Lesley Soper is the Labour candidate for Invercargill
Read with fascination the Southland Times Report (Aug 15, p.2) on John Key’s great National Party Conference announcement of the start of welfare system overhaul. 16 & 17 year-olds first it seems. They won’t complain too much, and rednecks will think they deserve a bit of ‘nanny state’ overseeing. Food Stamps don’t equal opportunity or jobs BUT IT WILL LOOK AS IF WE ARE DOING SOMETHING, WHICH WILL HELP DISGUISE OUR UTTER FAILURE TO DO ANYTHING TO DEAL WITH THE WORSE NZ YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT SINCE THE GREAT DEPRESSION.
Food Stamps can also be the thin edge of the wedge, & extended to others when we ‘have a Mandate’.
Under this new Policy schools will have to tell authorities when 16 and 17 year-olds leave during the year, and the young people will be attached to a “responsible adult”.
Quotes from the PM included : “the first problem that has to be addressed is finding out who the disengaged young people are … we simply don’t know, because we lose track of them when they leave school. … that has to change … and for the first time we will be able to find out who they are, what their circumstances are, what problems they had …”.
But Wait! The photographic memory clicks in from my years as an MP. This has to be nonsense. Didn’t I make more than one visit to a great Youth Transition Service ‘Work’n it Out’ which operates a Call Centre and extended services from Invercargill [readers will know from my earlier blog on proposed IRD cuts in Invercargill that we run excellent ‘virtual’ operations down here]; and operates under an MSD Contract? Yes, I did, and it still exists. Been operating for more than 5 years. Reports performance and outcomes to MSD every month. You can look it up online at www.wio.co.nz. The Social Development Minister & PM could read the reports. They probably have, but perhaps have ‘forgotten’.
What does this service do? [and what has it been doing for more than 5 years?] Well, strangely enough it has been working with 50 Secondary Schools from Timaru South to track every school-leaver at any point through the year, from ages 16-20. There are also some self or family referrals, and referrals from other govt departments, but by & large this is a major project to track and assist school-leavers with the rest of their lives. And it has been working incredibly well!
We are not talking small numbers here. This is thousands of young people added to the database every year. They are systematically contacted by the callcentre; they are asked about their plans for further education, training or employment. They are offered support and assistance, often on a one-to-one customised support basis. They are tracked from that first call or contact on a regular basis till age 20. Few of them are non-contactable; very few reject the contact.
Report Data is comprehensive. We know who these young people are; where they have come from; where they have gone or are going; which industries they are working in; how many are in which other forms of education and training courses; how many return to school; how many head into apprenticeships, full-or-part-time work.
So if this is all already happening, on a large scale, covering quarter of the country geographically [& there are other Youth Transition Services too], and in areas where there are National MP’s [including English, Roy & Dean], and data exists; why the announcement of a ‘First Ever New Policy’; ‘Never Before Tried’ ; ‘Revolutionary First’ as a ‘Key Plank’ of the National Party Conference?
Could it be that some Political Spin was required to distract from the failure of the National Government to actually address Youth Unemployment and to create jobs? Could it be a ‘Key Con’ to pretend to be doing something to distract from actual cuts National has made to apprenticeships and skills training? Could it be a ‘Big Vision’ like ‘The Cycleway’ or the Budget ‘promise’ of 170,000 jobs - with absolutely no substance? Could it be sheer ignorance of what is already in place? Or could it be that no-one in Auckland pays any attention to successful initiatives in Invercargill unless they involve Shadbolt or snow? Take your pick.
Another ‘Key Con’ when what is really needed is a real economic plan that means young people get real jobs. Remember the statistic - when National came in there were roughly 200 under 24 year-olds who had been on UEB for more than a year. The number now?
Spud; I’m forced to work for my supper.
It’s called ‘holding down a job to pay the bills’.
Tracey – yes, I understand that people pay taxes for years before calling on benefit. Which is why I’d suggest applying benefit on a sliding scale – the longer you’re on it the closer to covering merely the minimum it gets.
I’d also apply a similar policy to having to undertake community based work for benefit – for the first year, say, no obligation. After that introduce the need to perform some work on an increasing scale.
I think that as a society (and that means everyone, not just the minority who aren’t classified as rednecks) we need to be happy that welfare is appropriate to what we want to provide. That means making it absolutely clear that it isn’t a long term option, that the costs to the taxpayer of providing it are kept as economic as possible, and that society perceives it’s getting something back for the considerable sums it pays out.
