Stanford admits Kiwis don't want to work

Immigration Minister, Erica Stanford, criticising ACT's proposed levy on immigrant workers, said it will fall to farmers to pay it. Farmers need immigrant workers because:

“There are certain regions in New Zealand where there is low unemployment or there are Kiwis who are simply not willing to do some of those jobs, be it in agriculture or aged care,” she said.

At December 2025, one of the lowest unemployment regions was Canterbury at 3.7 percent (all of NZ is 5.4%).

At the same time there were 41,676 working age (18-65 year-old) people in Canterbury dependent on a main benefit.

Some will be unable to work due to some form of incapacity. But there are, nevertheless, just under 10,000 Jobseeker beneficiaries described as work-ready.

There are just under 7,000 sole parents on a benefit. Being a sole parent doesn't prevent the parent from working. A great many do.

Farmers or residential care homes cannot be blamed for wanting people who actually do want to work.

But the government can be blamed for running a welfare system that encourages and perpetuates idleness. A lot of the people "who are simply not willing to do some of those jobs" have never worked; come from families (a term used loosely) who have only a passing acquaintance with the notion, as did the prior generation. The welfare system sustains this lifestyle by paying generously for children and making very few demands on sole parents (who very often are only of 'sole' status for the purposes of collecting a benefit). This is the norm in certain communities.

The political response? You get a minister protecting her own patch by blaming another's. Erica Stanford feels quite free to tell the press there are people who simply don't want to work. Can Louise Upston do the same? Dare the minister in charge of the welfare system tell us that there are Kiwis who won't do particular jobs so the taxpayer has to stump up for them and their kids? The kids who will go on to be the next generation of work dodgers.

This is evidence-based fact. Treasury can show you all the relevant data. And yet decade after decade governments have failed to successfully tackle the problem. They tinker at best.

Again, it's acknowledged that some people genuinely need support but it isn't in excess of 400,000. The true level probably lies at a third of that. That claim is based on the fact that after the working-age benefit system was introduced, when values were similar and the department of social welfare properly understood its role, there was only ever 2% of the 18-65 year-old population dependent.

Today that number sits at 12.7 percent. And it's poor policy - or policy for the 'poor' - that drove it there.

How MSD treats covid fraudsters is revealing

For the last four years, the Ministry of Social Development, the main agency for the Wage Subsidy Scheme, has relentlessly reported on people who committed fraud during the Covid period. For example:

You can go here to read names, court case details and outcomes dating back to 2022.

What's interesting is MSD does not report cases of beneficiary fraud. 

Yes, fraud is fraud, but it seems to me that people not on a benefit, who submitted false applications for wage subsidies during covid, get treated differently. They are all being made public examples of, while nothing is reported by the Ministry regarding beneficiary fraudsters.

So I was interested in the following recent court report from the NZ Herald:

"An unemployed mother-of-four involved in a widespread benefit scam will now pay back her ill-gotten gains by using her benefit." [Editor's note: a number of the convicted and sentenced covid frausters repaid their debt from their own money.] "The irony of the situation was not lost on Judge Tini Clark as she sentenced Kataraina Fay Matiu on a charge of obtaining nearly $25,000 from the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) by deception.

“It’s a bit of a money-go-round, as far as I’m concerned,” she noted dryly, after handing down a sentence of four months’ community detention and 18 months’ intensive supervision for that, and a separate assault on two court security guards."

This is a violent woman, an (ex?) methamphetamine user, with two children in state care and two with her mother, and she got 4 months community detention.

Most of the covid fraudsters received longer community sentences. Many will spend months, and even years, behind bars.

It's not as if there aren't any benefit fraud cases for MSD to report. According to the ODT in 2024, "Mr van Ooyen [MSD group general manager of client service support] said the number of cases had spiked this year due to more staff returning to work on benefit fraud since the end of the Covid-19 wage-subsidy scheme." 

But MSD doesn't report on them.

On the evidence, beneficiaries who commit fraud are treated less harshly by both the courts and MSD.

