A Better Intervention to Reduce House Prices
FYI, our media release today:
Sole Parents Blamed for High House Prices
MEDIA RELEASE
A community group calling itself the Ministry of Men’s Affairs has criticized the budget for failing to recognize sole parenthood as an important factor in overvalued house prices.
Auckland spokesman Kerry Bevin said “We have almost 100,000 DPB beneficiaries and many more sole parents not on the DPB. This puts great pressure on demand for houses because instead of one shared property between the parents, two separate properties are usually required to raise the same children.”
“Children raised by sole parents are much more likely to become sole parents themselves. Rather than pandering to this never-ending trend by encouraging a wild west approach to subdivision and building, the government would have much more impact on house prices by reducing demand.”
Kerry Bevin called for more investment in programmes to encourage parents to stay together and for much stricter controls on the availability of the DPB. “The government pays people, mainly women, to break up their children’s family units rather than rewarding or encouraging them to keep their families together. ‘Feeling dissatisfied’ should not be a sufficient reason for the state to pay someone to live in separate accommodation.”
“Issues such as proven serious domestic violence or recurrent serious addiction may justify the state’s facilitation of family separation. If the government made immediate DPB available only to only those cases, this would result in greatly reduced demand for accommodation.”
End
MMA
MINISTRY OF MEN’S AFFAIRS
MINITATANGA MO NGA TANE
PO Box 13130, Tauranga 3141
Contact Hans Laven (07)5712435 or (0274)799745; or Kerry Bevin (09)4747762; [email protected]
compounding this, is the fact that most families are building / buying houses considerably larger than wasw typical until maybe the late 1970’s. A 3 bedroom state house might have been 100sqm. Now a 4 bedroom 220sqm+ is a typical build in many cities.
Countering this, of course is that the abandoned fathers are often trying to squeeze into one or two bedrooms, given that’s all they can afford once fleeced of CS tax.
Comment by IWMOW — Sun 19th May 2013 @ 11:38 am
You cannot blame sole parents alone. The suggestion here is that the DPB provides the opportunity for a women to exercise a right to give birth without having the father present without considering other issues.
There is also a rate of separation to be factored into the housing market. There are times when parents are in transit between relationships that eventually create blended families or subsequent households that children share.
Other issues arise where separation can force the sale of a house interrupting the cycle of progression and development that families go through when providing accommodation for families and putting pressure into other parts of the housing market.
Another factor that needs to be taken into account is the diminished maintenance of our housing stock with transient rather than settled families and disrupted families unable to or unwilling to finance repairs and maintenance.
How many older women who gleefully ran through the Family Court asset acquisition scheme are now the proud owners of broken down empty nests that could only be demolished or sold at a discount but who will sit on tracks of land in places like Central Auckland that could house two families – say eight people instead of one?
Examining the surrounding issues might raise a better awareness of the effects of the feminist agenda on housing stock rather than a singular attack on the DPB.
Comment by Down Under — Sun 19th May 2013 @ 12:19 pm
Even in the 80’s 80 Square metres (800 square feet) was the norm for a 3 bedroom house! For a non custodial parent to share parenting duties even on 50/50 shared care, each child and the parent need a seperate bedroom. By the time Child Tax is deducted at IRD’s whim, there aint much left for extra’s like food!
Comment by Gwahir — Sun 19th May 2013 @ 6:00 pm
Down Under (#2): Thanks for your thoughts on this. Perhaps you would like to issue a media release or write a letter to the editor in order to raise a better awareness (than our pathetic effort clearly could ever do).
The suggestion was not that the DPB provides women with “a right to give birth without the father present”. The suggestion is that the DPB facilitates the break up of families requiring two lots of accommodation to bring up the same children that one lot of accommodation previously did or could have done.
There was no suggestion that sole parents were to blame alone. The wording was “sole parenthood as an important factor in overvalued house prices”.
Most DPB beneficiaries will be occupying accommodation separate from (and additional to) that occupied by the other parent, because the DPB is limited to those parents who are not living with a new partner. Reducing DPB-supported sole parenthood would be one useful way of reducing demand for, and therefore prices of, properties.
