Staff will be directed to ensure beneficiaries get their full entitlements. Internal re-organisation will restore a clear distinction between the Winz employment and income support functions, because it makes no sense to treat all beneficiaries as job seekers. Maharey says that Labour will concentrate on quality case management and introduce programmes to help school-leavers and single parents get work skills. They slashed benefits, distorted benefit fraud figures, bullied beneficiaries to look for non-existent jobs and drew up the insulting Code of Social Responsibility. They created an underclass, and they despise their own creation.
Labour knows welfare is an option very few people want to take.
Our policy does not begin with blame. We focus on creating opportunities by removing obstacles to training, gaining qualifications and getting a job. No localities in the Otago electorate have high levels of deprivation. One of the researchers, Dr Simon Hatcher, says his theory is that the increased rate amongst younger men is due to economic problems and the disproportionate distribution of wealth affecting them more than other groups. He says that in the Depression of the 1930s, older men dominated the suicide statistics because they were the ones most likely to be thrown out of work.