Written By: - Date published: 7:43 am, October 15th, 2012 - 230 comments
Keith Ng has uncovered a truly massive breach in MSD’s computer security.
Written By: - Date published: 9:40 am, October 7th, 2012 - 29 comments
There is increasing concern about New Zealand’s housing situation, with an escalation in homelesssness, people living in totally unacceptable conditions, and the lack of sufficient affordable housing stock.Update: Government close to unveiling plans for “cheap” housing on city fringe and ‘brownfield’ sites.
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, October 5th, 2012 - 128 comments
Today there have been protests around NZ, against Paula Bennett’s punitive welfare reforms.
Updates: Include ODT article link and extract, photos of Henderson protest, and links to several news articles.
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 pm, September 30th, 2012 - 126 comments
David Shearer still doesn’t get why judging beneficiaries from across the road isn’t compatible with leading the Labour Party. QoT perseveres in trying to explain it to him, using short words.
Written By: - Date published: 11:04 am, September 30th, 2012 - 176 comments
Split Enz once sang, “History Never Repeats”… Or does it? Destructive prejudices separating ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor have been around a very long time. When the likes of Paula Bennett pander to such ill-informed vindictiveness with punitive social welfare reforms, they will damage large numbers of children – our future citizens.
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, September 26th, 2012 - 102 comments
Bennett’s reforms aim to cut the costs of government spending on welfare. But what this means is that more of the necessary caring and service work in NZ will be unpaid, or underpaid. It doesn’t mean people will necessarily work harder or longer, and that they aren’t making a significant contribution to society and the economy.
Written By: - Date published: 7:15 am, September 24th, 2012 - 45 comments
Paula Bennett on Q+A: “I don’t think that every child actually needs to be in early-childhood education” says Bennett. There will be cases where parents can do just as good or better job for their child. Yet, her policy is to take away half the incomes of parents and children on benefits who don’t go to ECE. The gap between Bennett’s spin and what she is actually doing has never before been so clearly revealed.
Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, September 21st, 2012 - 52 comments
Grant Robertson, in the House yesterday speaking on Paula Bennett’s “Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill” – First Reading, gave an impassioned speech. He said many some great points about social obligations and a mutually beneficial social contract (between the state and beneficiaries. However, will the Labour Party’s policies match up to the rhetoric?
Written By: - Date published: 6:27 pm, September 18th, 2012 - 101 comments
Paula Bennett’s second welfare changes bill is out – with a nasty added sting in the tail: anyone who refuses a ‘suitable’ job will be blocked from getting a benefit for 13 weeks. Work testing for sole parents with 5 year olds, compulsory ECE for beneficiaries and the widows benefit cut are all in there.
Written By: - Date published: 7:35 am, September 15th, 2012 - 41 comments
The government recently released a figure of $78 billion as the ‘lifetime cost’ of the benefit system. That number is the estimated answer to the question: ‘how much would we have to have put aside now to pay for the expected future cost of benefit payments to all current beneficiaries’. But the really question is: why would you want to know that?
Written By: - Date published: 12:16 pm, September 13th, 2012 - 22 comments
So the current people on benefits will cost $78 billion over the course of their lifetime. To get this useless $78 billion factoid, National have given an Australian company $1 million of our money – next year, they’ll do it again, to see if the number has changed any. What use is this number? It’s not good for budgeting and doesn’t seem to actually tell us anything useful – so why is the government wasting money while telling us times are tight?
Written By: - Date published: 11:44 am, September 13th, 2012 - 47 comments
Some excellent myth-busting via Facebook. What isn’t a myth is that there are 80,000 more people on benefits under National. As with their economic management (which is integrally related) their management of the welfare system has been a complete disaster. They’ve given people no option but the benefit. They’re punishing people for falling into the safety net.
Written By: - Date published: 8:26 am, September 13th, 2012 - 17 comments
Over 2,200 children, according to the Government’s estimates, will end up living in households with their already meager benefit incomes cut in half under National’s plan to punish families who can’t afford to or don’t want to send their children to supposedly voluntarily early childhood education. I’ll give Bill English credit – he at least looked sick as he defended a policy of starving kids.
Written By: - Date published: 10:49 am, September 12th, 2012 - 13 comments
Families will lose half their Working for Families payments if they don’t put their kids in ECE or make sure they have the Well Child checks, under reforms to be announced by Paula Bennett the next time National needs a distraction from its failed economic management. ‘When you’re getting public money, the government can demand anything of you: even if it isn’t compulsory and even if you can’t afford it,’ said Bennett.
Written By: - Date published: 6:31 am, September 12th, 2012 - 248 comments
So the government is announcing the “lifetime cost” of social welfare payments today to soften the ground for cracking down on beneficiaries.
By coincidence they’re also in the process of rushing through changes to the emissions trading scheme that will cost the taxpayer billions of dollars in corporate welfare.
