by Sue Bradford
There was quite a scene in Parliament today when I dared to use the ‘f’ word not once but twice, when challenging the Government over the way some beneficiaries are treated by Work & Income staff.
The Speaker and MPs from other parties took instant umbrage when in the course of general debate I quoted a Rotorua Work & Income case manager who last week told a young mum asking for a food grant to ‘f… off’, with a big smile on his face as he did it.
I was of course required to withdraw and apologise for my use of the dreaded word. However,  I went on to point out that if MPs felt so offended at hearing this language in the House, how do they think a young solo mum might feel when addressed in this manner by a chap who has the power to grant or decline her very means of survival?
This Rotorua case is just the tip of the iceberg of course.  Some eight or nine  years after the demise of the Christine Rankin era of WINZ management it is way past time that MSD trained all its front line staff to treat beneficiaries with respect and dignity.Â
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare | Parliament | Society & Culture by Sue Bradford on Wed, August 6th, 2008
More posts by Sue Bradford | more about Sue Bradford
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
yah. Provide your reasons please. One would think...
Sue
I was watching the house today when you used that word, as far as I am concerned it was disgraceful, you had no need at all to use that type of language.
On the subject of the young mother (no doubt already on the DPB), I applaud the young man (if not his choice of language) I am sure he had a very good reason to tell this young mother to go away, he is after all the guardian of my tax dollars and we need more like him working for WINZ.
I don’t suppose you suggested the the “young mum” that she might like to get a job at all?
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One more thing, why on earth should the guardians of my tax dollars be forced to treat people who are ripping off the system with respect and dignity?
These people (WINZ staff) are experts in what they do, they can tell when somebody is deserving and when they are not, I would back the judgment of the young man in question over your judgment any day of the week and twice on Sundays.
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Ergh, i hate to say it but im with BB on this one.
If she didint have the means to support the child she shouldint of had one or should of put it up for adoption; the state shouldint have to support someones reproduction. having said that it needs to be insured that the child has equality of opportunity.
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Sapient
Despite the claims of people like Bradford ALL children have the same opportunities in NZ, sadly not all kids have good parents but then there is nothing that can be done about this while we continue with a socialist government.
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Did she not get her benefit, or was she asking for over and above the generous amount already provided by taxpayers?
If over and above, then it sounds like he was doing his job, although I certainly don’t condone the language and approach.
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Hmm, that’s a nice simple answer Big Bro. Put the mother back to work and protect your tax dollars. But wait, I guess that means you’ll also be supporting universal free early childcare and early childhood education, extensions to flexible work employment provisions and and the Working for Families program for this woman who you are sending back to work.
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Frog
Do you really want me to reply to that loaded question?
I would not support ANY more waste of my tax dollars.
This “young mum” should not be receiving one penny at all of my money, I suspect she is part of the baby factory that is a direct result of the DPB.
I repeat, the young man at WINZ deserves to be rewarded for his prudent action’s and outstanding judgment.
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Here’s a link to the transcript of the oral question:
and here’s the speech to the house:
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What on earth is wrong with WINZ staff pushing people off benefits and back to work?
Or does Comrade Sue think that it is the right of these low life’s to sponge of the rest of us simply because they cannot be bothered getting a job.
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I don’t think you would find too many full time mothers who agreed with you that they ‘did not have a job’.
Big Bro, putting aside your apparent call for the sterilization of people who might end up on a benefit at some stage in the future, let’s assume the child of a mother on a benefit is already born and now hungry. Should he or she starve because his or her parent is refused a benefit in order to save you some taxes? That seems to be the gist of your argument.
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Frog
The child of this mother will be on the DPB, if she cannot afford to feed the kid then that child should be removed from here immediately and put into care of offered up for adoption.
Sue Bradford seems to think that it is the job of the tax payer to provide an endless fund for these low life parents.
The receive enough of my money as it is and if they cannot manage on that then they are obviously not providing the necessities of life for the child and as such the child should be removed.
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big bro your attitude disgusts me. Whether or not the woman in question was ‘deserving’ by your selfish standards or not, she should be treated with respect by any public servant payed by my tax dollars. I patiently await the day when you arrive in the bread line cap in hand through no fault of your own, and are served a heaping helping of humble pie.
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well if she was trying to get more than the, already large, amount she is ‘entitled’ to then he was in the right. even the best can loose their cool when confronted consistently by whining bludgers.
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My experience of front-line WINZ staff is that they can be pretty incompetent. My partner and I were formally investigated once by WINZ goons – for being married! We never found out why WINZ had a problem with us getting less than we would have if we were both single.
I’d say, BB, that a child abandoned by one parent has enough problems with out being removed from someone who does care enough to stick around. However, I do agree with you that the Govt should pay childcare so solo parents can go back to work, if that’s what they want.
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sorry sapient, and blue peter. Your attitudes disgust me too. I didn’t mean to discriminate in my expression of dismay at your complete lack of compassion, let alone manners.
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Sapient Says:
August 6th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
> well if she was trying to get more than the, already large, amount she is ‘entitled’ to then he was in the right.
Under the New Zealand benefit system, the question of what one is ‘entitled to’ is often quite complicated. If the child had an illness or disability that led to long-term medical costs, the mother may have been entitled to a disability allowance and/or a child disability allowance to pay for it. If the mother’s car broke down and she needed it to get to a part-time job, she would be entitled to a repayable advance to pay for the repair. If she needed emergency dental work done, she may have been entitled to an extra grant to pay for that.
The benefit rate is set on the assumption that it is not enough to pay for things like that, so that people will actually have to ask for more money for those things. It’s not the beneficiary’s fault if she has to ask for extra assistance without knowing whether she’s entitled to it or not, and if the case manager doesn’t know either. The way the system is designed makes that almost inevitable.
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lol, well, caraka, you bleeding-heart liberals discust me too. besides who cares about manners? they are completly superfluous. and compasion is just as bad.
Though i do support everything in frogs post except the WFF.
If someone does not have the guarantied resources to raise a child then they should not have a child. its that simple. there is no reason why the state should sponser someone having children unless there is a shortage, and that is not the case.
Ever watched Idiocracy? its a somewhat comedic film, also a process that results from the society bradford advocates, probally what spawned you too…
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K,
emphasis on the “‘entitled’”.
I advocate eugenics, you think i care about someone being ‘entitled’ to extra money cause their a F#$K up? I only even suppor the benifit cause it has socially positive results when implimented correctly.
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Sapient – I hope that you end up standing in the bread line soon too, right behind – no, in front of big bro, (through no fault of your own), and also enjoying a heaping helping of humble pie. Then we’ll have a chat about compassion and manners you ungrateful sh*t. You don’t deserve the society you live in! I curse you to live in a society that cares about people as much as you do!
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BluePeter asked: Did she not get her benefit, or was she asking for over and above the generous amount already provided by taxpayers? If over and above, then it sounds like he was doing his job…
BP, that’s not how it should work. Anyone should have the right to approach Work and Income and make an application for assistance. The application should be processed, according to the individual circumstances of the applicant (the facts) and the application of the legislation, regulations, Ministerial Directions and/or Ministerial Welfare Programmes in force at the time (the law) to those facts. A decision should then be made to grant or decline the assistance applied for. That decision should be communicated in writing to the applicant, and rights of review notified in case the applicant is dissatisfied with the decision and wishes to challenge it.
That is what natural justice demands. Simply telling an applicant, however justified or unjustified their application may be, to “f… off” is not only incredibly rude and unprofessional, but also unlawful.
Sapient, neither you or I know anything about the circumstances of this woman when she had the child or children. For all we know, she may have been in a long-term relationship with a partner who was quite capable of financially supporting the child and who has since “done a runner”, or has died, or has abused her. Please do not judge without knowing the facts.
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Hey caraka your attitude disgusts me as well.
While the I do agree the WINZ worker shouldn’t of said Fuck Off to the women. A benefit is not a state entitlement it is a state privallege something the Thief Sue Bradford should do well to remember.
Hey if i ever got my way, the benefits would only pay for essential food, housing and essential clothing and education supplies for thier children, nothing else. The clothing would probably all be recycled second hand clothing too. Things beneficiary’s would not be able to spend my money on alchol, smokes, gambling, etc.
Everyone has to remember that it is not the beneficiary’s money that they are spending it is our money that they are spending and we should have a say in how that money is spent.
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lol,toad, in 2 of those 3 cases its her own fault, but then again you wouldint see it that way, and reguardless of case if she is able to generate an income then she should be able to work during the day and put the child in day care, as she should, and if she is unable to work she shouldint be getting a benifit or having a child in the first place.
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I advocate eugenics, you think i care about someone being ‘entitled’ to extra money cause their a F#$K up? I only even suppor the benifit cause it has socially positive results when implimented correctly.
Frog, I really don’t see the point of allowing people to post like that on this blog. It turns this place into a debate dominated by reactionaries, and prevents meaningful discussion of the topic. I know that moderation of blogs is a tricky thing, but when I see discussions like the one on this page, I mostly think I can’t be bothered saying anything.
I doubt I’m the only one that feels that way.
I think toad’s last post summed it up pretty well. The issue here isn’t the validity of solo parents, it’s whether a public servant was doing their job properly and lawfully.
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A benefit is not a state entitlement
Actually current WINZ policy is now to use the term ‘entitlement’ themselves when referring to what beneficiaries can get. Special Needs Grants for food have certain criteria and if met then there has to be a good reason for someone to be turned down.
Irrespective of all that no-one deserves to be told to fuck off in that kind of situation.
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What an interesting debate.
Firstly why didn’t comrade Sue just say “F” off?, oh thats right she was trying to make a point in the house she has so much respect for, silly me.
Secondly I don’t think anyone can have any self respect or dignity when on the dole, that dosen’t mean they should be abused, but some of the crap that WINZ staff have to put up with must push them to breaking point quite regularly.
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Sapient said: …in 2 of those 3 cases its her own fault, but then again you wouldint see it that way
The woman’s fault!!! No, I certainly don’t see it that way Sapient. Are you a mysogynist? How can it be the woman’s fault if her partner does a runner or beats her up and she then chucks him out, and she’s left on her own with the kids and no financial support?
Please explain!
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akew – I suspect the excitement of the trifecta of Sue Bradford’s first frogblog post, the chance for some beneficiary bashing and naughty swear words just overwhelmed some people and they need to get it out of their system. I’m hoping normal transmission will resume tomorrow with some on topic and respectful debate.
It would be interesting to discuss for instance, putting aside one’s personal feelings about benefits and beneficiaries, how WINZ staff should be expected to treat people who come into their office to apply for benefits as they are currently legally entitled to do. And, should their primary consideration be customer/client service or saving money?
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What about the ones who won’t name the father or the ones who have a bloke on the quiet?
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What about the ones who won’t name the father or the ones who have a bloke on the quiet?
Yes, that’s really the relevant question here *rolls eyes*
It would be interesting to discuss for instance, putting aside one’s personal feelings about benefits and beneficiaries, how WINZ staff should be expected to treat people who come into their office to apply for benefits as they are currently legally entitled to do. And, should their primary consideration be customer/client service or saving money?
Couldn’t agree more, frog
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The manner of my posts seems to be progresivly deteroating into that of BB/Phil, its disturbing realy. Though akew should put a sock in it.
It is NOT the responsibility of state to provide for an individual past the point of aiding in their immediate survival so that they can get back to work.
If an individual chooses not to work and to instead be a stay at home parent (sorry phil) then that is all fine and dandy but they better hope they have a large fourtune or a partner to support them because it is not the duty of the state to suckle them!
I beleive the state should impliment a voucher system for daycare, then these people will have no excuse.
further more, increasing benifits and increasing benifit number accually makes it worse for the benificiaries as it decreases job availibility as ultimatly it means more tax and more tax meand greater marginal costs which means fewer jobs and ultimatly less cash to support the benificiaries who accually do deserve it.
Toad,
I shall explain then.
In both those cases the problem lies in the victimised partner having chosen the wrong person to make a partner. If they get beat up its partially their fault for being with someone who would beat them up in the first place. if they get left behind its their fault for chosing someone whos unreliable.
its called courtship, pretty mucht the whole point is to determe ow viable it is to procreate with the person, if one is stupid enough to make a bad choice its their fault.Theres no misogyny about it, the same goes if a male was the victim.
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Frog,
Public servents should do what they are employed to do, there is nothing to discuss.
if they are employed to dish out benifits they should.
if they are employed to save money the should.
if they are employed to ensure that an indvidual receives the money they are legaly entitled to when certain conditions are met and not when they are not met then that is what they should do.
Sadly sue, the profesional victim, doesint tell us the situation so we cannot remark on that. so we are left to talk about the virtues of the system itself.
Everyone can blow their top, maybe they had a hard day, maybe the individual is a drug dealer who constantly tries to scam the system and bugs him 24/7. we dont know, we dont have the information. you always claim that public servants arnt ‘evil’, so how about just working with what we know and assume that he may have had a legitimate reason to blow his top like that.
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You’ve won some votes:
http://www.interest.co.nz/ratesblog/index.php/2008/08/06/distortions-in-housing-market-remain-says-bollard/#comment-6409
and lost some [refer Comrade Sproutford]
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A party pertaining to be primarily about the environment and (once was) Values should take more of an objective and balanced approach to an issue involving birth responsibilites, biology and evolution, family, social policy and incentives. Why other than naked selfish political ambition of far left-wingers does the “green” party have so many from the far left?
Thoreau anyone?
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Gee there are some are spiteful little worms commenting on here aren’t there. Quite sad that there are such people in NZ.
Dudes, you know nothing about the woman. Secondly, there IS a safety net and it has been put there by democratic process.
Give the benefit of the doubt before frothing at the mouth with hate and stupidity.
Any public servant in customer service, who actually speaks to the public like that, should simply be sacked. Quite obvious for normal reasonable people really.
Try to think up some creative, compassionate and reasonable solutions, instead of miserable punitive drivel aimed at the most vulnerable, you pathetic miserable little worms.
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Are we bashing beneficiary’s only on August the 6th or are we continuing onto the 7th as well and since its still the 6th here can i still bash beneficiary’s.
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As much as I hate seeing my tax dollars squandered on all sorts of loony projects by the current administration I think that Sue Bradford’s questions sounds entirely reasonable. No doubt Ruth Dyson will have the case looked into. If the young woman in question was not entitled to have her request met she is still entitled to a polite refusal. If she causes trouble then that is a matter for the security guards or police.
I think Peter Dunne needs to get over himself: when we have the Minister of Foreign Affairs regularly calling journalists ‘wankers’ then it is very precious to object to ‘fuck off’.
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I think my comment went into moderation because I quoted Sue Bradfords quote and Winston Peters. Is the filter set to block ‘Winston Peters’
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i see some sensitive are shocked at the levels of irrational abuse piled upon sole parents..by the rabid righties..
but you shouldn’t feel angry at them..
..cos’ their anger comes from their deep frustration..
..at being forever ‘uncool’/'un-hip’..
i
it’s an inferiority complex thing..
..and it may be hard to see..but under that foaming anger..
..those righties are hurting..
..(and do deserve our sympathy..eh..?)
http://whoar.co.nz/2008/in-hindsight-dr-smith-realised-the-man-could-not-have-been-a-young-nat-he-was-too-hip/
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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I don’t think the left in the Green party know much about “worms” frankly. A “green” party (other than green washed) wouldn’t stand at the advocacy level but at a more objective level as I stated above.
……………………………
Morning Report:
Boy was she angry: she’d already explained her financial situation but as that person was away she had to go over it again. She was so angry she couldn’t right her complaint down. She wanted him “sued! I mean fired!”. “If people do behave badly it’s his job to deal with it” (he should be able to put up with it)….. the customers always right..
The guy obviously lost his cool.
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BB, BP, Sapient, turnip28: “Bigot” is not a term I use lightly, but I think it quite appropriately describes the attitude you guys express here. Your attitude appears to be that it is okay to arbitrarily (and very rudely) decline a legitimate application for a beneficiary without properly investigating the circumstances – simply because she is a beneficiary. BB even goes as far, without any evidence, as to suggest she is “ripping off the system” (and by implication, all beneficiaries are).
Now, what would you guys think if a property developer approached their local Council to apply for a resource consent and was told to “f*** off”?
Or if a motor vehicle importer approaching an LTNZ agent to register the vehicles he had just imported was told to “f*** off”?
Or if a woman who wanted to lay a complaint of sexual assault against a policeman approached the Police and was told to “f*** off”? [Oops, that one did happen in a number of cases in the Bay of Plenty, didn't it? Although not with such rude language].
This isn’t about the rights and wrongs of benefit eligibility – it is about public servants behaving in a proper and lawful manner in their dealings with members of the public.
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Clap loudly Toad in some cases.
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jh, much as my guts tells me I would like to see some applications for resource consents being summarily dismissed (the Genesis Energy gas-fired power station proposal springs to mind), my brain tells me to accept that they have a right to a decision being made according proper and lawful processes.
If you start making exceptions to due process for one group of people, then it rapidly becomes an open slather law of the jungle.
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caraka
>>sorry sapient, and blue peter. Your attitudes disgust me too.
Fair enough. However, many WINZ jobs only exist because people DO abuse entitlements (translation: taxpayer generosity). I don’t have a problem providing for the genuinely needy, and I pay over and above what the state demands of me in charity. I do have a problem with people who abuse this generosity.
I don’t know what the case was here, however if benefit abuse was occurring, then he is simply doing his job. Like I say, I disagree with the method and language.
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toad
“That is what natural justice demands. Simply telling an applicant, however justified or unjustified their application may be, to “f… offâ€? is not only incredibly rude and unprofessional, but also unlawful.”
I agree, as stated in my post.
However, I think we can all imagine the type of people WINZ staff must deal with. Many will be legitimate, but there will always be a few who systematically abuse the system. Are you suggesting we roll over for these people so long as they produce a sob story? What precedent would that set?
It’s a shame we can’t allocate proportions of our tax. If the bleeding hearts want to fund every sob story, then they can pay a higher level of tax to do so. Those who feel they wish to provide a safety net with clear boundaries, can pay the lower amount
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Where is the child’s father? Where is the whanau/ family? Are there any able bodied people associated with this woman who couldn’t step in in the absence of the state?
SST has an article about how much tax we all pay; you forget about ACC petrol tax etc, etc.
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A few years back I went through the process of applying for Working For Families. I was reluctant to as it seemed demeaning for a working couple to have to interact with the welfare system but it seemed the only way we were going to see any of our tax dollars back. Better in our bank account than being squandered on broken down trains, homeopathy or ‘Hoodie Day’.
After dealing with the bureaucratic robots at MSD for several weeks I certainly felt like telling them to ‘f*** off you overpaid, robotic w******’ ( is that the correct number of stars??. We were turned down because although we met all income criteria etc we had too many assets i.e. be careful with your money and the government will take more off you to give to those who aren’t.
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“It’s a shame we can’t allocate proportions of our tax. If the bleeding hearts want to fund every sob story, then they can pay a higher level of tax to do so. Those who feel they wish to provide a safety net with clear boundaries, can pay the lower amount
”
Agreed!!!
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Toad
Come on, you can do better than label those who appose you as bigots.
In my case (and you can check one of my first comments on this topic) I said that I deplore the language the young man used however I applaud his actions.
WINZ need to toughen up, when people who are already receiving generous benefits come asking for more they SHOULD be put through the wringer.
If they want more (including a food voucher) they should have to account for every cent of the money they already received to prove that they are a genuine case and not simply a low life who has spent all their benefit on booze or drugs and now do not have enough to feed the children.
Toad you use the analogy of the LTNZ worker or the council worker who might tell an applicant to f off and they are good examples however if I approached LTNZ and asked them to pay for my vehicle registration as I have no money they would more than likely tell me to f off.
Going to WINZ for more of MY money is not dissimilar to going to the bank to ask for an overdraft, I cannot walk into the bank and demand one without providing proof that I need it or can service it.
I hope the young man is censured for swearing then promoted for acting in the best interest of the tax payer.
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Toad,
“BB, BP, Sapient, turnip28: “Bigotâ€? is not a term I use lightly, but I think it quite appropriately describes the attitude you guys express here. ”
I think you use it quite lightly. I have never called anyone that name on this blog.
You also misrepresent me. I have stated that I do not agree with his use of language or his method. Personally, I think it is grounds for dismissal.
>>Your attitude appears to be that it is okay to arbitrarily (and very rudely) decline a legitimate application for a beneficiary without properly investigating the circumstances
Of course he should investigate the circumstances. That is his job. But what are the circumstances? Was she abusive? Was she systematically attempting to get more than she is entitled to?
This is the problem with the DPB. Giving money to some people who have no idea how to manage it. They then need someone to manage it for them (WINZ), which costs the taxpayer more still.
I would replace the DPB with a personal insurance welfare scheme. Everyone gets an account at birth, the government contributes, and the balance builds up. If you’re out of work for a time, you can use it as you see fit. If you never use it, you can pass it on to your kids.
If you drain it, then your CHILD goes on a voucher system. This voucher system would need to be monitored to prevent abuse (probably in the form of a debit card). The parent gets a standard unemployment benefit for a limited period.
