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Bennett’s ‘social obligations’ are unfair

By Suzannah Rowntree

Minister for Social Development Paula Bennett must be behind on her kindergarten quota.

The ministry’s ‘Supporting Vulnerable Children’ crusade pledges a 98% early childhood education attendance rate throughout the country by 2016, to say nothing of a 95% immunisation rate.

You’d think this quota would depend on the willingness of parents to comply.

But instead of trusting people to make informed decisions about surrendering their preschoolers to strangers or having them injected with chemical cocktails, Bennett’s new slew of welfare reforms makes preschool attendance and the statesponsored Well Child checks compulsory for beneficiaries.

Under the “social obligations” of the new Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill, parents receiving a benefit will be compelled to send their children to an approved preschool from the age of three, ensure regular school attendance from the age of six, register children at birth with an approved healthcare providerand attend all Well Child checks.

Who knew losing your job disqualified you from making decisions about your children’s health and education?

Bennett insists that the reforms are not invasive or coercive. “It doesn’t feel like I’m going into their homes and telling them exactly what to do, it just feels like I’m trying to put the right kind of care around themand their kids.”

Well, that’s nice for you, Paula, but feelings don’t always reflect reality. Let’s look at the sanctions that await recalcitrant free-thinkers.

Parents who refuse to cooperate with the compulsory programme will undergo three stages of “support contact” with WINZ to “encourage” them to submit to their “social obligations”. Parents who continue to show evidence of independent thought after this will have their benefit slashed by 50%. And in case anyone should be foolhardy enough to continue defying their benevolent overlords, “there are operational processes in place for clients to be referred to CYFS or fraud investigation if they continue on a 50% sanction,” according to the MSD’s Welfare Reform Paper E.

The Bill reflects these sanctions, dressing the CYFS threat up as “intensified case management support”. There’s literally no choice for parents who just want to opt out.

The structure targets responsible parents making principled educational or medical decisions for their children. Not irresponsible parents with neglected children, unless you want to redefine irresponsible as committed to providing better educational alternatives than those available at the local “cookie cutter kinder”.

But this legislation doesn’t just affect beneficiaries who want their three to five-year-old children to learn in a rich and stimulating home environment. It should also be a concern to everyone who sees that 98% early childhood education and 95% immunisation quota.

Because the Social Security Reform Bill proves one thing.  If coercion is needed to achieve this goal, coercion is what we’ll have. If the MSD believes it knows best,  and is willing to impose its vision on beneficiaries, why should it stop at them? Today the beneficiaries, tomorrow the rest of us.

Submissions to the committee are due by November 1, 2012. For more information and help making a submission, visit hef.org.nz

Suzannah Rowntree is paralegal
for the Home Education Foundation.

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Related Links:

• Possible timeline for Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill
• Media Release 3 – Social Security Bill’s ECE Obligations Breach Human Rights
• Media Release 2 – Vulnerable Children Not Benefited By Social Security Bill
• Media Release 1 – Social Security Bill Coerces Parents, Removes Freedom
• Make a submission: Reject compulsory Early Education for 3 year olds
• Some of the main links
• Comment on Q+A: Social Development Minister Paula Bennett
• Human Rights in New Zealand Today: The right to education
• Raymond S. Moore on Early Childhood Centres
• Should preschool be compulsory?
• TVNZ One this morning Q&A with Paula Bennett
• Maxim Institute: What is best for children?
• HUGE Concerns over the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill
• Letter from Paula Bennett concerning beneficaries and home education
• Toby Manhire on Benefit-slaying Nats starting to look plain nasty
• Linking welfare to preschool attendance a world first
• New Update on: How will the new Social obligations which will be required of all beneficiary parents effect home schoolers?
• How will the new Social obligations which will be required of all beneficiary parents effect home schoolers?

Make a submission: Reject compulsory Early Education for 3 year olds

Submissions – close 1 November

We have 13 days left to put submissions in to the Select Committee. Submissions close 5pm 1 November

Paula Bennett says here “This is a huge bill and has a lot in it. We will be at the select committee for the full time, so that the members can really go through it.”

Bills are rarely rejected after this stage.

For more information http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/AboutParl/HowPWorks/Laws/7/5/6/75639197bdff4a15b57eaaade358509e.htm

So we need to be working hard now at the submission stage.

Have YOU put in your submission yet?

If no, what is holding you up?

