Sunday 15th August, 2010

The panel discussions between Paul Holmes, Dr Jon Johansson, CEO of Great Potentials Dame Lesley Max & Every Child Counts Manager Deborah Morris-Travers have been transcribed below. The full length video interviews and panel discussions from this morning’s Q+A can also be seen on tvnz.co.nz at, http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news

Q+A is repeated on TVNZ 7 at 9.10pm on Sunday nights and 10.10am and 2.10pm on Mondays.

PANEL DISCUSSIONS led by PAUL HOLMES

In Response to SIR PETER GLUCKMAN interview

PAUL Well there was one overriding theme from Peter Gluckman in that I guess. Here's what he said.

Peter Gluckman: 'The evidence is overwhelming. If you could invest more in the earlier years your expenditure in later years will be less.'

PAUL And that really was the guts. Is he right?

DAME LESLEY MAX – CEO, Great Potentials I think he's right. The first six years are vital. Where I would place my emphasis is on parents rather than institutions, and I think even the Nobel prize winning economist Heckman would agree there. The problem is deterioration of family environments. We've proved in the work we've done that you can help parents become the kind of parents they need to be in order for children to thrive.

PAUL And why have we got to talk about this in 2011 with all of the social facilities we have, with all of the education or the science available to us these days, and we didn’t have to in 1955?

LESLEY We had greater structures, greater chains of authority.

PAUL There's been sociological change, yeah.

LESLEY There's been a loss of expertise in parenting which is the lovely Dr James Ritchie said 'parenting is not instinctive in the human species to any significant degree, we've got to coach it.'

PAUL You are very big on this early childhood business as well?

DEBORAH MORRIS-TRAVERS – Manager, Every Child Counts Yes absolutely, all of the evidence is there. We need New Zealanders to understand that evidence and also for decision makers and politicians to make sure that the policies are in place, to support parents to do what they need to do for their children. In a practical sense too, it's really great if parents have got support from extended family, and this is something that we can all pick up on as a nation and say yes are we supporting the parents.

PAUL So do you agree with Lesley though that support the parents, and the kids will be fine, just support the parents?

DEBORAH Yes but there are some public policy issues here, we spend five times as much on people in their two years of life, as we spend on children in the first five years of life. For return on investment we have got to be putting our public money and our services into children and into families, if we want to have a creative prosperous and secure society .

PAUL So what are you saying Deborah? We take the money of very vulnerable old people?

DEBORAH Well it's not that we want to have a battle between the generations, and we are at a time now when the government is looking very closely at its fiscal spending, but child abuse and neglect in this country costs us two billion dollars a year. We are wasting money. We have got to prevent the maltreatment of children.

PAUL Two billion dollars a year forever more of course I suppose. You mentioned public spending, but what are the politics to this. Sir Peter was talking about – wasn’t he saying we've gotta our heads out of this silo of welfare health education, these silos.

JON JOHANSSON – Political Analyst Yeah and it's really unfortunate for Sir Peter that in the very week that you know we're talking about this you have a perfect demonstration of the silos that many of the same group with vulnerable youth that we're talking about, were the subject also this week of the Welfare Working Group which of course wants to target this group, get them off benefits, even though you know we're having a jobless recovery and what have you. The silo problem in politics I think is an enormous barrier to making progress, but I so agree with Lesley and Deborah here, that when you look at a young mind, you know aged three to six or whatever, you know they're like a little sponge.

PAUL It sounds as if you're saying really that you know as long as you look after that mind and those emotions in that first six years, they're going to be okay for really whatever comes along later on. He made a point of saying the blues might happen when you're 15 but they start back when you're six.

LESLEY Yes, and resilience can be so much strengthened by strong attachment, the bond between parent and child. The evidence is overwhelming in that, and I also think that we have a tension here between paying due regard to the international science which sometimes is determined by institutions having enough money to do a longitudinal study, and listening to the voices of New Zealanders, Maori, Pacific, Pakeha.

PAUL Well this may seem a stupid question, but I'd like to ask it anyway. What really has happened to the billions, what have been the outcomes from the billions and billions and billions of dollars that we spend on families, kids, young people since about 1945?

JON Well it's been at the cliff stuff hasn’t it, so in that sense it's been wasteful spending, and if you put in preventative strategies which Peter's report is clearly going to work towards, then ultimately that’s the best economics as well. Not only do you end up with an adaptable child that has a greater sense of self efficacy as they grow older, but you're empowering, even those disadvantaged children, if at age three four or five, we can get them out of their home environment into a learning environment, they're immediately seeing that there is another model to the train wreck that they....

PAUL Yes but they're not with Mum and Dad but never mind that’s another issue.

JON But it's some sort of mentor relationship.

PAUL This is too big for a government isn't it, for a three year elected government.

JON No, it needs political will.

LESLEY Look, I need to take issue with my friend on my right here, because train wrecks of homes, we cannot wipe our hands, wash our hands of them. We have seen, I'm talking 18 years of experience. We have seen families where there's been gangs and prison, and violence, poverty, hopelessness, become nurturing good parents giving their children a great start.

