It didn’t take Bill English long to revert to type – Bill English says employers are regularly telling him that Kiwis can’t pass drug tests. Some folks he knows are telling him stuff and he’s basing immigration policy on it? That’s some Trump-level reasoning right there.
Speaking at his weekly media conference English said two or three business owners a week told him about the difficulty in getting Kiwi workers who apply for jobs to pass a drug test.
Two or three a week! Conclusive proof in Bill’s mind that “young male” Kiwi are “pretty damned hopeless”.
The facts say otherwise. From 2014 – Minister claims low drug result as victory
Drug testing of beneficiaries is turning up an extremely low number of results showing drug use
Of the 8,001 beneficiaries sent for jobs requiring drug testing, only 22 tested positive to drug use or refused to take tests.
That number again – 22 out of 8,001. From 2016 – Few beneficiaries hit by drug testing
Beneficiaries with work obligations are now required to take and pass a drug test when asked to as part of a job application, with sanctions applied to their benefits for failing the tests.
Last year, there were 31,791 referrals for drug testable positions nationwide and just 55 sanctions for failing a drug test, according to Ministry of Social Development (MSD) figures.
That’s a vanishingly small percentage.
Whangarei Citizens Advice Bureau co-ordinator Moea Armstrong said the low number of beneficiaries failing drug tests proved most people were “really desperately keen” for a job and not doing drugs.
She thought most people led drug-free lifestyles and beneficiaries couldn’t afford to do drugs anyway.
“There’s not enough even for ciggies these days, let alone anything else.”
She said the country had nearly full employment in the 1970s.
“To me, that shows that when there is work available, people want to work,” she said. “It’s the system that is not providing the jobs because it suits people to have a whole pile of unemployed people to keep the wages down.”
Gary Reid, of Whanganui People’s Centre Advocacy Service, agreed a lack of jobs was the main thing keeping people from working.
Bill English is full of shit and it’s time that more media called him on it.
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