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# Give a Man a Fish
- URL: https://goodoil.news/give-a-man-a-fish/
- Published: 2022-08-15T21:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2022-08-15T06:59:06.000Z
- Author: Reproduced with permission
- Tags: NZ, NZ Politics, Politics, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2024-07-16 23:04

**Lindsay Mitchell**  
[lindsaymitchell.blogspot.com](https://lindsaymitchell.blogspot.com/2022/08/increased-benefit-rates-drive-increased.html?ref=goodoil.news)

*Lindsay Mitchell has been researching and commenting on welfare since 2001\. Many of her articles have been published in mainstream media and she has appeared on radio,tv and before select committees discussing issues relating to welfare. Lindsay is also an artist who works under commission and exhibits at Wellington, New Zealand, galleries.*

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Increased benefit rates drive increased deprivation.

This is no surprise to logical thinkers. Simply upping benefits doesn’t mean the extra money will be well spent. Benefit increases have the effect of drawing more people onto benefits, away from work and the structure work brings to people’s lives.

But the following [admission](https://indd.adobe.com/view/f425f024-4679-4e72-a43c-514c60a1c482?ref=goodoil.news) from the Rotorua Lakes District Council nevertheless surprised me:

> “Millions of dollars in welfare has to deliver the desired impact of hope and positive change, instead, Rotorua has seen a steady increase in deprivation since the onset of Covid-19, largely driven by increased benefit rates.”

It’s an odd sentence though and I wonder if ‘has’ in the first line was meant to be ‘was’?

> If local body bureaucrats really believe that simply pouring more money into workless households will create “positive change” they are naive in the extreme.

The report authors note also that Rotorua is second to bottom of 67 councils for crime. Yet isn’t it a tenet of the left that *decreasing* benefits causes crime? Seems the opposite is happening.

Let’s hope a few more officials start to cotton on.

**Update**

In this [Bay of Plenty report](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/rotorua-daily-post/news/bay-of-plenty-beneficiaries-increase-by-40-per-cent-over-five-years-as-recruiters-struggle/SIJH3Y7HNMMEL3HHEH3U2PP5JE/?ref=goodoil.news) Rotorua MP Todd McClay uses the term benefit rate to mean the number of people on benefits whereas [‘benefit rates’](https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/products/benefit-rates/benefit-rates-april-2022.html?ref=goodoil.news) normally mean payment rate.

Either way, my contention holds up. Benefit [payment rates](https://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/working-papers/working-paper-total-incomes-of-msd-main-benefit-clients-as-at-april-2022.html?ref=goodoil.news) AND benefit numbers have risen under Labour.

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