PM defends planned welfare crackdown
Critics say move ‘out of touch’ and will ‘push people into poverty’
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon yesterday sought to defend stronger use of welfare sanctions after accusations his government was “pushing more people into poverty”.
Luxon, speaking to Newstalk ZB, claimed a lot of Work and Income frontline caseworkers had told him their biggest frustration was people abusing the beneficiary system.
“They don’t feel that they can apply the sanctions when they need to be applied, people who are wilfully and knowingly abusing the system and not taking their situation seriously,” Luxon said.
He could not say how many people the sanctions would put back into the workforce.
Luxon is looking to fulfil a promise he made in his state of the nation speech on Sunday in which he said the “free ride” was over for beneficiaries he said were taking advantage of the welfare system.
On Monday, Luxon and Social Development Minister Louise Upston announced the return to past National Party policies of cutting welfare assistance for unemployed people who don’t comply with training or job seeking expectations.
“In 2017, 60,588 sanctions were applied to beneficiaries who did not comply with their obligations to prepare and look for work.
“That nosedived to 25,329 in 2023,” Upston said.
“Over that time, people on jobseeker benefits increased by about 70,000 and about 40,000 more people have been receiving this support for a year or more.”
Luxon told the AM Show he did not think they would need more staff to carry out benefit checks.
“What we need to do is have job checks, and one of the things we can do is have one too many talking about job obligations and checking in to make sure people are compliant.”
He said having a parent in work was good for children.
“Children in benefit homes don’t do as well and don’t have the same opportunities as those that have one or both parents working.
“Let’s be clear, we’re not talking about supported living and we’re not talking about sole parents . . . we’re just talking about those deemed capable and able to work.”
Upston said she had written to the chief executive of the Ministry of Social Development “to make this Government’s view clear that we want to see all obligations and sanctions applied. If jobseekers fail to attend job interviews, to complete their pre-employment tasks, or to take work that is available, then there needs to be consequences”.
She also announced that from June, the ministry would “begin work check-ins for jobseekers who have been on benefit for six months, particularly young people”.
Under the existing sanctions, if a person did not meet work preparation obligations without a “good and sufficient reason”, their benefit would be reduced by 50 per cent for four weeks. After a second breach, that would be extended to 13 weeks for someone with dependent children, or suspended altogether if they did not have children.
Carmel Sepuloni, Labour’s social development spokeswoman, said yesterday’s announcement was unfair and out of touch as she criticised Luxon for speaking down to beneficiaries by assuming jobseekers didn’t want to work.
“People deserve to be supported into meaningful, long-term employment, and sanctions will not do this.”
Green Party social development spokesman Ricardo Menendez March said the Government was quickly building a legacy of cruelty.
“Instead of supporting people to provide for themselves and their wha¯nau, this Government has actively sought to push people further and further into poverty.
“Now, today, we have yet another measure to penalise the poorest people. It is a symptom of the politics of cruelty that is driving this coalition’s policies and steering New Zealand backwards.”
Sepuloni said the Government pointed to evidence more than a decade old and the most recent research from the Welfare Experts Advisory Group suggested obligations and sanctions were problematic.
New Zealand’s largest education union, NZEI Te Riu Roa, also strongly condemned the “punitive sanctions” saying they directly affected children and their learning.
“We all know that wha¯nau are struggling with the rising cost of living; and the children of beneficiaries will be feeling it doubly so. Children need a full stomach and a roof over their head to learn,” said the union’s president Mark Potter.
“Data from the Pisa international survey from December last year shows us that there is a strong correlation between food security and learning, and we know that food security disproportionately affects tamariki Ma¯ori, who make up nearly a quarter of the students currently enrolled in schooling.”
Potter said welfare sanctions were not effective ways to get people into jobs and the sanctions would further punish the country’s “most vulnerable citizens”.