It's still true: "The best anti-poverty programme ever invented wasn’t a benefit, it was a job."

"With the help of all ... we can build a new life for the poor, a life of hope, a life of opportunity. And we can do it by remembering that the best anti-poverty programme is a job."

~ Ronald Reagan in his 1986 Radio Address to the Nation on Welfare Reform

"The best measure of our success is not how many people are on welfare, it’s how many people we help to get off of welfare and into a job. Because the best anti-poverty programme is a job."

~ Barack Obama from his 2014 State of the Union Address

"The best anti-poverty programme ever invented wasn’t a benefit, it was a job. Policies should make work easier to access than welfare — not the other way around."

~ Taxpayers Union 2026

"Is the concept of personal responsibility foreign to Maori? I don’t believe it is.

"The latest 'Salvation Army State of the Nation Report 2026' presents a litany of excuses for the sorry state of New Zealand’s social statistics, in particular, those relating to Maori. ...

"'The over representation of Māori tamariki and rangatahi in state care [is said to] reflect ... the enduring impacts of colonisation and breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi ... disproportionate inequities are due to current systems and the lasting impacts of colonisation ... and institutional racism...'
    '[T]angata whenua experiencing housing insecurity or homelessness, ... disrupts connections to te ao Māori and limits the ability to exercise tino rangatiratanga. ...'
    'Colonial policies, land alienation and the imposition of state justice systems that do not represent partnership have had long‑lasting effects that continue to shape Māori experiences in the criminal justice system today.' ...

"The [report's] 'Maori lens' response run to pages. ... 

"[I]s the concept of personal responsibility foreign to Maori? I don’t believe it is. ...

"In the face of this report the best response the government could make is to defund the Salvation Army for being part of the problem."

~ Lindsay Mitchell from her post 'A litany of excuses'

"Those saying we need more welfare in order to produce more children are pushing a remedy fraught with risk, cost and irresponsibility."

"Their study was based on a population of children aged 0-14 years 'informed by a cohort analysis of individuals ... who can be observed through to age 21 .'... One of four risk factors for poor outcomes later in life [is b]eing 'mostly supported by welfare benefits since birth'...

"[In other words,] children raised on welfare [tend to] become adults who are less educated, have poorer mental health, are more likely to become single parents, to rely on welfare and fall foul of the law.

"If being born onto welfare and staying there long-term is a risky business for children, why would any government want to encourage this? In other walks of life we are bombarded with health and safety regulation. And in an environment where 'sustainability' is a constant clamour, how does growing costly dependency stack up?

"Those who advocate limitless number and duration of child benefit payments — the situation that currently exists in New Zealand and the UK is returning to — are ignoring the evidence.

"Those saying we need more welfare in order to produce more children are pushing a remedy fraught with risk, cost and irresponsibility."

~ Lindsay Mitchell from her post 'Boosting birth rates with benefit payments is a very bad idea'

Austerity, what austerity?

 

"You may have heard a lot of stories about austerity. Consider that both the government and the opposition may want to convey the impression that it has happened, despite it very much not having happened.

"Throughout the 2010s (barring #eqnz), per capita real operating expenditure net of interest expenses ranged from $17,143 to $18,653 - with 2019's jump to $18,653 being well out of line with the prior track. Labour substantially increased spending under its wellbeing focus ...

"Per capita real operating expenditure net of finance cost has been above $21,000 since then; the provisional figure for 2025 is $21,648. ...

"The largest-spend category here by far is social protection [sic]: benefits and superannuation. ...

"Any giant shedding of government staff will show up in General Public Services. The austerity really stands out in this picture. Can't you see it too? ..."

 

~ Eric Crampton from his post 'The state of the books'

Labour "recognises NZ’s infrastructure crisis. But has no idea how to fix it."

There was never a chance that politicians could look at the growing "Cullen Fund" and not think to themselves "if only we had that to spend!"

So in the same week that Treasury confirms that paying for old-age pensions are about to get unaffordable on our present trajectory, the Labour Party has decided it would be a good time to use the government's superannuation fund as a slush fund for them to "pick winners"—on which all governments everywhere have a dismal track record. 

Labour’s first policy announcement ahead of the 2026 election reveals the party recognises New Zealand’s infrastructure crisis. But it also shows it has no idea how to fix it. ...

The fact New Zealand has an infrastructure crisis (roads, pipes, umpty-tum waters) is a testament to how short-term political thinking has encouraged short-term spending decisions. Labour's "plan" (if a glossy pamphlet without detail can even be called that) simply doubles down on that ongoing disaster. As Roger Partridge notes:

Rather than seek the best global returns, it would invest in New Zealand companies selected for political purposes. The fund’s goal is not profit maximisation but job creation through government-directed investment. This is corporate welfare dressed in the ... garb of sovereign wealth management.

