KEY POINTS:
I don't care if anyone calls me a breathless cheerleader - I think John Key's speech was brilliant; inspirational. Just reading the text gave me goosebumps. Pity, then, that many New Zealanders will judge it by television news' interpretation - negative, cynical, "seen-it-all-before, oh-how-yawn" comments from journalists who think it's cool never to be impressed by anything.
No policy? How about this: "Programmes like Project K, which gives 14- and 15-year-olds one-on-one mentoring to increase their confidence, and encourages them to fulfil their potential... like Big Buddy, which teams up fatherless boys to spend quality time with men from their community... Family Help Trust providing child-abuse-prevention services for ultra-risk families. A National government will get in behind these sorts of organisations ... we will team up with private and community groups to deliver better services to those in need."
Sure, it's not detailed, but Key's not going to spell it all out so Labour or United Future can pinch his policies.
Where's the money going to come from? Listen: "We are already spending millions of dollars for Wellington bureaucrats to write strategies and to dream up and run their own schemes. I want more of those dollars spent on programmes that work... I want to turbo-charge the efforts of private and community groups making a difference. I want to change the balance of spending between government and privately run groups. Labour often views non-government providers as its competitors, not its partners... It smothers them with paperwork and makes them apply to multiple funding pools."
Exactly. For years successive governments have approached funding with a silo mentality. It's like carving up the kid so some funding comes from the education budget, some from health, more from CYF perhaps, even more from Justice or Corrections - and so on, with massive waste along the way.
Community, iwi, church or other private groups, however, see the family as a whole. And they get results because, as the head of the Family Help Trust once told me, when she asks sponsors to write out a cheque, they want to know their money is making a difference. Her organisation must be accountable, not through ticking boxes and completing forms, but by producing examples of families who've gone from violence and neglect, to children who are well-fed, educated and keeping out of trouble.
But it was more than just Key's specifics which impressed me. His speech was written from the heart; edited by the brain. He didn't equate being financially poor with being useless or hopeless, an error made by those who constantly bang on about lifting the wealth of all New Zealanders. Being rich doesn't automatically make people happy, and $1000 a week into any household (as the Kahuis were getting) didn't save the murdered children from a living hell.
It's a poverty of spirit that afflicts the underclass. Key acknowledged it's a tough problem. He said he doesn't have all the solutions, and wisely admitted no government can succeed, calling on all of us to help. I can hear the hard right already, muttering over their OECD reports, that we should make parents responsible for their own kids. They should face the obvious: there are parents who will never, ever take responsibility for their children. We have to accept they'll always be dependent on the state, will never hold down a job, and try to break the cycle so their children don't end up the same.
It's all very complicated, and I hope the National Party doesn't fall into the trap of expecting all single parents to get a job. When kids are under 5, isn't mothering or fathering a fulltime, rewarding, hugely important job? Instead of castigating DPB mums or dads with pre-school kids, we should set conditions on their being paid by the taxpayers and make sure those conditions are met: health checks, vaccinations, learn to count, read and reach all the milestones.
When Key first came to Parliament I thought he was a yappy puppy but I was wrong. He's got guts.
It's very chic right now to bang on about being carbon neutral, but the people Key cares about don't have the luxury of choosing organic food, fuel-efficient cars, double-glazed homes.
So, above all, I loved Key's speech because at last, it seems, we have a party leader who's not afraid of the cynics. If he can convince the Maori Party to help him, together they could turn around the lives of our desolate.
For selfish reasons alone I hope they succeed, so journalists like me will no longer have to write the gut-churning stories about the James Whakarurus, the Kahuis, the Lillybings and the Delcelia Witikas. We all want a country where these children flourish instead of being media cannon-fodder, so why don't we quit the petty politicking and do something about it?