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Well said Blue Peter
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The language IS the action we’re talking about, no?
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That’s because a car is not necessary for survival, whereas food is.
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Vouchers are an interesting one though…
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BluePeter said: Are you suggesting we roll over for these people so long as they produce a sob story?
No, BP. If someone is not entitled to receive assistance, then they should not receive assistance. All I am suggesting is that due process as set out in the law should be followed.
However, many WINZ jobs only exist because people DO abuse entitlements
Yes, there are a little over 200 staff employed in the Benefit Control Unit of Work and Income. They are specifically charged with preventing and detecting benefit abuse and fraud. The Benefit Control Unit saves Work and Income far more money in overpayments prevented and recovered than it costs to operate.
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and ..of course..the first question to ask these rabid nutters..
..who regularly pile abuse upon sole parents..and the like..
..is if they are sucking up any of that sweet sweet w.f.f. money..?
..that usually shuts them up/brings an ‘embarrassed’ silence..
(or a protestation of ‘none of your business’..followed by that embarrassed silence..)
(y’know..word-of-the-week..?..’
..’hypocrisy’..?)
..and really..this whole ‘debate’ can be brought down to that basic left/right divide..
..as a rough rule of thumb..cebntre-left thinks communally..
..the right is the individualistic/i don’t give a flying f*ck about anyone else..
that..combined with their inferiority complexes..
..pretty much explains their gibberings..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
..
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Agree with you totally toad,
BB,BP, Sapient and others, you are getting the “right to a benefit” debate mixed up with the personal misfortune of a person having to deal with the SYSTEM.
By all means argue about the system. But dont drag this unfortunate lady into the debate, she is taking a benefit based on the system NOW in place.
I have a tenant who is single with two kids on the DPB. We take an interest in her wellbeing (for business and personal reasons – we are surrogate grandparents to her kids).
Now the run around she gets from the worst WINZ office (Manurewa) is astonishing.
Benefit cut without notice and never back payed (usual reason is that she did not fill out a form posted the week before but that never arrive – a form that needs to be seen by the case officer for whom an appointment is at least three weeks minimum away), a 4 hour wait to see the duty officer who can only give out food grants due to hardship but not fix the non payment problem, rude and belligerent reception staff who treat the benificiaries like s**t, entitlements given to Maori and PI are not given to her (fuel for tangis is a classic), etc, etc, etc, etc.
Yes I think there is racism in WINZ.
Her friends with brown skin get their entitlements very easily compared to her.
Now go to the building itself. Walk in and small the adour, It stinks, no fresh air at all. No privacy, open plan offices mean the background noise is horrific, everyone can hear what is said.
No facilities for child minding (creche), no parking (the car park is now a park and ride for the new Manurewa railway station).
Our tenant has automatic payments set up for her bills but when the benefit does not go through, she cops fees from KiwiBank. To deal with KiwiBank she has to go to the local post office and talk to someone in Wellington? by phone. The tellers dont handle enquiries. Again in a public place with no privacy.
Because WINZ have casued so many banking problems with non payment of benefits, the only bank that will take her account is KiwiBank.
So my challenge to BB,BP Salpient and others is come and sit in the reception area of the Manureqwa WINZ office for a couple of hours and see how the SYSTEM treats beneficiaries.
I am on your side in regards that changes to the SYSTEM are required, but to argue that the benficiaries (DPB anyway) have an easy ride is pure hocum.
Another gripe with WINZ is that they dont publish a list of entitlements. These have to be weedled out of them and even if you know and ask for an entitlement you are due for, the case officer will flatly refuse. Cause to much trouble and your benefit will dry up for a week.
The case officers, being on a bonus to minimise payouts, have become incarnates of hitler. Hell has no more fury than a case officer who you have upset.
Leaving the benificiary totally helpless.
So are you guys up to the challenge and come down/up to the Manurewa WINZ office and see the SYSTEM at work, talk to the people whop have to deal with WINZ and get real feedback? Train stops right outside.
Then perhaps you change the SYSTEM, to what you want.
But remember the transition period from where the SYSTEM is now to where you see it’s final grand design.
Let me know what trerain you are on and I’ll meet you there. Then perhaps we go to the Papakura court to see hopw the rest of the SYSTEM works and how you will fix that and the transition from the existing to the new will happen.
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and ..of course..the first question to ask these rabid nutters..
..who regularly pile abuse upon sole parents..and the like..
..is if they are sucking up any of that sweet sweet w.f.f. money..?
..that usually shuts them up/brings an ‘embarrassed’ silence..
(or a protestation of ‘none of your business!’..followed by that embarrassed silence..)
(y’know..word-of-the-week..?..’
..’hypocrisy’..?)
..and really..this whole ‘debate’ can be brought down to that basic left/right divide..
..as a rough rule of thumb..cebntre-left thinks communally..
..the right is the individualistic/i don’t give a flying feck about anyone else..
that..combined with their inferiority complexes..
..pretty much explains their gibberings..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
..
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BB said: …however if I approached LTNZ and asked them to pay for my vehicle registration as I have no money they would more than likely tell me to f off.
In most circumstances, I would suggest they should politely decline (not tell you to f off. However, there may be circumstances (for example if you are on the dole, have no money to pay for it, and have a job offer somewhere that you can’t get to by public transport) where they should pay for it, because doing so would get you into work and off the dole.
As I said above, each application should be considered according to its individual circumstances.
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The issue here (for me anyway) is twofold, one is that this woman feels she has the “right” to walk into one of the offices that I pay for and demand more of my money without having to justify why she needs it or what she has done with the money I have already given her.
The second is the deplorable actions of Bradford and her conviction that welfare is a bottomless pit that we (the 95% who did NOT vote for her) should keep paying into.
Despite the assurances of Toad to the contrary I have never seen or heard Bradford condemn benefit fraudsters, indeed all she ever seems to say about these people is that they should get more money for doing nothing all day.
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and um..!..
…how come sue bradford can use the ‘f’ word in its’ full glory in this forum..
..but if i try it..using an * in place of the ‘u’..
..it is sent to moderation..
..do the green mp’s have a special ‘curse/over-ride’/privilege..?
..is that one of the ‘perks’ of the job..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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If anybody ever doubts that benefit fraud is widespread then you only need use Philu as evidence.
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are you..(or any of ‘yours’) sucking up any of that ‘sweet sweet’ w.f.f. money..?
big bro..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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BluePeter said: You also misrepresent me. I have stated that I do not agree with his use of language or his method. Personally, I think it is grounds for dismissal.
Sorry, BP, reading back through the posts I now think I wrongly lumped you in with others with that categorisation. I acknowledge your earlier posts were much more thoughtful and moderate than some.
BTW, I recall an incident a number of years back when a staff member at what was then the Department of Social Welfare told a woman applying for supplementary assistance that she wasn’t going to get any more, and if she didn’t like it she should go and get a job in one of the parlours down in Fort Street (for those unfamiliar with Auckland, Fort Street is a red light district). Anyone think that one’s acceptable behaviour for a public servant?
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Good point, Philu.
Fair points, Gerritt.
However, just to be crystal clear, I do not know the circumstances. If WINZ are at fault – and they certainly are in one respect, the use of inappropriate language – then they must apologise and put it right.
As for the system, it shouldn’t even be there. I’d disband WINZ overnight and replace it with a government supplemented personal insurance scheme.
If the world really does turn to economic custard, open-ended welfare will be the first luxury to go. It will be unsustainable.
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>>Sorry, BP,
Thankyou Toad.
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philu asked: …how come sue bradford can use the ‘f’ word in its’ full glory in this forum..
Suspect like most blogs, the filters operate only on comments, not on authors.
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Hey philu, how does applying for WFF when one otherwise would not get any money back (like say, with a tax cut) make someone a hypocrite for criticising an aspect of the welfare system? Any rational person has to apply – would you still be saying this if everyone had to apply for October’s tax cuts?
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Well toad since prostitution is now legal in NZ can WINZ take away someone’s benefit for refusing a brothel job?
Hey as of next week i’ll will be unemployed as I have quit my job here in the US and am heading back to Auckland, maybe i’ll head down to the local WINZ office when i get back and see if they will give me any money, I suspect once they see my bank account it will be a big fat no or maybe a fuck off.
But technically once i’m back in NZ i’ll be unemployed so that means i have to stop hanging out with BP, BB and all the other blog bigots.
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I resent the WFF as well PhilU and I and my partner will not be able to get it once we are in New Zealand and working next year, Of course National isn’t going to scrap it anytime soon.
I happen to think the WFF was a classic example of government tax discrimination, since anyone with out a child was discrimanated against. why is it that someone with more children should pay less tax when they use more state services than the people with no children, doesn’t make any sense to me, then again sense and the New Zealand parliment don’t go well together.
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Phul
No.
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Someone ought to do a comprehensive Target on WINZ. White woman/ brown woman actors.
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Gerrit- Thankyou for that. It’s nice to see someone who disagrees with welfare in general who still thinks beneficiaries deserve respect and care just like any other person.
Could the rest of you righties please stop banging on about how unfair and abused the benefit system is and actually spare a moment for the topic at hand- whether public servants have a right to be rude to the public?
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Turnip28:
>>Well toad since prostitution is now legal in NZ can WINZ take away someone’s benefit for refusing a brothel job?
It appears you have already found an answer to your unemployment problem then. Good luck to you!
And, by the way, the system is designed to help people in financial hardship, not well-off people who quit their jobs. If you come back to New Zealand, need assistance finding affordable accommodation and a ‘tie-over’ until you get employment, I hope you can rock on down to your local WINZ and get the assistance you are entitled to. Otherwise I think you should let the resources be distributed to people who really need it.
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I believe they’ve actually said they would NOT do that.
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Incidentally, WINZ gave D-Vice the business start up grant, but now have a policy of no longer giving grants to the sex industry!
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or did he just loose his cool? you could spin it either way not knowing the individuals (ie you are loading an assumption regarding how unreasonable the public servant was in this case). I prejudged it as the former not helped by my impression of Sue Bradford as a surly advocate rather than a balanced policy maker. TV3 commented “and Sue Bradfords the wrong person to sell it” re the anti smacking bill… same thing here.
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turnip28 asked:Well toad since prostitution is now legal in NZ can WINZ take away someone’s benefit for refusing a brothel job?
No – see section 18 Prostitution Reform Act 2003:
18 Refusal to work as sex worker does not affect entitlements
(1) A person’s benefit, or entitlement to a benefit, under the Social Security Act 1964 may not be cancelled or affected in any other way by his or her refusal to work, or to continue to work, as a sex worker (and, in this case, that work is not suitable employment for that person under that Act).
(2) A person’s entitlements under the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Act 2001 may not be lost or affected in any other way by his or her being capable of working as a sex worker if he or she refuses to do, or to continue to do, that kind of work.
(3) In this section, refusal means a refusal to do this kind of work in general, rather than a refusal of a particular job or at a particular time.
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>>hope you can rock on down to your local WINZ
You see, some of us would not even see it as an option. Welfare should be for when one has NO other option, not just used because it is readily available and one has an “entitlement”.
Lack of pride destroys people.
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BTW – did you see the woman who joined the army, with her partner, on TV last night? Maori, 27 years old, 5 kids. Decided to take life into her own hands, and move her kids away from an environment of welfare-fuelled destruction.
I want to give that woman a medal.
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Blue Peter
I watched that as well, one can only assume that she had to fight off hoards of social workers and left wing do gooders telling her that she was taking an awful risk.
The woman deserves more than a medal.
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>>Lack of pride destroys people.
BluePeter. I will be the first to admit on this blog that I have been on the dole, twice. Both times, I had just returned from overseas, the first time I was on the benefit for less than a month, the second time it was less than two weeks (they didn’t even get time to get my payments running). Both times I found employment, the second time I had to move towns because even I could see that apart from working at MacDonalds there were no job opportunities.
I can state uncatagorically that at no time did I have any ‘lack of pride’.
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Ari,
I dont disagree with welfare in general (though am more of the right wing then left persuasion) but would like the SYSTEM overhauled.
There should be a safety net. Just that the one we have is disfunctional.
However no staff member of WINZ should be rude to the public and in return no member of the public who is rude to a WINZ staff member should receive any service from a WINZ employee.
Every business i have worked in has always had the rule that any abuse will not be tolerated, either from staff or customer.
However we are all human beings and tempers will rise. Especially in a WINZ office. But why do they make the WINZ office so confrontational?
Maybe they need to restructure the bonus system so that they get bonusses on satified customers rather then how much money they have saved from not fullfilling the benificiaries entitlements.
And why is it so hard to find published entitlements for individual benefits?
Is there a benchmark for measuring customer satisfaction at WINZ and who does that audit?
Having berated WINZ, I must say that when my mother passed away, they did not ask for the two weeks pension she had been payed but then not really entitled to, to be returned. Even though I offered to.
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Look, why don’t all you anti-collective responsibility individualists just accept that you are totally out of step with New Zealand’s social and political culture and move to somewhere more to your liking – India or Brazil or some other dump where people without a job and who can’t find charity or a supportive relative get to head off and die in the gutter?
New Zealand has a deep streak of collectivism, something developed over years and in response to the problems caused by individualistic social rules. This is at times problematic, but most kiwi’s still see it as better than the alternative. If you don’t like that, fair enough, but why sit here whingeing about it?
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Sam
Did you apply the same “logic” to the anti smacking legislation?
Need I remind you that 82% of the population did not want it or are you simply being a hypocrite?
Kiwi’s (including me) do believe in a safety net, what many of us do not like is that people like Bradford seem to think that working for a living is an option and that if you do not feel like it then you need not worry as the rest of us will pay for your lifestyle.
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NZ’s “social and political culture” is center left and center right. That’s not where the Green Party is.
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The army is evidently a hell of a lot more family friendly than I thought!?
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>>Meghan
Why go on it at all, especially for that short period of time. To me, that indicates a lack of planning (i.e. saving for a rainy day)
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Sam, we do believe in a safety net.
We do not support a system which perpetuates social dysfunction and alienation.
The lax “entitlement” system needs to be returned to the status of a safety net.
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In this respect, I empathise with the (very) old school socialists, like my grandfather.
The old school socialists in the UK mining towns believed in supporting others. But they expected people to contribute first. If you didn’t contribute, you were entitled to nothing.
That’s how it worked….
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Ok here is what we should do fire the WINZ employee and make him live on the benefit for the next 6 months.
btw most of us support a safety net but what we have in NZ is a safety web, which isn’t good. Remember what ever safety nets we offer have to be paid for by the taxpayers.
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BluePeter – obviously I had no prior knowledge of how long I was going to take finding a job. And as far as more background to hows and whys, I am not going to go into that with you, I don’t need to. Simply I have to say that nothing is black and white, and with all the planning in the world it is still possible to find yourself needing help. And I am glad it was there when I needed it. I was also in my early twenties at this point too – so ‘saving for a rainy day’ was over-riden by ‘living day to day’.
Would like to hear more of your ‘safety net’plan, How does this look? How is it different?
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Gerrit asked: And why is it so hard to find published entitlements for individual benefits?
I’ve always wondered that too Gerrit. IRD havea really good interactive website. Why can’t Work and Income do the same?
I must say that when my mother passed away, they did not ask for the two weeks pension she had been payed but then not really entitled to, to be returned.
That’s because of subsections 80BD(4) and (5) if the Social Security Act 1964 Gerrit .
Just one detail among thousands in this extraordinarily complex Act that anyone who is unfamiliar with it will not find in a month of Sundays looking through Work and Income’s brochures or their website.
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>>Would like to hear more of your ’safety net’plan, How does this look? How is it different?
I’ve outlined it my posts above. Scroll up….
It provides more personal control at the highest level, thus doing away with WINZ altogether, whilst at the lowest level, it directly provides and manages spend to ensure genuine welfare is administered.
Lower overheads, more benefit.
What say you?
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Great idea BP.
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Wow, there’s nothing like a story about a beneficiary … no, about a woman on the DPB to bring out the trash.
First of all, if you get a benefit, a proportion of that is taxed.
Second, anyone can apply for a food grant – whether you are on a benefit or not.
Third – BluePeter – lack of pride is not what this is about … it takes a certain amount of pride (and probably a fierce determination to feed your kid) to ask WINZ for what are currently entitlements under law.
It’s interesting how some people assume the woman was ripping off the system. Beneficiary bashing is obviously still the number one sport for some. I wonder if they’re as passionate about white-collar crime, which costs the country infinitely more than a $100 food grant. And even if 1000 people ripped the country off of $100 food grants (which, btw, cannot be used to buy alcohol or tobacco), we’re not even scratching the surface of the cost to this country of the people who are really ripping it off.
Back to the point: the man has got to go. If any of us in our job told a ‘customer’ to f off, we’d have a lot of explaining to do.
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>>t takes a certain amount of pride (and probably a fierce determination to feed your kid) to ask WINZ for what are currently entitlements under law.
So what do you think of my idea, then?
Under my plan, you wouldn’t have to ask WINZ for anything. They wouldn’t exist.
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toad,
Makes you wonder how many of the WINZ case officers know the entitlements inside out, before they are thrown into the office and in direct confrontation with their customers?
How well are they trained?
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BluePeter: I thought there was something in your first idea about targeting where our tax dollars went. Of course, I’m sure 90% of people would unsubscribe from paying politicians and public servants, so there goes the government.
I don’t know about a universal benefit – which is kind of what you’re describing. I prefer a needs-based system. You do realise that certain economic philosophies call for a degree of structural unemployment – whereby it is good management to retain a level of unemployment to ensure competition and willingness to do the really sh!tty jobs.
I have heard many politicians say we will never have full employment again, so I’d like the unemployment benefit to be renamed ‘unemployment compensation’ as it’s obvious a small level of unemployment is central to our National/Labour (I get confused) government’s economic policies.
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Go Sue! Awesome work. Love it.
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“..tephenR Says:
August 7th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Hey philu, how does applying for WFF when one otherwise would not get any money back (like say, with a tax cut) make someone a hypocrite for criticising an aspect of the welfare system? Any rational person has to apply – would you still be saying this if everyone had to apply for October’s tax cuts?..”
so..family support from the state is ok for you…?
..but not for sole parents..raising children on their own..?
(do i need to point out how that makes you look..?..)
phil(whoar.co.nz
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Would seem that I was talking past you/misunderstood phil – I just made the ‘sole parents’ connection. I get you now. Yes, WFF not great. Tax cuts for all then?
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Gerrit said: Makes you wonder how many of the WINZ case officers know the entitlements inside out, before they are thrown into the office and in direct confrontation with their customers? How well are they trained?
In my experience (I used to work as an advocate for beneficiaries and ACC claimants) not very well. Although it might have improved over the last 6 years since I last had close involvement. Maybe Sue Bradford could ask the Minister some written parliamentary questions about this and get back to us with the replies.
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>>certain economic philosophies call for a degree of structural unemployment
I know. But I do not like this aspect of these philosophies, due to the damage they can do to people, and the community. If no one wants to do the sh&it$y jobs, then the compensation should rise.
I accept the point that there will always be a group of people who are essentially unemployable. However, not all of those currently unemployed fall into this group, and it is not all due to structural reasons.
There is a danger viewing all these people as victims, just as there is a danger in viewing them all as lifestylers.
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StephenR said: Any rational person has to apply – would you still be saying this if everyone had to apply for October’s tax cuts
I now feel somewhat silly for my above praise for the IRD website, because you have pointed out a shortcoming.
Why do people have to apply for WFF? Why can’t the employee’s details just be disclosed to the employer, whose payroll person then enters them into an interactive IRD website, gets returned an individualised tax code for the employee, and then deducts PAYE (or pays the tax credit which they then claim back from the IRD) in respect of the employee at the correct net amount taking into account the WFF credit.
The process of deducting PAYE from the employee, and then paying some or all of it back as a tax credit upon application seems an extraordinarily bureaucratic moving of money in circles.
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WOW
I skipped down 20 screens to see if things got back to the point, but they didn’t, so I’ll try.
The major point of the original post is that the words “Fuck Off” are OK in the mouth of a WINZ employee, but not in the House of Representatives Debating Chamber.
Surely the point is that they shouldn’t be used in either circumstance, yet their use in both of these is a classic example of how our standards of behaviour and respect, as a nation, have descended to gutter depth.
The WINZ worker shouldn’t have been able to get the words to come out of his mouth, even if he wanted them to – they won’t come out of mine with a woman in hearing distance. The erosion of respect for one another that has been growing apace these last 20 years is not only illustrated by this public servant, but also by the children in our schools – I have been in a classroom recently and heard it said by a student to a teacher; the teacher’s reaction was to ignore it, and when I took him to task about it later he suggested the naughty corner wasn’t going to work on a 14 year old! By totally removing disciplinary actions from both the classroom and the home, we have created a youth society that can impugn people and abandon respect without fear or trepitude; shame on my generation for letting it happen.
