Tough on welfare? National might want voters to think that.
But the party's latest move on welfare reform is also
carefully framed to make some of the claims from National's
critics that the package bullies and punishes beneficiaries
sound rather shrill.
Those claims will certainly be levelled at the most striking
element of National's overhaul of the benefit structure - a
new requirement that sole parents who have an additional
child while on the benefit be subject to part-time work
testing once the child turns 1.
This stick - designed to break the cycle of intergenerational
welfare dependency - would affect around 4800 beneficiaries a
year out of a total of nearly 330,000.
Another seemingly significant step is placing the 58,000
people currently getting the sickness benefit in a new
category of jobseeker support, along with the 57,000 on the
unemployment benefit and 11,000 of those getting the domestic
purposes benefit.
This group will be expected to be looking for work and
available for work subject to their capacity to work.
However, sickness beneficiaries were already subject to such
work-testing and they will still be able to get "temporary
exemptions'' if they are deemed not fit to work.
The welfare working group - which recommended the more
work-focused welfare system which National has picked up -
said in its final report back in February that it has
estimated that 37 per cent of beneficiaries were already
expected to actively look for work. A rough calculation has
that figure rising to around 53 per cent under National's
latest changes. But that presumes zero exemptions.
The policy typifies National's overall election strategy so
far - maintaining momentum through drip-feeding policy to
demonstrate the party is focused on the issues that matter to
voters, while at the same time not overly scaring the horses.
The working group also recommended increasing the sanctions
on beneficiaries who do not meet their work obligations.
However, National is sticking with the graduated sanctions
applying now and which begin with a 50 per cent cut to a
person's benefit on the first failure to comply with
work-test rules.
Neither has National (sensibly) followed the suggestion of
the working group that targets be set for reducing the
overall numbers of beneficiaries. Instead, National is
claiming the changes will cut the numbers by 46,000.
That remains to be seen. It depends on jobs being there to
fill. National is still holding firm to its Budget-time
forecast of 170,000 more jobs over the next four years.
What is indisputable is that National is serious about
welfare reform. There is more policy to come. However, the
party is feeding it out in bite-sized chunks which the
electorate can digest without feeling National is merely
beneficiary bashing for electoral advantage.
- New Zealand Herald
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