New Zealand too toxic for the young and stands for human rights in name only.

Anthony Ravlich

Chairperson

Human Rights Council (New Zealand)

10D/15 City Rd.,

Auckland City,

Ph: (09) 940 9658

“National is defending its promise to stop the Kiwi flight to Australia, after new figures showed that for the first time in a decade more New Zealanders have left for good than people arriving to settle.

Statistics New Zealand released figures on Tuesday showing the bulk of the outflow came from almost 49,500 people leaving for Australia in the year to October 31, with just 14,500 coming the other way” (‘Key stands by brain drain promise’, NZ Newswire November 23, 2011).

 The following is a comment I made as part of a discussion on Auckland Indymedia (www.indymedia.org.nz ) on conspiracy theories. 

Submitted by anthonyravlich on 19 November 2011 – 6:19am.

Reply to Paul Sayers (a farmer), hidden comment, 17 Nov 2011.

Yes Paul I can relate to you – we need some tough farmers rather than the bunch of sissies we have as leaders.

You may be interested in the NZ social statistics I have posted on this site [social statistics included following this comment]

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Recently I have been talking to a number of young men usually intending to leave the country because of lack of opportunities and I sensed a quiet but very real concern they had regarding the large numbers of young women becoming prostitutes.

There was no problem regarding those who freely choose this life (you cannot tell people how to live their lives) but they were aware that young women also lack opportunities in this country and that many were likely pressured.

If you look at the social statistics I think you might agree with me that this country has become too toxic for young people to live in as it is.

By the way I may not have been bought up on a farm but I am very clear on what we are up against.

The statistics say a lot but in June of last year I made a stand on principle and appeared in the Auckland High Court. There I told High Court Justice, Lyn Stevens (now on the Court of Appeal) that after about 20 years of mixing with those lower on the social scale how these people were‘crushed and isolated’ (they would never to be capable of rising up as in other countries –  now after such despicable cruelty we boast a ‘peaceful’society!) (see my submission, ‘Freedom is not an impossible dream’, to the Auckland High Court in June 2010, www.hrc2001.org.nz).

These were often to be the parents of the children abused and neglected described in the stats. Even the Green Paper on vulnerable children describe 20% of the parents suffering from mental illness and 3/4 % drug abuse. High Court Justice Stevens believed my account and looking at the statistics asked me why I had not informed NZ society earlier – I had really tried in many ways but people were simply not listening. Of course, the mainstream media present said nothing about what I described as the NZ tragedy.

While the Green Paper seeks to redistribute wealth towards helping the children they will, in my view, only give the children better treatment after the abuse/neglect has taken place.

Also, understanding, as I do the bureaucratic mentality (apart from the social status of the group, the collective is everything – the individual nothing, an ‘evil’ philosophy, in my view) I went to Christchurch on two occasions (after the first major earthquake and after the second) because I was so concerned about difficulties arising re the rebuilding – I got an interview on Canterbury Television but it may have been too radical to air –still it may be. Now watching the BBC the lack of progress in Christchurch is now international knowledge.

Without wanting to minimize what has happened to NZ – such‘evil’ is known in history – see videos (part 1-3) Sons of Darkness, Sons of Light: Collectivism. It’s experienced as extreme negativity, and individuals feeling powerless with the view that ‘nothing can be done about it’.

In a way it can be seen as serving a function – just how deserving is the nation of its sovereignty because, in my view, they want us to join up with Australia, perhaps as a state of Australia… even as a protectorate, as part of the proposed East Asia regional bloc essentially to ensure the continuing dominance of the ‘sacred cows’. An emphasis on regionalization seems to be a part of the New Global Agenda.

But I totally disagree that any such policy/laws should deny people their core minimum human rights – both survival and self-help rights –which ensure people are always seen as persons with a name.

The only way to stop them is to stand up to them. New Zealanders should, in my view, get firmly behind the rebuilding of Christchurch and ask very serious questions i.e. what is holding up the rebuilding?

