Taxpayer's Union defends benefit sanctions

The push is on to make getting a benefit and staying on it much easier. That's Labour's idea of 'compassion'. Sir Apirana Ngata would have termed it 'cruelty'.

The Taxpayer's Union released a new report by Jim Rose on Monday this week.

The author takes a straightforward yet quirky and highly readable approach to the subject.

Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director Jordan Williams says, “Beneficiary advocates have good intentions, but their prescriptions – removing requirements to seek work and removing sanctions – are a social and moral failure. The Green Party’s policy to make life on a benefit will simply encourage a culture of welfare dependency and fraud.”
“Rates of welfare fraud are many times higher than most New Zealanders would expect or find acceptable under the current system. The report canvasses the evidence that easing up on sanctions and obligations for beneficiaries would dramatically increase fraud and dependency. That means driving up the cost of the welfare system for taxpayers and leaving less room in the Budget for other forms of social spending.”

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