TVNZs Breakfast with John Campbell continues to be the best journalism on TV (the Hui and Moana Maniapoto’s new show on Māori TV aside).
This morning John was outside the WINZ office in Manurewa highlighting the horror of beneficiaries queueing from 2am to desperately try and get help from a agency that has a toxic culture towards beneficiaries.
Listening to WINZ staff push their jobs crap rather than welfare that can actually help beneficiaries was ridiculous. There is pitiful wage increases while rents soar – being threatened to get a job at burger king or else is why the poor queue from 2am.
Campbell challenged the Minister for the queues and from the moment she appeared on screen she attacked AAAP.
All the Minister cares about is hiding the shame AAAP have highlighted with the WINZ queues – this Government’s ‘politics of kindness’ is as empty and vacant as Key’s optimism when he was in power. The boss changes, the toxicity remains.
The Minister is owned by her Ministry & her Ministry has a toxic culture staffed by cruel people who seem to enjoy the power they have over vulnerable people – there is story after story after story proving the glee staff seem to show when they deny or hurt beneficiaries.
From the guards on the door (put there because a beneficiary shot staff after being treated poorly by them), to the open plan seating arrangements so beneficiaries have no privacy when they beg to the appalling partner policies which are designed to catch anyone who has a relationship out as fraud to the mass surveillance powers MSD have to spy on beneficiaries to the purposely complex manner for applying for a benefit in the first place.
It takes 73 pages of information and forms to read, understand and fill out, to collect a benefit.
The neoliberal welfare agencies are sticks to beat the poor with, not help them, that’s why they queue for help from AAAP.
The Minister is more focused on protecting her staff than beneficiaries.
Carmel is doing what she is told but she has to work with people that have been putting the boot into the poor courtesy of there last boss the most hated Maori in parliament, pull the benefit. How she walks around with her head up amazes me. The MSD staff will need to be both detoxed and decolonised.
The benefit system does works it worked for me and it worked for pull the benefit yet she still pulled there benefits. The AAAP they are doing a great job.
yes Carmel is sticking up for her staff and so are the seven Maori who hold the Maori seats sticking up for cyfs and other crappy government agencies despite them knowing they are fucken useless. And saying some kids need to be taken yes some do but when we see numbers increasing over a period of time a pattern is emerging and at a time when social spending was cut is this not a major concern and if not why not.
Sepuloni was exactly the same as Welfare spokesperson in Opposition. Her track record of despising beneficiaries goes back many years so she’s perfect for the job. Heaven forbid an MSD Minister who actually gives a damn about beneficiaries. Are we really surprised at he response to all this?
+ 1000
Jacinda Dear was no better than Sepuloni when Welfare Spokeswoman.
MSD staff were signing of letters to clients using a false name this is illegal but under pull the benefit they could do no wrong detox and decolonise the lot of them and some of MSDs Maori staff are some of the worst mongrels in there dishing it out. And the staff never use to be that bad.
Carmel inherited pull the benefits toxic department what do you expect it will take long time to flush all that raruraru
The minister needs to look at how staff are recruited, and trained. I can’t see it happening though, as she will be relying on that same dept for information, and one of the difficulties dealing with dimwits is that they often don’t know they’re dimwits – they have their own little survival skills, tend to be self-focused and if they don’t have competent managers, then a whole section can be bad news.
I’m not knocking”dumb” people here, but at an individual level, eg dealing one to one with clients, they can cause far more harm, and more hurt, and more damage to people, than a thick politician sitting making ape calls in Parliament.
One Wgtn dept was apparently recruiting from Whitireia Polytech, and packed with persons related to each other. A former employee told me that she got her job with a phone interview, and met her service manager for the first time on her first day. A trainer in that dept told me she didn’t know why some staff were unpleasant to clients when they were nearly all ex-beneficiaries themselves.
Unlike other countries there are no public service entry exams/tests in NZ, nor ,I think in the MSD, is there any written testing required for promotion. Keyboard speed and skills may be over-emphasised at the expense of quality work processes, and given the emphasis placed on KPI’s and nutty time-wasting performance appraisals, of course some stuff will cut corners; they need to keep their jobs.