An example of how the ‘elders’ of the country have shown the way in this was Ms Bradford’s exhibition yesterday in the Chamber. For centuries there have been standards of Parliamentary behavior, based on respect for the institution of Parliament and the mores of the Chamber. What Ms Bradford did yesterday flew in the face of those traditions and showed, to use the ‘modern speak’ term, disrespect for the institution she was looking to to enforce respect to the beneficiary she was advocating for. Sending a message from the highest authority in the land that such behaviour and words are now acceptable in society, and so defeating the very nature of her plea. What’s worse, she probably didn’t realise it then and doesn’t now!
Pity my children, who are trying to raise my Grand-kids to a reasonable standard of behaviour and respect. My eldest Grandchild, three, recently told his mother he didn’t have to wipe his shoes when he went into someones house because his Daddy didn’t – Daddy (my son) got a tongue lashing too. In a few years, when he tells his mother to Fuck Off, and she tells him to go and wash his mouth with soap, he will look at her and say ‘they say that in Parliament so I can say it too!’ Somehow I don’t think she will be able to give all MPs the tongue lashing they will deserve!
We complain about the behaviour of our young, yet we do nothing to set them examples of how we want them to be, and take away the right to discipline them when they do unacceptable things. When they get older (18-28 say) we decry their attitude of drinking, stealing, demanding and generally behaving in anti-social ways, and wonder why they don’t understand why we are upset.
It is time for people, especially those who want respect for the environment and ecology, to start providing society with the examples, and tools, needed to re-establish respect for others in our young, otherwise this society is doomed.
Thank you for reading an old man’s heartfelt rant.
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|| There is a danger viewing all these people as victims, just as there is a danger in viewing them all as lifestylers.
Agreed.
But whatever the system, there will always be people who abuse it. Doesn’t mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater, in my opinion.
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>>seems an extraordinarily bureaucratic moving of money in circles.
You’re expecting efficiency and sense?
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Toad
Please edit my last post with ** in appropriate places – I was making a point, not trying to be offensive, and believe the point will still be made.
Thank you.
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Good post, Strings.
>>past time that MSD trained all its front line staff to treat beneficiaries with respect and dignity.
It’s past time beneficiaries treat MSD front line staff with respect and dignity.
Although I’m sure it doesn’t apply to all of them, eh Sue….
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“For centuries there have been standards of Parliamentary behavior, based on respect for the institution of Parliament and the mores of the Chamber. ”
Come off it! Standards of parliamentary behaviour are appaling – we pay people to abuse each other, misrepresent each other, avoid questions and make sarcastic comments in the guise of political debate. I’m an anarchist and if people acted this way in the meetings I go to they’d be chucked out in short order and told not to come back until they learned to behave themselves. Somebody quoting a person saying “Fuck off” is the least of our worries.
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hmmm… interesting reading Strings as to what your interpretation of the main point is here. I agree to a point: people should certainly be treating each other with respect. However, I feel Sue’s use of the term “f* off” as a quotation was highly appropriate, and would not be a viable defense for your grandchild to call his Mum. He could use it to say “Johnny at school told Jimmy to f* off”, which with my upbringing would still be considered pretty bad but on quite a different level to actually telling your Mum to. In this case, the ire it caused in parliament, just used as a quotation, underlies the offensiveness of the word, and I think supports Sue’s comments. This would not have had such a visceral effect if she had said “eff off” in her quote (which would also have been ambiguous: did the worker actually say “eff off” or did he use the actual word?).
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Strings: Sending a message from the highest authority in the land that such behaviour and words are now acceptable in society, and so defeating the very nature of her plea.
Strings, I think you completely miss the point of why Sue Bradford used the term “f*** off” in Parliament. I’m sure that she knew at least some in Parliament, and some listeners and viewers to Parliament, would be offended and even outraged. I’m sure she know she would be asked to withdraw the term and apologise (which eventually happened).
If the term is unacceptable in Parliament, then surely it is also just as unacceptable for a public servant dealing with a member of the public to use it. That was the point she was trying to make. Just a pity that a few, such as you and (unfortunately) John Armstrong in the NZ Herald, didn’t quite get it. She wasn’t setting out to lower standards in Parliament, as John Armstrong asserted, but to raise standards in the public service.
Let’s hope the n-word doesn’t make an appearance in our Parliament though – as it did in the British House of Lords recently.
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Toad, I think its about time you stoped, consistantly, constructing straw men arguements.
I have not claimed that she is ripping off the system, I have not claimed that he was an angel. I have mearly stated that he may have a perfectly legitimate reason to blow his top at her in this case and that we should not always assume the individual is a victim or fo that case attempting to rip off the system. he may have made a bad choice of words; but he may ahve been entirly in the right.
I did argue that the current benifit system is not satisfactory; that, as highlighted above, it is a sticky web of spiders silk rather than a safty net as it should be. I do not make my choices of posistion based on ideology, I make then based on what I see, after hours of deliberation and moral conflict, to produce the most desirable outcome for new zealand and the world, and truth be told the majority is left; so claiming me to be right and ignorant mearly because some of my opinions conflict with your bleeding heart ‘liberalism’ is both untruthful and uncalled for.
I have never claimed any benifit from the government outside of the subsidies provided for all on education and (by the local government) for the bus. Having said that, I have spent many hours in WINZ assisting associates whom were on the benifit, and it is true that staff can be less than forthcoming, but this can be perfictly justified when one considers that day in and day out they have to deal with people whom are far more abusive to them, as I have witnessed on many occasions.
The Green party has, i fear, become nothing more than a red ball painted with some green paint; a watermelon or astro-turfer as so wonderfully put by one on this blog. I hold the utmost discust for professional victims like bradford, leftovers from the alliance and new labour whom corupt the green cause for their own ideological ends and in doing so doom the greens.
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Did anyone else hear the National MP in the House yesterday, as heard on Morning Report this morning, calling the Labour MPs “scro(a?)ts”? He was name calling and using a word that is more offensive, I think, and in less common parlance than F…
To me that is far more offensive compared to Sue making a very clear point about the treatment of beneficiaries.
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Gerrit – well said !! The greed ignorance, and selfishness displayed on this subject has again shocked me to the core. How can such people, who have been given a secular, liberal education, presumably here in NZ, believe such Facistic rubbish. Perhaps they have never read any history and are ignorant of the 4th decade of the 20th century. It’s the only explanation my poor brain can come up with. I hope I never meet any of them in person as I would take fright !
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I’m a supporter of a welfare system. Mainly as a safety net. And a solo mum with a *baby* needs that too. If her youngest was 3 or 4, then a part-time job while the little one was in childcare would be fine, but personally I don’t think they’re ready for that before that age: mine certainly isn’t,
There are people who rip off the system. One thing that bothers me is that those who only use the system as a safety net don’t know all the bits and pieces they can apply for, but “welfare families” (those exploiting the system) know exactly. The base benefit is barely enough to live off, let alone do basic things like pay for other essentials such as doctor’s visits and prescriptions (there’s only so much a community service card gets you), or pay bus fares across Auckland to get to job interviews. I guess that if you know all the entitlements you can get by ok, and then if you’re committing benefit fraud (such as getting paid under the table) then you could be reasonably comfortable, if not well-off. It would be helpful, I think, for the Greens to admit that there are people who rip the system off and have no intention of getting work. And let us know how you’d deal with this. I also know of school kids whose only ambition is to go on the dole and bludge. Perhaps even have kids to up their entitlements. However, in my experience, most mothers on DPB are there after marriage/de-facto relationship breakups, and until their kids are old enough to attend school full-time they’re in a bit of a bind as to how to earn enough to pay all the bills.
Some of the suggestions made in this blog have been downright revolting (such as removing someone’s children just because they can’t pay for them). However, I do have a problem with the few people who have kid after kid, without any means/hopes of supporting them. Do we just let this slide given it’s such a minority, or is there some way of imposing a penalty on the parents without imposing it on the children as well?
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>>is there some way of imposing a penalty on the parents without imposing it on the children as well?
Yes.
I would replace the DPB with a personal insurance welfare scheme. Everyone gets an account at birth, the government contributes, and the balance builds up. If you’re out of work for a time, you can use it as you see fit. If you never use it, you can pass it on to your kids.
If you drain it, then your CHILD goes on a voucher system. This voucher system would need to be monitored to prevent abuse (probably in the form of a debit card). The parent gets a standard unemployment benefit for a limited period.
Progressively slides from personal control down to managed control, depending on the behavior of the beneficiary.
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BluePeter said: Progressively slides from personal control down to managed control, depending on the behavior of the beneficiary.
Sounds a bit like Nanny State to me BP – I thought that was what you guys on the right didn’t agree with.
Sapient: I read in some previous post that you are a student. Not shure wot, but lerning to spel wood maybee help.
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>>Sounds a bit like Nanny State to me BP
Most wouldn’t require any nannying, so they can manage their own accounts, with no need to go cap ‘n hand to WINZ. Anyway, Winz would not exist.
Those who do need nannying, and some always will, get managed via a debit card system.
Streamlined. Efficient. Decreases abuse. Gives (responsible) people the cash they need, the minute they need it. Encourages personal responsibility.
You don’t like my plan?
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The issue here is decency in the house. This is our legislative chamber, and we should respect it – as even Mr Tanczos was at pains to point out in his closing speech. By repeating this language in the house you show utter disrespect for it.
Yes, the issue you bring up may be valid. But it could have been explained without repeating the quote literally in the house.
Utterly disgraceful.
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Margret Wilson has ruled it out of order.
Good. Because it is.
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Hmmm, Toad, One has got to love how you never follow up on your comments once you get a reply that you can not label as bigotry aye?
Indeed; I am a student and readily admit i cannot spell to save my life, a student of the humanities for that matter; you know? a place where ideas and facts matter more than simple semantics (unless that is the area studied of course). Maybe you should take a lesson, might teach you something like logic. Infact I highly recomenf a paper called ‘critical thinking’ its the easist paper ive ever done, though I suspect you may find it somewhat difficult; as I would find an english paper.
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Yes BP, and I’m sure Sue Bradford would suport that.
The point she was making by saying it in the House is that if it is out of order there, then it should also be out of order when public servants say it to members of the public they are dealing with.
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Sapient said: Maybe you should take a lesson, might teach you something like logic.
Funnily enough, Sapient, I successfully studied both pure mathematics and philosophy at University (although neither to post-grad level, admittedly), but I still do think I have a reasonably good grasp of logic – both theoretically and practically.
Admittedly, that around 30 years ago, but I don’t think the fundamental axioms of logic have changed much, if any, over that time. Nor, for that matter, has spelling in the English language.
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I doubt the axioms have changed significantly, though the thinkers most surley have, prehaps you have mearly deteriorated, eaither that or your concept of desirable is somewhat distorted.
Depends on what you see to define this constantly evolving language, words contained in the dictionaries certainly have; but at any rate, the spelling and grammar are irrelivant so long as the meaning is discrenable.
On that matter; wat DO you see as desiriable? a massive state that takes care of every matter of your day to day life, rocks you to sleep, and disinfects your knee when you graze it? it certainly seems that way…
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It doesn’t matter if he used the “F” word or not.
I received the same dismissive response (without the “F” word) when I was in my hour of need. No help for me.
As a taxpayer of 20 years I felt deserving of assistance but didn’t get it.
If Tara Marks didn’t qualify for assistance I suspect she responded in a way that deserved a curt response.
The real issue is not what language is used, but rather where the money is going.
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kahikatea, your comments actually brought tears to my eyes for the first time in a long time.
I well remember the complexities of the system and how they worked against me, and I genuinely sympathise with those who do qualify but don’t get their entitlement.
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Toad, I agree with Sapient. If a woman chooses the wrong guy (and I sympathise with her) why should the rest of society pay the price for this?
Why should that tax money not go to (for example) an injured person who has been a taxpayer?
Anyone who needs a hip op??
Why is the system predicated upon the view that any child or mother is a valuable member of society.
In my opinion this view is an insult to good mothers. (and I am not trying to judge the woman Sue Bradford is talking about here). I am just against the ‘entitlement’ perspective that has developed around anyone who can spit out a child.
Some of them genuinely need to hear the F word.
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Sapient said: On that matter; wat DO you see as desiriable?
Listen to this from Jim Morrison – a guy many people dismiss as ‘just’ a 60s rock star, but I think also a great 20th century poet and philosopher.
“The old get older, but the young get stronger”. Yep, it’s true Sapient. The young always have potential to do better for humanity than those who have gone before them. But a learning experience is necessary to do so. If you don’t learn from those of older than you who have made mistakes, you will be bound to make the same ones.
And speaking of rock stars from yesteryear, Sapient, check out Pete Townshend’s Won’t get Fooled Again. There might be a message in that for you too.
I’m not saying you should “respect your elders” Sapient. You’re quite entitled to tell us to “f*** off”, as the Rotorua Work and Income Case Manager did to Tara.
All I ask is that you listen to those of us older than you, and apply some intellectual rigour to what we may be saying based on our experiences.
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If you are a woman on DPB with one kid WINZ will not tell you to F off.
They will pay for the LTNZ bill
If you are an injured man on UB with one kid they will tell you to F off.
(even if they don’t use the F word)
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Totally true.
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Yep.
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greengeek said: Toad, I agree with Sapient. If a woman chooses the wrong guy (and I sympathise with her) why should the rest of society pay the price for this?
I wish it were that easy. But it is not. Short of placing absentee fathers who don’t support their kids under house arrest and making them work under slavery conditions, what can you do to ensure they contibute their share towards their children’s upbringing?
It is a problem I often grapple with greengeek, but I still haven’t come up with the answer. If the father disappears overseas, or establishes himself in self-employment that provides him with a taxable income of $15K a year (the rest is “business expenses”), what do you do?
This one’s troubled me for many years greengeek, but the one thing I would not do is blame the mother who is left with her kids, on her own, with no support, and subject to potential violence, just because she made the “wrong choice” of partner.
People change, sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse. I don’t think it is fair to hold a solo mother accountablefor a “wrong” choice of partner, that may have been very “right” years earlier when she made that choice.
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Oh well done Toad. You are about as sensitive as the WINZ guy.
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Hmmmm, in my guts I feel you are probably right, but my question remains:
“why should the rest of society pay the price for this?”
The problem is that we have gone too far…there is plenty of evidence that experienced DPB “milkers” can make a good living. (as confirmed by Alicia above)
Yet others suffer hardship because they are either taxpayers, or, beneficiaries that have not turned into “milkers”.
I am not outraged about his choice of language (it is not so different to Toyota’s choice of “Br”).
I am more outraged by the suggestion that beneficiaries should not have boundaries, or that they should not be told there are no further entitlements.
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oops, I meant “bugger”. Damn html filters.
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greengeek: this is a blog. There should be good robust intellectual debate here.
The point I was making is that I don’t think someone who can’t spell on this blog should be challenging my academic credentials or academic rigour without his own academic shortcoming being identified.
Greengeek, why do you think it is okay for Sapient to challenge me on my supposed lack of knowledge of or study in logic (which I have refuted), while it is not, apparently, okay by for me to challenge him re his inability to spell?
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Big bro and sapient and others seem to think that life on a benefit in NZ is some kind of luxury*
I want a system that prevents hardship, and so do most New Zealanders. Unfortunately, the “Work and Income� (a phrase that embodies the ideas of the 90s neo-liberal right if ever there was one) system continues to fail those in need. It’s patently obvious to anyone who’s had to spend any time dealing with it, either directly or through those who use it. A beneficiary on a basic benefit is living tough, and especially one with a child. It’s pretty damn stressful, and beneficiaries are unable to participate meaningfully in society. There’s money for food, rent and bills, if you’re lucky, but there won’t be anything left over at the end of the week. Any unexpected expenses and you’re in for a very stressful time. And then you go down to the WINZ office to see if they can help, and they tell you to fuck off, or more often obfuscate, get in your way, give you a brochure, and ask you to set up an appointment two weeks later.
And the bureaucracy of the IRD still hasn’t been sorted, as with so many other branches of Government. Unfortunately Labour haven’t sorted this and seem to see criticism on this front either as reactionary and right wing, or the unrealistic dreams of the lunatic left **. It’s in the interests of the left to have a civil service that treats people with dignity and respect. It’s the coalface of government that ordinary New Zealanders see, and how they feel about the Government and the social contract more generally will be determined by these experiences. Yet almost every time I’ve had something to do with a Government agency (apart from NZ Post, who have competition, or MFAT and NZAID who have smart people), I feel like I’m being served by robots.
So, what’s the alternative? I want a society that treats all members as full human beings, and recognises that all people deserve a decent income, and that no-one deserves to go hungry waiting for the next meagre paycheck.
I’m still waiting for it.
*Although people like Phil U, who find time to write all over the internet, might cause that impression. I don’t know his circumstances so am unwilling to judge, but I was brought up to believe that work is a good thing and that people should work if they can. However, the welfare system should help people get jobs commensurate with their skills and circumstances (which might be not at all for those caring for others), and this should be in a way that treats the beneficiary with dignity and respect and understanding.
**I’ve seen people who ask for more humanity/less painful bureaucracy from Government slathered with both those accusations, as if their complaints are somehow a function of ideology.
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Benifits have perfictly legitimate reasons to exist; on that whole, when implimented correctly, they can releive large amounts of suffering and allow a more equitable basis from which children may become whatever it is in their ability to become.
The issue is that they are being implimented incorrectly and by far in excess, the results being that not only are people whom legitimatly deserve benifits and legitimatly seek to return to work being denied that legitimate stake but it is also made harder for them to get into work as the taxes required to fund such excessive expendature curtails the creation of new jobs.
The concept of ‘entitlement’ is another problem, people are not entitled to anything. The dole is to assist an individual in finding work so that the money invested in that individual does not go to waste and so that they do not turn to illegal activities which may be detrimental to society.
Toad, I will listen to them soon (ive got some baking to do), I do listen to my elders, infact I spend almost all of my waking time listening to them and trying to improove myself; tat how ive changed in the space of about a year from the far left to what is probally best described as center right. prehaps thats why i get so angry with bleeding heart ‘liberarians’.
I dont mean to attack personally; but you know heh? we are ashamed of our past even more foolish selves?
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did that get caught Toad?
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Sorry, George, maybe he’s right, because I’ve missed your point.
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Heh, my post is yet to pop up.
Toad; I dont mean to go into personal attacks, you just always manage to get on my bad side, I have this thing about profesional victims… They make me furious.
I would like to see intelectual debate here and most of the time I try to contribute to that debate, though admitedly I have done that very minimaly as of late. You also are guilty of this, prehaps more so than me; or the right wingers which frequent this blog for that matter.
I have many times admitted that I lack ability in spelling, but that does in no way suggest that I am any less of an academic. You may indeed have the logic skills but my point is you seem to not be applying them in your arguements.
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Toad, serious question.
What do you think about replacing the DPB with something like an insurance system?
Lets say a couple meet, marry, civil union etc they need to approach WINZ and register for insurance. Provided they have a house and income they qualify.
If they break up after any kids come along, they immediately qualify for DPB insurance.
If however they are just something like a south Auckland ‘baby factory’ for the purposes of DPB they only qualify for something like a state eftpos card, that can only be used for limited budgeted weekly amounts of rent, food, fuel etc. for the 1st child only?
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Toad, I followed those links.
… Are you seriously trying to suggest that you are libertarian? now THAT is a laugh!
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Okay, back to some intelectual debate;
It is unacceptable for an public sector staff member to treat a member of the public in such a rude manner even if they deserve to be treated that way.
The staff member at hand should not loose his job over this matter unless this is a regular occurance as this job is oviously one of high stress, prehaps a counseller or psychologist should be kept on staff to ensure that workers are not put under undue stress.
Prehaps a security guard may of been the correct thing to call for.
Staff should work to ensure that those individuals whom attempt to claim a benifit receive those that they are legaly entitled to, if, and only if, they meet the requirements.
Happy toad? it is not exactly a topic that there can be substantial debate on, thus why it changed to bludgers; another topic in which the left are unable to listen to reason, though the same goes for the right.
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Patrick Starr said: What do you think about replacing the DPB with something like an insurance system?
Personally, I would support that, but not with time-limited basic entitlement.
What I’d like to see is a basic entitlement, at about the same level as the current invalid’s benefit (the others were cut by Richardson and Shipley in 1991), with add-on entitlements through personal contributions. A bit like the Scandinavian countries do.
That would encourage anyone who can work to do so, in the knowledge that if at some time in the future the can’t work, they will have a greater entitlement.
Given Bill English’s and Lockwood Smith’s recent revelations, I should state that these are my personal views, and while I know all the Green MP rather well, are not Green Party policy and will not be progessed unless the Green Party democratic policy development process endorses them at some time in the future.
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Sapient said: Staff should work to ensure that those individuals whom attempt to claim a benifit receive those that they are legaly entitled to, if, and only if, they meet the requirements.
Yep, Sapient, it might have taken 24 hours, but we finally agree. Now, can we put that behind us and debate what sort of welfare entilements should actually exist.
I’ve put my suggestions in my post immediately above in response to Patrick Starr (sorry about the italics – forgot to switch them off – it’s getting late for us old fellas who still have to be at work at 7am tomorrow)!
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Way back up this thread I said I didn’t think anyone on the dole could have any self respect or dignity. I had the unfortunate experience of being on the dole for 3 soul destroying years and it is not something I am proud of.
