The Government's response is to force people to work for their unemployment benefit. The community wage scheme is the Government's acknowledgement that its policies have cemented in a permanent underclass in New Zealand. There is already too much junk in the world and the planet can't cope either with the waste produced or with the non-renewable resources exploited to produce it. Real needs, like taking care of those who can't take care of themselves and restoring trashed ecosystems, are not and will not be met by a profit driven private sector. Paid work needs to be reorganised so that everyone has a fair share.
Families ought to be able to thrive on the equivalent of one full-time wage.
The Green Party must seriously look at a social wage or universal basic income as an alternative to forcing people to do unnecessary and destructive work. Human enterprise should be taxed less and consumption and resource taxes should be introduced to encourage the production and use of durable products. Jenny Shipley tells us the economy will stagnate if we stop her reform agenda. Clearly her Government's model is not sustainable. And there is a massive contradiction between her calls for social and family responsibility where she effectively says there is no community, only individuals, and we must all become independent, to her endorsement of globalisation where New Zealand is becoming increasingly dependent upon foreign capital, goods and services.