More beneficiaries

Dependence on taxpayer “handouts” was growing as the government’s anti-growth policies began to bite, Act leader David Seymour said last week. The previous 12 months had seen an additional 13,063 people receiving main benefits, he said, an increase of almost 5 per cent, to 286,450. Jobseeker Support beneficiaries had risen by 10.9 per cent, to 131,720. “It’s a real tragedy that almost one in 10 working-age New Zealanders is on a main benefit,” Mr Seymour said. Abundant Life School musicians performed on the steps at Te Ahu in Kaitaia on Tuesday, but those who sat in the sun, many eating their lunch, to applaud them were just the tip of a very large audience.

The concert was simulcast to New York City, John Haines said. He was a little unsure of the precise details, but understood that International Jazz Day peformances from around the world were being shown live on giant screens in Times Square (where lunchtime in New Zealand was early evening and a bracing 10C temperature).

The musical interlude served as an entree for the main event on Tuesday next week, when Te Ahu’s atrium will be the venue for more than six hours of performances. As of Tuesday the programme, which was subject to change, was:

10am — Ukulele Club, 10.30am — Peter Visser and Brit Rollo, 11am — Tapestries Recorder Ensemble, noon — Paparore School (piano and ukulele), 12.30pm — Doug Bakke (whistle and mandolin), 1pm — Mangonui SingRays Choir, 1.30pm — Kiwi and friends, 2.30pm — Pohutuleles, 3pm — Joy Yates and Dave MacRae, 3.30pm — Jane Hillier and her music students, 3.45pm — Hori Chapman, 4pm — Colin’s Acapella.