Plan to repeal benefit sanctions a rort
To the best of my knowledge, I haven’t fathered any children – or at least, I haven’t been heavied for any child support payments.
But for the past year, I’ve been surrounded by babies, as a multitude of friends and family members welcome newborn bundles of joy.
I’ve taken my god-fatherly duties to the next level in the past six months, minding my 18-monthold niece, once a week, to give my sister in-law a breather, as she readies to re-enter the workforce part-time.
Meantime, my brother has continued slogging his guts out as a traffic manager, working 70-hour weeks on projects like the Russley Rd upgrade, as the sole breadwinner.
It’s proven to be sharply instructive into the exhausting, unrelenting dynamics of early parenthood. And it’s converted me to the cause of extending paid parental leave.
But in contrast to providing temporary relief to productive, working parents, why should the taxpayer be left holding the baby for sole parents claiming a benefit, who refuse to disclose the identity of the child’s father?
The parental disclosure requirement has been government policy for 27 years, with the financial sanctions introduced by a Labour Government in 1990 and subsequently increased by the Helen Clark-led regime in 2005.
A variety of exemptions shield sole parents from coughing up a name, if they genuinely don’t know, if there is a risk of violence, or if the child was conceived as a result of sexual assault. But that hasn’t stopped the Greens from gunning to eliminate these sanctions, and now Labour has tacked left to make it a reality.
Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni thinks the disclosure rule is ‘‘discriminatory against sole parents’’, while furnishing in the cynical cloak of identity politics: ‘‘97.7 per cent of people sanctioned are women, and 52.8 per cent Maori.’’
Both parties can usually be counted on to fawn over any United Nations Convention, yet they conveniently choose to ignore the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which unequivocally states that children have the right to know his or her parents.
The latest government figures indicate 13,000 mothers drawing a sole-parent benefit have been sanctioned for refusing to name the biological father. Over 100 of those mothers have had at least four children. Even more bizarrely, there are 300 men on a sole-parent benefit having their welfare payments docked for playing dumb who the mother is.
Anyone who parents a child should be held financially accountable, particularly when we shell out over a $1 billion on the sole-parent benefit alone, in addition to the billions lavished on the accommodation supplement.
It’s clear many parents are stiffing the taxpayer by doing a nonames deal, whereby the mother drawing welfare won’t divulge the father’s name to the state, on the proviso that the he flicks her some regular cash payments, on the sly.
Stand by for that great rort to go forth and multiply, because the repeal of the non-disclosure sanctions will substantially incentivise feckless fathers to strike an ‘‘under the table’’ payment arrangement, to avoid the official child support regime.
Beyond the financial abuse of taxpayers, National’s Bill English has quite rightly issued a note of caution about the unintended consequences of this retrograde win for welfarism.
He worries women could face a greater risk of violence as absent fathers pile on the pressure not to name them. Oh the irony.
In addition to the 13,000 non- disclosure benefit sanctions, nearly 15,000 other beneficiaries had their welfare payments reduced in September for breaching their work obligations, like attending arranged appointments.
The Greens are now on the warpath to repeal all ‘‘excessive sanctions’’, suggesting the long shadow of Metiria Turei is undeservedly getting the last laugh, while the taxpayer gets royally screwed.
It’s a gratuitous leftie overreach that will rile middle ground voters. I’m staggered that New Zealand First hasn’t scuppered it.
And it’s precisely the type of policy change that will ensure Labour doesn’t pocket the 10 to 15 per cent honeymoon bounce in the polls that’s typically showered on new governments.
Add to that Jacinda Ardern’s blinkered crusade over Manus Island and Labour will be lucky to get beyond 40 per cent party vote support in the next round of polling.