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NZCPR
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Opinion piece by Dr Don Brash
27 January 06
Welfare
Reform not about Fiscal Savings
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Twelve
months ago, I gave a major speech to the Orewa Rotary Club
about the National Party’s commitment to welfare reform.
I
noted that 30 years ago the number of working-aged adults on a
benefit in
New Zealand
was fewer than 40,000, whereas in 2005 the figure was over
300,000, despite the economic buoyancy induced by some of the
strongest export prices in a generation.
I
spoke of the need to insist that able-bodied adults be doing
some form of work, or be in training, in return for ongoing
support from taxpayers.
I
spoke of the need to assist those who sometimes find it hard
to get a job to get their foot in the door by introducing a
three month trial period during which either party can agree
that employment can be ended without penalty.
I
spoke of the need to be sure that the hugely increased numbers
of those drawing the sickness and invalids’ benefits are
actually entitled to those benefits.
I
spoke of the need to ensure that the Domestic Purposes Benefit
does not work to discourage paternal responsibility for
children, or to encourage more and more children to grow up in
single-parent families.
I
spoke of the need to ensure that all those receiving taxpayer
support recognise their reciprocal obligations to taxpayers
– by taking part in community service or retraining, and by
ensuring their children attend school and receive appropriate
medical check-ups.
I
was dismayed to find that many people saw this policy as
mainly about saving money.
Well, saving money, especially when it belongs to
taxpayers, is a worthy objective, and I was conscious of the
fact that welfare was costing the ordinary hard-working Kiwi
something like $50 each and every week.
It is totally unfair to expect hard-working New
Zealanders to shoulder that kind of burden if it can be
avoided, or at least reduced.
But
welfare reform was always about much much more than saving
dollars, important though that is.
And I was reminded of that during the holiday period
when I read a book called “The Welfare State We’re In”,
by James Bartholomew.
The
book takes a hard look at how the welfare system has worked in
the
United Kingdom
over recent decades. It
is the most devastating critique of the welfare state I have
ever read. After
looking at the way in which income support, the National
Health Service, the state education system and subsidised
housing work, the book contends that in the
UK
the welfare system has worked to the detriment
of the very people it was designed to help.
My
hunch is that the situation in New Zealand is not as serious,
but even assuming it is only half as bad, it is clear that the
way in which the welfare system operates does very
considerable damage to many of those it is designed to help.
Yes,
I would like to save the average Kiwi worker a large chunk of
the $50 a week she is now paying towards the welfare system,
but my main reason for being strongly committed to reform of
the welfare system is that I am not prepared to sentence one
in eight of our entire population – 300,000 working-age
adults and their quarter of a million children – to years
and years, in some cases a lifetime, of dehumanizing,
degrading, and ultimately demoralizing dependence on a
taxpayer hand-out. With
the exception of those with permanent physical or mental
impairment, nobody should expect to live indefinitely on the
generosity of the taxpayer.
Such dependence is damaging to the taxpayer but even
more damaging to the recipient.
Don
Brash
Leader of the National Party
January 2006
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