The situation arose soon after my wife and I got married, she was working and I was self employed, we each generated half our income.
My wife got pregnant after 6 six months and became quite ill and couldn’t work, my income was not enough and we ended up on the dole.
We were living on $240.00 dollars a week with a mortgage for approx 1 and a half years. A low point I remember was getting caught by a cop with one headlight, no warrant or rego and a screaming baby in the back seat, the cop felt sorry for us and got us off the tickets he had to write us!!!
we were aparantly supposed to be getting the accomodation supplement and WINZ owed us about $4000 but the gave us $175 bucks instead!!! with no explanation why!!! Needless to say we learnt how to manage our money. We would see solo mums going into WINZ, demand a new fridge and bluddy get it!!!! when I tried to get my business going again they said I could go on the enterprise allowance, but cause they had blown the local budget I would only get 100 bucks a week with no additional support!!! they also refused to accept my business idea as legitamate(I later proved them wrong) and said I couldn’t do anything that would jepardise my availability for work i.e start any self employment work!
Oh how I loved going back there and signing up a beneficary on a job plus scheme to work in my business, good times!!!!
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Lol, i had that view from the start, its just not really something with enough meat to warrent a debate.
While I would like to see a system whereby the individual gets more if they have contributed more to society, I do not beleive that the one detailed slightly higher up in the post would be sufficent, I do like the sound of it. I have something similar in mind in relation to retirement benifits.
To set the benifit at the level of the invalids would be far too high, the level should prehaps be varied depending on the need of the individual and be enough for subsistance but it should not be so high that it is more than a part time worker on minimum wage earns and should not be so high as to offer the opportunity of making it a lifestyle. there should be incentives to get off the schemme and I beleive that the limited time frame before starting to eat away at more personal funds may have some merit.
I think that there should be a large focus put on upskilling so as to increase potential job markets, but I beleive the individual should bare the training costs to the same degree as a student and should be treated in every way equal to a student, including the amount of money they are eligable to receive.
I would like to see a full benifit for prehaps a month before dropping to a lesser volume and after about two months training on how to approach job hunting and a community working schemme; if the individual turns down a job of training opportunity then the benifit should cease.
The focus of benifits for unemployment should be only on providing basic subsistance while a new job is found and helping the individual to find a job and get hired.
There should be training benifits to allow individuals, for a limited nmber of weeks, to receive state support while they attempt to upskill.
There should be a benifit to assist children by providing an environment in which they can become all that they can be; some of the time this will involve removing the child from the parent. At higher ages they can be sent to five day boarding school. for less serious cases and younger cases this can in part be taken care of through free daycare and lunches in schools; for those at particular risk breakfast and afternoon tea may be provided also.
But besides this I do not see any real need for benifits when the individual is able bodied.
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How about;
The state puts say 1000 dollars in a interest bearing bank account when one reaches one year of age and then you can deposit a fraction of your income into that bank account with each pay check. When one finds themselves unemployed they receive the benifit in full for the first four months and then for the next four months they receive a partial banifit which they are able to suppliment from their state bank account; at the point of 8 months having to switch entirly over to subtracting from that account. Grants for clothes and repairs also being subtracted from that account. As such the amount one works determines how well they can live without a job past afew months. One would have to of been employed for a full year before being elegable to start over from the full benifit. That same account would latter be used to draw from for retirement payments.
Far from my ideal system, very far indeed, but meh.
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Shunda barunda said: I had the unfortunate experience of being on the dole for 3 soul destroying years and it is not something I am proud of.
I was on the dole for a while back in the ’90s too, Shunda, although only for just under a year, not three. And I agree, it was a pretty grim experience. The money wasn’t enough to make ends meet, and I ended up being told to cut up my credit cards and send them back because they were all maxed out and I was unable to make payments on them.
I wonder if those who talk about the dole being a “lifestyle choice” have actually ever been on it. I managed to get bits of casual part-time work from time to time while I was on it, but that did really help because the way the dole abated as a result of my earnings meant I was hardly any better off for working.
Fortunately, shortly after I lost my credit cards I got full time work, because by that stage I was getting sufficiently desperate to consider not declaring my earnings from the casual work I was picking up just to pay the mounting bills. I only considered it, didn’t actually do it, but the fact that I was desperate enough to even consider it gave me an understanding of what motivates beneficiaries to abuse the system. Benefit levels are too low for people to live on for any length of time, and the abatement regime is extraordinarily harsh if you do pick up some part-time work.
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David Farrar is a bit slow off the mark, but there is a related thread just started over at Key wee-blog
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I notice that we always talk about benefit levels being too low but I never hear Toad or Frog or even Sue or any other Green party members talk about one of the main causes of low benefit levels. “Inflation”
Inflation destroys people on fixed costs(the poor and the elderly).
Wages never keep up with the price of goods, and the people who feel it first are the ones on benefits or minimum wage.
Fixing the benefit or the minimum wage to the inflation rate doesn’t work as the moment you do that the government invents a new way to report the inflation rate don’t believe me look at the states which fixed social security they then went through a period of massive inflation in the 80′s,70′s so what was the government’s answer change the way they measured inflation. Why have American’s been tapping more and more debt over the last few years. The answer is very simple, in order to maintain their lifestyles
So instead all we hear from Toad and Greens is the benefit is too low over and over again but Sue has never stood up in the house and said what is the government going to do about inflation. We need 0% to 0.5% inflation targets and the performance(pay) for the RBNZ staff is tied directly to the inflation rate.
Inflation is the single WORST TAX a government impose’s on its people as it affects the poor first of course the Greens who supposedly look out for low income people have no policy to deal with the inflation tax.
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>
>>Come off it! Standards of parliamentary behaviour are appalling
I didn’t suggest they weren’t. The point is they exist and should be respected.
>
>>I feel Sue’s use of the term “f* off� as a quotation was highly appropriate
There we must differ. I found it offensive, and so, based on her stated ruling, did the Speaker, whose left leaning bias is well recognized and acknowledged. Thank goodness there are still some people who respect things; you see, I don’t want a child to have ANY excuse to swear, they shouldn’t do it at all because they shouldn’t hear such words. If you’ve raised Any children to be good citizens you would probably know that!
>
>>If the term is unacceptable in Parliament, then surely it is also just as unacceptable for a public servant dealing with a member of the public to use it
I couldn’t agree more. I just don’t think it needed to be used verbatim to make that point. There are ways and ways of doing things, and I taught my children that two wrongs do NOT make a right! They didn’t make one in this situation any more than those of my children!
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>>Mr Dennis August 7th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
WELL SAID sir.
>
>>Greengeek said: Toad, I agree with Sapient. If a woman chooses the wrong guy (and I sympathise with her) why should the rest of society pay the price for this? I wish it were that easy. But it is not. Short of placing absentee fathers who don’t support their kids under house arrest and making them work under slavery conditions, what can you do to ensure they contribute their share towards their children’s upbringing?
I am advised, by a daughter who knows these things, that women can now have a single injection that makes them infertile for about three months.
Given that this is true, and given that there is a sad tradition that, because they are the ones that bare children women are most often the ones left with those children to raise, it does not strike me as unreasonable for women who do not want children to avail themselves of this form of ‘mindless’ contraception if they do not want to follow the abstinence path (which is entirely their choice in my mind). On this basis, I would be happy to leave those women who do have children, without having a partner to assist in the support and nurture of the child, to accept the consequences of their own decision and raise the child without my support. If they prove unable to do so, then the child should be taken and cared for as it has done nothing wrong – the woman however should not be supported by the state.
>
>> I want a system that prevents hardship
And I don’t want to pay for that. I am happy to pay for a system that prevents death through starvation or neglect, but not one that replaces furniture and provides computers, Internet connections and other ‘luxuries’ that some now thing of as a hardship[ to do without!.
>
>>Benefit levels are too low for people to live on for any length of time, and the abatement regime is extraordinarily harsh if you do pick up some part-time work.
Sorry Toad. What you are saying here is you want to have your cake and eat it too. You expect me to provide a safety net so you don’t starve or have to live on the streets and gardens, but if you make some money you don’t want that to affect the amount you get from me! Right. Why don’t we all just pay each other a ‘living wage’, say $1,000 a week, and then if you get work and earn more you don’t loose any of it. Oh, and if you don’t pay tax on EVERYTHING you generate as income we give your $1,000 a week to a private prison company and ask them to look after you for five years so you get the message about social responsibility. We could even call the prison a Gulag, it has a nice ring to it.
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i think we can all agree that public servants should avoid using the f word in their professional communication – & as this is so trivial & obvious i hardly see it as the point here. it was always going to be a “culture clash” kind of debate – about whether there should be a welfare system; how much welfare is due; who was at fault for the beneficiary’s dependence etc.
since we know none of the specific facts in this case, i can only say pointedly that i TRUST sue bradford would have been very careful to ensure before citing this case, that the individual concerned would be an absolutely spotless poster-person for this issue. even so i question the wisdom of raising the issue in an election year when many working people are feeling the pinch in terms of rising food & fuel prices, mortgage rates & anxiety over asset values.
some progress might be made in this debate if there were more acknowledgement of valid points.
the process of applying for a benfit is not easy. there are stand-down periods, masses of complicated & prying forms to fill out, interviews to be conducted as someone noted in open-plan offices, lectures to attend.
the whole thing is very demoralizing, discouraging & difficult to navigate for someone not used to the process. this sort of person often has had to swallow some pride to even get into the winz office, & is perhaps in dire straits already, having left it to the last resort. often they are only looking for tide-over money. benefit levels are very small for someone used to working & needing to avert short-term financial disaster which could force disproportionate changes on them like having to move houses even though in a couple of weeks they could be working again & out of trouble.
habitual beneficiaries on the other hand, are used to the humiliation & invasion of privacy & no longer phazed by it. they are adept at filling out the forms, saying the right things, the lectures bounce off them, they are accustomed to it all & familiar with the byzantine network of benefits & supplements & know precisely what they can ask for. they have long ago adjusted their lifestyle to the level of the benefits.
in short everything about the welfare system – the initial barriers, the unpublished entitlements etc – works against the needy deserving worker down on their luck, & in favour of the professionally unemployed.
same with vouchers – horrible for someone to whom self reliance is important & who has been self-reliant & will shortly be self-reliant again – no problem at all for those who regard workers as chumps.
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That’s new….
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4647327a6160.html
I haven’t read the entire thread, but the word ‘homosexual’ doesn’t seem to appear, so i’ll assume this didn’t come up. Love to know where they got that though.
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turnip28 said: I notice that we always talk about benefit levels being too low but I never hear Toad or Frog or even Sue or any other Green party members talk about one of the main causes of low benefit levels. “Inflation�
Benefits are actually Consumer Price Index adjusted annually, Turnip, so inflation is not as significant a factor as you may think (although I do acknowledge that the things beneficiaries tend to spend much of their money on, such as food and fuel, tend to increase faster than the all-groups CPI).
However, benefits are not indexed to the average wage, and have therefore progressively fallen further behind wages over the last several years. The Greens would tie them to a basket of fuel, food and housing indices, and ensure also that they cannot be reduced as a percentage of the average wage.
The other thing that gets forgotten these days is that in 1991 the rates of main benefits were slashed by Ruth Richardson and Jenny Shipley by as much as 24% (depending on which benefit) and have never been restored. The rationale was that benefits needed to be lower to allow the Employment Contracts Act to work to reduce wages. That was the start of the descent into the low-wage economy we now have.
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>
>>
The rationale was that benefits needed to be lower to allow the Employment Contracts Act to work to reduce wages.
Are you seriously suggesting that this was the reason given by the government of the day? If so, can you provide a link please _ I would LOVE to read that in Hansard or any other journal.
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StephenR said: I haven’t read the entire thread, but the word ‘homosexual’ doesn’t seem to appear, so i’ll assume this didn’t come up. Love to know where they got that though.
The case manager is reported as alleging that Tara Marks called him a “faggot”. She denies this.
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Strings said: Are you seriously suggesting that this was the reason given by the government of the day?
No, I’m not. That is my interpretation of the real reason. That particular Government was obsessed with introducing “employment flexibility”, which really means undermining wages and conditions.
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they give that reason but they use weasel words or code words, e.g. “we need a certain level of unemployment to maintain downward pressure on business costs”, or even “labour costs”, which in context can only mean wages
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Actually, Strings, here is what former National Party Social Welfare Minister Peter Gresham said about the 1991 benefit cuts in a 1996 speech:
Which largely supports my assertion.
Gresham also says that benefits were cut because “the Government had to reduce its overall expenditure. The prospect of achieving any significant reductions on total Government expenditure without targeting social welfare, a significant proportion of spending, would have been limited.”
David Farrar took the same line early last year on Key wee-blog
Funnily enough, I seem to recall the National Government bailing out the Bank of New Zealand about the same time as they cut benefits, and by about the same amount as benefits were cut by.
A handout for wealthy bankers, a benefit cut for the poor!
BTW – this thread now rates in the top 10 ever on frogblog for number of comments.
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Don’t hold out on us Toad, what’re the others?
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“this thread now rates in the top 10 ever on frogblog for number of comments”
People still care about beneficiaries – although for differing reasons of course! Go Sue for taking this issue up, when the Minister keeps insisting the poverty isn’t a problem, and if it is a problem, then Labour’s solving it.
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Strings,
Benifits are already indexed to certain forms of CPI, though in most cases its not a terribly relivant basket. For people on retirement payments it is indexed to a particular ‘old persons’ CPI wich takes into account medical costs and such. The minimum wages hould probally be indexed also, but that just means more paperwork for the reserve bank.
The governer of the fedral reserve and seveeral other economists in america have suggested using specialised CPI’s for all wage levels, tax brackets and benifits. but of course that will never happen since it looks good politically to be seen to be raising ‘living standards’.
Aswel as the tree month injection I beleive that there is also one that can last for several years, though, as with all chemical contraception it lowers fertility. additionally there are several for men that are in the works, mostly in china, the last one didint work out too well ad it left half the participants perminantly sterile. lol, imagine making the injection compulsary for those that keep poping babies out; the human rights peoplr would have a feild day!
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Toad
You are drawing a VERY long bow, what you assert as “proof” that the plan was to drive down wages is in fact nothing of the sort.
You and I both know that the National govt came to power on the on the back of pledges totaling about $760 million, as soon as they came to power they were faced with the bad news that Labour had cooked the books and that the country was in deep financial trouble.
On top of that they then faced having to bail out the BNZ (the same BNZ that Sir Roger Douglas wanted to sell for 1 billion and was stopped by the likes of Cullen, Dyson and Clark) to the sum of some $670 million.
The money had to come from somewhere, in the end it came mostly from the social welfare budget.
The rationalization used by Richardson was 100% right, people could earn more on the dole (after six years of a Labour govt) than they could working and that is a situation that should never have happened.
You are being extremely economical with the truth when you suggest that the Nat’s bailed out the BNZ to give handouts to wealthy bankers, that is not the reason at all and you know it.
Finally I am getting a bit worried about you Toad, you are beginning to sound more and more like an apologist and campaigner for the Labour party with each passing day.
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StephenR said: Don’t hold out on us Toad, what’re the others?
You can see them here.
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Toad
A few thoughts
If the nation’s economy can only afford $x as an ‘average weekly income’, there has to be incomes above and below that average. Typically the lowest level is set based on what price can be achieved for the product of totally unskilled labour. An example would be to ask how much (on an hourly basis) you would be willing to pay to have your yard swept, in other words, what is its value to you if you are paying for the materials (brush, garbage sac, disposal, etc.,) as well as taking the time to find someone to do the work. If the benefit paid to unemployed workers is more than that amount after tax, then the chances of filling vacancies for such positions is virtually nil. Indeed, there needs to be a significant premium on the benefit paid, as there are typically extra expenses to be incurred through taking on employment (travel, clothing, etc.). If, as suggested in the statement above, the point of being better off on the dole than working for minimum wage had been passed, then it is incumbent on the government to do one of three things.
1. Allow an influx of unskilled immigration on the basis that they cannot claim welfare for (say) the first five years of their residence; accepting all the attendant social problems that can cause.
2. Increase the minimum wage to be greater, after tax, than the benefit; with the attendant loss of jobs overseas that that can cause.
3. Reduce the benefit so that people capable of work are better off working than not.
Personally I would have chosen 3 as well, as it is a response that doesn’t have significant long-term social consequences.
I have experience of doing nothing in my ex-family in England. My brother in law was married at 19, and by the time he was 22 had three children and a council (state) house. When I asked him (at age 32) why he had never had a job, he told me that in the beginning he didn’t have one because he’d been told at an interview that he wasn’t the best applicant.; never having been compared to others before, this was a shock to him and he was ‘clinically depressed’ for three years. After that, his said, he couldn’t find a job that it was worth his while doing!, I sat with him and was taken through the realities of his life.
We calculated the value of his benefit, his housing supplement, his clothing allowance for the kids, guaranteed furniture replacement on a four year cycle and many other bits and pieces. We then estimated (conservatively,) the cost of working (travel, etc., ) after adding to the total the amount he would pay in tax to achieve the same equivalent income from work, it turned out he needed GBP 1,000 per week, in a country where the average wage was less than GBP400. While I hated the fact that my taxes were paying for his lifestyle, I couldn’t fault his logic! (that word again!)
BACK TO MY EARLIER POINT THEN. Shall we all pay each other $1,000 a week, and see how we get on?
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Woohoo number 4!
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[Strings] women can now have a single injection that makes them infertile for about three months.
I assume you are talking about Depro-provera, whose common side-effects include weight gain, bone-density loss (especially with long-term use) and headaches, to name just a few. Also, having known two family members who have tried Depo (one for a full year, the other for just one injection), both found they became very moody and agressive. It is not a cure-all, and you can’t force women to endanger their health like that.
[Strings] I would be happy to leave those women who do have children, without having a partner to assist in the support and nurture of the child, to accept the consequences of their own decision and raise the child without my support.
And what of the sperm donor? How will he receive equal “justice”?
[Strings] If they prove unable to do so, then the child should be taken and cared for as it has done nothing wrong.
[Strings] you see, I don’t want a child to have ANY excuse to swear, they shouldn’t do it at all because they shouldn’t hear such words. If you’ve raised Any children to be good citizens you would probably know that!
Now I find this quite extraordinary that you found Sue’s use of the term “f* off” to be offensive, and that raising children to be good citizens involves them learning to never swear, yet you condone removing a child from it’s mother (how this is not also punishing the child I don’t know). On the one hand we have the very superficial use of a word, and on the other breaking up one of the closest bonds known to humankind, the breaking of which is generally considered to be a criminal offence. And I guess you call yourself a “good citizen”! The mind boggles!
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Alicia
If a woman wants to have unbridled, unrestrained sex, good on her, she’ll find many men willing to help. However, I think of weight gain, bone-density loss (especially with long-term use) and headaches (which are possible not inevitable consequences) , are far less onerous than the consequence of pregnancy. Mind you, if those risks are too onerous, the woman can abort the foetus – like many other men I supported the movement for women to have that choice.
At the bottom line, there is no inevitability of a woman having a child she doesn’t want in today’s society; if she does, and is unwilling or unable to name the father at the time of birth she should accept responsibility for her act and get on with it.
Also, let’s take the concept of a ‘sperm donor’ out of this discussion right now! There was no Sperm Donor, there were two people engaging in consensual pleasure. One, the woman, should know there were potential long term consequences for her, what’s for sure is men know they’re not going to get pregnant, nor (in this day’s morals) are they prepared to
take a moral position on any long-term consequences of their actions if what was involved was just a one-off coupling. (If rape, including statutory rape, was involved I would say very different things – but for ease of discussion I am eliminating that from this posting.)
So Alicia, what is it to be? Women have lobbied, fought, struggled and finally, thanks to the inventions of pantyhose and reliable – premeditated contraception, achieved equality. I wouldn’t give a man who decided not to bother working anymore a benefit so they could have an easy life as a result of their decision, and I wouldn’t give a woman who gave birth to a child it either.
If the bond is so strong and vital to the child, I suggest that a vast number of women give up their jobs and stay home and raise their children rather than leave them with ‘minders’ while they strive to be able to buy more ‘things’! An emotion is worth a million things in my view, and I am delighted that my children were raise by an intelligent woman, with high earning capacity, who gave in to her emotions rather than pursue the desire for (or should I say addiction to) things!
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Strings,
this will have to be quick….busy raising children and all.
it is not fair to make a comparison between Depro-provera and pregnancy: it is not an either/or situation.
Also, if you remove men’s responsibility as sperm donors (I’m putting that one back in) then they have no incentive to use condoms: the birth control of choice for these one-off encounters you are referring to. And as STDs are generally spread more readily from man to woman than the other way around, women get a double whammy.
Equality? no, sorry but I disagree. Haven’t even got wage parity yet. The reference to pantyhose…just bizarre,
On last point, yeah sure. I also don’t get it when couples have babies then leave them with minders. But I’m also for equal opportunity for men. There are plenty of men, my partner included, who’d dearly love being the one’s staying at home raising the children. This isn’t a woman’s issue, it’s a parent’s issue.
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Alicia,
I have previously covered on another post why their is wage inequality, so I shall address the others. and sound very sexist in doing so.
