More evidence of the spite that is MSD – where is the politics of kindness is this?

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The main reason Labour have not been able to be transformative is not just because NZ First have been a hand break to real progressive change, but because Labour didn’t think they had won the 2017 election and had no plan to reform the neoliberal welfare public service.

Because we had no plan to reform the neoliberal public service, the toxic cultures inside these Ministries that see the vulnerable and weak as a blight on the free market are the ones who still call the shots. The Wellington Bureaucratic Elite are the ones who actually run social welfare policy, not the Governments we the people elected.

That’s why our system is really a masquerade of democracy.

Look at the toxic cruelty that drives this kind of draconian culture…

80 percent of benefit sanctions against people with children in 2018 made against Māori

New figures released to RNZ show 437 sanctions were applied against people with children in 2018, with over 80 per cent of those sanctions applied against Māori.

The sanction reduces the income of a beneficiary with children by half if they don’t get the warrant cleared within 10 days of being told by the Ministry of Social Development, which is after the warrant has remained outstanding for 28 days.

“Cutting the income of whānau with children by 50 per cent for reasons unrelated to those children and tamariki is absolutely morally outrageous,” Auckland University of Technology associate professor of law Khylee Quince said.

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She said the figures also showed that Māori were being disproportionately penalised.

“The enforcement of benefit sanctions against people with outstanding warrants demonstrates a 10-fold difference between execution of those sanctions between Māori and non-Māori… that’s of huge concern.”

The sanctions were also “at odds” with the government’s ambitions to reduce child poverty.

“The execution of this policy directly impacts and causes child poverty in New Zealand,” Quince said.

The government’s welfare expert advisory group recommended the sanction be removed last year.

… because the de-unionised working classes have had pittance instead of real wage growth, they look at the welfare payment with envy and this envy is manipulated by the Right into voting resentment.

Labour are too frightened of triggering that resentment with a benefit increase and they don’t have enough control over the Ministry to try and force a change of culture.

The reason why the vulnerable are once again timidly coming forward and why benefit grants are going up is because they think Jacinda Ardern’s ‘politics of kindness’ actually means something.

The truth of course is that they shouldn’t believe in Jacinda’s ‘politics of kindness’ because the sanctions are still going up and the toxic culture of WINZ has no intention of changing so the poor are the ones left to suffer waiting outside WINZ offices at 2am in the morning.

National’s solution is more penalties and more sanctions so that it goes back to the way Welfare was run under them, by being so punitive and terrifying that the poor don’t dare enter WINZ in the first place.

It is a malicious nation built upon stolen land who would gleefully elect political parties whose appeal is to use desperation and hunger as a means of control over the poor.

We are that nation.

8 COMMENTS

  1. It seems both main parties are right wing parties now, the only one left is the greens.
    As a disabled person growing up here, there has never been any real help for vulnerable people, its every man for himself out there.
    Everything is too expensive, incomes are rubbish and the govt doesnt give a shit.

  2. The NZ Minister for Social Development is Carmel Sepuloni.
    Carmel Wiki Page

    Not only is Carmel not committed to raising benefits, or even advocating for such a raise, …as recently as late November she was actively defending not increasing them! Carmel Defends Not Boosting Benefits

    Even this time last month, as the extreme need for significant benefits increase became ever more difficult to hide, she still would not commit to that increase, saying rather that she “would not rule out” such an increase. Social Development Minister Not Ruling Out Increase

    CPAG and many others are trying to move ahead with this, while Carmel continues to delay and defer, at best. It is like trying to drive a vehicle forward with the brakes permanently locked. How does that work again?

    And from the RNZ “80% of Sanctions” link above, that same go-slow-if-you-move-at-all policy was evident:
    In November last year, Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni said all sanctions suggested by the welfare expert advisory group were being reviewed, including the warrant for arrest sanction.

    “Being reviewed”? That was three months ago! No changes in sight yet…

      • are you still such a fan

        More. Than. Ever!

        We’ve been through this before. Jacinda was asked to take on this role, to step into leadership of a party that was rolling downhill in all the polls, and was at odds with itself, ..within its own ranks. There had been four previous leaders within a short space of time. Factions had formed that spewed bitterness towards each other, within that party.

        And when she did take it on at such short notice, she inherited this lot. They were all her seniors. They all had more experience, and/or past baggage (and their various egos etc). Bringing it all together in some functioning, forward-moving, positive way, seemed impossible. …And then there were the complexities of trying to work together in a multi-party coalition.

        Yet she has done this!! She has achieved what seemed impossible, and has done so with grace, dignity, strength, courage, and total sincerity.

        Seriously, there are times when I am in awe of all that has been achieved in so little time.

        • This is part of the problem, Labour exploit the desperation of voters like you, and shafts people again and again.

  3. The entire welfare system and all the government agencies need to change but who will have the balls to do it.

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