There are individuals born in NZ who will, over their lifetimes, cost the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of dollars in welfare, child protection, justice, corrections and mental health services. They will physically and emotionally hurt others, possibly take a life or lives, and in that respect inflict even greater indirect costs on society.
Social investment suggests allocating some of that down-the-line cost to up-front intervention and prevention. By necessity it would have to focus on the child, the beginning. Later is often too late.
There have been past tentative efforts in this direction. For instance the predictive risk modelling work done at Auckland University. This identified the common circumstances around the birth of a child who'd go on to be the subject of abuse. For example:
“Of all children having a finding of maltreatment by age 5, 83% are seen on a benefit before age 2, translating into a very high “capture” rate.”
Early reliance on welfare was significant. But there was a host of other predictive indicators, for example having a parent who had served a custodial sentence, or a parent undergoing addictive substance treatment.
Ultimately, though, then Minister for Children Anne Tolley rejected application of the model. The professor behind the work is now assisting north American states in child protection practice.
But the exploratory work proved that it isn't difficult to identify where the future trouble begins.
The absence of data and knowledge isn't a barrier to informed intervention.
The problem lies with issues of privacy (or avoidance of stigmatisation), and race.
The last National government introduced a law to enable a baby to be uplifted from a mother whose earlier children had been removed due to substantiated abuse. That didn't play out well when Maori advocates actively blocked the process.
Similarly with Section 7AA, whereby cultural considerations must be paramount when placing a child into care, some Maori will attempt to thwart non-Maori intervention.
While he was Police Commissioner, Andrew Coster oversaw a regime of Treaty training and courses aimed at unlearning unconscious bias. His woke credentials were earned.
Next year he will take charge of the new Social Investment Agency where the budget provided for practical intervention will be available to iwi providers. It will be no surprise if he is highly sympathetic to the 'by Maori, for Maori' sloganeering. (We could all be confidently sympathetic if violence against children was diminishing but it is not.)
So where will that leave the current tension between the Minister for Children and Oranga Tamariki bureaucrats? Might we see a Minister for child protection and CEO for social investment with competing philosophies? As if there isn't already enough conflict between the public service and coalition politicians.
But there is another aspect of social investment which suggests to me the government still isn't taking the concept seriously.
Literally billions are spent on incentivising the type of lifestyles that create future criminals. A third of Maori babies are dependent on a welfare benefit by the end of their birth year. They don't grow up in working households. Sole parents are now expected to spend a future 17 years on welfare; if they enter the system as a teenage parent, 24 years. Too often their own parents were subjected to woeful upbringings devoid of examples of how to raise a child well. This malaise isn't just a Maori problem, but a child in need of intervention is more likely to be Maori.
Those billions make a mockery of 'social investment' at $12 million annually.
We seem to be simultaneously stoking a massive fire while standing by with a watering can.
Lindsay Mitchell blogs here
I know it will not be a popular comment, but really several generations in NZ now have never really had to go hungry, sleep rough, lose houses, see war in person, see families killed, awaken to the realities of life and see real suffering. All has been clad in warm fuzzies for them..... and its never their fault. They will learn the hard way. War is not far off. - and its not glamourous. And Maori will not find help with tribal elites..... maybe discovering tribalism and the taniwha are useless.
This problem is 70% an iwi problem . They have failed their members by concentrating on screwing the govt out of more money and expanding their assets : completely ignoring a gigantic problem forced on the taxpayer and public by their members . Having a majority of their members reliant on social welfare , they blame the health system , the education system and the social welfare system for not supplying enough money . They fail to see that their concentration on expanding their language and culture on a non-accepting population creates dissention based on race . Most racists in NZ are maori based or organisations dedicated to decolonising or at the very least , expanding a power base th…
It will not affect me, but what happens in 25/30 years time when the solo mum is around 40-55 years old. Has she had employment after the child/children have reached eighteen? Or does she go on the unemployment benefit until retirement age. There may be a shock as superannuation will most likely be gone by that stage.
Perhaps her unemployed children will stay home and look after her?
I wonder if any thought or concern has been given to the expected RETURN ON INVESTMENT?
When people's money is "invested" there needs to be an adequate return on that investment for the people that provided the money.
In this case, the people whose money is "invested" are the productive workers.
WHAT DO THE PRODUCTIVE WORKING PEOPLE GET IN RETURN FOR THIS SOCIAL INVESTEMENT OF THEIR MONEY?
Do the government officials that take and spend other people's money even care about providing value for what they spend?
If spending so much of other people's money was intended to result in the recipients of this "investment" having improved health, better education, less criminal convictions, productive employment, financial independence and improved standards…
WAFFLE WARNING!
This is a real problem that needs to be addressed. However, the solution, to use the fire analogy, is not to put an arsonist in charge of the Fire Brigade! Coster, who I believe is a "nice" person, is better suited to be a rural parish vicar that he was to be Commissioner of Police or will be to oversee the Social Investment Agency!
Kindness is not going to cut the mustard. For people who act helplessly kindness is a thing to be exploited! As I've said before that "benefits are for the needy not the lazy or greedy" and so it needs someone with tough love to drive this through.
Not for nothing were we told as…