If bureaucrats are found to be incompetent then their positions should be re-advertised. If it is ideological then this is another reason why New Zealanders could also support including the omitted human rights to ensure people have their core minimum rights including being able to help themselves as well as  challenge bureaucratic red tape in court.

The ethical approach requires an emphasis on small/medium business because I consider it is new and radical ideas that are required if major social problems are to be addressed – give the young a chance to fix the mess that has been created by utter incompetence.

New ideas are needed and they will not come from any of the present leaders who are clinging to old ideas because of their fear of freedom– they have become far too sissy and safety minded.

The young can adopt the mottos – ‘fortune favors the brave’and ‘he/she who dares wins’. Remembering my All Black heroes when I was young many farmers might agree with me.

The social statistics are not comprehensive, for example, little is provided regarding disparities in the education system regarding differing socio-economic groups and the effects of the ‘tall poppy syndrome’.

The reference to ‘tribal systems’ is because, in my view, the human rights omissions in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 were designed to create a‘tribal New Zealand’ consequently New Zealand stands for ‘human rights in name only’,

Anthony Ravlich

Human Rights Council (New Zealand)

The following social statistics also indicates, in a number of cases, the extremes New Zealand went to compared to other similar countries.

(1) Tribal systems offer no future so the poor and their children as well as ‘tall poppies’ are of little relevance.

Committee expert Maria Herczog, UN rapporteur for New Zealand on children’s rights, said that infant and child mortality rates remained “staggering”…. that twenty percent of New Zealand children lived in poverty, and the high rate of Maori and Pacific poverty was of particular concern….that New Zealand lacked “an overarching comprehensive child policy” that integrated the Convention on the Rights of the Child into legislation and strategy frameworks ( Infant and child mortality rates remained “staggering” despite policies to tackle the issue, NZPA, Fri, 28 Jan 2011).

From 2004 to 2008, the reported number of substantiated child maltreatment findings for children 16 and younger had risen from 8,500 to 16,000. During that time, the total number of children in that age range remained at about 1 million (Human Rights Committee Concludes Consideration of New Zealand’s Fifth Report HR/CT/721 16 March 2010). Barnardos advocacy manager Deborah Morris-Travers “New Zealand doesn’t rate well compared with our OECD counterparts. We have the worst child death by maltreatment rate in the world” (‘New report reveals hidden costs’,Grahame Armstrong, Sunday Star Times, 23 August 2009, http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/2779210/New-report-reveals-hidden-…

The Child poverty Action Group state there are 150,000 (26% of children) in significant or severe hardship (2004, no official data available for 2007).

Also, UNICEF NZ said that of concern to the Committee [on children’s rights] was that no National Action Plan to guide policy on children’s issues had been implemented and matters that impacted on children lacked co-ordination. There was no single department or Ministry that took responsibility for children’s issues. “The Committee noted that children are fairly invisible in legislation”says Barbara Lambourn, UNICEF NZ’s Advocacy Manager.

She added: “There is no one batting for children at the Cabinet table. We have Ministerial portfolios for the elderly, for veterans, for disabled people, for women and even for the Rugby World Cup and for racehorses, but no Minister for Children. What does that say about the value we place on children and the matters that impact on them?” (UNICEF NZ supports better recognition of children’s issues, Wellington, 7 February 2011, Scoop).

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett said too often she has seen cases where a child has been killed or badly hurt, where two people have been present and one is responsible.

“There is an underbelly of intense violence in our community that is staggering and unanswerable quite frankly,” said Bennett (‘2011 set to be another year of child abuse shame’, ONE News, May 23, 2011).

This means the individual potential of many of the children largely from the beneficiary/under class sector is crushed at an early stage. This is very likely to take many years to overcome if they survive the mental health and criminal justice systems.