Perhaps because beneficiaries are 'clients' of MSD privacy constraints prevent their being named in the way the covid fraudsters are. But I also believe that MSD has, over time,  developed its own moral code - beneficiaries are victims of the capitalist system whereas covid fraudsters are part of it. 

Officially this is how MSD approaches benefit fraud:

"MSD’s overall approach is to intervene early when concerns are raised, to make it easy for clients to do the right thing and avoid unnecessary overpayments and debt while still responding appropriately to serious fraud."

Perhaps all fraud is equal, but some fraud is more equal than others.

Why should you care? Because the ministry's worldview is such that resistance to a reformist government - if one is ever elected - is almost certain.

MSD's key message is "We help New Zealanders to be safe, strong and independent."

Yet most working-age New Zealanders reliant on a benefit are anything but. 

MSD has somehow convinced itself that handing out benefits is virtuous, enabling and liberating.  Publicly acknowledging recipients ripping them off isn't comfortable or conducive to their kaupapa.

On the face of it, MSD has no empathy for covid fraudsters but no end of empathy for beneficiary fraudsters.

So much for a neutral public service.

Luxon isn't talking to me

Speaking after his cabinet meeting yesterday, affirming his continuing leadership of the National Party, Prime Minister Chris Luxon said:

"Everyday Kiwis will not be losing sleep over political sideshows in Wellington – they’ll be thinking about their mortgage, their kids’ education and the safety and security of their community."

It suddenly hit me.

He's not talking to me.

A good portion of New Zealanders have either paid off their mortgages or are renting. A great deal more than have active mortgages.

Most voters don't have children at school or uni.

And most people feel safe and secure in their community.

It suddenly hit me that Luxon talks to this small middle ground of young aspirant families who angst over their children.

He doesn't talk to an older generation who hold grave fears for the constitutional future of their country. Who have no trust that the health system will be reliable as they encounter conditions that may be life-threatening.

He certainly isn't talking to beneficiaries who largely rent and have no prospect of saving enough to obtain a mortgage.

He isn't talking to students who face leaving NZ to 1/ get a job and 2/ get a job that pays well enough to make a dent in their loans.

I realise the above statement is just a grab from a presser. But having said that, I've felt this generic sense of irrelevancy before and couldn't quite put my finger on why. Like he talks to the upwardly mobile who go to sports games and cafes and work out in their vast garages.

And it's not just him. Hipkins is the same. They talk to this particular group. Is it their group? Their friends and colleagues?

Or is that the group that contains the swinging voters?

I don't know. But I do know NZ is much, much more.

With his leadership confirmed - and frankly, I'm pleased the status quo and some skerrick of stability survived - he needs to start sounding like he knows that too.

Immigrants pull their weight

Just-released March 2026 ethnic data shows Maori form the largest group of dependent unemployed people.

At the end of March 2026 48,261 Maori were receiving a Job Seeker-Work Ready benefit (Job Seeker-Health Condition/Disability is a separate category for those considered temporarily unemployed  due to illness.) NZ Europeans followed at 43,626. Pacific people occupy third place at 19,005. Asians trail back at 6,840 with Middle Eastern/ Latin American/ African  people numbering 2,178.

There is a prevalent school of thought that believes immigrants are heavily welfare-dependent. Apart from Pacific people, that's wrong.

Most immigrants have relatively high employment levels. 

Yes, refugees tend to require welfare initially and sometimes longer. But New Zealand's refugee quota is fairly small at 1,500 annually. 

When it comes to those who could be working, Maori are massively over-represented.

Whilst colonisation continues to be blamed for Maori 'disadvantage', every year thousands of immigrants come to New Zealand and make a contribution. Often the cards are stacked against them but they don't have any useful excuses for failing.

Immigrants pull their weight. And I am thankful for them.

'Brown Optimism'

I visited the new Wellington Library today unprepared for the towering inscription, rising through almost three stories, which has been installed on the west face.

