She trumpets the success of her Community Max programme as being a strategy for getting 16 – 24 year olds off welfare dependency and in to meaningful employment BUT she forgot to mention that sole parents in the aforementioned aged category – are not eligible??????? There is no logic behind her reason to exclude what would predominantly be young mothers from this scheme – young solo mothers who are more likely to be in poverty, more likely to have little or no qualifications and more likely to be Maori and/ or Pacific.
What infuriates me is the fact that she largely campaigned on being a National Party MP with Labour leaning values. Everyone can remember her rhetoric around wanting to support sole parents and provide them with meaningful opportunities for work and education but during her time as the Minister of Social Development – she has done the complete opposite. It is one thing to be a Tori MP and bash beneficiaries (this is something that we have come to expect) but it is another to pretend to be an advocate for sole parents and then to introduce policies that only serve to further push them down.
The sheeps clothing has well and truly fallen off the wolf!
That is appalling.
Its easy – just get the young mother or father on the dpb who wants to do some scrubcutting for 30 hours a week , switch them to the unemployment benefit, enrol them on the scheme and then they`ll qualify. Then switch them back to the dpb when the project is finished.
whats wrong with that?
Speaking of Basher Bennett, what’s happened to that privacy commissioner enquiry?
Tori MP..?
Is this a new term..? Surely you mean Tory MP..?
BLip , you know what happens when a National minister gets investigated by an independent agency, you get a whitewash.
Such as happened with the Auditor general and Bill English, the AG decided that auditing wasnt her job, but policy was , ignoring the specific auditing tracks set up by the previous AG when this issue came up under Labour ( and confirmed in the well known pre election spending audit)
@ BLIP.
I’ve asked the same question twice in the past month. No-one replies. I take that to mean they don’t know. My suspicion is that the Commissioner’s findings will be made public after parliament rises for the year, thus preventing opposition parties from being able to question the PM about it.
Anne
I suspect the commission has finished the report and has handed it to Basher Bennett for comments. No doubt, if it is as I presume a negative report for her, it won’t be released until the Chistmas/New Year / Summer holiday season when no one is paying any attention.
I agree BLiP. The last sitting day is Tues. 22 Dec.- right on Christmas. It’s up to Labour and the Greens to make sure it stays on the agenda through to February 2010 when parliament resumes.
I hope it does stay on the agegnda. What she did wasn’t right. She argued that it gave a balanced view, but the way she did it ment the more someone is viewed to be receiving (and they weren’t receiving all that money anyway some was childcare subs), the less they have to live on. It was wrong no matter what way you look at it.
Glad to see that people have decided guilt already. No point waiting for those pesky reports, lets break out the pitch forks and torches and A Mother can lead us on a merry lynching way.
BLiP started it.
It offered nothing to the argument, and was misleading. She made it sound that that is how much is put in their bank accounts.
For example, 2 solo parents receiving 500, both had 300 rent and both had 2 children under 3 and both wanted to study to get off the benefit.
Ms X decided to study full time and govt help raised to 825
Ms Y decided to study part time and govt help raised to 565
Who is better off?
Ms Y has 65 that is childcare subs getting paid to childcare provider by the govt
She has to pay 20 herself for childcare leaving her with 480 300 rent so 180 for bills and food for 3 people per week.
Ms X has 325 that is childcare subs which the govt pay straight to childcare provider so she doesn’t see this.
100 she has to pay for childcare as govt only subsidise this not a full payment, leaving her with 400, 300 rent so this leaves 100 for bills and food for 3 people and nappies for 2 toddlers. Now she gets abused on street in front of her children.
How is adding childcare on helpful to the argument?
See how it can be misleading?
oh and another solo parent could be sitting on 380 as they don’t get any accom sub and be in a housing corp paying 90 a week so have 290 after rent to buy food and pay bills with and not be trying to do anything to get off the benefit, but this is seen as a more reasonable amount of money as it only 380, yet the one on 825 ‘govt help’ (NOT INCOME) is the one struggling the most.
Paula Bennett didn’t release anything helpful. It didn’t make sense without their expenses, and only served to fuel the hatred towards solo parents. But didn’t keep your mind off the rescission?