Am I the only person who has read the Ministry of Social Development's latest annual report?
It's a tedious business but surely a few checkers cast their eyes over it prior to publication.
I was casting my own over the benefit statistics by region when I stopped in my tracks.
According to the above table 77.3% of people on benefits in June 2022 in the Southern region (which encompasses Dunedin, Central Otago and Invercargill) were Māori.
That's extraordinary.
I checked the other two South Island regions - Canterbury and Nelson-Marlborough-West Coast - to find similar proportions at respectively 71.2 and 77.7 percent.
This is astounding news to me. Māori make up 17 percent of the population nationally but lower percentages in the South Island. For instance, at the last census only 9.4% of the Canterbury population identified as Māori.
When a statistic is so out of whack the obvious recourse is to check it against another source.
MSD regional data for Canterbury June 2022 shows Māori made up just 21.1% of all people on benefits whereas NZ European accounted for 71.2 percent.
The data has been inverted.
But the error isn't even consistent.
There are eleven regions and tables contained in the annual report.
The data is correct for just three - Northland, Auckland and Waikato.
What surprises me is that even faint familiarity with MSD data would set off alarm bells. It is simply implausible that 77 percent of beneficiaries in the Southern region are Māori.
If that's wrong, what else might be?
I returned to the table above and took another look. Apparently, 26.9 percent of beneficiaries in the Southern region have been on a benefit for one year or less; 45.8 percent for more than one year. That sums to 72.7 percent.
What about the rest?
Of course this could all be dismissed as trivial errors.
But if funding is to be race-based in any manner then accurate numbers are extremely important.
The idea is bad enough. Poor execution of it is salt in the wound.
Lindsay Mitchell blogs here
Rubbish in Rubbish out Just like the climate hysteria Rubbish in Rubbish out But remember the Woksters in our Government (of both sides) still believe there is a climate crisis as the false computer predictions say so. Where has been the media reporting that the UN has just halved it's predictions for GW over the rest of the century to 2.5 degrees of warming and just how much of that is within the margin of error. THERE IS NO CLIMATE CRISIS
I thought the South Island maori were rich with all our natural resources been given them?
The report is 161 pages long (as formatted), but would be half that if it wasn't for the enormously expensive Maori translations that nobody will ever read (practically nobody will ever read the English parts). Imagine the huge quantities of emitted CO2 that could be traced back to those 80 superfluous pages and the pointless effort behind them.
Gliding on ?
Glad that someone has had the time to highlight these inaccuracies. A symptom of perhaps bigger things. Surely this is the responsibility of the Minister and his department directors to ensure information is accurate and summarized correctly . I have always believed that there is not enough accountability demanded by Ministers of their department directors and seeing data like this only reinforces that view. Government servants should be put on notice, by the minister, that such standards are unacceptable and if it continues heads will roll.
Important Government responses, decisions and challenges are often made on such data. The Covid 19 information provided over two years during the pandemic was woeful and led to poor decision maki…
and these people are in charge........its a frightening prospect for the future of NZ.....
when the tribes are in charge, will all these bloated stats reflecting the state of Maori work ethic benefit the well being of the country???
I very much doubt it.....the elites are going to have to call on taniwha, maui and co to give them a hand to magically FIX the issues facing us all.....
down the toilet we continue to go.....I guess its a race to the bottom.....⛷️
again Luxon is NO WHERE on this....😝