Author: Lindsay Mitchell

OPINION: Lindsay Mitchell. For those of us who take an interest in child welfare and listen to various media outlets, Jane Searle is a familiar voice. As head of the organisation Child Matters, she was often the go-to person when child abuse deaths occur. As an ex detective who worked in a child abuse team, Jane wasn’t afraid to talk about contributing factors such as drug addiction. My first response to her appointment was that she would have to be better than the wet Claire Achmad. So naturally I am keen to hear what she has to say in her…

OPINION: Lindsay Mitchell A report from the Chief Executive of the NZ Council of Christian Social Services has made some headlines this morning. It’s called Kua Mahue/ Left Behind: Poverty in Aotearoa in 2026 None of the content particularly surprises. Lots of statistics (many quite dated) about who is in poverty, followed by the ‘drivers and determinants’ which include unemployment, inadequate benefits, debt, lack of social housing, the fuel crisis, climate change, poor mental health, discrimination and colonisation – specifically, “The failure of the Crown to protect the social and economic wellbeing of Maori [which] breaches the obligations of Te…

OPINION: Lindsay Mitchell According to Treasury, “People present in New Zealand each year are increasingly non-NZ citizens”: “In 2024, there were 476,000 resident visa holders to spend at least one day in New Zealand, and 705,000 holders of permanent resident visas.” Residents who have lived in NZ for at least a year can vote. But Winston Peters wants to change that to prevent several hundred thousand people who work and pay taxes in NZ from doing so. Many of these people will have citizen applications in process. For years I had tenants who were honest, employed, totally reliable, wanting to…

OPINION: Lindsay Mitchell It’s appalling that a quarter of a million children now need an income from the state to feed, clothe and house them. Data released under the Official Information Act shows over a quarter of a million children were dependent on welfare at December 2025. At 31 December 2025 there were 255,300 children aged 0-17 reliant on a caregiver on a main benefit (234,429); or on an Orphan/ Unsupported Child benefit (20,871). More than a third of all Maori children were dependent (36.5 percent) versus 16 percent of non-Maori. Of the 57,705 births during 2025, one in five…

OPINION: Lindsay Mitchell. It took becoming a mother to awaken an interest in politics in me. Having then become increasingly aware of the detrimental role welfare was playing in weakening family structure and what it meant for children, I developed an unfavourable view of big govt and extensive redistribution. In that context libertarianism made sense to me. I listened and read in that sphere, gravitating first to Lindsay Perigo’s minor party (slogan – “Its enough to make you vote Libertarianz”) and then ACT. During the 2000s the one person constantly drawing welfare dependence to the attention of the public was…

OPINION: Lindsay Mitchell. Immigration Minister, Erica Stanford, criticizing ACT’s proposed levy on immigrant workers, said it will fall to farmers to pay it. Farmers need immigrant workers because: “There are certain regions in New Zealand where there is low unemployment or there are Kiwis who are simply not willing to do some of those jobs, be it in agriculture or aged care,” she said. At December 2025, one of the lowest unemployment regions was Canterbury at 3.7 percent (all of NZ is 5.4%). At the same time there were 41,676 working age (18-65 year-old) people in Canterbury dependent on a…

Opinion: Lindsay Mitchell. For the last four years, the Ministry of Social Development, the main agency for the Wage Subsidy Scheme, has relentlessly reported on people who committed fraud during the Covid period. For example: You can go here to read names, court case details and outcomes dating back to 2022. What’s interesting is MSD does not report cases of beneficiary fraud. Yes, fraud is fraud, but it seems to me that people not on a benefit, who submitted false applications for wage subsidies during covid, get treated differently. They are all being made public examples of, while nothing is…

OPINION: Lindsay Mitchell Speaking after his cabinet meeting yesterday, affirming his continuing leadership of the National Party, Prime Minister Chris Luxon said: “Everyday Kiwis will not be losing sleep over political sideshows in Wellington – they’ll be thinking about their mortgage, their kids’ education and the safety and security of their community.” It suddenly hit me. He’s not talking to me. A good portion of New Zealanders have either paid off their mortgages or are renting. A great deal more than have active mortgages. Most voters don’t have children at school or uni. And most people feel safe and secure…

OPINION: Lindsay Mitchell I am not a supporter of government hand-outs. That’s because I am not a supporter of the government taking people’s money by force and deciding who to redistribute it to. That ability confers enormous power on the state. Taxing to redistribute only ever spirals upward. Wherever possible, earnings should be left largely with the earner – not expensively churned by dead weight bureaucracy. However, this latest ‘rescue’ package raising the In Work Tax Credit (IWTC) by $50 a week makes sense. It was Helen Clark’s Labour government that introduced the IWTC as part of Working For Families.…