Outcomes are expressed in terms of number of engagements and the odd case study, alongside broad-based expressions of improved lives and expectations. This type of ongoing reporting was obviously insufficient to satisfy the new government post 2023.
Problems don’t go away because you don’t talk about them. Talking about them is an essential prerequisite to progress.
Decade after decade governments have failed to successfully tackle the problem. They tinker at best. The issue is poor policy.
On the face of it, MSD has no empathy for Covid fraudsters but no end of empathy for beneficiary fraudsters. So much for a neutral public service.
And it’s not just him. Hipkins is the same. They talk to this particular group. Is it their group? Their friends and colleagues? Or is that the group that contains the swinging voters?
When it comes to those who could be working, Māori are massively over-represented. Whilst colonisation continues to be blamed for Māori ‘disadvantage’, every year thousands of immigrants come to New Zealand and make a contribution.
I don’t think I am ever going to behold this ‘monument’ with any sense of sympathy or warmth.
Childish and churlish: that’s the calibre of the man who wants to resume the prime ministership come November.
What really matters is the year-on-year comparison.
Let’s hope if the coalition survives the 2026 election, ACT gets to exercise far more influence in this area. Two forgotten words desperately in need of rehabilitation – Personal Responsibility.
Get rid of the sole parent benefit. Lift aspirations for those mothers and better outcomes for their children will follow.
While it’s true that they provide much-needed emergency services, they also fight against reforms that try to place at least some responsibility back on the shoulders of people receiving benefits.
Don is reluctant to “kill what we have built up over the last few years” and has suggested that we continue the blog under the title of Brash & Mitchell.
In the face of this report, the best response the government could make is to defund the Salvation Army for being part of the problem.
No, the benefit itself isn’t causal. It’s the lifestyle the benefit enables that does the damage. When will a future government recognise and act on this reality?
We mere mortals can picture the adult histories and households that bring newborns into precarious environments BUT officials have the confirming data. Is it acted on? No.
