Patronising Food Issues

Paula Bennett has stated she found herself pregnant at 17 but “I didn’t plan it”. Yet she assumes many other young beneficiaries DID plan this course of action.

Food parcels rather than food grants seems like more big brother interfering and not really thinking things through. People have a variety of unique food requirements eg intolerances for many foods or even a dislike of certain tastes. While providing free or cheap fruit and vegetables is a great idea for everyone, food parcels may include several things you already have but not the things you really need in your kitchen (eg you may have a tin of beans or spaghetti but no vegetables to go with it). Most people on a benefit are quite good at budgeting their food money and will be able to buy the maximum amount of food for the given amount.

By all means, feel free to give out pamphlets of advice and recipes, but try not to sound so bloody patronising while doing it, okay?! This on top of the taking control of youth benefits from them. This excessive control-freak behaviour on the part of the Government is more than perturbing.

Scary Time to Be a Teen

With the changes coming in to benefits for 16 to 18-year-olds, it is a scary time to be a teen. As seen in the article “Teens in dark on benefit changes” by Simon Collins [18th August, New Zealand Herald] many young people do not know what is going to happen with their benefit, where they are allowed to buy groceries, what costs are allowable etc. This system the Government has come up with in an ultimate big-fascist-brother way hardly teaches or encourages our young people to be independent. In addition to this, it completely ignores the uniqueness of people’s lives. In the article cited above they mention a couple of scenarios the new system may not be able to deal with e.g. transport or medical costs. This is just the tip of the iceberg – there are so many situations we could not even think of that could cause problems! I’m not sure how this will pan out for the Government, but I know many young poor people, many of them parents, will suffer under this regime. Especially while all the wrinkles are being ironed out.

ENDS

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