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There’s something particularly cruel about continuing to push this tough on beneficiaries line at a time when:
- we’re already at or near record employment
- the reserve bank is hiking the ocr in a deliberate attempt to increase unemployment to bring down inflation
Employers could raise wages, train people or offer other things to attract workers. Instead we just make life on a benefit so hard people are forced to take whatever, and those in work know not to rock the boat too much. All this does is put downward pressure on wages at the benefit of employers.
The proponents of these things this think we live in a meritocracy: they’re successful on their own merit.
Therefore unsuccessful people do not merit assistance because they just made the wrong choices in life.
Like:
- Having poor parents
- Having a solo parent
- Being disabled
- Suffering a mental illness
Directing cruelty to these “wastrules” is the point: stop making wrong choices.
She said “benefit dependency” had grown “substantially” under the Labour government.
Yes, because record low unemployment is a sign of benefit dependency.
This standard talking point from the right is always supported with exactly zero data. If it is true that ‘benefit dependency’ has grown substantially, why not release some hard data backing this claim up? Why don’t they? I posit that, like usual, it’s just bullshit to drum up votes by hating on “the damn poors”.
I’ve been in and out of work for the past decade regardless of who is elected, so it’s definitely not a Labour Party problem. I’m stuck working shit distribution centre and warehousing jobs that I hate. I can never meet the required KPI so I get the hint and I resign. Having monthly performance reviews for a blue collar job is infuriating. I’m finally trying to exit the mess and re-train.
I would like to get CELTA at some point and just leave NZ for several years. Nothing will get better here. In school I wanted to study c++ programming but they just taught Microsoft Visual Basic, which is like, putting a button on the screen and clicking it, to make it say “the button is clicked”. Imagine where I’d be today if we didn’t have a third world education system and hopeless career advisors, which btw will exist under both National and Labour. I wish the Chinese would fire a missile and turn the Beehive into a crater.
“One of the outstanding legacies of this [Labour] government is going to be ‘how on Earth in a low unemployment environment, with worker shortages up and down this country, have you managed to put 60,000 more people on unemployment benefit’,” Luxon said.
They do address this.
I just went looking for data. The “how” appears to be COVID [PDF]. Page 4 shows a huge jump in 2020 followed by a reduction in future years.
Not to mention, like someone else mentioned, the Reserve Bank has spent the last couple of years actively and openly trying to reduce the number of jobs to cause a minor recession. Why do National pretend not to understand the basic components of the economy? (it must be feigned, as they have experts on their team).
Where do National stand on fair pay agreements? (I know ACT hate them). There’s no point making it harder to live on a benefit if it’s also harder to live on minimum wage
They have committed to repeal fair pay agreements
Fucking hell. What possible reason is there to do that?
They reduce the profits of businesses, i.e. their donors.
Right wing parties are generally hostile to collective bargaining because it gives workers greater power to secure better wages and conditions from employers. Even when that bargaining can also lead to productivity improvements through better trained workers, greater retention and so on.
This is completely consistent with the last times National have been in government. They effectively destroyed unions through the employment contracts act in the early 90s and they’ve never fully recovered, despite some moves to strengthen them when Labour has been in government.
I genuinely don’t understand how any blue collar worker could vote for them. It’s directly voting against your own interests.
they’re against them, they’re also in favour of making it easier to sack people within 90 days of hiring them which makes it harder for people struggling to get into the workforce.
I wish Labour actually did their fucking job and looked after the working class, and the Green party’s biggest priority was the environment. Wouldn’t that be a world to live in.
Please don’t let these clowns into government. They actively want to make life worse for everyone who isn’t wealthy.
Unfortunately people don’t vote in parties that align with their views, they vote out parties they are sick of.
Ah, just so very National to indulge in a bit of beneficiary bashing to try to win some votes.
Oooooooor, people “earning” $1m/year could pay an extra 1% tax on their income over $1m and we could spend it helping the less fortunate.
Oh, wait, sorry, we should be “celebrating our most successful citizens” by punishing poor people.
I wonder if they’ll threaten to make mass urine tests compulsory. Remember that one back in 2012? They never did it. It was just propaganda for their most loyal constituents.