"New Zealand's unique welfare problem isn't disability or unemployment. ... It is the high rate of sole parenthood"

"New Zealand's unique welfare problem isn't disability or unemployment. ... It is the high rate of sole parenthood that sets us apart. ...

"The worst child abuse, neglect, deprivation, transience, non-preparedness for school, and later, absenteeism comes from fatherless families. These children spill through to non-achievement, gang membership, criminality and lives lost to prison and non-rehabilitation.

"Yes ... plenty of children survive. But compared to children from working, two parent families, their odds of success are heavily reduced.

"Minister for Social Development from 2008, Paula Bennett drove through some reforms. She actually got rid of the DPB. But then replaced it with the Sole Parent Payment. ... 2023 census data told us 70 percent of sole parents with dependent children receive welfare. By September 2024... there were 102,693. ...

"The number in September 2025 reached 234,000. With seasonal fluctuations the total could reach a quarter million by December.

"This country's propensity to put a soft-focus on hard problems is not working."

~ Lindsay Mitchell from her post 'National's problem epitomised'

"Immigrants justifiably celebrate when they obtain citizenship in their new country ..."

"Immigrants justifiably celebrate when they obtain citizenship in their new country ...

"Aside from patriotism, however, the sense of jubilation they feel is significantly due to having secured at last the freedom to live and work without impediment by government.

"They should never have required citizenship in order to exercise these rights.

"Dispense with the fallacious zero-sum thinking that every migrant is a burden (as if we all partake from an imaginary finite pie of opportunity).

"Let anyone arrive and work, so long as they are law-abiding and willing to stake no claim on the welfare state, insofar that it exists.

"On this basis, there ought to be no compelling impetus for migrants to seek or obtain citizenship.

"Let them apply after 20 years of continuous and law-abiding residence."

~ David P.

Superannuation: Raise the age!

"New Zealand’s superannuation costs are spiralling out of control and threaten the country’s long-term fiscal health. 
    "As the number of superannuitants continues to grow, so too will the burden on the taxpayer. The longer we delay reform, the harder it becomes for future governments to respond without drastic tax hikes or cuts to essential services [sic] elsewhere.

    "Treasury’s projections show that by 2060, superannuation expenditure could balloon to 7.4 percent of [GDP] This is not just an accounting issue - it’s a generational issue. Young and future New Zealanders will be forced to bear an ever-growing welfare bill for their parents and grandparents. Without reform, or significant productivity growth, future taxpayers face a nightmare scenario: higher taxes, deeper debt, and reductions in public services. ... 
    "Raising the superannuation age to 67 and indexing it to life expectancy would slow the growing burden ... Even with the higher age, retirees would still receive NZ  Super for as long, or longer, than previous generations.... 

~ Taxpayers Union from their report A Pathway to Surplus

PS: From NOT PC (March, 2017):

15 YEARS AGO: Now a more bigoted state

Since this blog has been going now since 2005 (which is bloody frightening) I'll occasionally head back a few years to pull out something particularly prescient to re-post. Such as this (from almost fifteen years ago), a warning that wasn't heeded about what happens to everybody when big-government thuggery demands a "crack-down" — 'cos there's nothing big government likes more than a good crack-down, like a multi-million-plus mass deportation...

Just a bigoted state [update 4]

The only honest line British Prime-Minister-in-absentia Gordon Brown has ever been heard to utter came last week when he told aides that a women who had just confided to him the alleged evils of Eastern-European immigrants was “just a bigoted woman.”

And so she was. 

Cross the Atlantic now to Arizona, where a bigoted state now requires everyone to carry around their birth certificate, just so they aren’t mistaken for someone who’s living and working in the state without big-government’s blessing. 

If Gordon Brown’s apology for his momentary rush of honesty was the shot heard still being heard around the British electorate, then Arizona’s attack on personal liberty is the shot against individual freedom that’s being heard right around the world.  It’s a reminder that it’s not just the left side of the aisle that are big-government bullies--and a reminder too that neither side has a monopoly on taking advantage of those stateless souls who leave their homes in search of a better life.Just so we’re clear, This Is What Arizona Republicans Want America to Be Like—a place where people of a certain race can be arrested dragged off to jail at the whim of a policeman for the crime of not carrying their papers.  Only Godwin’s Law precludes me from pointing out a particular police state of which that might remind you.

