I’ve been saying for two years that this government specialises in rhetoric vs reality. Arguing that black is white. Pulling the wool over people’s eyes. Fudging it. However you want to describe it.
John Key is the master of Orwellian language. He gets away with it mostly, but won’t forever.
He and his Ministers consistently argue that the “global recession” is responsible for unemployment and more people living on benefits.
According to his narrative, his government has nothing to do with it. But every now and then his underlying belief system seeps out.
Yesterday he outdid himself by saying in parliament in response to a question from Annette King that beneficiaries who resort to food banks do so out of their own “poor choices” rather than because they cannot afford food.
In other words it’s their own fault that they’re poor. And in need of help.
My office in Dunedin rang around the foodbanks this morning and was told that they are seeing an increase in referrals from WINZ.
The letters that the clients bring from WINZ indicate that they have been declined assistance on the basis that they cannot produce a family budget and the implication is that the organisation will assist with both the immediate food needs and the budget.
It’s not new for people to be referred to these organisations from WINZ. What is new though is the increase in referrals and the denial of assistance on the basis of not being able to produce a family budget. And the pressure being put on the social service agencies who themselves are struggling to cope with demand and having their own funding sources starved.
Many of these people are what’s being described as the “new poor”. People who have been made redundant, can’t find new work and are not coping.
John Key is totally out of touch. What’s he going to say next?
“The letters that the clients bring from WINZ indicate that they have been declined assistance on the basis that they cannot produce a family budget.”
So what you are saying is that WINZ shouldn’t ask them where there money is going – and just give them more, more, more?
If you looked at the budget of person “X” and saw s/he had $20 per week in smokes, $20 in alcohol and a $15 lotto ticket each week – the wrong thing to do is simply give them money.
When you are surviving on little – a budget is an absolute necessity.
That way the ‘special grants’ can be given to people that ARE budgeting and arnt misusing their money.
I also believe that if they had food cards or the like so the income couldnt be spent on smokes / alcohol / sky tv etc then there would be a lot less need for food banks.
And before you jump down my neck – I know that all bene’s arnt like this and some budget really well and still struggle (and I do feel for people in this position).
But please remember two things – the benefit is only a temporary measure – so its not long term.
and also – just as there are people who are legitimate and budget well – you know there are people out there misusing their benefit on alcohol, ciggies and kfc.
All of us have responsibility for the outcomes in our lives. Key is correct. Some people do make poor choices. Hard as it sounds, it is the truth.
Just Right: “Some people do make poor choices.”
Yes, celebs, bankers and finance company execs among them.
If you bash that group you have tall poppy syndrome, if you bash beneficiaries, you just want the best for society.
Key is perfectly correct: people do make “poor choices” – like voting National for instance.
I budget, I pay my bills using automatic credit, what is left over is used for food. Then if I get sick, or one of my children becoming sick on a weekend?
That kind of thing has to come out of our food money.
When I go on a practicum for Uni, I will have to come up with money (somehow) to pay for childcare full time for 3 weeks, (and I have two placements this year) and to pay for food.
Its not just ‘bad budgeting’ it is sometimes just there have been other bills come up or things that have happened that week (or the week before, or for a few weeks like the amount you pay each week on the power bill adds up over summer but a long long winter and then you end up owing money, even $30 owing can leave you short if you pay your bills this way) This adds up to no food or very little food in the house. Remember that its not just food you have to buy to keep a house running, its dishwashing liquid, soap powder, soap, floor cleaner, toilet cleaner that has to come out of the food budget.
It can all add up.
So you are saying that a budget requirement is bad Claire? Seriously? That’s a pretty poor argument. Money handouts with accountability might be new to your party, but quite normal for people in the real world
Didn’t I hear the other day that Key’s personal wealth increased at the rate of $100,000 a week over the past year? You ask if Key is totally out of touch? Looks like the answer is a resounding yes. Some poor Kiwi struggling on $192 a week is making a lifestyle choice? They guy has been too rich for too long to have any clue about life in the real world …
It’s a lifestyle choice though, Clare, I mean here they are mooching off our food banks, when there’s perfectly good kai to be had in dumpsters. (Spuddy shakes his head).
My comments won’t post
I give up, once in a blue moon I try to post and comment and off to the spam it goes. And yet I can write something else and it will land in fine.
The only way the government can reduce unemployment in the short term is to raise taxes or borrow more to create more make public sector jobs…
So what is Labour’s plan..? Taxing or borrowing to make up jobs that will either; reduce growth or punish our children with a future tax burden they had no vote in creating..?
Any party that constantly critises another party’s plan, without having a clearly stated goal and a plan for achieving it, isn’t worth wasting time listening to…
Jeremy. About 3 years ago a survey showed that most people would reject tax cuts if it meant that there was more money for Health, Education and Security. Quite a few would even accept an increase in taxes.
Not true Jeremy the government could build more houses in Auckland. The economic activity alone would generate sufficient tax revenue to afford the finance cost of the loan and when the houses were built they could be sold to repay the loan. So at no cost in either budget deficit or growth in public debt more people would have jobs. And yet the investment would provide momentum for an economic recovery.
It’s not a surprise that those new to living on the level of income of a benefit would struggle. And that with more newcomers on benefits this would impact on foodbanks. It does require a culture shift – from living as one of society to existing/coping on welfare.
That said an sudden upward shift in rent/mortgage cost could cause the same impact (and it did during the period when the OCR was raised and might with rising rents in Auckland because of a housing shortage).
I’m sorry SPC but that is incorrect…
Firstly the government has to borrow or raise taxes to fund what you propose…
Second they have to acquire or prepare land, if they are acquiring there is no tax revenue…
Thirdly, the pay people to construct the houses who then spend their wages with approx. 37% of the expenditure in tax revenues…
Meaning at minimum the government loses 63% of the increase in taxes and/or borrowing… Government spending is inherently inefficient…
There really is nothing that can be done in the short term that doesn’t result in higher taxes or borrowing… Over the long term employment can be increased by liberalising trade and reducing government expenditure… Keep in mind the way the Reserve Bank Act works unemployment can never go below 3%…
Labour offers no real solutions apart from slowing economic growth through higher taxes or borrowing to fund jobs today and handing the bill on to our children… It is simply about making the government look bad because we are in a recession and they don’t like them… (And I’m no fan of National)
Jeremy do you have trouble understanding this?
I said borrow the money and pay it back when selling the houses. That means the costs of land development and building are recovered.
As to the loan servicing cost – usually the private sector would provide some equity, so there is greater loan servicing cost if borrowing 100% – but the tax returns from the econonic activity more than cover that.
Quite apart from the economic sense there is the gain of having houses available prior to a shortage and the building now keeping a skilled workforce intact. This has social advantages – realised at no cost. There is a cost of rising rents in higher accomodation supplement cost if a housing shortage is allowed to happen by the way. A social problem and a budget problem in one. And this grows in importance the less people own their homes.
Blabber all you like about government spending being less efficient (when it’s actually the boom bust property cycle of the private sector that is inefficient) or about the job gains from free trade – tell it to the Americans.
Ideology in the way of solutions is the problem here.
The Americans haven’t represented free trade for 80 years, we have a more open economy than they do (and that says a lot about them)… Government spending is more inefficient – it is fact, free trade works – it is fact…
One only has to study the results of privatisations around the world over the last two decades and the results of trade liberalisation in the 1800s in Japan, the US, the UK, Aussie, NZ etc and more recently in the economies of India, China and Brazil, to discover the overwhelming, blindingly obvious truth about government ownership and trade…