Same-old, same-old

The Social Investment Agency is a creation of the National government. It kicked off in July 2024 and is headed by the former police commissioner Andrew Coster.

According to Nicola Willis, “Despite the Government currently investing more than $70 billion every year into social services, we are not seeing the outcomes we want for all New Zealanders... So we’re taking a different approach. We want to look beyond good intentions in our policy-making and use hard evidence to invest in what works. Our new approach builds on better social science evidence and advances in technology."

That sounds promising. A break with the old.

Except the SIA's first Annual Report is as cloyingly correct as the usual run-of-the-mill regurgitation issued by public agencies. 

Example 1:

"We are committed to creating a high-performing workplace where everyone feels valued, respected, and can bring their whole selves to work."

This is silly, but fashionable, psychobabble. Clearly the approach isn't working anyway. Because in an environment also , "... committed to building an inclusive, equitable workplace and a workforce that reflects the growing diversity of Aotearoa New Zealand" 70 percent of the staff are women and 80 percent are European.

That's not very diverse or inclusive. Others didn't even want to bring a bit of themselves, let alone their whole selves.

Example 2:

"Te Aho Kura is our bespoke Māori Cultural Capability Plan ...Te Aho Kura primarily focuses on building employee knowledge and capability in te reo Māori, New Zealand History/Treaty of Waitangi, Tikanga/Kawa, Engagement with Māori, and how we apply these to our work."

On one hand the aim is  "everyone feels valued, respected". On the other, the agency "focuses on building employee knowledge and capability in te reo Māori." Now call me picky but I sense some mixed messaging going on here. Bring your whole self by all means, just make sure it conforms to our values, which are by the way:

Example 3:

No translation available.

Example 4:

"We support our people to have a meaningful work/life balance, to proactively look after their physical and mental wellbeing ... As well as health and safety representatives, SIA has an active health and safety committee that meets every six weeks to consider a range of health, safety and wellbeing issues that matter to our people."

Our people? The concern of the Social Investment Agency should surely be 'other' people. The vulnerable they are tasked with helping.

There's the inevitable screeds about commitment to Treaty Settlements and identifying/reducing emissions (which they could have put a sizeable dent in by purging this report of claptrap.)

Yes, I know it is early days. The agency is in its infancy. But if you thought the public service was going to look or behave any differently under a National government, you will be disappointed.

Indications are that the propagandist public service is just marking time till a left wing administration is restored.

What an effective welfare system might look like

For three decades following the 1938 introduction of most social security benefits (including Invalid, Sickness and Unemployment), dependence never exceeded more than 2 percent of the working-age population. Today the percentage is 12.7 and the average future time expected to stay on a benefit (which does not include time already spent) is 13.6 years. For those who start on a Young Parent Payment or Youth Payment the figure rises to a staggering 24 years and for Sole Parents, 18 years.*

This growth in recipients and duration of stay, plus the now well-established inter-generational dependence, indicate a strong element of choice operating. Benefit incomes for sole and two parent families with children, compete with the median annual wage. The welfare system has evolved from providing a safety net for those genuinely unable to provide for themselves, to offering an alternative lifestyle to paid employment.

Readers frequently ask me to propose a solution to the welfare problems I write about. Primarily, I write to expose the damage done by allowing long-term dependency to fester. I don't have a personal beef with beneficiaries, but I do with a demotivating system that hurts them and especially their children. And those advocating for ever more welfare really draw my ire.

But do I have any answers? With the proviso of political viability ...

In 2016 I presented to an ACT conference outlining what an effective welfare system might look like:

1/ Two benefits only 

Jobseeker with time limits (for example 36 months over a lifetime)

Supported Living Payment (formerly known as Invalid benefit) without time limits

2/ Two forms of assistance only 

Cash

Income Management (IM) 

Cash is self-explanatory and what most beneficiaries currently receive. 

The IM technology (which MSD calls 'Money management') is already being used but sparingly. Rent and utilities are paid direct. Food and other necessities are purchased via an electronic card. What IM doesn’t provide are the choices and freedoms that come with a cash benefit or income from work. It doesn’t incentivise work avoidance, irresponsible child-bearing or benefit fraud.  IM ensures beneficiary and children have a roof over their heads, power and adequate food. 