The police-state crackdown is bad enough.  But what it’s demonstrated all too clearly is that for many people apparently committed to individual liberty and small government are anything but.  Scratch the surface of too many small-government conservatives, and what you find there is nothing more than stinking, ill-informed authoritarian racism.  (Just one reason I’ve taken the likes of Andrew Bolt off my blog roll).

I say ill-informed, because it’s the only possible defence people like Bolt might have for being bigoted men and women themselves.

Because the facts confound the bigots. The fact is that in a free society, more people are a boon, not a burden. 

That as author Robert Heinlein suggested, successful immigrants demonstrate just by their choice and gumption in choosing a new life that they are worthy of respect. 

And as James Kilbourne says, “God damn you if the only two words you can find to put together when talking about people who leave their homelands to seek a better life for themselves and their families are ‘illegal aliens.’”

The fact is—and let me say it again just to stress the point—that in a free society, more people are a boon, not a burden. You think that’s hyperbole?  Well, it’s not.  Look at the American experience—the country’s wealth was built upon open immigration—on the melting pot that was the result of the open immigration of the nineteenth-century. But even in more oppressive times of today, the facts are clear that that the freer the country, the more immigration is a boon for everybody—and that immigrants themselves are overwhelmingly more productive and better behaved than most of the bigots are.

Just consider the litany of facts the bigots need to contend with regarding American immigration:

• The runaround needed to immigrate legally to the US is one prime reason so many do it illegally. 
• 'Illegals' are not milking the government; if anything it is the other way around. The National Research Council found for example that most immigrant families "contribute an average of $80,000 more to federal coffers than they consume over their lifetimes." 
• Immigrants generally earn more than they receive. 
• More than 60% of illegal immigrants pay income tax, and two-thirds kick in to Social Security (and most get nothing back). 
• Immigrants help sustain economic growth and cultural dynamism. 
• Immigrants "are generally less involved in crime than similarly situated groups," and crime rates in border towns "are lower than those of comparable non-border cities." 
• Crime rates in the highest-immigration states have been trending significantly downward. 
• Even economists who favour restrictive immigration policies admit low-skilled immigrants are a net plus to the economy. 
• Unemployment is low and crime is down everywhere, especially in places teeming with immigrants. 
• Immigration gives you the benefits of geniuses who were born elsewhere. Google, Yahoo! and Sun Microsystems were all founded by immigrants. 
• Immigrants are more likely than 'natives' to be self-employed. 
• Immigrants tend to create their own work -- when they're allowed to. 
• The power and reach of Spanish-language media in L.A. for example shows supply of productive people creating its own demand. 
• Immigrant labour makes work easier for all of us, and brings new skills to the table. 
• Immigrants and low-skilled American workers fill very different roles in the economy. 
• Immigrant labour makes all businesses easier to start, thus spurring 'native' creativity. 
• "Some argue that we should employ a more restrictive policy that allows in only immigrants with 'needed' skills. But this assumes the government can read economic tea leaves." - Tyler Cowen and Daniel M. Rothschild 
• New arrivals, by producing more goods and services, keep prices down across the economy -- the net gain to US from immigration is about $7 billion a year. 
• There's no reason that the North American Free Trade Agreement (or NZ's own free trade agreements) shouldn't apply equally to people as to widgets. 
• Even in the halls of Congress, economic arguments against immigration are losing their aura of truthfulness, so pro-enforcement types are focussing on “national security.” 
• "The only way to actually prevent terrorists from slipping in is to legalize as much 'illegal immigration' as possible. If one is looking for a needle in a haystack, as the saying goes, one has a hell of job. Finding that needle on a relatively clean floor, however, presents an achievable goal." - James Valliant
• Immigration is good for the immigrants themselves. . . . 

Those facts were extracted from the following articles, which provide whole magazines full of ammunition against the bigoted and the ill-informed: 

• How about a little common sense on immigration - Tony Snow 
• Immigration plus Welfare State equals Police State - George Reisman 
• Immigration and the Welfare State - the real root of the problem - Brian Doherty 
• Who's milking who? - illegal aliens pay more in taxes than they impose in costs - Shikha Dalmia 
• Don't bad-mouth unskilled immigrants - Tyler Cowen & Daniel M. Rothschild 
• Exploitation or expulsion - illegal immigrants in a double bind - Jesse Walker 
• Fighting terrorism requires legalizing immigration - James Valliant 
• Worse than a wall - Kerry Howley 
• A legacy of the unforeseen - Carolyn Lochhead 
• Breathe free, huddled masses - Cathy Young 
• Open the borders - why should citizens of NAFTA countries need visas at all - Tim Cavanagh 
• Bush's border bravado - non-militarized solutions to a non-problem - Nick Gillespie 
• Open immigration, Si! Open borders, No! - Sixth Column 
• Stand in Line . . . and Wait! – Not PC 
• Immigration and Individual Rights – Craig Biddle