With rights come responsibilities, a female has sex knowing that there may be the potential to get pregnant if she does not take precautions. If she does get pregnant it is her resposibility as it is her body and was her choice to participate in the act, and if the man runs off it is her fault for misjudging, or not taking into account, the character of the man. You can not have freedoms and rights and them expect the state to clean up your mess when you make a mistake.
having said that I beleive that men should be made to pay child support as they also took the risk knowing the possible outcome and that child support should be the major part of any government assistance.
Also, it is the resposibility of the individual to ensure they or their partner wears protection to prevent the spread of STD’s, it is their body after all. If they do not take the precautions and they get an STD then its their own fault.
Rights and Freedoms come with Responsibilities, you cant expect the state to suckle everyone for every little thing.
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I think incidences of people asking for food grants will increase as inflation sets in. Nowadays anything related to milk is just getting so expensive even I buy less.
I think WINZ should have a little book available about how to set up a vegetable garden and possilby have an asortment of vegetable seeds in a packet in the little book. There will have to be some sort of agreement with landlords but if WINZ is paying the rent then they should be able to make a few rules.
Now at the beginning of spring is a good time to start something like this.
Then the guy at WINZ can say “f.. Off but take this little book with and set up a vegetable garden then you wont need a food grant.”
But the women should still get a food grant to get started as vegetables take a few months to grow, then no more food grants.
Anyone staying at home looking after kids should be able to find time to water a garden.
Also with global warming and peak oil affecting everybody in the near future i think people should be made aware that all kids born in this millineum are NOT going to have a very good life, so having less children is probably a good idea. People just don’t seem to realise how the effects of global warming and peak oil are going to affect them. If you survive the global warming famines you could die in an oil war.
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i can’t comment on whether labour had been cooking the books, but i’ve heard this is how it went: national knew what the state of the country’s finances were before the election since the opposition was made privy to information which was kept from the public. hence they were able to make promises they knew they couldn’t keep & then go through the charade of “oh look! we can’t do that after all! how sad, never mind.”
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Andrew,
Nobody can “ccok the books” anymore as the then Labour government under Lange bought in the Fiscal Responsibility Act after the debacle and perilious state that National put them in.
The state of the nations finances are now open for all to see.
It also bought on rogernomics as the means to borrow money and get spending under control.
Now if you have a look at the books you can see similar situation where government spending is out of control (in regards the ratio of tax payers versus tax recipients) and it is not inconceiveable another boat of rogernomics is close to hand.
No matter who wins the next election. The state finances are way way out of kilter.
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ratio of tax payers to tax recipients can change just because of making tax payers eligible for government payments too.
a more meaningful measure would be to look at total tax as a ratio of gdp, or total proportion of tax paid by each tax payer
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As Labour has done with WFF.
It is a rough ratio but for every state servant or fully funded benificiary you need at least 4 tax payers.
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as for another bout of rogernomics, that would not surprise me, not because we need it but because of who might win the next election.
the original impetus for rogernomics was from the need to repay government debt & to make nz a more agile trading country after the loss of our privileged trade status with the uk.
as we have gone about as far as we can in those directions, i don’t see the need arising.
it is also questionable whether rogernomics was ever the right prescription & it has contributed to the even worse problem of national debt.
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Has it though?? I have heard various commentaries this week saying that NZ debt (other than personal debt) is very low.
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Andrew
There is NO question that Rogernomics was indeed the right prescription if you lived through those times you would know that there was no other option.
When the fourth Labour government (that I voted for) came to power they were shocked to find just how bad our economy was (no amount of re writing of history as the left tend to do can change this fact) I think it was a combination of Prebble, Douglas, Bassett and Lange who took the view that they had two choices to make, one was to do the politically correct thing and therefore steer NZ into bankruptcy (we were close to calling in the world bank to act as receivers) or do the right thing and repair our economy.
The situation was so bad that once Labour decided there was no option but to make the hard decisions they were of the honest opinion that the electorate would not stomach the pain and that they would be a one term government so they had nothing to lose.
What resulted was a tidal wave of reform and yes there was some pain for a lot of Kiwi’s but what MUST be remembered is that the people of NZ voted them back in at the next election with an increased majority, the people clearly wanted Sir Roger to finish the job.
Of course the great pity is that Lange lost his nerve and at the insistence of his mistress (later his wife) he fired Sir Roger and the country went sliding back down hill very quickly.
In some ways it can be argued that the reforms pushed through by Ruth Richardson are the direct result of the disastrous policies of the 87-90 Labour government who had as ministers Clark, Cullen and Goff.
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I would venture that the world bank would’ve rogered NZ too, looking at their history…
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To address those who think it’s the woman’s fault for making a “bad choice” with respect to their partner and father for their children. It may only be a “bad choice” in retrospect. I’m sure it is very rare for a man to tell a woman at the outset that should they have children together he’s likely to find it all too much and do a runner in a couple of years, or even that 4 years down the track he might be made redundant and end up taking it out on her. Do you really believe that women have some magical power that allows them to see into the future? Or do you think that a person’s true character is always obvious? People lie. Especially about themselves (sometimes even to themselves). Some people are better at it than others. Some people are very good at spotting these lies, other’s are not. A woman thus deceived is supposed to take full responsibility for her choice?
Let’s say you meet the directors of a company and are convinced that it is a good investment for your money. Once invested, said directors take off with that money. Do we say that they should get off scott free, and that you deserve what you got for not spotting their duplicity?
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Men are just as easily deceived as women when it comes to the negative outcomes of marriage and childbearing.
However, the only one of the two who has got 100% guaranteed control over her fertility and pregnancy is the woman.
The next generation of females need to have it drummed into them that they should take that control seriously and not pretend it is someone elses fault that they allowed their own fertility to control their lives.
If I was gay, whose responsibility would it be to protect myself from HIV?? My own responsibility of course. What kind of fool would give someone else the responsibility to protect their own life?
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alicia,
if a choice is a bad choice in retrospect it is also a bad choice initially.
If the individual did not take the time to get to know the individual or if they thought they knew the individual but they really didint then its their own fault. Its called taking responsibility for ones actions.
The abandoning partner should of course have to pay child support though as they too made a choice and incured the consequences, even if they regreted it latter.
as stated earlier; the rights over ones body and the freedoms of choice of sexual partner also come with responsibilities for outcomes resulting from the exercising of those rights and freedoms.
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BB said: I think it was a combination of Prebble, Douglas, Bassett and Lange who took the view that they had two choices to make…
Actually, Lange got sucked in, because he had no economic analysis himself. Douglas and Prebble were the major conspiritors subverting the Labour Party’s traditional support for working people.
Bassett was a political lightweight. History PhD and all, he couldnt cut the mustard in Parliament. So ended up as the Minister of Health (the death sentence for any Cabinet Minister) and the Minister of Local Government, in which role he completely abrogated the Green Charter principle of appropriate decision-making and enforced local government amalgamations against the will of the local electors.
I’m very surprised that Michael Bassett has any credibility anywhere these days.
Mind you, I did support him once, under FPP, when the other option for the electorate was the corrupt National MP Ray La Varis. BTW, the Wikipedia entry on this is totally National Party input. Sometime, when I have time, I will research and publish the extent of the Ray La Varis corruption and criminal connections.
At the end of the day, the guy was a crook, but good enough, or well-connected enough, at being one to get away with it.
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Toad, Boroughs and counties were such an appalling failure that everything important had been progressively taken off them and handed to statutory boards for electric power, drainage, tramways, highways or to government departments – schools, hospitals, traffic cops, etc.
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now will someone please get rid of the totally useless beurocracy that is district health boards?
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I love it. Sapient (sapient?!) are you still drunk?
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Im a student, i dont have enough money to get drunk; not that I would waste my money on such an activity if I had enough in the first place.
What are you getting at? The DHB’s are useless beurocracy implimented by a National government to take responsibility away from them. The DHB’s have insufficent central organisation and have massive amounts of administration for little benift, they have massive doubling of services and lasck of specialisations, and due to their inabilty to work togethe in most cases they have far inferior technology because the purchasing power is so small when taken individually, If they had a central body to coordinate them they may work alittle better.
What I hate most about them is that they are elected, I mean come on! it should be whos best for the jobs not who makes the most promisses they wont keep! its just useless beurocracy.
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Alicia
>
>>The reference to pantyhose…just bizarre
As an old man, let me reassure you, it’s not! Prior to the 60s, stockings and suspenders were the only option. Then can the miracle of pantyhose mass production (as opposed to limited and expensive production for ballet dancers. This ‘miracle’ was what enabled Mary Quant, and her followers, to create the ‘mini’, freeing the girls of my generation to extend and relish in their sex appeal and femininity. Coupled with this was the ‘general release’ of the contraceptive pill. For the first time in history women were in charge of their fertility, and so could meet men on the arena of sexual expression with equality. These two things brought about the sexual revolution of the 60s, by putting WOMEN on an equal terms with men on the ‘all pleasure and no consequence’ playing field. However, the extension of STDs from (generally) curable infections to killers changed the world yet again – funny how Gaia (nature) does that eh! What was once the dependable 90% contraceptive is once again the dependable 90% contraceptive and 99% STD preventer. For some reason the Femdom didn’t make it onto the best seller list, and so many women, especially young women, again depend on the condom for contraceptive and disease barrier.
The problem with this can be summed up in two words: passion and alcohol. Often they go together, sometimes not. Whatever, these two are the biggest cause of “forgetting” the condom imaginable. The movie “knocked up” comes to mind – however, few such encounters have such happy endings – and the consequences are well known.
AS for the guy who sticks around for years and then buggers off – that too is a sign of the times. The morality of society has changed – same two inventions!
>
>> I also don’t get it when couples have babies then leave them with minders. But I’m also for equal opportunity for men. There are plenty of men, my partner included, who’d dearly love being the one staying at home raising the children. This isn’t a woman’s issue, it’s a parent’s issue.
I couldn’t agree more. I have a son who has exactly that agreement with his wife. He stays home and she works – they both are very happy with the arrangement. Mind you, my ex thinks it’s rather strange!
Simply for fun. There were two other, almost simultaneous ‘inventions’ that changed the world! When asked what had led to the tearing down of the Iron Curtain and dissolution of the USSR, Gorbachev said “Two things, CNN and the fax machine!”
WHO would have thought that such little things as a pantyhose loom and fax transmitter could have had such an effect!
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So Strings, what do you think of this proposal from John Key?
My immediate concern is who is going to be looking after the kids during school holidays while the single parents are at work at least 15 hours a week? This assumes appropriate and affordable childcare is available, and it is not in many places. Guess we’ll be seeing more “home alones” if National leads the next Government.
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toad,
The Nats proposal is at last starting to look at the economic reality. The tax take is heading south so the tax distribution for tax recipients will have to go south as well.
Unless one borrows off course.
Interesting conundrum.
What is the Greens proposal given the economic state New Zealand is in?
Spare a thought for those Grandparents bringing up grandchildren abandoned by both the father and the mother. Have five in our immediate circle. They get no aid. Can only get WFF if they legally adobt the kids, but because of their age are not eligable to adopt.
Be an interesting head count throughout New Zealand of how many Grandparents are bringing up grand kids.
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Um, Gerrit, isn’t National proposing to borrow to fund their proposed tax cuts? And are not the tax cuts themselves one of the reasons the tax take is heading south?
Now to situation of the grandparents you are talking about? I would have thought they could get unsupported child benefits to support the grandchildren? If they are not getting this, you might want to suggest they apply.
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Toad
I shared your concern, but then thought of the potential for some of those beneficiaries to join together and create a facility for looking after these children – a way to ‘do their bit’ as it were.
While I am totally anti the position that it’s OK to become a single parent, I’m not OK with the idea that the entire cost of that decision should be put on me and other tax-payers. The problem is deep and social, and will take a few decades to put right, as it has taken since the late 60s to get to the point it has today.
However, as I said earlier, in today’s world, with Depro, the morning after pill, The Pill, condoms and all the other means by which a woman can take control of her own fertility. That means that we should have NO SINGLER MOTHERS except by choice. Even in the the case of rape, the morning after pill is available as is (after great fights by women) abortion, so we should have no children from this terrible act by irresponsible men.
While we have to deal with and support today’s single mothers, there should be clear messages sent that we won’t support tomorrow’s so don’t get into that situation. Take responsibility for your own body and fertility.
Not what you wanted to hear I’m sure, but my position.
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Toad
Do you have a mortgage? If so, then by your logic you have borrowed to buy the entertainment and food you consume every day; logic that I doubt you will agree to.
If we need to spend $25 billion on infrastructure that will have a reasonable life expectancy of 25 years, I’m happy to pay for it over that period. It’s just like buying a house, which is family infrastructure. In the case of roads, etc., there are 10 year olds today who will use those new roads long after I’m fertiliser – why should I pay today for their future use? This is not unaligned inter-generational debt, like we had in the 80s; this is intergenerational value sharing – which is good for us all!
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toad,
hey, I’m not defending the Nats, just trying to figure out what the Greens policy is on this matter.
Answering a question with a question is frog like spin doctoring.
What is the Greens policy.
With tax cuts you could get an increased tax take as with higher disposable income you get a higher GST tax take.
Grandprents do get some support. But nowhere near the same entitlements that say a solo parent gets.
If they are working they dont qualify for the WFF payments.
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The difference, Strings, is that my house will appreciate in value (well, maybe not over the last 6 months, but dolalrs to doughnuts it will over time), so I will eventually make a capital gain. Even if that were taxed, which it is not, it would still be a good investment.
Roads, by contrast, depreciate, and eventually have to be ripped up and rebuilt.
And it’s just playing with semantics to say that National is proposing to fund the tax cuts out of revenue but fund infrastructure from borrowing. If it looks like a deficit budget, walks like a deficit budget, and quacks like a deficit budget, then face reality and accept that it is a deficit budget.
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OK
It’s a deficit cash-flow budget (with double entry book-keeping now in government, we capitalise and depreciate anyway, so it’s just cash-flow).
The same as for the last seven years!
What would the greens do differently?
Also. If the appreciation is the only binder on the mortgage, realise that the ‘value’ of the roads actually goes up as well (as long as they are maintained) as they are valued for the government’s balance sheet on the same basis as the electricity networks are, so what it would cost to replace them today is their ‘book value”, just like your house
QED
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Perhaps toad,
The borrowing is in the form of government guaranteed infastructure bond issues, so that mom and pop investors do not have to put their savings into the bank, dodgy fianace companies, underperforming shares, under the matress,etc.
And New Zealand gets the benefit of utilising the saving, instead of foreign owned banks, etc.
Surely the Greens would go with that, or do you want all infastructure capital requirements to be procured out of current tax cashflow? Even if the economy collases further due to overly high taxation?
Sort of good borrowing versus bad. Much like the Greens tax policy of increasing taxation on “bad’ and reducing taxation on “good”.
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i heard sue bradford on the radio today responding to national’s plans for beneficiaries to be forced to seek work.
she was saying forcing beneficiaries to work for the dole was treating them as less valuable than working people…
now maybe the radio people did her the dis-service of finding one particular phrase from a longer speech & placing it out of context, but as it stands it is glaringly illogical.
why not ask instead where national is going to get all the extra jobs from?
because if there is no cogent plan for growth, the sudden entry of hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries onto the job market is only going to cost existing workers their jobs… or their wage levels.
that’s what needs to be stressed if you want to appeal to the working majority.
at the moment they are anxious about rising costs of living & perhaps feel that they shouldn’t be the only ones to feel the pain, & that beneficiaries should expect a rougher ride too.
people in this mindset won’t respond to the suggestion that making beneficiaries work for their income is treating them worse than workers.
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What a fascinating thread to read!
A whole bunch of contributors (nearly all male?) who certainly “don’t appear to let the facts get in the way of their prejudices” (!) and a smaller(?) group of contributors who do see the situation for what it is.
(In defence of the DPB, I am about to write PERSONAL stuff here that I do not even want to remember! I do this in the hope that the detractors on frogblog will have the decency to treat this contribution with respect. )
Here goes:
My(our) marriage failed, and my normally supportive partner “shot through to Australia” leaving me with total responsibility for our two small children (the younger, aged one, who was timid and had great difficulty adjusting to life in a Child Care Centre, and the older, aged five, having to adjust to a class at a school where he had no friends, without any help from his mother.)
All this happened just as I was due to return to a very demanding (and well paid) job after a year’s Maternity Leave … with the expectation that TWO PARENTS would be there to share the parenting tasks (which, suddenly, I now had to manage alone without any physical or financial support).
Frankly it was “like HELL ON EARTH” … for my children, and for their totally overstressed mother. I managed to get about five hours sleep at night if I was lucky, and found myself desperately tired and thus more easily angered, but I kept on going … for as long as I could.
I don’t know if any of the writers here have ever tried “24/7″ TOTAL RESPONSIBILITY for small children, week after week, month after month, in addition to a full-on, full-time professional job dealing with people all day.
My normally relaxed and loving parenting gradually changed to shouting, and finally to hitting. (One day I slapped my son in anger, and saw the look of total shock on his face. That look was “the last straw” for me!)
I went to Department of Social Welfare and asked about the DPB.
They were MARVELLOUS: supportive, non judgmental, flexible, and had good advice to help me find the best solutions for my, and my family’s situation.
The final agreement was that I took “leave of absence” from my full time job, but continued at work as a flexible part-timer, while WINZ paid a certain proportion of the DPB to top up my variable, part-time income. (Sometimes I needed to pay them back, but THE DPB ENSURED THAT OUR FAMILY ALWAYS HAD AN ADEQUATE INCOME.)
Statistically I was “a DPB recipient” for about four years (having finally decided that I must resign from my tenured position) but the actual amount that I was paid by WINZ varied considerably, depending on my Part Time work.
THE DPB IS A SAFETY NET IN OUR SOCIETY, FOR PEOPLE WITH DEPENDENTS (children or infirm adults etc) WHO NEED THEM TO DO THE CARE-GIVING THAT THEY DO!
If you are entitled to any other Benefit (eg Unemplyment, Sickness, and especially Student Allowance, etc) BUT HAVE DEPENDENT CHILDREN (or other dependents), WINZ will put you on the DPB because that is the ONE BENEFIT that has the capacity for the various “add ons”.
THUS DPB FIGURES INCLUDE SIGNIFICANT NUMBERS OF PEOPLE WHO ARE ACTUALLY ON A BENEFIT (OR ALLOWANCE) FOR OTHER REASONS.
The DPB figures include the many sole parents who are in TERTIARY Education (with the desire to make a better life for their child/ren).
Work and Income New Zealand takes responsibility to ensure that the other “liable parent” pays (according to his or her means) towards the cost of the Benefits given. Thus, in many cases the tax payer is either not part of the equation, or is a much smaller part than detractors suggest!
None of us know for sure what is going to happen in our lives … and our children are (collectively) important to our future.
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Look the only purpose of Sue Bradford in the Green party is to win the beneficiary’s vote. Why any tax payer would bother voting for a party with Sue Bradford in it is absurd.
I guess you can gauge the Green party vote pretty easy in NZ, count the number of beneficiary’s and that will equal the green party vote.
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Eredwen
Yours is a story of tragedy and, from what you imply but don’t state, recovery. As a tax payer I have NO problem providing you with the assistance you required. Where I, and I’m sure many others here, have issue is with those men and women who are happy to sit at home and do nothing for themselves; especially those who view pregnancy as a way to increase their income. For those the “DPB” is a way of life, with our without ‘under the table’ earnings.
A fully functioning society MUST have a safety net, as well as a springboard, for those who need transitory help. It must also look after the infirm in its midst. It does not have to look after the lazy and simply bone idle. I hope you agree.
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ok well here is what we need to do If a couple want to have a child they need to deposit a Bond with the government now if either parent skips out the government can pay a weekly DPB payment from the Bond, Once the child is old enough the government returns the Bond.
Also I dont understand the story of a partner leaving for Aus we have agreements with Australia and WINZ needs to be going after the partner for child support payments. Pay the partner the DPB and then find the partner who left and reclaim the DPB payment along with administration costs, it shouldn’t be a cost that the taxpayer has to pay.
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i’m sure bradford doesn’t actually care less about workers than beneficiaries, but is doing good work standing up for those who are hardest to stand up for or find it hardest to stand up for themselves (including children).
the idea that a voter would dismiss a party on the basis that it has ONE member speaking up for an interest group that isn’t mine would render democracy inoperable.
******
most people aren’t expert judges of character, let alone predictors of the future. i’m sure most people feel that they can trust their spouse & have made a good choice in that matter… yet statistics show that most marriages have been marred by adultery… i guess if we applied the standards of perfection some require, (& had the ability to judge that well), marriage & reproduction would be for an angelic minority.
******
diverting capital to infrastructure spending via borrowing & diverting capital to infrastructure spending via taxation are not that different – one is not going to cause the collapse of the economy any more than the other.
the issue is whether the expenditure is worthy.
funding through taxation carries the prolem that tax payers are less able to choose the extent to which they support, & profit from, the project; funding through borrowing carries the problem that interest is incurred.
borrowing for projects with long-term projected benefits makes some sense, but here’s an idea: why not match any borrowing with deposits into a superannuation fund?
