MEDIA 'OP-ED' COMMENT
Welfare Working Group report: much to be concerned about
A
response to the release of the Welfare Working Group’s
Recommendations for Reform of New Zealand’s Welfare System.
“the Group has proposed changes to the benefit system to fight an imaginary enemy, and which will (if implemented) risk wasting the time, resources, and morale of many...”
31
May 2011
The final report of the Welfare Working Group released this month
has much report to appreciate: increased emphasis on prevention;
better support for those unable to work; enhanced responsiveness to
Maori, Pasifika, migrants and refugees; incentives to employers;
on-job training and mentoring; improved access to and flexibility in
early childhood education; increased support for out of school hours
services for children; and individualised support plans recognising
the needs of those on benefits.
There is much, however, to be concerned about.
'Dependency' theory
The Group appears to have confused every citizen’s entitlement to
welfare support during times of loss of health or work with an
unproven theory of “dependency”, and the overwhelming focus of the
report upon the behaviour of those without work seems to propose
that in this time of economic recession it is the fault of those
without work that they are unemployed.
Yet the facts are that:
- The total number of people receiving benefits has dropped
over the last decade.
- The number of people unemployed has only risen since the
recession, and your government’s own documents show that this is
due to changes in economic conditions, not the behaviour or
attitudes of those on benefits.
- New Zealand’s long-term unemployment as a proportion of
total unemployment is about a quarter of the OECD average.
- Over the last 15 years the average annual growth in
government spend on benefits as a share of GDP has declined.
- Benefit spend is predicted to decline substantially as a
share of GDP for the next 40 years, even with no change to the
levels of entitlement.
- Benefit fraud accounted for less than 0.1% of the 2009 spend
on benefits.
- Average benefit payments as a proportion of the average wage
has fallen more or less steadily since the 1970s.
- There is NO evidence that anyone has babies to get more
welfare.
- Living on a benefit means living on an income that is about
half of the poverty line.
Imaginary enemy
In ignoring these facts, the Group has proposed changes to the
benefit system to fight an imaginary enemy, and which will (if
implemented) risk wasting the time, resources, and morale of many.
For example:
- The recommendations for putting those who are young, who
struggle to live on the benefit, who have alcohol or drug
problems under a form of statutory management, will not
encourage self-responsibility, but instead raise resistance,
anger, and fraud. Afterall, when has anyone responded
positively to being treated as a number, someone whose private
life may be invaded and judged, whose fertility and recreational
habits are matters for management by a government employee?
- Allowing those who care for someone who is sick to be
exempted from the work test, while those who are sick are
not exempted is bewildering.
- The proposals for an ACC-style management system will likely
bring with them ACC levels of appeal and overturn – currently
running at nearly one third of all decisions on elective
surgery! – at similar levels of financial cost (lawyers), and
time costs, and the cost to hope.
- With so few beneficiaries sustaining long-term benefit
uptake and such a small incidence of fraud, the proposal to
rework of the entire benefit system (including disestablishing
Work and Income and creating a new crown agency) would surely be
a waste of already stretched taxpayer funds. Certainly it
would cost more than it could possibly save.
- There is a high likelihood that forcing parents into work
when their youngest child is just 14 weeks of age would result
in more, not less, intergenerational educational failure and
social dysfunction. There is an equally high likelihood that
suspending benefits for those who fail drug and alcohol tests
will result in an increase in crime.
The vast bulk (over 98%) of those on benefits already behaves as
the Group desires, and need no “correction”. Yet to reach the tiny
remainder, the Group has proposed mechanisms that will be
counter-productive, expensive to implement and administer, and
degrading for almost all.
Dehumanising those who are struggling economically, with their
health, with their futures, will not bring New Zealand back to the
top of all those OECD league tables that we now languish near the
bottom in.
There is one solution to the problem of there being too many
people in receipt of benefits. Jobs. Meaningful, suitable,
well-paid, jobs. All the rest is simply window dressing,
and in the case of the Welfare Working Group’s recommendations,
rather dangerous window dressing at that.
Laura Black
Chief
Executive of The Methodist Mission
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