Money and bad YPs
My summary summary of John Key’s State of the Nation speech:
NZers used to be rich. We’re slipping way behind. Labour’s fault. Groceries, gas, and houses are getting expensive. Australians have better wages and tax cuts. Carbon emissions are going up. The underclass continues to grow. National will be tough. Many youth are in trouble. Many on welfare, many idle, many violent. We’ll make sure they’re all in training or work. We’ll give the Youth Court more power, and fund ‘fresh start programmes’. National is positive & pragmatic. We face facts. We have high expectations. We’ll move on from the tired debates of the past. NZers deserve better.
What would you like our government to focus on?
5 responses to “Money and bad YPs”
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I would like our government to promote a culture of charity and philanthropy. Not sure exactly how but perhaps a targeted tax break for people who spend time volunteering (after all, there is an equivalent tax break for people who donate money to approved charities).
I also like what John Key is proposing in terms of broader Youth Court powers. For those who haven’t read the article, these include:
– power to make parenting orders requiring offenders’ parents to attend parenting courses;
– power to refer kids to mentoring programmes (which are effective and will be government-supported); and
– power to order addicts to attend rehab programmes;
– access to a better range of sentences including residential sentences of up to 6 months (current max is 3).
The ‘supervision with activity’ and ‘fresh start’ programmes also sound like they are pretty good value.
I also like how two-thirds of JK’s speech is (relatively) hard policy rather than political slogans.
Will await with bated breath your summary summary of Helen Clark’s speech today.
matt, where’s the summary of Hon. Helen’s speech?
i would be interested to hear what the people working in the area of youth detainment/rehabilitation programs think of the speech.i wouldn’t have a clue if longer sentences for those young teenagers that come under youth court rulings is a good idea or not and what the alternatives are.
from my limited experience of the prison service which I think is basically a waste of time and effort CT (corrective traing) as it used to be called is about one of the few things that actually worked. ie a short (3 months) sharp shock at Rangipo It sounds like this is what the Nats have in mind except using the army rather than prison service. Tom Scott’s view in the Dom. the other day whilst jocular is a pretty good rendition of what happens. Some young fellows actually pull their heads in and start contributing to society and keep out of trouble. In a ‘nut shell’Helen thinks you can educate people to be good and John thinks you need to be somewhat more coercive at times.
If teachers are running on their ears now ( and I believe they are )I think Helen’s programme will take massive human resourcing. I’d be interested to know where all these extra people are gong to come from. Just havng kids at school another couple of years would require a heap of extra teachers.
Matt re #1 our breath is still baited