Written By: - Date published: 12:57 pm, September 6th, 2012 - 17 comments
People of Swedish descent who engage in acts of treason while dressed as nuns will no longer be eligible to receive welfare, Social Development Minister Paula Bennett announced today.
Written By: - Date published: 6:52 am, September 6th, 2012 - 232 comments
I see Paula Benefit is up to her old tricks again. As the government desperately wants to be doing something other than not attending huis over water rights, it’s up to Paula to pull a benefit bash. But she’s obviously run out of ideas so now we’re re-announcing the old bene-bashes.
Written By: - Date published: 1:09 pm, September 3rd, 2012 - 101 comments
A couple of weeks back I wrote a post offering Shearer, Robertson or Pagani an opportunity to justify their (more or less) blanket attack on beneficiaries. At the time, I didn’t realise Pagani had been banned from ‘the standard’ for (from memory) being an idiot . So, okay – he’s not able to respond via […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:22 pm, August 29th, 2012 - 8 comments
The Children’s Commissioner’s expert group has recommended that things must be done about Child Poverty, and made very specific suggestions as to what should be done, including a universal child payment for under 6s.
John Key’s response to the indepth analysis of a bunch of our finest minds and Phil O’Reilly: “Dopey.”
Written By: - Date published: 11:02 am, August 29th, 2012 - 81 comments
Bennett (playing the distraction card) is pushing her drug testing policy again. I have a question for the supporters of this policy which remains unanswered…
Written By: - Date published: 11:05 am, August 24th, 2012 - 60 comments
David Shearer is right. The rise in inequality under National, shown by the latest Household Incomes report from MSD, is a bloody disgrace. Good on Shearer for his robust and instinctive response. Now we look forward to seeing it reflected in the outcomes from the policy work that is going on behind the scenes.
Written By: - Date published: 9:04 am, August 23rd, 2012 - 85 comments
Deborah Russell’s piece in the Dominion Post sets out some constructive thoughts on welfare.
Written By: - Date published: 2:49 pm, August 17th, 2012 - 66 comments
I could hardly believe my ears this morning when I heard about Paula Bennett’s plan to drug test beneficiaries and cut their benefits if they fail. Yeah that’s the problem that’s preventing people from finding work. Drugs. Not the 6.8 percent unemployment rate (and it’s higher in the provinces). It’s hard to imagine a […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:44 am, August 17th, 2012 - 141 comments
Pagani wrote it. Robertson cleared it. And Shearer uttered it. To summarise; those living by sickness entitlements are probably dodgy b’stards. Nice. Before I go on, I should be clear that this post isn’t some insightful fiction. This is the reality of getting by with a sickness benefit.
Written By: - Date published: 11:13 am, July 31st, 2012 - 103 comments
Many of those who participate in the comments here at The Standard also run their own excellent blogs. We regularly feature No Right Turn and Imperator Fish Today we’re reposting (with permission) pieces from two other blogs that attracted some attention in Open mike recently. First up here’s Frankly Speaking…
Written By: - Date published: 2:14 pm, July 23rd, 2012 - 59 comments
One law for the rich, another for the poor.
Written By: - Date published: 7:33 pm, July 18th, 2012 - 69 comments
Never let the Nats tell you that they’re making responsible cuts in tough times. When the Greens tried to amend the social welfare bill currently before Parliament to ensure no kids would “unduly suffer”, National vetoed it saying that would eliminate $128m of the savings National’s planning to make. Get that? National’s welfare reforms take $128m from poor kids.
Written By: - Date published: 10:48 am, July 13th, 2012 - 10 comments
Social Development Minister Paula Bennett caused outrage when she suggested somehow banning child abusers from having children. The suspicion at the time was that this was a desperate and cynical attempt to distract the public from the deeply unpopular plans to increase class sizes.Now, thanks to FYI, the public OIA site, that interpretation looks to be the case.
Written By: - Date published: 9:11 am, July 5th, 2012 - 197 comments
The Nats are going to terminate the benefits of those who fail or refuse drug tests. I have a question…
Written By: - Date published: 7:07 am, July 1st, 2012 - 81 comments
In a desperate effort to hang on to a few red-neck votes, National keeps on ramping up rhetoric against solo mums. There was talk of compulsory contraception or sterilisation. National played up those ideas, even though it hasn’t followed through. Is it any surprise, then, that poor mums, who don’t follow the news closely, just hear the rumours, are being scared into abortions?
Written By: - Date published: 1:48 pm, June 30th, 2012 - 8 comments
Just before the parliamentary recess National released its latest set of Laura Naude targets. They will join all the others – catching up with Australia, jobs from the cycleway, government surplus by 2014, yadda yadda yadda. I can’t think of a single target National has actually met. These targets aren’t real; they are just there to provide fodder for uncritical media.
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