“Our record is growing Māori housing. Our record is growing Māori employment opportunities. Now our record is growing the Māori economy. I will happily campaign on our record.”
I really don't have a lot of stomach for this. Most Māori are working and law-abiding like most non-Māori and the constant racial identification of people only feeds resentment and division.
BUT if the Prime Minister wants to crow about what she has achieved for Māori let's look at what she hasn't achieved for Māori.
Since 2017, the Māori percentage of all people on main benefits has risen from 35.9 to 37.2% - in raw numbers from 99,351 to 128,502
Māori now make up 38.6 percent of those on a Jobseeker benefit - up from 37.6 %. Again, in raw numbers (despite the drop in the unemployment rate) there are over twenty thousand more Māori on the Jobseeker benefit than there were in 2017 (45,357 to 65,706).
The percentage Māori make up of the Sole Parent Support benefit has risen from 47.8 to 48.2% or 28,413 to 35,151.
Possibly the worst statistic in terms of Māori children's future prospects, absenteeism - as defined by attending school less than 70 percent of the time - has risen from 10.5 in 2017 to 23.8 percent in 2022 (term 2).
The Māori share of the prison population continues to climb - 50.7 to 53 percent (although the actual prisoner numbers have dropped due to Labour's policy to drive down the prison population by admitting fewer criminals and releasing earlier).
Finally, in a by no means exhaustive list, the Māori share of the public housing waiting list has grown from 44 to 49.6 percent or 3,389 to 14,130. A massive increase in raw numbers.
The data is summarized below:
Click to view
If this is the Prime Minister's idea of achieving for Māori, then she is even more self-delusional than I'd previously entertained.
And if she is returned on this record then we are all deeply in trouble. All of us together.
Sources
https://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/statistics/benefit/index.html
Since 2017, the Māori percentage of all people on main benefits has risen from 35.9 to 37.2% - in raw numbers from 99,351 to 128,502
Māori now make up 38.6 percent of those on a Jobseeker benefit - up from 37.6 %. Again, in raw numbers (despite the drop in the unemployment rate) there are over twenty thousand more Māori on the Jobseeker benefit than there were in 2017 (45,357 to 65,706).
The percentage Māori make up of the Sole Parent Support benefit has risen from 47.8 to 48.2% or 28,413 to 35,151.
Possibly the worst statistic in terms of Māori children's future prospects, absenteeism - as defined by attending school less than 70 percent of the time - has risen from 10.5 in 2017 to 23.8 percent in 2022 (term 2).
The Māori share of the prison population continues to climb - 50.7 to 53 percent (although the actual prisoner numbers have dropped due to Labour's policy to drive down the prison population by admitting fewer criminals and releasing earlier).
Finally, in a by no means exhaustive list, the Māori share of the public housing waiting list has grown from 44 to 49.6 percent or 3,389 to 14,130. A massive increase in raw numbers.
The data is summarized below:
Click to view
If this is the Prime Minister's idea of achieving for Māori, then she is even more self-delusional than I'd previously entertained.
And if she is returned on this record then we are all deeply in trouble. All of us together.
Sources
https://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/statistics/benefit/index.html
https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/statistics/attendance
https://www.corrections.govt.nz/resources/statistics/quarterly_prison_statistics
https://www.msd.govt.nz/documents/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/statistics/housing/datafiles/2022/oct/ph-national-monthly-timeseries-datafile-october-2022.xlsx
https://www.corrections.govt.nz/resources/statistics/quarterly_prison_statistics
https://www.msd.govt.nz/documents/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/statistics/housing/datafiles/2022/oct/ph-national-monthly-timeseries-datafile-october-2022.xlsx
https://www.msd.govt.nz/documents/about-msd-and-our-work/work-programmes/social-housing/housing-quarterly-report-dec2017.pdf
Lindsay Mitchell is a welfare commentator who blogs HERE.
Lindsay Mitchell is a welfare commentator who blogs HERE.
6 comments:
Yes i think I understand when you say you don't have the stomach for this Lindsay, but that's what is so uncomfortable about the whole race-conscious dialogue in the media these days - a kind of fawning, smarmy, artificial 'celebration' of te reo and matauranga Maori, and the historic language bastardised to find a transliteration for 'carburetor'- while meanwhile it is never reported, but we know - or surmise - because we are never told - that the ramraids are being carried out by largely Maori young people.(Am I wrong? I would be happy to be corrected, but who knows?)
This is so destructive of any normal consciousness of community, I can't think how we can ever feel like New Zealanders again when this silly woke bunch have been ousted - as they must be, and the successors chivvied into change. Thank you for your proity and plain speaking.
We have a generation of Labour & Greens senior MPs who really only care about things if they concern Maori.
They make no bones about it and the rest of us can only reach the obvious conclusion that they don't give a shit about non-Maori.
Of course, the Maori Party have always been like that but their name says it all so you know what you're getting when you tick their box.
NZ Politics, certainly on the Left, is toxic and broken.
If Labour get in at the next election it'll be time to pack your bags and leave.
Not that things will improve much under National.
Thank you Lindsay, and yes all these appalling figures are despite the massive injection of funds and jobs targeted exclusively at Maori - be they guaranteed seats on Local Councils; numerous oversight and Maori centric committees including the likes of Three Waters roles (and let's for the moment ignore the nepotism); a plethora of Maori consultation roles and processes in everything from property matters, health to education; funding exclusively targeted at Maori housing; and, the ever growing pot of Treaty settlements and the tax-exempt charity status of their corporations.
Yes, Prime Minister, as you would like to say, "let's have that conversation."
And I think people will soon realise as Count Adhemar said - "you have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting."
Thank you Lindsay for telling it how it is.
Hi Lindsay
find your contributions of considerable interest. But presumably all that wotk is not commissioned by BV. Curious who you primarily prepare it for? Hopefully all the appropriate Ministers. MPs, departmental heads get to see it (and many more)
Decolonise!
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