Saturday, September 01, 2007

"The money might be hard to give away"

The money might be hard to give away - give me a break.

Today's Editorial from the NZ Herald begins;

Few taxpayers will disagree with the proposal from the Families Commission that paid parental leave should be extended from the present 14 weeks to one year. If couples cannot afford for one of them to give up paid employment to care for a baby through its first year, the grant would seem one of the better uses of the social welfare budget.

How do they know that? Do you support it?

The commission estimates the extension of the benefit would increase its cost from the current $95 million a year to $450 million, a significant new financial commitment by any measure. To soften the fiscal shock the commission suggests the extension be phased in over eight years, first to six months, then nine, reaching the full year in 2015.

But these cautions will be based on an assumption the benefit will be fully subscribed. In all likelihood, the money might be hard to give away. Even with the offer of paid parental leave career-minded young mothers may be as anxious as fathers to return before their baby is a year old.


Hard to give away?? Let's test that. In 2002 Treasury predicted PPL would cost;

2002/03 $41 million
2003/04 $44 million
2005/06 $45 million

Here are the actual spending figures;

2003 $56 million
2004 $63 million
2005 $76 million
2006 $96 million

2006 spending more than doubled predictions. That blows that theory out of the water.

The full benefit would probably be taken up mainly by women in low-paid, non-career employment who would need it most. In this respect the scheme has a natural efficiency that enables it to be supported by taxpayers who might be concerned at the present Government's tendency to waste precious public funds on welfare for all.


Offer a universal benefit and towards universal uptake is what you will get. But worse. Many people who have no intention of returning to work will also take the year's payment so the potential for ripping the system off is also boosted.

Paid parental leave, though, carries a social signal more important than its financial terms. A decision to extend it to a year would tell young parents that society thinks it a good idea for one of them to care for their baby at home for that time. The present provision of just 14 weeks paid leave arguably gives quite the opposite message, though the right to unpaid leave with a preserved job already applies for a year.

Ah. That all-important 'sending a message'. For pity's sake. The DPB is permanent Paid Parental Leave and look at the message that sends. The taxpayer will keep you indefinitely as long as you can keep churning out babies. Whether or not you care for them properly is neither here nor there.

This country's 14 weeks payment is less than any other Western country except the United States and Australia, which do not provide parental leave. If we are going to provide it we ought to do it properly. Both main parties seem to agree with the Families Commission. Even if the cost is too much to extend the scheme more quickly, a decision to do so could be made soon. The decision would be a statement of value, affirming that nurturing for at least the first year should be a full-time job.

So rather than seriously considering what our two largest trading partners, both much stronger economies than NZ, do, the Herald wants to rush headlong in the opposite direction. This is a fine example of ill-thought-out advocacy. Unfortunately, they are not on their own.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a crock of shit - as a woman who has chosen not to have a family why the hell should I pay for people to have kids? I'm sick of already funding generations of welfare beneficiaries to breed, churning out babies and being totally unprepared financially, emotionally and generally not having the interests of the children at heart. It's a gravy train simple as that and until NZ wakes up to this we are in for a society of uneducated violent bludgers and it infuriates me that I work my ass off to pay these people to choose never to work. The benefit should be capped at 2 kids - that will bring the abuse rate down for a start as people may think ( well that's a contradiction) twice about having more if they have to actually end up paying for them.

As for the Herald making a sweeping statement that we are all in support of this I intend to write to the editor to show that there are people like me who are extremely angry at this liberty - how dare they use my money to pay for people to take 13 mths off- I'd like to see my money actually benefiting me in some way and believe that if parents want to opt into this scheme they should fucking well fund it and childless people should get a tax break

Anonymous said...

YES, YES, and YES virginblogger.

Except why cap at two kids. No benefit. Having children is a life choice: let parents take responsibility for it finally.

Mark

Anonymous said...

Oh - and you don't just pay for it - you pay twice. Your taxes support them, and they aren't earning to pay any taxes of their own to support society.

Oswald Bastable said...

In support of this my arse!

Try cutting taxes across the baord, instead

Cactus Kate said...

"The full benefit would probably be taken up mainly by women in low-paid, non-career employment who would need it most."

Precisely. The ones that the country does not actually NEED more children from and will irresponsibly breed anyway.

Anonymous said...

Look - face it. Unless there is a revolution, we are doomed to trying to keep hordes of ignorant, feral people from kicking down our doors for the last bit of cash in our pockets that hasn't been taken already to support them.

Brian Smaller

Anonymous said...

This bloody interventionist Government is getting worse by the day!

Extended Paid Parental Leave announced today; Regulation of "trafic light" food labelling yesterday; TV advertising to be further controlled during "children hours" last week;

There is no end to this socialist shit.

Seroiusly is all this legislation being pushed through now, in haste, while this pack of vile bastards remain in power?

I don't normally talk like this but I feel free of normal newspaper opinion column diplomatic language.