National's welfare reforms - hopeless

As a country, NZ rates very low on discipline. Talk is tough but actions rarely meet it. Our justice system is very soft when compared to the US, for instance. And sometimes I am glad of that. We have laws that don't get enforced eg the de facto decriminalisation of cannabis use. The US, on the other hand, locks up thousands for mild drug misdemeanours.

The US, however, applied the same discipline to welfare reform, notwithstanding some states are more rigorous in their rules and enforcement than others. At least by NZ standards they can be described as rigorous. When federal work participation requirements were stipulated, they were met. It is getting harder to meet them during the recession, and also because the numbers on welfare are so much lower. In terms of employability those remaining on welfare are the most difficult cases.

But what do we do in NZ?

Instead of simply applying a time limit to the DPB - with a prescribed low level of exemptions for certain cases - the government introduces a rule saying you must find, or at least look for, 15 hours of paid work per week when your youngest child turns six - one year after they have started school.

It's a 'soft' obligation. But the leftists loudly shriek 'hard'. In fact, it is the leftists who get the beneficiary populace worked up about actually having to do something in return for their benefit (like the rest of us have to do something in return for our incomes) so maybe there is an upside to the hysteria. Some people on the DPB start thinking that their ticket is up. Time to join the ranks of the employed.

Until it becomes apparent that the government didn't really mean it. Well, not you, not yet. On the day the new rules came into force the government announced:

Work testing will begin with 4,500 DPB recipients from today and Sickness Beneficiaries assessed as work ready, will be work tested from May next year.

The new (but soft) obligation is only being applied to 4,500 of the 43,000 plus who have children 6 or older(43,000 was the figure from February 2010 and will have risen in line with the rising total DPB population). So only around 1 in 10 of the eligible people are actually being work-tested.

Why is this? Nearly all individuals have the capacity to actively seek work on their own behalf. Perhaps the government thinks only Work and Income can fulfil that role. Yet as an employment agency they don't have the staff or openings to cope. Own goal.

Governments full well understand the value of 'sending a message'. Unfortunately, they have just sent another bad one. Again, we talk tough, but we don't mean it. We bring in stringent new rules but don't have the resources or the will to apply them.