Oh, this is funny. In January 2005 Paul Blair, Rotorua sole parent and beneficiaries advocate, forced a law change through an out-of-court settlement with the Ministry of Social Development.
He forced WINZ to allow sole parents who split (as opposed to shared) custody of their children to both effectively claim the DPB, and avoid work-testing. A far cry from what the DPB was intended for.
In the interim he applied for Families Commission research funding. It was granted and he went on to produce a report, 'Improving Work Life Balance for Domestic Purposes Beneficiaries Sole Parent Families'. Talk about adding insult to injury.
Anyway the report was signed off, peer-reviewed, ready for publication and PAID FOR when Mr Blair used an excerpt in a submission (no doubt opposing) the government's social security amendment bill.
David Benson Pope is understandably most unhappy and suddenly the report has been returned to the author as a 'final draft' for 'editing'.
This is worse for Benson-Pope than if I had applied for the Families Commission Blue Skies funding and used it to turn out the criticism I currently provide free of charge.
Lucky for the Minister I do not have Mr Blair's 'parasitic' tendencies.
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1 comment:
I'm curious, how does one go about balancing "work" and "life" whilst on a benefit? The very premise of the "research" itself seems fundamentally flawed.
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