3/ IM should apply to those who

- have exceeded time limits on Jobseeker benefit

- add children to an existing benefit

- are aged under twenty five

- have received an imprisonable criminal conviction

- have a benefit fraud conviction

- have a primary incapacity cause of substance or alcohol abuse

4/ Gains

- time limits on Jobseeker would encourage wiser use of the safety net

- loss of autonomy through lack of cash incentivises employment. The attitude of "It's not worth working" would disappear

- children live in homes where power and food are guaranteed

- children are not treated as meal-tickets

- sole mothers aren't financially abused by deadbeats 

- household over-crowding is disincentivised as IM beneficiaries no longer able to pool resources

5/ Why people would vote for this policy

- there is justifiable and substantial concern about disadvantaged children

- people who work want it to be worth their while

- many view 'free money' as a fundamentally bad idea

- National's approach to welfare is seen as ineffective

- catering to genuine long-term incapacitation experienced by Supported Living Payment recipients remains unchanged 

6/ The proposal in summary

• A two-tier safety net comprising
• 2 benefits only 
• 2 forms of assistance only

It's simple. The benefits are easy to explain – in both senses.

That is where my presentation ended.

But in lieu of an ensuing discussion, I will address here some anticipated objections. (Reasonable objections - not extreme Left complaints like 'the government has no right to interfere with a woman's fertility choices.')

Sole parents should have their own benefit.  Most women return to work after becoming mothers. That's now a societal norm with Paid Parental Leave allowing for newborn care-giving. Expectations for sole parents shouldn't differ. In need of employment, Jobseeker is the appropriate benefit. 

These reforms will lead to more crime. As the welfare state has expanded, so has crime. Violent crime, homicides, child murders, sexual violence and theft have all increased markedly. Welfare does not prevent crime. If it did, we wouldn't have any.  Neither should a society be held hostage to providing ineffective and counterproductive assistance under the threat of violence.

Having their income managed robs people of dignity. Only those people capable of being self-supporting, but who have abused or over-used the system, are subject to IM. They have knowingly incurred that status. Those using some part of their welfare entitlement as a temporary backstop, or who are genuinely long-term incapacitated due to disability or illness, will continue to receive their full benefit in cash.

People will put pressure on GPs to certify them for a Supported Living Payment. That is apparently already the case because SLP is not work-tested and pays slightly more. So while it is a problem, it isn't the addition of a new problem. Perhaps the gate-keeping function should be removed from health professionals, some who have already refused to undertake this type of work due to harassment.

Won't IM make some people even more dependent? Possibly. But most people want some amount of money in their lives. What people want is often a more powerful motivator than what people need. Deprived of weekly cash, people will search out jobs.

More people will get into the black economy. Again this is also an existing problem, one that might be aggravated, but won't be new. I am not dismissing existing problems but they shouldn't stop us from trying a new approach.

'Details' people will raise many more issues, but the above plan serves the two major aims: to look after the genuinely needy while disincentivising unnecessary dependence.

(Note: The above was suggested in 2016, prior to Labour's reforms under the Ardern government. The introduction of Best Start, removal of the requirement to name fathers, child-support pass-on and softening work-testing for those who add children to an existing benefit should all be reversed.) 

_______________________________________________________

You can read more about MSD's existing money management regime here.

*https://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/newsroom/media-releases/2024/future-years-on-benefit.html

Stop press. MSD's just-released Annual Report shows that the average expected future reliance time has risen from 13.6 to 14.3 years. The report does not provide a breakdown across all benefits.

National's problem epitomised

Why did National pick two former welfare-dependent sole mothers to be Ministers of Social Development?

Because National is woke. They buy into the leftist public service fetish for 'lived experience'.

New Zealand's unique welfare problem isn't disability or unemployment. Other developed nations can match us.

It is the high rate of sole parenthood that sets us apart. Majorly driven by Maori. The worst child abuse, neglect, deprivation, transience, non-preparedness for school, and later, absenteeism comes from fatherless families. These children spill through to non-achievement, gang membership, criminality and lives lost to prison and non-rehabilitation.

