Brash on Welfare

SO Orewa II is on welfare, according to the Herald (news article, John Roughan and John Armstrong) and the Dominion Post. A range of proposals are to be advanced, no doubt some controversial and probably "beneficiary bashing" enough to get people's attention.

I think it'll be a fizzer. As most of these news stories note, with unemployment at record low levels there is not that much to go on. National's polling may detect a "simmering sense of grievance" with beneficiaries, but that is more due to the fact that wages have not been growing as fast as they should, than genuine disgruntlement with the poorer members of society.

The Dom Post piece has several specifics:

• A return to work for the dole - I oppose this on the basis that it doesn't work. Don Brash can read the studies, so he knows it doesn't work either. He just wants to do it for political reasons. I would rather see money put into decent active labour market programmes like those in the UK or in Scandinavia. People should be better off if they go into those - by being paid more to be in them, not by penalising those on already low benefit incomes even further.
• Penalties for beneficiary parents whose kids play truant - isn't it interesting how the nanny state is ok when you're interfering in the lives of poor people, but not when you're interfering in the lives of rich people? It amazes me right wingers don't see that contradiction more clearly.
  
  I don't mind penalising parents if their kids play truant - as long as you treat all parents the same way. The parents of the Kings College boy who plays hookey after getting too hit up on speed the previous night should be handed out a fine just as much as the parents of the James Cook High boy who skips to go sniff glue in the park. If truancy is bad, it should be fought in all cases. If you are just into beneficiary bashing, you'll target it as Brash proposes.
• Crack down on parents who skip child support payments - apart from the fact the government has already taken steps in this direction, it raises no problems per se. I don't agree with forcing mothers to name fathers, particularly - it seems a bit on the nose.
• Making child immunisation and health checks compulsory for parents on benefit - again, more nanny state directed at poor people. Yes, kids should get health services. I wonder how this works with National's likely policy of running down the public health system to pay for tax cuts? "We're doubling the cost of going to the doctor. Take your child or we'll cut your benefit." Great. Not. If it's a choice issue for people in work, it's a choice issue for people on benefits. It's that simple.
• Single parents work tested once youngest child turns six - I'm a little leery of this one. I would imagine that the broad social outcomes of having someone at home outweigh the money saved by pushing them into work, especially if they are supporting a large family on their own. That said, there may be ways to help get some skills into the workforce by better case management once people's kids are in school. The government has already done quite a lot of work in this area, and should listen to any useful suggestions Brash makes.
• Work testing for people on sickness and invalids benefits - for some of the people on such benefits, this will clearly be a nonsense. For others, it makes sense. I'd like to see a policy where the initial case management process includes an assessment as to whether people are likely to be able to return to work, and if so they should be work tested at an appropriate frequency. I would not want to see people being forced to go in for work tests if, for example, they have a terminal illness etc. That is why a blanket rule is not appropriate.
• Time limits for benefit recipients - no, no no NO NO NO NO. The logical end point of this is people starving in the streets, and this country is better than that. As above, I have no problem with people being shuffled into labour market programmes and being better off as a result, but this kind of punitive stuff really gets on my wick.  There are some situations where it might be useful to say to people "you do not need a benefit" - and perhaps the govt could look at access to benefits as part of it's commitment to have everyone under 25 in work, training or study by 2007 - but plain old time limits are a blunt thing indeed.

So there we have it. If well done, the speech could get as much attention as Orewa II, but I doubt that it will do so. People are just very happy with where the country is heading.

I think in 20 years, people will look back and say of Don Brash - "nice enough guy, I guess, but he just had bad timing really" - it's not his fault the economy is booming, that the Labour government is popular and competent, and that there is no real mood for change. Can't blame the man for trying though, I suppose... after all, it is his job.

