Most NZers seem to think WINZ works just like our delusional Prime Minister so glibly believes it to work, like this…
…the reality is far more cruel. Checkpoint highlighted one of the more obnoxious WINZ policy of lending desperate people money to stay in Motels and then chasing those beneficiaries for the cost of the Motel.
How are desperate people supposed to pay Motel fees?
Since 1991, we have 20 000 fewer state houses, and lo and behold we have 20 000 people in desperate housing need.
This is neoliberalism at its most brutal.
While Key prepares to borrow $3billion for tax cuts, we have 10 000 in prison, 300 000 kids in poverty, 80 000 a day turning up at school hungry and 20 000 homeless and in desperate housing situations.
For Key to glibly tell the homeless to go to WINZ so that they can be charged Motel rates is sick. It’s sick because the Prime Ministers wilful ignorance can be smeared across the media and accepted by the comfortable middle who have no intention of giving away their speculative property portfolios.
The terrible thing about WINZ is that it get’s far worse than chasing the homeless and desperate for Motel costs.
The horror stories of the gleeful malevolence that so many front line WINZ staff seem to display towards beneficiaries cements my impression that these people are so burnt out and hateful of those they are supposed to care about that the entire department is simply too corrupt to keep. The terrible sadism some of these staff have exhibited were in terrible highlight by AAAP when they held their beneficiary clinic last month. That almost 1000 desperate people turned up begging for help to deal with a department who is purposely making welfare complex and difficult to gain shows what a failure WINZ has become.
60% of those on sole parent welfare or job seeker benefits owe WINZ money from overpayments and penalties incurred by WINZs voodoo math relationship criteria. There are no clear guidelines as to what actually construes a relationship as far as WINZ is concerned and if they suspect beneficiaries of being in a relationship WINZ cries fraud. Beneficiaries become locked into a cycle of poverty debt they can never break out from under.
There is a team in WINZ who trawl social media feeds to see if beneficiaries are in relationships – that’s not a bloody functioning democratic welfare state, that’s the fucking Stasi!
One staff member ‘down south’ is a former Repo agent. That’s right, the frontline staff at WINZ are repo agents, that’s not the characteristics you want for this job!
WINZ dehumanises those it is supposed to help and those working for it. We need to politically burn this cancer to the ground and replace it with a Universal Basic Income. Beneficiaries could then avoid the humiliation and stress and we stop paying for sadists to enjoy cutting the poor off welfare.
We have a broken welfare system that is doing more harm than good to the very people it’s supposed to care for. The PM claiming WINZ can help the homeless exemplifies the mix of delusion, neoliberal mythology and wilful ignorance that drives all National Party social policy.
WINZ gives new meaning to the term ‘ Bridging Finance’ …
Them and Simon Bridge’s BRIDGES must have a WHALE OIL of a time when ever they all get together during a National party ‘ CARAVAN’…
And I doubt they would have to ‘ CAR ‘ pool anywhere with the flash limo’s they all got…
In fact I bet they all feel pretty damn smug about their far right neo liberal wanker attitudes …. so much so the excitement must be ‘ IN TENTS’ …
BRIDGES
CARAVANS
CARS
TENTS
Welcome to John Keys ‘ BRIGHTER FUTURE’.
WHERE SMALL CHILDREN DIE BECAUSE OF POVERTY AND LACK OF ADEQUATE HOUSING AND ARE FORCED TO LIVE IN AND UNDER :
BRIDGES
CARAVANS
CARS
TENTS
BRIDGES*CARAVANS*CARS*TENTS*BRIDGES*CARAVANS*CARS*TENTS
Oh…and GARAGES.
To see one homeless person on a New Zealand street ? That’s cause enough to riot. To go to our parliament buildings and drag the politicians out into the streets themselves and asset strip them. Seeing beggars in Auckland and/or Wellington streets fills me with dread and depression but perhaps the main sence I feel is a sence of bewliderment. A bewliderment that we have homeless people in New Zealand and we reluctantly tollerate that. A rich country but with a population of Melbourne? It’s bizarre!
John Keys comfort levels ? That needs to change.
As does the comfort levels of his cronies . Instead of a tax cut ? How about we return jonky’s $20 to $200 million back into our economy? And while we’re at it ? How about we knock on michael fay and david richwhite’s kitchen door? Ask them to explain their $900 million fortunes and their relationships with the BNZ and how was the Cook Islands when they were last there?