And of course there are the two classic Harry Binswanger articles which are 'must-reads' for the moral and practical case behind open immigration (note, open immigration, not open borders.): 

• The solution to 'illegal immigration' - Harry Binswanger 
• Immigration Quotas vs. Individual Rights: The Moral and Practical Case for Open Immigration - Harry Binswanger 

The fact is that there is neither fact nor right on the side of the bigots.  As George Reisman explains for America:

    “The philosophy of individual rights and capitalism implies that foreigners have a right to come and to live and work here, i.e., to immigrate into the United States. The land of the United States is owned by individuals and voluntary associations of individuals, such as private business firms. It is not owned by the United States government or by the American people acting as a collective; indeed many of the owners of land in the United States are not Americans, but foreign nationals, including foreign investors.     

“The private owners of land have the right to use or sell or rent their land for any peaceful purpose. This includes employing immigrants and selling them food and clothing and all other goods, and selling or renting housing to them. If individual private landowners are willing to accept the presence of immigrants on their property as employees, customers, or tenants, that should be all that is required for the immigrants to be present. Anyone else who attempts to determine the presence of absence of immigrants is simply an interfering busybody ready to use a gun or club to impose his will.

The fact remains that the only possibly human objection that well-informed people might have to open immigration is that immigration is a drain on the Welfare State. That they object to being forced to pay for people they’ve never met. This much is understandable. (That is the dark truth at the heart of the whole Welfare State—far from offering charity, it sets man against men.)   Again, George Reisman makes the argument: in summary, that Immigration Plus Welfare State Equal Police State.

    “Illegal immigrants are overwhelming the resources of the Welfare State: government–funded hospital emergency rooms are filled with them; public schools are filled with their children. On the basis of such complaints, many people are angry and want to close the border to new illegal immigrants and deport those who are already here.     “They want to keep new illegal immigrants out with fences along the border. It is not clear whether the fences would contain intermittent watchtowers with searchlights and machine guns. The illegal immigrants who are already here would be ferreted out by threatening anyone who employed them with severe penalties and making it a criminal offense not to report them.     

“This is a classic illustration of Mises’s principle that prior government intervention into the economic system breeds later intervention. Here the application of his principle is, start with the Welfare State, end with the Police State. A police state is what is required effectively to stop substantial illegal immigration that has become a major burden because of the Welfare State.”

And Tibor Machan makes a similar argument, that the biggest problem with the welfare state is not that it might lead to even greater control by government, but that in providing a pseudo-moral argument to treat other human beings like cattle, it habituates people to the sort of easy brutality seen now in Arizona, and in sundry other cases of inhumanity. 

But far from being a reason to abandon open immigration, the problems that state-enforced welfare cause for open immigration are reason instead to abandon the short-lived anti-human experiment that is the Welfare State. 

    “The philosophy of individual rights and capitalism implies that the immigrants do not have a right to be supported at public expense, which is a violation of the rights of the taxpayers. Of course, it is no less a violation of the rights of the taxpayers when native-born individuals are supported at public expense. The immigrants are singled out for criticism based on the allegation that they in particular are making the burden intolerable.
    “The implementation of the rights both of the immigrants and of the taxpayers requires the abolition of the Welfare State. Ending the Welfare State will end any problem of immigrants being a public burden.
    “Of course, ending the Welfare State is much easier said than done, and it is almost certainly not going to be eliminated even in order to avoid the environment of a police state.
     “But the burdens of the Welfare State and the consequent resentment against immigrants could at the very least be substantially reduced by means of some relatively simple, common-sense reforms in the direction of greater economic freedom. . . .”

And they could be reduced too by the simple and easily-introduced expedient of allowing existing citizens to sponsor and take financial and legal responsibility for new citizens.

But this would require a basic humanity that too many of the bigots seem to lack.

In the meantime then, you want an immediate solution to the 'problem of illegal immigration? Then here it is": 

    “The problem of ‘illegal’ immigration can be solved at the stroke of a pen: legalize immigration. Screen all you want (though I want damn little), but remove the quotas. Phase them out over a 5- or 10-year period. Grant immediate, unconditional amnesty to all ‘illegal’ immigrants.”

There endeth the problem.

UPDATE 1:  More good anti-bigoted commentary here [hat tip Thrutch]:

• THE NEW CLARION: The Rights of Man, the Privileges of Citizen
  This is the end-of-road for conservative anti-immigrationists:  the selective  degradation of the liberty to live in a particular place from a right to a “privilege”.  As a hostile commenter put it sarcastically… 

      “Nothing says freedom from government interference like ‘show me your papers.’ Of course, limited government only applies to people who are real Americans, not to Mexicans.”