Yes, I paint the worst scenario and plenty of children survive. But compared to children from working, two parent families, their odds of success are heavily reduced.

Minister for Social Development from 2008, Paula Bennett drove through some reforms. She actually got rid of the DPB. But then replaced it with the Sole Parent Payment. The numbers since appear to have reduced but that's largely because mothers whose youngest turns 14 are moved onto the Jobseeker benefit. 2023 census data told us 70 percent  of sole parents with dependent children receive welfare. By September 2024, the last time I asked under the OIA for a total across all benefits, there were 102,693. The number will have risen since.

Bennett was a champion for sole parents. She had a go at me once when I highlighted that although many left welfare, they also returned. From memory she wrote me an email saying, 'At least they are trying.' And fair enough. She took their corner.

She was, herself, an exemplary story of how a sole parent, Maori to boot, could succeed wildly. She was a John Key-type story. Pull yourself up from your difficult beginnings and be a trail-blazing role model.

Trouble is, only a few people respond to inspiration. Most respond to necessity - as in 'necessity is the mother of invention'. If the state wasn't doling out cash, other ways to survive would need to be found.

Having learned nothing from putting up Bennett to fend off the beneficiary bashing accusations, after their 2023 election win, National found another ex sole parent beneficiary in Louise Upston.

Upston's performance has been underwhelming. Her focus has been on the Jobseeker benefit and the young. It plays well for those who think superficially. Yes, we want to keep young people off the benefit (but her means-testing of 18 and 19 year-olds' parents ensures the most at-risk for long-term dependency are excluded). Yes, the traffic light system keeps adding new requirements to record job-seeking efforts but by and large, it will punish the low-hanging fruit.

What is Upston going to do about the ever-increasing number of children being born onto benefits, mainly to sole parents? How is she going to turn around the trend of ever-increasing children dependent on a benefit? The number in September 2025 reached 234,000. With seasonal fluctuations the total could reach a quarter million by December.

This country's propensity to put a soft-focus on hard problems is not working.

The level of toughness and objectivity required means that political appointees made on the basis of identity is a luxury no longer affordable.

Reform can't wait for who looks the part and how 'kind' it will be. It's urgent. Now.

Who Moves from Welfare to Super?

The National government is presiding over significant growth in benefit dependency, in both numbers and the length of duration people remain dependent. When they took office in late November 2023  there were 369,000 work-age people on benefits. By the end of September 2025, that number had grown to 410,328 - or by just over eleven percent.

Given New Zealand's rapidly ageing population, I wondered how much the apparent growth is being suppressed by people moving off a benefit and onto Super. So I asked for data from MSD under the Official Information Act.

Through 2024 and during the first half of 2025 (constituting a good chunk of the current government's tenure) 14,952 people transferred from a working-age benefit to Super. 

Over the same period, total working-age beneficiaries rose from to 378,711 to 406,128 or 7.2%

Without the departure of 65 year-old transferees, the increase would have been 11.2%

The answer then to my question is percentage-wise, the growth is being suppressed quite substantially. Of course, this has always been the case. But it is important to grasp that a minus from the working-age ledger doesn't necessarily equate to someone becoming employed and self-sufficient.

I also asked for a breakdown of which benefits the transferees were coming off.

Unsurprisingly a large number have come from the Supported Living Payment (formerly Invalid Benefit). In 2024, 49 percent of people who transferred onto super came from this benefit; 43 percent moved from a Jobseeker benefit; 7 percent had been on an Emergency Benefit and 36 people had been on Sole Parent Support. 

Working backwards, given that a sole parent can only qualify while their youngest child is under fourteen, the sole parents are likely to be custodial fathers. But an older female sole parent might have a whangai youngster.

The Emergency benefit is for those people who do not qualify for a main benefit often because they do not have residency or citizenship. Non-quota refugees and asylum seekers for instance. So how would they qualify for Super? Well, it may be that by the time they eventually achieve either status, they are older than 64.

The 43 percent on Jobseeker is elevated compared to eight years ago reflecting a higher unemployment rate. There are elevated numbers on Jobseeker at all ages.