Read these press releases if you need more information:

• Media Release 1 – Social Security Bill Coerces Parents, Removes Freedom
• Media Release 2 – Vulnerable Children Not Benefited By Social Security Bill
• Media Release 3 – Social Security Bill’s ECE Obligations Breach Human Rights
• Benefits should not alter rights

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Related Links:

• Media Release 3 – Social Security Bill’s ECE Obligations Breach Human Rights
• Media Release 2 – Vulnerable Children Not Benefited By Social Security Bill
• Media Release 1 – Social Security Bill Coerces Parents, Removes Freedom
• Make a submission: Reject compulsory Early Education for 3 year olds
• Some of the main links
• Comment on Q+A: Social Development Minister Paula Bennett
• Human Rights in New Zealand Today: The right to education
• Raymond S. Moore on Early Childhood Centres
• Should preschool be compulsory?
• TVNZ One this morning Q&A with Paula Bennett
• Maxim Institute: What is best for children?
• HUGE Concerns over the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill
• Letter from Paula Bennett concerning beneficaries and home education
• Toby Manhire on Benefit-slaying Nats starting to look plain nasty
• Linking welfare to preschool attendance a world first
• New Update on: How will the new Social obligations which will be required of all beneficiary parents effect home schoolers?
• How will the new Social obligations which will be required of all beneficiary parents effect home schoolers?

October 17, 2012

Palmerston North, NZ – Many New Zealanders are concerned that the new Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill will violate human rights.

The Home Education Foundation (HEF) of New Zealand is trying to raise awareness of the serious human rights implications of the bill. Under the bill, early childhood education (ECE) will be made compulsory for all children of beneficiaries from age 3 to when they start school at 5 or 6.

“Hundreds of parents have contacted me over the last few weeks really concerned about this new policy,” says HEF National Director Barbara Smith. “The Bill will compel them to leave their children in ECE for at least 15 hours per week, but they want to continue learning at home with their children.”

Mrs Smith cites research showing that children do better at home building quality relationships with their parents and siblings. “Dr Sarah Farquhar, a New Zealand academic, says that the family has a much greater impact on a child’s achievements than Early Childhood Education. Papers published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry have shown that more cognitive demands are placed on four-year- olds at home by mothers than at preschool by teachers, and that significantly more complex language is used at home by parents and children than at school by teachers and children.

“ECE really only benefits the few children who are suffering from neglect at home. By making ECE compulsory for all the children of beneficiaries, the government will actually force huge numbers of children away from the optimal environment—learning at home—into substandard education.

“Shouldn’t this legislation be trying to help beneficiaries make good decisions, not forcing them into an educational model most of them don’t need?”

Under the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights, Article 26 (3), “Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.” Other UN conventions further entrench this right: Article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights requires signatories “to have respect for the liberty of parents … to choose for their children schools, other than those established by the public authorities, which conform to such minimum educational standards as may be laid down or approved by the State and to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.”

According to the New Zealand Human Rights Commission, the NZ government has ratified both these treaties and is “taking progressive steps towards achieving them.”

But organisations like the Home Education Foundation believe that the Social Security Bill will breach this universal human right.

“Learning at home is a legitimate choice which every parent, even a beneficiary, should have the right to choose,” says Mrs Smith. “And no child should be forced to part from his or her parent for 15 hours per week.”

Mrs Smith shares some of the comments made in the submissions of single parents. One mother says, “We came out of a bad situation; I have kept my children safe and now I am being punished by not having the same rights as a mother not receiving a benefit.” She fears that other women will be reluctant to leave unsafe relationships if it means losing the right to be with their children.

Other mothers are concerned about their families’ futures. “I need some assurance that if my husband does lose his job and we end up on a benefit that we will not be subjected to harsh measures and coercive tactics,” says another.

One mother, abused in state care as a child, said “The thought of making a choice between leaving my children with strangers or being homeless by ‘benefit sanctions’ makes me feel physically ill.”

Mrs Smith argues that if parents know that ECE is available, they will make use of it if they want it. “But the Social Security Bill makes no provision for the parents who simply want the right to refuse.

“It’s an unacceptable breach of parental rights.”

Sumissions on the Social Security Bill are due 1 November 2012. For help in making a submission, visit hef.org.nz.

About the Home Education Foundation

The Home Education Foundation has been informing parents for 27 years about the fantastic opportunity to de-institutionalise our sons and daughters and to embrace the spiritual, intellectual and academic freedom that is ours for the taking. Through conferences, journals, newsletters and all kinds of personal communications, we explain the vision of handcrafting each child into a unique individual, complete with virtuous character, a hunger for service to others, academic acumen and a strong work ethic. For more information, please visit www.hef.org.nz or more specifically hef.org.nz/2012/make-a-submission-reject-compulsory-early-education-for-3-year-olds/

Contact

To learn more about this bill, please contact

Barbara Smith

ph. 06 357-4399

06 354-7699

barbara@hef.org.nz

Already published here:

Scoop: Social Security Bill’s ECE Obligations Breach Human Rights

Voxy:  Social Security Bill’s ECE Obligations Breach Human Rights

There will be an original Opinion Piece in The Truth tomorrow

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Related Links:

• Media Release – Vulnerable Children Not Benefited By Social Security Bill
• Media Release – Social Security Bill Coerces Parents, Removes Freedom
• Make a submission: Reject compulsory Early Education for 3 year olds
• Some of the main links
• Comment on Q+A: Social Development Minister Paula Bennett
• Human Rights in New Zealand Today: The right to education
• Raymond S. Moore on Early Childhood Centres
• Should preschool be compulsory?
• TVNZ One this morning Q&A with Paula Bennett
• Maxim Institute: What is best for children?
• HUGE Concerns over the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill
• Letter from Paula Bennett concerning beneficaries and home education
• Toby Manhire on Benefit-slaying Nats starting to look plain nasty
• Linking welfare to preschool attendance a world first
• New Update on: How will the new Social obligations which will be required of all beneficiary parents effect home schoolers?
• How will the new Social obligations which will be required of all beneficiary parents effect home schoolers?