Whst percentage of our income tax is spent on benefits?
Spud – if having to work for your supper is serfdom then surely forcing someone else to work to provide your supper for you is to enslave others?
@ Tim and Spud
Much better that the long term unemployed stay home and watch daytime TV rather than actually get up and do something to contribute. Sedentary lifestyles lead to depression, New Zealand’s suicide rate among Maori men being the highest in the world, and health disorders like heart disease – New Zealand’s biggest killer.
I see your strategy; you hope to kill off the underclass through suicide and heart disease.
Much better they watch re-runs of Shortland Street rather than developing skills or contributing to the local community.
@Gregor W – That’s great!
!
@George – Nah, you see without welfare there would be a lot more crime and beggars!
Now, which would you rather have a looted lounge or the peasants fed? 
@Curious – running from the law because they had to steal to eat sure would keep them fit though!
Wouldn’t it? 
Might I add that high unemployment, cough, yeah!
Is it just me, or is the fact an invercargill (best city in NZ, no sarcasm) org was dealing with 50 odd kids still pretty irrelevant to thousands for whom there was no knowledge?
Rofl. Comments section gets difficult when it becomes a race to distort and simply make stuff up:
“That is what Tim’s response to Curious is implying (actually, outright stating).
Tim is actually saying that it is a bad thing to ask people to attempt to be partially self sufficient.” – George.
Again, I’m going to have to ask you to re-read my post (August 30, 5:05am). The first segment was a good-natured commentary comparing the suggestion of work-the-land-and-be-rewarded-with-food to medieval times.
The second segment (which you should also read before making distorting, emotive responses) is that the “beneficiary lifestyle” which is waved around in the media is not nearly as widespread as people like to believe. Of course we all agree that someone who is medically fit to work, and whose childcare commitments are not interfered with by it, should work/pay tax etc. Of course there is something repulsive about the idea of a person who chooses to watch Shortland Street re-runs over contributing (interestingly you’ll meet very few people who choose to do this, they are usually stuck at home by childcare commitments). You are not going to find many socialists who disagree with this because socialism entails social responsibility.
If Curious has experience of many Northland parents who don’t work, and who don’t have childcare commitments, I would suggest that reflects more on the availability of work in Northland. Yes, we could send them in chain gangs ( emotive I know) down the beaches to look for litter, but the compliance costs alone would make this more expensive than allowing them to job-seek/stay at home, and it is also very demeaning to them when, by vast majority, these people do want to work.
Someone (Crashcart) either in this thread or elsewhere has already published the MSD statistics indicating either 90 or 96% of DPB recipients are not on the DPB 10 years later. Doesn’t that debunk this whole narrative of “lifetime/lifestyle beneficiaries” you buy into?
Curious how many people in NZ are “long term unemployed”? I’m assuming we are not talking about folks with illnesses or disabilities?
Tim, well done with your last post. Maybe the problem with politics and any attempt to discuss issues, or God forbid, genuine, workable solutions is that there are really only 2 sides and they tend to talk across each other. This might explain why the more things change the more they stay the same.
I’d love to see some folks here having these discussions with people who have lost their jobs during the downturn, or from earthquakes, or flood, or drought, or the NZD or whatever and I bet some here would say “Oh I don’t mean you I mean the lazy bludgers” – this tiny group of lazy people is as big a percentage as employers who bully workers, who have unsafe workplaces, who fiddle the books, of “rich” people who use their wealth to avoid tax, of directors who behave badly and lose shareholders money and yet somehow those groups dont attract/deserve the same constant focus and vitriol by way of condemning the entire group along with the tiny number of malfeasants by some here.
I dont condone a single person who is capable of work choosing not to seek work and watch “shortland street” or is it now “Home and Away? On that note my main fear for the rugby word cup is the number of current All Blacks who list the later as their “cant miss” tv show.
As for training, Ms Bennett et al have pulled this particular ladder away… anyway our society is simply not operated on the premise that the entire workforce is skilled and university educated so throwing that around is another red herring. It’s precisely because of low skilled low wage earners that capitalism “works” as it does.
@Tim and Tracey –
!
Why are we seeing so few posts from caucus at the moment, this is election time you should be communicating much more to us, why the damning silence?
“damning silence” pumpkin, gosh, perhaps they’e out communicating with their constituents? Where DO you go to complain about the lack of anything from Government members???
Must be hard being an MP here, if they post they get told to spend their time on real work, if they don’t some call it a damning silence.
