As WINZ up their quota of beneficiaries to cut off welfare before the election, beneficiaries are being stopped from entering WINZ Offices by a new policy of increasing security guards outside all WINZ Offices to force a strict no interview no entry policy.
Seeing as many are unable to get any real help over the phone, it is difficult for beneficiaries to even see anyone from WINZ who can help.
Security Guards, themselves poorly paid, are being forced to be WINZ goons and when the Security Guards complain, they get punished by their bosses for speaking out.
The culture of fear and threats that WINZ use over beneficiaries is awful enough (as our current campaign highlighting the way they abuse people will attest) but militarisation of these supposed welfare agencies demands a more radical response.
Graffiti attacks on WINZ for the way they are mistreating beneficiaries should be seen as legitimate election protest this year.
Also hard to phone WINZ if you are homeless or your phone has been cut off.
Yes. Or you have no credit on your phone.
..or if you are mentally impaired , or an invalid , or a sickness beneficiary, or depressed…or an ordinary person struggling to make ends meet
…many ordinary people don’t have cell phones, iphones or computers
They ram down people’s throat now “My MSD”, their online access. That will lead to call centres being reduced and one day phased out. And the end result will be, only those that have access to a computer and the web, they can then “communicate” with the invisible Masters behind the scene.
Christ! – Tell me about ‘MyMSD’
I imagine there are a few IT professionals wanking themselves off over their various achievements and contributions.
WHAT a bugger’s muddle!
But then when you’re a comfy little IT professional (and I’ve been one), anxious to enhance your ego and prove your worth, you’ve usually already distanced yourself from reality.
We could go right back to BNZ Branch 900 if you like to get an idea of the thinking.
I’ll refrain from commenting on the best programmer in the world over at another ‘left wing blog’ who still has everyone fawning all over ‘it’ (Bomber – I think you described it as a “grumpy old man”).
I’ll refrain if only because it is trying to make a contribution and I pity its partner.
There’s an Emporer with no clothes, then there’s a heap of wannabe Emperors in dainty little see-through little negligees trying their luck
Paradise for property speculators , hell for the needy!
A courageous statement:
“Graffiti attacks on WINZ for the way they are mistreating beneficiaries should be seen as legitimate election protest this year.”
Of course Ms Tolley will sanctimoniously go on about “wilful damage” and stuff like that.
I’ve been severely disabled and unable to look after myself for several years
an on a job seekers benefit because I may be miraculously cured someday and need to be ready for work they tell me
burn it all down and hang the ruling elite
Amen.
A solo-parent (separated) acquaintance with two children – paying nearly $400/week for a shitty two-bedder basement apartment owned by a foreign landlord in Akl – summoned twice a week by WINZ sadists for work readiness training that they don’t need. Can’t afford a car after the parasitic landlord class have extracted so much money – so trudges on foot past sidewalks where property speculators enjoying the fruits of their unearned income sip coffee and look askance.
This person’s restraint and resilience is beyond belief. I’d be wanting to punch someone’s lights out.
What is required is a large supply of machetes.
Castro, i dont think youve got the balls
Castro, enough of the provocative crap. You’re posting that stuff to paint the rest of us as loonies. Not buying into it.
In the late 90s a group of us presented a series of Bastard of the Month certificates to the managers WINZ offices who had treated people particularly badly. Maybe time for a return to actions like this that hold the people running this circus to account? Note, we were always very careful to treat frontline staff with respect, and in the current situation that definitely extends to the security guards pressganged into serving as untrained and underpaid receptionists.
Ken Loach film “I Daniel Blake” is the NZ reality too, WINZ and MSD are nothing more than sadistic punishment mazes
First and Etū are making good efforts with the security staff, trying not to pit them against fellow working class people trying to access ‘assistance’, but the PSA seem to be taking a “just following orders” approach with their members–union members that work at WINZ/MSD could show some solidarity at least with the discarded and vulnerable
What about emergencies? I once was a WINZ CM some time ago and we always had a number of people each day coming in for emergency assistance – above and beyond arranged appointments. We were all required to block off time to ensure these people could be seen if they turned up – if not then we could catch up on paperwork that was always behind. I never ever declined someone asking for support for food. I suspect that I might be ‘moved on’ in the current environment.
Try communicating with WINZ under normal circumstances, when not exactly desperate, in a situation such as trying to record your change of personal details etc! That is bad enough and stressful, when you are expected to sit on the phone for God knows how long to speak to someone because their website doesn’t recognize your information, making input impossible!
So heaven knows, it must be extremely bad for those in really desperate circumstances, trying to make some form of contact, when they have no means, such as phone, computer and the like to assist them in communication. So their only way is personal communication with WINZ staff, which incidentally is how I prefer to approach the department, because of a hearing impairment, which makes telephone conversation quite difficult at times. And there are many more with the same disability, preferring personal contact instead.
WINZ is a fascist department, a law unto itself it seems and getting worse, putting more and more beneficiaries under unnecessary pressure. Employing thug “security” staff to intimidate beneficiaries, is not the way any govt department dealing directly with people, particularly the impoverished, disabled, ill etc should perform. Very poor management of the welfare system overall!
