The Dream is Over" What Dream, Bennett!? 23 March 2010
Shame on you Key/Bennett/national, instilling fear into invalids and sick people! - What you are doing is nothing short of a humanitarian crisis.
Paula Bennett (Minister of Social development) seems to be enjoying adding the unnecessary stressors she and her so called colleagues are forcing on sick injured and solo mothers, and we are hoping these monstrous actions come back and bite them hard in the 2011 elections.
As expected the greedy right wing NZ National party has hit an all time low with it`s announcement (23 March 2010) to cut all benefits across the board including sickness and invalids benefits. At a time when jobs are very hard to come by, we wonder how the poor in NZ will survive these treacherous and lethal cutbacks in welfare, it is without doubt the National party will create communities of underclass as they did in the 1990`s with the "Mother of all Budgets".
With a hike in GST just around the corner we will see unprecedented level of poverty never seen in NZ since the great depression, and I for one am gladdened by the fact that I havn`t voted for a National party since the 1980`s, and hopefully after these horrific cuts we will never see a National gov`t again!.
With 100s of injured people being shifted off NZ`s ACC scheme daily, ending up on the sickness and invalids benefit without compensation or rehabilitation and now the threat of being knocked off the invalids benefit will be too much to take for some of these unfortuanate people and their families, will end up a legal feast for the lawyers and no-one winning in the end and costing the govt more in the long run.
Forcing solo mothers to work is discriminatory to the core, this will have a double wammy as more solo mums deliberately become pregnant to thwart the system, Bennets rules are "no work testing or job seeking for mothers with a child under 6yrs of age" - eventually becoming more of a burden on welfare and the system.
It is not a wise move to shift permanently injured/sick people off the invalids benefit to the sickness benefit, as this will increase doctors loads and end up costing welfare more for the monthly assessments, all of the above is clearly a breach of human rights, which the National govt is renown for in any case.
Social Security???
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Below a newsletter from a very concerned CPAG
Media Release 23 March 2010
Bennett dreams up a nightmare for disadvantaged children
Minister of Social Development Paula Bennett's telling sole parents "the dream is over" will be a nightmare for thousands of children, says Child Poverty Action Group. The Minister has signalled that 43,000 sole parents of school age children will be work tested and expected to take up part-time work.
CPAG has asked the Minister to outline what arrangements will be in place for parents with chronically sick or disabled children. The group has also asked for clarity on how sanctions will be applied so they do not affect the material wellbeing of already disadvantaged children.
Spokesperson Donna Wynd has welcomed the raising of earnings thresholds, but says this on its own will not reduce the hardship of many sole parents households. "Being able to earn an extra $20 per week before tax will not alleviate child poverty, and it probably won't give anyone an incentive to work who isn't already," said Ms Wynd
"We also have some real concerns about what happens if there are not 43,000 suitable part-time jobs conveniently located where parents live. Do parents have to take jobs that mean their children are unattended after school? And what if there simply are no jobs? What measures will be in place to ensure that parents are not unnecessarily sanctioned?"
The group is also worried about tightening up on invalids benefits. "The biggest barrier to the employment of the disabled is employer discrimination. If getting a benefit becomes harder, where do people go?
This package looks like a repeat of the failed policies of the 1990s. They were bad for children then, and they will be worse for children now." --Ends--
Kind Regards
Julie Timmins
Ka Whangaia ka tupu, ka puawai
That which is nurtured, blossoms and grows.