Comments

[Millsy]

well, I think that benefits should be increased so people can actually live on them, and not have to struggle. Its totally wrong to have benefits at two low a level. And I belive that anyone should want a job, should get one, and at a decent wage that is comparably more than a benefit. And also the fact is, that I think mothers should be able to stay home and look after their kids and not have to dump them with strangers. People who want to cut the DPB are bascially inhuman monsters who want kids to starve.

I agree, it is not only poor kids who play truant. Rich kids skip school all the time.

[hans]

It should finally unmask the Mayor of Brashville, the love child of Ruth Richardson and Rodney Hide.

[blaise]

re: nanny-state-for-the-poor.

I see your point, but this isn't nanny-statism for the poor at all; it is nanny-statism to those who live off the hard work of others.

Now, I accept that a caring society will allow people in genuine need to live off the hard work of others, but I simply do not accept that this entails no obligations at all.

Reasonable people may differ as to what the obligations are, but most would agree that these include: able-bodied beneficiaries make a robust attempt to find work; all beneficiaries obey the law; that they raise their children with respect for the law; that they endeavour for their children not to become beneficiaries.

Since education is the most reliable way out of the welfare trap, beneficiaries should ensure that their children receive education.

Regular truants are more likely to drop out than non-truants, ergo they receive less education on average. A reduction in truancy (here the argument gets shaky) leads to a reduction in dropping out, (back to more solid ground) an increase in education, and a reduction in welfare dependence.

What on earth is the objection to trying to reduce truancy among the group of children most likely to become welfare-dependent (i.e. the children of beneficiaries)?

[geniusNZ]

> return to work for the dole

If it doesn't work the implication is that it is being done wrong - it theoretically should be possible to make work.

> I don't agree with forcing mothers to name fathers, particularly - it seems a bit on the nose.

the state has a right to know who the parents are of its citizens and who is breaching their obligations to care for their children. Futhermore the father has a right to know he has a child. Of course ideally you can take the mother out of the equasion by just having a complete database of genetics.
woops I jsut came out of the closet as a supporter of big brother didn't I heh

> Making child immunisation and health checks compulsory for parents on benefit - again, more nanny state directed at poor people.

It seems that national has found a hammer and is loking for some nails. But the point is that they dont have an easy tool to force non benificiaries to do these things. They do have such a tool in regard to beneficiaries so why not use it?
An analogy is that it would be FAIR if we taxed capital gains but in the mean time we are not going to stop taxing other forms of income just because it is not fair we have to get tax income somehow just like we have to keep immunization rates above a minimum somehow.

> I would not want to see people being forced to go in for work tests if, for example, they have a terminal illness etc.

haha surely they could not be that stupid - that would be such a political nightmare you can take it for granted it will not happen.

> Time limits for benefit recipients

strange work and income threatens it wont pay all the time regarding various things but I dont hear of anyone starving in NZ. I guess W&I is bluffing?

[Craig Ranapia]

Jordan -

I guess this 'fizzer' explains the sudden decided to 'review' invalid and sickness benefits, after years of denying there was anything to review. I'll actually wait to read the speech, but I doubt it it will be much of the mainstream of welfare policy as pursued by Helen's old mates Tony Blair and Bill Clinton.

And whatever happened to Maharey's bight idea to cut off benefits if you live in the wrong part of the country?

[Craig Ranapia]

Sorry, that should read "I doubt the speech will contain much out of the mainstream of welfare policy as pursued by Helen's old mates..."

[Jordan]

Craig - if Brash mentions good ideas, I expect the government to take them seriously. It's not as if the Labour Party is the fount of all knowledge. In an MMP system, I think the govt has a duty to look at all ideas, no matter who suggests them.

I'd have thought it was a good thing that they react to Brash's ideas, rather than ignore them - even though that is not necessarily politically convenient, for either Labour or National at various times...

[James]

Weather you like it or not welfare is killing this country and the sooner someone gets stuck into to it the better.Socialism is a Dead end street of dependency and death, shame on all of you who push this as a valid "lifesyle" and feel good about yourselves! You are no different from drug dealers.

