Presentation to a post-Budget breakfast organised by the Child Poverty Action Group and the Public Health Association, 16 May, 2003.

Keywords: social policy;

I am not going to say much about how disappointing the 2003 budget was to the Child Poverty Lobby insofar as it did little to relieve the financial pressures on family. One could go through each expenditure item and examine how much of it was directed towards children, including praising the small improvements to family assistance – I am sure someone from the government will. The spokesperson will also recall the government promise that ‘improvements in family income assistance … will be a major theme of the 2004 Budget’. The Lobby will remind us of the caveat that these improvements are promised providing ‘present fiscal indicators prove accurate’ – they wont of course – and ask why it has taken five years

Press release for 4th November 2002 from Wellington branch of CPAG Inc

Keywords: Social Policy;

What has long been known to those who work with families, researchers, and social commentators, is now accepted by the Ministry of Social Development. Children and their parents are the largest group of the poor. The exact numbers may remain in dispute, but the orders of magnitude are not. A high proportion of New Zealand’s children and their parents are below any reasonable poverty line.

Review of The Ends and Means of Welfare: Coping with Economic and Social Change in Australia by Peter Saunders (Cambridge University Press, 2002).

Listener 12 October, 2002.

Keywords: Social Policy;

The dispute over the economic reforms of the late 1980s and early 1990s involved two distinct questions. The first was whether they would work. As it happened our reforms were so incompetently managed that their economics failed miserably. But second, had they succeeded, would New Zealanders have liked their outcomes? Similar reforms in Australia, implemented with less ideological fervour and more common sense, resulted in their economy growing slightly faster than the OECD. Had the New Zealand economy succeeded from 1987 like Australian one, it would have grown 1.3 percent a year faster, and it would be in the top 10 of OECD economies.

There has been much discussion on the proposed Commission for the Family. On 14 September 2002, I emailed note, which was widely circulated. Here it is – a little tidied up.

Keywords: Social Policy;

I am a little nervous about a common view which expresses a lack of enthusiasm towards the proposed Commission for the Family. The fact is it is a fait accompli, as certain as anything is in politics. Thus the approach, I would advise, is how to make the Family Commission as effective as possible.

Chapter in Overcoming Violence in Aotearoa New Zealand (Phillip Garside Publishing Ltd, 2002) p. 37-43.

Keywords: Social Policy

Economics has such a pervasive role in public discussion, that it is useful to remember that on some matters it has little to offer, which is the spirit in which this offering is made.

It is true that sometimes economic considerations can lead to considerable violence. Just over half a century ago the powerful economies of Germany and Japan, finding their access to resources restricted, tried to extend their territories to encompass their resource bases. Their military ambitions were settled with defeat in the Second World War, but the resolution to their limited access to resources took longer. The answer was increasing international trade, for today both countries – and many others – obtain the resources they require by international exchange. It is a solution which may not be ideal, but it certainly less imperfect than conquest. In a similar spirit the European Union was founded to tie up the coal and steel industries of Germany and France to make warfare between then again impossible.

Review in the E-Journal Making History (http://www.mch.govt.nz/History/making-history/govt-super.html)

Keywords: Social Policy;

There is a line entry in the 2002 Budget’s Economic and Fiscal Update for ‘GSF pension expenses’ of $671 million, an amount sufficient to more than double the total vote on arts, culture and heritage, the community and voluntary sector, conservation, national archives, the national library, and sport and recreation. Rewarding Service is a history of how that entry came about.