What’s Bill smoking?

Written By: - Date published: 9:45 am, June 29th, 2012 - 40 comments
Categories: benefits, bill english, class war, drugs, scoundrels - Tags: ,

We’re getting used to the Nats running bash the beneficiary/poor/Maori/unemployed/criminal/etc distractions but it’s getting pretty bad when Bill English gets in on the act. Weirdly his idea of drug-testing beneficiaries seems to have been picked up from a Daily Show piece on how it failed in Florida – costing money, not saving it, and proving beneficiaries use drugs less than the rest of the population.

40 comments on “What’s Bill smoking? ”

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  1. shorts 1
    29 June 2012 at 10:09 am

    bah… you’ve got to have faith in these constructive policies

    uncle bill has our best interests at heart

    evidence against be damned

  2. Descendant Of Smith 2
    29 June 2012 at 10:22 am

    I’ve argued that for years that the gangs make there money mainly off working people.

    I’ve seen people mortgage their houses to pay for their p habit.

    You can only get so much out of someone only getting a few dollars a week.

    When I played rugby in the 80’s it was the lawyers and accountants and opticians that had the dope in their fridges and at their parties.

    • felix 2.1
      29 June 2012 at 10:35 am

      Yep, the idea that a benefit is sufficient to support a meth habit could only come from someone who

      a) has never had to live on a benefit
      b) knows nothing about drugs
      c) is financially illiterate

      (That’s not a multichoice btw)

      And it’s not just a little bit financially illiterate either, it’s orders of magnitude wrong.

    • Matthew Whitehead 2.2
      29 June 2012 at 11:20 am

      Yeah, plus a bit on the side from relatively wealthy people.

  3. higherstandard 3
    29 June 2012 at 10:30 am

    His own soiled undies ?

  4. ghostwhowalksnz 4
    29 June 2012 at 10:49 am

    Has Bill been watching a Cheech and Choong DVD on how to ‘blow smoke’

    • mike e 4.1
      29 June 2012 at 11:16 am

      Bill English Admitted Partaking while at University on a documentary in early 2000’s
      Dog whistling to redneck farmers.

  5. captain hook 5
    29 June 2012 at 11:14 am

    awww… he just wants to be a big noter down at the dipton pub.
    a wannabe tuffguy.
    yeah right.

    • McFlock 5.1
      29 June 2012 at 1:30 pm

      wannabe tuffguy with heated seats in his crown car, while the Dipton farmers don’t bother with that crap in the ute.

  6. Campbell Larsen 6
    29 June 2012 at 11:38 am

    Blinglish is just a clown performing his sad stand up comedy routine in front of a rent a crowd.

  7. Glg 7
    29 June 2012 at 11:42 am

    Don’t forget Parliament is in recess for a couple of weeks, better talkback is going on about drug testing bene’s than talking about ACC, asset sales, or anything else important.

  8. marsman 8
    29 June 2012 at 12:00 pm

    Whatever it is Bill English smokes would that account for the nasty smirk on his self-serving mug?

  9. RedFred 9
    29 June 2012 at 1:14 pm

    That was a beautiful thing; puts an interesting mirror up to the Nats and shows how ideologically stupid they are becoming.

  10. Blue 10
    29 June 2012 at 1:14 pm

    The article on the NEWS last night was actually about the great many jobs in forestry, fisheries and construction that can’t be filled in Northland because the APPLICANTS CAN’T PASS A SIMPLE DRUG SCREEN. I would assume the people applying for jobs are unemployed, hence the statement by English. If an unemployed person can’t give up the weed in order to get a job, well, what’s the point?

    • fender 10.1
      29 June 2012 at 1:40 pm

      If an unemployed person shared a joint with their working friend who supplied the smoke 2 weeks prior, they will still fail the drug test. Is this fair or satisfactory to you ol’ blue eyes?

      • fender 10.1.1
        29 June 2012 at 2:47 pm

        It appears Double Dipton may be into LSD rather than the smoke, hence the return to surplus hallucinations hes been having.

      • Blue 10.1.2
        30 June 2012 at 9:33 am

        Sure its fair, the point is its illegal (rightly or wrongly, but that is another debate) and employers rarely want stoners in charge of machinery that can kill people. Employers with jobs to fill will not employ drug users. Surely thats “fair”, when they can employ those who don’t use drugs and minimise the risk to the business and the safety of other people. If I was unenmployed and I had to stop smoking weed to get a job, I’d stop smoking weed.

        • Campbell Larsen 10.1.2.1
          30 June 2012 at 10:07 am

          No – the point is that the tests do not prove intoxication, they only show use and use 3 weeks prior or on the weekend does not constitute a safety threat. As for the danger, forestry is potentially a very dangerous and certainly physically demanding profession with minimal career development paths. It’s not a job that anyone can do for a lifetime and is no magic bullet for the unemployed in our rural areas. If the forestry companies are finding it hard to convince workers to take their jobs maybe they should consider paying more instead of relying on forced referrals from WINZ- you know the free market in operation and all that.

        • Jackal 10.1.2.2
          30 June 2012 at 10:09 am

          The problem here Blue is that Blinglish is discriminating against the unemployed. Sorry to contradict your assertion that “Employers with jobs to fill will not employ drug users,” but it’s more dangerous to have somebody who already has a job who works when they’re wasted. There’s also no research that shows the unemployed use more drugs than the employed. Work place safety is a concern, particularly in industries like trucking and forestry. However alcohol is more of a problem, and we have seen nothing from National to rectify these issues… Just more dog whistling and discrimination against welfare recipients.

    • mike e 10.2
      29 June 2012 at 2:54 pm

      it would make more sense to provide rehab programs.
      people can’t just give up .

      • fender 10.2.1
        29 June 2012 at 3:25 pm

        +1

        Or an additive could be added to alcohol to keep traces of it in the body for 4-6 weeks to provide a level playing field.

  11. Bill 11
    29 June 2012 at 4:40 pm

    I was alerted to the likelihood of this several months ago, but thought ‘Nah. Surely not!’

    The basic scenario is that if you refuse to go to rehab after a positive test (not that there are enough rehabs anyway) then you will get refused benefit on the grounds you are not making yourself available for work.

  12. Tom 12
    30 June 2012 at 9:12 am

    Correct me if I am wrong, but the Member for Double Dipton was addressing the Northland branch of Federated Farmers
    – a crowd whose leader faced public uproar after proposing that menstruating women should not work.

    English probably knew it would go down well – but it certainly shines a light on the quality of decision making
    and policy development in this government.

    • prism 12.1
      30 June 2012 at 12:13 pm

      I have done no counts and have no stats to back my prejudice but it seems to me that it is likely that most of the NACTs pollies are from farming backgrounds, professional also. The rest are so aspirational to scramble up that forms their main drive.

      As children they have managed to get into a sort of tunnel with a moving pedestrian way that carried them from home to high decile schools without much interaction with others who didn’t fit their class conscious lifestyles and, in particular, their smug, blinkered thinking. So we get policies that are hostile to large swathes of NZ people from people with an unshaken belief in their superiority.

  13. Scintilla 13
    1 July 2012 at 2:41 pm

    So, next year when all benefits, except Invalid’s, are renamed Jobseeker payments (or whatever delightful title they will come up with), that means all unemployed, DPBs, including Women Alone and sickness beneficiaries assessed as able to work part-time, will be drug-tested? Charming. Whos’ paying for all the testing – the taxpayer?

    • Tom 13.1
      1 July 2012 at 4:18 pm

      Yup, and then they’ll be sending them in chains to Botany Bay.

      Oops, they already do ..