[Max Soy]

While Work for the Dole continues to enjoy high popularity in the conservative land of Oz, its participants consistently have poor job prospects compared to those who were not on it, because the projects are consistently dead-end jobs such as weeding with essentially no skills training.

If the welfare state were to be completely dismantled, crime rates would soar, along with illegal employment and the division of rich and poor would grow ever wider. This would lead to greater police powers and the loss of civil liberties. I'm sure some of you wouldn't have any problem living under that sort of society, but to me that isn't the most pleasant picture.

Fundamentally, we need to help people out of work onto jobs by giving them the relevant skills, not by punishing them further by forcing them to dig holes.

And by the way, James, it's "whether" not "weather". Poor spelling is not going to help your job prospects.

[James]

The same old Lefty answer: "if there was no welfare state things would be worse"..,crap! Check your history, before the state forced its way into providing welfare the private, voluntary sector did a far better job of helping people back to their feet,not keeping them dependant and draining their ambition to better themselves as the state system does.The fact is the welfare state exists to extend the hand of Goverment into every area so as to attain complete power, not to help the poor and downtrodden as the Left claim.How do you justify enslaving some people to provide for the desolation of others while the fat Socialist spider spins its web even tighter around us all? Do you even have shame for what you advocate...?

[geniusnz]

the difference is that a socialist would expect it to prevent suffering a capitalist might want it to "help them back on their feet". Them being "on their feet", where it occurs, is more of a fringe benefit.

But, I think now with religion and tithing being less influential you would find that charities would not get anywhere near the money required to do the services they might have done before (I also think you are using rose coloured glasses). And total charity is only slightly effected by the tax level.

Charity is not a result of the free market -in fact in a perfectly free market charity should not exist.

[millsy]

You obviously dont care about humanity. The voluntary sector picked and choosed who it would help. IF YOU WERENT CHOSEN, YOU WOULD STARVE. The welfare state is here wether you like it or not, so you can get stuffed.

[Gooner]

Millsy - governments pick and choose too. Some people in NZ struggle incessantly becuase of governments' unfair welfare syetems. The middle class are a prime example.

And your first line about not caring is ignorant - governments don't care about humanity either. Have you been to Russia (you know, the socialist state) and seen the beggars there? It defies belief. Try telling me that government cares about its people! The only time the NZ govenment cares is about every 3rd September, for about 4 weeks.

[Jordan]

Gooner - you mean Russia the capitalist state, one assumes.

James - load of old claptrap. If you don't think people's lives are better than they were under the coercion of private charity, then you are living in a dream land. The great emancipation of the working class is due to collective action through the state, not through charity. You're free to propagate your delusional alternative point of view, but it really does make you look quite silly.

[sagenz]

jordan you reveal yourself again as a real nany statist. The union movement was most definitely not state sanctioned and supported until helengrad took power. The action of private individuals acting collectively to improve their bargaining power was not state sanctioned. It was when they got state sanction that the power was abused and began to work against the greater good. you are the one who looks silly fella. learn some history.

[Michael]

Have posted my reaction to your commentary at www.ellisnz.com

[blaise]

"you mean Russia the capitalist state, one assumes."

err, yes, of course he did... nobody ever had trouble obtaining the necessities of life when those nice socialists who cared about the people were in control. Nasty capitalists. They ruin everything.

Since I am by nature a shoot-the-poor conservative, perhaps I shouldn't comment on the scenario Millsy outlines in caps-lock.

And could Max Soy kindly explain how illegal employment would soar in my heartless utopia? I would have thought that without a minimum wage, there'd be no need for under-the-table work.

And is anyone disputing my earlier analysis on truancy? Because there's a whole lot of other things that I'd like to force beneficiaries to do as well... my coal mine is understaffed as some workers disappeared during the earthquake swarm.

/trolling

[Asher]

blaise, and anyone else who believes this, please feel free to explain how the Soviet Union was socialist.