  Let us examine the conservatives’ trip down the anti-immigration road, and see how it ended there — and what it means for conservatism’s purported fealty to Americanism….
  Read on to see many more anti-immigration shibboleths summarily dispatched. 

•  PAJAMAS MEDIA: Treat the Cause, Not the Symptom: Welfare State Is Draw for Illegals
  While I commiserate with Arizona voters [says Gus Van Horn] public services are the problem, not ‘illegals.’
      …SB 1070 is wrong for Arizona for reasons far beyond civil rights issues.
      SB 1070 deserves only one fundamental criticism: It would fail to protect the individual rights of American citizens — even if it hermetically sealed our borders and the police never touched a single American hair in the process of enforcing it. This is because the biggest headaches attributed to illegal immigration are not caused by it at all…

UPDATE 2: I’m starting a list.  And in ‘tribute’ to Gordon, I’m calling it “Just Some Bigoted Arseholes.”

First on the list is Blair, for this . . . 

To which you can add Silent Running, run by a New Zealand blogger advertising “strong right-wing views” on his banner, who thinks “Mexico is polluting us”; Cactus Kate, who has “sanctimonious” on her banner (and bigotry in her waters); and Crusader Rabbit, who has “liberty” on his banner, and black thoughts about Mexican crowds being “a target-rich environment” in his heart …

UPDATE 3:  Says an editorial in the Arizona Republic: 

    “We need leaders.
    “The federal government is abdicating its duty on the border.
    “Arizona politicians are pandering to public fear.
    “The result is a state law that intimidates Latinos while doing nothing to curb illegal immigration.
This represents years of failure. Years of politicians taking the easy way and allowing the debate to descend into chaos…
    “Comprehensive [immigration] reform will make the border safer. When migrant labor is channeled through the legal ports of entry, the Border Patrol can focus on catching drug smugglers and other criminals instead of chasing busboys across the desert.
    “Real leaders will have the courage to say that.”

UPDATE 4: Reason magazine, whose superb 2006 issue on immigration was the source of many of those linked articles above, has four online articles on the current melee that deserve the attention of everyone not already blinded by bigotry: 

• Immigration Isn't the Problem, David Harsanyi, May 3, 2010 
    “For the most part, the controversy we face isn't about immigration at all. It's about the systematic failure of federal government to enforce the law or offer rational policy. There's a difference…
    “The uplifting tale of the hard-boiled immigrant, dipping his or her sweaty hands into the well of the American dream, is one thing. Today we find ourselves in an unsustainable and rapidly growing welfare state. Can we afford to allow millions more to partake?
    “When Nobel Prize-winning libertarian economist Milton Friedman was asked about unlimited immigration in 1999, he stated that ‘it is one thing to have free immigration to jobs. It is another thing to have free immigration to welfare. And you cannot have both.’” 
• Mysteries of an Immigration Law, Steve Chapman, April 29, 2010 
    “The worst-case scenario is that Hispanics will face possible police harassment anytime they venture out of the house. Not to worry, says Kris Kobach, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City who helped draft the text.
    “He told The Washington Examiner that cops can ask for immigration information only when they have ‘lawful contact’ with someone—when ‘the officer is already engaged in some detention of an individual because he's violated some other law.’
    “In fact, the law doesn't define the crucial term. One of the dictionary definitions of ‘contact’ is ‘immediate proximity,’ which suggests that anytime a possible illegal immigrant comes in sight of a cop, the cop has a legal duty to check her papers.” 
• How Immigration Crackdowns Backfire, Steve Chapman, April 22, 2010 
    “It's no surprise that Arizonans resent the recent influx of unauthorized foreigners, some of them criminals. But there is less here than meets the eye.
    “The state has an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants. But contrary to myth, they have not brought an epidemic of murder and mayhem with them. Surprise of surprises, the state has gotten safer.
    “Over the last decade, the violent crime rate has dropped by 19 percent, while property crime is down by 20 percent. Crime has also declined in the rest of the country, but not as fast as in Arizona…” 
• Don't Let Obama Touch Immigration Reform, Shikha Dalmia, April 13, 2010
  ”America's immigration system is badly broken and in desperate need of fixing. And that is precisely why President Barack Obama should not be allowed to touch it.”
• Immigration & Crime, Steve Chapman, February 22, 2010
    “From listening to the more vigorous critics of illegal immigration, our porous borders are a grave threat to safety. Not only can foreign terrorists sneak in to target us, but the most vicious criminals are free to walk in and inflict their worst on innocent Americans.
    “In xenophobic circles, this prospect induces stark terror. Fox News' Glenn Beck has decried an ‘illegal immigrant crime wave.’ A contributor to Patrick Buchanan's website asserts, ‘Every day, in the United States, thousands of illegal aliens unleash a reign of terror on Americans.’
    “Sure they do. And I'm Penelope Cruz…
    “A 2007 report by the Immigration Policy Center noted that "for every ethnic group, without exception, incarceration rates among young men are lowest for immigrants, even those who are the least educated. This holds true especially for the Mexicans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans who make up the bulk of the undocumented population…
    “[Ron] Unz points out that in the five most heavily Hispanic cities in the country, violent crime is "10 percent below the national urban average and the homicide rate 40 percent lower." In Los Angeles, which is half Hispanic and easily accessible to those sneaking over the southern border, the murder rate has plummeted to levels unseen since the tranquil years of the early 1960s.
     “This is not really hard to understand. Today, as ever, most foreigners who make the sacrifice of leaving home and starting over in a strange land do so not to mug grandmothers or molest children, but to find work that will give them a better life. Coming here illegally does not alter that basic motivation.
    “In other words, they want to become full-fledged Americans, and they're succeeding. Is there something scary about that?”

