And then National came for the disabled teenagers
After announcing a virtue signal for their reactionary redneck voter base to bash the dirty filthy teenage bennies, National now come for the disabled teenagers…
Hundreds of teens with a health condition, disability may be cut from Jobseeker benefit
Hundreds of teenagers with a health condition or disability could be cut off from the Jobseeker benefit as part of the government’s welfare changes, official data shows.
The government is ending Jobseeker payments to 18- and 19-year-olds whose parents earn more than $65,000, saying it will encourage them to find work.
It estimated about 4300 young people would become ineligible for support.
The policy will also apply to young beneficiaries with a health condition or disability who have had to stop work for a period of time or reduce their hours.
In response to questions from RNZ, the Ministry of Social Development confirmed that 2685 18- and 19-year-olds were receiving that Jobseeker Support Health Condition Disability benefit as of the end of June 2025.
It’s not clear how many of those individuals have parents earning less than $65,000 a year and so would remain eligible.
In Parliament on Wednesday, Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick asked the prime minister if he was aware that his cuts would impact teenagers “who may be disabled, sick or experiencing severe mental ill health”.
Christopher Luxon replied: “When you go on a Jobseeker benefit, you’re deemed able and capable of working.”
Swarbrick retorted: “You don’t understand the question.”
Prime Minister Chris Luxon decided to do what the National Party have always done when polls are dropping, and that is to bash the dirty filthy bennies by forcing 18 and 19 year olds off welfare and calling that ‘tough love’.
When asked where these teenagers were supposed to get jobs, the PM claimed that businesses were calling out for young workers.
When contacted by media about those claims, Business said, ‘no we are not, we are barely staying afloat as it is”.
Bashing the dirty filthy bennie is always a vote winner when the economy fails and Chris Luxon is so weak he needs to bash teenagers on benefits to look tough.
Telling unemployed teenagers that “The world doesn’t owe you a living” is all fine and dandy, but he’s also the Prime Minister who has destroyed 6000 jobs in retail and hospo while destroying 20 000 in construction. The world doesn’t owe anyone a living but equally where are they supposed to get a job when he’s so busy destroying them?
This isn’t ‘tough love’, it’s ‘Manufactured righteousness
How does removing the jobless benefit from 4,300 unemployed 18-19 year olds and making them stay or return home to be supported by parents on less than $65,529 per annum going to help any single one of them find a job?
There are 216 000 people on jobseeker benefits and only 10 442 jobs open around the country. With 15 000 18 to 19 year olds on job seeker – where on earth are they supposed to get jobs while competing against older job seekers?
Unemployment is 6.2% in Auckland – Ikea received more than 25,000 applicants for 500 positions at its new Auckland mega-store. Doesn’t that level of desperation make the Prime Ministers comments look cruel and out of touch?
The Prime Minister said “If you want a job, you go where the jobs are I encourage anyone to do what it takes to get a job.” – they are doing that and 210 are fleeing to Australia every day – how is that a positive outcome?
Bashing these teenage beneficiaries and cutting them off welfare will only save $39million per year. This isn’t a real social policy is it, this is a revenge fantasy masquerading as a social policy
Luxon’s advice to the 15,045 teenagers on the jobseeker benefit was, “The world doesn’t owe you a living”, ok – but surely he’s responsible for crashing the economy and tanking the jobs they can’t find – why are the teenagers responsible but he isn’t?
This isn’t a real response to the economic crash his policies have created, this a just a virtue signal to his redneck reactionary base who hate beneficiaries and want to give them the bash.
REMEMBER – this Government have already passed draconian welfare sanctions against beneficiaries to make their lives as difficult as possible and now they are bashing disabled teenagers.
Who have we become as a people? Why are we so full of malice and spite against the poorest while the rich laugh?
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I suggest the teenagers effected go to see their GP if they have one and get a medical to say they are not fit to work fulltime some may not be fit to work at the moment it depends as each case is different. I think they are on the wrong benefit there is another benefit I can’t remember its name; I know cause one of my whanau is receiving it, but they (National) have changed the eligibility.
