NZ POLITICS DAILY: Another jobs jolt con?

In 2003 the Helen Clark Labour Government announced their ‘Jobs Jolt’ package of welfare reforms to outrage from the left and beneficiaries, and to the cheers of so-called ‘Middle New Zealand’. Beneficiaries were supposedly going to be forced to take jobs, to shift from their homes to other parts of the country in order to find jobs, and be work-tested and drug-tested.

It was all a con, of course – it was purely designed for electoral calculation. In reality it didn’t even really affect that many beneficiaries in any serious way. Similarly, National’s latest beneficiary-bashing welfare reforms are not really that radical except in rhetoric and can be regarded as a modern Jobs Jolt for youth. In this regard, check out Gordon Campbell’s On the Government’s latest plans to Americanise the welfare system. As Campbell says, ‘the target audience for these proposals is not the miniscule number of feckless young people on benefits, but the wider population of voters who think the young have had it too easy for too long’. Likewise, John Armstrong says that the ‘policy has "winner" stamped all over it - at least in electoral terms’ – see: Grand finale wakes up the delegates.

Russell Brown is very unimpressed with the substance of what is being proposed and likens it to National’s Bootcamps, which were always more of a slogan than a solution (Is that it?). Similarly, blogger Dave Crampton says National’s welfare policy is hot air on a cold day – it won’t happen.

Bernard Hickey also makes some good points in Key should apply rules to the older beneficiaries.

And there’s plenty of commentators making the point that National’s firmly interventionist approach into beneficiaries’ lives is akin to Labour’s much-mocked nanny-state ideology – see, for example, Steven Cowan’s Big Daddy, Rob Carr’s Daddystate, and Patrick Gower’s Welfare reforms: 'Nanny state comes to mind'.

And academic Grant Duncan looks intelligently at the issue of the state pursuing fraudulent beneficiaries in secret relationships in The great big benefit fraud. Also of interest, is John Hartevelt’s opinion piece, This is a big deal, in which he argues ‘the changes to youth welfare announced by National yesterday are a big deal. At the same time, however, they are actually kind of trifling’.

Other recent must-read items include Catherine Masters (lengthy) Phil Goff - the careful rebel, Whaleoil’s A Strange Conference, John Armstrong’s SOE share loyalty scheme being considered, Bernard Hickey’s Capitalism - top heavy and toppling, and Ian Llewellyn’s Where Now For The "Other'" Minor Parties.

Bryce Edwards, NZPD Editor (bryce.edwards@otago.ac.nz)

Today’s content:

National Party conference, welfare reform etc

Bernard Hickey (NZH): Key should apply rules to the older beneficiaries

Gordon Campbell: On the Government’s latest plans to Americanise the welfare system

John Hartevelt (Stuff): This is a big deal

John Armstrong (NZH): Grand finale wakes up the delegates

Russell Brown (Public address): Is that it?

Dave Crampton (Big News): National’s welfare policy is hot air on a cold day – it won’t happen

Grant Duncan (Policy matters): The great big benefit fraud

TVNZ: Key's 'radical policy' to target teen beneficiaries