I was just listening to political commentator Linda Clark on TV3 saying she thinks there is a gender split in the response to National's welfare policy. That even well-paid, well-educated women like her (and she included the interviewer) have trouble juggling children and work and affording quality childcare so (by inference) they empathise with the plight of poorer women. The males she has heard commenting On the policy seem on the other hand to think people will like it.
This is the slant the left are putting on the proposals. That they are misogynistic.
Shallow. Do they really believe that the way the DPB has undermined family and harmed children means more of it is needed? That when all is said and done the DPB has been good for women?
Apart from which, the women I speak to feel somewhat aggrieved that they work, get maligned for putting their kids in childcare and pay the taxes that fund others who get praised for staying home. One, reacting to the idea that a child added to a benefit should get one year of state assistance in line with parental leave said to me, nobody with a job gets a year of paid parental leave.
Also I hear plenty of female callers to talkback supporting a toughening up on welfare.
Clark went on to say she didn't even think Paula Bennett was comfortable with the policy watching her body language. I saw an interview with John Campbell and Bennett didn't look comfortable to be honest. She needs to spend more time enunciating what the problems are instead of defending the details of the policy. She needs to come out and attack the people who would preserve the status quo or extend welfare. Their's - and Linda Clark's - is that 'soft bigotry of low expectations.'
Grief doesn’t get better; it changes.
1 hour ago