(2) Professor Innes Asher, who has spent 30 years as a paediatrician and who works at the Starship Hospital, in The Porritt Lecture, Whanganui, on 3rd November 2010 (http://www.cpag.org.nz/assets/Health/MIAsherPorrittLecture3Nov2010.pdf), gave the following statistics:

(i) UNICEF (2007): New  Zealand rated 24th out of 25 countries in terms of Children’s Health and safety (infant deaths, immunization rates, deaths from injuries)

(ii) OECD (2009): highest rates of suicide among the 15-19 year age group; child mortality is higher than average; and immunization rates are poor especially for measles and pertussis;

(iii) Professor Innes Asher’s research compared NZ with other OECD countries where data is available for these diseases:

She states: “Rheumatic fever remains our worse indicator of our child health with our rates 14 times higher the rates of other comparable countries on a par with places like India; serious skin infections are double, whooping cough 5 to 10 times, pneumonia 5 to 10 times and bronchiectasis 8 to 9 times the rates in other OECD countries”

(iv) Professor Innes Asher’s research also looked at inequalities within New Zealand. The risk of disease in the most wealthy household areas in New Zealand compared with the most deprived 10% of household areas in New  Zealand. She states: “…in the most deprived there are higher rates, but look at how high they are compared to the least deprived: meningococcal disease 5 times, rhematic fever 28 times ( a shocking figure), tuberculosis 5 times, gastroenteritis twice, bronchiolitis 6 times, partussis is nearly 4 times, pneumonia 4 times, bronchiectasis 15 times and asthma 3 times higher. These inequalities are in a supposedly egalitarian country. These differences show there are two New Zealands – one which is healthy and one which is not”.

The following are the social statistics relating to vulnerable children in the recent Green Paper.

Paula Bennett, Minister of Social Development, launched the Green Paper for Vulnerable Children at Aotea  Square on Wednesday 27 July. However, no mention was made of including children’s rights in the New Zealand Bill of Rights 1990.

Page 2:

Child, Youth and Family confirmed 21,000 cases of abuse and neglect in 2009/10
Over 30,000 students are truant from schools on any given day
7,342 school leavers left with no qualifications in 2009
13,315 hospital admissions in 2008/09 were for children under five that could have been avoided. In the same year 1,286 admissions for all children were as a result of assault, neglect or maltreatment
47,374 children (aged 0-16) were present, or usually residing with the victim, at an incident of family violence reported to the Police in 2010

Page 3:

Children in contact with Child, Youth and Family are five times more likely to have a Correction’s……by age 19 or 20 than a young person with no contact with Child, Youth and Family

Page 4:

At any point of time approximately 15 percent of children (163,000) can be considered vulnerable
Approximately10 per cent of children (90,000) aged 15 years live with some sort of disability – learning difficulties, chronic health problems (such as cerebral palsy), psychological disabilities or other physical disabilities

Page 5:

New Zealand research shows that approximately 6,000 children have significant behavioural problems before they even attend school

Page 6:

Truancy (reported in 8-12 per cent of 13-14 year olds)
Heavy and abusive cannabis use (reported in 10-15 per cent of 12-19 year olds)
Mental health issues (seven per cent of female students and three per cent of male students reported to have attempted suicide)
Criminal activity (8,000 Police apprehensions of 10-14 year olds in 2009/10)
Binge drinking (reported in 34 per cent of 12-17 year olds)
Early sexual activity and young pregnancies (4,552 births to teenagers in 2010)

New Zealand researchers suggest that at any one time 15 per cent of children (or 163,000 children aged under 18 years are particularly vulnerable. That is, without significant support and intervention, they will not thrive, belong or achieve. This figure is based on world-leading longitudinal studies that have followed children in Christchurch and Dunedin from birth to adulthood.

