Waitemata Unite confronts Paula Bennett

Waitemata Unite and supporters came to a public meeting with Paula Bennet, held at the Fickling Centre tonight.We wanted to challenge her about National's anti-beneficiary policies.
This was tricky because Bennett was all sweetness and light and presented her policies as caring and helping towards beneficiaries,when they obviously weren't as one of our members pointed out at the meeting.

She promised that no benefit would be cut, (without admitting that they had already been cut, disguised within the slight rise supposed to combat the GST rise.)
The GST rise was rightly described as a tax increase for beneficiaries by a member of the audience, alongside the massive tax cuts for the rich.
She was asked why National had abolished the Training Incentive allowance,and what about the special needs of some families for parents to stay with their children at home after age six. She smoothly assured us that these needs would be taken into account.
An audience member asked whether the government was using the welfare working group to test out extreme policy ideas, like US style workfare or Canadian Benefit Insurance, to test the public reaction, and back off if necessary.

Another audience member asked her how she could cut the TIA when she herself had benefited from it. She said that was 16 years ago, and that there is no interest on student loans now. Watch this space. Key has been recently complaining about what a bad investment these loans are. Others who had disabilities asked Paula about whether WINZ was going to improve its treatment of them.

Paula went on at length about the skills training that National now offered to help some people get back into the workforce; instead of the TIA. National and its employer friends want quickly- trained low paid workers, not people who study for years to get a university educations, question society and demand higher wages.

She also went on at length about CYFS programmes for young children who had been abused or neglected by their parents. While any pilots in this direction are a good thing; she made no mention of the economic causes of violence; such as poverty and unemployment, which this government is doing nothing to stop.

If this government so cares about the young, why has it slashed Early Childhood Education funding, and why doesn't it ensure that no child lives in poverty?