Foreword
This 14th issue of the Social Policy Journal of New Zealand deals with a broad range of important social policy topics. It includes work on tracking the impact of employment policy changes on Domestic Purposes Beneficiaries, a number of different perspectives on cannabis policy, issues relating to youth at risk, and the importance of sound monitoring measures to support social policy development.
The recent social welfare reforms are the starting point for two papers that explore their impact on domestic purposes beneficiaries and state housing tenants. Moira Wilson first presented an analysis of benefit dynamics data in Issue Thirteen of the Social Policy Journal. In the present volume she uses benefit dynamics data to track the movement of cohorts of DPB recipients on and off full and partial benefit. Wilson investigates the extent to which these shifts in benefit status can be linked to changes in benefit provisions that were made in response to the recommendations of the Employment Task Force to help beneficiaries into full-time and part-time paid employment. Charles Waldegrave, Catherine Love and Shane Stuart present the findings of a study of urban Māori, which combines survey and focus group data on housing issues. Their research design was specifically aimed at addressing methodological and ethical issues relating to the recruitment and empowerment of participants, and the training and roles of researchers, where participants identify as Māori.
David Tipene-Leach, Sally Able, Ripeti Haretuku and Carole Everard analyse the success of the Māori SIDS Prevention Programme, set against a background of the recent major restructuring of the health system. The authors relate this success to the fact that the programme was developed and run by Māori for the Māori community, and committed to working within a Māori world view, yet flexible enough to work with mainstream services and even extend services to non-Māori when appropriate.
Three papers explore cannabis policy with very different approaches. Michael Webb analyses and assesses Dutch cannabis policy, providing a first-hand account of the "hash coffee house" phenomenon and the system of practice in which it operates. Adrian Field and Sally Casswell weigh up a broad range of cannabis policy options, looking at the way they are used in other countries and their potential utility for New Zealand. In a second paper Field and Casswell present the findings of their survey of marijuana use in New Zealand, and the attitudes of New Zealanders to current cannabis policies and their enforcement.
Young people are the focus of three contributions to this volume. Erin Eggleston presents the findings from two pieces of in-depth research, one on youth gangs and another on Whakapakari, a wilderness programme on Great Barrier Island, which has been attended by many young New Zealanders with histories of substance abuse and offending. Judith Davey surveys the New Zealand literature on risks to young people, providing both a gender breakdown of these threats to well-being, as well as an analysis of the linkages between risks.
The importance of sound measures of well-being on which to base the development of social policy has been one of the key themes in this journal for many issues, with a particular focus on poverty measures. In the present volume the issue is developed with respect to identifying disparities between Māori and non-Māori, and the problem of gender sensitivity. Te Ropu- Rangahau Hauora a Eru Pōmare of the Wellington School of Medicine identifies fundamental difficulties in the classification of Māori in a range of data pertinent to the measurement of health. Celia Briar surveys both traditional and more recently developed measures and ways of thinking about poverty, inequality and well-being, and explores their potential for taking greater account of women's economic circumstances.
Finally, two book reviews assess sets of conference papers: Sally Bullen and Melanie Smith review Recognising the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, edited by Alison Quentin-Baxter, and Raewyn Good takes stock of Social Capital and Policy Development and Social Capital In Action, both edited by David Robinson.
I think you will read Issue Fourteen with interest and enjoyment
Elizabeth Rowe
General Manager
