Saturday, December 10, 2011

Bennett losing Waitakere - wear it as a badge of honour Paula

Sue Bradford stood for Mana in Waitakere to play up welfare hysteria. Carmel Sepuloni was the feasible Labour candidate able to represent the anxieties Bradford stirred. Labour also did some shitty things to stir up fear and paranoia among beneficiaries. In the face of these two influences it is hardly surprising that a welfare-reforming Minister half serious about the job would lose electorate votes.

Sepuloni and Bennett were both single mothers on a benefit when they were younger.

Sepuloni fights in the left corner that tends to idealise DPB rcipients, their needs and motivations. She wants higher benefit payments, greater state assistance for training and education while on the DPB, and no work-testing. Hers is the social development vision that sees single parents as an inevitable part of the social fabric in need of state help to lead succesful lives.

Bennett fights in the right corner that has cognisance of all groups on the DPB but focuses on the young, vulnerable and lifestyle recipients. Bennett wants welfare to be the safety net it once was rather than the career (too respectable a word) choice it has become. She has no blinkers on and has managed to stay staunch (unlike Katherine Rich), while retaining her humanity.

Surely she will retain the portfolio. She deserves to.

4 comments:

Manolo said...

How on earth the inarticulate and hardly worth listening to Sepuloni got elected? You can only wonder about the IQ of the people in her electorate.

Bludgers of the world, unite!

pdm said...

In the case of Sepuloni idealise equals idolise.

Anonymous said...

Sepuloni lives in Henderson Heights - the gentrified National supporting area - not exactly getting down with the cock relations in Ranui & Universal Drive/lower Massey.

Paulus said...

Bennett has retained her role. She has done a first class job in it and look forward to her continuance.