National's Welfare Agenda Equals Status Quo

MP Judith Collins today revealed National's welfare policy as copying Australia's work-for-the- dole scheme. Collins says, it is time to stop telling people what they can't do, and start challenging them to consider what they can. Labour aren't doing this, apparently, as evidenced by their axing of the Activity in the Community programme.

However Labour's whole thrust in recent years has been work as the default. The drop in numbers on the dole is partly a result of this. The latest social security bill states as its guiding principle, work in paid employment offers the best opportunity for people to achieve social and economic well-being.

In essence then National and Labour are singing from the same song sheet - once again.

I do not know why Labour have dropped their own work-for-the-dole scheme but there will be good reasons. For instance, the schemes remove jobs from the private sector, as with Collin's suggestion that work-for-the-dole participants should be involved in "planting native seedlings and beautification of parks" or "renovating a heritage-listed hall." Or they duplicate the volunteer work traditionally performed by retired folk. Or they are hellish difficult to administer, especially if participants are less than willing.

With under 30,000 people on an unemployment benefit (compared to nearly 115,000 five years earlier) it is questionable whether the "welfare agenda" should focus on the dole anyway. 89 percent of beneficiaries are on other benefits, namely sickness, invalid's and DPB. Even if half of these beneficiaries were to be put into work-for-the-dole schemes we are looking at around 120,000 individuals.

If this is setting the agenda, it is pie in the sky. Where is the serious analysis of the current situation and subsequent priorities? One gets the impression National is promising to resort to its comfort zone - managing problems instead of fixing them.

Only two months ago, National's deputy leader Bill English said,"Our prospects of climbing up the ladder (OECD) in the next few years aren't good. Recent economic growth has been fuelled by more employment, more debt, and working longer hours. There aren't more people to bring into work, so there's no more growth from that source."

On the face of it National appears to have accepted that beneficiaries won't provide a source of future paid employees yet are prepared to direct them into schemes intended to make them work-ready. That doesn't make sense.

The single largest group of beneficiaries is on the DPB. Young unskilled and uneducated women get on this benefit and stay there, often for years. There is no argument that being raised on welfare is not the best option for children. The government accepts that yet does nothing about stopping a constant stream of teenage newcomers to the DPB. They need to turn off the tap. Make it clear only short-term emergency assistance will be provided to people exiting relationships and none to people who intentionally have a child with no form of future, financial support. Adoption should be encouraged, not discouraged, which is CYF's current philosophy.

Some rigorous gate-keeping should also be applied to the sickness and invalid benefits. Some on these benefits have genuine reasons to be but increasingly, others have caused the incapacity which then prevents them from holding down a job. There used to be a rule that prohibited their eligibility. Re-adopt that rule for future applicants. One of the major contributors to the escalating number on incapacity benefits is mental ill-health. Perhaps more focus should be going on mental healthcare in the community. Being isolated and on welfare seems not much better than being in one of the many homes or hospitals that used to care for these people.

Above all, a government needs to make it absolutely clear that welfare is no longer a lifestyle. There is no question that many people have been treating it as such. Some of them will now have to be carried under the old rules and expectations as they have made themselves unemployable. But a good many are only using welfare temporarily and will move on in time.

If we ever want to return to a situation whereby we have thousands instead of hundreds of thousands unhappily dependent on the state for their survival, some radical changes are needed. They are not going to come from a National government.

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