• Supporting Employment In The Creative Industries
• Evaluation Report Released
• Widespread Consultation Promised On Report
• Genetic Modification
• Future Search Starts
• Unemployment Steady At 5.2%
• Genetic Modification And The Management Of Risk

SUPPORTING EMPLOYMENT IN THE CREATIVE INDUSTRIES
A new programme to assist job seekers to develop a career in the arts and creative industries was launched by Social Services and Employment Minister Steve Maharey and Associate Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Judith Tizard last Friday and begins operating nation-wide from today. Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment (PACE) is a new Work and Income programme for job seekers who list their preferred career choice within the arts and creative industries.

Under the PACE programme, job seekers and case managers will have access to information about assistance and funding available for arts and cultural workers available nationwide and in their region. The information will be used to compile personalised Job Seeker Agreements which defines the support beneficiaries can expect from Work and Income to help them get a job, and the obligations they must fulfil to receive a benefit.

PACE recognises that art is real work and builds on the commitment made in Labour's Uniquely New Zealand policy to make a career in the arts and creative industries a viable option. The programme identifies the vital role that Work and Income plays in supporting artists and creative clients to develop their careers, and fully equips case managers with a customised service for these clients.

In some regions, notably Dunedin, Nelson and central Auckland, Work and Income and arts organisations have already formed relationships to offer specialised assistance to budding artists.

Judith Tizard said PACE builds on the investment the Government made in New Zealand's arts and culture sector last year with the Cultural Recovery Package. Steve Maharey said he is pleased that Work and Income is part of a cross-Government approach to developing the creative sector, which includes increased support for Creative New Zealand and the Film and Music Commissions, arts participation in Modern Apprenticeships and the Incubator Development Unit.

PACE continues the shift that Work and Income has been making from a 'one size fits all' approach to a regionally-focused, flexible service where case managers work one-on-one with clients giving them the skills they need to move into a job and to stay there. Regional Commissioners will be working closely with the cultural sector in their communities to refine the support that can made available locally.

* further information about PACE is available on-line at www.winz.govt.nz/find_a_job/arts_culture

EVALUATION REPORT RELEASED
A new evaluation of National's 1999 changes to the domestic purposes and widows benefits reveals many flaws which the Government is moving to address.

The evaluation report was commissioned by the last Government to monitor the changes it made to both benefits on 1 February 1999 requiring sole parents to return to the workforce once their youngest child turned six years of age. It finds that while sole parents are highly motivated to enter and stay in employment, the changes introduced by National were not underpinned by sufficient support to make this an achievable and sustainable reality for many. The Government is considering the evaluation report and plans to make changes to the way the DPB and widows benefit are administered in the light of its findings.

Providing opportunities for beneficiaries to move into sustainable work is best long-term policy to improve their, and their children's, living standards. The evaluation shows that DPB and widows beneficiaries aspire to rejoin the workforce. However, as the report notes, the changes National made to both benefits failed to adequately support sole-parents getting, and keeping, a job. It shows punative approaches to welfare do not work. Childcare was inadequate, support provided by case managers was patchy and the Department of Work and Income was not sufficently resourced to handle the new policy.

* the report is available on-line in pdf format at www.msd.govt.nz/publications/docs/evaluatingdpbreforms.pdf

WIDESPREAD CONSULTATION PROMISED ON REPORT
The Government will consult widely before making decisions on a new tertiary education funding system. The fourth and final report of the Tertiary Education Advisory Commission (TEAC), Shaping the Funding Framework, was released last week and proposes a new funding framework to complement other changes being made to refocus New Zealand's entire post-school education and training system.

Associate Education (Tertiary Education) Minister Steve Maharey said the Government will be carefully listening to feedback. Those making submissions need to know that the government will not be proceeding with all recommendations, and will considering carefully the response of the sector and wider stakeholders.

Shaping the Funding Framework advances some concrete proposals for the design of the new funding framework which the Government intends to implement for the 2003 academic year. The current funding system is inadequate because it focuses solely on student enrolments. Other vital elements such as lifting achievement levels, responsiveness to economic and social needs, and the quality of teaching and research must also be taken into account in the future.

The Government intends to phase in the new funding framework to keep compliance costs down and help the tertiary sector manage the transition.

Steve Maharey said in a little over a year the nine-member Tertiary Education Advisory Commission has made an outstanding contribution to the reform of New Zealand's tertiary education system.

Public submissions have been invited on the report and close on 31 January 2002. Final decisions will be made following an analysis of those submissions.

* the full report and the Government's initial response is posted to Steve Maharey's website at www.executive.govt.nz/minister/Maharey

GENETIC MODIFICATION
Steve Maharey outlines the Government's approach to considering the future use in New Zealand of genetic engineering technology in his Third Way column included with this issue of Maharey Notes.

FUTURE SEARCH STARTS
The first of Child, Youth and Family's three-day Future Search conferences aimed at improving co-operation with communities was opened last week by Social Services and Employment Minister Steve Maharey.

The conferences - open to invited social services providers, Iwi, local bodies and local representatives of Government social services agencies - are part of CYF's New Directions strategy aimed at making significant improvements in services to at-risk children. The first conference was held in Palmerston North. Others are to follow in Christchurch (12-14 November), Auckland (29 November-1 December) and Hamilton (3-5 December).

When opening the Palmerston North conference Steve Maharey said the Government wants to build strong alliances with community providers for children, young people and families. He said both Mick Brown's report into Child, Youth and Family and the work of the Voluntary Sector Working Party stressed that CYF needs to improve the way it works with community-based providers.