@Pumpkin – you mean so you can rip the sh*t out of them?
To be frank there is not much more to be added here. Socialists will always trust the majority of the population to use social welfare as it was intended, and Tories will always whine about people stealing their hard-earned tax dollars. Innit?
I’m quite happy that traffic has slowed down here.
@ Tim
You can rofl all you like.
I reread your post. You quoted Curious and then made a remark about comparing it to serfdom. One throw away line does not make a ‘good natured commentary’. No distortion there. I’m quoting you.
Maybe you should have chucked a few Spud smiley’s in there just to make sure we got the joke and not confuse it with your other numerous distorting and emotive (to coin your phrase) conflations.
I’m glad we now all agree (not that you would guess that from the comments section) that ‘someone who is medically fit to work, and whose childcare commitments are not interfered with by it, should work/pay tax etc.’
Unless I completely misread Curious, the suggestion is that if there is no paid work available then those folk should be put into other ‘non market’ employment and maybe pick up a few skills along the way in order to claim the benefit.
Is that a bad thing?
I am sure those skills in picking up rubbish and sweeping streets will be well valued by the Engineer who was made redundant by the recession. Screw improving access to skills training. Get those lazy bludgers learning how to prune the bushes for rich people in my opinion.
Does anyone have a sarcasm font?
@Gregor W – Slave labour! No joke, no emoticons, okay maybe one
@Crashcart!
…but not to determine the social agenda, of course. They only trust the people when the people can be guaranteed to think the same way as they do.
Very true, Tracey. And we’re all the poorer for it because if we didn’t let this get in the way we’d probably realise that often the views of the respective camps are closer than may at first seem apparent.
I do have an appreciation of what it’s like. I was made redundant in one of the downturns in the early 90s, with a huge mortgage and two kids under five. Until I found myself another job seeking work was my employment, 7 days a week. No computers in those days so I wrote scores of letters in pen and ink; no internet so I went to the library every morning to scour as many newspapers as I could find. And when I did get a job it meant living away from home during the week for the first 9 months until we could sell our house and then uprooting the family and moving 100 miles away.
It was hard, but life isn’t always a bed of roses.
@ Tracey
Backing up George here; I think you make a pretty big assumptionsthat just because some of us hold contrary views, we don’t know what it’s like at the bottom of the heap.
I have been dirt poor, made redundant, succeded and failed in small business, fell into depression, nearly bankrupted and worked my way out of it (not all in that order) all before the age of 30.
So I’m more than happy to talk to anyone who is struggling.
Without getting all Tony Robbins, the key I found was motivating myself; wanting to improve your lot has to come from inside.
The State can’t legislate a job, self-worth or motivation into existence.
But the State can trap people in dependency very easily by not encouraging them either by carrot or stick, to take on work (even if it’s makework) when it is available.
No bleepin jobs!
‘No jobs’. The constant refrain from people who have given up.
Spud – are you saying that there is not a single job available in NZ for a single, long term (2+ years) unemployed person who is capable of work.
Not anywhere under any circumstance?
I’m not talking about a job they might want.
I’m talking any job that they are fit for.
Something better than the dole queue and a government hand out.
Well, I heard that a lady was told she had to go to an escort agency interview under threat of losing her benefit!
… and I have it on good authority that JK does, in fact, eat babies
For goodness sake Spud…
Hey George. Prostitution is a legal business in NZ. If someone on the benefit was offered employment working in a brothel – and not necessarily as a prostitute – and turned that job offer down, WINZ could sanction them.
Neat little capitalist system we have here. Making money for wealthy business owners are amongst the most important values that we push on the working and under classes in this society.
I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe that this actually happened.
The only way I will believe it is for one of the MPs to confirm that this actually occured – not that it’s merely theoretically possible because prostitution is legal.
I’m sure that people can’t be forced into specific jobs that are against their morals – for example making a vegetarian work in a slaughterhouse or a muslim work on a pig farm. (I have no problem with this, so long as ‘deeply held beliefs’ are not used as an excuse to reject everything that comes along).
George – there are no WINZ regulations allowing “moral” objections to be used by a beneficiary in refusing a valid offer of work.
Its the capitalist system. Make people make money for capitalists. No excuses unless you are on deaths door, sometimes not even then.
So provide a hard example, backed up by the confirmation from an MP, that someone has lost benefit for refusing to work as a prostitute, or where a veggie has been forced to work in a slaughterhouse against his/her beliefs, or where a muslim has been told to work in a pig farm or lose their entitlements (or a similar example).