For anyone who is willing to look with an open mind, it is plainly obvious that the severe, government ordained inequalities in the Soviet Union prove that it was not socialist in any way, shape or form.

A socialist state (and this is ignoring the internationalism which is required by the majority of the different forms of socialism, meaning that a single socialist state is an impossibility) would have all people on an equal footing - it would not allow for the massive inequalities between party members and non-party members, between the party heirachy and the general population, etc etc.

It is convenient for those on the right (and indeed the moderate/progressive left) to paint the Soviet Union as socialist or communist and then to use it as an example of why socialism/communism doesn't work. Rather, the Soviet Union was state capitalist (see State Capitalism In Russia by Tony Cliff, http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1955/statecap/index.htm ).

[blaise]

Asher, this thread probably isn't the best forum for that discussion. E-mail me and we can continue.

To make up for missing out on what I have to say on the topic, I invite everyone else reading this thread to meditate on whether or not "state capitalism" is a contradiction in terms.

[Gooner]

I must admit to not ever have heard of the term 'state capitalism'. Perhaps I took the wrong papers at varsity. However, maybe I can proffer an example.

The State takes money off its citizens by compulsion. It is not a tax which is taken, but rather another compulsory state contribution. There is no way out for most citizens, and no choice through the private sector. Let's call what the state takes a 'premium'.

The State then tells its citizens it intends to use this premium to make its citizens better when they are sick, ill or injured. Let's now say the premium is amassed at an approximate annual total, of say, two billion dollars.

After a while, the citizens get sick, ill and injured. They ask the State to use the premiums it has taken from them to make them better - after all it is the citizens money, isn't it?

Well the State now says the citizens have to prove they are sick, ill or injured or they won't get their premium to help them. Over many, many years the State refuses to pay the premium to many citizens when it probably should have. And, naturally some citizens trick the State into thinking they are sick, ill or injured to get some premiums returned to them - to the detriment of the real needy.

Every year the State realises it has huge amounts of premium money left over from what it takes. It amasses a profit of about 800 million dollars a year. The dilemma for the State is what to do with the citizens premium money.

The State has a great idea. It can make money off the premium money it has retained. It hires a fund manager and tells him/her to invest the premium money in the stockmarket. The State wants to be a capitalist.

The fund manager does very well. In fact after a while the State becomes a top ten shareholder in eight or so of the top ten companies listed on the State's stock exchange. It is amassing huge amounts of its citizens' money which most of the citizens are unaware of. During all this time, the sick, ill and injured continue to fight against not getting their premium when they should be, despite 'giving' thousands of dollars during their lifetime towards the premium.

The premium fund continues to grow exponentially. The State's citizens die waiting for hospital operations, whilst they wait for adequate roads to be built and many, many citizens including children go without the basics, when the real fact remains that the State has TAKEN money from them to make itself rich.

This is my definition of state capitalism. It exists right here in good 'ole NZ - it's called ACC. If you don't believe me check the share registries.

[geniusnz]

come on asher - the soviet union was a "best attempt" at socialism by people who believed in it. It was not some big plot to discredit "real" socialism.

It is also quite funny for you to paint commuinism as "state capitalism".

the problem is that your perfect world where everyone is on equal footing requires a definition of equal (which is impossible) and a mechanism for keeping everyone equal (maybe 1000 years from now). Until then one must carry the imperfection in the system - in communism they did that by having party heirachy etc...

A word is defined by the set of things that you use it on. If you place everything under the definition of capitalism the word itself comes to mean "government". As long as your proposed system is not even theoretically possible your definition of a socialist system is as meaningful as your definition of a unicorn.

But you may have one chance - I guess if equality is your only aim a few wandering nomads in papua new guinea might have significantly identical wealth to ammount to communism - better you than me though.

[James]

In reply to Jordan and poor delicate Millsy heres a posting via Jim peron on the views of one of your late comarades...

