ACT's David Seymour - i like his style.

[justakiwi]

They come with plenty. And yes, I can tell you that from first hand experience. It is unacceptable for case managers or anyone else to require details of every item or service beneficiaries spend their money on. That is nothing short of an invasion of privacy.

Accepting a benefit from taxpayers should come with some obligations.

[Balance]

I had a similar argument at a corner neighbourly meet with the National representative. I was knocking heads in saying that the approach to social housing in NZ is wrong and inefficient. In a similar manner, those in gov't housing 'should NOT' have the benefit of wanting a large back yard, easy access to amenities, and basically a fully detached dwelling. I was explaining it's far more efficient to house them in high density apartment living where there's closer monitoring of their activities. If you look at the Rotorua case, the new social housings there where ever they built, created increase rates of crime. Why? Because no one is policing or monitoring them. One lady in response told me, "That's not how we do things and this is NZ, not like other countries".

And that’s why NZ is heading down the path towards 2nd world status.

Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore foresaw the entitlement mindset which comes from getting state benefits too easily and freely. That’s why social welfare policies there are based around family support first and access to benefits only as a last resort. Singapore has moved from 3rd world to 1st world while NZ is heading towards?

[fungus pudding]

Some of you will find this interview with David Seymour interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkHxljMLOGE

[thegreatestben]

Also just watched and it’s nice to watch something where the interviewer isn’t interrupting. I’d actually like to see other party leaders interviewed by the same guy.

[davflaws]

ACT’s welfare policy includes Electronic Income Management for some beneficiaries, which means that the case manager can see how the person is spending their money and it allows “honest conversations.”


Secondly, ACT would use technology. ACT would back up sanctions with Electronic Income Management. We need to stop giving people money for nothing. If you haven't found a job after 17-weeks, your benefit comes in the form of a payment card.

“Electronic Income Management gives case managers real teeth. It means they can see how the person is spending their money in real time, on a Government issued card. It allows honest conversations between case managers and beneficiaries.

Surely -if ISP services are purchased by a user of the proposed card - all their communications should be monitored by the State

After all, anyone who hasn't been able to get a job after 17 weeks is probably lying around committing drug offences, or out and about committing other crime or ripping hardworking taxpayers off in some other way. Having access to their phone and text data would also enable their case managers to check whether they had been wasting their benefits on riotous living.

Accepting a benefit from taxpayers should come with obligations!

[justakiwi]

Clearly I have completely misjudged you. I always thought you were one of the good guys. Boy did I get that wrong.

Surely -if ISP services are purchased by a user of the proposed card - all their communications should be monitored by the State

After all, anyone who hasn't been able to get a job after 17 weeks is probably lying around committing drug offences, or out and about committing other crime or ripping hardworking taxpayers off in some other way. Having access to their phone and text data would also enable their case managers to check whether they had been wasting their benefits on riotous living.

Accepting a benefit from taxpayers should come with obligations!

[Logen Ninefingers]

They come with plenty. And yes, I can tell you that from first hand experience. It is unacceptable for case managers or anyone else to require details of every item or service beneficiaries spend their money on. That is nothing short of an invasion of privacy.

I know a bloke who purchased a nearly new fridge and washing machine from a beneficiary family who were moving from Rotorua to Hamilton. He made some ridiculously low offer for the appliances which was accepted. The lady just laughed and said they’d get new ones from WINZ.

Employers require all sorts of things from employees, including contact details and contact details of loved ones, address details, you must be at work at the time the employer stipulates, and work the hours they stipulate, and abide by a code of conduct imposed by the employer, and sign an employment agreement as well.

I personally don’t mind if beneficiaries are well regulated. We are talking about a group of people who TAKE money from taxpayers in return for doing ZERO work. They really should be out picking up rubbish from the side of the roads, or planting trees, or something. There are people who clean excrement off toilets for a living, there are people who care for elderly people with dementia for a living. I don’t want to hear that beneficiaries have it really tough because they have to meet with case managers.

