Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Submissions to the Green Paper on Vulnerable Children on-line and summarised

Submissions are now available on-line from MSD .... that is, those from NGOs and organisations. Those made by members of the public (like me) are not available.

Scanning through the lengthy summary paper via various searches I can only find a small number of references to benefit dependence playing a role in child abuse and neglect. One is a paragraph titled "Blaming Communities".

Blaming communities: A small minority of submissions suggested the problem of vulnerable children lay with particular sorts of people or communities. These submissions argued the culture of that group is the problem rather than the solution. Groups who featured in these kinds of arguments were Maori, DPB recipients, beneficiaries in general and absent fathers.  A related theme was the argument that vulnerability has arisen from a breakdown in family values, such as marriage, within communities.

(In 172 pages the DPB is mentioned three times.)

Anyway I searched "blaming" and "blame" . Guess what? The above reference is the only one. There is no mention of submitters blaming poverty; blaming colonisation; blaming systems or blaming inequality.'Blaming' is code for (as the summary authors see it) unfairly and prejudicially judging individuals.

Here is another brief allusion to welfare:


Benefits encourage poor parenting: A small minority of submissions argued the benefit system encourages and enables people who cannot parent properly to have children.

So a handful submitters have made the connection.   But the observation is pretty well buried under an avalanche of apologism for what is generally, at the core, an abrogation of parental responsibility.

(My submission was published here in February.)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Uugh. How depressing. Why is it no one is prepared to address the rather obvious & very large elephant in the room - welfare produces zero positive outcomes & is therefore, likely to enable bad choices, bad lifestyles & bad parenting.

I sent in a submission too. Hopefully many others did as well.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Two blamers!

Anonymous said...

How about blaming the weak judges who give child abusers home detention. What is this country coming to?

Lindsay Mitchell said...

I rarely comment on sentencing but one year's home detention for breaking "his daughter's legs and caus[ing] other injuries in assaults" is unbelievable.

http://www.hawkesbaytoday.co.nz/news/dad-avoids-jail-for-breaking-childs-legs/1503659/

The judge also commented "Anyone who thinks home detention is a soft option should think again."

What would you choose over prison?

S. Beast said...

Mmmm, I found it difficult to read that article after the headline gave away how it was going to end. HD for deliberately abusing a defenceless innocent - the judge should go to jail for awarding such a ridiculous sentence. It's a soft option no matter how you think about it.