It disappoints me that everything we are seeing and hearing in the media is coming from the knockers. The Greens, left-wing activists, church groups, academics. The group members, bar one exception, appear to silent, by choice or by some agreed tactic. There is so much one could say in response to this latest column, not least that is ignores wholly the moral imperative for welfare and the role of the family in society but confined to 200 words I thought best to reiterate the big picture:
Dear Editor
Donna Wynd and Susan St John co-wrote a column (Dominion Post, March 30) criticising the final Welfare Working Group report. Almost entirely it comprised analysis of how a sole parent might be affected by "punitive" recommendations. No attention was given to what has happened and will continue to happen under the status quo.
The Group was tasked with examining long-term welfare dependence and found, "Around 60,000 had spent at least ten years on a benefit, and 100,000 had spent at least nine of the last ten years on a benefit," and, " In 1960, only 2 percent (1 in 50) of the working-age population were receiving benefits. By April 2008, after a decade of strong employment growth, around 10 percent of the working-age population (around 278,000 people) were receiving a benefit." Currently, the figure sits at 13 percent.
Clearly reforms are needed to reverse the trend. Accordingly the Group made many recommendations including part-time work-testing single parents whose youngest child is three, in line with some other OECD countries. Being on a benefit long-term is documented as detrimental to children and must be discouraged. There may be some short-term difficulties adjusting to a tightening of welfare but the long-term gain, particularly for children, outweighs this.
3 comments:
Lindsay, I don't want to mess up your blog by becoming incendiary, but I do want to make a comment about one of the peripheral issues in this debate. That is the role of Church groups. Our Lord exhorted the Church to look after the poor and needy, the homeless and the beggars (nothing in the Bible as far as I can tell about taking care of those who want to sit back and have an easy life on Other People's Money). By siding with communists and other rabble-rousers on the Alternative WWG, and by taking the positions and making the comments they do, it seems the Churches have lost sight of this exhortation, and are trying to 'outsource' their responsibility to the state.
Agree with you absolutely. Most churches are corroborating with the govt in the corruption of a major principle of charitable giving - expectant giving. That is, help is given under the expectation that the helped do their best to help themselves.
My point precisely Lindsay. They've either confused, or deliberately obfuscated, the difference between charitable giving and coersion.
I wonder why more hasn't been made of it? Is it perhaps nobody (other than those who write for the Herald) cares a damn about what the Alternative WWG thinks, says or does?
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