Comment by Ministry of Men's Affairs — Sun 19th May 2013 @ 6:17 pm
Gwahir (#3):
‘For a non custodial parent to share parenting duties even on 50/50 shared care, each child and the parent need a seperate bedroom.’
Is that your assumption or what is acceptable or did you draw from some specific legislastion? I suspect the former. My battles a few years ago with WINZ and with HRC showed me that they expect minimal living standards. I was told by WINZ that 1 bedroom for 2 children of the opposite sex would be fine and HRC agreed with them. So any single parent SHOULD be just renting a 1 or 2 bedroon place by their standards. Fortunately, I’m not longer in that boat but I sympathise with those who do have to deal with them
Comment by nobody — Sun 19th May 2013 @ 9:35 pm
couldnt agree more
Comment by paul — Mon 20th May 2013 @ 6:52 am
if the government were to restrict or cut the DPB not only would there be more housing also prison inmate rates would drop,male suiside rates would drop also.
The sooner this country wakes up to whats going on the better….I could write a book on this.
Comment by paul — Mon 20th May 2013 @ 7:01 am
@Ministry of Men’s affairs. You put out a press release. I am assuming you sent that to various media. Then you published your press release on this blog. I wrote a response to that and I published that response here. Whether you enjoy the response is beside the point.
Feminism is not an economically viable social contract. It is an arbitrary contract funded by politicians that use debt to give women what they want.
The political arguments in support of the DPB include
Ensuring a woman’s reproductive right
Ensuring the protection of a woman and her children
Ensuring equality of outcome for a woman’s children.
If the involvement of a man jeopardises the minimum financial equation eliminate him.
I was rescued by the DPB not by me, myself, my family and the community around me. I had the need to be rescued by state dollars.
That is where you ended up in your press release.
Then this becomes an argument of what constitutes domestic violence and addiction.
It is the economic arguments, not discussed that show the futility of this style of western life and the consequential effect on social outcomes, rather than individual outcomes.
We have developed a social contract that attempts to ensure enforced social equality rather than one that offers equality of opportunity.
Your press release says this …
I said this …
That’s a different approach to the same subject. I don’t like the fact that you are blaming men for the current solution rather than opening your eyes to feminism.
We think differently and that does not necessitate you spitting the dummy at me.
Comment by Down Under — Mon 20th May 2013 @ 9:23 am
Down Under,
I have my own reasons for blaming men (partially) for the situation of DPB.
First off far too many men hook up with women blind to the fact that they have NO paternal rights in the event of a pregnancy and upon separation from the women will too often be demonized and treated as disposable fathers reduced to being mere ATMs funding female largess.
Then there is a significant subset of men who aid and abet female the social, political and economic abuse of men and children through the family court and domestic violence industry by enacting and upholding those laws which allow the abuse to occur.
Comment by Skeptic — Mon 20th May 2013 @ 11:12 am
I agree on both counts Skeptic. What I am suggesting is that this should be viewed in terms of housing which is why I said ‘for the current solution’ referring to the housing market. This political-business situation engages men in a ‘Wild West approach to housing’ – we are looking retrospectively at the DPB and not at the results of the negative effects that feminism delivered into the housing market.
Comment by Down Under — Mon 20th May 2013 @ 12:15 pm
Down Under (#8): I don’t really understand many of the points you are trying to make. I don’t know where on earth you gained the idea the release was “blaming men for the current situation”. I don’t understand how you came to conclude that the release ‘ended up’ with some DPB beneficiary’s claim to have needed to be rescued by state dollars. I still don’t understand how you came to believe that the release suggested sole parents alone were to be blamed for the inflated housing market. You seem to be motivated to find fault with much of what we write for whatever reason, even when what you find fault with wasn’t written.
The issue of inflated housing was in the news and continues to be. Nobody including politicians as far as I have seen has mentioned or considered the contribution of sole parenthood to this problem, so we wanted to get that idea out there. It might have been picked up but that’s pretty unlikely for any comment from the men’s movement. It might get a few more people questioning the wisdom of the family-wrecking DPB in its current form. All pretty simple.
I guess I would have appreciated some hint of positive acknowledgement such as “well done for thinking about this issue and putting something out” in addition to the disagreement and advice about how we/you could have done it better.
