by frog
As if it isn’t miserable enough being on a benefit at Christmas time, Social Development and Employment Minister Paula Bennett has decided to put the boot into beneficiaries.
First she releases a report that shows 300 beneficiaries receive more than $1000 a week. Outrage on the talkback ensues, even though there are 326,811 people in receipt of benefits according to the Ministry of Social Development’s latest statistics, so those getting over $1000 a week amount to just 0.09% of all beneficiaries.
On cue, and most likely prompted by a tip-off from the Minister’s office, Colin Espiner drags notorious cannabis addicted gangster Darryl Harris into the picture, highlighting that he is in the $1000 club and has been receiving various benefits since 1984 despite owning several properties.
How many beneficiaries are there like Harris? Probably only one – Harris is a unique case. But never mind, more talkback outrage ensues.
The scene is almost set for the grand announcement. There are 6654 people who have been on the unemployment benefit for more than a year. Put another way, about 90% of unemployment beneficiaries go off the benefit within a year. That’s actually not a bad performance by Work and Income in tough economic times with unemployment rising. But the raw figures ensure more talkback outrage ensues.
Then the grand announcement itself – Government is considering cancelling unemployment benefits after people have been receiving them for a year and making the beneficiaries reapply.
I can’t see how that is going to achieve anything, apart from more bureaucracy at Work and Income. The work test for an application for an unemployment benefit is exactly the same as the work test for renewing a benefit that has already been granted. I guess Bennett needs to at least look like she is doing something to placate the talkback outrage she has created.
Wouldn’t it be a better idea for the Government to actually create some jobs through a programme like the Green New Deal for the beneficiaries Bennett is trying to turn public opinion against? Or would that be too hard?
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare by frog on Wed, December 23rd, 2009
Tags: beneficiaries, beneficiary bashing, Colin Espiner, Darryl Harris, green new deal, Paula Bennett, unemployment benefit
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
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Ah National, you nasty b*stards!
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All I can see it achieving, Jezza, is more paperwork for Work & Income staff and more hassles for beneficiaries.
There is nothing that happens with a UB application that doesn’t happen with a renewal, apart from a lot more forms to be filled in.
Of course some beneficiaries might not get around to completing their reapplication until after the benefit is canceled, in which case they would get a stand-down, saving Work and Income some money and leaving the beneficiary with debts for the week they don’t get paid.
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Harris may have won a lottery, which would explain the property.
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But despite the media beat-up, and even though he is obviously a very unsavoury character, I haven’t seen any evidence that he has received anything he is not entitled to.
He well may have, but before Espiner went into print, he should have gathered the evidence. Instead, he looks like he’s a proxy for Minister Bennett, rather than a responsible journalist.
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“I haven’t seen any evidence that he has received anything he is not entitled to.”
a martial arts expert getting a sickness benefit >>> addicted to cannabis.
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Meteria says on national radio that this will be next years big fight (for social justice) The problem with fighting for social justice is that it assumes you know what is just (and Toad and no doubt Sue Bradford ) would apologise for Harris.
The greens could campaign on things that level the playing field such as getting rid of the things that keep house prices up and greed at the top end, but also responsible pregnancy.
You are blind to any suggestion of moral hazard in welfare.
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I recall Keith Locke referring to a woman’s right to bear children (an immigration matter) and in the same vane I would expect Green Party thinking to take the line that every child must be looked after.
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But like everyone else, he has the right to be judged in any particular instance on the evidence – not on prejudice, which you seem to do.
Oh, and in case you haven’t noticed, the Greens are campaigning on things that keep house prices up, and on greed at the top end.
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Any funds a beneficiary has (savings, assets) count against being able to claim extra allowances such as for accommodation or medical costs, as Toad has already stated.
There have been howls of outrage regularly about the prospect of ‘beneficiaries owning homes being subsidised by WINZ’, but if you re-frame that to ‘abandoned family stays in own home until mother can find a decent enough job to pay the mortgage’, it doesn’t sound quite so bad.
If more ‘dead-beat dads’ were contributing child support, Winz wouldn’t be subsidising the rent/mortgage for so many newly separated families, especially at this time of the year.
(yes, it is apparently still legal to run off to Australia with your secretary/accounts clerk/receptionist and leave no trace of your employment for Winz to recover child support – so don’t beat up on the women who are struggling to keep a roof over their children’s heads)
Unemployment Beneficiaries should be the last to be getting undue attention, after the way John Key campaigned (just over a year ago) to ’soften the blow’ of recession cut-backs in staffing – including the sundry public servants he has himself relegated to the job-seeking queues.
There are just too many tautologies in this outburst of self-righteousness from the Minister for me to continue enumerating them.
