New Zealand ranked 34th out of 41 developed countries for child well being!
This is disgusting. Why the government hasn’t resigned or been thrown out on mass over this is beyond me. New Zealand is 34th out of 41 developed countries for child well being!
Does the exclamation mark and bold accurately portray my anger? Because I am defiantly f&*^%d off and you should be too.
And what will the country do about it. We will do nothing at all about it. We will continue to vote for the Labour or National Parties. Swinging from one to the other in the full knowledge that they brought us to this dizzying point of stupidity. Too scared to change.
Maybe Pencilsword was writing about this in his last cartoon, Denial.
“We’re wired to believe that doing something and it turning out to be the wrong choice is worse than not doing anything and having an identically bad result. It’s called omission bias and it’s why people often choose inaction when they are under pressure.”
And why am I blaming Labour and National for child well being?
Because since 1935 the government has been either Labour or National. Even the advent of MMP hasn’t changed this to any huge extent.
I am blaming them because Labour introduced us to modern capitalism and National ran with it. I am blaming them because since 1984 they have essentially been the same party.
So what does the report say about us?
The report measures nine child relevant goals and ranks countries from 1-41 with 1 being the highest.
- No Poverty – New Zealand gave insufficient data.
- Zero Hunger – Average.
- Good Health and well being – Bad.
- Quality Education – Average.
- Decent work and economic growth – Bad.
- Reduced Inequalities – Average.
- Sustainable cities and communities – Good.
- Responsible consumption and production – Bad.
- Peace, justice and strong institutions – Bad.
I shudder to think what we would have ranked if we had of given sufficient data on poverty and that is something the reports authors were critical of saying,
“New Zealand is clearly capable of reporting against Innocenti’s measures for multidimensional poverty, but hasn’t, and has instead broadened the definitive lines of measurement for multidimensional poverty when reporting internally to New Zealand audiences.”
In other words, we are lying out pants off. To make it worse the Deputy Prime Minister cast doubts on the metrics in the report,
“I do question some of the data and the way that they’ve collected that”
And Anne Tolley refused to answer questions in the house saying,
“I understand that the temptation to mix the indexes that were used in this report is great, but I have no responsibility for the health issues that were part of the report that addressed child health issues.”
That is the Minister for Children, Anne Tolley because some children’s health issues make them not children’s health issues?
Who took responsibility? No one. Amazing the news cycle rolled on and in two days it was all over…again….unless you’re a child