I’ve worked in management, and loved my staff, and went out of my way for them, but in parts of the MSD, management and staff may see each other as the enemy.
Obviously govt depts like Treasury and the IRD, recruit at a fairly high level, and in a small country like NZ there is really no good reason why we cannot have standardised public service entry exams or requirements, and promotion based on proven merit.
Te Puea Marae was able to show Paula Bennett MP how to address homelessness and its concomitant problems, and this sort of modelling could also be constructively utilised by the MSD; I think it fairly unlikely that Sepuloni’s office would retaliate with the sort of faeces -flinging we’ve seen before – Sepuloni is not a slapper, and she has inherited a system established under the watch of a chappie with a publicly-indulged fetish for feeling girls’ hair. Now it’s clean-up time.
Snow White: “The minister needs to look at how staff are recruited, and trained. I can’t see it happening though, as she will be relying on that same dept for information….”
The attitudes toward beneficiaries on the part of WINZ staff has a deep history; it goes right back to the old DSW in the early 1950s (possibly earlier, but I can’t speak for that). Organisational cultures can be very difficult to change at best, intractable at worst. I’m well aware of this, having many years ago been part of efforts to change the culture of an organisation of which I was an employee.
The arrival of Rogernomics-style neoliberalism from the 1980s didn’t help; government cuts to welfare budgets and the jobs-first ideology resulted in WINZ during the 1990s developing a reputation for extreme hard-eyedness.
“One Wgtn dept was apparently recruiting from Whitireia Polytech, and packed with persons related to each other.”
I’ve heard something like this as well. I’m pakeha: I was told by another pakeha that those employees to whom you refer are all Maori – and hostile to pakeha. I haven’t had that experience myself – having dealt only with pakeha officials – but I can certainly attest to the open-plan environment in WINZ offices, and the resulting egregious lack of privacy. I have been an unwilling audience to other people’s desperation: it’s a callous and shameful way to treat people and it pisses me off.
“Sepuloni is not a slapper, and she has inherited a system established under the watch of a chappie with a publicly-indulged fetish for feeling girls’ hair.”
As I noted earlier, WINZ culture was embedded in its operations long before said chappie ever came on the scene. So long as the current government continues to set a cap on WINZ funding, nothing will change.
Having said all that, the situation at the Manurewa office looks to me like a AAAP stunt. My impression is that it’s making a political point. Well-intentioned, no doubt, but using the desperation of poor people to do it. They are activists: they ought to know better.
Esterre, late reading you, sorry, but everything you say is correct – and yes, the Manurewa office stuff looks like a stunt. And some in the queue stand there smoking – it’s costly, and people smoking and then claiming that they’re short of money is idiotic – especially in front television cameras. In the early morning dark, they light up like little glow worms.
Yes, there is racism in Wellington WINZ Offices – Maori, but to a much greater extent older Samoan women,
are hostile to Pakeha, and can game the system to cause trouble for “rich bitch” and “white bitch” colleagues.
There was/is direct recruiting from Whitireia, maybe via one of the Cannon’s Creek ladies. One lovely young Samoan girl told me that she got her job because her mum was a friend of X, and her mum came to the job interview and did all the talking for her, and the SM turned to her every now and then and said, “Is that so?” I think she was fired, I know something happened.
The phone interview employee lost her job under disgraceful circumstances, which I am reluctant to elaborate on. I knew a Pakeha accused of ‘making racist comments in the workplace.’ It went to Mediation, and she won, and quit – but the service managers involved still have their jobs. I get sick of hearing about them, which is why I now avoid another ex-WINZ employee I know.
They have some sort of positive discrimination processes to help Pacifica ; I half agree with this, but it can also mean totally unsuitable people in management. It was a union delegate who told me that there are no written requirements for promotions, as the candidates have such lousy literacy skills, so they have oral “testing” only.
A Study Link guy told me his biggest criticism of WINZ is appointing managers who know nothing about the area they’re working in; this is borne out by the woman I know there, a long-term employee, who has drawn her sm’s attention to his procedural errors – which doesn’t help her. She said that they’re age-ist – but that could just be to keep wages bills down.
