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The
Newman Letter
11 October
04
International eyes on
our welfare shambles
A
new report this week, by the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development, has provided some serious food
for thought on the issue of welfare reform.
The
report, ‘Babies and Bosses’, reviewed benefit
dependency among New Zealand’s sole parents, and is highly
critical of Government policy in this area.
It found that our rate of welfare dependency –
whereby more than a half of all sole parents in New Zealand
are jobless – is high by international standards, and
suggests that reform in this area is long overdue.
The
report, by William Aderna, is part of a series reviewing
policies in OECD countries that affect parents and their work
choices. It makes
a valuable contribution to the debate over the need for
on-going welfare reform.
There
is no doubt that the Domestic Purposes Benefit is the cause of
widespread disquiet in New Zealand.
Staunch supporters claim that the benefit should not
only be available as a right to any woman who chooses to have
a child, but that the level of payment should be made more
generous. Feminists,
who fought for the creation and introduction of the DPB, are
very wary of any move that could erode the power that it has
given to women.
But,
while the DPB has undoubtedly served a purpose, particularly
in those cases that gave rise to its creation – women
trapped in violent relationships who needed the promise of
financial support in order to move out – times have changed.
Growing numbers of New Zealanders now believe it is
long-past time to overhaul the benefit.
When
first introduced in 1973, some 14,000 women qualified for the
DPB. The numbers
have increased relentlessly over the years, peaking at 115,000
in 1998. Forecasts
at the time projected that the numbers would reach 124,000 by
2002.
In
the late 1990s, however, measures were introduced to arrest
this growth, including the work testing of sole parents – to
create an expectation that parents with school-aged children
under the age of 14 look for part-time work, and parents of
older children seek full-time work.
As a result of these work requirements, sole parents
began to move off the benefit and into work – by the time
Labour took office in 1999, DPB numbers had fallen to 110,000.
Labour,
however, halted that reduction by changing the legislation.
Those changes included scrapping Work for the Dole,
abolishing Work-Testing, removing the stand-down period, and
extending DPB eligibility until a recipient’s youngest child
is 18.
Over
the years, the circumstances of women claiming the DPB have
also changed.
Official
figures show that the vast majority of DPB recipients are
women who have never married, outnumbering those who had by
two to one. That represents a significant turnaround from the time when
the overwhelming proportion of DPB recipients were married
women whose marriages had failed.
Today
there are almost 40,000 single women on the DPB.
That growing number reinforces concerns that too many
women are now using the benefit as a lifestyle choice and
treating taxpayers as substitute husbands.
Yet
many of the taxpayers forced to pay the bills worry that they
are funding a way of life that limits the life opportunities
of mothers and their children.
These
fears are well founded. The
evidence is now unequivocal that sole parenthood, and
long-term welfare dependency, is very damaging to children.
Long-term welfare is a major factor in New Zealand’s
excessively high rates of child abuse and crime, with the
Government’s own social policy research team finding that
long-term benefit dependency and sole parenthood are
significant risk factors for children.
The situation is particularly critical for Maori –
half of all Maori children are now growing up in families
dependent on welfare, and the majority of Maori babies are now
being born into families where there are no fathers.
To
use the public purse to fund such a system – which inflicts
damage on children on a daily basis – is, I believe,
immoral. And for
the Labour Government turn a blind eye to the damage that its
welfare system is causing to children borders on criminal.
This
is the main reason why effective welfare reform is so urgent.
Every day, as a result of our welfare system, too many
children will be born to fail. In days gone by, these children would have been adopted out,
and into families that would provide them with the love and
care that their parents were incapable of giving.
But, in today’s politically correct world, adoption
But, in today’s politically correct world, adoption appears
to be a diminishing option particularly compared to the
support offered by the DPB.
While
few people have ever questioned the provision of long-term
security for those people who – through incapacity –
genuinely cannot fend for themselves, most believe that
welfare assistance to the able-bodied should be temporary.
That support should be targeted at helping
beneficiaries overcome the barriers they face to employment
– whether it’s childcare, transport or relocation help,
mentoring or financial planning advice, there is an
understanding that many long-term beneficiaries need to be
supported while they organise what can be quite chaotic
personal lives, in order to successfully take on and hold a
job.
Investing
in welfare recipients in this way, particularly sole parents,
creates many advantages – not only to the individual and
their family, as their lives are enriched through freedom from
State control, but to the nation as a whole as they join the
workforce and become net contributors.
With
the current critical shortage of workers holding the country
back, it is unacceptable that taxpayers are paying the dole to
84,000 beneficiaries, and the DPB to 54,000 sole parents with
school aged children.
I
welcome the OECD’s call to action.
I hope that it is a catalyst for working New Zealanders
to let the Government know that excuses will no longer be
tolerated: a proper overhaul of the benefit system, to require
the able-bodied to work, is now the only acceptable course of
action.
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