Of course you can make any response you want. The lack of positive acknowledgement here gets pretty tiresome but of course you’re right, how anyone feels about your unsupportive responses is ‘beside the point’. Good for you, go for it, hope it works well for you. I really don’t care particularly but I will give as good as I get. I don’t think it’s working well for the cause of men or families in NZ though.
Comment by Ministry of Men's Affairs — Mon 20th May 2013 @ 7:38 pm
@ Ministry of Men’s affairs
I see that. My answer would be that there is confusion between the philosophical position of feminism, understanding opposing points of view and differentiating between this and actual outcomes.
I didn’t say current situation, I said current solution.
Problem: overheated housing market being resolved by a Wild West approach to subdivision and housing.
This is a matter of perceived justification and entitlement installed in women. I don’t need to look at any other option, simply put my hand out.
Your opening line. Sole parents blamed for high house prices. A sole parent in our feminist society is one who chooses to exist as a parent alone with children. If you take two households of Mum, Dad and the kids and simply move the players around in those two households, you don’t have any sole parents, or any increased pressure on the housing market.
If I had feelings, I’d be seriously hurt by this comment. (that’s your perception) The average journalist can work out that unless one or both parents remain sole then this doesn’t create pressure in the housing market.
No, it is not that simply. As I suggested the pressure on housing is not necessarily the end result, it is the transition to the end result and the significant factor in that equation is the rate of separation and divorce. This is where is where the Family Court features strongly and I am sure your heard Boshier say on Q and A the other where there is any ‘family violence’ the man should be removed permanently.
I return to my opening statement that you cannot blame sole parents alone which is effectively what you’ve done. I know what you are trying to get across and I made what I thought were pertinent comments relative to the housing market.
I don’t comment here because I am determined to piss you off, neither am I here to pat you on the back. I comment because it is something we need to do.
If your press release was picked out from the thousands that circulate each day and even read, I would suggest that it would have gone straight in the bin because of the reasons I have mentioned above.
That’s the current reality.
Apart from that we have had an interesting discussion here, shared some opinions and that is just as important, because the site does have an audience.
Comment by Down Under — Tue 21st May 2013 @ 10:20 am
Here’s another way of looking at the issue in the manner you have.
Shared Parenters Blamed for High House Prices
A community group calling itself the (xyz) has criticized the budget for failing to recognize shared parenthood as an important factor in overvalued house prices.
An increasing number of affluent professionals are refusing to live in the same house to parent their children. They fly under the radar because they resolve their differences amicably and buy a second home of equal size for one of the parents to live in.
Although these couples are actively engaged in careers and raise their children through shared parenting, if they do not re-partner – increasingly the case these days – the housing stock loses one family home each time this happens.
Does it really take two bedrooms to raise a child?
Comment by Down Under — Wed 22nd May 2013 @ 12:08 pm
purely speculative reasoning ministry of men’s affairs notwithstanding a blaming and shaming approach for propaganda fodder. I don’t suppose you have some facts available to back up your assumptions?
Comment by Anon — Tue 18th June 2013 @ 5:58 pm
Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG)
We hope you’ll watch this documentary tonight and vote for the ‘poverty’ side.
It’s an opportunity to say we don’t believe the ‘bad parent’ argument is a good enough excuse to do nothing for New Zealand children who won’t get enough to eat today, who live in cold, damp homes or get sick from preventable diseases.
And it’s an opportunity to say we believe we are all responsible for the well-being of all our children.
Solving poverty requires collective action from families and communities, and a commitment from Government to make investing in children the highest priority. Please join your voice with ours so our decision makers and leaders hear this loud and clear.
Comment by Anon — Wed 19th June 2013 @ 2:27 pm
Anon #15. The best way of reducing ‘child poverty’ in NZ is to make the DPB more difficult to obtain, discouraging teenage women from embarking upon a beneficiary career and discouraging mothers from breaking up the families they started with their children’s father. As well as reducing child poverty this will reduce the widespread abuse of children through degrading their relationship with their fathers. While we’re at it, let’s stop the facilitation of such child abuse by the NZ Femily Court of Feminist Child Abuse.
Comment by Man X Norton — Wed 19th June 2013 @ 6:20 pm