Labour says it will extend Paid Parental Leave and make changes to the DPB. Specifically they do not like the work requirement when the youngest child turns six (which is only being applied to a small percentage of that group currently anyway.)
Annette King says;
"Nobody is saying it should be a benefit for life, but it is to assist people at a time when they are caring for children. Surely the aim here is to bring up responsible, well cared for kids. And those of us who have tried it know that that is hard work."
There are screeds of statistics available that show the children who do best are raised in two parent families. Good outcomes increase further when the two parents are their biological parents. And further improve when the two biological parents are married.
Now I am not a conservative. That means I do not think the state has to enforce such arrangements, or even actively incentivise them. But neither should it be constantly making laws that undermine the family as the best social and economic unit there is.
That is what leftist liberal policy - economic and social - has done for many decades. And in this country the supposed conservative party National is in that basket too.
People are born to form relationships; to form mutual dependencies on each other. A constructive mutual dependency is healthy and it is certainly the best environment within which to nurture children. But start ascribing monetary deficit to either existing partnerships or their breakdown, and then demanding the state ameliorate or correct the deficit, and it is easy to predict what the response will be. Single parents go from forming a very small percentage of society to forming a quarter to a third of all families raising children.
Then we have to take more from working families to support non-working, mostly single parent families, which means working parents, if their relationship can stand it, have to work more to keep ahead of the game. Next the same people who demanded that women should be recompensed for not being in a mutual dependency set-up start demanding that two parent families should also get more financial help and work less.
Where will it end?
When will a politician, preferably a leader, stand up and say, "Sorry folks but you are just going to have to start relying on each other again because we are not up to the job and are broke anyway"?
It ain't going be Mr Smiley.
11 comments:
It ain't going be Mr Smiley.
Correct, spineless Key will never muster the courage to say it.
Manolo, Even if the spineless one was to say no, National would be forever branded as uncaring. Wedge politics by Liarbour of the worst type.
I was astounded but not surprised by Annette's post. Just more of the same really, and it did nothing to address the problem in the first place of the feral people who commit the child abuse crimes. The no smacking law has been totally ineffective, as well. Nothing will change, because the politiicans have liberalised idealogies, not common-sense ones.
The welfare state, DBP especially, has caused much of the abuse in the first place. If they could not get the meal ticket, these people would not breed, or would adopt their often very unwanted children. Really really sad.
Tanya
And I agree with Manolo, Key is not the figrue to fix the problem, either. We need a Holyoake or a Savage. Not very lucky in this PC climate though. Power at all and any costs.
Of course ít aint't going to be Mr Smiley', not when he ignores referendums, in his smug and snide way. He, like Clark, is interested only in maintaining his position, his power over the people.
Meanwhile, more and more innocent kids will die at the hands of their so-called carers.
Not just sad, bloody tragic. Our leaders should hang their heads in shame, but Smiley will just give us more of the same.
King has the future in mind. Meal ticket children and their dependent parents equal Labour voters.
I was just reflecting that leftist liberal policy was all about breaking things that affect the majority of people to supposedly fix something broken in a minority of people.
For example, parents that smack their children occasionally, as one of many disciplinary tools, are not a problem. But the state makes such action illegal on the basis that if the small minority of child abusers know a smack is illegal, they will somehow decide that holding their kid by the leg and spinning them into a wall, or hitting them with a plank of wood must be even more illegal.
And I just read about a study that says children who were smacked occasionally in the 2-6 year age bracket versus children NEVER smacked do better as teenagers in all sorts of areas they evaluated.
The study pointed out it has taken a long time to get to the point they have suitable test sizes of each kind of disciplinary upbringing they wished to compare.
Tanya H
I agree Key is both spineless and brainless.
But in my opinion and a lot will agree with me, Keith Holyoake was the epitome of a populist Prime Minister and it could be said that National's drift to the left and decline started under his leadership.
As for Savage, a Fabien Socialist (communist)and a very strange person.
Here's an idea.
Having children is a responsibility, a chosen commitment to supply material, intellectual and emotional support for a human being for a significant part of your life.
If you find it difficult, then you know what to do to prevent it. If you want help, then ask, don't expect people to be forced to give you something for nothing.
Michaal M, yes point taken, but they are still far better than the choices we have now, and were far more Christian in their views. Savage and Holyoake were the best we've had, the fairest, and the most courageous. Sad that we have had no one better in fifty odd years, except perhaps for Lange and Muldoon. Lab/Nat are now both far Left, the situation is hopeless. They might as well join forces and be done with it.
Child abuse will just get worse, it would seem, not better.
Lots of attacks on Key and he's only been in the job 2 years!
I agree with the sentiments expressed but the realpolitik of MMP is to sell a package of policies and then get elected to implement them.
Too often in the past NZ has got it wrong with idealistic BIG LEAPS which left the voting public confused and bewildered.
I think JK plans to be in power for a while and understands that he's got to avoid frightening the horses. Incremental change is what is required.
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