Posts Tagged ‘dpb’

Benefit reforms trigger surge in DPB births?

Written By: - Date published: 9:58 am, March 25th, 2013 - 120 comments

National, the party of beneficiary bashing that has lead a crusade against parents on the DBP, appears to have triggered a surge of new births to DPB parents.

We’re all beneficiaries now

Written By: - Date published: 7:38 pm, March 6th, 2013 - 168 comments

The drought shows how important social protection systems are. When the unexpected happens – your farm dries up, you get sick, you lose your job, you find yourself alone raising your kids – the community steps in by way of tax funded Social Protection.

Lifestyle “choices”

Written By: - Date published: 3:58 pm, June 6th, 2012 - 192 comments

Last year John Key said that the poor and those on benefits had made lifestyle choices.  If they budgeted properly, they’d be fine. Things aren’t fine, and they’re getting worse, which is why a 40-yr-old DPB Mum in Christchurch – facing an $80/week rent increase, because Key hasn’t done anything about Christchurch’s housing shortage – has had to resort to the lifestyle “choice” of prostitution.

Jobs only real benefit reduction policy

Written By: - Date published: 9:02 am, March 24th, 2010 - 18 comments

You can’t ‘force beneficiaries back into work’ by ‘giving them a kick in the pants’ if there’s no jobs for them to go into. This supposed ‘get tough’ approach won’t get people off the benefit. It’s a cynical exercise in political marketing to make the government look active and distract from the real issues. It is no coincidence that this policy was released a day after the mining policy.

Should the sins of the father be visited upon the children?

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, August 13th, 2008 - 91 comments

When the DPB was first proposed it had a very simple purpose, to allow mothers to leave abusive relationships, to allow them to protect their children from beatings, alcoholism and psychological abuse. It was intended to ensure that those children would have a real chance at a healthy and happy life. It did not, and could […]

Cartoon: Attacking the poor

Written By: - Date published: 10:45 am, August 12th, 2008 - 21 comments

The Child Poverty Action Group thinks that National’s welfare policy is likely to hurt vulnerable children.

Gordon Campbell on Nats’ welfare plan

Written By: - Date published: 10:36 am, August 12th, 2008 - 15 comments

Dog whistle politics to some, beneficiary bashing to others. But is there logic to National’s policy on benefits? Gordon Campbell asks: Will John Key’s policy announcement on welfare this afternoon do much to resolve the problems it claims to address? Hardly… It is as if National felt the need to beat up on beneficiaries somehow, and somewhere […]