We love to bash beneficiaries in this country, it’s a treasured cultural tradition alongside rugby, alcoholism, Cirrhosis of the liver and domestic violence. We love to bash the dirty filthy bennie because those loathsome dirty bennies are a drain on the good hard work values of self-reliance, self-responsibility and selfishness as a virtue.
How low must the self-esteem of NZ be when we get a sense of superiority by bashing solo parents?
The latest knee jerk war on the poor sees new laws to prosecute the spouses of beneficiaries who apparently benefit from benefit fraud. Let’s remember ‘benefit fraud’ is most likely going to be a solo mum who might accidentally be overpaid and who might use that money to pay for food for her hungry child, so these new crack downs to just indiscriminately punish the households of the poor by persecuting everyone under the same roof has a truly charmless group punishment ethos that is more at home in war torn dictatorships than progressive democracies.
So now we are aiming at such punitive measures for spouses responsible for fraud that costs $39million what about all those rich housewives in Remuera, Ponsonby, Parnell, Khandallah or Fendalton who are benefitting from hubbies tax evasion that costs a Billion each year?
Will Paula be kicking down the doors of posh neighborhoods, dragging well to do matrons from their 600 thread sheet beds to prosecute them?
Of course they bloody won’t.
There will come a time when this country has to answer for these new class Dawn Raids, this type of social policy degrades us all.
Dreams are free and this attitude is a cancer eating away at everything decent about being human. Bring on the revolution where everyone can vote and justice restored.
People who don’t make waves should expect to sit in stagnant waters…
A lot of people see Len’s affair as ‘trivial’ however…BUT- consider this
If sexual and relationship misconduct is such a trivial matter then why do we jump on our poorest and most vulnerable citizens, not to mention our teachers, top Police officers, counselors, doctors, or religious leaders, scout leaders, sports celebrities, coaches politicians etc; threaten their incomes and homes, and custody of their children at the slightest suggestion from someone that they are behaving in a similar way;
YET IT IS CONSIDERED BY MANY PEOPLE TO BE OK FOR THE MAYOR TO EXPECT TO BEHAVE LIKE THIS AND EXPECT TO GET OFF WITH A SLAP ON THE HAND WITH A WET BUS TICKET! Still expect to retain his huge publically provided salary, nice home, and all he expects to have to do is go back to his family and beg forgiveness-and retain his privacy-and his job and salary with no further consequences.
How many private detectives, snitches, propaganderists, does WINZ and Housing New Zealand employ to sneak around gathering evidence on relationship and financial misconduct by beneficiaries and tenants?
What happens when they get to court- does the Judge say – oh you poor thing – how traumatic for you and your family, have a right to your privacy- WINZ will reinstate your benefit and give you your life back -no harm done. Yeah Right….!!!!pull the other one….
Give us a break you hypocrites it’s reelection time folks
Come on all you people collecting pensions and benefits- and all those other folks who’ve been pilloried and had their lives wreaked over similar conduct-get voting let’s hear your voices.
Do you like living with this BS?
Either public should demand the Government to revise the outdated and punitive conjugal status laws
OR in keeping within this current social contract requirement-
Demand that Mayor Brown steps down and we have a reelection -and to H*LL with the status and consequences to his personal life!
IN HIS ROLE AS MAYOR
LEN BROWN , by engaging in this misconduct has delivered a gross insult to all of us
Especially to our most vulnerable citizens, who have to struggle, on the megrest of incomes and adhere to the strictest level of accountability in all aspects of their lives, and take the severest of real life changing consequences for even minor breaches in personal conduct.
It should be an expectation that Len Brown set a positive example and keep it zipped and appropriate like we’re all expected to do or take the real life consequences.
I disagree with your comment “‘benefit fraud’ is most likely going to be a solo mum who might accidentally be overpaid”.
Clearly a person is not a solo parent if they are considering prosecuting a spouse who benefited because the household got extra income on top of the spouses wages or single persons benefit and was a direct party to the offence, unlike tax evasion.
If a person is prosecuted it obviously cannot be an accidental overpayment.
A person getting a benefit that they are not entitled to is a drain on society, just like people evading their taxes.
Your argument doesn’t make sense.
You say, “A person getting a benefit that they are not entitled to is a drain on society, just like people evading their taxes.” – and then you stop.
No discussion at all about the differences in drain size. Or even about the societal consequences of this drainage.
If a band of desperado beneficiaries manages to mug fellow taxpayers of $39m approx, specifically what is the nature of this ‘drain’. Who is affected? Sooner rather than later that money will be back out there among the hearty citizens paying for this and that. It simply took a side step and passed through Unworthy Hands.
If you look at those 20s and 50s in your wallet – can you tell by the pungent whiff of sulphur that Unworthy Hands have held them? ‘Course you can’t.
Now the Upright and Good, they drain society of decency and a fair go. They judge and spread falsehoods. They generalise even more blatantly than I have. And they steal with an even greater sense of entitlement than that supposedly held by those they vilify. Always have and probably always will, the shabby genteel, nouveaux riches and the Aspiring.
Might you explore your argument further?
The may point I was trying to convey was how badly written and over the top the article was however I agree tax evasion is a massive issue, over welfare fraud however there is no way you can just write it off.
Fraud is fraud.