******
you mean MEN previously wore miniskirts?
******
cnn only been around for quarter of a century… the fax machine has been around since even before the telephone – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Bain_%28inventor%29#Chemical_telegraph
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Turnip, I copy my previous post here. I reiterate: the men who refuse to pay, and get away with it, are the ones ripping you (and me) off. Also, eredwen’s point that tertiary students with children are also in the DPB figures is a good one. Most people do their best….
If someone wants to talk about putting contraceptives in drinking water then you can start to talk about the choices that women have. A lot of women are left bringing up children with NO other support than the DPB. And they aren’t generally women who are well educated, and they aren’t generally women who have spent a lot of time in the workforce. The DPB has to be available to all women with small children, and the father should be paying his bit towards it – except that the typical response of a well-educated father earning decent money with access to a decent lawyer is to quit his well paying job, become a self-employed consultant, and channel all his earnings through family trusts (ironically, of which the children are often not beneficiaries) in order to prove to IRD that he can’t afford to pay child support. They are the people who are ripping you off, BP, BB – not the woman who is actually working a 60 hour week herself as it is. And no, she can’t afford $80 to get someone else to clean her oven.
If you want to get women off the DPB and into work, try making a donation to http://www.newhorizonsforwomen.org.nz/. $80 every time you get your oven cleaned would be a start.
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My mother was married for 13 years before my parents divorced. Neither
my brother nor I were unwanted children and were very much planned by
both parents. Unfortunatly my parents relationship didn’t work out, and
when I was 1 year old they divorced. My father moved to Melbourne and
never returned. I have had very little contact with him (through no
fault of my mother) since then. My father rarely payed child support and
my mother worked which resulted in putting me in child care full time.
Being raised by a solo parent who is working full time is very
difficult, it restricts ‘family time’ and for me resulted in an over
tired mother who was unable to be the type of parent she would like to
because of the stresses and time constraints. The difference of being a
solo parent is huge compared to having a partner.
When you have a partner, often they are there to back you up, they will
step in if they see you getting wound up or tired. When you are on your
own, there is no-one there to give you an adult perspective on things,
you don’t have the emotional and physical support that a parent,
particularly a working parent needs.
I strongly believe that raising a well rounded, happy, emotionally and
physically healthy child is a very difficult job, the amount of money
you earn is not a measure on how good or successfull a person you are. I
have more respect for someone who is an encouraging, patient and
supportive parent than someone who has many dollars.
I believe that if my mother had been able to stay at home with my
brother and I, she would’ve felt better about the way she raised us and
I would have had a more stable environment at home as a child.
I have spent years fighting severe depression, I’m not blaming my
mother, but I do believe that if she had more time to notice there was
something wrong, steps could have been made before it got to the
severity it did. In some ways, the reason it got to that severity is
because I understood my mother was tired and stressed out, and I didn’t
want to ‘bother’ her with my issues. I was forced at an early age to
take on responsibilities that a young child shouldn’t have to have. I
became a friend, advocate and supporter for my mother and ‘missed out’
on being a child and daughter.
Some children need a full time parent, particularly children who have
had emotional stresses for whatever reason. Children need to know their
parents love them and will always be there for them, and sometimes it
takes longer than 6 years for them to get there.
Now that my mother has retired, I have a much better relationship with
her and am able to see her more clearly as a person than before, as she
is no-longer the stressed out person with little support and love from
other adults.
I love my mummy and I feel very sad for her that she couldn’t be the
mother she wanted to be.
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I agree with strings; It is important that society has a safety net, a spring board is also extremly benificial, but by no means should we have a hammock.
unfortunatly the present system allows alot of ‘hammocks’ where there should be none; it is that which I oppose and I beleive that is also what those more ‘right-wing’ bloggers are proposing.
In the example provided by erewden; that is exactly how the system should work; that is, as a buffer, not a hammock. Furthermore, the missing parents should be made to pay a portion of their income, and if they are in a country with which we have agreements they should still be chased down for it. If they are in a country where there is no agreements and they do not pay child-support then the government should build up a debt on that partners head and sell it to an international debt collection agency to chase them down.
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the word “REPRODUCTION” (ummmm!) was contained in my last post… is that why it was placed in suspension?
or could it be because i used asterisks?
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Nice insult Eredwen.
I feel for you with regard to the hardships you describe. However it needs to be noted that the father of your children stayed around long enough to have two children with you (roughly 5 years?) so you can’t say he didn’t try.
My wife was a widow when we met, and I was a solo parent, so I understand the difficulties that attend single parenthood.
All I can say is that mothers on DPB got an easy ride when compared to mothers on a widows benefit, and compared to the UB.
The safety net you mention must always be limited according to the overall tax take. If that means that WINZ staff have to limit the outgoings then so be it.
They should avoid being rude if possible, but I have seen firsthand how rude and abusive people can be when demanding something they perceive as their ‘right’.
Recipients of any WINZ benefit would do well to show gratitude for such charity, and not regard it as their inherent right.
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& that’s why it’s hard for beneficiaries to stand up for themselves. it’s hard for someone receiving charity to voice the opinion they should receive more charity (or should not receive less) without being seen as greedy & arrogant. it’s a discussion they are effectively disenfranchised from. like children in the s59 debate. good on bradford for being a champion for these groups
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“… but by no means should we have a hammock” writes Sapient.
I understand your thinking Sapient. However … “sole parenting” is in no way “a relaxing swing in a hammock”!
From personal experience, and the experience of organizing and running Tertiary courses for committed job seeking sole parents, I have some
serious reservations about the National Party’s current priorities and ideas.
Apparently only young children who live in a TWO parent family are to be allowed the “luxury” of having the time and attention of a supported full time parent (which was a major aim of the DPB in the first place.)
Children who live in a ONE parent family must give up their time with that parent so that s/he can go out (from her/his very important full time job) and learn how to do “real work” in order to retain the small income that the State provides(subsidises) for her/him to look after the kids.
If (s)he is very lucky she just might be able to attend a course that is appropriate for her longer term needs … but apparently the point of the National Party’s exercise is for sole parents “to go out and learn how to work”. (Meanwhile, only mothers from two parent households retain the freedom “to be there for their kids”).
I suspect that this supposedly vote catching idea is NOT the brain child of professionals/experts in the area.
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greengeek,
Our marriage lasted 13 years, but ended because of addictive gambling, not dislike. (My ex partner always paid his contribution for my time on the DPB.)
I don’t see the DPB as “charity”, but as a necessary and well thought out social tool to ensure support for the vulnerable among our next generation.
My daughter has several friends who are excellent parents and are using their time on the DPB (rather than the Student Allowance) to get professional qualifications that will ensure their future ability to care for their child(ren) financially. Well handled, time on the DPB can be life changing, (including the future generational aspirations of families.)
I would hate to see the National Party seemingly cynically manipulating such a tool for short term political gain. (“You don’t know what you’ve got till its gone!”)
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This thread now has 215 comments (including this one). It is now the fourth most commented thread on frogblog ever. And it is actually Sue Bradford’s first ever authored post.
Well done Sue for getting some good debate happening, even though some of the punters don’t agree with you!
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Toad
It is amazing what gets Kiwis talking, and even tho some of the greens seem to resent more right wing comment I think they should look past the political barriers and aknowledge sound reasoning. Some one has to pay for the welfare system and every one in society has a right to comment.
Having been on the dole I know how hard it can be, it can be soul destroying. I had a mixed bag with WINZ staff, some were great and helped me to maintain a positive out look, others were absoluteley hopeless, and should probably work in a prison or something.
In the end I had to make a personal decision to require more of myself, not use my past as an excuse, and make something of my life.
Now I have my own business with 2 part time employee’s and although I am on a steep learning curve, atleast I am paying my way in societey and contributing something meaningful to my family and my country.
Nothing develops inner peace and self worth like meaningful labour and achievement.
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Toad, I think it is ‘most’ rather than ‘some’, lol, at any rate; benificiary bashing is a national pass time, prehaps the only one that rans up there with rugby (which it occurs to me is a very brutish game, prehaps that has something to do with our average IQ being lower than the americans?, lol).
Erewden, I beleive that if they are trying to improove themselves through education that is admirable and of course single parents should receive an exteneded student allowence for trying to do so. As I have stated before, It is the lifestyle and ‘easy option’ possibilities that I have a problem with when it comes to single parents.
By the Safety net, spring board and hammock analogy I was refering to benifits in general. I accept that raising children by oneself is not an easy process and I would certainly not want to find myself in that situation any time soon; but i also wouldint leave someone in that situation (beleive it or not that all that catholic schooling did manage to rub some morals off onto me, lol). I think that free community childcare would be an important component of any system trying to get single mums into work, prehaps with trained individuals running it and non-working DPB mothers helping out occasionally based on how much money they collect and how many hours they work. I certainly think that after the child is four the mother has no excuse to not atleast do part time work and should be ushered towards it more strongly than prehaps those with lower aged children.
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Shunda barunda says:
“Nothing develops inner peace and self worth like meaningful labour and achievement.”
I would agree, (but with reservations about how this is being interpreted in our current society).
THE “most meaningful labour and achievement” in any society must be the successful care and raising of its children. (“The next generation” is our continuation as a species).
I realise that this is a (young?) male dominated thread, but it should be self evident here, as elsewhere in our current society, that the “easy” answer of dumping kids in Child Care and After School Care while both parents work longer and longer hours for money and possessions (rather than fulfilment) is not necessarily the best way for our society to proceed.
Let us heed the maxim:
“Give me the child until he is seven and I will show you the man.”
(Sexism aside), the BIG question is:
Do we really want that seven year old to have spent most of his or her life in the care of others, while parents work for money and possessions?
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I think eredwen makes a very valid point, the best person to raise the kids is Mum or Dad and preferably both.
The most dificult situation is a solo mum or dad on the DPB and I think this is the area of welfare that needs to be delt with very carefully.
That said, A solo parent who has the opportunity to do SOME work each week, even just 15hrs could find it to be a very positive experience.
I would make a bet that even beneficiary’s resistant at first would eventually find it to be a positive experience.
It would give those that want to improve their lives the opportunity to do so, while exposing those who would abuse the system.
Nationals idea of raising the earnings to $100 before it affects the benefit is a good idea, It would have certainly shortened my time on the dole.
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eredwen
“Sexism aside), the BIG question is:
Do we really want that seven year old to have spent most of his or her life in the care of others, while parents work for money and possessions?”
Show me where the Nat’s have said that DPB recipients should work for more than 15 hours a week?, either that or stop lying.
I also find it interesting that you are so against parents working for money or possessions, I can only assume that as you are so against “money” then you would have no problem doing away with the DPB altogether.
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big bro
If you re-read what I actually wrote you may realise that the “questions you ask” are meaningless.
I wrote about parents in general not just beneficiaries.
When reading your posts, I notice that you regularly accuse people of “lying”. Personally I find that an offensive habit, and I suspect that other readers might too. (It would be a good idea to desist from that accusation in future!)
I assure you that my veracity is not in doubt! (I had wise parents, and I believe that they encouraged us to stop “lying” when we were very small children.)
eredwen
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Eredwen
If you do not want to be accused of something then don’t do it.
Nobody is talking about doing away with the DPB entirely (mores the pity) all they want is for the option of making it a lifestyle choice to be taken away.
The left (Sue Bradford is a classic example) cannot comment on the DPB without resorting to absurd and outrageous claims, I suspect she (and others) do this becuase they know they cannot win the debate.
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BB I interpret eredwen as being against ‘money and possessions’ being at the top of everyones priorities. There are other measures of success.
But eredwen I also have to question the raising of kids as being the ultimate fulfillment. Choosing to limit ones breeding and to raise a LIMITED NUMBER of kids well, yes. But to just keep spitting them out and getting a state reward, no.
Benefit should be available for a limited number of kids and for a limited time as a privilege not a right.
I like the Nats idea. Getting it right is another matter.
As usual I’ll say this isn’t a Green issue, Sue Bradford please go and join/form a workers/beneficiaries party and stop putting environmentally concerned voters off voting Green.
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I can’t vote for the Greens as long as Sue Bradford is promoting her communist manifesto.
NZ is really crying out for a Green party the only problem is that it wouldn’t be able to call itself the green party since the NZ communist party is alread using the name.
From a biological point of view eredwen is correct that the goal and most important thing for a human being is to breed, our problem is that we are too dam good, we are like a virus that keeps speading and growing unable to see that our growth has the potentional to ultimately destroy us.
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Maybe turnips will be the next uber-species!
Totally agree agent 28, whats the Green population policy? Breed more= get paid more?
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Imagine for a moment that you were a 30-something year old, long term worker, as yet unmarried person with no children. (there are plenty of men/women in that position)
Such a person would have every right to see their past tax contributions as having been offered as ‘charity’ to those on DPB etc.
Is it right to ignore such people if they would prefer to limit this charitable safety net to a smaller group? ie, perhaps limit it to a group whose morals they accept? or maybe a group whose work ethic they accept??
You have to view the overall outcome of such a policy before you can enforce such a financial drain on innocent people who have no say on the details of how it is spent.
There are plenty of examples of dysfunctional families living on benefits and not creating a healthy life for their vulnerable offspring.
You are correct to label it a ‘social tool’. It is definitely reshaping society.That doesn’t necessarily make it right.
If you could change the DPB into an ‘opt in or opt out’ insurance scheme then you would find most of those complaining about it would go silent.
The supporters could opt in, and the detractors could opt out.
There would also be many detractors who would still opt in, but with limitations.
There are many different kinds of social conscience, and many different kinds of charity; we must be careful that a safety net does not ever become more comfortable than the life our ancestors and pioneers led. We should always remember that deprivation and hard work are what nature offers us as rights.
Moving up the scale toward a more comfortable life is the privelege of those who work hard, in harmony, as a group. Comfort is not a right. You either earn it, or it is gifted to you, or else it is charity.
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Turnip, yup, at this rate im thinking the first vote i cast will be for a party other than the one im officially a member of, lol. When Sue has posistion three it really does show how corrupted the party is with the new labour/alliance leftovers.
Eredwen, I agree with you on this matter, but under our current economic paradime that is simply not a feasable situation. The endless pursuit of wealth is a problem but its what keeps the economy running, that blatent consumerism. Prehaps another economic model may allow an ideal world, or prehaps a high wage economy will allow even a single parent to support a family on a part time wage; but for now, under lab/nats it is simply not feasable without a large family trust.
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If the greens stuck to environment issues I would seriously consider them as an option for my party vote. But all this medling in the lives of NZers (and what they would like to do in this area) totally rules them out as far as I am concerned.
I would be happy to support well thought out logical steps towards sustainability, but unfortunately this seems like an after thought with the current green party.
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Shunda
I have been telling them that for two years, hell I even offered them both of my votes if they could have managed to get something done about animal welfare.
If they really wanted to grab 12-15% of the party vote they could do so with ease if they dumped Sue Bradford.
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time to bring back the Progressive Greens me thinks
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The funny thing is, I get abused on behalf of the greens by red necks quite regularly because of my line of work, and dismissed by the greens on their web site for being a male, and being unsupportive of progresive socialism.
It is a strange world we live in.
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Well what the hell do you expect?, being a bloke (heterosexual bloke) is about the biggest crime you can commit in todays PC world.
Give yourself an uppercut!
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“and being unsupportive of progressive socialism”
Surely “progressive socialism” is an oxymoron
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BB,
you forgot to add middle aged and white.
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“BB,
you forgot to add middle aged and white.”
That goes without saying.
You feeling guilty today Gerrit?
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I feel dirty
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Never feel guilty.
Always keep in the back of th mind the question ” who has the problem”
As I dont I do not feel guilty.
heading towards the big 60, is that leaving middle age?
So while white, not middle age anyway.
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Now, Shunda, BB, Gerrit, Sapient, do I detect a degree of paranoia here?
This is a very male-dominated blog. Nine of the ten most frequent commenters are men. Eredwen is one of the few women who have stuck with the frogblog as a regular commenter. And good on her.
But think about why others don’t engage. When 9 of the top 10 commenters are men, don’t you think it is a bit rich to get all upset when a woman posts a comment from a feminist perspective?
Doesn’t 9 of the top 10 commenters being male say something to you about patriarchy. That we middle-class, middle-aged white males are still controlling the debate and holding the power.
Open your eyes and ears and listen to what women are saying, rather than get offended and/or put them down for their comments.
I appreciate all your posts (BB excepted, occasionally) – actually more than I do those from some sef-proclaimed greens like Philu (I know Eredwen disagrees with me on this, but I find him an annoying and sometimes abusive troll).
Please accept the posts from feminist women as being part of the healthy debate, rather than feeling threatened by them.
As a middle-class, middle-aged white male myself, I have nothing to fear from feminist argument, so why should you?
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Toad
Are you saying that we are scaring the feminists off this blog?
Wouldn’t that mean that feminists are scared of men?
Isn’t there a word for that?
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toad,
Are most Green woman members scared to debate issues witha few old geezers like us?
We dont stop them from commenting, they stop themselves. The power lies in their brain, fingers and onto the keyboard.
So come all woman, debate the issues with us.
Frog, seeing you are not about to answerr any queries we have put to you lately, why dont you open up the posts to woman Greens, so we can discuss Green policy.
Start with Sue Bradford on how she is going to provide warm housing for all New Zealanders.
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“..I appreciate all your posts (BB excepted, occasionally) – actually more than I do those from some sef-proclaimed greens like Philu (I know Eredwen disagrees with me on this, but I find him an annoying and sometimes abusive troll)..”
whereas i find toad..
..in his entrenched flesh-eating addiction..
..in his ‘pretend’ greenism..
..to be part of the problem..
..and..of course..
..any/all of his comments..
..are a humour/erudition-free zone..
..so are eye-clawingly ‘boring’..
..and troll-like just for that..
(psstt..!..i think toad is trying to incite me to say something to get ‘banned’..
..eh..?
..don’t tell him i know..)
..i actually quite enjoy dancing three steps ahead of him down the board..
(so do keep rolling out the ad hominems..eh toad..?
..you are like a low grade methadone for my withdrawals from my daily fix of monstering/inciting rightwing trash..at kiwiblog..
..cheers for that..!..)
..i mean..it’s so very ‘easy’..
..toad is the gift that just keeps on giving..
..eh..?
..phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Philu
That wasn’t actually that hard to read, time off kiwi blogg is doing you some good I think.
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Can the dumbo drongo Sue Bradford debate ?
I asked her a question at a select committee hearing once and she looked like a fly catching stunned mullet, got up and walked out of the room without replying.
Green smelly Feminists are REAL COWARDS
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Toad
Sometimes, just sometimes you say the most hurtful things!
I can only speak for myself Toad but I can assure you I am not and never have felt threatened by a feminist, I think that anybody who is of the opinion that one sex is superior to the other is an idiot.
Apart from driving of course.
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Shunda
Does it not make your eyes bleed reading Phils “stuff”?
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Okay Phil, I should have learned the lesson – don’t feed the trolls. I’ll ignore you for a while then.
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The day a feminist threatens a real bloke is the day I kiss a poofter !!!
Never happen – get some balls you weak gutted wimps.
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and reading maps
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BB said
“Does it not make your eyes bleed reading Phils “stuffâ€??”
I find if you squint and grit your teeth it only causes minor irritation.
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Toad
Fancy feeling a little more balanced?
Then how about doing us all a favour and giving one from the left (Phil) and one from the right (D4J) a wee holiday?
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d4j said: Green smelly Feminists are REAL COWARDS
Oh, dear, d4j, you are back. I suppose it had to happen – you must be a bit bored during your ban from Kiwiblog.
You can have a ban here too, you know. And offensive comments like that are just the way to get one.
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-” you must be a bit bored during your ban from Kiwiblog.”
Quite the contrary toad, in fact I won’t be going back to kiwiblog, as I fail to understand why bloggers are restricted on what they say when politicians face no consequences for abusing each other.
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big bro, big bruv kiwiblog – can’t wait to chat face to face . Real piece of crap aren’t you.
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big bro = girls blouse.
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Wow..somebody has real anger issues.
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Hmmm…I certainly dont interpret it that way.
The carping and bitching seen here is exactly what women used to get up to over the back fence in the good old days of men ruling the roost.
These days having a rant here is as close to world domination as we get.
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No anger issues here big bro -bruv, I just detest pathetic wimps like yourself who plead to blog owners to ban people.
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BB said: Then how about doing us all a favour and giving one from the left (Phil) and one from the right (D4J) a wee holiday?
Not a bad idea imo BB. But I just comment here – some people confuse me with frog, but I’m actually just one of the punters, and have no moderation authority here at all.
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Bad luck big bro -bruv , been a gutless narc long have you ?
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Anger issues AND no sense of humour
Must be rough being you.
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No sense of humour , haha you don’t know Peter Burns do you.
What’s your name big tough and rough bro bruv? The internet sheriff with no name.
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“What’s your name big tough and rough bro bruv”
You can call me Sir.
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you’re not trying to be funny..big bro..
(so no ‘humour’ to ‘sense’..)
..like so many from the right..
..you spout/mouth platitudes about freedom/free speech..