JON But it requires resources.

LESLEY It's not massive resources I can assure you, and I'd love to come and sit with you and talk about this.

PAUL One last thing. Are we catastrophising, there are thousands of students in the universities doing well, there are thousands of young New Zealanders doing extremely well indeed.

DEBORAH There are, and we need an opportunity to hear from those young people, and those children, to learn about what it is that makes them successful, have them participating in their communities, and also I believe there's a great importance here for us to have some cross party agreement, because children's issues always become a political football. We need sustained investment, and we need cross party agreement so that when policies are put into place they can remain in place for longer than just three years.

PAUL Bring back the birch!

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In response to JOHN HEWSON & BRUCE HAWKER interview

PAUL Parents are writing and asking where they can go for advice about their teenagers.

DEBORAH Okay well can I just say that Barnadoes is an organisation that works with children of all ages and so you can ring our parents help line and also visit our website for advice and support on how to work with teenagers.

LESLEY And teenagers who are still at school, school guidance counsellors, wonderful networks.

PAUL But isn't this interesting. I'm not being negative in any way but it took seconds for you both to think about this, and here we have the problem, God how do we deal with teenagers when it might not have happened if the problems were addressed further back I suppose.

PAUL Alright then, the Australian election. Surprised it's so close. What do you make of Julia Gillard, Dame Lesley?

LESLEY I was watching her on Sky TV the other night and at first when I turned it on I don’t think I can – but then I thought I couldn’t listen, but I got really riveted, she was so good the way she dealt with anything that the people at the Rooty Hills RSL, only in Australia, could throw at her.

PAUL I understand from Labour people in New Zealand that she came across, she's very personable, very pleasant, very realistic kind of a person. What do you make of this neck and neckness of the last week?

JON Yeah well I've always thought the equilibrium position was that Gillard would sneak it, not by much, and it might not even help her overall leadership, but she had to go, and I thought the public would give her a chance and then you know the following election is when they’ll really decide. But, it's been a lot closer, and you know you could see that her performance is actually quite mixed, and this has been an election which has always been looking for a reason....

PAUL Well Tony Abbot's no General De Gaulle is he? But he hasn’t made any particular mistakes and of course we have the old adage, who wields the dagger never wears the crown.,

JON Indeed, but I think that Rudd rapprochement you know as forced as it may have been, is actually a kicker here, because you know up in Queensland there might be a particular sense of grievance perhaps, but I mean Rudd was not liked, let's not fool ourselves here you know.

PAUL No a dill brain, a very flash dill brain.

JON And we've seen his like here once or twice too.

PAUL Oh yes. Deborah, both campaigners what do you think of them, Abbot, Gillard.

DEBORAH Well I've been watching it quite closely. I think Gillard presents very well, she seems to be fairly ruthless, you know she knows how to stage a coup, and Chris Carter could learn a few things from her.

JON Well she's at least learned basic trade craft.

DEBORAH Yes indeed, in fact she speaks very well, and I think she's more on message than Tony Abbot seems to be. He wanders and meanders a bit when he's speaking, but that said he's had his critics and detractors within his party and he seems to have been able to bring them into line and get them to support him. So it's very very close. I think probably Gillard will take it, people, will want to give her a chance. Thankfully it's been a mercifully short campaign and I'm sure that Australians are pleased that it has been.

PAUL It has seemed longer I think because the length of the answers she gives to questions. I do not know why she cannot give a quick answer without then going into these lists which she recites.

DEBORAH Yeah, I think that’s to show that she knows something about what's going on.

JON I would imagine our Prime Minister would be secretly hoping that Gillard wins, because the last thing he would want would be a jolt to his forces to see a one term government across the ditch.

DEBORAH They haven't had a one term government since 1931, so it would be surprising if Labour does lose.

LESLEY Well I must say Paul apropos of our last discussion of Peter Gluckman, Julia Gillard and her colleagues did one thing very clever, they saw what we were doing in New Zealand with our hippy programme, the Home Interaction Programme, parents and youngsters, and they have rolled it out in Australia because it was doing well in New Zealand. I'd like us to follow their example.

PAUL That would be your hope for the week ahead.

JON Well that we would see some progress on Foreshore and Seabed, or that we might see some progress on constitutional review, both of which have gone into the void, and it's about time they reappeared.

PAUL It's almost as if the government's gone into invisibility.

JON Well it's sort of like it's injected itself with horse tranquiliser, it's self paralysis.

DEBORAH Well my hope would be first of all that the Peter Gluckman Report doesn’t become just another beautiful report that sits on the shelf, that we really do get some action, we need it. If we get it right for children we get it right for the whole nation, and this is about all of us together, and we should all be very interested in whether or not parliamentarians and communities are doing the right things by our most vulnerable citizens.

PAUL Thank you all very much on the panel for your contributions.

ENDS

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