Mountain Tui: Luxon’s $1000 A Week Is His “Entitlement”. Just Not Yours.

Written By: - Date published: 1:06 pm, August 14th, 2024 - 32 comments
Categories: benefits, Christopher Luxon, Economy, uncategorized - Tags: , , ,

This is a partial excerpt from Mountain Tui’s substack post – “Despair is free. So is a a smile”

Job seekers cost 2.5% of Crown Revenue, Superannuation costs 15%

It’s easy to chat about how Luxon is a bit of an out-of-his-depth tosser, and how the benefits roll out is already hitting people on the low.

Remember, it takes two whole years now to get a record reset. And if a beneficiary fails to meet one obligation, such as making an appointment, it could result in them having to do community work or be controlled on how they spend their money. It’s all a bit dystopian and reminds me of futuristic scenes from ‘Andor’, the Star Wars series on Disney +.

And the ‘you have 5 days to sort it or get penalised’ message from government is a tough mental and physical barrier to cross – mail is lost, people get sick, times can be tough, might just forget to open a letter. And what about the mentally ill, homeless, or those who are already anxious?

It feels like it’s all more about kicking people off the statistics. Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics is very real – and none more so under Luxon/Seymour/Peters.

Except conservative friends – including some of mine, will only see it as a good thing. As the Greens or Labour protest the changes, the right will cement in their minds how the country can only fail under people who care too much about ‘leeches’ and ‘suckers’ who are taking from them as we circle the drain.

The over-application of anecdotes by the right has come home to roost.

Except the statistics don’t bear it out. The real answer for any structural weakness is complex – a multi-faceted interconnection of culture, under-investments in tech & infrastructure, over-investment in property and ag, inter-generational trauma & poverty, geography, population, demographic.

It didn’t happen overnight either. Successive governments and taxpayers bought into our system.

Let’s look at some # specific to job seekers.

  • From Treasury reports, it appears jobseekers cost ~$3.4 bn a year. And crown revenue sits around ~$135 bn these days.
  • So ~2.5% of the Crown’s intake – which is 90% funded from taxpayers – goes to support job seeker beneficiaries when the government’s austerity is actively increasing unemployment, and for people who fall on tough times. It happens.

So when Luxon makes comments like below, and it sounds good to our conservative fellows, what they miss is context.

In a country like New Zealand you have rights to be able to get the support you desperately need when you need it… But you also have a responsibility to your fellow citizens who are the taxpayers who are funding that welfare system to make sure you are doing everything you can.

Context includes, for example,

  • They could invest positively for structural reforms like stopping most of our money going into property investment, and invest in science, technology, green root industries, infrastructure to future proof the country and build future wealth;
  • Luxon infers beneficiaries aren’t doing what they can – never mind 40% of those are on Health or Disability and many more already work part time, this government is causing a lot of the unemployment, and even Luxon admits only ~5% aren’t compliant;
  • The $12bn that Nicola borrowed for tax cuts requires interest payments. $12bn is a phenomenal number – not only in interest but in opportunity cost ie. where else it could have been invested for ongoing dividends e.g. productivity, tech, infrastructure. And to give a sense of scale of the word ‘billions’, John Walker wrote on my Substack:

    “If $1 equals 1 second of time, then $1 million seconds equals 11.57 days, less than a fortnight.
    1 billion seconds equals 11,574 days, just over 31 years“
  • Nicola Willis adjusted the trust tax laws to allow 33%* trust tax exemptions and exclude them from the higher 39% Under National, only 49,000 of the 400,000 trusts in NZ will pay higher trust tax rates now. Labour had tried to close the loophole, pointing out the wealthy appeared to be hiding their money and property in trusts with the top 5% of trusts accounting for 78% of all trustee income Labour estimated it would save NZ $350 million a year – so that appears to be how much National is funnelling back to the well-to-do, while going after beneficiaries.
  • Finally, our government is supposed to use small portions of our money to help and support Kiwis, and not in a way that adds to their mental stress and distress. Because ultimately doing that serves society – economically and socially.

It’s OK to manage people who intentionally abuse the system, but it’s not OK to try to boot people from your numbers to look good or cause more harm and distress on those that are down.

Dignity is the most important attribute for any human being.

And not affording it can only manifest in domestic incidents, crime, suicide, medical needs, and earlier death and sickness, through stress, which has a very tangible effect on our bodies. For the conservative friends, that costs a lot of $.

* Correction: A prior version of this article said the government changed the trust tax to 39%. That was a misprint – they kept the exemption at the lower 33% trust tax rate which means now only ~12% trusts will pay the higher tax rate.

32 comments on “Mountain Tui: Luxon’s $1000 A Week Is His “Entitlement”. Just Not Yours. ”

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  1. Tiger Mountain 1
    14 August 2024 at 2:33 pm

    Few more unpleasant spectacles than the well fed, housed and highly paid putting the slipper into less well off and vulnerable citizens. Luxury Luxon seems to have no idea of basic benefit rates, abatement regimes or the daily humiliation and frustration of dealing with MSD/WINZ when you are out of petrol, bus money or phone data.

