the plot, as I shall explain. More >>>

Action Group, Gangs & Welfare
4 May 08
Muriel Newman
The Child Poverty Action Group believes paying beneficiaries more will solve poverty in New Zealand. It won't. A shocking documentary on gangs in New Zealand by award-winning British journalist Ross Kemp (one that will not be screened on NZ TV) show that it is the very state support that the Action Group is proposing that has caused notorious Mongrel Mob members to turn against society.  More >>>

Investing in Children
4 May 08
Dr Karen Hartshorn
Thirty years ago, Phil Silva (the founding director of the Dunedin Study) wrote that New Zealanders invested more time and care in maintaining their cars than they did their children. Since then, a number of programmes geared towards monitoring childhood health have been developed,  but are more programmes focussing on early childhood development the way forward? More >>>

You Reap What You Sow
Muriel Newman
27 January 08
Cheyenne Petersen, just 18 months old, was carried into the bush by her P-addled mother Natasha - and left to die. More than 12 hours after dumping Cheyenne, Petersen eventually led police to her body... More >>>

'Another one bites the dust'... Another baby is dead.
Christine Rankin
27 January 08
For some reason that I simply cannot fathom we fail as a Nation to understand or respond to this hugely embarrassing and destructive issue. If we are not embarrassed by it, we damned well should be. We are rated by the OECD to be at the top of world statistics for child abuse and murder.... More >>>

Taxpayer Funded Activism
Muriel Newman
4 November 2007
In the wake of last month’s Police raids, Tuhoe activists have asked to be left alone to establish an independent Tuhoe nation. They say that they will take up arms to defend their right to live as they please, as a country within a country. More >>>

Why Welfare Reform Succeeded [in US]
Prof. Laurence Mead
4 November 07
Welfare reform was a great but incomplete triumph. It moved the welfare poor toward work. It was a major achievement for government. And its political effects could well make good its shortcomings, provided the poor mobilize politically. More >>> 

The Unspeakable Question
Muriel Newman
4 August 2007
Another Maori baby has died at the hands of family members. Yesterday, three year old Nia Glassie, the little girl who was tortured by family members, lost her battle with life.  More >>>

Child Abuse, My Story
Bev Adair 
4 August 07
I know how it feels to have a life of apparently no value to anyone. I was born in 1952 in Otahuhu, the middle child of ten children. My Dad was European and my mother was Maori. Both were alcoholics. My mother was a street girl as well. More >>> 

Breaking Through
Muriel Newman 
21 July 2007
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”. More >>>

Bureaucratic Destruction
Peter Allen
21 July 07
Having had the privilege of heading up one of New Zealand’s leading Youth support organisations for over a decade I have been appalled at the progressive destruction of community-owned Non Government Organisations (NGO’s) through the control freak mentality of politicians and the bureaucratic system. More >>>

Australian Welfare Reform
Muriel Newman
15 July 2007
Last year, Dr Sue Gordon, West Australia’s first Aboriginal Magistrate and Chair of the National Indigenous Council, gave a speech at a child abuse conference in Wellington. In her speech she highlighted some of the appalling statistics relating to the abuse of Aboriginal children. These included the fact that in 2004-05, 4,887 Indigenous children under the age of 17 were abused, a rate 3.6 times higher than non-Indigenous Australians. Indigenous children are also six times more likely to be on care and protection orders than other Australian children. More >>>

The Future of the Welfare State in NZ
Peter Saunders
18 March 07
What kind of welfare state should New Zealand have in 30 years? If the trends of the past 30 years were to continue, we could end up with more than a quarter of working-age adults living on benefits, a huge retired population relying on a hopelessly overstretched pension and health system, and younger workers struggling under a massive tax burden as government soaks up almost half the nation's gross domestic product to pay for it all. More >>>

The Underclass
Muriel Newman
25 Feb 07
Helen Clark might try to deny that an underclass is flourishing in New Zealand but the public knows better. According to a recent Colmar Brunton poll, more than eight in every 10 people surveyed believed there is an underclass problem. It is little wonder - the signs are everywhere. More >>>

Working for the Dole
Muriel Newman
 3 Feb 07
Winston Churchill once said: The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. More >>>

Will migrant wokers take our jobs?
Muriel Newman
4 Nov 06
As predicted the latest benefit statistics show that welfare continues to increase with almost 2,000 more people claiming they are either too sick to work or can’t find jobs, than three months ago. That takes the total number of working age beneficiaries to 282,000. This includes 41,000 people who are on the dole, 100,000 able-bodied sole parents who are paid to stay out of the workforce until their youngest child is 18 years old, and 123,000 beneficiaries who claim they are too sick or disabled to work. More >>>

Welfare Reform, perception or reality?
Muriel Newman
29 Oct 06
On Thursday the Minister of Social Welfare announced “the biggest changes to the benefit system in 50 years”. This latest announcement follows a proclamation last February by the previous Minister that the introduction of a single benefit was “the most significant reform of New Zealand 's welfare system in seventy years”.  More >>>

The "tight 12" - their right to silence
Muriel Newman
23 September 06
Police reported that a so-called "Tight 12" of family members who had contact with Chris and Cru before they died had stonewalled the murder investigation by refusing to reveal who was responsible. Members of the Tight 12 know who killed the babies. By not telling police they are exercising their legal right to silence. While that seems neither fair nor just, since it protects a child killer, it is nevertheless a fundamental democratic right. More >>>

