Another half-arsed policy

Here's a quote from a column in the NZ Herald by Paula Oliver;

Key refers to some core principles of the party that won't change - tax cuts, smaller government, a tougher stance on law and order, mutual obligation on welfare, and a fundamentally greater trust of the private sector to play a role.

I only want to focus on one aspect - mutual obligation on welfare.

The problem with mutual obligation is it cements in welfare. It legitimises benefit use far beyond what Michael Joseph Savage ever intended. Welfare dependence was supposed to be a temporary condition - not a way of life.

By mutual obligation National means, for instance, making single parents on the DPB get their children to school with breakfast on board. Do that and it is quite OK to have children and expect the taxpayer to support them.

This of course does nothing to reverse the effect that the DPB has had on self-sufficient, two parent families.

Work-for-the-dole is another mutual obligation policy with pitfalls, being expensive to run and competing with the private sector.

Mutual obligation means looking for a job or training for one. How come one individual has to pay for their tertiary education while another gets it courtesy of the taxpayer?

No. Mutual obligation is just an attempt to damage control the current failed system. It does nothing to address the core problem of intergenerational dependency and the inherent injustice of one significant sector of society making lifestyle choices at the expense of another. It is also firmly at odds with National's "smaller government" principle.