Britain’s Sickness Benefit Injustice
Britain’s turfing 75% of people off their long-term sickness benefit on an arbitrary test. Let’s hope the Welfare Working Group doesn’t get ideas.
Economy
benefits
The cycleway & the coming benefit cuts
Attacking beneficiaries won’t solve the real problems. There aren’t enough jobs, the recession is not really over. Rather than dealing with that, this government is carving off an ever large slice of our shrinking national wealth for their rich buddies. The poor and the jobless are turned into figures of public spite by a government of the rich which will cut to their meagre benefits will be pay for tax cuts for the rich.
Welfare working group tries to create a crisis
The benefit system is not unaffordable, the best way to lower its cost is to create jobs. But it is clear that is not on the Welfare Workings Group’s agenda. Their job is to paint beneficiaries as bludgers, the welfare system as broken and expensive. Their job is to pave the way for welfare cuts to pay for tax cuts that will leave the poorest Kiwi families more impoverished. They’ve made a good start.
Tory welfare bashing
If the political world can be split into Left and Right, is there any issue which is better at dividing us than welfare? Inevitably, the Tory attack on welfare has begun. The Rebstock report “dutifully deliver[s] the findings the government wants to hear”.
Bennett up in flames in Rotorua
The protest rally held in Rotorua, held its slogan high with nearly a hundred people in tow. “Kill the Future Focus Bill, or it will kill you!” was out in front along with cut outs of Paula Bennett, complete with fangs, risque cleavage and that famous leopard skin trenchcoat -all the props of an actor satirising the working class as she attacks us.
Welfare debate already ugly
According to Social Development Minister Paula Bennett, the welfare debate could get nasty: “we may even see an ugly side of New Zealand”. Well here’s a newsflash – the welfare debate is already ugly. The Nats have worked long and hard to make it ugly. Paula Bennett the ugly side of New Zealand is you.
Helping people into work good but jobs needed first
The best form of welfare is a decent job. During it’s nine years in power, the fifth Labour government cut the number of beneficiaries by 150,000 by getting people into work. So assisting more sickness and invalid’s beneficiaries into work is a good idea. But you can’t help people into jobs that don’t exist. The danger is that the government will simply make it harder for people to get the help they need.
Bennett in yet another privacy breach
Audrey Young reports that Paula Bennett has once again abused the trust and power that is given to her as a minister in her campaign to paint all beneficiaries as bludgers. I don’t know anything about this family. But if this family is not entitled to their benefit then Bennett should do her damn job and get them off it. If they are entitled then she shouldn’t be accusing them of being bludgers.
Privacy Commissioner tells Bennett to pay up
For her own petty political purposes, Paula Bennett has put Natasha Fuller through hell. Now (finally) the Privacy Commissioner has asked Bennett to apologise to Fuller for the damage she caused and pay her $15,000. Predictably, this awful person has refused. Paula Bennett, you are a disgrace to your office and a disgrace to New Zealand.
Key ‘not sure’ which Bennett he appointed
Prime Minister John Key explained today that there are two Paula Bennetts and he is unsure which one is Minister of Social Development. The two are easily confused. The first Bennett is a solo mum who relied on the DPB. The second Bennett attacks DPB mums, forcing them to seek work.
Whanau Ora fizzer
The budget for Whanau Ora, which has been billed as a magical, ineffable revolution in social welfare will be just $33 million a year. What a joke. Whanau Ora’s budget will be less than twice that of that other great fizzer, the John Key Memorial Cycleway. I predict it will have about twice the effect as well.
Pickled Paula picked a pair of Peters
But which Peter did pickled Paula pick?
Bennett floundering over Saunders
Apparently Paula Bennet is not aware quite who she has appointed to advise the Welfare Working Group…
John, it’s time for Paula to go
[Update: TV3 now admits its ’emails’ were a Facebook exchange between Fuller and a friend and Fuller says she made up the money offer. For fuck’s sake, TV3, you can’t run a story based on someone’s Facebook comments. Still, Bennett should not have been meeting with a complainant just before the report is due out. It’s clear she is looking to avoid an embarrassment]
Maori Party turns against beneficiaries
The Nat/ACT/Maori Party government has seen 55,000 more people go on benefits. They want to work. There aren’t enough jobs. How to make […]
Corrupt
It looks like Paula Bennett is getting desperate as the Privacy Commissioner’s report looms.
Perhaps it’s time someone explained to her that “personal responsibility” is more than just an attack line to use on beneficiaries.
Another hand-out for bludgers
Our glorious capitalist system should mean farms that can’t handle a bad time fail. Just like any other business. Land gets used for something better. It’s the market. But capitalists don’t really believe in the market. Come the bad times, the farmers want another hand out. So government’s giving them the dole. Yup, the dole.
