A government media release on January 21 boasted that:
Benefit numbers continue steady yearly decline. Social Development Minister Anne Tolley says the number of people receiving a benefit is continuing to decline year on year with a 2.5 per cent drop in the number of people receiving a main benefit between December 2014 and December 2015. “The number of people receiving a main benefit has fallen by almost 7,800, or 2.5 per cent in the last 12 months,” Mrs Tolley says.
How did the government achieve this miraculous feat when:
- Over the same period, the number of people registered as job seekers with Work and Income New Zealand increased 5.3% from 275,531 to 290,222.
- Over the same period, the number of jobless increased by 1800 to 259,400.
- Over the same period, the workforce participation rate fell by 1%.
- Over the same period, 61,000 more people were not actively participating in the workforce than a year earlier.
2015 did see an increase in the size of the working age population but this was driven principally by immigration. The number of jobs in the economy grew, but at a slower pace than the population. The unemployment rate fell, but principally driven by people giving up looking for work. That is not progress.
Around half of the increase in the number of people no longer actively seeking work may have been a consequence of an increase in the retired population who are no longer working. But a large part of the increase was the result of the systematic harassment and bullying carried out by WINZ in order to actively deny people their legal rights to access their entitlements.
This is a decade-long policy that has forced 100,000 people off benefits who should have a legal right of access and ripped a billion dollars a year out of working class communities.
No party has been compensated so much for contributing so little like national
And yet our lying comedic pm paints a much rosier picture – a picture that most do not believe. His denial is beyond massive and his jokes stink.
His leadership will go down in history as the most damaging to our country and surely the most pro-bank; pro-corporate; and elitist government that is not – by and for the people. Joke on Jonky and see us all laugh at you, not with you. You will also be known as the most “out of touch” pm with the people – you know those lower 99% you would not want to associate with – except to pull a pony tail that gives you some sick pleasure.
How pathetic and how embarrassing. No wonder the world is laughing at us when they could be praising us — as they do with Iceland.
See. The left always talks about the means of production and jobs, never mind that factories aren’t producing wages like they use to. The new means of production is printing money. That’s why clyptocrates can afford to suppress the working class because the masters have access to negative percent interest loans, ie the public pay clyptoes to borrow.
It’s called the new precariat class. Guy Standing wrote in his book ‘The Precaiat’ that the solution to the problem of unstable work should be to increase worker subsidies. He also says that after analysing the Chinese work force-the future of is a low paid work force. Hence the subsidies.
Basically the bottom 70% have to band together because the top 0.00001% want to kill us and the rest are in love with there abusers
I don’t know that they want to kill us. That would be depriving their businesses of a compliant labour force – at least until they’re able to automate our jobs out of existence. I think it’s more that they want us to shut up, keep our heads down and toil obediently in the factories and fields like the pitiable serfs we are.
Hint: automation in one below second and third world wages. Cheap loans makes it easier to move manufacturing to the peripheries of employment disputes.
The only business card employees should be concerned about is the card they stick in the ATM and the number that steers back at them on Sunday. If it is zero, then you are working a miserable existence that will only get worse as the years tick by. That’s what I call wage slavery.
+100
As someone recovering from disability, dealing with WINZ is extremely distressing and terrifying. They frequently expect magical solutions that I can’t achieve, and have little/no control over, and threaten penalties for not achieving them. The lady at the desk tells me curtly, “Oh sorry we’ll have to penalise you for that”, without giving half a damn that that comes out of my food bill, while the security guards eye you up as if you’re the scum of the earth. It’s barely distinguishable from the business end of a fascist regime.
One thing that I’ve noticed about Work and Income, is that I had gone there years ago, and there used to be 2-3 people waiting to see every case manager. Now when I go there, there are usually one or two people waiting in the waiting area for the ENTIRE OFFICE, while fifteen or so staff type behind computer screens. Every time, I can’t help but ask myself, WHERE ARE ALL THE CLIENTS?
(TDB readers don’t need me to answer that one!)