In the CYF New Directions strategy the department committed to inviting its community partners to a series of conferences around the country to exchange ideas on how to improve the way we work together. The common goal that the Government, community providers and CYF share is to improve outcomes for at-risk children, young people and families.

Once the conferences are finished, a report on the ideas exchanged will be prepared for Mr Maharey to consider.

UNEMPLOYMENT STEADY AT 5.2%
Social Services and Employment Minister Steve Maharey is welcoming news that the economy continued to experience modest employment growth in the September quarter. Statistics New Zealand's Household Labour Force Survey for the September 2001 quarter was released last week. It shows that the official rate of unemployment is 5.2% - unchanged from the June 2001 quarter. Employment increased in the September quarter by 6,000 to an estimated 1,825,000 New Zealanders. Unemployment numbers continued to decline for the sixth consecutive quarter - down 1,000 in the last quarter. Steve Maharey said while there is already some evidence of a slow-down in some sectors as a direct result of the events of September 11 the New Zealand economy is better placed to cope now, than it was in some past episodes of global slow-down.

the Third Way, by Steve Maharey

GENETIC MODIFICATION AND THE MANAGEMENT OF RISK
During the last part of the 20th century many of the ideas that caught the imagination of progressive voters came from Green politicians. Increasing concern with issues such as global warming, pollution, environmental degradation and endangered species led to social democratic politicians taking notice and modifying their agendas. The result was a convergence of green and social democratic politics.

The point at which the two political currents - Green and social democratic - converged was the notion of sustainable development. Sustainable development can be defined as an approach to the production and distribution of goods and services within a market economy that avoids or lessens any adverse impact on the environment. There are few social democratic politicians today who do not accept the need to harmonise economic, social, and environmental policies - protection of the environment has become a defining element of modern social democratic politics and policies.

Yet this accommodation of green and social democratic politics has not been without its problems. In particular there has been a tension between the need for scientific advance as one part of the strategy for economic and social development, and the management of the risks that sometimes arise in the course of scientific discovery

As a consequence of globalisation, scientific and technological change has been speeded up and its impact on our lives has been more profound. The "natural" environment has been fundamentally altered by human activity. Even the human body is now the subject of profound change through science and technology.

Science and technology used to be outside politics, but in the present climate, with a rapid pace of innovation and change in an increasingly global context, issues at the cutting edge of science are at one and the same time squarely on the political agenda. Moreover they are increasingly the focus of the politics of protest, as much as part of the more formal processes of institutional politics and public policy.

On one issue Greens and social democrats tend to agree - decision making in this climate cannot be left to the "experts", it has to involve politicians and citizens. Science and technology have become part of the agenda of politics, and quite legitimately part of the democratic process. Through the political process lay members of the community hold scientists and experts accountable, and that is as it should be.

Genetic engineering is an example of this new political terrain. As every school child now knows, genetic modification (or genetic engineering) refers to altering genetic material of cells and organisms in order to make them capable of making new substances or performing new functions. In New Zealand the Labour Alliance Government responded to public concern with the establishment of a Royal Commission on Genetic Modification that completed an exhaustive report following a period of equally exhaustive public consultation.

The Commission was faced with a daunting task - assessing risks and opportunities in the face of competing and conflicting advice on the balance of those risks and opportunities. In the face of this lack of certainty they decided to assess the risks.

Of course this proved to be very difficult - the 'risks' of genetic modification are largely in the realm of the possible or the hypothetical. There is very little factual or empirical evidence of cause and effect. Unlike the risk of a person having a heart attack if they have a poor lifestyle, there is no history of evidence we can rely on to assess the risks of GM.

The Commission decided to recommend an approach characterised by "preserving opportunities". They argued that New Zealand needed to move forward in some areas (research can continue) while showing restraint in others (no genetically modified organisms will be released for at least two years and no GM food will be grown in New Zealand for the foreseeable future).

The Government took the same broad view. And the Government's response has, on balance, been well received by most New Zealanders.

However the debate has yet to be played out in full because the Green Party has made it clear that GM will be an election issue. The Government has decided to preserve opportunities with the objective of managing risks while at the same time harnessing science in the name of economic and social development. For the Green Party management of risk means closing down those options for economic and social development.

The view the Government took that the Green position was untenable for a biologically based economy like New Zealand's to take. There are obvious benefits in our scientific and technological community being at the forefront of research and translating discoveries into commercial products. In the face of the genuine possibilities there is a need to take bold decisions that balance risk and opportunity.

For the traditional social democrat the bias was always towards security through the minimisation of risk. Social democrats have been preoccupied with security for centuries. That is where the welfare state came from. The lesson of ecological politics is that social democrats are going to have to learn how to handle risks, and effect a more appropriate balance between risk and opportunity. But this is not a negative development. Risk has always been the energising means by which changes have been made.

The view taken by the government is that we should not be passive in face of risk. We should actively engage with it and seek to manage our way through to sound results that benefit our economy and society.

Intervention to manage risk was always a hallmark of the traditional social democrat - using the institutional machinery of the state to facilitate innovation and scientific discovery, while at the same time managing risk, is the hallmark of the modern social democrat.

That is what the government has done in the face of GM. The correct approach has been taken and it has highlighted why, as we enter the 21st century, a modern social democratic approach - specifically one that seeks to balance economic and social development and environmental security - is ultimately the only sustainable approach. In the end the Third Way is, politically, economically, and environmentally, the truly sustainable way.