Weeding out low quality
The Nats are looking to cut $1.8 billion in spending over four years. Where from? What and who will be deemed to be “low quality” in need of “weeding out”? The answers are going to tell us a lot about the National Party’s values…
English should follow Bennett’s lead
Well, I’m pleasantly surprised. For once, Paula Bennett has played it straight on the benefit numbers. She hasn’t slapped herself on the back, even though last month’s benefit numbers are the best we’ve seen on her watch (in line with normal seasonal variation). If only Bill English could follow suit, rather than claiming credit for illusionary movements in the government’s books.
Whanau Ora report unacceptably poor
The Whanau Ora Taskforce report is out and it fails to even attempt to answer simple questions like ‘why is Whanau Ora the best way to help families’. It provides no evidence it will work. Check out the graphic to the right – what does it even mean? All we do know is Whanau Ora will put public money in unaccountable private hands and be privatisation by stealth.
Sticking it to the underclass
Remember “the underclass”? They were briefly fashionable in National circles in 2007. Now that they are the government National’s policies for the underclass seem to involve a good deal of beneficiary bashing. Invalids are being thrown off their benefit before the new legislation is even in effect. Election promises are being broken to remove the carrot and wield the stick. How will this help the underclass?
Over-promise, under-deliver
The Key Government is constantly promising us great results and actually do nothing that improves things for New Zealanders. English, Bennett, Brownlee, and Tolley are prime examples of this MO. While they promise great things and fail to deliver unemployment is rising, wages are falling, crime is up, and the government has no plan to move us forward.
Maori Party ambushed
The Maori Party says it was ambushed on National’s welfare reform policy, which Tariana Turia opposes. The Minister and the Associate Minister are at odds on the issue. Does this mean that the Maori Party will be making a stand? Don’t hold your breath…
Bennett: a complete failure
What a complete failure Paula Bennett is. If you could bear to sit through her interview on Q+A yesterday, you would have heard nothing but vacuous crap completely divorced from reality and her actual policies, which are opposed by Treasury, Health, and the Attorney-General. There are 67,000 more working age people on benefits than when Bennett became minister and she has no plan to reverse that.
What support are the Nats giving beneficiaries?
Paula Bennett is saying that her benefit bashing policies are about “supporting people into work”
What is that support?
I see punishment. I see threats. Where’s the support?
Where, for instance, is the kind of support that Bennett got as a beneficiary? Training assistance that helped her get into work.
Jobs only real benefit reduction policy
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.
Tenants already taking the hit
I got a call from a friend today, thanks to National his rent is going up. I’ll call him Ned. He’s retired and […]
Glorified holiday for Bennett
There are 276,000 jobless Kiwis. The seasonally-adjusted trend on dole numbers is still on the rise. Many other people fall through the gaps and are unable to get public assistance in their time of need.
What better time for the Minister for Social Development to bugger off for five weeks?
Kick in guts for recesson victims
The recession has forced tens of thousands of people out of work. There are now 276,000 jobless Kiwis. The lucky ones (only a […]
Whanau Ora defined-ish
BLiP gives the best definition of the Key Government’s billion dollar Whanau Ora plan to date: “Whanau Ora = privatisation of social services.â€
Yeah, it does. But I’m still struggling to understand what social services. Will Whanau Ora providers be running hospitals and clinics? Will they be running schools? Will they be making dole and super payments?
Labour pins clueless Nat ministers
It’s hard to decide which is worst: Do Nothing John Key flouncing around the country while thousands of Kiwis lose their jobs, the Joyce cabal pushing their hard-right economic agenda, or the rest of them who don’t have two brain cells to rub together.
No ideas? Bash some beneficiaries
John Key says sickness and invalid’s benefit numbers are increasing because “the previous government encouraged a move off the unemployment benefit into those categories, which aren’t work testedâ€. You’ve been caught out on this lie by The Standard authors before, John. Did you think it would slip by us now?
What is Whanau Ora? 2
Asked to explain his billion dollar policy Key says: “Whanau Ora is a way of saying we’re going to measure outcomes, instead of just inputs into a family to give greater flexibility to a third party private providerâ€. I take that to be a long way of saying “I don’t know what Whanau Ora isâ€.
Whanau Ora, who gains?
Whanau Ora is a terrible idea. It is the beginning of the privatisation of social services, wrapped in a cloak of Maori-centred solutions […]
Massive jump in dole numbers – minister washes her hands
You may remember that late last year John Key, Bill English and Paula Bennett could hardly find the words to praise themselves for […]
Another benefit beat-up
The Key Government’s anti-beneficiary campaign continues. The latest is a beat-up on long-term beneficiaries. Apparently, 9 people have been on the dole for […]