    So it is quite likely he has never read the WEAG Report or talked to a beneficiary advocate. Sanctions for missing a meeting or call? Mr Luxon and other Ministers regularly refuse media channel interviews–it should be part of their job to front such things–no sanctions for them.

    COVID showed that someone in the bureaucracy is aware of what a punitive shit show MSD runs when a second tier benefit appeared for middle class people, $490 odd a week, partner still allowed to work! no passive aggressive Case Manager to deal with…

    The current clamp down will achieve exactly nothing apart from more people willing to do anything but go to WINZ for assistance when it is their right. More people will have unnecessarily miserable lives and stress because rich bastards have said so–the same ones that called for higher unemployment to fight inflation.

    • Rolling-on-Gravel 1.1
      14 August 2024 at 5:06 pm

      COVID showed that someone in the bureaucracy is aware of what a punitive shit show MSD runs when a second tier benefit appeared for middle class people, $490 odd a week, partner still allowed to work! no passive aggressive Case Manager to deal with…

      I noticed the same thing during the COVID lockdowns as well, knowing that I live on the SLP and knowing that people who can be said to be middle class is treated better than people like me on the benefit, that has solidified in me a deep distaste for modern Labour and I did not party vote for Labour due to that.

      I think the million missing votes in this country is partially due to that sort of distaste for how National and Labour has truly treated us on the benefits and all that.

      That action you mentioned has truly saddened all people who has had to endure being on the benefits… it's so heartbreaking to see this is how Labour treated us during a true crisis.

  2. Rolling-on-Gravel 2
    14 August 2024 at 4:55 pm

    It is utterly disgusting how badly we are being treated on the benefit.

    We all should hang our heads in national shame in how we treat people who need help and that we ever voted in such a nakedly evil government as the current coalition.

    Labour also should hang its head in shame as well because it did not do anything to really change the welfare system except belatedly when it was too late to change anything structurally.

    I am yelling now:

    HUMAN RIGHTS FOR PEOPLE ON THE BENEFIT NOW!

    HUMAN RIGHTS FOR DISABLED PEOPLE IN NEED OF THE BENEFIT NOW!

    HUMAN RIGHTS FOR ALL WHO LIVE IN AOTEAROA!

    Because this is truly a moral crisis for all of New Zealand. We must do the right thing by correcting our mammoth mistake by voting out the coalition and continually protesting it.

    UNTIL then, I will be ashamed that I am living in such a nation which is acting in denial that it's mean and horrible towards its people in need.

    This is such a dark week for us all…

  3. thinker 3
    14 August 2024 at 5:36 pm

    No one's thought to ask, but I wish they would:

    In the government's trimming of back office jobs in the order of 7.5% how much % of jobs in the ministers' own offices have been cut

    I read the articles on rnz.co.nz etc and they give the number of jobs lost from this or that ministry. Those are the jobs lost from the departments that serve us, the people.

    I want to know if that's been matched by the departments that serve the people whose ideology it is to make those kind of cutbacks and whether those people are sharing in what they are making the rest of us go through.

  4. lprent 4
    14 August 2024 at 8:04 pm

    Cleaned up the pasted formatting on the post.

  5. Champaign Socialist 5
    15 August 2024 at 10:01 am

    The targeting of the unemployed is about sending a message to the employed – "pull your head in, no more wage increases for you if you're lucky enough to keep your job."
    This was best expressed by comedian George Carlin:
    The rich do none of the work and pay little in taxes. The working class do most of the work and pay a lot in taxes. The un-employed are there to scare the shit out of the working class.

    This is very old school class warfare and it's all about re-asserting capitals dominance over labor.

    • Tiger Mountain 5.1
      15 August 2024 at 11:26 am

      yes

    • Obtrectator 5.2
      15 August 2024 at 12:47 pm

      All repressive regimes maintain a degree of terror, whether physical (prisons, secret police, etc) or economic, as here. The aim is always the same; to keep the populace cowed and compliant. They like to keep it ignorant too, whether by merely under-resourcing education, or actively discouraging the spread of heterodox ideas.

    • Chris 5.3
      15 August 2024 at 2:11 pm

      It's times like these we need a strong beneficiary activist movement in NZ, which we don't have, and probably haven't ever had. Various organisations have come and gone over the years but a general lack of resources has plaqued any real possibility of this happening.

      While the union movement may not have grown directly out of support for the unemployed, and its traditional membership model may be at odds with such a proposition, there's certainly a case to say that unions have an obvious role in this regard.

      Right now unions, among other things, represent workers through the dispute resolution processes under the ERA. Wouldn't it be wonderful if unions provided the same level of support to members of the reserve army of labour who're hit by bad decisions by MSD about benefit entitlement by taking cases through the judicial process relating to benefits?

