BY JANET ROTH
AUCKLAND, New Zealand - On April 1, new rules came into effect that place additional restrictions on the availability of welfare benefits. These are part of a stepped-up offensive against social entitlements by New Zealand's coalition government, which was formed at the end of 1996.

Single parents on the domestic purposes benefit are now required to look for work or training once their youngest child reaches the age of 14. Any failure to take up a job or training opportunity without "good and sufficient reason" will be penalized. Those with children aged 7-13 years must attend a yearly planning meeting to make plans for getting a job when their children turn 14.

People receiving the Widows Benefit and partners of people on the Unemployment Benefit are also subject to the new rules.

The penalties for failing the work test are based on a "three-strikes-and-you-are-out" formula. Failing a work test includes not going to an interview, not taking up an offer of "suitable" employment, not complying with an action plan agreed with the Employment Service, or not attending the yearly planning meeting.

For the first failure to comply, a person's benefits are to be reduced by 20 percent. For the second instance, the reduction is 40 percent, and 100 percent if the situation continues for more than 28 days. On the third failure, the benefit is canceled, and the person is ineligible to receive a benefit for three months.

The government is seeking an exemption from the Privacy Act for data passed from the Employment Service, (which will do the work test) to Social Welfare, (which pays the benefit), so that any cut in income would come out of the next benefit payment.

The new rules immediately affect about 60,000 people, predominantly women. In response, the Wellington People's Resource Centre organized a lunchtime protest on April 1 in Wellington.

Protest organizer Catriona Ross called on the government to provide affordable child care and after-school care to assist beneficiaries who wanted to work. Punitive measures would not create jobs where none existed, she said.

Government spokespeople claim the work tests have been introduced because of concern that beneficiaries are unable to find jobs because they have become dependent on welfare. In mid- March, the Social Welfare Department hosted a major conference called "Beyond Dependency," which promoted this theme.

Contempt for unemployed workers
Comments by Margaret Bazley, the Director-General of Social Welfare, highlighted the contempt for jobless workers that ran throughout the conference.

Bazley said that 25 percent of children in New Zealand have no parents in paid work, with the figure for Maori children 48 percent and for Pacific Island children 45 percent. This, she claimed, is causing an intergenerational dependency problem, so now "we have got children whose only fantasy, whose only dream, is life on a benefit."

The focus, she said, had to be on "the people who have lost their living skills, they're living in a chaotic state. They don't go to bed at a decent time, they don't get up in the morning, they don't get their kids to school, they don't feed them, they don't give them lunch so those kids are doomed to that same life-style."

Bazley denied there was a problem with a lack of jobs. "I think the reason that they are not in jobs is not because the jobs aren't there. It's because other people are more attractive to employers."

Two guests at the conference were featured in particular by the media. One was Jean Rogers, administrator of an anti- welfare scheme in Wisconsin that includes a time limit for benefits, workfare schemes, and getting single mothers to work when their babies are 12 weeks old.

The other was Connie Driscoll, who runs a shelter for homeless women in Chicago and advocates a time limit on welfare, with charities as the only fallback for those in need.

Beneficiaries organizations and social policy researchers organized a counter-conference called "Beyond Poverty," and protest rallies were held outside the official conference.

Sue Bradford of the Auckland Unemployed Workers Rights Centre, stated, "There are hundreds and thousands of adults who want jobs and don't have them. That is the primary cause of people and kids being benefit dependent."

The official jobless rate in December 1996 was one in 10 people of working age. For workers who are Maori and Pacific Islanders, the rate is one in seven. In January 1997, for every job notified to the Labour Department's employment service there were 22 people registered as unemployed.

The government is planning to implement a "work-for-the- dole" scheme for those on unemployment benefits.

Rightist Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has also been prominent in attacking those on benefits. In a speech to Bay of Plenty business people outlining changes to government agencies dealing with unemployed, Peters declared that "the days of sitting on the beach drawing the dole are over." In an earlier speech he said, "Welfarism is a drug that saps individual and national vitality."

The government has indicated it plans to cut other entitlements won by working people. One proposal floated is to do away with accident compensation coverage for so-called minor injuries, which would force victims to pay for their own medical expenses or face higher insurance premiums. These minor injuries make up 90 percent of claims covered by the current accident compensation scheme.

In September, a referendum is scheduled to be held on whether to introduce a compulsory savings scheme for retirement. Regardless of the results of this, government ministers have been declaring that the existing old-age pension is unaffordable and needs to be cut, such as through means- testing or raising the eligibility age to 70.

Janet Roth is a member of the United Food, Beverage, and General Workers Union.  
 
 
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