Furthermore, Nats propaganda in the WINZ offices blares over T.V. screens planted directly in your face, which is little more than a “harden up” campaign; it’s like being force-fed dog-shit.
They now run a system where clients are only case managed, if they have special needs. Most of the administering goes via computer, phone and post, so people are told, do this that or the other, or else. Most fear sanctions, so will do all to comply.
As for the reasons behind of what you faced, see my comment below, it shows ample information on what goes on, particularly for those with sickness and disability.
They follow a kind of “work will set you free” approach that was already introduced and tried in the UK many years ago. Google also names such as “Dr David Bratt” (WINZ Principal Health Advisor and virtually a hatchet doctor managing other hatchet doctors in the system) and also “Prof. Mansel Aylward” from the UK (one influential figure behind this whole drive we face).
Do some research and you will see that they started an agenda here in 2010, yes it even goes back to 2007 when Labour were still in government, to get sick and disabled off benefits, claiming that work is now “therapeutic”.
Correction, Mike – make that 2009, at least, that the ‘regime’ changed for even worse for those of us on ‘sickness and invalids’.
For Lostrelic above: might it be useful to attend with a Beneficiaries Advocate, if that service is available?
And why are people at the desk talking about sanctions? Surely that’s between a client-victim and their case-minder?
The ethos of the public services continues to crumble. I wonder if either the Greens or Labour would ever bother themselves to restore it?
It started with initially less draconian efforts under Labour:
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/launch-health-practitioner039s-handbook
“Another important step in this partnership process is the provision of information workshops for designated doctors. Designated doctors are engaged by Work and Income to provide case managers with independent clinical advice. This advice is used to determine a person’s medical eligibility for benefit. Work and Income has identified the number of doctors we require for each region and have invited selected designated doctors to continue working with us.
Designated doctors will be offered information workshops put on by Work and Income. The workshops will provide an opportunity to further develop sustainable working relationships with one of Work and Income’s key partners.
Workshops will be led by Regional Commissioners and supported by the Principal Health Advisor, Dr David Bratt or Senior Advisor, Dr David Rankin. This approach will ensure regions are involved in the workshops and ongoing relationship management with local designated doctors is maintained. It is anticipated that regional health advisors, regional disability advisors and health and disability co-ordinators also attend the training workshops.”
They brought in Dr Bratt, that is MSD, and the Principal Health Advisor and Regional Health and Disability Advisor jobs were already created in 2007!
http://www.workandincome.govt.nz/documents/externals-issue-1.pdf
“The key Ministry contacts who work closely with the sector are Dr David Bratt, Principal Health Advisor and Anne Hawker, Principal Disability Advisor. Both joined the Ministry in mid 2007 to provide strategic and practical advice on MSD programmes and projects relating to t
he health and wellbeing of clients.”
And we can thank Dr Bratt and his colleagues for this:
http://www.gpcme.co.nz/pdf/GP%20CME/Friday/C1%201515%20Bratt-Hawker.pdf
(see pages 13, 20, 21 and 35 where he likens the benefit to an addictive drug)
Under this government we got “Bratt Unleashed”:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/9037689/Doctors-told-to-prescribe-work-ethic
http://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/designated-doctors-used-by-work-and-income-some-also-used-by-acc-the-truth-about-them/
http://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/the-health-and-disability-panel-and-its-hand-picked-members/
In those last posts you will find many links to formerly available info on the web disabled now, or showing “404 error” “page cannot be found” messages, due to the government here and in the UK, same as the RACP and AFOEM and certain other agencies having de-activated them, as they previously showed revealing info they do not want you to know!
Propaganda has never been more sophisticated and effective than it is these days, with the internet! They try to only present the information they want people to read, same as the government.
Tolley is a liar, so are Key, Bennett and the rest of this government, they are presenting figures that are manufactured to a certain degree.
