In the General Debate last week I told the story of a man who had succeeded against the odds after being made redundant as a train driver in the mid 80s. Despite having left school on the day he turned 15, he enrolled at University, first for a Liberal Studies Certificate and then for a law degree. It was not easy; he was educationally disadvantaged. His marriage had broken up and he was caring for his 2 children on the DPB. But he had 2 things going for him – preferential entry to do a degree course (he was one of 10 quota students – chosen because they did not have the formal qualifications to get into law school but who, if qualified, would be able to contribute back to their community in some way) and second – he had the Training Incentive Allowance. This man now has his own law firm, his sons are doing really well, he is serving on a variety of community boards as a volunteer and he is married again – to me. This is my husband’s story. The essence of this story has been recounted many times over from the polytechs and universities from one end of the country to the other. In most cases though the Training Incentive Allowance has supported women on the DPB, just like our own Minister of Social Development & Employment. And I say good on her for taking advantage of a programme designed to help people like her and my husband.
My question is why has she presided over a change in policy that limits the TIA support to Level 3 Certificates and below? What about Level 4 and above? Degrees like the ones she and my husband have are Level 7. Why would she pull up the ladder behind her, so no-one else can achieve her level of success? The irony is that a person on the DPB can use the TIA to help them get a certificate as a residential care assistant in the rest home (where they pay little more than minimum wage), but can’t use it to become a fully qualified nurse and essentially pay the cost of the DPB in the first year in fulltime work! There will be more on this, because not only does this inexplicable decision destroy the plans of people who are doing the pre-entry course for nursing this year, but it also doesn’t make sense for a country that is crying out for nurses. Interested in feedback – and keen to hear more stories from people who have had their plans stymied.
Paula Bennett’s answer to the questions put to her on this issue a week or two ago were pathetic, simply spouting that there’s a recession going on.
I mean, obviously we know there’s a recession going on. How is that relevant to cutting funding for that kind of course? What ever happened to focusing on upskilling to come out well from the recession?
I am someone who was fortunate to get the TIA for the most part of my degree. I have one paper to finish, which I decided to pay myself. I guess I would have been forced to take out a student loan for that paper if I couldn’t have paid it upfront myself. So I guess I am lucky that I got the TIA when I did.
I am appalled that the provision for degree level training has been pulled. It is a cynical decision to pull this funding based on the recession. It seems like common sense that getting people into degree level training would mean a higher level skill and therefore higher earning capacity, leading to higher tax take in the long term. It doesn’t seem like National is thinking long term on this issue.
Why don’t you ask John Key, as a state made man (he’s not self-made as his education, housing, clothing and food while growing up were subsidised by the state), why he doesn’t put in place all the advantages he had while growing up?
Don’t you people realize that there is an economic recession going on? It is why everyone has to tighten their belts, EXCEPT of course in the Prime Ministers office where his work is so important that spending will not be reduced but increased because his office cannot work well unless fully staffed. Obvious inn’it? Oh and the Cycleway $50 mill is much more important than youse bludgers wanting a handout!
I’m not convinced that an economic recession should mean that everyone has to tighten their belts – surely that just perpetuates the recession as it leads to lower spending, reduced economic activity, job losses and so forth.
Shouldn’t the government, in a recession, be looking to pick up the slack in the economy? To counter-act the reduction in private economic activity through increasing public expenditure to keep people in jobs and to try to minimise the downswing?
I’m unconvinced by the belt-tightening argument myself, and I think that an equally good (if not better) argument could be made for government to loosen the purse strings in a time of economic recession.
A recession is the best time to invest in skills. This is very shortsighted. Even with a TIA getting a degree is not easy and we should back those who are willing to give it a go rather than accepting that people who have had a rough patch should be condemned to low paid work for the rest of their lives. The economic future of NZ depends on us using the potential that is around the country – decisions like this are what caused the 1930s recession to lengthen and deepen – I had hoped that no political party in NZ had failed to learn that lesson.
I think that’s a point that Labour has to hammer home more Trevor. National are getting away with selling people the line that it’s OK to cut back on government spending “because of the recession”. Common-sense Keynesian economics suggests that recessions are the time to expand upon government spending, to counter-act what’s happening in the private sector.
The government can point to credit rating downgrade threats and rising debt level threats, but really those are manageable issues in the longer term. As Labour are finally getting across, what matters are the 1000 people a week losing their jobs, the tens of thousands (or hundreds of thousands) more who are worried about losing their jobs, and as a result are cutting back on their spending “just in case”.