Reason Magazine

The Man Who Told the Truth
Robert Heilbroner fessed up to the failure of socialism
David Boaz

Robert Heilbroner, the bestselling writer of economics, died early this
month at the age of 85. He and John Kenneth Galbraith may well have sold
more economics books than all other economists combined. Alas, their talents
lay more in the writing than the economics. Heilbroner was an outspoken
socialist; if only a libertarian could write an introductory book on
economics that could‹like Heilbroner's The Worldly Philosophers‹sell 4
million copies.

Reading some of Heilbroner's essays over the years, I admired his honesty
about the meaning of socialism. Consider this excerpt from a 1978 essay in
Dissent:

Socialism...must depend for its economic direction on some form of planning,
and for its culture on some form of commitment to the idea of a morally
conscious collectivity....

If tradition cannot, and the market system should not, underpin the
socialist order, we are left with some form of command as the necessary
means for securing its continuance and adaptation. Indeed, that is what
planning means...

The factories and stores and farms and shops of a socialist socioeconomic
formation must be coordinated...and this coordination must entail obedience
to a central plan...

The rights of individuals to their Millian liberties [are] directly opposed
to the basic social commitment to a deliberately embraced collective moral
goal... Under socialism, every dissenting voice raises a threat similar to
that raised under a democracy by those who preach antidemocracy.

Few socialists outside the Communist Party are willing to acknowledge that
real socialism means trading our "Millian liberties" for the purported good
of economic planning and "a morally conscious collectivity."

He was not entirely impervious to new evidence, however. In 1989, he
famously wrote in The New Yorker:

"Less than 75 years after it officially began, the contest between
capitalism and socialism is over: capitalism has won... Capitalism organizes
the material affairs of humankind more satisfactorily than socialism."

In The New Yorker again the next year, he reminisced about hearing of Ludwig
von Mises at Harvard in the 1930s. But of course his professors and fellow
students scoffed at Mises's claim that socialism could not work. It seemed
at the time, he wrote, that it was capitalism that was failing. Then, a mere
50 years later, he acknowledged: "It turns out, of course, that Mises was
right" about the impossibility of socialism. I particularly like the "of
course." Fifty years it took him to grasp the truth of what Mises wrote in
1920, and he blithely tossed off his newfound wisdom as "of course."

Alas, in that same article he went on to say that while socialism might not
in fact produce the goods, we would still need to reject capitalism on the
grounds of...let's see...I've got it‹environmental degradation. Yeah, that's
the ticket. While he had managed to wriggle free of the ideas he learned in
the 1930s, he was still stuck in the 1970s when, like Paul Ehrlich, he
issued dire predictions about the imminent exhaustion of natural resources.
In his 1974 book An Inquiry into the Human Prospect, Heilbroner wrote,
"Ultimately, there is an absolute limit to the ability of the Earth to
support or tolerate the process of industrial activity, and there is reason
to believe that we now are moving toward that limit very rapidly."

On the big issue of capitalism vs. socialism, though, he did continue his
rueful acknowledgment of error. In 1992, he explained the facts of life to
Dissent readers:

Capitalism has been as unmistakable a success as socialism has been a
failure. Here is the part that's hard to swallow. It has been the Friedmans,
Hayeks, and von Miseses who have maintained that capitalism would flourish
and that socialism would develop incurable ailments. All three have regarded
capitalism as the 'natural' system of free men; all have maintained that
left to its own devices capitalism would achieve material growth more
successfully than any other system. From [my samplings] I draw the following
discomforting generalization: The farther to the right one looks, the more
prescient has been the historical foresight; the farther to the left, the
less so.

He also noted then that "democratic liberties have not yet appeared, except
fleetingly, in any nation that has declared itself to be fundamentally
anticapitalist."

May the socialists in Cambridge and Cambridge, and the people struggling to
create decent societies around the world, especially in Africa, the Arab
world, and the ex-Communist countries take the frank (albeit delayed)
honesty of Robert Heilbroner to heart.

David Boaz, is executive vice president of the Cato Institute and author of
Libertarianism: A Primer.

