Muldoon failed to address family violence with his term, he was too busy thinking globally and “thinking big”.

As a result I came away from Otara with bronchiectasis, several allergies, a couple of congential defects with my health deteriorating to the point where now I have a couple of eye diseases, an oral disease and osteoarthritis accompanied by seizures, post traumatic stress and a muscle disorder.

The compensation we get for failure of the national party (or labour in recent times for that matter) to respond? $230.00 per week.

We have had muldoonism, rodgernomics, the mother of all budgets and now with key we have darwinism.

Everyone out there is complaining about tax’s the cost of living, but 20 years ago a basic benefit was the equivelent of 75% of minimum wage. today that sits at just over 55% of minimum wage with everyone wanting the proposed $15.00 an hour taking us to what the equivelent of 48% of minimum wage.

Remember that the ministry od social development answers to no one, they are one of the only branches of government left allowed by law to use descrimintory legislation, one of the only branches for which government fails to provide an advocacy service and are also well known for not providing full disclosure on cost entitlements to clients, a case manager as an example can decline to help you on costs even when you go with a doctors letter, and they arent trained medically at all.

And remember that they only pay 80% percent of what they believe your actual costs to be with limits on the amount you can claim overall.

Think about it people the ones you know and love try suriving on this when they are sick, when they are in need and many of you spend more than this on entertaining yourselves each week and still want more breaks from the government.. I really question who the moochers are here.

National ransoms the country after stripping all assests leaving as with no asset base to build on for the future and they do this every time, borrow, put us in debt and then we throw labour back in to fix it up again.

Its benefit bashing to say to them “You don’t have to do a work programme, its not your fault that you haven’t found a job in six months, its not your fault you haven’t got a job, but don’t worry Aunty Helen will look after you and save you from that big bad WHITE man who is rich”

Try being a struggling father bringing up children on peanuts rogered gnomer, you wouldn’t know anything about the poverty trap !!
WINZ are guilty of unlawful gender discrimination and it WON’T change with John Wee at the helm !!

SR:

The Labour Party-led Governments have offered huge incentives for welfare-dependant parents to get into work, such as Working for Families (which effectively removes all tax on work for these people), and heavily subsidised day care for pre-school aged children. These polices, along with a buoyant labour market have lead to a huge decrease in the number of people receiving the DPB, and now, less than half of the people who currently receive it, have been doing so for over a year.

So Labour has offered the carrots, and it’s working for everyone. Now National wants to step in with a stick.

Successive Labour-led Governments have retained National’s benefit reforms, and have continued to increase benefit levels according to CPI, rather than index them to average earnings, or something similar. So equality isn’t a consideration in either main party’s welfare policy any longer.

As a result, people on a benefit are surviving on a bare subsistence income, and are excluded from participation in mainstream society. So it’s no surprise to find out that virtually no one remains unemployed for long if they have a choice. In fact, page 82 of the 2007 labour market report shows us that only 0.5% of the working age population have been unemployed for more than 6 months.

So, the people that have been on the DPB for an extended period, are likely lacking options. They have good reasons, and probably don’t enjoy their position very much. National’s policy of compulsion is going to be forcing people who are already enduring a situation of considerable hardship, into a position that’s so undesirable, they choose their current position over it.

As justification for its attack on solo parents, National decries NZ’s low sol-parent employment rate (44%), whilst celebrating the success of the Nordic countries, which have comparable figures of 70-80%. See page 7 of the background paper . What National doesn’t reveal is the fact that, these results have only been achieved through a generous welfare state, which provides very cheap day-care ($50 per-week in Sweden) and long periods of paid maternal leave (13 months at 80% of total normal pay). These of course are policies that National wouldn’t dream of introducing, so it’s a bit hypocritical for them to be citing these countries as success stories.

A 5% increase when everyone else has gone up 10-15% is a BAD thing. I would personally agrue it’s just as bad as the falling income scenario in the 90′s.

Why? Because when you have a growing income dispairity from rich to poor, the increased demand from the ‘rich’ is for a different set of goods and services – you don’t find a lot of competing demand pricing anyone out of the market.

Under the 2000′s result, there is a real risk those at the bottom end ARE being priced out of essential goods and services because those in the next income bracket up are demanding mroe of the essentials, and not a new car.

Thanks for the link – it was the one I was thinking of.

You’ll note that in my first comment I was talking about:
“incomes of those at the lowest income decile – where hoseholds on benefits tend to reside”

Under National, they went down – no argument from me.

Under Labour, they went up 5% – in six/seven years… whoop-de-do, let’s go and buy a Mercedes!

This is SIGNIFICANTLY LESS than the rest of the bottom half deciles improvement in income. Labour has been responsible for growing income dispairity not between rich-and-poor, but between poorest-and-everyone-else. Nationals policy may not be the silver bullet, but neither is Labours.

Maybe you should let me edit your posts, because showing data and explaining half the story is a waste of everyone’s time.

[I agree that benefits should have gone up faster, which is the only way the income of the bottom decile could have risen faster. But that's not National policy, it's Green policy. And 5% in real terms over 6 years might not seem much to you but it's better than going backwards like under the Nats. SP]

Which just highlights the high speed spin that has been plastered all over this by labour.

Look, I aint no nat member or supporter, I just do not see proof of a secret agenda. None has been provided.

You do not have to do these things if you do not want to recieve a benefit.

Of course is complusion, its not a case of wanting a benifit, its needing a benifit so they dont starve to death. Obviously your far to detached from the real world to understand this.

There is currently no such obligation to do so.

Some questions.

Of the 22% that identify their children’s health as a barrier to employment, is that a different subset to the 25% of DPB children that have a long-term disability or are we just listing the same people twice?

Of the 29% of DBP recipients who cannot work because of their own health, Have WINZ addressed what they are capable of? Is there an effort to discover what the issues are? and if they are incapable of working, how do they run a household?

These are generalisations I know, but is there a way that the state services can work together to alleviate these concerns?

And yes I am aware that some mothers and fathers on the DPB work. I work with solo parents.

But what National is proposing is a long way from the beneficiary bashing that you have purported it to be.

You do not have to do these things if you do not want to recieve a benefit.

The question I have is, does this 15 hours only apply to school weeks? ie does it not count during holidays?