I guess it’s a classic collective action problem, in the sense that individually people are very tempted to “tighten their belt” just in case they lose their job, but collectively that leads to lower spending and more people losing their jobs. The government really is the only entity that can step in and do something about this – yet ours is almost doing the opposite by belt-tightening themselves.
This is in stark contrast to what we see in the USA and Australia. It will be interesting to see what happens if the significant stimulus packages in the USA and Australia bring them out of a recession much quicker than us (I suspect that will be the case), and if/when that happens how long it takes for your average New Zealander to start going “hey…. things are getting better for them but not us, what’s going on?” If/when that happens, Labour HAS to really jump on it.
Absolutely correct Jarbury, I wonder if we will get a post recession stimulus to save us from embarrassment. Just as an aside, friends of mine tell me the Melbourne property market is showing definite signs of improvement, this probably reflects the confidence in the future Aussies always show. Auction clearance rates are over 80% at the moment (they were under 50% 6 months ago). The NZ property market? Is predicted to fall by another 12% by next year.
We went into recession earlier than everyone else last year owing to nervousness about our foreign debt so it would be expected we would also be one of the first out. The current govt seems determined that we will be one of the last out of recession.
Interesting piece on “Sunday” that just finished about the Otorohanga jobs scheme getting cut. John Key, Bill English AND Paula Bennett all declined to appear on the programme to explain their stupidity.
The excuse”because there’s a recession” is being used for all sorts of dodgy goings on, but the interesting thing is the silence from Bob Jones who severly castigated previous governments for not spending in straightened times. When he starts putting in his bob’s worth I think the tide will turn on this useless bunch.
Trevor Mallard wrote: A recession is the best time to invest in skills. This is very shortsighted.
No, the best time to invest in skills is during the boom times. Unfortunately for New Zealand, the last government stymied economic activity with massive taxation and flushed the tax-take down the welfare toilet, leaving the cupboards bare for these rainy days.
Utterly hypocritical for Labour to be speaking of upskilling the indolent today, when they spent the last nine years encouraging the indolent to lounge around on the sickness, domestic purposes and unemployment benefits.
In the Second World War, during Germany’s failed invasion of the USSR (Operation Barbarossa), the Red Army, used an interesting tactic when it came to clear mines from the battlefield: Huge amounts of conscript soldiers, from the east and central Asian republics such as Tajikistan and Turkemenistan would be sent en masse into the area, detonating the mines, and unfortunately, leading to mass casulties and fatalites, after which, the elite Red Army infantry and motorised corps with their T34′s, would cruise into the affected area, free to engage the enemy without the mines (or the conscripts, for that matter).
The point of the above is this history is that from what I have seen and heard so far, the National/ACT government, with complicity from the Maori Party, who are too busy going on about open entry to universities (the fact that our universities are already open is lost on so many people in this dabate, especially Dr Sharples himself) to care, are using the exact same practise when dealing with this recession. The poor, sick, young, unemployed and the vulnerable will be the ones pushed through en masse to clear the economic mine field, bearing the brunt of the concequences, while when the dust clears and things calm down, the elite T34 tanks of the rich, powerful and merchant classes will cruise through unspoiled over the bodies of those at the bottom of the heap. The Nats did it in 1991, and they are going to do it again in 2009, albeit in a more subtle way. After all, why else would the government slash funding for theapists in schools, community classes, the TIA and so on while boosting private school funding. But this goes beyond education, this goes across the board.
As for Paula Bennett, I certainly do not begrudge her her ‘rags to riches’ story, but what I do begrudge is her refusal to extend the many benefits that she recieved from our social safety net, a generous DPB payment with a generous abatement rate, which ensured that her job waitressing at a truck stop saw her well rewarded for her efforts, an award system with laws protecting penal rates which protected her conditions and wages in her truck stop job, and to top it off, a nice cheap Housing Corp loan. The only thing she really missed out on was having a free university education.
She claimed that she joined the National Party because she didnt want to be a victim. Fair enough I suppose, I dont think anyone wants solo mothers to be stuck on a benefit for the rest of their lives, as perpertual victims to be kept in some ‘poverty trap’. However what she is going is EXACTLY what is the title of this post. Pulling the ladder up behind her.
I see her as a poor man’s Jenny Shipley. She has implied that she wishes to cut benefits in the near future. Dont be suprised if she does.