[Craig]

Welfare privatisation does not work. Look at Wisconsin Work, the much-vaunted flagship programme of the anti-welfarist right. According to the Interfaith Coalition, reported homelessness, family fragmentation, youth crime and substance abuse have gone through the roof, as has adolescent prostitution.

I must agree with Jordan-
no no no no no no no no no

Craig

[Millsy]

You know, there is nothing wrong with a welfare system. The only thing wrong with it is that it doesnt do enough to put people in well paid secure jobs, not mickey mouse casual work. The government needs to make full employment a piroity and I mean decent jobs, not sweatshop labour. Every person who wants a job should be given one, even if its stuffing letters in envelopes or sweeping streets, and not at below minium wage either, which also was carried out in the inhuman evil state of Wisconsin. If you spent too long on welfare, you were given a job at below your benefit and the muimum wage, which is inhuman and wrong. If you get an income, it should be enough to live on.

Also, I dont think that solo mothers should be penalised for having children. Cutting benefits for DPB types will only see kids starve, and really, like I said before, jobs should pay more not less.

So stick that in your pipes and smoke itm you inhuman monsters, I hope you all rot in hell, because thats where you belong.

[Jordan]

James - it's bad form to post articles as comments. You can post articles on your own blog and refer to them in comments but please don't post massive bits of other people's writing - it just wastes space :)

Sage - you need to go read your history again. The union movement was fought and opposed by the conservative state, until it organised politically, formed the Labour Party and used democracy to achieve change. That is what I meant when I referred to the great changes of the past 100 years. They could not have occured without the unions, but the unions could not have done it through industrial means alone - the state would have outlawed it; political action was required.

[Mike Collins]

Good to see Millsy hasn't changed. Still funny as ever. Did you manage to get that sand out of you eyes yet?

[Mark]

But Millsy, you're a lefty so hell doesn't exist. Remember? Religion is the opiate of the masses etc Didn't you learn anything at Waikato Uni?

[Millsy]

1) I didnt go to Waikato Uni (dont know where you got that idea)

2) If hell existed, you, Mike, and others would be rotting in it.

[James]

Jordan if that article made you nervous just say so .But as this blog is your property (should you as a lefty even have property? :-)) I will respect your right to call the shots over its use.I would hope the favour is returned over my right to decide where my money is spent and who I will or will not give it to but I'd be kidding myself, eh comrade...? Private welfare has worked far better than the state monopoly at returning people to a level of self respect and dignity.Govts own figures show that over %90 of New Zealanders give to charity over and above what is stolen from them in tax.People said they would give even more if they could be sure it would go to those really in need and not to the lazy, state created blugers Labour needs for a voter base.Puts the lie to the "if Govt doesn't help them no one will myth" (and insult to kiwis!).

[Mike Collins]

Millsy hell doesn't exist. If it does I don't believe in it so therefore a religion I don't believ in has no power over me.
Why do you say I would be rotting in hell? That seems like a strange thing to say. Considering your ideas are the ones which would condemn all people to a life of servitude and misery. I prefer to let people choose their own destiny. That's too much for you I guess. You'd rather have an incompetent bureaucracy run it for them.
Much better to let people run their own lives than have a group of Millsy's run it for them.

[Jordan]

James, I didn't read your article - I flirted with libertarianism a long time ago, I'm familiar with the arguments and there's no need for me to revise them. If I thought people would voluntarily give 30% of their income, then maybe a voluntary state would work. I'd also note that fewer people are on benefits under Labour than there were under National.

[Millsy]

Look, why dont you fuck off and spread your poison elsewhere. Fuck I hate you so much.