Forcing people to work who believe this equates to serfdom doesn’t count!!!!
Provide an example George?
Why don’t you authorise me to access all WINZ databases and I will.
Waiting.
CV : I hereby authorise you to access all WINZ databases.
Tell ‘en George sent you.
Waiting.
Those who rant about surfdom and slavery need a reality check. I will bet there has been no one forced into prostitution or made to work at the meat works if they were (genuinely) a veggie. More excuses from the soft c*cks who are happy to bludge off their neighbors.
Reminds me off the neighbor I once had, who had been unemployed for 21 years. Didn’t stop him fishing any fine day or partying most nights and running his little tinny business on the side. His excuse for not working was that he didn’t have any reliable transport to get to town where the work was. Yet he shifted out to the coast from town several years before.
When the pressure came on, he jumped onto a sickness benefit, claiming depression. Made no difference at all to his lifestyle that I could see.
Can’t wait for the welfare card to be implemented across the board.
Without even suggesting I oppose this (just want to see how far daddy state runs) do you (Oldlogger, Curious, George etc) support forcibly relocating people (let’s say, from an area where there are no jobs) to an area where there are jobs to ensure they work?
Just to explore the dichotomy between the right-wing liberal vs right-wing totalitarian thing here (this exists on the left too obviously).. what is/(are) your view(s)?
Hi George and Oldlogger. Do you think that all those who claim unemployment benefits cost this country as much as one dirty finance company director. Because at the moment I see the right makeing a huge issue over the millions spent on long term beneficiaries (and no proof that it is that much) yet not one bloody word about the billions we have to spend to bail out finance companies.
No, Tim, I’d not oblige them to move.
But I’d encourage long term claimants to go to where the jobs were by either providing incentives to go or freezing benefit after a set period of time to make staying less attractive.
Crashcart – I don’t have the figures. Perhaps you can dig up the amount spent on benefits per annum and the (net) amount spent bailing out companies (i.e. the true amount after anything the government gets back once assets are sold)?
To Up & Comer, Aug 30, 8.24p.m.
Did you read the original post? It says thousands of young people are added to the database each year – where you got the number 50 from I have no idea, unless you are deliberately quoting the numbers of schools from Timaru South who are involved instead of thinking about the number of school-leavers each year. {Read slowly and carefully in fiture and you might not misquote the figures!] The real number is more like 4500 [this is data from 50 schools remember].
Also, while I agree about Invercargill, this is not the only centre with a Youth Transition Service – it just happens to be one that covers half the South Island.
@Crashcart…. ahh those would be the finance company bailed out as a result of the Government Guarantee scheme institued by ummmm let me think who was it again….ahh thats right Mikhail Kullen
@George – thanks for replying. We obviously have some common ground in terms of incentivising people to move to places with existing jobs (some people on the right and left call this “social engineering” when they want to make it sound evil).
Help me understand though, when you say “freezing benefit after a set benefit of time” to “encourage them to move”, do you mean stopping paying their benefits? Because that sounds to me like it would deprive them of their means of support to provide food and other basic necessities to their families…
@Tim – No, not stopping it, but freezing it at the current dollar value so that it reduces in a real sense over time, albeit slowly.
What kind of free marketeers are you? If you want to incentivise people to work you have to pay them enough.
Brownlee said Shipley and co. wouldn’t do the work in Christchurch for less than $1000/day, for instance.
Take your lead from that man, get with the programme.
You can’t expect people to take these jobs seriously if you don’t expect to pay them seriously.
$16/hr is the absolute minimum for getting out of bed. And for Jenny Shipley its $120/hr for an 8 hour day. Anything less is a joke.
Getting back to the original point of the post: Doing something real about Youth Unemployment when we already know who & where these young people are & what they need. (& its a con to pretend otherwise)
Labour announced our Youth Skills & Employment Package today:
Highlights: Converting dole payments into a $8700 subsidy to fund 9000 additional apprenticeship places
5000 new training places for 16 & 17 year olds
1000 extra group & shared apprenticeships
Support & mentoring at-risk school-leavers into earning and learning
Building on work of Youth Transition Services, Trades Academies, Conservation Corps, Mayors Taskforce for Jobs
Paid for from Labour’s Fairer Tax Plan – which is good for the economy and pays for good policies
Real Delivery – and without selling any family silver.
Love It.
Go Labour! Good luck Lesley with your campaign. I’m sure you could do a much better job than Invercargill’s current invisible MP…