welfare
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Labour pins clueless Nat ministers
Written By: - Date published: 11:23 pm, February 17th, 2010 - 13 comments
It’s hard to decide which is worst: Do Nothing John Key flouncing around the country while thousands of Kiwis lose their jobs, the Joyce cabal pushing their hard-right economic agenda, or the rest of them who don’t have two brain cells to rub together.
What is Whanau Ora? 2
Written By: - Date published: 7:49 pm, February 15th, 2010 - 41 comments
Asked to explain his billion dollar policy Key says: “Whanau Ora is a way of saying we’re going to measure outcomes, instead of just inputs into a family to give greater flexibility to a third party private providerâ€. I take that to be a long way of saying “I don’t know what Whanau Ora isâ€.
Whanau Ora, who gains?
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, February 15th, 2010 - 30 comments
Whanau Ora is a terrible idea. It is the beginning of the privatisation of social services, wrapped in a cloak of Maori-centred solutions for Maori. The Maori Party and the National Party can’t agree over (among many things) whether Whanau Ora will be open to all or just for Maori but the reality is that […]
Massive jump in dole numbers – minister washes her hands
Written By: - Date published: 3:32 pm, January 22nd, 2010 - 18 comments
You may remember that late last year John Key, Bill English and Paula Bennett could hardly find the words to praise themselves for the falling numbers on the dole. That was until I pointed out that it was a seasonal dip that always occurs between September and November, and, actually, the seasonally dip over the […]
Another benefit beat-up
Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, January 20th, 2010 - 24 comments
The Key Government’s anti-beneficiary campaign continues. The latest is a beat-up on long-term beneficiaries. Apparently, 9 people have been on the dole for longer than 20 years, 14 for 15-20 years, and 181 for 10-15 years. ‘Bludgers!’ we’re meant to cry ‘Bludgers!’ But let’s actually think with our brains rather than our jerking knees. This […]
Dumb and dumber on the dole
Written By: - Date published: 1:49 pm, January 15th, 2010 - 13 comments
So, Tariana Turia has (eventually) come out against Paula Bennett’s pointless policy of making people on the unemployment benefit reapply after a year. Of course, Turia is for work-for-the-dole, which is just as stupid. Looks like there will be a show-down, a fight between the two dumbest welfare policies. I predict that Turia will meekly back down, […]
Looking tough, wasting money
Written By: - Date published: 9:06 am, December 23rd, 2009 - 57 comments
So Paula Bennett wants to force people on the dole to reapply after a year. At best, it’s a waste of money by adding more bureaucracy. At worst, it will leave people who are already in poverty destitute for weeks. You can lose your dole already if you don’t meet the conditions. In particular, if […]
Bennett disappointed by witch-hunt results
Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, December 22nd, 2009 - 23 comments
Earlier this year, Paula Bennett released the personal details of two women who get the DPB who had opposed her cancelling of a grant designed to get people off the benefit. As far as I’m aware, the Privacy Commissioner still hasn’t published her opinion on Bennett’s bully tactics but it looks like Bennett has got the […]
Guaranteed minimum income + capital tax, the way forward?
Written By: - Date published: 9:19 am, December 2nd, 2009 - 49 comments
Occasionally something in politics really surprises you. Like when I turned over to Campbell Live last night (I’d seen the Family Guy episode too often) and there was Gareth Morgan proposing a guaranteed minimum income funded by a comprehensive capital tax. Guaranteed minimum income/negative income tax is hardly a new idea (I’ve been meaning to […]
Nats’ dismal record on jobs and benefits
Written By: - Date published: 1:28 pm, November 29th, 2009 - 20 comments
In opposition, National claimed that Labour wasn’t really getting people off benefits, it was just moving them from unemployment benefit and ‘hiding’ them on the sickness and invalid’s benefits – Paula Bennett repeated the claim just this week in the House. But the facts prove otherwise. When Labour was in power, there was small […]
English’s strange priorities
Written By: - Date published: 10:49 am, November 2nd, 2009 - 51 comments
Talk about bereft of ideas, the currency is yo-yoing, the housing bubble is re-inflating, wages are falling, jobs are still being lost in large numbers, the oil price is back above $80 but what’s the Finance Minister Bill English spending his time on? Some good old-fashioned beneficiary bashing. English announced there will be new measures […]
Of witch hunts and solo mums
Written By: - Date published: 11:42 am, August 8th, 2009 - 62 comments
Frank Macskasy The recent witch-hunt against solo-mums would have done the old Salem village-elders proud. The fires, though, could have been stoked just a bit harder and higher. But as a first attempt at demonising a minority in our community, it wasn’t a bad effort for Minister of Social Services, Paula Bennett. When Bennett ordered […]
It’s not fair, get over it, get it right
Written By: - Date published: 10:40 am, July 22nd, 2009 - 83 comments
The ludicrous attacks by the media on Goff over the dole scheme show that this is not an even playing field. Key is allowed to lie again and again. Ministers are allowed to shirk their responsibilities. The fact that 1300 more people on the dole each week barely gets a look in. The journos are […]
Good jab, now land some punches
Written By: - Date published: 5:04 am, July 21st, 2009 - 88 comments
It was excellent to see Phil Goff laying down the gauntlet to Key yesterday. He announced Labour’s policy to temporarily relax partner means testing for the dole and promised a recession response package. On the same day, Key’s big achievement was noting the Hillary family had settled their dispute with Auckland museum. Goff is saying […]
Out of her depth
Written By: - Date published: 1:20 pm, July 1st, 2009 - 13 comments
I wonder if Patrick Gower could keep a straight face while writing this: Social Development Minister Paula Bennett has dropped her additional Disability Issues portfolio because Prime Minister John Key wants her to concentrate on the growing numbers of people losing their jobs. Note his phrasing. Not ‘concentrate on reducing the growing number of people […]
No super contributions = worse net debt
Written By: - Date published: 7:08 pm, May 28th, 2009 - 114 comments
I’ve had a dig into Treasury’s numbers and worked out that they expect the Superannuation Fund will make a 13% return next year, falling to 11% a year by 2012. Those figures seem pretty good, not too optimistic. It’s what the Fund made in ordinary years before the crunch and bear in mind the Fund […]
Centre for Inaccurate Studies
Written By: - Date published: 9:35 am, April 2nd, 2009 - 35 comments
The CIS released a report [PDF link] today entitled Ending No. 8 Wire Welfare: Why New Zealand is Lagging Behind. Its author is Luke Malpass. Predictably, from the right-wing think tank, the paper is an ideologically driven argument for a more punitive welfare system. As is so often the case, it’s premised on the tired […]
What’s Bill planning?
