The 50,000 reduction won’t just apply to the work-ready though. It’ll target those on the health or disability jobseekers benefit.
This isn’t social policy, it’s right-wing revenge fantasies.
Because the rump Right have become a social media vortex of malice and spite, they need to keep throwing raw meat policy to their baying mob.
Targeting 50 000 beneficiaries with disabilities so National can afford their $2.9billion tax subsidy for the richest Landlords while borrowing $15billion for tax cuts is an obscenity!
The disabled deserve our compassion and our kindness and our chary and our generosity.
There but for the grace of God go I!
I find it hard enough to get around the world as an able bodied person, living with a disability makes these people super heroes as far as I am concerned.
To threaten them with sanctions and penalties for not being well enough to get a job flipping burgers isn’t social policy, it’s State imposed misery!
And the reason why we are harassing disabled beneficiaries? So National can give their rich real estate pimp donors $2.9billion!
We elected this Government of Malice because everyone was grumpy with Jacinda for having the temerity to save 20 000 lives from Covid.
This is what we is now, this is what we have become.
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Health NZ has been issued a directive from this government to save money by instructing no new positions to be advertised and to not replace existing roles upon staff leaving.
This after Reti promised to invest in our frontline…
https://www.national.org.nz/waikato_hospital_issues_prove_there_is_a_crisis
This is exactly the same mantra the last time we had a National government.
NZ’s health system is under significant strain given the under investment and ever increasing population.
Expect health to collapse in NZ and many to head for Australia( again).
It is profoundly negative that in a sparsely occupied long narrow country (apart from the Tauranga, Hamilton, Auckland triangle) of barely 5 mill population that this type of crap can go down in 2024.
The dark kiwis have long made up around 40% of the population, sitting on stolen or dubiously acquired land in the provinces, running dodgy bourgeois SMEs, or self employed tradie munters. Social media has added to the breakdown of collectivism bought in by neo liberalism. Academics long predicted the “atomisation of the working class” and so it has turned out with numbers down certain rabbit holes.
Bennie bashing is cowardly enough, but those promoting attacking those with various illnesses and health conditions should be first up against the wall…face it–austerity is war on the poor and it is fight back time.
People are going to need practical assistance and organisation more than ever during the time this CoC lot are in office. Will Winston pull the pin when he has to hand over the Deputy PM possie to Atlas Dave?
In the meantime…
• Revive Peoples Centres
• Beneficiary Advocacy
• Pātaka Kai open pantry movement
https://www.patakai.co.nz
• Join your union if in work
• Get politically active
That old reactionary Heinlein in “Starship Troopers”, where you only got citizenship if you’d served in the armed forces, decided that disabled people ethically had to be found a job. Even if you are blind you might be put to work counting the hairs on the backs of caterpillars with your extra sensitive fingers or something. I’m pretty sure many disabled people are quite capable of working and would like a job – but some can’t, and I doubt that the Minister gives a shit about distinguishing between the two. Conservative government is about punishing people you think are beneath you. Whether it’s women in the case of abortion, minorities, or just the lower classes. The Elizabethans lived in fear of the lower classes, and you only have to look at the comments on MSN to realise that Conservatives here often do as well.
We are living in a Robin Hood movie. King Christopher “LackCash” is the feeble monarch with the Sheriff of Peters wielding the real power, while David Gisborne gathers the poor and disabled’s food. Unfortunately, Robin Hipkins is still deciding whether he should take from the rich and give to the poor, as he promised not too, the last time his Merry Men fought. We are currently relying on Maid Chloe, her retinue (dressed appropriately in Green), and Castle Te Parti Māori to challenge the King and his cronies, until Robin joins them. Where is Sean Connery, when you need him?
So the man that claims he want less government wants more government oversight and punitive action of parents.. Too bad if you have a chronically ill child.
Your problem with people being asked to find something they can do in return for being paid ?
Oh, believe me, disability rights organisations have our grave suspicions about the current Coalition of Cuts. If you think this is bad, look what happened in the United Kingdom under Cameron’s Minister of Works and Pensions Iain Duncan-Smith. Under his rule, Incapacity Benefit (their equivalent to our Invalid’s Benefit) was brutally slashed and disabled people found themselves in rent arrears, homeless, deprived of transport access and without domestic support, as well as unable to travel to work where possible. Eligibility was farmed out to human resource corporations like Serco and Atos, and often subject to repeated wearing appeal procedures. Disabled suicide, homelessness, hate crimes and self-harm dramatically increased.
You think the Nats and ACT wouldn’t go that far if they thought they could get away with it and no-one was watching? Iain Duncan-Smith discussed this here, at a Maxim Institute junket, back in 2011.
If a disabled person could do it they would already be doing it, Anne. What a stupid comment.
Back in the good old days 😉 before Roger Douglas and Richard I’ve Been Thinking Prebble had power to crack down on feather bedding, bosses in Government businesses and even private businesses would help their community by making work for people who were a bit disabled or a bit skitzo. So rather than have those people on a benefit they were on a stable low wage and grateful for a job. May be a bit of sweeping or light lifting. They got a fair go. They were dignified members of the community not useless unemployed outcasts. Muldoon who was to the left of the current Labour party ensured people were paid to do something rather than paid to do nothing except get depressed.
The sick and disabled should not be written off. They still want to be as useful as they can be baring in mind their condition. Social security staff should get a bonus for everyone they can place in a useful job within their capacity
Everything you see Chris Bishop you think guffaw, guffaw, guffaw!!
More punching down on the most vulnerable in society. What a bunch of losers this government is showing itself to be.
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