Don Lite is the Key welfare prescription

National has released its welfare policy this afternoon. The best way of summarising it is that it is "Don Lite''.

Gone is the attack on domestic purposes beneficiaries contained in Don Brash's highly controversial speech at Orewa in 2005. Gone is "work for the dole'' and the orderly queue Dr Brash quaintly suggested should form outside the nation's post offices of a Monday morning. Gone is  the suggestion that teenage mothers should adopt out their children.

National's 2008 welfare policy essentially endorses the status quo on the unemployment benefit, with the simple addition of some extra sanctions on those who refuse to look for or take a job. The party has recognised that times have moved on from Orewa 2005, and that with just 17,000 people on the unemployment benefit there's no point setting up make-work schemes when jobs exist for them to go to.

National has also recognised that Labour has become much tougher on the dole too. Everyone on the unemployment benefit is already required to have a work plan, attend regular meetings with case managers, go to job interviews, and to accept reasonable offers. They can already have their benefit removed if they refuse.

Instead National is targetting sickness and invalids' benefits, as this is where the rise in numbers has occurred. The number on those two benefits has leaped 50% since Labour took office, and National wants some of these beneficiaries back in the workforce.

More than 5000 sickness and invalids' beneficiaries are currently assessed as being able to do part-time work but are not, according to National, and it is proposing they spend a minimum of 15 hours a week in either work or training.  

It hasn't forgotten about domestic purposes beneficiaries, however; like Brash in Orewa 2005, the party is proposing extending the work obligations to all those whose youngest child is at school. The big difference, however, is unlike then National has dropped the suggestion Brash left hanging that anyone who had more children once on the DPB would no longer receive state assistance.

The biggest difference between 2005 and 2008, though, is the language of the leaders. In 2005, Brash spoke of ending the "free lunch'' that left "hard working taxpayers'' little better off for their efforts than beneficiaries. He spoke of the cost of the welfare state - $5 billion a year, and broke it down into the amount paid per taxpayer - $2500 a year.

He said: "Taxpayers should not have to provide indefinite financial support to those who continue to bring children into the world with a blatant disregard to their own ability to look after them.''

Although Brash was only stating his honestly-held views, it was an obvious appeal to politics of resentment and envy; an attempt to paint beneficiaries as dole-bludgers and welfare cheats - indeed, to quote current National welfare spokeswoman Judith Collins' description of beneficiaries from 2002: "People who sit around all day watching Sky TV, living off the taxpayer, letting their children run riot and getting stoned.''

Having a leader who grew up a child of the welfare state was always going to impact upon National's welfare policy, and so it has proved to be. Key does nod towards those who resent their contribution to welfare, noting that people "don't like to feel that their helping hand is being taken advantage of''.

Key adds: "It's clear some have too used to being on a benefit and see it as a permanent entitlement. They think it's their right to receive money from the state.'' 

But Key has been clever enough to head off cries of "bennie bashing'' at the pass, adding that he has a "personal commitment'' to the welfare state: "My family was poor, and we knew it, but the benefit gave my mother enough security to keep us together ... we were able to hold on to that most precious human emotion - hope.'' 

The overall tone Key projects is that National sees welfare as a temporary hand-up for the needy and the vulnerable. The stick is still there for those unwilling to do their share, but without the rhetoric adopted by his predecessor.

Key explains away the toned-down approach to welfare by saying that "the benefit landscape has changed and our policies need to change to reflect this''. 

In reality, it's the political landscape that has changed. Voters are not so exercised by the welfare bill as they once were. Indeed in hard economic times some may be counting on the state for their own hand-up should the current rise in the unemployment rate continue. And Labour is tougher on beneficiaries, too. It's harder to attack Government policies on the welfare system without moving into ACT Party territory.

There will be the usual objections from beneficiary advocates but National's welfare policy won't lose it any votes and may even pick up a few. It will be interesting to see how Labour responds. My pick is it won't have too much to say.