One: A Minister of the Crown's inability to read/check what was in a container.
Two: His blaming a tradesperson for leaving it there.
Three: The way it underlines that MPs are most passionate about the things that affect them personally. Maybe the housing crisis, homelessness and inequality would get more action if our elected representatives suddenly were struggling to bring up kids on minimum wage. If they were paying rent on an over-crowded, damp house while trying to juggle the food and heating bills, there might be some action, too.
But they are well protected by their salaries, perks and sense of entitlement to ever understand that kind of existence. What Nick Smith has told us is that if you want action on a public health issue then, sadly, the best way to get attention is for an MP to experience the reality.
The call for a child-centred approach to government policy, especially in the way that benefit affects the wellbeing of children, has been taken up by the Council of Christian Social Services which - addressing the social services select committee - spoke of the opportunity provided by the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill to focus on impacts on children rather than just on adult compliance measures.
Examples of adult focus are the obligations on women with small children to be seeking work and sanctions imposed for not disclosing the identity of the father. These are fixed on the adult, with no recognition of the hardship this can cause for the children in such circumstance, creating another layer of vulnerability for already disadvantaged kids.
A child-centred approach would also maintain the direction being set by the Vulnerable Children's Act 2014 which is intended to ensure that children remain at the centre of policy and practice. It would be a travesty if government policy created vulnerable children through poor welfare policy while simultaneously attempting to address the needs of those same children.
Elsewhere, some French media are opting not to publish pictures or the names of "perpetrators of killings" - such as the most recent murder of a priest in Rouen - to avoid "posthumous glorification".
Le Monde, BFM-TV, La Croix, Europe 1 radio, France 24 TV have all said that the media has a part in ensuring that such killings do not provide further incentives by giving the perpetrators the global attention they seek. This approach fits with the work of American researcher Sherry Towers who has studied the dynamic of mass killings and found that the more coverage is given to perpetrators, the more likely it is that someone somewhere will see deadly violence as the way to get fame, their name and face in the headlines.
**Terry Sarten is a writer, musician and social worker - feedback: tgs@inspire.net.nz
