Category: Welfare Reform

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A Big Idea

How on earth has a fiercely independent nation like New Zealand, with its number eight fencing wire heritage and strong pioneering spirit, reached a point where The Government is doing almost everything for us – including feeding our children? The answer is simple. Because we, the people, let them! But its now time to take the country back!


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Labour's Deepening Dependency Trap

If Labour continues to enact the Kiro Advisory Group’s recommendations to increase the value of benefits and remove sanctions, the dependency trap will grow deeper and become more and more dangerous for children.


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Glossing over growing benefit numbers

Since Labour came to power in 2017 the number of people relying on welfare has grown significantly, as has the time people spend dependent. This development is due to both political ideology and political incompetence.


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Māori Social and Economic Indicators under Colonization: A Picture of Progress

Poor outcomes are given as concrete and conclusive evidence. This is simply not the case for most Māori. Their living standards have improved enormously, as has equality of opportunity.


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The Dependency Budget

To be effective, welfare policy should have incentives to transition beneficiaries into work. But New Zealand has long lagged behind best practice - as the current situation, where well over 200,000 able-bodied people are on benefits at a time when the country is crying out for workers, demonstrates only too clearly.


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Protecting Vulnerable Children

New Zealand’s child abuse problem is largely due to the incentives in public policy that encourage children to be born into homes that do not provide them with the stability of two loving parents. Changing those incentives should be the Government’s top priority...


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Grainne Moss: Fall guy for deeper problem

There is something genuinely nauseating about the witch hunt that removed Grainne Moss from the head of this state entity. Naida Glavish salivating on TV about her exit; the sight of those middle-class Maori Dames fulminating against a Pakeha trying to do the right thing...


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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

On behalf of the New Zealand Centre for Political Research I would like to thank you for your wonderful interest and support over the last 12 months - and wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year!


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Political Agenda Endangers Lives

The ‘by Maori, for Maori, with Maori’ separatist “solution” that’s being proposed is sinister. It not only fails to address the real cause of the child abuse crisis, but it also fails to even acknowledge it. The real problem is not the government agency - nor institutional racism or colonisation - but family members threatening the safety of their children.


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An Endless Cycle Of Despair

At its core, the Indigenous child welfare system is broken because so many Indigenous families are broken. Until this is recognized and confronted, it will be impossible to make progress. Blaming colonialism or other past injustices is a triumph of the victim narrative that will put more Indigenous children at risk.