Comments on: Nats on Welfare- the softening up process

By: Anton

Anton — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 22:48:42 +0000

Grant, you are dead right – this is precisely what they’re doing. But if you look over the last nine years your party was in power they did exactly the same thing, with even worse results. There were some extemely damaging changes made to basic welfare provision that not even the nats could manage to get through, but not for lack of trying. When they did try who was the first to cry foul? Labour’s lucky though, because what it did to social welfare went pretty much unnoticed because most of the changes were whacked through under urgency, and in any case we’re talking beneficiaries here, so most people either don’t care or think it’s a good thing. The changes made under Labour have made it much easier for Key and English to follow up on too, with the help of mouthpiece patsy Paula Shipley Bennett.

By: Anne

Anne — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 21:44:34 +0000

@ Spud. The elderly parent died some years ago now so I no longer had to rely on the DPB.

@ theresaj. Yes. I agree with you about the WFF. It is often going to families who don’t need it. The trouble is, it is difficult to figure out how it could be administered without incurring huge overhead costs. It would mean setting up a huge bureaucracy if a means test was introduced.

By: A Mother

A Mother — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 21:42:19 +0000

@theresaj

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/students-study/news/article.cfm?c_id=329&objectid=10612920&pnum=1

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3120558/500-study-assistance-is-a-token-gesture-MP-says

By: theresaj

theresaj — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 09:26:16 +0000

My friends have six children so are doing very well on WFFamilies..They own a rental property..he has a pension from a previous state job , he is in secure fulltime employment..It came out awhile ago that about 900 families on WFF’s owned at least one rental property..These people don’t need this benefit.
I agree Anne about the hypocrisy of Rankin and Bennet…They are the ultimate hypocrites..I saw somewhere where Bennet had to back down over some allowance or other..
The Nats like to talk tough..but they are still letting”migrants” in here..My husband is unmemployed..so are many of his former colleages..Cheap Philipino labour was brought in the replace the existing workers..and hardly a whisper in the media..Hope all the newbies had agreat Xmas.

By: Spud

Spud — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 08:37:51 +0000

Anne, that’s great! Congratulations! I hope it all works out for you!

By: Anne

Anne — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 08:14:02 +0000

@ Spud
My circumstances have changed so I’m no longer affected, but I feel sorry for those who, for whatever reason, are currently in the welfare system. It’ll be the usual story… Labour will have to pick up the pieces when they are back in power.

By: Spud

Spud — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 06:39:03 +0000

@Anne – That’s awful

By: Anne

Anne — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 04:28:36 +0000

@ John Marshall
Back in the 1990s(their previous term in office)they set up a
” benefit fraud squad”. This squad consisted mainly of ex-policemen and women who had probably resigned from front line duties in their 40s. At the same time WINZ started the “dob a beneficiary a day” scheme as it came to be known. They set up a phone link where people could anonymously dob in supposed fraudsters. It later transpired that the vast majority of these calls were maliciously motivated and only a very small number of benefit fraudsters were prosecuted. Anyone with an ounce of common sense could have told them the outcome and I recall Labour trying very hard to do so. But of course it was really a political exercise to gain brownie points with the bourgeoisie. Now we have them trying to do it all over again and for the same reason.

The despicable aspect of the exercise is: that many innocent people will have their lives turned upside down just as happened last time.

By: john marshall

john marshall — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 02:36:42 +0000

The fact is that every time the Nats get in they start a process of “prepairing “the public for “Justified ” cuts to the welfare system.They tell of Solo Mums who have “dozens of kids by different fathers . ACC clients who are working at back breaking jobs ,ect ect . I wonder if they have a full time force out unearthing these people .Most of their cases are unproven but it seems to warm their cold hearts so as start savaging the welfare state . They do it every time and the gullible public fall for every time. It always amazes me that when the Tories are in lots of people seem to become very lazy
thats the only explanation why so many people become unemployed when they are in .I mean what other explanation could there be? it could not be mismanagment by the Government could it??

By: Andrew U D Straw

Andrew U D Straw — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 07:57:08 +0000

I really am not that familiar with NZ law. There is no such thing as a constitutional right here. So, if a government agency arbitrarily denied you a benefit to which you were otherwise entitled, would a court force them to provide the benefit? What if John Key and his majority passed an Act called the “Arbitrary Welfare Act” of 2010, and that act allowed agencies to deny benefits for any or no reason? We can call them “at will” benefits. The entitlement language is still there, but agencies could treat benefits like privileges, which they can take away at any time.

This could be applied to any public employee, tenured professors, police officers…city council members. Anyone who has a statutory benefit of any kind.