This is the text of the poem depicted:

Brown Optimism

With dust of labour on a summer’s day

They slouched with careless stride of people come

From nowhere, going nowhere, smiling, tired,

And cursing with a laugh the pakeha

Veneer. For them life is a childish farce

To paint in white the brown which stains their lives.

Their ancient world is gone, and in the pa

The death of past traditions of a once

Proud race is mourned by age with mumbling gums

In soft tones of despised melodious tongue.

You seek your future in the white man’s joy;

You sing your songs to ape his foolish tune;

You change your rhythm to the jazz band’s beat;

And slave and sweat for coin so easily spent;

You play a losing game with loaded dice

And know no rules to help you win a chance;

While pakeha stands quietly waiting with

A smile, to move you at his will across

The draughtboard of his policy and faith.

A child went past; neglected, poorly clothed

In imitation of the white man’s dress.

Hard feet on hard road running in the heat

To spend the white man’s money in the white

Man’s store. And what is there for you, oh child

Of Maori pride? Will you be swallowed in

The rising tide, and mingle blood till all

Your heritage is gone?

This shall not be.

For brown must learn from white, the rules to make

Him equal partner in the game they play;

And white must cease to trample underfoot

These dark leaves of the Polynesian tree.

When this is done, and each the other’s worth

Has found, from union will spring a new

Race keen, with courage strong to face the world

And find at last its place and aim in life.

J.C. Sturm 1947

Born Te Kare Papuni 17 May, 1927

Taranaki & Te Whakatohea iwi

Returning home, I looked up the poem, read it through multiple times and learned about the author - "one of New Zealand’s first Māori woman graduates" - who was raised in a European family then later reunited with her paternal Maori relatives.

What is your reaction?

For me it insults Maori and Pakeha alike. When it was written, Maori and European had long worked, lived, prayed and played together. But it was written by a young person, kicking against perceived injustice and naively believing in happily-ever-after endings.

I don't think I am ever going to behold this 'monument' with any sense of sympathy or warmth. The history of European and Maori melding is far more nuanced and reciprocal than a casual reader of this poem would appreciate.

Hipkins under-performing and underwhelming

Opposition leader Chris Hipkins does a regular slot with host Nick Mills on the Wellington NewstalkZB morning show.

On Wednesday, much of the half hour was consumed by the host trying to extract from Hipkins what Labour would be doing about the fuel 'crisis' if in government. This was fastidiously avoided with various excuses, one being that, as opposition, they weren't privy to the kind of information the government has. Yet later in the show, when pressed on how long he thought the Iran conflict would go on, Hipkins said, "The official advice we got yesterday, when we met with the government and thankfully they did give us the opportunity to get a bit of a briefing, was even if the conflict ended quickly there will be months of disruption to fuel supplies so as a result, we are going to experience higher fuel prices for longer." So that excuse didn't wash. Luxon's crystal ball is no clearer than Hipkin's.

When the host continued to push Hipkins, narrowing the question down to: "Would Labour have done more?" Hipkins replied, "Certainly". But he still couldn't say what - just insisted repeatedly that he will not make promises that he can't keep. The situation is changing too rapidly. He'll reveal more as we get nearer to the election. The flannel went on and on like a cracked record.

Apparently the cost of fuel isn't the only thing stopping kids from getting to school. "The governments made an absolute dog's breakfast of rural school buses. The school lunches programme we put in place was working, going well. Now it's not. Kids don't like it." Seriously? If the children don't like the 'free' food perhaps their parents should spend some of the average $130 weekly they receive for each child on something better. Using an aversion to the free lunches as an excuse for non-attendance is pathetic.

But that's not all the government has failed at; the economy hasn't grown, the cost of living has worsened and unemployment is up. Unsurprisingly, no acknowledgement of Labour's contribution to current circumstances.