Written By: - Date published: 9:20 am, February 26th, 2009 - 10 comments
Yesterday, Finance Minister Bill English made a big deal over the loss the New Zealand Superannuation Fund incurred last year. When you don’t need the money for twenty years, the current value of your asset is irrelevant. When there’s a boom on the paper value of what you have will skyrocket, when there’s a bust […]
Don’t kill the Cullen Fund
Written By: - Date published: 9:45 am, February 24th, 2009 - 46 comments
Michael Littlewood has made a career of advocating superannuation privatisation and is part of an international organisation called Pension Reforms dedicated to the privatisation of superannuation. Yesterday, he was given a platform in the Herald and on the news (one or three, can’t remember), to argue the New Zealand Superannuation Fund (known as the Cullen […]
In for a penny
Written By: - Date published: 3:15 pm, February 8th, 2009 - 44 comments
Key’s old arm cast has sold for $18,500 on Trademe. The money will go to the Fred Hollows Foundation to help blind people in the Solomon Islands. Great, a fair old dollop of money raised for a worthy cause. But let’s not stop there. A large number of people bid large amounts for two things of […]
Bludgin’ ain’t so easy
Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, December 18th, 2008 - 47 comments
So, I’m out of work. I was employed on a contract and when it came up for renewal the boss told me business is too tight, have to let me go. It wasn’t their fault and they were pretty good about it. For the first few weeks I just looked for work but there’s not […]
In praise of the welfare state
Written By: - Date published: 11:36 am, November 21st, 2008 - 48 comments
It’s very easy in our individualist, consumerist, capitalist society to say ‘if you’re poor, it’s your fault, don’t come looking to the rest of us for help’ – ‘it’s your fault for marrying an alcoholic, don’t expect us to pay to house your family’, ‘it’s your fault you got pregnant when you couldn’t afford to […]
How to stimulate the economy
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, November 11th, 2008 - 9 comments
During the debate over the economic stimulus package in the US earlier this year, Moody’s produced a model that shows which stimulus options result in the most increase in GDP per dollar of government spending/tax reduction. I’ve highlighted the three options that are relevant to NZ (the Bush tax cuts are remarkably similar to the […]
Tories’ crack at socialism a poor substitute
Written By: - Date published: 1:39 pm, October 31st, 2008 - 5 comments
National’s redundancy package would effectively continue Working for Families payments for some people who would otherwise lose them after redunancy. Only people who have been in the same job for six months would get it, cutting out labourers, temps, and contract workers. For about the same cost, it would deliver more money to fewer people […]
Make-work don’t work
Written By: - Date published: 2:15 pm, October 15th, 2008 - 24 comments
The Maori Party wants the dole abolished to be replaced by work schemes. It’s a bad idea but it’s not too far from being a good one. Make work schemes are bad in several ways. They distort the market for low-skill work. The State with an army of cheap, semi-involuntary labour ends up undercutting the […]
Working our way forward
Written By: - Date published: 11:50 am, October 13th, 2008 - 16 comments
It was inevitable that the focus of media coverage of Labour’s announements yesterday would be the deposit insurance, it’s a good self-centred middle-class story. But the important stuff, as Irish pointed out last night, is the re-training money, the speed-up of infrastructure construction, the money for sewerage, housing, and anti-erosion projects. The deposit insurance simply acts to […]
Social Report shows Kiwis better off
Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, August 28th, 2008 - 31 comments
MSD released its Social Report today, an annual publication that collates a wide variety of standard of living measures, and produces this awesome graph. The circle represents the status quo in 1995-97 each spoke represents a different measure (income, crimes per capita etc). If the spoke is longer than the circle than the measure has improved between 1995-97 […]
Pulling the ladder up behind him
Written By: - Date published: 2:18 pm, August 13th, 2008 - 16 comments
A lot of you won’t remember it but there was a time in this country when being on a benefit wasn’t seen as the fault of the person receiving it and the idea of a social welfare system was about just that: the welfare of our society. It took a campaign of right-wing scaremongering through […]
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