Palmerston North, NZ – Barbara Smith, National Director of the Home Education Foundation (HEF) of New Zealand believes that the new Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill will not benefit New Zealand’s vulnerable children.

“In my book there are three kinds of children: vulnerable children, poor children, and other children,” said Mrs Smith. “According to Paula Bennett, vulnerable children are ‘the thousands of children who are hurt, neglected, abused, and killed in New Zealand’.”

Ms Bennett quotes the government’s White Paper for Vulnerable Children, with some disturbing statistics.

Between 7 and 10 children per year are killed by a carer. In 2010, 209 children under 15 were treated in hospital for assault-related injuries.

In the 2011-2012 financial year, CYF received 152,800 care and protection notifications. After investigations, CYF found 4,766 cases of neglect, 3,249 cases of physical abuse, and 12,114 cases of emotional abuse.

As of 30 June 2012, there were 3,884 children in out-of-home state care.

“With figures as high as this, why is Paula Bennett only looking for a 5% reduction in assults on children by 2017?” asks Mrs Smith. According to the Ministry of Social Development website, the Ministry is working on three results that will support vulnerable children. “These are a 98% early childhood education (ECE) attendance rate, a 95% immunisation rate, but only a 5% decrease in assaults on children!”

Poor children, says Mrs Smith, come from families on a benefit or a very low wage, who are often setting up a business. “These children’s parents don’t have a lot of money to spend on the children but they are loved, clean, well fed, and often educated at home—these children are not vulnerable! Their parents sacrifice for them and the government’s White Paper describes them just the same way as the vast majority of children.”

According to the White Paper, “The vast majority of children enjoy loving and supportive homes and families. …Most parents put their children first, second, and third in their order of priorities. …Most of all, they want their children to be happy and fulfilled.”

Mrs Smith asks, “So why does Paula Bennett want to use the Social Security Bill to compel all children of beneficiaries to attend ECE and school, enroll with a GP, and attend the Well Child/Tamariki Ora checks? Clearly this will have an effect on the thousands of children of beneficiaries whose parents are neither neglecting nor abusing them.”

Mrs Smith emphasizes that the Supporting Vulnerable Children policy is aimed at enforcing ECE and immunisation for all children.

“Because my question now is, Who are the vulnerable children? I have several young children whom I home educate. In my case Paula Bennett would say that my children are vulnerable because they don’t attend ECE or school and they are not immunised.

“So now every child who doesn’t attend ECE or is not immunised is defined as vulnerable, and the government is trying to impose its health and educational goals on everyone while they ignore the truly vulnerable children who are being assaulted or killed.
“We have every reason to be concerned about the Social Security Bill.”

Sumissions to the Committee are due 1 November 2012.

About the Home Education Foundation

The Home Education Foundation has been informing parents for 27 years about the fantastic opportunity to de-institutionalise our sons and daughters and to embrace the spiritual, intellectual and academic freedom that is ours for the taking. Through conferences, journals, newsletters and all kinds of personal communications, we explain the vision of handcrafting each child into a unique individual, complete with virtuous character, a hunger for service to others, academic acumen and a strong work ethic. For more information, please visit www.hef.org.nz or more specifically hef.org.nz/2012/make-a-submission-reject-compulsory-early-education-for-3-year-olds/

This press release appeared:

scoop Vulnerable Children Not Benefited By Social Security Bill

Voxy Vulnerable children ‘not benefited by Social Security Bill’

Indian News Link  New law falls short on vulnerable children

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Related Links:

• Media Release – Social Security Bill Coerces Parents, Removes Freedom
• Make a submission: Reject compulsory Early Education for 3 year olds
• Some of the main links
• Comment on Q+A: Social Development Minister Paula Bennett
• Human Rights in New Zealand Today: The right to education
• Raymond S. Moore on Early Childhood Centres
• Should preschool be compulsory?
• TVNZ One this morning Q&A with Paula Bennett
• Maxim Institute: What is best for children?
• HUGE Concerns over the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill
• Letter from Paula Bennett concerning beneficaries and home education
• Toby Manhire on Benefit-slaying Nats starting to look plain nasty
• Linking welfare to preschool attendance a world first
• New Update on: How will the new Social obligations which will be required of all beneficiary parents effect home schoolers?
• How will the new Social obligations which will be required of all beneficiary parents effect home schoolers?