Kielda.
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast.
Presented by the New Zealand Herald.
The government has announced new restrictions for beneficiaries. Prime Minister Christopher Luxen and Social Development Minister Louise Upston this week announced a new traffic light system that comes with harsher penalties for those who don't meet their obligations to attend meetings and.
Look for work. But what exactly do those.
Sanctions mean and why is national making this a priority now? Today on the front Page ends at Herald, political journalist Julia Gable joins us to explain this new traffic light system. Julia, can you take us through the three stages of the new beneficiary traffic light system?
Yes, sure, cure to chuse. So on Monday, the government announced this new traffic light system for people on the benefit and so beneficiaries with work obligations. So that's people who are required by the Ministry of Social Development to be actively looking or preparing for work are included in this new traffic light system. So there's three colors, and a person's color within the scheme depends on their compliance with their obligations. So there's Green. Beneficiaries on Green are
complying with their obligations. There's orange, and those recipients have received either their first or second obligation breach and they don't have a good reason for the transgression. They then have five working days to contact the Ministry of Social Development to discuss their breach, and if they successfully dispute that obligation failure, then that original decision is overturned and
they can go back to green. Otherwise, if they haven't done that successfully and they don't recomply within those five working days, they move to red. Now under red, that is when someone is actioned. So this could include their benefit being reduced or stopped, but it can also include from next year, these new sanctions which the government announced on Monday, which will apply to certain benefit recipients.
What kind of sanctions are those.
They're called non financial sanctions, and they'refore people who have dependent children or are in case management and they're facing their first obligation breach, so just for certain beneficiaries, and they include the new money management sanction. So this is when half of a person's benefit goes onto an electronic payment card and that money on that card can only
be used at approved stores to purchase essentials. And when Minister Upstin, the Social Development Minister, announced it on Monday, she described this management card as giving people access to the same amount of money, but with less freedoms. She kind of presented it as a better option than completely
removing half of someone's benefit. And there's also the second new sanction coming up next year, which is the community Work Experience section, and this will require people to find in complete work experience at a community organization before that
sanction is lifted. And it was also said, you know that during this time when these beneficiaries are on these red sections, they're not actually able to access hardship persistence either, which are kind of those one off payments for emergency expenses like health or betting.
Sanctions encourage motivation for a job seeker to get out there and look for work. And I've heard the concerns that people have raised with me about what it might mean for a household where there are children. Instead of going straight to a reduction of their benefit, where are saying you get the same amount of benefit, just less freedoms. It's about the consequence of them not fulfilling their obligations.
What other changes are coming through.
So there's other changes that are coming which include the amount of time that an obligation failure stays on a person's record. So currently that failure is marked against a person on their record for twelve months, but Minister Epston announced on Monday that that time period is actually going to double and she said that this would make it more likely that a person's benefit would be canceled if
they continue to not meet their obligations. Also, from next year, job seeker recipients will need to reapply for the benefit every six months. They will also need to create a job seeker profile which includes details about their work experience, their job preferences and job choices, and their qualifications before they're granted their benefit.
What justification did the Prime Minister and Upston give for this decision?
So when Minister Abston announced this new scheme, she said, you know there are responsibilities that come with having a benefit, and there will be no more excuses for job jobzigers not knowing what those responsibilities are. And she touted this traffic light system as a way of making it crystal clear to benefit recipients as to what those responsibilities and
opplications are. She described the welfare system as always being a safety net that catches people when they fall, but had become in the past few years a drag net that had captured too many people who can work and allow them to, as she said, languish on job seeker support.
Statz Enz revealing today in the March quarter, the unemployment rate has risen from four point four percent to four point six percent. Looking at the year to June, the youth rate for fifteen to nineteen year olds has increased from a touch over fifteen percent to close to twenty one percent.
Overall.
Over the past year, the number of people out of work has jumped from thirty three thousand to one hundred and forty three thousand, and that figure includes more Mari now jobless, the rate increasing from just over seven percent a year ago to more than nine percent.
Is there any data to support their.
Claims that benefits are in fact a dragnet and allowed people to languish on the job seeker benefit.
I don't know, and I'm not sure whether the data would support those words or those claims or not. But what some of the data does show and reporting by my colleague Thomas Coglin who's done that recently, shows that the number of people on a benefit did reach a new record in the June quarter, and with about three one hundred and eighty one thousand people, or about eleven point nine percent of the working age population receiving a benefit, and just looking at those figures now, for that June
twenty twenty four quarter, there was about one hundred and ninety six thousand people receiving the job Seeker Support benefit payment as well.