..and then when your ideas/idiocies are questioned/exposed..
..for the oppressive/reactionary nonsenses they are..
..you call for censorship..of your critics..
..that’s the thing with you righies..
..for almost everytrhing you say/pretend..
..the opposite is the actuality..
..phil(whoar.co.nz)
..and d4j..
..still the ‘idiot’..eh..?
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..this desire for banning/censorship is but one of the many manifestations of toads’ lurch to the right with age..
..phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Call you “Sir” big blouse you stupid cowardly sissy.
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here is toad..toadying to the right..
(just a few minutes ago..)
# toad (365) Add karma Subtract karma +0 Says:
August 12th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
PaulL said: have two of the most destructive commentors gone away perhaps?
3 actually – Philu, Redbaiter, and Nome. Just get rid of Murray and we could have a highly intelligent week of discussion here…
“‘highly intelligent conversation’..?..toad..?
yagottalaff..!
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Haha toad and big bro bruv blouse are joined at the hip much like Sue and Helen.
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Id take Phil over D4J any day…
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Surely sapient you should be named serpent – hiss -hiss viper !!!
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Well im a Scorpio, so a scorpion may suit better.
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You know, this was an interesting debate! It got a little heated at times, and yes, the Ladies’ view was a little lacking, but did exist. I think we were all learning something from each other.
Then came the gruesome twosome, who, I am most terribly aware, could be the same person with an alias on their eddress – doing what they do just for the hell of ruining decent debate.
Let’s get back to the point and just ignore them eh?
My position on the original position is that trying to make abusive and offensive language acceptable in the Debating Chamber is tantamount to trying to make it acceptable everywhere. What Ms. Bradford did was typical of someone who knows the rules and deliberately breaks them to show how ‘advanced’ they are.
As I understand it, there is ONE quoted instance of a WINZ worker swearing at a benefit applicant ina year when there were over 1,500,000 personal ‘interviews’ with claimants. While even 1 is 1 too many, Even 1000 would be a statistically irrelevant number and could be put down to stress (a work ‘accident’ that I believe Ms. Bradford lobbied to have covered by ACC,) and so excusable as a temporary mental aberration.
On the same(ish) front. I read yesterday that the rules regarding ‘emergency grants’ had been changed, and that a beneficiary could now apply for two per year, and that the amount available per application had been increased from $500 to $1,000. This is a 300% increase in this area of benefit – something I don’t recall any publicity around, never mind serious debate. Did we all miss it?
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“..Then came the gruesome twosome..”
(..that’s a bit harsh on poor old toad..!)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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why should we pay you any credence..?.strings..?
you are just a peddler of those sole-parent bashing ‘myths’..
..how can you possibly fancy yourself as a component of any ‘intersting debate’..?
when you post drivel like this..?
“..Where I, and I’m sure many others here, have issue is with those men and women who are happy to sit at home and do nothing for themselves; ..
..especially those who view pregnancy as a way to increase their income. For those the “DPBâ€? is a way of life, with our without ‘under the table’ earnings..”
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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FillMe
Taken the tablets today I see. Good boy!
Now, take you half of the twosome back to your own blog and practice your copy and paste some more – there’s a good chap.
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q.e.d..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Strings said: As I understand it, there is ONE quoted instance of a WINZ worker swearing at a benefit applicant ina year when there were over 1,500,000 personal ‘interviews’ with claimants.
I can assure you there will be more, Strings. Sue Bradford actually referred to three in Parliament. I used to work as a beneficiary advocate, and instances of inappropriate comments (although not necessarily quite as rude as the one Sue Bradford quoted) from case managers were quite commonplace. In fact, a long-term beneficiary with severe depression contacted me the day after Sue Bradford raised the issue in Parliament, saying he had recently been told by his case manager “You’re just a wreck, aren’t you? You’re just useless!”
As for the Rotorua “f*** off” case, it appears we may not have heard the end of it yet. There is a report this morning that the beneficiary is commencing court proceedings against Ministry of Social Development over it.
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Strings said: I read yesterday that the rules regarding ‘emergency grants’ had been changed, and that a beneficiary could now apply for two per year, and that the amount available per application had been increased from $500 to $1,000. This is a 300% increase in this area of benefit – something I don’t recall any publicity around, never mind serious debate. Did we all miss it?
It was announced on 3 August. There wasn’t a lot of media pickup – I think the Northern Advocate, Gisborne Herald and Radio NZ ran stories, but TV news and the major dailies didn’t.
It doesn’t actually double the level of individual grants – what it does is halve the time in which a beneficiary can obtain their maximum cumulative dollar figure of grants for food assistance from 52 weeks to 26 weeks .
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I think you’re right about a bigger number Toad, but to be fair on the workers, it would take 15,000 to achieve a 1% incidence rate, which, even in the type of stressful situation that must often occur for both sides of the discussion, would still be a statistically insignificant number.
While it would be nice to think that the term civil really did still apply to our government employees, they are now just ‘government employees’. The basic training that used to be part of being employed in ‘the service’, after passing the entrance exam, has fallen by the wayside since their employment ceased to be by the ‘civil service’, and was devolved to individual Chief Executives, Secretaries, etc..
The lack of civility is only a small example of the impact of the devolution. Whereas there used to be a clear career path through the service; as well as an ability to move people between agencies as work demands ebbed and flowed, today there is a single entity approach to all of this. The bottom line for that is that when an agency finds itself in need of senior resources, either through growth or attrition, they advertise the vacancy and virtually ensure, by the wording, that they poach workers from other agencies. When worker demand is high and supply low, as has been the case for the last five years, the net effect is a churn of people through agencies on the basis of ‘highest bidder wins’, lifting the cost of service ever higher. Hence, we have the situation where the ‘average’ income in government employ is higher than that in the private sector. The bleating of some people that this shouldn’t happen, as government employees have job security, is a baseless fallacy now, as the there is no such thing as tenure, just a job with an employer who happens to be funded by taxes.
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Strings said: The basic training that used to be part of being employed in ‘the service’, after passing the entrance exam, has fallen by the wayside since their employment ceased to be by the ‘civil service’, and was devolved to individual Chief Executives, Secretaries, etc..
I did suggest further up the thread (or was it on another blog – this thread’s so ling that I’m not going to bother to even try to find it) that Sue Bradford might like to ask some questions of the Minister of Social Development and Employment to find out what training is actually given to Work and Income Case Managers. I suspect that it is woefully inadequate.
I actually think that even one instance of abusive language or behaviour by a public servant is one too many. Sure, people get stressed out, and dealing with sometimes frustrated, sometimes mentally ill, and sometimes abusive people is not easy. But public servants should be trained to do so, and there should be zero tolerance to their responding in an abusive manner, even when provoked – every such instance should result in disciplinary action.
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I don’t know whether to be outraged or amused at the drivel written about one of our Green MP’s by guests (freeloaders?) on frogblog.
Either way, the comments made show considerable ignorance
(and gulibility?).
Sue Bradford is a very capable and effective member of Parliament.
She is rated Number 3 on the Green Party List. The position directly after our two co-leaders, in an impressive list of talented, capable and principled candidates.
The Greens’ ranking system is thorough and democratic.
It is derived from the individual rankings of ALL candidates by EVERY Green Party member.
The Green Party has the (well deserved) reputation for having members of high intelligence …
Maybe the detractors should think again?
(I don’t think that Sue would be the least bit disappointed to discover that you don’t “fancy her”! )
e
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Eredwen
Yep..its so “democratic” that you have to wangle the list to get Russel Norman into the house.
For a Green you show a disturbing lack of tolerance for those who do not share your “vision”, you seem to be demanding that we all adhere to blind acceptance of her (and the Greens) message and that what the Greens have to say is beyond debate, again that is not what you could describe as democratic.
Oh, and for the record, this “freeloader” does not doubt Bradford’s intelligence only her motives, I can also assure you that I do not lose sleep over the fact that Bradford might not “fancy me”.
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Toad
I know I said earlier today that even 1 is 1 too many, so we are in agreement, and as for disciplinary action – I also, and totally, agree!
The base point I was making about the civil service training though was not related to MSD’s many guises, but the entire service. IN the days when my mother was a Mandarin in the British Civil Service (a pioneer of woman power and an interesting story in its own right, but not for here) she explained to me the basic process of entry.
An aspiring Civil Servant needed 5 Ordinary Level General Certificate of Education Passes at Grade 3 or better, to apply for the basic level of entry. Other levels included Advanced Level Certificate (three Cs or better, or University graduation (2.2 or better). If the application was deemed suitable for progression the applicant sat the ‘Civil Service Entry Examination’, for which the pass mark, for all grades, was 70%. What this mean was that even at the lowest clerical level the Civil Service only admitted people who could prove they had the basic aptitude and knowledge necessary to do the job. ON appointment through the exam, entrants would be assigned an ‘intake batch date’, which was the day they were to turn up to start their training in basic skills – a six week programme. AF6ter this ‘induction’ they were assigned to agencies and given no less than 4 weeks training in the specifics of their role before being expected to take it on alone – for some it was a much longer ‘apprenticeship’.
Today, advertisements are placed, usually by agencies, in local papers and web-sites, a short list given to a hiring-manager, a candidate selected and off they go – with a buddy system for most and a two to four week training (I’m told) for call-centre types.
Today, the ‘service’ is, for most people, not a career, it’s a job; loyalty is, generally, to the highest bidder, and if you ask someone for an extra hour to do something urgent you better give them a couple of day’s notice! I heard last week of someone whose job included being occasionally ‘entertained’ at business functions taking an afternoon off before one of those five course dinners with wine and serious discussion events, as he was ‘working’ the evening!
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Eredwen
It would seen you don’t know whether to be outraged or amused at the drivel written . . . . . . .by guests (freeloaders?) on frogblog.
Are you the owner of the blog? or are you too a ‘freeloader’?
As someone who has been invited to make contributions to this site, I resent your classing me and all other “guests’ here as a freeloader.
While I will fight to the death for your right to hold and express an independent view on ANYTHING, I would hope that you would also respect my right to express my views on any available public forum – which this is by virtue of it having a comment capability.
If the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand do not want comments on the original posts on their official blog-site, they can turn that capability of. IN the meantime, everyone is allowed an opinion, even you. Everyone is also free to disagree with someone else’s opinion. That is freedom of expression and speech.
Sue Bradford’s personal agenda (and we all have one) is open for discussion as she posted the original topic on this thread and is a public figure by choice. Your suggestion that people who openly disagree with her views or tactics shows considerable ignorance and gulibility (sic) is an affront to my sense of dignity and an insult to my intelligence (MENSA Member incidentally,) that I expect (without any real hope) you to withdraw and apologize for.
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Oh dear,
eredwen has really stirred it up.
Yep, us “freeloaders” are in two minds to vote for the Greens. So yes patronise us with stupid unsubstanciated statements like
“The Green Party has the (well deserved) reputation for having members of high intelligence …”
Judging by the Greens looking overseas for kiwis to vote for them, I would suggest that the party is getting worried it might not makle the 5%.
So eredwen, go ahead like frog and bury your head in the sand thinking patronising talk is all you need.
To get the Green vote to an parliamentatary effective 30%, both you and frog need to lose the patronising attitude and consider what the voters are thinking.
You need to lose the activist badge and put on a strategist one.
So far toad is the only one talking sense from a Green perspective that a potential Green voter could relate to.
Anyone heard from BJ recently?
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he’s quite ‘funny’ sometimes..that strings..eh..?
and..playing the mensa-card..?
priceless..!
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Hey guys, I’m glad this has calmed down now. Remember, personal attacks and juvenile drivel are not acceptable and you will get yourself deleted. dad4justice, you have been warned. The rest of you, be nice.
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“..So far toad is the only one talking sense from a Green perspective that a potential Green voter could relate to..”
gerrit..you are just relating to toads’ lurch to the right..
yes..he is (now) one of ‘yours’..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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FillYou
Now, you know you need another tablet – go and get a glass of water and take it please. Then go back to practicing cut and paste again!
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gee strings..
for one of such (self-claimed) legendary intelligence..
..you really are a one-trick-pony..eh..?
..with your ‘tablet’ ad hominems..?
eh..?
(did you get ‘slipped’ the answers..?..before the ‘mensa-test’..?)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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strings (and appropriate others)
I’m SORRY if/that you thought your posts were under attack from me!
I don’t recall your writing anything that, in manner or content, could be categorized as “inappropriate”. However, as a (recent) regular contributor here, you must be aware of the tone and content that I refer to ?
(Perhaps you don’t!)
I don’t see myself as “owning” frogblog! However, as a long time “Green” with a professional interest in “Communications”, I feel obliged to comment from time to time.
This was one of those times, when “the maintenance of a FRIENDLY and INCLUSIVE forum for the dissemination and discussion of green and Green ideas … for People and Planet …” was at risk.
I often wonder if any of you, when in “full fight”, stop to ask why half the human population, who are female, seldom venture here!
If this this means an occasional “telling off” from an old “school ma’am” (actually “Tertiary Teacher”) so be it!
eredwen
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i’m not sure of your male/female weighing..
..many nom de blogs are (deliberately/understandably..i think..) non-gender specific..
as an example..
d4j is actually a 19 year old vegan arts student..(female..)..
..majoring in poetry..
..she hides it well..
..eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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“Sue Bradford is a very capable and effective member of Parliament.”
Yes she is and I happen to agree with the anti smacking legislation, but she is NOT a Green.
I applaud her hard work and commitment but she does nothing Green.
I’ll compare her to Rodney Hide, who I also applaud for his hard work and commitment. ACT is the correct party for him, it stands for what he stands for.
Sue Bradford does not. I want to vote Green for green reasons.
She gives me all the excuses I need to NOT vote for the Green party.
Please Reds, go form the party that stands for what you stand for.
How many voters are out there of a similar mind to me?
Why can’t the greens in the Green party see the opportunity staring them in the face?
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and i..i am a ‘political correctness counsellor/advisor’.
..i hide that well..
..eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz
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EREDWEN
Misunderstanding cleared up, and request for apology fully requited. Thank you!
I can only agree with your regarding the inappropriateness of some of the comments, though perhaps my list and yours will be different. In as much as people disagree with green concepts, logic and policies, I regard this forum as a vehicle for enhanced understanding. As I’ve said many times, my vote is in the undecided category tight now, and I have an interest in some ‘green philosophies’, though not for the communist manifesto or extreme left wing ideology. I join the debates here to enhance my knowledge and extend my understanding of the green option ion New Zealand.
As for some of the people who regularly post here, such as PhilU, I have no regard for their input, and no reason to believe other than they are sad people, with impaired mental capability, who neglect their medication regime and have nothing else to spend their welfare dole and time on than Internet connections and provocative blog posts.
Your posts, as a woman and a person with the ability to communicate her views, are welcomed by me, as I am sure they are by all right thinking people here.
Happy daze
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Bradford attracts the dusty far-left activist loons who would otherwise have no-one to vote for, thus increasing the Greens vote percentage by a few points.
It’s like Winston First – he knows he only needs 5%, so what does he care if 95% of the population votes against him.
MMP, eh.
Personally I think the Greens are aiming *way* too low. If they adopted the economic middle ground, they could give Labour a run for their money.
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samiam saidYes [Sue Bradford] is [a very capable and effective member of Parliament] and I happen to agree with the anti smacking legislation, but she is NOT a Green. I applaud her hard work and commitment but she does nothing Green.
As a Green Party “insider” samiam, let me tell you a little about how the Green Party works at a Parliamentary level. The various portfolios are divided up and the MPs are allocated spokesperson roles. So, for example, Russel gets Environment and Agriculture (it was Nandor before him), Jeanette gets Transport and Climate Change, Metiria gets Conservation and Biosecurity, Sue Kedgley gets Food and Animal Welfare etc – all roles where there are plenty of things MPs can say on environmental issues.
The big portfolios Sue Bradford has been allocated spokesperson roles in by the Green caucus are Social Development & Employment, Industrial Relations, ACC, Children’s Issues & Housing. Now Housing is the only one of these that really has any room to talk about environmental issues, but because Jeanette has the Government Energy Efficiency Spokesperson role, she usually fronts instead on things like home insulation and energy efficiency.
It’s not that Sue Bradford doesn’t have an interest or expertise in environmental issues, just that her spokesperson roles don’t give her much room to talk about them in the media. I’ve actually seen her footing it with the best of them on issues such as climate change and peak oil at public meetings, but only the relatively few people who attend such meetings get to see that side of her.
And as a long-time Green Party member, I can also give a wee history lesson and tell you that Sue Bradford left Jim Anderton’s NewLabour Party and joined the Greens back in 1990 when the Greens first formed – because she didn’t like Jim’s authoritarian socialist politics and because she felt she had a greater political affinity with the Greens. And when the Greens became part of the Alliance, Sue chose not to be involved, for the same reason, only rejoining the Greens after they left the Alliance.
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Never a truer word spoken.
Lots of voters I suspect, especially as awareness of green issues grows by the year.
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Eredwen, what do you mean by free-loaders?
Do you mean people whom comment on this blog and are critical of the actions of MP’s and the party without being themselves members?
If that is the case I hope you do not include me in that number as, while I criticise Bradford (and would like to see her off the list), I contribute to the party a not insubstantial amount of my small savings and a very substantial amount of time in my role as conviener of a branch and various other party posistions. I do not see it as a big ask to have some of my views, views I know are held by many active members, expressed by the party itself. But instead of the rational and well thought out policy that we would see the party have we end up with the drivel of bradford and buddies. The very fact that bradford is third on the list shows how courupted, by the alliance reminants, the party has become.
As Gerrit says; if we had policies that were designed with reality in mind, as we claim we do, we could be a major contender and could be making real progress both nationaly and internationaly for the environment and people, that is to say; if bradford and her watermelon clones would just shut their traps for once and let us do someting really green, not Green.
I do not see my views being expressed, I do not see the views of my branch being expressed and I do not see the views of many libertarians with which I have talked being expressed.
Furthermore, to those whom say our four pillars are so linked that they are equally important; guess what, without the environment we have no society in which to impliment the other three.
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Sapient said: while I criticise Bradford (and would like to see her off the list)
Sapient, that is your personal view, and you are entitled to it. However, the Green Party operates a fully democratic internal list ranking process in which all members of 6 months’ standing or more are entitled to vote for how they want to see the list ranked. In 2002, 2005, and again this year, Green members have ranked Sue Bradford at No 3. Perhaps the majority of the membership has a better understanding of her commitment to environmentalism than you, as a relatively recent member, I understand, have gained from the media.
And even if she were not on the list, someone else would be saying much the same sort of things as she is. That is because her statements are supported by Green Party policy, which, again, is made by the members, rather than by the MPs.
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Sapient said: I do not see my views being expressed, I do not see the views of my branch being expressed…
Maybe that is because you and your branch have not engaged in the policy process. Although you have said some pretty extreme things here (like the “eugenics comment”) that would have hardly any support at all among other Green Party members.
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Toad,
I am aware of all the internal processes, and as I have said, the party is infested with alliance and new labour leftovers whom choose to pursue socialist agendas over rational and effective policies which would do real good for the environment and society.
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thanks for the info toad, it should satisfy the detractors
personally i think any individual who considers environmental considerations a bottom line requirement in government policy & would vote with the greens in the house on any environmental issue might find the greens the appropriate party for them even if such an individual holds distinctive views on economic or social policy.
it’s hard for a party to please everybody, especially when there are so many people wanting to pull the party in this direction or that, each claiming that their issue is the one which, if they embraced it, would yeild a fantastic haul of votes.
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“Social Development & Employment, Industrial Relations, ACC, Children’s Issues & Housing. Now Housing is the only one of these that really has any room to talk about environmental issues”
Great so it’s not SB that’s the problem it’s the Green policy(s). Given that housing is the only issue in her sphere that has a direct environmental component how about flying the flag on that issue and NOT on the others. That way voters might see Green as worthy of green votes.
Imagine that.
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Lol, toad, my accual views are not as extreme as alot of the more controversal ones I express here, those tend to be mearly for generating discussion around the matter, they are not so much my personal opinions.
The views I refer to are libertarian principles and practical policy.
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andrew,
thats why I beleive that following the election the party should split so that overall the green vote is increased. that is to say that the greens with strong social agendas can go in one party and attract the left and some green vote while those focused on practical green policy can form the other group and overall result in significantly more green votes
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as long as there’s a threshold splitting is a non-starter.
anyway, if green concerns are still the bedrock to any member, & still their “focus” even if they leave most of the advocacy on those issues to other members, they probably wouldn’t see any reason to split. i don’t think any other party is a single-issue party & i doubt any would survive as such.
(the aotearoa legalize cannabis party would have got two seats in the first mmp election but for the threshhold, but i doubt they would have showed up only to vote on cannabis legalization & left every other issue alone)
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Sapient’s proposal is not without merit, though it is probably without electorate currency.
If the Political compass is used, instead with an east-west communist-conservative perspective and a north-south hedonist- conservationist one, the NZ green party today would be seen as being ona solid West-South-West heading. Personally I would prefer a due south steer, as I thing the centre position on Left/right is appropriate for a country as economically unsophisticated and unimaginative as New Zealand. I could even go so far as south-south-west with a little persuasion. But South-West, or west-south-west both leave me with an unabandonable work ethic and more dependents than I am prepared to carry.