Within this 15 per cent are children who are significantly more vulnerable and at-risk of poor life outcomes such as learning and behavioural difficulties, mental and physical health problems, alcohol and drug dependency, criminal activity, imprisonment, poor education achievement and employability

Page 7:

Census 2006 figures show that 24 per cent of children 0-17 were maori, 12 per cent Pacifika and 10 per cent Asian

Page 28:

From available national statistics we know that 2,498 children (about fice per cent) entering school in 2010 had not participated in early childhood education and 15 per cent of children aged 0-4 years did not visit a GP in 2009 (for Maori tamariki the figure is closer to one-third)

Children going to school hungry

“Earlier this week we saw media reports that 55,000 kids now go to school every day without breakfast” states Labour’s Deputy Leader Annette King‘Government in denial over rising poverty’, Labour Party, Fuseworks July 27, 2011).

According to the Child Poverty Action Group: “Every school day across New Zealand there are thousands of children going to school without breakfast,” says CPAG spokespersonAlanJohnson.

“The reasons for this are varied and complex but our research indicates that low income and parents working long hours are at the heart of the problem, and that parental indifference or neglect, while a factor, are less of a factor than normally supposed. But whatever the causes, children aren’t to blame for their situation, and neither are their teachers and classmates who often have to deal with unfocused and sometimes disruptive children as a result of missed breakfasts” (Contact: Alan Johnson CPAG Co-director. 0274791958 ).

Children removed from parents

The Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand citing a survey stated: “Many parents said their children had been taken away from them by Child, Youth and family and they had been denied custody or access (mhf discrimin report –Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand” http://www.mentalhealth.org.nz/file/downloads/pdf/13parenting.pdf

Figures released to the Herald revealed 42 babies were taken into CYF custody less than a day after their birth in the 2009/10 year – a total more than triple the year before. The article stated that ‘248 babies were taken into state custody in 2009/10, compared with 202 five years before’.

And that this ’sharp jump in the number of day-old babies taken into state custody has sparked fresh calls for an independent watchdog authority for Child, Youth and Family’ (‘Newborns in state care ‘alarming’’, Jamie Morton, Jun 27, 2011).
NZ youth OECD’s most disadvantaged

According to the NZ Institute, described as a leading ‘think tank’ states ‘New Zealand youth are more disadvantaged than in any other developed country. New Zealand is fourth-best in the OECD group for reading, numeracy and scientific reasoning. But we are the worst country for students dropping out of school early and staying unemployed (‘NZ youth OECD’s most disadvantaged’, Yahoo!, July 19, 2011).

29 August 2011: News from CPAG

Urgent action needed on Children’s Health

Child Poverty Action Group calls on the government to put greater focus on families with children. New data from the New Zealand Children’s Social Health Monitor shows children’s hospital admission rates for preventable diseases has continued to increase and that hospital admissions in 2010 were almost 5,000 higher than in 2007. These are largely children from low-income and Maori and Pasifika households; and are often children in households reliant on an income-tested benefit.

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(2) Tribal systems demand ‘unquestioning obedience’ and want to suppress any‘bottom-up’ challenge.

The aim of the ‘tribal’ system is to crush individual and collective economic and social development. People with independent minds seeking truth, with leadership potential, can pose a ‘bottom-up’ challenge to the elites exposing their hegemony and human rights omissions in their favor.

There was mass exodus of New Zealanders. Estimates vary as to the numbers of New Zealanders who now reside outside New Zealand. It is variously given as between 700,000 and one million out of a population of 4.3 million (this included 100,000 Maori estimated in 2008 as residing overseas despite the Maori renaissance, ‘Maori overseas’, Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand). While, as described in the New Zealand tragedy, those at the bottom were terribly crushed and isolated and unless permitted to ‘speak out’ will just go elsewhere. The establishment employs numerous security guards to ensure people stay quiet.

According to the Australian Government department of immigration and citizenship as at 30 June 2009 an estimated 548,256 New Zealand citizens were present in Australia (www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/17nz.htm). Although there are also significant numbers of New Zealanders living in the UK, the US and Canada (Statistics New Zealand based on 2001 data).