As for the Supported Living Payment, incapacitating illnesses and injuries obviously grow more common with age. Consider too that ACC's recent performance has been less than stellar, and the health system leaves much to be desired.

But there is a further factor in play. Being unemployed long term can lead to becoming unemployable. More than a third of Supported Living Payment recipients have a psychiatric or psychological condition (including substance abuse). There is research evidence that people migrate from the dole to sickness to invalidity ... and then naturally to Super. We are probably still seeing people coming through who haven't worked since the 1990s deep recession. 

The raw stats don't tell us to what degree but being on welfare at the age of 64 often indicates significant long-term reliance.

Welfare is like an iceberg. The visible tip gets all the attention - the young and unemployed.

But below the surface is a very large group of people for whom welfare is a way of life - whether they chose it or not.

It is endemic but it's also just part of the Kiwi wallpaper. It will remain so without major reforms.

Right now, sadly, the stats are all heading in the wrong direction and it is hard to see what will shrink the iceberg.

National trying but nowhere near hard enough

RNZ's headline reads:

"Jobseeker: Parents earning more than $65k must support 18-19yo children"

Inter-generational welfare dependence is a thing. A big thing.

2014 actuarial findings revealed:

For Youth benefit clients as at 30 June 2014:

§  88% (9 in 10) were from beneficiary families, the majority of whom received a main benefit for most of their teen years.

§  51% were in beneficiary families for 80% or more of their teen years.

The correlation is striking enough to believe that early entry may be a proxy for intergenerational benefit receipt (with the notable exception of teen-aged SLP [Supported Living Payment/Invalid] entrants).

A more recent Taylor Fry report for MSD found that in 2022, 69.5% of those aged under 20 on a Youth Payment or Jobseeker/Work Ready benefit had an intergenerational benefit history.

The government wants to stop this. 

Kids raised on welfare, go onto welfare - often egged on by their parents wanting to grow household income.

So the government is saying, parents should continue to support 18 and 19 year-olds rather than they go on a benefit. 

But the test threshold for parents deemed able to continue to maintain their young person is $65,529. It's set at the income of parents receiving the Supported Living Payment (previously Invalid Benefit) - the highest benefit income. The average benefit income for a couple or single parent with two or more children falls below that.

So what is this policy? Another go at saving a bit of money by chasing after low-hanging fruit? A pragmatic response to their middleclass voters struggling to get unmotivated kids off the couch?

As policies go, it's a plus, but barely positive and would rate a 1 out of 10 in the overall need for real welfare reform. An 8 out of 10 would be removing Ardern's Best Start cash for babies payment which has only resulted in more children being born onto a benefit, where many will remain until they are young adults. 

Chris Luxon says:

"Look, we are saying we care about you, we love you, but we really want you to realise all that potential that you've got," he said. "We're here to help and support as much as we can, but you also have to take responsibility for that and actually just consigning you to a life of welfare for 18 years is unacceptable.

"We're not doing our job, if we're letting that happen."

By setting the threshold too high he is doing exactly that. Giving high risk 18-19 year-olds the green light to go on a benefit.

A Confused Country

New Zealand is a hopelessly confused country where people talk past each other, use the same words to mean different things, and can't distinguish between sentimentality and sanity. It would be laughable if it wasn't so sad and dangerous.

TV and social media imagery is overloaded with couples of mixed ethnicity. We cling to that old desire to see-ourselves-on-the-screen, a hangover from the days when our TV content was all imported. Who remembers New Zealand's early efforts like Pukemanu, described as portraying "the lives of rural, bi-cultural townsfolk, earning praise for its authentic depiction of boozy, blokey characters in swannie attire"?

The bi-cultural images aren't a problem. They reflect statistics ie fact, that more Maori partner with non-Maori than with Maori. There is something quite appealing and endearing about them. New Zealand is a country where the first settlers welcomed and joined together, literally, with the later settlers.

But change screens and consider the next image:

Decide together, Thrive together.

Decide together to be Separate? It's like deciding together to a divorce.

Separate rolls for Maori. Separate wards and separate electorates. By any stretch of the imagination, that is not togetherness.