Must be time I sent her an update on the ministerial enquiry I started last February, which her staff have still not finished dealing with; if she wants to rave about the unemployed, perhaps she should start with her own head office policy division, who don’t seem to be able to answer simple questions about the difference between their website mission statements, and the frontline application of MSD service in local Winz service centres.
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NASTIES STRATEGY OF DIVIDE AND RULE????
As I have mentioned before Paula Bennett is following in the footsteppes of Ruth Richardson and Jenney Shipley, all very nasty pieces of work, all heil bent on kicking the underdog in the guts!!!!!!
But I suspect that there is a more sinister agenda here and that is dividing the the left opposition!!!!
Scene One: Paula talks tough on long term beneficiaries.
Scene Two: Enters Colin Espiner a quack journalist who digs up this
character Harris (they agree to pay Harris his benifit)to
use as a scapegoat for an alleged fraud.
Scene Three: Business lobby groups will no doubt get on the band wagon
and turn worker against worker using their scabs.
This is not new this happened in the nasty ninties under the last Nasty government.
This time the nasties are going to find it a lot more difficult, they tend to forget that a lot more workers are on internet or have internet access (which is the bane of Rupert Murdock)so are more capable of organising resistence at a moments notice. Hence the united front!!!!
I hope Metiria does mount an active opposition next year she should have plenty of support not just from me, not just from the Greens but from other Socialist parties who have more empathy for the victims of the recession.
A recession that resulted directly from capitalist greed!!!!!!
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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Again, most of the invalid beneficiaries I know would LOVE to have work – but guess what, with the increase of unemployed civil servants as well as the able-bodied unemployed, it is almost impossible to find work. My daughter has had her name down with the kind of agencies that look for work for people with disabilities, but the only paid work she has she found for herself, cleaning houses and occasionally mowing lawns for private clients. Don’t get me wrong, she is very happy to do that, she would like more clients, but the number she has and the uncertainty (if they are away, no work that week) mean she could not support herself on that income.
She is NOT a long-term bludger but a young woman who wants to be part of society and earn her own living – unfortunately, society, and bigots like Big Bro, don’t see it that way. I hope you are not one of the people who find it amusing to jeer at her in the street because she looks ‘different’! Because that is what she has to put up with in addition to a rather lonely life with not enough work or companionship.
Actually, your comments make me sick!
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I spent some time on the DPB in the early 1980’s when, just as I was about to return to work after a year’s maternity leave, our marriage broke up (for other reasons)and my partner returned to Australia.
I was left with the problems of having to return to a demanding full time job, a five year old who was being badly bullied at school, and a timid one year old who found it difficult to settle into Child Care.
I quickly found out that there is a very big difference between a family with two parents where both work outside the home (or a family where two separated parents share the child care), and a family with ONE UNSUPPORTED parent who works outside the home.
I ended up with very high stress levels and became ill.
After consulting with WINZ (who were excellent)I managed to reduce the number of hours I worked, and WINZ topped up our income when required. (That top up, even when minimal, would make our family a part of the WINZ DPB statistics.) WINZ also had the responsibility for ensuring that my children’s father contributed to this income as a “liable parent”.
Please don’t forget that the Government has had to take on this role because too many parents have not been taking responsibility for their progeny, and very many of those not taking responsibility are male.
(I hasten to add that my children’s father always paid his dues!)
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The RB Act making containing inflation the prime goal of monetary policy ensured that policy has never been challenged.
Blaming the victims of the end of full employment is designed to justify the free market system and associated attempts to reduce taxes on those with higher incomes and also business. The mantra is blame the people for not making the capitalist system work rather than blame the capitalist system for failing the people.
And let’s note we have had across most of this decade one of the lowest levels of unemployment in the OECD – because UNEMPLOYMENT IS NOW ENDEMIC in the western free market system. This means the problem is not bludging in New Zealand, but the economic policy that has been applied since Reagan and Thatcher across the western world.
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In Campaign Against Foreign Controls magazine Watchdog there is a very good cartoon by a Mike keefe?
There is a very long dole que outside the office that stretches for miles.
Half way down one fellow says to the fellow behind him ‘the recession is over pass it on’
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A strange, but unfortunately widely accepted, way of looking at economics. Unemployment can be spiraling out of control, but as long as GDP improves, we purportedly have a sound economy according to the neo-libs.
Should be Tui ad stuff, but unfortunately it has been sold well by successive governments to most New Zealanders – at least until they themselves become unemployed.
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@big bro, when the reserve bank is actively trying to keep a few percent of the population unemployed (as they are de facto instructed to do the ‘89 Act) what is the point in trying to force the tiny minority who don’t want to work to work..?