Well, is there?

The State is not a good parent

"Reading the abuse in care reports, two questions requiring clear and compelling answers remain unanswered: Why? and How? Why were so many children and young people abused in such awful ways? How was it possible for so much and such appalling abuse to continue unchecked for so long? Without satisfactory responses to these two critical questions, the chances of history repeating itself must remain unacceptably high.
    "For some reason, however, the Why and How of Abuse in Care were not made the prime focus of the Royal Commission’s investigations. Its reports tell us the Who, When, Where and What of this horror story, but, those two key questions, Why? and How?, are not adequately addressed."

~ Chris Trotter from his post 'Report on the abuse of young people – two key questions have gone unanswered'

 

"The U.S. should abandon its obsession with the anti-immigration policies of the recent past, and instead address the real causes of illegal immigration."

"How can the United States reduce illegal immigration? ...
    "The reality is that only four policies can significantly reduce illegal immigration.
    "The first is allowing more legal immigration. …
    "The second … is to expand free trade. …
    "A more controversial way to shrink illegal immigration is to de-escalate the war on drugs. …
    "A further policy that might reduce immigration is scaling back the U.S. welfare state ... to either reduce that generosity or condition benefits on legal residence for a significant number of years. ...

"The policies that will do little to shrink illegal immigration are increased border enforcement, stiffer punishments for employers who hire illegals, or aggressive arrest policies ... These measures are ineffective because they do not change the fact that wages in the U.S. are attractive compared to wages in poor countries. And, for centuries, immigrants have endured amazing hardships to seek higher income or a better life in America. Longer or higher fences will not change that.
    "Instead, stepped-up enforcement will drive more activity underground....

    "[T]he U.S. should abandon its obsession with the anti-immigration policies of the [recent] past and instead address the real causes of illegal immigration."

~ Jeffrey Miron from his post 'The Right Way to Reduce Illegal Immigration'

WELFARE: "National will persist with the tinkering..."

"Right now, benefit statistics are worse than at the time of last year's election. There are 380,169 main beneficiaries — a rise of 5 percent. The number on a Jobseeker benefit is up 7.5 percent. ...
    "[I]t is long-term single parent dependence which drives inter-generational malaise - the most serious social problem the country faces. Inter-generational dependence drives under-achievement, domestic dysfunction, ill-health and crime.
    "So what is National doing?
    "The same thing it does every time it returns to power. It gets a bit tougher about oversight of beneficiaries ... They set some soft targets ... but make no mention of sole parents (who are also not required to 'check-in').
    "The last big National [Party] welfare reforms (2013) comprised ... changing benefit names.
    "The percentage of working-age people dependent on welfare is higher now than then. [Much higher]
    "There is an inertia about the numbers which is going to take some radical actions to disrupt them. But National lacks the necessary reforming zeal.
    "National will persist with the tinkering that deflects attention and mollifies their voters while the country's historic heavy and unhealthy over-reliance on the welfare system continues."

~ Lindsay Mitchell, from her post 'Welfare - no good news'

Models

"Certainly economists build and test theories with models, often quite simplistic ones. But they do not [all] believe that the model is real. Only politicians do that.
    "So what we see in the various 'social investment' analyses being presented and will see in the many which will proliferate as this becomes the slogan du jour, is an endless set of dodgy arithmetic calculations all of which will show positive returns. Much like we see in the many past stadium or motorway or entertainment event proposals which inevitably show a major positive return to the suburb/city/country concerned. If you added all these up from the past we would live in a utopia. We do not live in a utopia."

