2000 Children hurt each day when beneficiaries targeted by National

There is always a cost when National go hunting beneficiaries. National’s lust for throwing as many beneficiaries off welfare using new thresholds to disqualify them and then making it incredibly complex and intimidating to get that benefit back is not only idealogical, it’s now fiscal.

National have realised they can play the ‘dad routine’ and keep most NZers on side while social services get run down and privatised. The ‘dad routine’ minimises the governments role to that of the household budget. National say ‘we can’t afford that’, or ‘that’s a nice to have’ and NZers think of their own household budgets and agree. National speak to the morality of small business but the reality is the Government’s budget is enormously different from the household budget (Government’s can raise revenue whenever they want – household budgets can not) so the comparison is utterly false.

National have realised they can have their ideological wet dream of small Government by running down the revenue streams and then cry ‘we don’t have enough money’ to play into this thrift morality of the household budget. That’s why National sold assets that were making more money than they would raise through sale.

This means that when National come to slashing benefits and privatising social services it looks less idealogical and more fiscal common sense – you can’t spend money on social services if you don’t have the money – the insult of course is that National have in fact borrowed billions for tax cuts to the richest and crony capitalism. It’s not that we don’t have the money, it’s that National refuse to spend it on anyone other than the already wealthy.

So how does such political spin doctoring impact the weakest and poorest members of society? Terribly…

About 2000 children hit when parents lose benefits
New data shows about 2000 children on any one day are living in households where their parents have lost up to half their benefits because in most cases they have failed to turn up to an appointment.
Beneficiary advocates and researchers say the Government is being negligent towards these children by failing to track what’s happening to them.

…that’s right, 2000 kids a day impacted by welfare being cut off because the parent hasn’t turned up to an appointment. The cruelty and spitefulness of this is astonishing.

It’s not only the young being crushed by this draconian welfare agenda…

Anxiety rises among Hamilton’s pensioner tenants
Stress levels are rising among tenants in the city’s pensioner housing complexes as a potential sale deal looms.

Hamilton City Council staff will present sale options for the city’s 17 complexes to elected members on November 26.

Last year the council decided in a split-vote to sell its stock of 344 pensioner units around Hamilton to an approved social housing provider.

…our weakest young and old are being thrown onto a scrap heap by a Government who are walking away from their social obligations and we wonder why our suicide rates are soaring. The social infrastructure and community resource has been gutted by National and the poorest are paying the price.