ACC at also shitting on people trying to give them retrospective rehab many years after the fact as if that will wipe away all the damage, bunch of fuck wits.
The Natzos do have a hardcore of dark kiwi supporters-you will know them, or maybe even be one going by some of the oafish nasty comments here.
They wanted the right to beat their kids in the face of Sue Bradford’s Bill. They were happy for school lunches to be downgraded-“parents job, apple and Marmite sandwich”, and for punitive sanctions on benefit recipients. Putting the slipper into young adults caught in an economic collapse not of their making is right up their smug alley. 18 and 19 year olds will hopefully remember Baldrick’s opinion of them at voting time!
Classic National:
“We’re wasting too much money on red tape and bureaucracy! Sack a load of people!”
Some time later…
“We need to plug more holes in our incompetent Finance Minister’s nonsensical budget! Sack even more people!”
Fast forward a few months…
“We’re still bleeding money and Nicky No-Boats’ financial clusterfuck is making us look like clowns! Put the boot into anyone on welfare, especially young people! And speaking of boots, let’s do more of those boot camps we know don’t work… you know, just to make the stats look a bit better, if only temporarily.”
A few months more…
“God’s bollocks! We’ve shafted women, fucked the construction industry, completely munted the health system, people are fleeing like rats deserting a sinking ship, and the economy still looks like Satan’s arsehole. What to do, what to do… I know, let’s start calling everyone lazy and useless, and threaten to punish them even more for a problem we’ve 100% caused! (And let’s punish their struggling parents too, because fuck those peasants!)”
New Zealand, if you vote for these hopeless, vindictive, morally bankrupt political skidmarks, you’ve lost your fucking minds. (Or you’re one of them, which is probably worse.)
If they were serious about helping beneficiaries and helping businesses get through the recession before the recession turns into a depression they would be paying businesses to employ young people.
I don’t want to hear from anyone calling this policy ‘fascist’.
You look at fascist or communist governments that faced issues where there were a lot of underemployed young men… whatever else you could say about them, they didn’t let that resource go to waste. Whether it was the Reich Labour Service in Germany, or the Red Army regiments transferred to forestry or mining, places were found, infrastructure was built. Young men were built up as well. You can still drive on those autobahns today, and those nations would not be what they were without the labour that those men did. By comparison, the neoliberal traitors from the Starmer regime in the UK to the Luxon regime in NZ are doubling down on destroying infrastructure, and doubling down on destroying all hope for our young people as well.
Many cultures have a saying similar to one I know well- Whoever strives, finds; and whoever sows, reaps. I wish those who are sowing misery for our most vulnerable to reap what they sow as soon as humanely possible- it would be a pity if they had to wait for Jahannam to meet the justice they deserves.
Very lyrical.
You must by now all be able to see this whole CoC-up is a joke but no-one is laughing as it’s a sick joke. They are so far out of their depth, and in so much financial and social strife, that they can’t see the wood for the trees! ‘Lying Luxon’ and ‘Incompetent Willis’ have to be rolled – the sooner the better. I still say the GG has to step in, appoint a Caretaker Govt and get rid of this despicable RABBLE. They will never stop targeting the needy or the disabled and they are the MOST RACIST government NZ has had the misfortunte to have since the George Grey days. Shame on their greed and spite!
Luxon stated: “When you go on a Jobseeker benefit, you’re deemed able and capable of working.”
When actually his govt is still reclassifying some of the mentally ill off sickness benefit onto jobseeker benefit with “worktest exemption”.
If things are that tight, why not reverse the $2.9 bil tax break for property investors, instead of saving just $39 mil by cutting 18-19 year olds off welfare. 18-19 year olds could probably do with a lot more help than people who already own an investment home.
Instead of Luxon complaining whinging and whining, can he come up with some answers please?
If picking kumara is the go, then Luxon should lead from the front, and spend a day working on a kumara farm, to show young people how it’s done, and how much he can earn on horticultural picking rates.
He may be rich and sorted but one day of physical work won’t hurt him, and it will give him a first hand understanding of those working in our primary industries. Walk the walk as well as talk the talk.