Deborah Coddington: At least those old-time shovel-leaners had jobs

Thinking is dangerous. When Richard Prebble said he'd been thinking, we in caucus got nervous. He even used the words as a book title.

These days there's no time for imagination-run-wild, forget-the-job-in-hand thinking. It's too dangerous to drive a car without concentrating on the idiot ahead jumping lanes, the truck up your jacksie, the cyclist running the red light, or the blonde bint texting and applying lippie.

That's why I take the bus. Not for high-minded environmental reasons. Not to reduce traffic snarls, but so I can have a damn good think as my large, chauffeur-driven Mercedes meanders through Petone, Lower Hutt, Alicetown, along the highway and into Wellington, to deposit me, all thinked out, in Lambton Quay.

Last week I trundled along to listen to British psychiatrist Tony Daniels, aka Theodore Dalrymple, debate with Green MP Sue Bradford. The topic was "Welfare Condemns More Kids Than It Saves", and the theatrette was full. Like all those sanctimonious environmentalists who use public transport, I parked myself and all my plastic bags right in the front row.

I'd been thinking about the railways. As usual, when anyone fiddles with railways in this country the sentimentalists campaign hard. But this time, while they argued to save the Overlander, I listened, instead of knee-jerk reacting in my erstwhile free-market habit.

I heard women talk about jobs in railway cafeterias in Taumarunui and Waipukurau (Ypukkarow, Ypukkarow, six minutes for refreshments!), serving passengers on the Limited scrumming for pies and cuppas. Men were employed to retrieve those cups, all numbered, and return them to their rightful station.

One chap from Wanganui said his city once had 400 railway families, whereas now there are only four.

In Petone when the railway workshops were alive, they made two carriages a week.

So where is the equivalent of all those workers now? NZ Railways once catered to the lowest common denominator in terms of the employment. Yes, the taxpayers forked out millions of dollars ($90 million in 1979 to 1980) so men could lean on shovels and watch jiggers go up and down the tracks. But at least they got up and went to work. At least their children grew up in families where one parent was in work. Research has shown that, per se, low family income is not automatically damaging for children. It's whence the income comes that matters. So a welfare handout not always, but usually, spells trouble, especially when a country ends up with intergenerational welfare and unemployables, as New Zealand now has.

But they weren't all shovel-leaners in railways. Kids who left school with no qualifications could learn a trade. Staff were recruited for a 40-year career and trained on the job by others who'd been recruited the same way.

And if we sold rail to save money, think on this: in the year to June 2006, taxpayers spent $15.5 billion on social welfare payments (which includes Working for Families).

I guess there are more than 400 welfare families in Wanganui now.

Sure, they're not exactly the same families who once worked on the railways, but my point, which I'm slowly coming to, is that we privatised the railways (and it wasn't Richard Prebble, it was Ruth Richardson) without replacing it with something better. Welfare has filled the vacuum.

In 1991 Dr Francis Small, then managing director of SOE New Zealand Rail, wrote about rail: "The old system valued and sought social and political goals, operational and technical excellence, smooth industrial relations, and reasonable budget controls. [The new] pursues primarily commercial goals, such as quality service and good financial results. It values innovation, technical and operational, and seeks optimum use of its resources, people, equipment and assets."

Privatised rail's pursuit of these admirable goals has failed, and in comparison, the "old system" doesn't look quite so bad.

Right-wingers who support free markets (yes, like me) robotically claim if the economy grows, all those on welfare will get jobs; a rising tide lifts all boats. How high? Is a tsunami of riches what they're waiting for?

We now have an underclass that's unemployable. They can't pick fruit, prune grapes, sweep roads, even lean on shovels any more. That's what welfare has done to them and is continuing to do to their children.

I put this question to Dalrymple, and, excellent though he is, his answer was unsatisfactory. If a government organisation is merely there to provide employment, he said, a country will end up impoverished. That's true, economically speaking, but only if it owns everything from banks to printing companies to telecommunications.

And what about New Zealand's nightmare of domestic violence, youth crime, drug abuse, sickness beneficiaries, deadbeat solo mothers with a changing parade of abusive boyfriends? Aren't these symptoms of an impoverished country?

I'm not advocating buying back the railways. I don't have an answer to the welfare problem, though I agree it's done irreparable harm. What irks me is that the debate is always polarised. You're either for government-owned corporates, or against. For welfare or against. Thinking about the issue, and perhaps admitting you might have been wrong, is seen as weak. But while we carry on with this "either/or" mentality, none of our problems will be solved.