So how would Hipkins grow the economy? Build more state houses, he said, and get on with billions of dollars worth of infrastructure projects. It's all about Jobs, Homes ... and Health. Free doctor visits funded by the targeted Capital Gains Tax (despite GP availability being a bigger problem than cost for many New Zealanders) and the NZ Future Fund to make better use of government assets (which just allows Labour to use SOE profits for their priorities).

Despite Nick Mills telling Hipkins at the outset that he (like many in the audience) was trying to make a voting decision this year, Hipkins offered nothing new or remotely interesting. Perhaps that's why he decided to go into attack mode, which resulted in some quite extraordinary claims. When the host suggested a Labour coalition formed with the Greens and the Maori Party might not be very stable, Hipkins replied:

"Not much could be less stable than this government! If you look at the coalition of chaos that we've been enduring for the last two and a half years, where you have a Deputy Prime Minister, a former Deputy Prime Minister and a Prime Minister who all regularly contradict each other and seem to be fighting their battles with each other in public, it's been one of the most unstable governments NZ has ever seen."

For mine, a lot of criticisms can be leveled at the coalition but instability isn't one of them.

Then, warming to the task, on the matter of Brooke van Velden resigning at the next election and how does that affect ACT?

"Well, beyond David Seymour, there isn't really an ACT Party. It's basically a whole bunch of people who do whatever David Seymour tells them to do. I mean, it's almost a cult."

That's just childish and churlish. But that's the calibre of the man who wants to resume the Prime Ministership come November.

Heaven help us if he does.

Full interview here

Understanding the $50 boost for working families

I am not a supporter of government hand-outs. That's because I am not a supporter of the government taking people's money by force and deciding who to redistribute it to. That ability confers enormous power on the state.  Taxing to redistribute only ever spirals upward. Wherever possible, earnings should be left largely with the earner - not expensively churned by dead weight bureaucracy.

However, this latest 'rescue' package raising the In Work Tax Credit (IWTC) by $50 a week makes sense.

It was Helen Clark's Labour government that introduced the IWTC as part of Working For Families. Its major objective was to get single parents - male and female - into work. Clark and Cullen, the last of Labour's relatively sensible leaders, stated that the best way out of poverty was work.

At that time, the very really objection to coming off a benefit for a job was that work didn't pay any better. So the boost from the new IWTC aimed to turn that claim on its head.

Subsequently the employment rate for single mothers has improved significantly (although is still low by OECD standards.).

But the gap between income from a benefit and income from work closed again under Jacinda Ardern's war on child poverty. The margin is now pretty tight.

For those parents in work, but on low wages or salaries, if the cost of working (eg filling the car) gets too high, they will be at risk of returning to a benefit. I believe that is the major concern driving this highly targeted policy.

So I get it.

But it also proves the point that state wealth redistribution only ever leads to more state wealth redistribution. Where does it end?

NZ, like all expansive welfare states, is now stuck in a 'Damned if you do and damned if you don't' bind.

Latest benefit numbers - beware the spin

Await some spin regarding falling beneficiary numbers. 

But be skeptical.

After two months of data problems, MSD has managed to produce monthly statistics for February 2026.

The total percentage of working-age people on a benefit has dropped  from 13.1% in December 2025 to 12.8 percent in February 2026.

However, benefit numbers are consistently subject to seasonal changes. For example, students pile onto the Jobseeker Support Student Hardship over summer.

What really matters is the year-on-year comparison.

In February 2025 the percentage of working-age people on a benefit was 12.4 percent. Now it's 12.8 percent. Up.

And if you hear about higher cancellations of benefits, that's largely due to people cancelling their Jobseeker Support Student Hardship.

And by the way, those cancellations mainly constitute a transfer back to Student Allowance. Another 'benefit' but one that comes out of the Ministry of Education's budget.

In the chart below, what matters is the final right-hand column. All the big number benefits are up.

National need to see blue, not red figures.

For all their well-intentioned work-activation policies, the bulk of people forming the statistics below will stay put without some radical re-think.

(Right click on image to enlarge.)

NB: Because data was lost for December and January, the "monthly" change  actually covers three months.