So white people in NZ are the real bludgers?
There are many things to blame white people for.
This.
This.
And this.
But one thing they don’t tend to get blamed for is being welfare bludgers.
Hating beneficiaries and blaming them for being poor is one of the great cultural past times of NZ, it’s up there with alcohol abuse, domestic violence and rugby, but we tend to hate brown beneficiaries, never white ones.
These cartoons by Al Nisbet worked because the bludgers were being sold to us in stereotypes we were happy to indulge. The recent racist spewing of hate against Pacific Islanders on social media over the League carried a familiar theme of Pacific Islander’s being on the dole, but who exactly is taking the most welfare in NZ?
Well statistics NZ have answered that question for us…
…that’s right, white folk.
These stereotypes against Pacific and Māori are allowed to live because no one bothers to challenge them.
Poverty impacts everyone and state aid is a necessity, not an enabler. The sooner white NZ starts understanding that bludger stereotypes undermine us all, the sooner we can start making real progress towards combating poverty.
But wouldn’t people look at these statistics and think that as a proportionally, Maori are more likely to be on a benefit than non-Maori?
Yep, unfortunately Martyn kinda disproves the point he was trying to make with that graph given that 74% of NZers identify as “NZ European”, yet make up maybe 30% of the beneficiaries (just eye-balling the graph).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_New_Zealand
What’s called public programmes is infact welfare. About 90%. I don’t know the exact figure but about 90% of tax payer funds go into the TIGER (private capital) bank fees, construction companies and all of that. It’s welfare. If this was real capitalism and they had to sell there junk to us they would go bankrupt almost immediately.
Ok nubs?
I think of tax avoidance, sorry “tax minimisation’, as a form of welfare.
In fact Family Trusts probably cost the country coffers more than the DPB.
Of course, that’s not a fact, its just something I’m guessing at based on the Family Trusts I know about.
Now, most of these are organised for the benefit of Pakeha families, who tend to have more wealth, but Maori are hardly immune from this sort of carry on, so maybe it would be more helpful to have a conversation about the definition of ‘welfare’ and the fact that it is abused by certain classes more than any particular ethnicity.
That does not surprise me at all with the hollowing out of the middle classes a lot of these people dropped down to the lower classes. So yes I can see how it correlates.
Most wealthy 65 plus year olds who still work and or get profits from their companies also get the benefit. Most of them sign up for the benefit aswell as reaping the money from jobs and businesses. Now that is a true wrought. They don’t need that money yet run to WINZ offices as soon as they turn 65. I am taking about millionaires and multimillionaires. When does that stop…