As for those that get thrown off benefits, this is part of what is behind it:
http://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/designated-doctors-used-by-work-and-income-some-also-used-by-acc-the-truth-about-them/
http://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2013/09/02/medical-and-work-capability-assessments-based-on-the-controversial-bio-psycho-social-model/
http://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/the-health-and-disability-panel-and-its-hand-picked-members/
http://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2014/06/21/work-ability-assessments-done-for-work-and-income-a-revealing-fact-study-part-a/
http://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2014/06/22/work-ability-assessments-done-for-work-and-income-a-revealing-fact-study-part-d/
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2015/10/04/how-the-n-z-health-and-disability-commissioner-let-off-a-biased-designated-doctor/
http://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2014/10/19/nz-finance-minister-bill-english-insults-beneficiaries-with-mansel-aylwards-work-will-set-you-free-approach/
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2015/03/17/the-medical-appeal-board-how-msd-and-winz-have-secretely-changed-the-process-disadvantaging-beneficiaries/
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/the-m-a-b-hearing-process-how-msd-secretly-changed-it-to-further-disadvantage-clients-oficial-post-18-03-15.pdf
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2015/04/10/mental-health-and-sole-parent-employment-services-msd-withholds-o-i-a-information-that-may-prove-their-trials-a-failure/
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2015/08/09/msd-and-dr-david-bratt-present-misleading-evidence-claiming-worklessness-causes-poor-health/
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/msd-dr-bratt-present-misleading-evidence-on-worklessness-and-health-post-09-08-15.pdf
They declare many with illness and disability fit for work, even when they have a dim chance of getting a job.
As most beneficiaries know little or nothing of what goes on behind the scenes, they are easy targets for case managers executing the agenda from the top. If only more would bother inform themselves about this brutal, unjust system we now have.
Case managers, public servants, bureaucrats and even the police are going to have to take a long hard long at themselves and their masters. The divide between the haves and the have-nots is increasing at an alarming rate, and all the power, influence, money, guns and gated communities will not save these malignant parasites when the simmering rage of a disenfranchised majority eventually boils over. “I was just implementing government policy” is right up there with “I was only following orders” in the hierarchy of feeble excuses. You can beat people down with numbers or with police batons, but there comes a tipping point where fear of punitive action by the state is over-ridden by blinding fury at the injustice of it all. If there’s nothing more dangerous than a man with nothing left to lose, then a million men in the same situation should scare the living shit out of them. But then it’s entirely possible to be obscenely wealthy and spectacularly stupid at the same time.
The following info, based on obtained OIA info and such that was denied, shows what goes on, but as long as the MSM shows little or no interest in the truth and the fate about beneficiaries, the vast majority of people out there continue to live in blissful ignorance:
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/msd-dr-bratt-present-misleading-evidence-on-worklessness-and-health-post-09-08-15.pdf
OIA responses sought and obtained from MSD (just some of what we have):
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/msd-o-i-a-rqst-re-dr-bratt-presentations-contacts-anon-ltr-w-questions-16-01-14.pdf
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/msd-o-i-a-rqst-re-dr-bratt-presentations-contacts-anon-16-01-reply-by-ce-27-02-14.pdf
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/msd-o-i-a-rqst-re-dr-bratt-presentations-contacts-anon-16-01-further-reply-12-11-14.pdf
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ombudsman-complaint-o-i-a-to-msd-public-interest-re-dr-bratt-anon-xx-03-2014.pdf
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ombudsman-complaint-msd-o-i-a-rqst-16-01-14-dr-bratt-presentation-info-ltr-xx-12-14.pdf
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ombudsman-complaint-o-i-a-to-msd-dr-bratt-publ-int-prov-dec-compl-hilit-22-05-15.pdf
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ombudsman-complaint-3xxxxx-msd-o-i-a-fr-16-01-14-bratt-presentations-anon-ltr-13-06-15.pdf
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ombudsman-complaint-msd-o-i-a-rqst-16-01-14-dr-bratt-presentation-info-hilit-dec-23-06-15.pdf
And as we can see, even our supposed “watchdog”, the Ombudsman, cannot bother holding the government to account. What a disgraceful state of affairs we have in this country. I believe no word when some surveys claim we are one of the “least corrupt” countries in the world.
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