Without condoning violence of any sort, is it any wonder then when some poor soul is pushed to take extreme measures towards WINZ, such as resorting to violent means to communicate their desperation and frustration after difficulties and rejection by the department on a regular basis?
the Warkworth WINZ office issued my brother in law with a small food grant but neglected to mention it was only redeemable at one particular nominated store (after he had headed back home low on fuel, to his local store some kms away where the vouchers had worked ok on another occaison)
getting a lift back to sort it out my brother in law said almost exactly what your last paragraph does, and he was trespassed from WINZ Warkworth!
@ TigerMountain … seems to me, MSD/WINZ specializes in deliberately putting obstacles in clients’ way, inflicting even more pain on them. Arrogant, sadistic bastards!
Thats about it Mary. You can imagine how sick and sadistic the senior management must be at Winz these days. They almost need help for there little problems themselves…
Personally I believe that graffiti is a legitimate form of protest at any and all times.
I see no reason why only people who can afford to place billboards and other pointless pieces of visual garbage in the way of the public should have sole rights to present citizens with their messages.
We should assume the right as citizens of NZ to present our messages on any surface of council or government owned building or infrastructure we deem fit for this purpose…well I know I do.
Paint the grafitti on the footpath, no one can complain of vandalism!
Would you mind if I graffitied all over your house? I feel like protesting against Marxism a political philosophy that has resulted in ghetto death of millions.
Sure. Fill your boots.
Next will be strip searches and sanitization showers, and into orange jumpsuits, to be held in the interrogation rooms – all to be allowed to grace the red carpet of WINZ.
Ashburton only took place because the guy was pushed to his limits by a system that didn’t give two shits about him. Instead of acknowledging the problems and addressing them, the corrupt government doubles down and makes the situation worse.
Yep they want beneficiaries to piss off. They really don’t give a stuff about these people. The top brass at winz i bet looks down on these people. If they could ship them overseas and get away with it they would.
Was chastised by a WINZ security guard last week for “treating the place like a daycare centre” when my autistic daughter, bored of the long wait, started tearing the place up. She threw paper in the air, and climbed up on the tables and desks. When I tried to restrain her I got a headbutt in the mouth for my trouble and still we waited. Some training in ethics for the goon squad might make the place more bearable but I guess that’s not the idea. Kudos to the guard I assume was in charge though, she was pretty understanding.
Bloodly heartless godless country “planet Key/English” has become!!!
I shudder with shame.
This putting up barriers to Winz by using security staff will be all part of the upper mgt at winz’s plan to put make beneficiaries fear going to Winz. Its pychological really. If you put barriers up to entry you will eventually give up and find another way to get money ie legal or illegal. These top brass at Winz are clever but truly evil in they have care for those they are meant to be helping. We need a whole attitude change at this department called Social Welfare. Especially Welfare which does not come into the equation these day. Its all about saving that extra dollar that can be given away as a tax cut to some wealthy guy who has no need for it.lets hope for a change from this years election.
I imagine the guards and new security procedures at WINZ offices are as a result of the guy into the Ashburton office and killed 3 staff. They were found guilty of Health and Safety failures for not having done more to protect those people.
From the comments there is a lot of anger at Winz staff. I think this should be directed at the Government whose policies the staff are required to implement.
What about “health and safety” then in public baths, in libraries, in hospitals, in tertiary education establishments, in office towers, and anywhere else, where the public more or less has PUBLIC ACCESS???
Why the singling out of people on benefits?
The truth is, most New Zealanders are self serving little pricks themselves these days, they do not care what happens to others in society, until it hits them themselves. That is how so many people behave all over the world, and it is a dog eat dog society now, certainly in Auckland, where I live.
People frown on those less fortunate, that is many people, as they like to have a enemy of worse of person of sorts, to bash. That is the result of the social engineering that has taken place since the late 1980s in this country, when the neoliberal criminals like Douglas and Prebble laid the groundwork for selling the country out, of selling people out, and play them off against each other, so they can divide and rule as the elitarian manipulators, who make gains from the scheme they have designed.
Attach the criminals that are hiding in suits and white shirts in the upper levels of MSD, of the government, its departments and agencies, and also those in Parliament, rather than blame the poor, including the one now locked up due to his illegal, un-acceptable and shocking over reaction at the WINZ Office in Ashburton.
‘Russell John Tully went from nicest bloke to killer’:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/77612963/russell-john-tully-went-from-nicest-bloke-to-killer
‘Russell John Tully went from nicest bloke to killer’:
True. The evil was not Tully, but the prevalent vile antagonistic culture of WINZ.
And any one of us could be another Russell John Tully, put in the same desperate circumstances he found himself in.
Perhaps the people at Ashburton should have helped that man instead of fobbing him off over and over until he snapped? Given him a house? They KNEW him and that he had issues. They knew all this and kept denying him the help he needed.
The staff brought it on themselves with their ethos of denial, obfuscation and smaller and smaller hoops to jump through to get help. I’ve just come from my office, the guards let me in without ID as I said I had none on me. I also didn’t have an appointment – I told them I was going in to set an appointment. It’s getting even MORE Kafkaesque.
That is a horrifying statement.
Winz employees deserve the death penalty for enforcing the rules the Government requires of them? All beneficiaries unhappy with there case Worker are entitled to kill them? No wonder wins have guards outside.
What graffiti?
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