The inevitability of mixed couples is mixed children ... and more mixed children. Generation after generation, of which there are already very many. Will they have to pick one identity over the other in perpetuity? For as long as there are different civic frameworks for Maori and non-Maori, that is what these children and unborn children are being condemned to.

It has to stop.

Today many New Zealanders embrace different cultural heritages featuring their own languages, faith, and social networks. But only Maori can choose to have advantageous separate representation based on race. Only Maori have their very own courts, jail wings, health providers, educational quotas, schools, and more, provided by the state. None of these 'privileges' are improving matters incidentally.

Yet there are people who continue to insist that separatism is somehow "thriving together."

To thrive together requires individuals to put their humanity before their ethnicity. That is what thousands have done by partnering and raising families together. There cannot be a stronger expression of togetherness.

But if ethnicity trumps humanity, all we face is a future filled with conflict. New Zealand will continue to be a country of hopeless confusion rather than clarity of common purpose.

The Future of Welfare in an Ethnically Changing Population

 Asians will make-up a third of New Zealand's population by 2048.

(View interactive image here)

For those worried about one in eight working-age New Zealanders currently relying on a benefit, this is good news.

That's because Asians are heavily under-represented amongst beneficiaries.

While making up around 20 percent of the population they only account for 5 percent of people dependent on benefits.

The news gets even better. Of that 5 percent, two thirds are receiving an unemployment benefit. This is the benefit people rely on for the shortest period and current numbers will abate quickly  when (if) unemployment falls. There are only 2,817 Asian single parents (June 2025) compared to 38,556 Maori.

Of course, 2048 is a generation away and Asian behaviours will undoubtedly change over the next couple of decades. How much is anyone's guess. I am not sufficiently familiar with various Asian cultures to make predictions.

But Asians - Indians in particular - are going to immerse themselves in the political life of New Zealand. In Lower Hutt we have an Indian female running for mayor and the evidence of Indian cultural and commercial activity is everywhere. I like the cut of her jib and she has my vote.

Can we expect that as Asian values become more prevalent we will see less tolerance for people who make benefit dependency a lifelong habit?

I hope so.

Data sources:

https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/asian-ethnic-population-projected-to-increase/

https://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/statistics/benefit/index.html

The other side of the story

 The Latu family first appeared at RNZ pleading poverty. Their household consists of mum, dad, eight children and two relatives.

They have now reappeared in the NZ Herald. You can read the details at those two links.

What frustrates is that the two reporters who have written up the Latu family's plight have seemingly asked no questions about how much income the family actually receives and how they budget it.

Mr Latu cannot work due to a knee injury and neither does his wife.

A couple on welfare with two or more children receives on average $1,244 net per week. Here is a chart from the 2024 Total Incomes Report issued by MSD:

The green portion - tax credits - refers to what is paid for the children. In the chart above, the average for two or more children is $397. But because there are eight Latu children that sum would rise to $967 weekly. According to MSD the first child receives $144.30 weekly and each subsequent child $117.56. You can do the maths.

So the Latu family's weekly income is now in the territory of $1814. The children each receive a further $50 monthly from the charity Variety through sponsorship, effectively adding another $100 onto the family's weekly income.

The chart above does not include the Winter Energy Payment which is $31.82 a week.

If you are following the calculation, the sum has reached $1,946 weekly during the winter months. Or $101,192 annually. After tax.

Additionally there are two relatives living with the family who will also bring in income but one can only speculate about what that is. 

What can be safely stated is this. In New Zealand in 2025 the 'poverty' threshold is very high.

Now obviously I do not know what the family's outgoings are; whether they live in a state house and pay income-related rent, in a subsidised private rental or pay a subsidised mortgage. They may have high-interest debts; they might tithe to their church.

All we get with these types of mainstream media reports is emoting over unfair hardship and helplessness. One might wonder how much of the story was written by the charity and how much the journalist contributed.

In fact the redistribution of wealth into these families is substantial, by some people's standards, possibly eye-watering.

After nearly ninety years of social security it would be reasonable to conclude that the state cannot solve 'poverty'. Indeed, the more the state does, the more the state is expected to do.