Working to benefit others
Beneficiary advocate Kay Brereton is on a new Government advisory group to support an overhaul of the welfare system. Cherie Sivignon asks what she brings to the table.
Experienced welfare advocate Kay Brereton knows what it’s like to be poor and homeless. ‘‘Being financially stressed makes it really hard to do anything else . . . expect worry about how financially stressed you are,’’ she says from the busy Nelson office of the Beneficiaries and Unwaged Workers Trust (BUWT).
‘‘You have to be poor to actually really have a grasp of it.’’
Brereton says she has that personal experience.
She was homeless for about six months in 2012. She says she was burnt out and unwell, and while she still did some voluntary work, she wasn’t actively seeking paid employment, so did not claim a benefit.
‘‘I couldn’t face the medical rigmarole it would bring.’’
Brereton has good friends who let her stay in their bus. When she recovered, she found work on an orchard where she had been employed previously.
‘‘I had networks to fall back on,’’ Brereton points out. ‘‘People who have got those things, they’re more resilient.’’
That experience taught her firsthand about the importance of secure housing. ‘‘If you’re in precarious accommodation, you can’t think about getting employed until you’ve got [a home].’’
Brereton takes a moment to dispel what she calls a ‘‘strong urban myth’’ that people without an address cannot receive a benefit.
‘‘That’s not right. Homeless people are still entitled to a benefit; they’re just not entitled to an accommodation supplement unless they can prove their accommodation costs.’’
A postal address is required, but it might be that of a friend.
Brereton says the lack of secure housing or its high cost is now a major factor for many clients who seek help at the BUWT office, where she works as a senior advocate. BUWT provides free advice and support with the aim of ensuring all beneficiaries and people on low incomes receive all of their entitlements.
Brereton has been advocating for people within the welfare system since 2006, when she started at the Wellington People’s Centre. Back then, she was working with a lot of people on the invalid’s or domestic purposes benefits. ‘‘We didn’t really see the unemployed.’’
Now, her work includes advocating for jobseekers and the ‘‘working poor’’, many of whom are unaware of their entitlements.
‘‘They’ve got entitlements such as the accommodation supplement and childcare allowance, and they don’t always take those up,’’ Brereton says.
Statistics pointed to the housing pressure hitting in about 2008. Back then, single people could be spending more than 50 per cent of their income on housing costs, ‘‘but now it’s everyone’’.
As a larger portion of people’s income is swallowed up by the cost of housing, it’s often the food budget that is squeezed. BUWT has started offering food that it picks up from non-profit organisation Kai Rescue, which started in 2017.
‘‘No questions asked,’’ Brereton points out. ‘‘Please, we beg people to take our food. This is a new thing, because Kai Rescue is available. It takes a lot of pressure off the food bank.’’
She suggests that collecting food from BUWT has less ‘‘stigma’’ attached, too.
That word, stigma, pops up often when Brereton speaks about the beneficiaries or people on low incomes who need support.
Unlike a public perception that many are taking advantage of the system, most people just need help for a while, Brereton says.
‘‘It’s a really hard thing to change now that the public’s got that particular belief – the ‘good beneficiary’, who is only on a benefit because of circumstances out of their control, is the exception – and this picture that has been painted is the norm.’’
However, Brereton argues that the opposite is true. ‘‘The norm are hard-working New Zealanders who’ve had a life shock or usually a series of life shocks.’’
More than anything, people who need the support of the welfare system want to be treated with dignity and respect. The welfare system is ‘‘working hard’’, Brereton says – it just doesn’t do it in the right way.
‘‘It needs to be able to respond to the up-and-down incomes. It needs to be able to respond to individual circumstances.’’
She says that for many people, recurring referrals to a budget advice service are demeaning.
‘‘A jobseeker benefit is $215 a week. If you can actually feed
‘‘Being financially stressed makes it really hard . . . You have to be poor to actually really have a grasp of it.’’
Beneficiaries and Unwaged Workers Trust (BUWT) senior advocate Kay Brereton
yourself, pay your rent and your power bill out of that, you’re a brilliant budgeter,’’ she says.
Brereton adds that she believes the prospect of having ongoing budget advice stops some people from seeking assistance.
‘‘People have been sent there because they’ve had two food grants and they need a third one,’’ she says, adding that this is usually due to a lack of money, not poor budgeting skills. ‘‘Really, really desperate people will jump through the silly hoops.’’
Likewise, a requirement to produce job application rejection letters can be disheartening.
‘‘Hearing nothing is usually what you get back from a job application,’’ she says. ‘‘It’s like the budgeting; all it is, is proving something with some bits of paper that mean nothing. There’s no trust in the system.’’
Some of the sanctions are also difficult, such as sole parents with an ill child having part of their benefit cut if they miss an appointment with Work and Income.
‘‘Sole parents call the 0800 number and say they’ve got a sick child and can’t make the appointment,’’ Brereton says. ‘‘They shouldn’t get sanctioned, but what’s happening is they’ll still be sanctioned and they’ve got a disputes process.’’
Most of the sanctions disputed are then overturned. ‘‘That says to me there’s still a real problem in that they’re not checking before they’re imposing the sanctions.’’
Brereton says she’s also aware of people being sanctioned for not attending appointments because they have part-time work.
‘‘I think that one of the issues is that benefit settings haven’t kept track with the changes in the labour market,’’ she argues. ‘‘It should be easy for people to work and get a top-up benefit. It’s actually so complicated – people end up with debts and confused, and they just don’t feel that it’s worth it.’’
But a part-time job has big benefits, such as making workers much more attractive to other employers. Those workers can get references and build up skills, and potential employers can be satisfied that ‘‘you do turn up to work and that you’ve got a work ethic’’.
A job also helps to lift people out of the social isolation that can accompany life on a benefit.
BUWT board secretary Rachel Boyack says Brereton was hired about two years ago ‘‘because of the experience she brings to the table’’.
‘‘Kay is highly regarded not only amongst the community in NelsonTasman who seek support from Work and Income but by Work and Income staff,’’ Boyack says. ‘‘She has huge knowledge of the system.’’
Brereton puts a significant amount of her own time into her role as an advocate, Boyack says. ‘‘She goes above and beyond.’’ BUWT is happy to lose Brereton to the advisory group temporarily because ‘‘we know her contribution will be valuable’’.
An overhaul of the welfare system was promised as part of the Labour Party’s confidence and supply agreement with the Green Party, which campaigned on removing nearly all sanctions and rules around receiving a benefit. Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni on May 28 announced the formation of the 11-person expert advisory group, including Brereton, to support that overhaul.
The group is due to deliver its advice to the Government in February.
‘‘Benefit settings haven’t kept track with the changes in the labour market.’’
Kay Brereton