And we made International headlines folks !
The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/17/new-zealand-housing-crisis-forces-hundreds-to-live-in-garages-tents-and-cars
And have another read of this just to drive home the reality of the sort of lies we’ve all been fed about why we cant afford what we easily could afford 30 years ago , why we are underfunded and what happens to our tax money…
As IF Key didn’t know all this time . And then comes out with this shit about going to WINZ . As IF he doesn’t know what goes on there either.
Single women with their small children having to sleep in their car on dark streets – family’s living under bridges – that shows you how much he gives a damn. Words are cheap . Especially his.
Have a read of this then :
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/8515361/Money-trail-leads-home-to-New-Zealand
200% Spot on, Martyn!
Back in 2011 we moved out of Christchurch-partly due to the effects the earthquakes were having on a family member, and partly because of other reasons.
We received much needed assistance from the Red Cross, which was a huge help. I remember having to go into a government department for something or other, and noticing a large poster for ‘refugees from Christchurch.’ Apparently we/they would be able to get help from WINZ & HNZ!
What a joke.
It would have been the best laugh I’d had in ages, if it wasn’t such pure BS.
The only way that WINZ workers wish to help people, is to get them in any kind of job, so the WINZ workers can get a bonus in their pay.
As for HNZ, does it still exist, in anything other than name only? Doesn’t seem like it.
At the end of the day, they are both government departments, and both have to do what their government masters tell them to do. Government masters include one JonKey, whether he wants to admit it or not.
Experienced some of this – amazed at how rude and obstructive their staff can be to teenagers – basically intimidating them out of their access to benefits, making the process so time consuming and difficult it requires a confident adult to get results, then cutting off benefits randomly for no apparent/reasonable reason – and no repayment of days missed once re-established!!
They are a law unto themselves and denigrate the most vulnerable of our society just because they have the temerity to need assistance…
We NEED a UBI in place asap – not because it is “lefty/liberal” but because it is RIGHT and returns dignity to those at the bottom of the heap… and because of what is soon to come!
WATCH THIS if you have kids:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
The motel owners are the only ones who benefit from this, as this gets them through the off-seasons, while this is classed as a loan on WINZ’s books.
What’s new? Just another day of everything that matters being made worse by politicians.
All National policy is geared to enrichment of the few at the expense of the many, geared to ‘progressive’ destruction of society, and geared to rapid destruction of the planet we live on. And lying about it all.
The web of lies spun by politicians and corporate spin doctors remains held in place by the corrupt corporate media.
Tomorrow everything will be a little bit worse. Or quite a lot worse.
When John and his widowed mum came to New Zealand, they weren’t told NZ is a “warm” climate bunk down anywhere you can and charity food backs will keep you from starving! When John’s older send him out to work and you may be able to afford a room or if lucky a run down speculator’s ( for capital gain) flat! :-). John’s mum wasn’t routinely humiliated having to beg for money from social welfare or told to get a job and put John in day care somewhere!
No none of those soul and health destroying things happened to John and his mummy at all!
John and his mummy were given a nice new warm cosy state house to live in and she received a widow’s pension! And John got free education and health care. They were treated with humanity and respect.
Sadly though John grew up and became a money trader monster! 🙁
And humanity and respect became useless mirages to be cynically deployed by his Market God.
A Grimm cautionary tale of our time 🙁
KEY= LOAN SHARK CAPITAL AND TAX HAVEN OF THE WORLD.
Like this comment I think I will use it,Thanks
Now you might begin to understand why someone would want to go in there with a loaded shotgun.
It’s all just cause and effect, cause and effect…
Going postal, in American English slang, means becoming extremely and uncontrollably angry, often to the point of violence, and usually in a workplace environment.
The expression derives from a series of incidents from 1986 onward in which United States Postal Service (USPS) workers shot and killed managers, fellow workers, and members of the police or general public in acts of mass murder. Between 1986 and 1997, more than 40 people were gunned down by current or former employees in at least 20 incidents of workplace rage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_postal
” The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich.
Consequently the modern poor are not pitied, but written off as trash ”
john berger
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Berger
We run a Motel where WINZ staff often stay during conferences. The pompous bastards demand single rooms instead of multi room apartments. If apartments were used it would be $50 per person while using single units costs $120 each. They also book their meals to their rooms so they don’t go to work hungry.