~ Rob Campbell from his post 'Don’t be fooled by what ‘social investment’ slogan means' [addition mine]

"The strongest correlate for child poverty is the rate of single parenthood. Fix that."

"The complexity inherent in the multiple measures of child poverty does nothing to instil confidence in their veracity. What the complexity does do is create a bias towards overstating poverty – a useful tool for proponents of greater wealth redistribution.
    "I tend towards a simple view. One which rarely rates a mention. The strongest correlate for child poverty is the rate of single parenthood. In New Zealand it is high. Among Māori it is very high.
    "Fixing that – an outcome largely in the hands of individuals – will go a long way towards reducing childhood hardship and deprivation."

~ Lindsay Mitchell, from her post 'Child poverty - complex or simple?' [hat tip Homepaddock]

"The State has two hands: a soft one to give and a hard one to remove. The softer the hand that gives, the harder the hand that removes."

"The State is not and cannot be one-handed. It has two hands, one to receive and the other to give; in other words, the rough hand and the gentle hand. The activity of the second is of necessity subordinate to the activity of the first....

    "You see that the gentle hand of The State, that sweet hand that gives and spreads benefits widely, will be fully occupied ... Might you perhaps be disposed to believe that this will be just as true of the rough hand that goes rummaging and rifling in our pockets?
    "Don’t you believe it! The courtiers of popularity would not be masters of their trade if they did not have the art of hiding an iron fist in a velvet glove."

~ Frederic Bastiat, from his essay 'The State' [the headline for this post is a popular paraphrase]

"The cash-for-kids scheme has to stop"

"Christopher Luxon talked repeatedly about getting young people off welfare. ... consider that the link between a child's early entry into the benefit system and later benefit dependence in their own right, is strong ... Nearly three quarters (74%) of all beneficiaries up to age 25 had a parent on benefit while they were a child, and just over a third (35%) had a parent on benefit throughout their teenage years.  ...

    "It's laudable to talk about getting 18 year-olds off welfare. Better still though to discourage their entry into the welfare system in the first place. ...
    "[M]ore broadly, the cash-for-kids scheme has to stop. ... Until cash incentives ... are removed, the inter-generational problem will continue to plague New Zealand. Yes, there will be downsides to [welfare reform]. But will they be any worse than the devastating social outcomes that come from unconditional welfare?"

~ Lindsay Mitchell from her post 'National needs to go further'

If you can't run on your record, you have to fake it

If you have to lie, it looks like the facts don't suit you. Here's Lindsay Mitchell fact-checking Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni's lies this week on the campaign trail:

CARMEL: “Her government [she says] had seen higher numbers of beneficiaries moving into jobs …”

LINDSAY'S FACT CHECK: "Higher numbers may have been moving into jobs, but even higher numbers have been moving onto benefits. It’s the net difference that matters... At September 22, 2023 there were 181,167 people on a Jobseeker benefit. In September 2017, just prior to Sepuloni taking up the reins, the number was 120,726. She has overseen a fifty percent increase."

CARMEL: "I’m proud [she says] of the work Labour has done to lift over 77,000 children out of poverty.”

LINDSAY'S FACT CHECK: "At September 2017 there were 172,302 children on benefits. By June 2023 that number had grown by 23 percent to sit at 211,617."

Jacinda's Administration went into government saying they would "fix child poverty." Yet they still stare into the uncomfortable truth that simply throwing someone else's money at poverty doesn't help.

If you can't run on your record, you have to fake it.

Another highly-paid beneficiary

John Tamihere shares a joke at taxpayers' expense

"The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites." 

~ Thomas Sowell, from his column 'Human Livestock'

"[John Tamihere's] Waipareira Trust has grown significantly and become a key service provider for Whānau Ora.
    "Whānau Ora was created in 2010 under the oversight of Dame Tariana Turia ... In essence, Whānau Ora is described as a Māori approach to delivering social and health services to whānau ... commissioning agencies that would invest [sic] directly in their communities....
    "There are only three Whānau Ora commissioning agencies in the country.... For the North Island, the Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency is actually the trading name of a company called Te Pou Matakana Limited. The Patrons of that entity include Dame Tariana Turia, Merepeka Raukawa-Tait and John Tamihere’s father-in-law, Sir Mason Durie. The chief executive is John Tamihere and the chief operating officer is his wife, Awerangi Tamihere....
    "The Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency, NUMA [John Tamihere's so-called National Urban Māori Authority] and the Waipareira Trust are all located at the same Henderson commercial address and share administrative and back office support....
    "[U]nder the current Labour government, the Waipareira Trust has had a golden run.... In its most recent accounts for the year ended 30 June 2022, the trust had revenue from services [i.e., money doled out from government] of $69,544,616, and had cash or term deposits of $50,379,806.... Over [the last] six year period ... remuneration and benefits for senior management have increased from $2,013,194 to $4,390,413 ... [and] annual management fees [to] $6,000,000...
    "The management fee alone is an eye-watering amount and seems difficult to justify ...
    "[M]any Māori believe that not enough funding from Whānau Ora is making its way to those in need. Their concerns seem to be justified."

