Dr Michael Bassett: Is it state care or family failure that explains our underclass?

Years ago, when I taught history at Auckland University, we had a rule for student essays. They were to be no longer than 1,000 words. We aimed at concentrating the student’s mind on the question which too many of them thought could more easily be answered by a long, often irrelevant, plethora of words.

I was thinking of this rule as I dabbled in the thousands of pages of the report of the Royal Commission into State Care. Like too many C-class students, the report rambles, with only occasional bits of analysis of what is under discussion. Of course, state care never has been, isn’t now, and never will be the ideal repository for anyone in need of care.