The worst part is the way that they talk to us..we are subhuman and are there to be their servants..I would hate to be someone who has to ask these pricks for help.
Then we have moronic conservatives who parrot the cliche that if you can’t afford decent housing, they shouldn’t have kids? Since when did things become so bad in this country that only the upper middle classes and rich (money hoarders) are now allowed to breed??
This is class eugenics in a country that also flirts with casual racism and beneficiary bashing. All because dealing with the harsh realities of neo-liberalism’s failures is just too hard for a country more besotted with who The Batchelor screwed when the tv cameras weren’t rolling. Charming.
As for Key, what that that he once said about never forgetting his roots as a kid growing up in a state house??
Bloody sociopathic hypocrite.
It is so sad to see these solo mums struggle with providing and caring for their children, WINZ and government surely do have a part to play in their suffering.
What Martyn forgot to write in his article is the role of the father of the children that these solo mum’s care for, government really needs to crack down on and name and shame these deadbeat Dads who are late with their child support payments, that is if they pay them at all?
I reckon the Daily blog writers and readers should lead a campaign to name and shame deadbeat Dads, it would be especially quite interesting to find out those man who abuse their white male privilege because I find it hard for that group to opt out of any responsibility they have towards their offspring.
Wasn’t he eating cake in the South as Andrew Little tramped around the North?
Didn’t someone in the distant past say …. Let them eat cake.
And didn’t that someone lose a part of the anatomy?
The fact is – the homeless and desperate have a vital role to play in the bright Ayn Rand circle jerk future of Key and Co.
They are there to motivate you.
They exist in poverty and hopelessness with the full co-operation of WINZ, who are not there to help the poor, but to educate the rest of us.
WORK HARD. Don’t complain. Head down. Don’t ask questions. Or there but for the grace of the Invisible Hand, Greenspan, Jesus and a couple of Rothschilds go ye and all your family.
What a lovely motivational object lesson! Aren’t you pleased that kind uncle Jonny and his freinds are here to enlighten us! To avoid WINZ and its horrors all you have to do is get on that treadmill and look forward to death….
Just read online about how Bennet got a no obligations government grant of $56,000 back in the day to buy a house? What? What the fuck? Has she paid that back, with interest? Unbelievable.
They’re bullies, National party fartfaces/politicians, and so are about 80% of the people that vote for them, imho.
http://www.cab.org.nz/aboutus/news/news/Pages/Spotlight-emergency-accommodation-media-release.aspx
This page has a link to a pdf report on emergency accommodation from Citizen’s Advice Bureau. It mentions diplomatically that WINZ sends people who literally have nowhere to sleep that night down to CAB without making it clear to them that CAB doesn’t provide emergency accommodation itself, so people turn up full of hope that they’re going to get “emergency accommodation”.
With all this, is anybody still surprised about why the terrible incident in Ashburton happened a couple of years ago? It was a terrible crime, but all we got was the sob stories by WINZ workers and the patronising comments from their Chief Executives and the Minister.
The story behind all this has never been told, perhaps one day we learn the whole truth about the matter, also about why so many others have lost control, threatened WiNZ staff and even assaulted some.
It just cannot be that so many people have suddenly all turned “bad” over recent years, or were they “born bad”???
Bring out the truth about the draconian, mean spirited treatment dished out by WINZ, thanks, this stuff about people being driven into debt is criminal.
At the same time the government sanctimoniously went on about those money lenders that were ripping poor people off with exorbitant interest rates and repayment conditions.
WINZ seem no better than loan sharks, I gather.
I think that many WINZ staff probably do try the best they can to help.
Trouble is, the system that they work within is so bad that they likely fall into the overall hopelessness and pointlessness of it all, despite good intentions.
It is hard to be a professional when your boss is constantly quoting expected KPIs at you. Telling you to say “no” and demanding constant reductions in spending.
WINZ staff are human after all, and they try to do a very difficult job made infinitely worse by having to be the public face for a National government intent on turning WINZ into a Victorian work house (Oliver Twist) and laughing at the poor when they ask “Please Sir, can I have some more?”
The old saying: It’s hard to soar like an eagle when you are surrounded by turkeys.
The turkeys are John Key, Paula Bennett and the rest of the crooked Fagan band.
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