Bridges taking aim at a robust sanctions policy
As the Prime Minister’s self-titled ‘‘Year of Delivery’’ hobbles towards the finish line with scant returns, National’s Simon Bridges is determined to extend his party’s supremacy in the final flush of pre-Christmas opinion polls, ahead of the dawn of election year.
Last week’s big splash from National on welfarism was strategically designed to take command of the political narrative with parliament in recess, and to give voice to middle New Zealand’s growing restlessness.
A year out from the election is not the time to unveil a bold and detail-dripping policy blueprint. But National’s ‘‘discussion document’’ on social services bluntly reminds voters that the party rejects the perceived feather-bedding of the welfare state, currently playing out. ‘‘Soft on welfare’’, ‘‘soft on gangs’’ and ‘‘soft on crime’’ is becoming National’s triple-pronged battle-cry.
Following the Government’s multi-million dollar spend-up on the Welfare Expert Advisory Group, several of its key recommendations will take effect in April.
Main benefits will be indexed to average wage increases which will see some benefits progressively increase by $46 a week within three years.
Abatement levels will also increase, allowing welfare recipients to earn more money from parttime work before their benefit levels reduce. Whether that will embolden more people to wean themselves entirely off welfare or remain tethered to the state indefinitely is an open question.
And on April 1, the law change axing financial sanctions on sole parent beneficiaries who refuse to name their child’s father formally takes effect. Treasury estimates that will cost the taxpayer $133 million over the next four years, let alone the financial hit to Inland Revenue, who won’t be able to chase those feckless fathers for Child Support.
But Work and Income’s wider enforcement of benefit sanctions has marshmallowed. In the year to September 2019, 10,470 sanctions were issued against beneficiaries for failing to meet basic obligations. But that figure is 40 per cent lower than five years ago, and 30 per cent lower than in
2017. More than 90 per cent are levelled at Jobseeker Support recipients.
It’s implausible to believe a sudden upswing in obligation compliance has driven this. The culture change has occurred at Work and Income, where many recalcitrant clients are met with toothless lenience.
Take the drug-testing sanctions as an example, in which only 70 beneficiaries were sanctioned for failing a test in 2018. The Ministry of Social Development’s (MSD) Service Delivery deputy chief executive, Viv Rickard, recently remarked, ‘‘sanctions are a last resort. Reducing someone’s benefit for failing a drug test is a serious step and one we only take after exhausting other options’’. Perhaps this also sheds light on why beneficiary numbers continue to balloon, despite the widespread labour shortages and sustained economic growth.
MSD’s latest data tables for September 2019 are sobering. One in every 10 working-age Kiwis are subsisting on welfare.
The number of people receiving a main benefit was 15,157 higher than in September 2018, a 5.3 per cent annual increase. This was mostly driven by a
10.2 per cent increase in the number of people receiving Jobseeker Support. Nationwide, Jobseeker Support Work Ready numbers have rocketed 25 per cent in the past two years, to hit
80,000, while Jobseeker Support Health Condition recipients have remained relatively stable.
Locally, the MSD figures are even worse. In Canterbury, the number of residents living on a main benefit has shot up 16 per cent since September 2017, while the number of Jobseeker Work Ready recipients in Canterbury has exploded by 48 per cent. Furthermore, the proportion of such recipients who have remained on that Work Ready benefit more than a year has ballooned by 35 per cent, in the past two years – despite Canterbury supposedly enjoying a lower unemployment rate than the national average.
It is not unreasonable to conclude from these worrying trendlines that far too many people are being allowed to opt out of meaningful employment in favour of a welfare lifestyle, with little prodding from the state to ensure the taxpayer’s helping hand doesn’t morph into long-term dependence.
And that is what National has deftly taken aim at, floating plans to reinstate a robust sanctions regime and harder-nosed case management of the
under-25s, to steer them out of welfare’s ditch to nowhere. Delivering big increases in beneficiary numbers is political kryptonite for Labour’s reelection prospects.
A year out from the election is not the time to unveil a bold and detail-dripping policy blueprint.