Welfare - who needs it?
Bruce Logan
23 Sept 06
It was Samuel Johnson who said; "poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult."  Johnson, as he frequently does, gets to the heart of the matter. Virtue and freedom are necessary partners; one cannot exist without the other.  More >>>

Three Anniversaries
Muriel Newman
16 September 06
This week’s column looks at three anniversaries – the first anniversary of the formation of the New Zealand Centre for Political Debate, the five year anniversary of 9/11 and the ten year anniversary of US welfare reform.  More >>>

The Real Child Abuse Culprit
Muriel Newman
29 July 06
As the country struggles to come to terms with the extent of New Zealand ’s child abuse problem and what can be done about it, the real culprits have remained hidden. This week Newman Weekly looks at who is to blame, while the guest comment - from the Otago Daily Times - investigates the growth of “hatred, envy, rage, self-loathing, poverty, ignorance, dehumanisation, nihilistic parenting, and the seeds of racial confrontation” in our youth.  More >>>

Perpetuating Poverty
Muriel Newman
15 July 06
It was Ronald Reagan who said, "Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem." He could have been talking about New Zealand. More >>>

The Failure of Welfare
Muriel Newman
8 July 06
The murder of the two Kahui babies has rocked the nation. Everyone is trying to come to grips, not only with how on earth the family can get away with colluding to hide the killer, but why this and other such dreadful tragedies continue to happen. More >>>

The Maori Child Abuse Crisis
Muriel Newman
2 July 06
The violent murder of three-month old babies Chris and Cru Kahui is a stark reminder of an ugly sickness that exists in New Zealand society. Once heralded as one of the safest places in the world to bring up a family, New Zealand has fallen to third worst in the OECD for child deaths, from sixth worst in 1994. More >>>

In Our Hands
Muriel Newman
10 June 06
New Zealand is a country where there should be no poverty. With cradle to the grave welfare assistance, a vast supply of available jobs, and a temperate climate where families can grow enough food to be relatively self-sufficient, not only should there be no poverty, but there should be no intergenerational welfare and no underclass either. More >>>

Nature Knows Best
Muriel Newman
27 May 06
Every day, in a myriad of ways, nature reminds us of her ancient powers: whether it’s the sight of birds flocking ready to migrate on their autumn journey across the globe, or the awful devastation of cyclones, earthquakes and volcanoes, nature has a time-clock and a mind of her own. And while it is true that man has learned to harness the power of nature to some extent, and through sensible preparation minimise her devastation, our world remains largely at her beck and call. More >>>

Transforming Welfare
Muriel Newman
11 Feb 06
Jamie is 20. He has never had a job. He didn’t really have an education either: because his mother never bothered with preschool, he always lagged behind the other kids, and so right from the beginning started playing truant whenever he could. More >>>

Welfare Reform in Australia
Phil Rennie & Prof Peter Saunders
11 Feb 06
Australia has been going through an unprecedented and unbroken period of prosperity.  The economy is booming, employers are complaining of labour shortages, and real incomes are higher than they have ever been.  Yet rates of welfare dependency are still rising. More >>>

Welfare Reform, Fiscal Savings
Dr Don Brash
27 Jan 06
Twelve months ago, I gave a major speech to the Orewa Rotary Club about the National Party’s commitment to welfare reform. I noted that 30 years ago the number of working-aged adults on a benefit in New Zealand was fewer than 40,000, whereas in 2005 the figure was over 300,000, despite the economic buoyancy induced by some of the strongest export prices in a generation. More >>>

The Fatherless Generation
Muriel Newman
28 Oct 05
This week concerns over youth gangs and violence have hit the headlines. It is a problem that can be found to a greater or lesser degree in many towns and cities throughout the country. More >>>

Why Subsidise Dependency?
Muriel Newman
12 Oct 05
Incentives are a driving force of human behaviour. Because people respond to incentives in a relatively predictable manner, the study of incentives is at the heart of economic theory. Their manipulation is also at the heart of politics. More >>>

The Conspiracy of Silence Must End
Muriel Newman
26 Sep 05
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. More >>>

5 Point Plan to Halt NZ's Child abuse record
Muriel Newman
01 July 05
Answers to parliamentary questions show that established cases of child abuse have surged 45 percent over the last twelve months to a record 13,017 cases. This is a child abuse scandal that has the fingerprints of Government failure all over it. More >>>

The Single Benefit
Muriel Newman
25 Feb 05
The mark of an effective welfare system is not only how well it looks after the genuine needy, but also how quickly it helps those without a job into the workforce. On both of these counts, New Zealand’s welfare system - once hailed as one of the best in the world - is now sadly failing. More >>>

Shifting NZers off welfare and into work
Muriel Newman
24 Jan 05
 Welfare – or more correctly – welfare dependency is an area that causes unease in most New Zealander. It profoundly affects not only the shape of our society but the direction and fortunes of its citizens. As the single largest single area of government expenditure, welfare also divides the country along ideological lines separating those wanting big government and more dependency from those who believe in limited government and less welfare. More >>>

Eyes on Welfare Shambles
Muriel Newman
11 Oct 04
A new report this week, by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, has provided some serious food for thought on the issue of welfare reform. More >>>

Long Term Unemployment
Muriel Newman
30 Sep 04
A long-term dole recipient phoned me the other day.  He’d been unemployed almost 20 years and, after reading some of the comments I’d made – about long-term unemployment being an undeniable symptom of Government failure – he wanted to tell me his side of the story.   More >>>