Goff attacks govt's welfare plan
The government's planned changes to youth welfare benefits are wide of the mark, Labour leader Phil Goff says.
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Rich List
The government's planned changes to youth welfare benefits are wide of the mark, Labour leader Phil Goff says.
Mr Goff questioned the worth of providing 16- and 17-year-olds with a card that enabled them to buy food and groceries but not alcohol or tobacco when it was illegal for people that age to buy those products anyway.
What young people needed was jobs and access to skills training, he said.
“More and more young people are being left out in the cold.”
It showed the government did not have a strategy or plan to get school leavers into work, he said.
“We were accused of being the nanny state. This is the nanny state,” Mr Goff said of the government's policy, released at the National Party conference over the weekend.
He ruled out the idea of youth rates, saying when he left school and went to work in the freezing works as a teenager, he received the same pay as people older than him who were doing the same job.
Colin Williscroft
Mon, 15 Aug 2011
Mon, 15 Aug 2011
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Goff attacks govt's welfare plan
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