Kea New Zealand estimates there are one million New Zealanders living overseas. It has launched a global ‘census’ of expatriate New Zealanders, Every Kiwi Counts, aimed at connecting their estimate of one million Kiwis living overseas.

“New Zealanders living outside the country are some of our most talented people, and already make a big contribution to the country’s future development,” says Sue Watson, Global Chief Executive of Kea New Zealand, which has 29,000 members around the world, states: “The OECD says New Zealand is the developed country with the highest proportion of its educated population living overseas. So connecting these people with home is arguably more important to New Zealand’s society and economy than any country of our type” (18 April 2011).

She was referring to research by Jean-Christophe Dumont (OECD) and Georges Lemaître, Counting Immigrants and Expatriates in OECD Countries: A New Perspective, OECD, Social, Employment and Migration Working papers, summary published 2005. This study found that among developed countries New Zealand has the highest proportion (24%) of its skilled workforce living outside the country, and that New Zealand is second among developed countries for expats holding tertiary degrees. Now New Zealand discarding ‘tall poppies’ and destroying the lives of many who were marginalized in society now seems to want them back.

(3) Tribal systems deny independent ‘bottom-up’ economic and social development and consequently people are unable to aspire above criminality and drug taking in times of unemployment:

(a) In 1998 there were two clandestine drug laboratories throughout the country. In 2006 there were 211 labs discovered. New Zealand, now has one of the highest addiction rates to methamphetamine in the world and methamphetamine is now the world’s worst drug problem, considered to be pandemic across the globe (MethCon Group Ltd www.methcon.co.nz.).

(b) According to the annual crime statistics violent crime increased by 9.2% in 2009 and disorder offending by 8% (Radio New Zealand News, 1 April 2010). Maori make up 51 per cent of the total prison population (Summary Record of the 2696 th meeting, Human Rights Committee, para 28, 15 March 2010).

(c) In November 2009 the Ombudsman’s office revealed New Zealand children had the second-highest reported incidence of bullying in nearly 40 countries surveyed in a study.
The study investigated year 5 pupils, including 5000 New Zealanders. The New Zealand children were reporting bullying incidents at double the international average, it found. (Child abuse remains unchecked, December 9, 2009, NZPA).

(d) Assault mortality, New Zealand is amongst the worst performers in the OECD, behind only Mexico, and the US, Finland and Hungary; life expectancy, 14th out of 31 countries; inequality, 23rd equal out of 30 countries (more youth in hardship than any other group) (nzahead, the New Zealand Institute, http://www.nzinstitute.org/index.php/nzahead/measures/assault_mortality1/) ;

(e) Police recorded 86,545 family violence incidents and offences in 2008; Police estimate that only 18% of family violence incidents are reported; half of all violent crime in New Zealand is family violence (Family violence is not OK, http://www.areuouok.org.nz/statistics.php). No international comparisons could be found.

(4) Tribal systems use social isolation as its major form of social control and this is particularly associated with mental illness:

(a) The Ministry of Health interviewed nearly 13,000 people for its in-depth Te Rau Hinengaro: The New Zealand Mental Health Survey, released in September 2006. It found that 46 per cent of New Zealanders will meet the criteria for having a mental disorder at some time in their life. Some 20 per cent had a disorder in the last 12 months. It found that 16% of New Zealanders have thought seriously about suicide (Controller and Auditor-General, Ministry of Social Development, http:// www.oag.govt.nz/2009/social-development/).

(b) New Zealand now has 106, 910 more individuals are ‘too sick to work’ and in receipt of sickness and invalids benefits since 1985 (according to Broken Welfare, North&South, May 2000 the number was 31,090). In June 2009 the total number who are classed either as sick or as invalids is 138,000 (Controller and Auditor-General, Ministry of Social Development, www.oag.govt.nz/2009/social-development/).