All my feedback says that the young Maori and Pacifica staff are okay, presumably with good NZ school experiences, but I gather that they tend to move on.
But there are systemic problems, and as with many bureaucracies, it may suit senior staff not to know what is going on. Neck protectors.
Great points
You cannot blame the Maori suicide rates on the current govt 2008- to now they have climbed they spiked in 2012 right in national term in power and while we were waiting for our brighter future (the one that had hairs on it) johns lie.
For people who used to wonder how the German people turned so nasty during the Nazi era – here’s your answer. The dysfunctional types (who normally never get very far) flourish in these types of agencies. The good people either leave or are caught in the hell of a situation they can do nothing about.
And if you think comparing WINZ to the Nazis is too long a bow then take a look at the immigration people in the US – they really have gone into Nazi territory. I saw an article recently describing them as being in the same class as the SS. Not good people in a bad organisation but bad people in a bad organisation.
Dysfunctional people are hard to fight and they can create a lot of destruction around them. Most good people can’t bear to be trapped in a fight with them but if we want to maintain the good parts of our society we either have to fight them or somehow become such a shining example of human decency that people are drawn toward us. I’m not sure if I’m capcable of the latter and I hate to think what doing the former will do to me.
Fire the lot, recruit more staff from the unemployed ranks, station a lawyer familiar with beneficiary law at the door to help the poor fill their forms out correctly, and make all staff accountable to the law for their decisions, kill the bullshit time and resource wasting rigged in house appeals process.
Not to mention the BONUS schemes for refusal of help in the right amounts and categories, plonk a few in jail for just following orders.
If a culture wont change voluntarily and observe the law regulating its actions, then it should be exposed too the same consequences as its victims
Carmel Sepuloni is simply a blatant liar and BS artist, like most in Labour’s caucus. She did stuff all as opposition spokesperson for welfare, she does little now, she is a political careerist, already planning her career after politics.
Those on benefits are convenient pawns for her to play her game with, and stepping stones on a way for herself to greener pastures.
I am surprised that people are still surprised about all the BS that goes on, thicker than thick is what I would call many people out there, never getting it.
In my opinion anyone thinking this government are any different from the last one are fooling themselves. The rapid about face over the CP-TPP was the first indication it would be neo liberal “business as usual” and nothing I have seen since has changed that perception.
Now I see we have the RCEPc coming up which is just going to further entrench a cultire of big business first and everyone and everything else second.
The un and under employed will I predict grow in this country unless people stop lying to themselves and face facts that we desperately need new parties who can lead us out of 30 + years of misery into a fairer Socialist system that does not leave anyone behind.
PS: JC is wonderful jouno. One of the few in the mainstream I have any time and respect for.
Again Bomber, you let loose on Carmel Sepuloni. You seem to enjoy denouncing her. When I went off the beginnings of the DPB because I’d remarried, I got a nasty letter from WINZ predecessor. I complained about the letter when I went into the office and the superior woman behind the counter explained it was because she dealt with nasty types! My point is that these official nasty types enjoy pushing people around and must have always been told not to tell people their entitlements.(I only got on the DPB because the old guy on reception told me what I could get, not the social worker). These days I depend on the old age pension and am outside the orbit of the bureaucrats who deprive people of their entitlements. Ofcourse it needs a shakeup but how is attacking Carmel going to improve things?
Stop being an apologist for Sepuloni, Janio
If shes not solving the problem ( which she was elected to do) then shes part of it
You complain you were treated shabbily by WINZ then go on to justify the ministers behavious?? Fuck me, at least youre comfy sitting on your old age pension eh? No having to fill out any more forms or put up with reprehensible MSD staff eh?? Youre ok now
She’ll be right Jane, eh??
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/07/11/tv-review-carmel-sepulonis-terrible-tvnz-interview-shows-a-minister-more-focused-on-protecting-her-staff-than-beneficiaries/
Hi, I have copied this to the Government, but don’t imagine for one moment I think your rabid comments, unheard when nats were in govt, have my sympathetic ear. Left to the neo-world that rules globally, greed will ignore you. When you help Nats to get back into govt, I will certainly relegate you to loser blog.
