Editorial: Where National fears to tread

After a dreadful week, National has apparently opted to deflect attention from its senior MPs' loose lips by releasing a little policy, The Dominion Post writes.

In trying to wrest back the agenda, party leader John Key and welfare spokeswoman Judith Collins made public its benefits policy, which reflects Mr Key's pragmatism, his deep desire to be prime minister and a lack of New Right ideology by including just enough sticks to keep the party faithful moderately happy and carrots not to scare the middle ground of politics.

Thus, the work-for-the-dole scheme National unsuccessfully tried to sell in 2005 has been replaced by what the party refers to as "an obligation" to work. If it leads the next government, doesn't change its stance before election day and can get support parties to concur, the long-term unemployed will have to reapply for their benefits within a year of a change of government; parents on the dpb will have to work at least 15 hours a week or prepare for work once their youngest turns six; those on the sickness and invalids benefits will have to do likewise; and those who regularly seek top-up cash from Work and Income will have to take budgeting advice.

At the same time, the threshold on earnings before the benefit is affected will rise to $100 a week. Mr Key has also vowed to make the annual inflation-related shift in benefit rates a legal, not moral, obligation.

For those on the right of politics, the policy has visceral appeal. It implies that National believes those supported by their fellow taxpayers must do something in return for the money. The devil, of course, will be in the detail. Will those forced into paid work be directed toward make-work schemes? Will they be made to grub gorse or pick apples for employers who can find no other staff and, if so, will that create the very bureaucracy the party says it wants to reduce?

If, however, Work and Income will be told to direct beneficiaries to bolster the hard-to-staff workforce that provides personal care to the elderly, for example, the outcome might help such employers find desperately needed extra workers and reintroduce dpb-dependent parents to workplace disciplines.

The kneejerk opposition from Labour and the Greens is predictable. Green list MP Sue Bradford, and other critics, argue that motherhood is a dignified job in its own right. Of course it is. But working three hours a day, if Mr Key and his crew are serious, is not a huge imposition. Ask the non-beneficiary mums and dads who would also like the luxury of being paid to stay at home for year upon year and cannot afford to, and who work many more than 15 hours a week.

National might achieve more were it bolder, however. How about putting the acid on men who impregnate and run? They have more than a moral obligation to parent the children they father. Former US president Bill Clinton, in backing Republican policy to reform welfare and shifting the public discourse to dead-beat dads, wrought a shift in America's welfare culture in the 90s. If National wants to lower the dpb bill by moving recipients off the benefit, it would do worse than borrow from the success of a politician on the other side of the political divide.

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Mike   #2   05:26 pm Jan 28 2009

I don't see this as being anything like the US schemes - 15 hours a week when all your children are at school means there's no need to child care for working during school hours, and raising the limit on earnings is a great idea to help make it more attractive.

Steve Withers   #1   05:26 pm Jan 28 2009

US schemes to make solo parents work highlight the risks. A parent forced to travel ong distances to a low-paying job while leaving their child in the care of lord-only-knows-who is a recuipe for abuse and more crime further down the track. The dollars saved today - if any - may result in much larger costs down the road if the children go off the rails for lack of supervision.

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