(5) Tribal systems are ‘top-down’ and strongly privilege higher social classes i.e. the focus of economic and social development of the State was on the middle classes and the Corporations:

(a) New Zealand remains a low wage economy, according to figures produced nationally and internationally. Statistics NZ’s last Census shows that around two thirds of New Zealand salary and income earners earn less than $35, 000 a year, says Business New Zealand employment relations policy manager Paul Mackay. This is evidence that wage inequality is growing: In 2000 a CEO could expect to earn eight times as much as the pay of the average worker. By 2006, the average CEO pay-packet was 19 times the average wage, according to a Sunday Times survey. (New Zealand as a low wage economy, 16 April 2007, http://www.neon.org.nz/newsarchive/nzlwe/).

(b) On 1 April the adult minimum wage increased to $13 an hour, and for the training and new entrants (aged 16, 17) the rate is $10.40 (Department of Labour New Zealand, http://www.dol.govt.nz/er/pay/minimumwage/). It can be seen that given this low waged economy young people have little chance of owning their own home (so why not just have a good time and forget about the future!). The average sale price of a house in New Zealand was $371, 555 in May (For people leaving the UK, June 11th, 2009, http://www.byebyeblighty.com/1/new-zealand-average-property-price-145600/). Homeownership rates are declining and private renting is growing. Census data reveals that between 1991 and 2001 the rate of homeownership in New Zealand fell from 74% to 68%. Rates have fallen for all levels of income, across all ethnic groups and most dramatically for the twenty and thirty-year-old age groups. There were 57,600 fewer owner-occupiers in those age groups in 2001 than in 1991. If these trends persist, the homeownership rate could possibly fall below 65% by 2011.This would mean that 80,000 fewer households would be homeowners than if the 2001 rate of homeownership applied. (Housing New Zealand, Area 3-Homeownership, The Changing Face of Homeownership http://www.hnzc.co.nz/hnzc/web/research-&-policy/strategy-publications/n…).

(c) Proper figures on homelessness and food bank use, which are good social indicators, are hard to find. However, the Auckland City Mission estimates there are between 100 to 150 rough sleepers in Auckland (Auckland City Mission http://www.aucklandcitymission.org.nz/homelessness_site_info.html?mID=29). But this does not take into account the numbers living in their cars, garages, low standard boarding houses and living off the largess of friends and caring people.

Also there are no estimates available for the many beggars on the streets of Auckland. It also appears food bank numbers are up: For the April–June quarter, the Downtown Community Ministry (DCM) food bank has provided 164 more food parcels than for the same period last year.

DCM Community Project Worker, David Manuel says, “We have given out 715 food parcels to 238 people in the last three months. This is up from 551 parcels for the same period last year – a massive 30% increase.” (Press Release: Downtown Community Ministry, Foodbank Numbers Up, 4 August 2010,

There seems now to be an entrenched underclass which could be called New Zealand’s‘untouchables’. In my view, while these people are kept alive they often have lives really not worth living.

Many visitors would notice that Auckland city, the biggest city in New  Zealand, now resembles more of a retirement village.

More background information on the above can be found in our council’s submission to the United Nations which is on the website of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cescr/docs/ngos/HRC_New%20Zealand_P…). An interview with Anthony Ravlich discussing Christchurch earthquakes, Vinny Eastwood show, http://www.guerillamedia.co.nz/content/leifer-thor-open-source-ecology-anthony-ravlich-nz-human-rights-council-vinny-eastwood-show-. A further article is ‘Fear of Freedom: collectivist bill of rights reducing New Zealanders to dependency’, www.guerillamedia.co.nz/content/fear-freedom-collectivist-bill-rights-reducing-new-zealanders-dependency-0. Also, my book, ‘Freedom from our social prisons: the rise of economic, social and cultural rights’ (Lexington Books, 2008) is recommended on the United Nations website http://hrbaportal.org/?page_id=3180. For your information but not relevant to the above my other book was Unemployment& reoffending, Google Books, University of Auckland, 1985, http://books.google.com/books/about/Unemployment_reoffending.html?id=-tAPOAAACAAJ)