Did anyone really imagine that Labour would be any different from National?
Really?
Who germinated this hideous mess and misery in the first place? Good ol’ Labour.
So when will we be putting the pressure on those who pretend to govern on behalf of all to improve the economy? To make transport around this long land of ours affordable? To end to landlord benefits? To provide practical training for the many people who are very smart in non-academic ways instead of being left out?
They don’t have a tune. They can’t la along. Typical politician gas.
Is there anywhere a political party with enough ability and will to walk the talk? The present lot can’t even put to sea – let alone ‘rock the boat’.
Bravo +1.
No Mosa she is no good she is struggling with cyfs /OT better to put Meka Whaitiri in there someone tough cause your dealing with people who can turn as soon as they have a new master. Also NZ first they have enough portfolios for the number of votes they got.
Spoken like a true coloniser im right
whiteys bailing us out with the money they made from stealing our land what about our taxes we pay taxes and we are entitled to the same or equal treatment as pakeha but we haven’t received it im right are you upset your party is in the doldrums tut tut get use to it they are gonna be there for a while until they find another spin master to lead them
whiteys bailing us out with the money they made from stealing our land what about our taxes we pay taxes and we are entitled to the same or equal treatment as pakeha but we haven’t received it im right are you upset your party is in the doldrums tut tut get use to it they are gonna be there for a while until they find another spin master to lead them
whiteys bailing us out with the money they made from stealing our land what about our taxes we pay taxes and we are entitled to the same or equal treatment as pakeha but we haven’t received it im right are you upset your party is in the doldrums tut tut get use to it they are gonna be there for a while until they find another spin master to lead them
whiteys bailing us out with the money they made from stealing our land what about our taxes we pay taxes and we are entitled to the same or equal treatment as pakeha but we haven’t received it im right are you upset your party is in the doldrums tut tut get use to it they are gonna be there for a while until they find another spin master to lead them
Michelle: “whiteys bailing us out with the money they made from stealing our land….”
Remember that nobody now alive had anything to do with the large scale land alienations of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It appears that you are trying to hold the current generation responsible for what happened in the past. That’s futile, you know,and a dangerous path to take.
“… we are entitled to the same or equal treatment as pakeha but we haven’t received it…”
Of course Maori are entitled to equal treatment; that’s the basis upon which services have been provided to Maori and to everyone else in this country. It’s nonsense to suggest otherwise.
However. Whether Maori have always availed themselves of the services being offered is quite another matter. Having been a service provider, I know about this. I vividly recall the frustration of not being able to get Maori to use services in the first instance, then to keep appointments.
It was never the case that Maori were excluded from services, or that access was unequal: in my particular neck of the woods, we bent over backward to make services accessible to everyone.
To be sure, outcomes are unequal; that would scarcely be surprising, given that many Maori don’t use services, or wait until it’s too late for providers to be able to do anything pointful to help them.
It’s really important that you’re honest with yourself about this. Many of the rest of us are well aware of the facts; we aren’t fooled by that woe-is-me disingenuousness, and it doesn’t help your cause.
Yes Mr coloniser (im right) i see you and judeath gollins haven’t listened to anything our people have said.
Yes Mr coloniser (im right) i see you and judeath gollins haven’t listened to anything our people have said.
Yes Mr coloniser (im right) i see you and judeath gollins haven’t listened to anything our people have said.
Yes Mr coloniser (im right) i see you and judeath gollins haven’t listened to anything our people have said.
Yes Mr coloniser (im right) i see you and judeath gollins haven’t listened to anything our people have said.
really Andrea i only noticed begging and homelessness moreso in the last 9 years when we were waiting for our brighter future i also noticed our state houses being knocked down and 500k- 800k one being built and i noticed a lot of foreign people have been allowed to come here when we don’t have the infrastructure but maybe you eyes were closed or maybe your one eyed
Beneficiary – trustee – executor. The office holders of a trust. The trustee is told what to do by the executor, the executor is told what to do by the beneficiary who owns the trust. All according to the deed of trust of course. So be the owner of your trust and let the trustee know you as the beneficiary have appointed yourself the executor. And enjoy the fruits of your commonwealth trust.
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