Welfare won't come easy under Nats' plan (+video)

Enlightened view point alison.

A man laying in a hospital bed slowley being eaten up by cancer should therefore pick himself up and go out and work if he hasnt saved for this contingency and is dependent on welfare assistance? and just because you say he can?. always nice to hear that its mind over matter where was your medical degree from again?.

How much assistance do you get from the government again? family support, in work income tax credit? subsidised childcare perhaps.. all of this generally means most families take home more welfare money than beneficiaires do which makes families a far bigger burden on the state.

Being a single Wage income earner myself, time with my 9 year old daughter is priceless, however I choose not to depend on the government and earn my own income, it is up to the individual to make the decision to better there life and earn an income and increase their standard of living, by helping themselves or do as the government says if they are to depend on a government subsidised income, because if benefits were abolished altogether, I am sure then people will get out and contribute to society, and earn an income, beneficiaries in our country have it far too easy.

"To support a policy you must be prepared for it to apply to everyone."

Joe..., think of just about anything you like. If everyone were to act in the same way our problems would be insurmountable. The thing is... people do not all act in the same way.

I think being a "Realist" is to know that human beings have a basic need which is characteristic of.... shall we say, the Kingdom of God. That is the need to propagate. If it is possible for it to happen, it will happen no matter what the circumstances of the particular species. I am sorry you are disappointed due to there not being a change in this phenomenon during the period of time you were donating to Save the Children.

I think it is uncivilised to condemn people for needing to have, and actually having, children. And if a community does not collectively share the responsibility of raising its children (just like caring for its elderly), then I think it is an unsophisticated community.

In another post I wrote about how the period of time since Rogernomics (the removal of the tax deduction for dependants/and possibly the family benefit) and the introduction of the Labour-led government's Working for Families was an aberration. I suggested that since colonial days, in one way or another, there was community support for a family.

I hope that if you read my post again it will not appear so strange and that you will be able to find some merit in what I have written.

Strange answer Murray....its not the Red Necks who believe you should be able to support a family but the Realists. To support a policy you must be prepared for it to apply to everyone. Based on that are you prepared for the whole of NZ to have 6 kids and survive on welfare. The outcome is the country goes broke and then no-one gets anything.....square one.

When you are refering to the billions around the world are you also including the ones we see dying every night because the parents wanted to have children and watch them slowly starve? Its naive purely to live on the basis of "having the right to do something"(Sue Bradford style). Be realistic. I`ve been donating money for years to Save the Children. I dont anymore. Nothing ever changed.I prefer people not to have them if they are going to starve.....Red Neck? I don`t think so.

Born in the muldoon era I grew up in south auckland, a suburb called otara.

Muldoon failed to address family violence with his term, he was too busy thinking globally and "thinking big".

As a result I came away from Otara with bronchiectasis, several allergies, a couple of congential defects with my health deteriorating to the point where now I have a couple of eye diseases, an oral disease and osteoarthritis accompanied by seizures, post traumatic stress and a muscle disorder.

The compensation we get for failure of the national party (or labour in recent times for that matter) to respond? $230.00 per week.

We have had muldoonism, rodgernomics, the mother of all budgets and now with key we have darwinism.

Everyone out there is complaining about tax's the cost of living, but 20 years ago a basic benefit was the equivelent of 75% of minimum wage. today that sits at just over 55% of minimum wage with everyone wanting the proposed $15.00 an hour taking us to what the equivelent of 48% of minimum wage.

Remember that the ministry od social development answers to no one, they are one of the only branches of government left allowed by law to use descrimintory legislation, one of the only branches for which government fails to provide an advocacy service and are also well known for not providing full disclosure on cost entitlements to clients, a case manager as an example can decline to help you on costs even when you go with a doctors letter, and they arent trained medically at all. And remember that they only pay 80% percent of what they believe your actual costs to be with limits on the amount you can claim overall.

Think about it people the ones you know and love try suriving on this when they are sick, when they are in need and many of you spend more than this on entertaining yourselves each week and still want more breaks from the government.. I really question who the moochers are here.

From what I understand, people on the DPB will only be required to work/train for 15 hours per week if their youngest child is over six. This will mean the child will be at school for most of the day giving the parent at least three hours per day to work/train, and three hours per day is all that will be required to make up the 15 hours.

Seems like a no brainer to me!

But Carrie - its after the youngest child has been at school for a year that the 15 hours kicks in. And its the DPB thats being talked about, and not any other benefits due to care givers.

My problem is that this policy won't affect the serial single mothers - who have any number of kids without declaring the father(s) and keep collecting a benefit for years.

Perhaps give the DPB on condition that the mother is willing to use a injectible contraceptive? Bet the two Green Sues wouldn't like that though.

National and Act(Rogernomics) have a number of tools to drive down labour/wage costs. One is to tamper with industrial law and have legislation like their Employment Contracts Act. Another is to lower the minimum wage - there would not have been any increases to the minimum wage and equal pay for youth workers under National - to how many "blocks of cheese" do those increases equate? Beware of National's taxcut bribe.

John Key, in all honesty, does not actually care how many leave the country for higher incomes - it is what he did himself. His concern is that a few are able to have a lot and that labour costs are low.

Yet another National/Act tool to lower wages is to create a pool of unemployed to beat-up on. They bask in the prejudice it creates which results in an increased capability of exploiting those in work due to the fact there is a fear of being amongst the prejudiced.

It might sound unfair comment. But the number of benefits paid has been constructively reduced by retraining and deploying people into "real jobs", thus stopping the "off the dole/on the dole" cycle. A lot of children are suffering because with Working for Families there is not a disposable income gain until the parents are doing some work - a huge pressure to find work.

National are just never satisfied with positive results. Judith Collins wants to beat-up, beat-up, beat-up......

And this red-necked lot who think people should not have children until they can "afford" them!! It's disgraceful really! Do they want slaves who breed as permitted? I know of adherents to this doctrine who have not even married - because they didn't think they would be able to afford to keep a wife. I know of younger ones who have deferred having children until they have a fertility problem. It's sad.

Tell the billions of people in the world whom we consider poor that they should not have children "until they can afford it"! Talk to your MP about a "One Child Policy"! This ignorant comment must really hurt all those caring mothers who love their children.

It is sickening. Are we not able to be a little bit civilised, if being sophisticated is too demanding?

The only people who are happy with the Expensive Parasite and the Clevedon Carpetbagger are the rednecks. The Tories' welfare policy is beneficiary bashing - plain and simple.

Be thankful that your government has not introduced a baby bonus of the type that prevails here in Australia. Single mothers, whether 15 or 50, are now entitled to a cash payment of Aus$5400(nearly NZ$7000). What is the obvious effect of this crass policy? It encourages those with only double digit IQs - probably 85 on average - to have babies(or more babies). Thus the very women that a sane society should encourage to have the fewest kids, many of whom will never be employed, have the most. A significant proportion comprises very stupid young women - and IQ is a mainly inherited number. Robert Muldoon once famously said that if a Kiwi migrated here, he raised the IQ of both countries. Well, here in Australia we seem to be determined to breed a huge class of no-hopers, who are our biggest source of criminals. Don't let it happen there too.

Gus B.