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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No, that’s crap. We have no issues with real bludgers being dealt to. Our issue is with a system that requires unemployment to keep job demand up and therefore wages down. The right likes to complain about the creation of a culture of dependency, well this is a key contributor to that. Are you willing to change it?
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When it comes down to it, it seems you either care about what happens to others in society, especially children, or you see your fellow people as units of production. For what, may I ask? Monetary riches appear to be the raison d’etre of the Act party, but for the majority of people money is only one means to the real end: having a satisfying life with family and friends and contributing to society in whatever way you can. It is not all about money.
I feel sorry for those deluded souls who base their lives on money, whether by sweat of the brow or by bludging – they don’t have a clue how to be happy.
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As such each year my b-in-law has to be re-assessed to see if he can continue to receive a benefit.
My partner was made redundant earlier this year yet we have continued to subsidise his care (he lives in CHCH we live in Auckland). BTW it is his choice to live in CHCH and not move up here. he knows the city, its transport and facilities. he has a motorised scooter and he lives in a flat situation with a care giver.
His disability was doctor’s error not a in-womb defect. Since he was born over 50 years ago his parents cared for him and took care of everything. No ACC, no assistance no doctor paid compensation… when his mother was dying, we went South to look after her, and made arrangements to gradually move him into a residential care unit. He has been living there since 2004. Plug for Lauara Fergusson, they take great care of him.
He operates at about the level of a 12 year old. We visit him several times a year and we always bring him up for Christmas.
I can only begin to guess what he would have cost the taxpayer had his parents, and now we, not decided to take care of him. Not a conscious decision, because he is our family, a natural decision. BUT the Government decides he must be reassesssed every year. I presume the Government thinks a cure is around the corner for CP???
Regarding these folks receiving $1000+ a week, I also read most of them are caring for large numbers of children who are not theirs. It seems to me those people are actually SAVING us money, and, potentially these kids will become productive members of our communities and not drug addicts, or thieves or worse… Money well spent
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SPC
I tried to get the question “How is your party going to respond to the increased unemployment we are facing?”asked at 4 political forums before the last election, but none of the moderators selected my question.
Apparently it was not considered a priority. Why? do most of the well off not care?
As I expected National is resorting to its ‘blame the victim’ response in an attempt to increase their redneck support.
E
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As an addendum, the bringing in of a minimum wage requirement means my brother-in-law was put out of work at the modern day equivalent of a Shltered Workshop. They cannot get sufficient orders to enable them to keep on as many disabled folks AND pay the minimum wage. Being AT work, rather than poking around a house bored and becoming depressed is more important for the disabled in my b-in-law’s category than getting 12.50 per hour. He received his benefit and a top up of around $20 each week, which he received in an enveloped in cash. He felt good about himself, complained about his co-workers as so many do, and happily went bck each day.
Many policies sound great, or look good on paper, but one size does NOT fit all, and people like my b-in-law and many of his colleagues are now at home, driving their caregivers (often aged parents) and others mad with distraction while becoming depressed by their own sense of uselessness. Perhaps it suprises some people that people with mental disabilities can be depressed… His place of work was not exploiting him, hge profits weren’t being made at the expense of the disabled… Surely such a venture need only pay its way rather than become profitable which it must to afford minimum wage for all?
The problem with our systems is that they cater to the lowest common denominator or punish based on the lowest form of behaviour… both catch/benefit people who it oughtn’t.
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“I SHALL NOT WANT”
Janine: I think that you are talking my language we would be a much more prosperous society in the real sense if we focused on our society, our neighbourhood, our families and our world!!
Regardless of whether one is religious or not, there is wisdom that comes the ancient Torra, and biblical texts like the 57th (52?) psalm
‘the lord is my shepherd I shall not want’ and
‘What shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and loses his soul’
One would think that the two above creeds should belong to the socialist manifesto but I gather that they were penned at a time when both kings and the clergy were trying to curtail the merchant classes from gaining a monopolous advantage over the citizenry.
Even though I have questioned the mythology of the ‘Christian’ faith in context of the modern fundamentalist movement with regards to their interpretation on my other posts, however there is an underlying, workable philosophy that stands immutable without the myths.
I think that the most important thing that unemployed, sickness, DPB etc. can do is try not to slouch around, keep busy (it’s better than Prosac)if you can all get a vegitable garden going (even dig up the front lawn) and learn how to preserve your produce then that is the food problem sorted. Some of you people may be creative not just in the visual arts but perhaps in making furnitureetc. you can join the Back Shed movement and learn a skill and make friends who are in the same boat.
There is always a lateral way of creating wealth and if there is a law against that then Mahatma Ghandi said that it is incumbent upon every individual to openly break a bad law.
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