NZ’s welfare bill is massive. About an eighth of the total amount of tax we pay, including tax credits, minus NZ Super. We cannot allow these government departments to be an open ATM.
Besides the argument about welfare fraud what about the social issue that the sole parent ends up with a large debt and prosecution and the partner gets away with no consequences. How is this fair?
The partner is benefiting and may be encouraging their partner to continue getting a benefit to supplement their household income. What happens when they separate a few months later?
This will hold the partner liable and share the debt as it rightly should. It is socially responsible.
“Fraud is fraud.”
When the benefit system is set up to be so complicated and punitive that it’s almost impossible to live a normal life and follow the rules without filling in another form or ringing the call centre every 5 minutes, there’s bound to be lots of “fraud”. Bomber’s point, I think, is that in most cases of supposed “benefit fraud”, there is no real harm or ill intention. Compare that to the serial tax evaders, whose deliberately ill-gotten gains could pay for the entire benefit system (minus pensions), even in this time of massive and growing unemployment. Why are beneficiaries, who live on the smell of an oily rag, being tarred and feathered as “bludgers”, while the handful of 1%ers, who divvy up the same amount of public money between them, and live the high life with all the perks, get patted on the back about being “wealth creators”?
Winz call it a relationship if “you have a sexual relationship” http://www.workandincome.govt.nz/individuals/brochures/relationships-and-income-assistance.html
So it’s true, the Govt don’t give a fuck. If you have a sexual relationship then you’re in a relationship in the eyes of WINZ and that will affect your income assistance.
It clearly states:
“There also needs to be a degree of companionship in which two people:
•are committed to each other emotionally for the foreseeable future and
•are financially interdependent on each other”
I think that is more than a one night stand or a causal sexual relationship.
A sexual relationship is one factor however just because there is or is not one does not determine whether your in a ‘relationship’.
The only way to put a stop to this ongoing argument is to insist that anyone accepting benefit assistance must also agree to be sterilised. And then take daily suppressants to deny all sexual urges. Of course it goes without saying that expenses resulting from these measures will be deducted from any actual benefits paid.
If New Zealand had an economic system that was fair and promoted an egalitarian society, then there would few people needing “benefits”.( eg pre 1980’s)
It has now been proven & demonstrated that the 1980’s Economic Reforms (“trickle down” False Theory) are the sole cause of NZ’ers demise, socially. (ie gross inequality,& that people are not thriving as a population)
,
Instead of overhauling the flawed System that is to blame,
we are now witnessing the perpetrators (represented by such as Paula Bennett) perpetuating it.
Not only that but engaged in “blaming & punishing” the actual victims of these reforms, the ones who are the worst off.
Meanwhile those who collectively caused the damage and continue to benefit from it, are allowed to carry on.
Sociologically, this is identical to sociopath behavior, and is abusive at it’s core. It is SOCIOLOGICAL SOCIOPATHY .
This is what is happening to NZ as nation of People, and alarmingly, there is no system in place to stop it, because NZ Govt (ruling body) has no overseers. No checks & balances. No supervisory Body. No independent Supreme System of Rules and Ethics. NZ Bill of Rights can not be enforced, so is just a pretence.
“This is what is happening to NZ as nation of People, and alarmingly, there is no system in place to stop it, because NZ Govt (ruling body) has no overseers. No checks & balances.”
You are so right with this, as most of the offices that are supposed to serve as “checks and balances”, like offices of the Ombudsmen, the Privacy Commissioner, the Health and Disability Commissioner, the Independent Police Conduct Authority, and what else there may be, they are all also ultimately appointed by the government, or by panels chosen by ministers of the government.
They have all funding issues, as they are expected to deal with case loads that they cannot process properly or not at all with the scarce funds they are given, so they “prioritise” and only deal with the tip of the iceberg of problems.
Political change will require a change of government, and then a new government that is more sincere, that will put the resources where they are needed, and that would reform law, to bring in true checks and balances.
In welfare this should include a right of appeal that goes further than the Medical Appeal Board, for those on benefits due to health and disability issues. The only way to challenge such a board’s decision (with 2 out of 3 on the panel usually WINZ designated doctors) is by way of judicial review, and only if there were issues with the law in a decision made by an MAB.
Legal Aid has been made harder to get, and hardly covers the costs lawyers have, and so few if any without savings can afford “justice”.
We have Bennett and her government take advantage of the weakness and powerlessness of the “clients” they administer, and hence we get such appalling policies, singling out groups, and labeling them. Next comes the “duty” to wear a yellow “bludger” star on one’s clothing, I suppose.
I would highly recommend Nicholas Shaxson’s book, “Treasure Islands: Uncovering the Damage of Offshore Banking and Tax Havens”, for anyone wishing to understand just how huge the problem of tax avoidance has grown.
I have commented on the discrepancy between benefit fraud and tax evasion before; but lets face it. The government whichever one is not going to do a “Ruatoki” in Remuera or lock down that suburb of tax dodgers in the way they did at Ruatoki to find terrorists. Just imagine; road blocks and searches of children at gun point on their way to their kohanga reo equivalent. However the extra tax take of about $1b can do a great deal more than losing $39m in benefit payments; pocket money to our richest. In fact we can bail out Air NZ the next time it goes broke as the greedys start grabbing at the cash reserves, or investing in rail instead of yet more roads and toll tunnels.
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