    • thinker 5.4
      16 August 2024 at 7:20 am

      Plus one other thing:

      Two people work at a job. One gets shafted.

      The 'lucky' one gets to do both jobs and knows not to complain about it.

      40 or more years since the One-minute Manager" and Milton Friedman taught managers how to do this has compounded and those who have work are working far harder than the boomers did. People now try to work at the computers speed, instead of the computer assisting the worker.

      • PsyclingLeft.Always 5.4.1
        16 August 2024 at 9:28 am

        Well, I in my quite long working life, have met, and had interaction with varied Managers. I include some years working at a Hospital. I italicise, as in reality a proportion were inept at best…or outright fucking clueless at worst.

        This meant that we…had to cover for them and their screw-ups.

        While they took the credit and spent most of their time arse covering and punching down.

        FYI anyone who thinks this is just me and my experience? Look online.

  6. PsyclingLeft.Always 6
    15 August 2024 at 10:04 am

    Mountain Tui, not sure if your Post is for Disabled as well? But the latest attack on same needs highlighted somewhere.

    Watch: Disability services to shift from Whaikaha to MSD after budget

    I note a similar style to NACT1's attack on NZ Health..

    The government has announced the move after a critical review, which says the ministry is not set up to effectively manage the scale and nature of its funding and has inadequate budget controls.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/525212/watch-disability-services-to-shift-from-whaikaha-to-msd-after-budget

    Critical review ? Says it all really. I hope whats left of the Support groups Stand Strong in support !

    I had also commented earlier on Open Mike

    https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-15-08-2024/#comment-2008199

  7. Ad 7
    15 August 2024 at 11:10 am

    Every errant MP should be required to register at MSD and queue up for their Parliamentary benefit.

    If not, off to the boot camps.

  8. AB 8
    15 August 2024 at 12:25 pm

    Sanctioning people and talking of their "work obligations" would be legitimate only if the government offered a jobs guarantee. Then it would truly be a set of equal and reciprocal obligations: i.e. for the jobseeker to take work if it is suitable; and for the government to offer work that is suitable.

    Instead we see a very unbalanced, non-reciprocal set of obligations: i.e. the jobseeker is obliged to beat their heads against the closed door of a hostile labour market to prove that they are still trying, and to take whatever they can get; while the government is obliged to provide only a meagre level of income that makes long-term survival impossible.

    The obvious question is to ask what produces this imbalance. Two answers are pretty clear: a desire to save money and juice the statistics by driving people off the jobseeker benefit and into dependence on their wider families; and to provide a free gift to business by driving down wages.

  9. Ad 9
    15 August 2024 at 1:06 pm

    Speaker Brownlee should implement an MP traffic light system.

  10. Mike the Lefty 10
    15 August 2024 at 2:28 pm

    You know I recently got flak from an associate, not friend obviously, for getting super (although taxed higher) as well as working. I told him it was my f..n entitlement! And was less than the extra tax reduction that National politicians got per week which was their entitlement! This person chose not to pursue the matter.

    • James Thrace 10.1
      15 August 2024 at 9:11 pm

      Therein lies the issue.

      NZS was originally designed to stop the elderly from falling into penury.

      Muldoon buggered that up.

      if politicians removed capitalised family benefit, free uni education, first home grants, etc etc there is absolutely no reason they should not limit NZS to only those who are retired (i.e not working at all) or alternatively, limiting it on a pro rata basis to people over 65 earning more than say $100k per annum.

      Super beneficiaries cost NZ 15bn+ and rising. Welfare beneficiaries cost NZ 2.5bn and soon to be falling.

      There is only one problem here and it’s not people trying to get a job or start a family.

      It’s not an entitlement. It’s just because you’re in the nearly dead camp that you have become entitled. Along with voting those in who have chosen to knock down the ladder that supported you with your own family.

      Working and receiving NZS at the same time makes you an entitled bludger. Winston Peters is the worst example of if, followed closely by 65+ in positions of power earning $250k plus who refuse to resign thereby stopping the next generation from moving up in their careers. 65+ wont resign because NZS effectively pays for their yearly cruises.

      It’s absolutely disgusting.

  11. tWig 11
    15 August 2024 at 3:49 pm

    In a Land of Plenty is a NZ doco free to view at NZ On Screen that gives historical context to unemployment in NZ and the framing of those on benefits.

  12. tWig 12
    15 August 2024 at 3:52 pm

    And BigHairyNews interview Ricardo Menendez March, Green MP and activist in the beneficiary area (from 7 min).

  13. Michael who failed Civics 13
    15 August 2024 at 9:30 pm

    Labour enacted most of the sanctions regime and only rolled back a few instances. left the machinery of government on rightwing settings for the current lot to press the start button. I don't expect a future Labour government (if there ever is one) to anything meangiful to improve the welfare system based on its record since 1984.

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