[Getty]

I know a bloke who purchased a nearly new fridge and washing machine from a beneficiary family who were moving from Rotorua to Hamilton. He made some ridiculously low offer for the appliances which was accepted. The lady just laughed and said they’d get new ones from WINZ.

Employers require all sorts of things from employees, including contact details and contact details of loved ones, address details, you must be at work at the time the employer stipulates, and work the hours they stipulate, and abide by a code of conduct imposed by the employer, and sign an employment agreement as well.

I personally don’t mind if beneficiaries are well regulated. We are talking about a group of people who TAKE money from taxpayers in return for doing ZERO work. They really should be out picking up rubbish from the side of the roads, or planting trees, or something. There are people who clean excrement off toilets for a living, there are people who care for elderly people with dementia for a living. I don’t want to hear that beneficiaries have it really tough because they have to meet with case managers.

Well said.

I can tell plenty of stories like the fridge one, and others, but l won't put them on here as it could give the wrong people ideas.

It's a jungle out there.

The taxpayers are getting ripped off, and many of them don't want to know.

[davflaws]

Well said.

I can tell plenty of stories like the fridge one, and others, but l won't put them on here as it could give the wrong people ideas.

It's a jungle out there.

The taxpayers are getting ripped off, and many of them don't want to know.

We may just be about to get a government that will at least start to treat the cancer on our society that woke liberalism has produced. Most beneficiaries are parasites and bludgers.

If the state (ie decent hardworking taxpayers) is providing accommodation, it can actually do so most efficiently by building the units concerned of hardwearing and durable materials to minimise the damage caused by feckless tenants and concentrating them in high rise blocks which can be made easier to police by limiting and controlling access points.

Gated communities are generally thought of in terms of keeping the crims away from decent people's property. It is easier, cheaper and more effective to to form gated high rises and keep the crims, druggies, and bludgers in.

There may be some concern for the welfare of the hordes of children sired by feckless and selfish transient males and popped out as a lifestyle by "welfare queens", but that could be addressed if they were concentrated, by giving welfare officers and "facility supervisors" skeleton keys to allow "without notice" inspections of the units and the children in them.

The criminal tendencies of the beneficiaries can be addressed by abandoning the woke liberal policing policies that have got us into our present trajectory towards third world status, and reintroducing the "three strikes" policy, along with generally longer sentences and tougher prison conditions.

It may even be time to consider reintroducing the birch, since the fabric of our society has frayed and behavior has markedly deteriorated since corporal punishment was banned in schools and homes by the woke left.

Accepting a benefit from taxpayers should come with obligations!

[Logen Ninefingers]

I've worked in an office most of my life, taking holidays when my employer lets me, and coming back to thousands of e-mails....most of the time I would dread taking a holiday because of the stress involved, the stress involved in getting everything squared away before going, and the stress involved in cleaning up the mess upon return. The stress involved in the job in general.....sometimes I felt like my heart was trying to burst right out of my chest. Even the stress involved in getting to work....fighting through traffic on congested roads. If you work in a big city and your alternator goes on you, your car stops dead at the lights with a full line of traffic behind you....

I don't want to hear that working people are 'privileged', 'greedy', or 'selfish'. We are rats in a rat race, exhanging the days of our lives for money. Where I worked in South Auckland - when I was working there - you'd go down for a walk along the shore line & come to a park where beneficiary families were having picnics and riding around on bikes. Then I'd head back to my cubicle to work my afternoon away in order to get money to pay bills in order to live.

I don't want to hear that it's degrading or onerous that beneficiaries have to meet with case managers. What is degrading and onerous is going through 'performance reviews' year in and year out, reviews which are often just a stupid formality yet are a case study in corporate head f*ckery. My partner works her guts out for a big corporate and sometimes can't sleep at night during certain times of the year when the stress levels are at their greatest. I've seen her in tears over a performance review she felt was unfair. Trying to juggle times when we can take a holiday together is a mission in itself. We are exchanging our lives for 4 weeks of holidays a year. People are working their entire lives for the mirage of having a great life when they retire...when they retire they are broken and burnt out and facing ill health. Please don't tell me beneficiaries have it tough while the rest of us are 'privileged'.