Look, our safety net does not rob people of their independence. Our health and education system enables kids to get an education and make things better for themselves, and when you get injured in a car accident, you go to a public hospital. I dont see how that robs you of your independence. Also, our welfare system stops people from starving in the gutter, and it accepts everyone regardless of background. A private charity will pick and choose, and belittle you. I dont know what world you want, Mike, but it is not one I want. I dont think you care about humanity. You have called for the destruction of public health and education, you have called for the weakening to workers protections, the slashing of wages, the abolition of trade unions, and the cutting of the DPB, which will see children starve. You are a cold heartless man Mike, and mark my words, I will make sure that your sick world will never eventuate.

[Mike Collins]

Millsy. You are so vile in your imagination. It's hard to see anyone who thinks the way you do actually caring about people. I'll take your word for it though. I think you are severly misguided however.
I have never called for the destruction of public education or health. I don't know where you get that from. I just think that the private system is a better way to get the services that we as a nation need. The slashing of wages? I don't know where you got that from. All I have said is that I don't think the state should meddle in essentially what is a private affair between the employer and employee. If the two parties can agree on a rate of pay then the state should not be able to stop this. Don't make the mistake of thinking this is the same as wanting to slash wages.
Abolish trade unions? Nope never said that either. Stereotyping me are you? I do believe that trade unions shouldn't have a monopoly on collective bargaining though. And I certainly don't support compulsory unionism in any form or disguise.
Cutting the DPB? I wouldn't call it that at all. I would say it is reincentivising work. At present it is too hard to stop living a life dependant on others. While I agree it isn't easy to lead a life on the DPB, it is still at the expense of fellow taxpayers and they should be safe in the knowledge that they are providing a safety net (which I wholeheartedly support) as opposed to a safety hammock with no alarm clock (which I can not support). I care about our children in this country too. I think we owe it to them to get their parents working. Get them the skills to get a meaningful job - even if that does cost more in the short term. I want you to guess my background Millsy. I think you have me stereotyped to the hilt, and I'm interested to know what else you've "decided" about me.

[Jordan]

Millsy - I've warned you before! Stop letting them bait you and STOP posting comments like that on my blog.

If you will not stop it I will delete every post you make until you give up. You are making a dick of yourself; STOP IT.

[Millsy]

Well,I read the speech on scoop,and I felt it was just the same old rehashed right-wing stuff. I mean really, the guy could have tried to come up with some new ideas and not just burrow from the likes of Wisconsin, etc..

[Millsy]

It didnt help that we already knew what would be in the speech and what it would be about....

[Millsy]

While the Right will be lapping his speech up, I belive that Don Brash's speech pretty much was copied and pasted from a right-wing speech template. He had an oppurtunity to suggest a redevelopment of the welfare system that would both protect and help the poor become independent at the same time and signal a new approach. But instead it was bash the poor and solo mothers, time limits and other draconian measures. I certainly hope that this "work for the dole" thing is going to pay more instead of just "working for your benefit". Thats got "undercut low wage labour
" written all over it. And what about this 90 day trial period? Yep thats going to do it, workers will end up getting fired for no reason before that period is up, that will happen because employers treat their workers like shit and need a big stick hanging over them to make sure they treat them well.

[James]

Jordan why do you think it would take %30 of a persons income to fund help to the needy? Once all the sturdy beggers have been weeded out and are in the work force (after the red tape, taxes and dead hand of the state have been dealt to) the number of people who would have to seek help would be greatly reduced requiring less money. As I stated in my last post Kiwis are giving to charities in a huge way now! Once they know that the freeloading element is next to no more what possible reason do you have to think they will turn hard hearted and cease giving to the truly needy? We only have to look at the response to the Tsunami disaster by the private sector:ie all of us,to see major flaws in the idea that its the state or nothing! People are mostly good and they help others without the need to wave a gun in their faces, why do you and others have such a negative opinion of your fellow man when its so obviously not warranted...?

[hans]

I would never give to any charity at all, ever. I pay enough taxes and I support a welfare state. Too many charities and churches are a tax rip-off front (and political fronts). And charity donations should no longer be tax deductible either.

[Jordan]

James - I could well ask you why you have such an optimistic view, but I don't think either of us can answer each other's question in a meaningful manner.