~ Thomas Cranmer, from his post 'John Tamihere and the Waipareira Trust'

NB: WHAT WE SAID IN 2010:

"If stimulus and bailouts are welfare for bankers-who’ve-failed, and Kiwisaver is welfare for suits-with-nothing-in-them, then surely the new politically-correct Whānau Ora scheme is just welfare for 'welfare providers,' isn’t it? Welfare that is primarily to keep the likes of John Tamihere and Rongo Wetere in the manner to which they’ve become accustomed. Welfare for a Browntable of well-heeled ambulance chasers. Welfare that will end up costing us all more in the long run than the current welfare bill."

'Welfare for Everyone' - NOT PC, April, 2010

AND WHAT WE SAID IN 2015:

"[W]hat Whanau Ora is, as I said when it was announced, is simply welfare for separatist welfare providers.
    "In short, a scam.
    "That much is fairly clear even from the Auditor General’s findings on funding, to whit: 'During the first four years, total spending on Whānau Ora was $137.6 million…. Nearly a third of the total spending was on administration…' 
    "You see? A very well-paying scam … if you’re inside that tent clipping the ticket.
    "What Whanau Ora is primarily, is welfare for separatist welfare providers....
    "So what has the scam achieved?
    "It has achieved a great deal indeed … for all those inside the tent.
    "What it achieved for the Maori Party was to buy them the backing of welfare providers – and as you can see I mean 'buy' in the very literal sense. Sure, it’s been hard to keep the backers inside the tent as bigger game seemed to appear elsewhere, but for a while at least it bought support for the new party.
    "And what it achieved for the Key Government was to buy the backing of the Maori Party – 'buy' here being used in the very political sense of buying the Maori Party’s votes, with which it was able to stay in power.
    "So quite a great deal indeed was achieved, if you’re one of the ones in power."

'The Whānau Ora Scam' - NOT PC, May 2015

 

"The state has corporatised welfare, but it isn’t working. More costs, worse outcomes."

"New Zealand has a begging and homelessness emergency and it’s worse than what I recently saw in a country most Kiwis associate with it – India.
    "Begging and homelessness here is the tip of a full-blown social emergency, ... with ram-raiding kids destroying property for the sake of it.
    "RNZ hit the nail on the head saying shopkeepers on Auckland’s K Road are in despair. Not just the ram raids, but the crime and grime, with begging and homelessness. And it’s not just K Road, or Auckland, but in towns across New Zealand....
    "As business owners we agree there are addiction, mental health and a host of 'complex issues,' but the policy response seems to be, 'no action, talk only'....
    "A back-to-the future approach is needed. The state has corporatised welfare, but it isn’t working. More costs, worse outcomes.
    "We need to make the Salvation Army, city missions, Presbyterian Support Services and their counterparts in temples and mosques [and community centres] all central to welfare provision, not just peripheral to it. Give charities a chance.
    "Begging itself must be de-normalised....
    "This is a social investment call to change lives for the better [rather] than throwing benefits and hostel accommodation as answers.
    "It would also help those of us in business to stay in business too."

~ Sunny Kaushal, from his op-ed 'New Zealand has a begging emergency and it demands tough action'

Child Poverty: "I'll take that bet."

"Still puzzled by the existence of child poverty some years after PM Ardern decided to abolish it? You might be interested to know that the question was addressed at the same time by a couple of Brits. More transparently; and – one imagines – with much the same success.
    "In fact, they went a bit further in ensuring the experiment would tangibly impact on the decision-makers themselves. They made a bet of it.
    "In the red corner, Jonathan Portes wagered £1000 that withdrawal of state benefits would propel the UK’s child poverty rate from a dreadful 31% to an appalling 41%. It doesn’t work that way, said Christopher Snowdon from the blue corner, accepting the bet.
    "Five years later, the measured UK child poverty rate was 29%. Snowdon had won."

~ Bob Edlin + Ian Templeton, from their post 'Blessed are the Poor in Jargon'