Part of this Governments most essential policy platforms is to attack and denigrate beneficiaries. Everytime the Government requires a media distraction, Paula pops onto the mainstream news with another vile policy aimed at dog whistling attention away from whatever it is Key doesn’t want to get questions on.
One of these dog whistles was the new law that comes into effect today that means those partners of beneficiaries who commit fraud are now liable for that fraud. It’s a disgusting and draconian piece of law that persecutes the already poor. The rules around when a person you are sleeping with is your actual partner with all the obligations and responsibilities of a partner are purposely complex so the Ministry can manufacture reasons to exclude and prosecute rather than build strong family units.
Do we really want a Government department that is sneaking into peoples bedrooms in the morning to ascertain if any relationships exist? Isn’t that nanny state? Why is it never nanny state when it is done to poor people?
What this new law will mean is that a partner has to be aware that the person they are partner with is on a benefit and as such their relationship changes that benefit amount, because under this law, they are now prosecutable for that money.
Which leads got the next observation.
So when will rich housewives in Parnell, Remuera, the North Shore and leafy suburbs in Wellington get arrested for hubbies white collar crimes? Why is it that fraud worth $39million per year gets laws that are prepared to arrest and prosecute the partner of someone committing welfare fraud when these who are committing a billion in white collar fraud each year have none of those restrictions placed upon them?
It’s like the drug testing of beneficiaries, when are we going to booze test politicians walking into Parliament?
Why is it that the poor must cope with harsher laws than the powerful have to and is that really a country we want to be proud of?
I don’t think there is really any decent reason for requiring those on benefits to have their assistance lowered due to being in a relationship. When one or both of a couple are working part-time there is a serious difference on the assistance they receive and the assistance two flatmates would receive in exactly the same circumstances.
There would have to be some limit devised for this because people who are wealthy and partners to wealthy people might just apply for assistance to rort the system (because this sector of society do seem to be prone to such behaviour).
If people out of work were treated as the individuals – not merged units – when they are involved in a relationship, then a whole lot of problems would be solved in one go. It would certainly bypass a serious cycle of poverty that is extremely hard to lift out of that is created by welfare rules surrounding couples who are out of work.
People by and large don’t ask for assistance for the hell of it; they do so because they are in unfortunate circumstances and are on the breadline. The breadline is the breadline and people need to be treated separately -not as units – when it comes to being on the breadline and welfare assistance for those in relationships.
This is very unimaginative electioneering. Surely the greatest fool will know it’ll be impossible to police. Apart from the fact, of course, that it’s utterly utterly unfair.
I’d rather have a nanny state, rather than this Father Knows Best one national have coughed up. What a bunch of overly hypocritical ass_holes from the right of the blog sphere – There have delivered a nanny state in spades under National, and not one of them is moaning about it.
We have seen enshrined in law a two tier system of justice. One that frees the rich and one that punishes the poor. I love democracy, especially when the rich have found a way to convince themselves they are morally superior by virtue of having money and power. God bless them and their slippery slope to totalitarianism.
And will the wives/partners of farmers or businesses receiving welfare get the same?
How about paying WINZ recipients, those with admin / clerical experience, a commission on tax evasion they uncover? Heaps of people out there with forensic accounting skills! Give these people access – the the IRD systems – to uncover white collar crime and I bet they do a brilliant job of it … Far better than any National stooge!
Isn’t it strange how National and their maybe allies the Conservatives both stress how people should take responsibility for their own crimes. And now they create a law that punishes a person for another person’s crime. I thought the right were against that sort of nanny state collective punishment thing. They really haven’t thought this one out very well have they?
Wow. This country is so very sick right now.
Another great post Martyn.
Why should the poor and needy be penalised for being married?
If they just removed the ‘being married’ penalty there wouldn’t be any fraud, and the govt could have some spare cash to bring the rip-us-all-off capitalists into courts for their tax evasion instead.
Opinion.
…rather than build strong family units.
If your definition of a “strong family unit” is kids with multiple fathers in a household based on defrauding the taxpayer, in which the ‘father’ is a role filled by whoever-Mum’s-fucking-right-now, I sincerely hope the Ministry is not attempting to build “strong family units.”
Do we really want a Government department that is sneaking into peoples bedrooms in the morning to ascertain if any relationships exist?
If we’ve got people claiming shitloads of our cash for being ‘sole parents’ when they aren’t actually sole parents, then yes please, let’s have that. Wasters need to be pursued with the same vigilance as tax avoiders, and anyone who’s had the IRD on their case will tell you it’s far from a pleasant experience. Good.
I’m all for making the law say that whomsoever benefits from a crime will also be investigated and held accountable.
Once you are a beneficiary, certainly if you are so for a longer period, you are automatically treated with great suspicion and virtually like a “criminal” by a fair few “case managers” at WINZ.
Even when you declare everything and are as honest and transparent as a person can be. It seems that Chester Borrows and Paula Bennett are busy 24/7 to think about possible new measures to increase suspicion, surveillance and to have neighbours and family encouraged to dob those in, that may “dare” to perhaps even have social contacts, that may appear to be a relationship.
While this rotten government is at it, making life for beneficiaries ever so much harder, less tolerable, yes a life of endless pressure and stress, no matter what their circumstances are, the Ministry of Social Development is hard as rock, keeping their own information held secret. Transparency is NOT what they are known for:
http://publicaddress.net/speaker/how-is-government-evaluating-its-welfare/
Since National has been in government, things are gradually getting worse, and the audacity of their feverishly pursued “reforms” is gob smacking. Outsourcing of services are being expanded, and nobody in the MSM or wider public seems to notice, or bother raising questions:
http://accforum.org/forums/index.php?/topic/16092-work-ability-assessments-done-for-work-and-income-%E2%80%93-partly-following-acc%E2%80%99s-approach-a-revealing-fact-study/
Interesting. As you rightly point out, Martyn,
When will the wives/partners of company directors found guilty of fraud or other white collar crime also be prosecuted along with their husbands/partners?
What are the chances?
Oh, about as much as a flying saucer landing on the White House lawns tomorrow…
Yes, because I can assure you having lost my entire life savings due to the collapse of Bridgecorp and Capital & Merchant, it certainly sticks in my throat that their wives are still living their lives in absolute luxury while I struggle, scrimp and scrape in this very hand to mouth life I now have to live.
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