How have the opposition parties and those that support people struggling financially responded to these changes.
They've really come out strong. You know, the Labor Party, the Greens and other advocacy groups have just slammed this announcement, just saying it's going to do more harm than good and it's not going to do the number one job of supporting people to get back into work.
You know.
Labor described it as benefit bashing. The Greens have said that, you know, these are just cruel policies that are hurting people in poverty who really need support. In groups like Auckland Action against Poverty have said that the sanctions just won't work and they will just add more stress to people who are already living in really really stressful situations.
Benefit's really hard to survive on and people's experiences punishment.
You start talking about sanctions, you start talking about.
Cutting half of the measly amount of people get it sounds like bunishment.
More than fifty percent of people on benefit have a health condition.
Lots of people have come on to benefit because they've just had some kind of health shock or job shock. There's a youth development and social organization group called Kickback, and they said these increased barriers to people accessing support would result in more younger people sleeping on the streets or being pushed into dangerous and vulnerable situations. And they said staunchly young people do not lack the motivation, they lack access to their basic human rights.
So these changes are due to come into effect what next year. We've seen reports already of people having their benefits cut for missing meetings and things, haven't we.
I heard this morning actually a story about someone an accountant I believe, who had had received a letter that their benefit was going to be cut if I recall correctly, for missing an obligation that they were not aware they were.
Meant to do.
I think it was in a meeting or appointment and they weren't aware of it.
There's been no communications wherever I'm there in they just decided to, I don't know, maybe test the waters on a bunch of people to see if they can cut their benefits and see what will happen.
But I will have the.
Courage to stand up for myself and fight. But I know that there are a lot more vulnerable people out there, and my concern goes out to them.
So I did hear that report this morning. The traffic light system is an action now, and the other changes around those sanctions that I mentioned, and the extended time period of failure is on a person's record and the job seeker profiles. They come into effect next year.
On morning report the other day, Luxon was unable to give a bullpark figure of how much a beneficiary actually receives.
Do you know how much that is?
No, I don't be I'm not right now, but I just don't say to you. It's about making sure we get people prepared for work, and we think off welfare and into work as a much better outcome.
So you don't know how much someone who is on a job seeker benefit is having to live on.
Well, I just don't want to. I'll give you a precise number, but I don't know the precise number i'll give it.
Could you give me a rough number?
No, I'm not going to do that because I want to make sure I get it.
Right for you.
So how much are people getting?
So the rate you get paid depends on your circumstances. You know, do you have a partner, do you have children? But for example, a single person without children who'd be twenty five years or older would receive about three hundred and fifty dollars a week under Job Seeker Net per week.
Given that it's not a particularly huge amount of money, why is it such a priority for National? Is it about getting people back into the paid workforce, Is it about saving money by reducing those being supported.
By the state, or is it just an easy win with voters? Do you think?
I think it's important to note that Luxon the Prime Minister himself has noted that this will affect only around five percent of people are missing or not meeting the obligation, So that's around ten thousand people. But you know, the message given appears to be stronger than that. You know,
National's ethos is to have a smaller welfare state. Reducing welfare dependency has been something the National Party have campaigned on and the Prime Minister and the State of the Nation speech in February said you know that the free ride for beneficiaries who were not adhering to the obligations was over and he vowed to kind of break the
shackles of welfare dependency. And then again on Monday when he announced this new traffic light system with the Social Development Minister, he said there was a strong expectation that those people who can work should be in work and that fewer people on welfare was better for them themselves, for their future, for their families, and better for the
economy and better for New Zealand. He also said, you know that the government wanted to do so much more for our young people and that they do everything that they can to support them off welfare and into jobs, and they've tarted this latest annoucement announcement as one of those steps.
It does seem to be a political kind of buzzword. Hey, we see governments around the world saying similar things about beneficiaries, but if we dig into the.
Numbers, it's not always as big as it seems so.
On that last point, Julia, do you think that this policy is going to resonate with people. We've seen huge numbers on the Herald site for stories covering this. It definitely seems to be getting some cut through.
Well. It'll resonate differently with different people for different reasons. Some people may see the view of sanctioning beneficiaries as indeed one way of incentivizing people to get into work. But for other people who either our own benefit or who believe the role of the state is to better and holistically support people who need a benefit, who are often in quite vulnerable positions, I think this could be really concerning and jarring and even stressful.
Thanks for joining us, Julia.
That said, for this episode of The Front Page, you can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzed herold.
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The Front Page is produced by Ethan Seals with sound engineer Patty Fox.
I'm Chelsea Daniels.
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