Socialism promised me a welfare state that would look after me in my old age. Now it tells me I’ve got a few more months to get a hefty savings account or live on the bottom of the income stream. It strikes me that the socialist world, especially at the communist edge, wants to be all about taking from the rich and giving to the poor, with anyone in a position of political clout rated as poor and in need of support.
I want my grandchildren to emulate the nature of Mr. Key – i.e. get out and make your fortune, rather than Ms Bradford – i.e. work hard and give me one, and do everything the way I say you should. So I have trouble voting for the Green Party. Perhaps the allocation of portfolios is wrong, perhaps the policy is wrong, I don’t know; what I do know is that I want to be left to live my life my way, not have the minutia, including how I discipline my children and what they eat at school, dictated to me by others, irrespective of what percentage of the vote they got.
Government should be of laws, not of people!
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andrew,
yup, need to get rid of the threshold and/or impliment a transferable vote system.
Im not suggesting a single issue group, I am suggesting that there be one green party which focuses on their perceptions of green and on social justice and concerns of the left while there be another green focused party which caters to more to the concerns of the center-right or those that like practical policy that accually works.
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…43 more posts and this is the longist thread onfrogblog…
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As everyone knows length isn’t everything sapient. If I were to delete/censor all the rubbish that has been written in comments on this thread it would be substantially shorter.
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You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself frog.
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frog, true. It hasint been very productive, all we really found out is that most beleive a safety net has its place, even if for a limited time. the thread could do with alittle more *girth*, so to speak, or skill as the case may be. Though I do find BB’s proposal interesting, though working out the dynamics may be alittle perplexing.
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“..I want my grandchildren to emulate the nature of Mr. Key – i.e. get out and make your fortune..”
there you go strings..
..in your own words..
..the only work of any merit is that which ‘makes you a fortune’..
..and key..?
..you want your children to be money-traders..?
ah well..
i see you also want to kick sole parents in the guts..
..you wanrt to be able to hit your children
..and you want crap food to be advertised/pushed to children..
and this all under some guise of ‘freedom’..
..you are really ‘coming into focus’..strings..
..and..it ain’t pretty..eh..?
..and..given your grab-bag of utterly reactionary views..
..what are you doing here ‘pretending’ to be green..?
..phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Phil
You really do ask for it sometimes, what on earth could be wrong about a man who grew up in a state house going on to become a millionaire and PM of New Zealand?
Would you rather he stayed home all day sponging off the state and writing a blog that nobody ever comments on?
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FillYou
PLEASE, catch up on the tablets; you’re embarrassing yourself again!
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Phil,
I think strings is refering to making ones own fourtune, whatever that may be, money or not. as opposed to stealing the fuit of someone elses work, eh?
Though it should be noted that Key was able to do so because of favourable social and economic condidtions, many of the former of which he campeigns to remove. Ironic really.
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Sapient
Correct, thank you!
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so sapient..do you also view sole parents as”stealing the fruits of someone elses’ work’..?
and just the ‘tablet’ one-liner is all you have to offer strings..?
again..?
‘mensa’..eh..?
..are you sure it wasn’t ‘densa’..?
..phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Sapient said: …as opposed to stealing the fuit of someone elses work, eh?
Um, isn’t money trading, where John Key made his fortune, actually “stealing the fruit of someone elses work”.
From what I understand of the money trading market, futures market etc, one person’s gain must be someone else’s loss. Money trading doesn’t actually produce anything. It’s really just a glorified game of blackjack – a few, who ar clever like John Key, will win. Most will lose.
Except with blackjack, if you are clever enough to win too much (ie you can count cards) you get banned from the casino.
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Phil, depends on the situation, sorry but I dont do absolutes.
If the individual is single due to circumstances outside their, rational, control which were not readily foreseable at the time of initial commitment to a child then I see DPB to be perfectly justified for the first year or two, after that the rate sould be sufficent to support the parent and the child, mostly the child, when alongside part time paid work.
Past the age of school requirement (6, though I would have it at 5) the individual should receive the DPB as required assuming paid part-time work with encouragement to find full time work.
The rate with a child in school would be smaller as I would like to see a ‘food in schools’ programe with school kitchens and such providing breakfast and afternoon tea to lower income children and morning tea and lunch to all.
Likewise I would like to see kindergarden made compulsary and food provided.
I would limit it to the first two to three children and if the money is shown on inspection to not be going to the care of the child but to the affluence of the parent then, after warnings, the child should be ceased and taken to somewhere that it will be properly cared for and the parent would loose the benifit as the main purpose is for the development of the child not the welbeing of the parent.
It should be made readily apparent that the state will only assist with a limited number of children, with any that cannot be provided for being seized and the rearing costs debited to the parent/s. Contraception should be made readily availible and subsidiesed and should be activly encouraged reguardless of religious affiliation.
and Re: MENSA, pfft, I wouldint want to be associated with that group, I though of joining once but decided it would probally both cost me and lower my IQ (my pills do that enough), the IQ requirements are remarkedly low, I mean to say a busness studies drop out could probally get in, I cant remmeber the exact number (125?) but its well within two standard deiviations from the mean and i would expect, with some exceptions, that most on this blog would qualify.
Toad, lol, if you can win at a game of cards then good on you, those whom participate and speculate do so willingly, if they loose then its their own problem, though having said that i have a distinct dislike of speculators but atleast they rely on their skill to get their profits and do so at their own risk. And really share traders/currency traders/futures traders are productive as they move financial capital to areas where they beleive there to be potential and in doing so promote growth, even if they do do it for self profit and cause most market crashes.
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and sapient..what is done with the children during the school holidays..?
y’know..!..these five year olds..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Well said Toad. Obviously Key is a man of talent, but is he a man of integrity?
I think he is the kind of guy who is successful as long as he has someone elses effort to manipulate.
I wonder if he ever held a screwdriver.
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In fact Key should be made to do 15 hours a week in real work.
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lol, phil, of all the things you could critise from that post you choose that point?
Its simple,you increase the benifit during the holidays to account for the increased costs, or provide a separate suplimentry payment, same results for the most part. tah-dah.
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so..the children left in daycare centres..?
for the 16 weeks of school holidays..?
i chose that point on purpose..
as it seems to be a salient fact….that everyone seems to forget/ignore..
in their calls for sole parents to be forced into work..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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For those of you who have not experienced the “joy” that Phil brings to Kiwiblog I have better explain that the child care excuse is Phil’s standard defense when questioned as to why he is a self confessed DPB bludger.
It have been pointed out to Phil time and time again that there are thousands of other parents who are forced to find care for their kids in the school holidays yet this point seems to avoid him.
It has also been pointed out to Phil that most of those parents are out working for a living and paying tax so he can CHOOSE to steal from the rest of us.
Many of you wonder why there are so many of us who want to see dramatic changes made to our benefit system, Phil is the classic example of why it MUST change, and for those of you who think that genuine beneficiaries do not get enough then you only need to look to Phil for one of the reasons, Phil’s is not just stealing from the tax payer every week he is also stealing from the genuine beneficiaries.
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Greengeek
You might well ask the same question of Bradford, Locke and the rest of the Greens.
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oh, lol, I thought you ment food.
…Ever heard of holiday programs? that could cover part of it…
…Not to mention a longer school year…
…staying with friends and going on holidays are another option…
…or day care…
…or leaving them with a friend…
…most parents who work full time seem to manage…
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never ‘been there’..
have you sapient..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Sapient
Give up man, Phil has told us all that he has made a lifestyle choice and we just have to live with it……………….until November.
Got your CV up to date Phil?
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Nurturing children while a recipient of a benefit is an experience that is a tough teacher because it gives the test first, and the angst lesson afterwards.
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Sapient said: Its simple,you increase the benifit during the holidays to account for the increased costs, or provide a separate suplimentry payment
Actually, Sapient, that suggestion is (unlike Phil) sensible – for those single parent who choose to work, But I am still concerned about the potential impact if single parents are forced to work – especially in rural areas where there is no childcare available at all.
Hey, but please don’t try to write like Phil too often. It’s boring enough having one writing in that style, let alone two – even though you are taking the piss (and he deserves it).
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No, phil, I have been wise enough to take precautions against such an ocurance, Its called contraception, abstenance works too, but its less fun. Im studying to become a healthcare professional so that when I have a family I can… Shock, Horror… support it.
Although I myself have always taken preventitive measure, some of my firends have failed to do so and have had their partners run, at young ages too. I have been there and been heavily involved in the raising of those children and I know how hard it can be and am proud to say that one of them has gone back to get her NCEA and plans to do a degree in medical laboratory science and currently works part time as a phlemologist. I say this cause I thought it might inspire you, phil, a role model in an 18 year old girl prehaps?
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on that subject, one of my local high-schools has daycare facilities for students, I think alot more funding should be put towards such inititives. prehaps some more for those provided at tertiary institutes also.
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children of students*
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Oh, so once you qualify you’ll be off to Australia then?
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you’re very young..aren’t you sapient..?
it’s not your fault..
but a certain naievete/unworldliness..
does gives away your age..
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Nup, I hate australia, too hot, too dry, and it doesint really help with my phobia of venomous creatures. I plan to stay in New Zealand, it suits me, though I suppose sweden could too.
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(chuckle) (chuckle) (laugh) (Retch) (wet pants)
Ok Sapient, it’s definitely time for you to learn to spell…
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I suspect Sapient is young Phil, however he/she seems to be smart enough to work you out quickly enough.
Perhaps you should shoe Sapient a little more respect after all he or she is another in the long line of tax payers who are accumulating student debt while you go on bludging from Sapient and the rest of us.
At what point Phil do you think you might start to feel some shame?
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indeed phil, im 19 and have been involved politically for only about one and a half years, probally not something you should make a point of if you want to save face…
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why would that be..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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“indeed phil, im 19 and have been involved politically for only about one and a half years,”
You seriously 19?
If you are not talking porky’s, you are very well spoken for someone so young, impresive stuff.
Ps when you graduate please consider working at Grey base hospital, we need someone with brains to sort out the mess down here that Kevin Hague has got us into.
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Shunda barunda said: …we need someone with brains to sort out the mess down here that Kevin Hague has got us into.
Now that is a little unfair Shunda! If you have some substantive criticism of Kevin Hague as West Coast DHB Chief Executive, you should perhaps post some detail, so he has the opportunity to respond.
Living in Auckland, I haven’t had anything to do with him in that capacity, but from what I’ve seen of him as a Green candidate, he seems most impressive.
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Toad
Come on Toad, I am also not on the coast (and genuinely did not know Hauge was a Green candidate) but even I know that the WCDHB is a total mess.
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I note in Sues original entry that the WINZ guy had a big smile on his face. Didn’t spot that originally. This suggests that he wasn’t being dismissive, but rather playing along with her mood.
WINZ workers need to show a human face, and that is what he did. No doubt if she was offended she could have asked to see a supervisor rather than grandstanding to other misandrysts
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c’mon sapient, don’t go to bed yet… only a few posts to go.
You and BB started the post, man up and finish it!
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So Toad, because Kevin is a “good” green MP it means he is off limits for criticism of his management, when under HIS management the hospital appears to be falling appart at the seams?
I wonder whether a more right leaning CEO would be afforded the same grace.
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The very concept of independant DHB’s is a mess in and of itself, just useless replication of buerocratic structures, PC management, and whats more it makes absolutly no economic sense.
Yup shunda, 19 for another four months, I thought everyone knew that, lol.
Well phil, think about the relative time spent experiancing this world, and then compare ability to participate in a debate/conversation. and ill leave out the trump cards.
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greengeek,
I think everything that can be argued has been argued, that is, he is a professional whom most likely has to deal with shi*&y people, all day every day, whinging at him about policies overwhich he has no control, furthermore there seems to be a genuine case of him being abused BY HER, so we could atleast give him the benifit of the doubt, though granted the manner may not have been appropriate for a public servant.
And whats more, now she may be suing him. hope it gets kicked out of court.
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marching to the beat of a different/your own drummer there..eh sapient..?
“..Well phil, think about the relative time spent experiancing this world, and then compare ability to participate in a debate/conversation. and ill leave out the trump card..”
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Shunda Barunda said: So Toad, because Kevin is a “good� green MP it means he is off limits for criticism of his management, when under HIS management the hospital appears to be falling appart at the seams?
Not at all, Shunda. Just that if you post comments like that here, you should post some evidential detail supporting them. Kevin deserves the right to respond, but what you’ve posted doesn’t give any detail to respond to.
The alleged “problems” with the West Coast DHB may be known to you as a Coaster, but to me as an Aucklander I have no idea what you are talking about -apart from some issues over trial “contracted out” referrals to Christchurch that I’ve vaguely heard about.
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No point arguing with phil I suppose; hes not so much afew notes off as on an entirly different composistion.
And the only reason I made this post was to say it is now first equal with the ‘RIP Rod Donald’ thread. There you go, benificiary bashing ranks right along side the death of a beloved (true green) co-leader.
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Toad
The latest ongoing problem involves heavily pregnant women being told that if complications arise while giving birth, there is no one in Greymouth qualified to help, so sign a waver or go to Christchurch.
That is disgusting.
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dont forget the vouchers…
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greengeek said: …the WINZ guy had a big smile on his face. Didn’t spot that originally. This suggests that he wasn’t being dismissive…
Um, a big smile on his face while he was telling someone to “f*** off”?
That give me a very different message from the one you seem to be getting greengeek. If I were on the receiving end of that verbal and body language, I would take it as someone gloating about the power he had over me.
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And they gave them MC donalds vouchers for food.
And all the CEO said was “we shouldn’t give them Mc Donalds vouchers”
Kevin obviously let that one slip, Sue K must have been furious!!!!!!!!
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this thread got here faster tho..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Don’t forget that young people today are much more familiar and less formal in their use of language.
For example “bugger” is now perfectly acceptable even on TV. The F word is all over the media too.
It is just not acceptable to use a minor WINZ slipup as a reason for grandstanding.
I want to see her behaviour given the same scrutiny as his, and for him to be given every opportunity to explain why he thought it was fine to speak to her in such a familiar way.
If anything is to be on trial it should be the unequal distribution of benefits based on race, gender, and prior knowledge of how to play the system.
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Greengeek, the issue is not just the words used by the case manager. More importantly, it is what I referred to very early on in this thread:
The case manager effectively deprived the applicant of her right to be dealt with fairly in accordance with the principles of natural justice. The fact that he also did it rudely just exacerbates it. I am please to see that Tara Marks is now taking the Ministry to court, but it should not have to come to that – they should have processed her application correctly in the first place.
I do agree with you re your comment on “prior knowledge of how to play the system”, however, although perhaps not the way you intended. Back in the late 1990s, I had the misfortune due to family circumstances to have to apply for a benefit, having worked as an advocate for beneficiaries and ACC claimants for some years. I was given the most courteous and helpful assistance, and even was offered a discretionary entitlement on the basis of “exceptional circumstances” without having to ask for it.
This was in direct contrast to the experience of many of the people I had represented over the years, many of whom had been denied assistance they were quite clearly entitled to. The difference in my case was that I knew how the system worked, and the case manager knew that I knew.
The culture that pervaded Work and Income in those days was:
While I acknowledge there has been some improvement, the Rotorua incident and a number of others I have had related to me would indicate that culture still exists to some extent.
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Toad
Good points, as is so often the case.
The issue is – still in my mind – to do with training. In a recent assignment I was workling with the people who process applicxations for permission to do something physical in a city boundry (e.g. build a house, hold a procession, sub-divide land, conduct a fair, etc.,). The immediate approach for the people who worked there was to find a way to say no. This, they had been taught, was the reason for their existance – to identify conflicts between what the rules say and what the applicant wants to do.
It took about two years all up, but we developed an approach based on finding a way to say YES! Looking at the application and seeing if there was a way it could pass the tests, and if it couldn’t advising the applicant on what they needed to do so that it would. It took a lot of effort, but in the end, everyone there was happier, and so were the applicants! (we surveyed 100% from day 1 – the impact was tracable!)
With beneficiaries, there are those who rort the system just like the people in that old UK TV Program “BREAD”. They need to be weeded out. There are also those with genuine need, who society should assist to the extent permitted by law. WHile welfare shuld not be available as a lifestyle choice, it must provide a safety net, and for those in need of that net – what is needed and available should be applied.
PS. In the case of school holidays, the idea of an increased benefit to cover additional costs is a good one, as is the concept of unpaid leave. The worker would need to save during their worling weeks, but would be able to provide sustenance of both the mat/pat-ernal type as well as others. There is no excuse for bludging as a life-style choice.
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Just a follow up on by comments on our tenant.
http://blog.greens.org.nz/2008/08/06/beneficiaries/#comment-51910
She gets her 6 monthly review form to fill out.
Takes it personally up to reception and makes sure it is on her file. Gets an appointment with her case manager in three weeks time (first available appointment).
The next week her benefit is cut. Goes to WINZ to be told, the case manager has not seen the form or had the interview, so no benefit.
But even though she explains she cant see the case manager till next week (the case manger sets the appointment time).
She is basically told to f*** off and go and see the salvation army for a food grant.
Never mind that she cant pay any bills, incurs extra charges at kiwibank for automatic payment reversals, etc.
Talk about never being able to get ahead!
Feel sick to my guts that she has to go through the hoops all the time, treated like a non-person in the eyes of the case manager who seems more interested in getting their bonus then looking after their beneficiaries.
And that is from a blue-green.
Think Strings is on the right track with the fact that case managers should be taught to say yes to all benefit entitlements and not be on a bonus to hand out as little as possible.
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Yes, Gerrit, I’ve had numerous instances of this having happened related to me. When I was a beneficiary advocate, I actually advised people to ask for a copy of any forms they submitted.
Even more worrying are the mistakes that get made when beneficiaries use the 0800 number to advise income they’ve earned, it doesn’t get recorded, and they then end up being caught in a data-match for supposed undeclared income and investigated by the Benefit Control Unit.
Now I’ll accept some of those may have be running a scam and told me a pack of porkies about phoning to declare the income – but there were some who actually had independent witnesses such as employers or workmates who had overheard them making the call, and in some cases it could be traced through Work and Income phone records that they had made the call, but no income details had been recorded.
I used to advise beneficiaries to not use the 0800 number, but email, fax or post the details so they can retain a copy.
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toad do you know that winz didn’t process her application correctly? perhaps declining verbally is within the rules – & in particular there would seem to be little point playing along & handing her forms to fill out when you can tell her right away that she doesn’t qualify & why.
(if a beneficiary walks in & states they would like a grant of $100000 to take a holiday overseas as job-hunting is getting them down, is it o.k. for the staff to simply point out that there is no such grant entitlement, or must they pretend to co-operate while cooking up some forms for the beneficiary to fill out?).
whether the staff should use the f-word is a non-issue, we all know that was wrong. i would be disappointed if discipllinary action for a first offence goes beyond a verbal reprimand.
as for taking them to court, since when did NZers become so thin-skinned? that’s not like us.
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Andrew – Work and Income decisions have review and appeal rights:
I think it is quite clear here that an applicant must be given an opportunity to make a formal application, and must be formally advised of the outcome of the application. It is probably okay for a case manager to tell a beneficiary that he or she doesn’t think they qualify, and the reasons for that, and invite him or her to not apply – but the beneficiary should always still be given the opportunity to formally make the application if he or she does not want to accept that advice.
As for verbal notification when a decision on an application is made, I seriously doubt that is anticipated by the legislation. With a verbal notification there would be no record of what the decision actually was and what the reasons for it were. That would make it almost impossible for the applicant to exercise his or her review rights – a review based on a verbal decision would descent into a “he said – said” shambles as the precise nature of the decision and the reasons for it would be unclear.
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ergh, i hate that use of the word ‘right’, politicians need to learn to use dictionaries just as much as I need to learn to spell. The correct word is privledge, but even entitlement would be more appropriate than ‘right’.
Toad, it seems very possible that this individual was a female Phil, dont you think that after the heckling and supposed verbal abuse dirrected at him, presumibly on a regular basis, he may have, esspecially if he had explained learly she was not elegable, he may have been in the right to request that she take leave of him? even if the manner was alittle ‘foul mouthed’.
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well toad what about extreme cases like the one i hypothesized?
surely they don’t have to go through the charade of producing a form to fill out to cover every nonsense request?
what if a beneficiary demanded $500000 to buy a rocket to combat aliens who probe them in their sleep? there probably isn’t even a form for that. can’t the staff just tell them where to go?
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Andrew
I think their reply would be that the maximum grant available is $1,000 every six months, and here is the form to fillout for consideration!
GOTTA LOVE THE BOOK – by which everything is done!
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oh fair enough
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I admire you for your courage. The government can only be sensitised by people like you being out there and getting straight to the point. Only by such daring means will they realise what they really need to focus on.
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Geez, Sue… I agree with KitKat you’re extremely courageous! Although I’m not a firm supporter of the “f” language, there are indeed times when messages flavoured with such does carry more attention. Which sometimes call for it…
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