Main parties accused of unravelling welfare net

WELLINGTON National and Labour are both responsible for an unravelling of New Zealands social welfare safety net, a new report from Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand has uncovered. During Social Justice Week in September, Caritas, the Catholic agency for justice, peace and development, released The Unravelling of the Welfare Safety Net, a report it commissioned the Beneficiary Advocacy Federation of New Zealand to compile. Its aim was to provide historical background for proposals for a single core benefit.
In the reports foreword, Caritas research and advocacy officer Lisa Beech suggested that many New Zealanders are unaware of changes that have taken place in the welfare system.
More disturbingly, it appears to us that, despite overall increased social spending, many of the changes are fundamentally at odds with the concept of meeting need, Ms Beech said.
National cut benefits during the 1990s, moves that the Labour opposition fought vehemently at the time. Ironically, though, some of those failed proposals have been approved under a different guise during Labours nine-year run in charge of the Treasury benches.
Some of the more recent changes are reminiscent of proposals made in the 1990s which failed then due to vigorous opposition, but have now been repackaged and presented as something new, Ms Beech explained.
One example is Labour successfully opposing the removal of discretionary aspects of supplementary benefits in 1994 and 1995, yet under urgency in the 2004 Budget legislation, abolishing the discretionary last resort special benefit, in favour of the temporary additional support for which eligibility is tightly defined in regulations, and in which there is no discretion.
The complexity of our benefit system comes from the increased expectation that people must apply for a range of supplementary assistance just to meet everyday costs, said Ms Beech.
Its a direct result of the move from targeted welfare to tight targeting which began with the 1991 benefit cuts, but has continued under successive governments since.
Labours policies are becoming more and more similar to Nationals in terms of providing a pathway out of welfare dependence, Ms Beech pointed out.
With the country facing an election, and it seems tougher economic times, we want more commitment to supporting people in their time of financial need, she said.
At the moment, the differences between Labours work-focused
incentives and Nationals proclaimed unrelenting focus on work are mainly differences of degree.
Labour might prefer the carrot of incentives to what it says is Nationals stick of benefit sanctions, but if National has a stick with which to beat beneficiaries, its because the present Government provided it all the mechanisms for sanctions were put in place last year by the Social Security Amendment Act.
Caritas says its concern for a fair and effective benefit system derives from Catholic social teaching that underlines the need for the poorest members of society to be given priority and also our understanding that human beings are not isolated individuals.
Were connected to each other, Ms Beech said.
The goods of the earth are intended for all, and sharing through the taxation and benefit system is one outworking of this perspective.
Despite rhetoric from both Labour and National that refers to the safety net of social welfare assistance, the Caritas report shows that both main parties have been pulling at the threads holding it together, Ms Beech said.

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