Somebody get me a Tui’s billboard please:
Benefit tally ‘not an excuse for hard line’
Finance Minister Bill English denies the Government will use a $78 billion valuation of the lifelong cost of benefits as an excuse to get the public to buy into a harder line on welfare. …
Sarah Thompson, of Auckland Action Against Poverty, said the study was futile and National was simply trying to scare voters into accepting hard-line policies and get people off benefits whatever the cost.
But Mr English denied the valuation was to provide an excuse to make tougher decisions about welfare – saying the Government would actually be spending more as it tried to get people off long-term benefits. …
Mr English said the valuation was an important “performance tool” and would change the behaviour of the Government by forcing it to confront the long-term issue rather than accepting it was an unavoidable cost.
Chair of the Work and Income Board Paula Rebstock said it was important especially because it would be repeated annually.
“When you take a long-term model, there’s no place to hide.”
When you take a long-term model, there’s no place to hide. Interesting, don’t you think, the issue – the only issue – that the Nats have chosen to take a long-term model of?
Just think of all the long-term term issues facing this country. Superannuation and the care of the elderly – the Nats DON’T want to think about that. The economy and transport in an age of declining oil – no long-term model there. Inter-generational inequality and poverty? Where the hell is that long-term model? Carbon emissions and climate change. Well we actually had a long-term model for that, the Nats are busy gutting it (looking for a place to hide from the laws of physics).
Long-term model – yeah right. If the Nats had the inclination and capacity for long-term thinking then there are much more important issues than this. It’s just a tool for beneficiary bashing. How utterly pathetic is that?
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