Government Presses on with Welfare Attacks

The second wave of welfare reforms were announced in Parliament yesterday. 

In the last few weeks these have been foreshadowed by  Paula Bennett's  announcements of  a range of horrendous punishments for beneficiaries. These include   halving benefits for parents who don't put children into childcare or have regular enough medical checks, and  for job seekers who fail medical checks .

 The Social Security Amendment legislation provides a legal framework for:

Abolition of Sickness Benefit;
job seeker responsibilities for sick, disabled, sole parents;

outsourcing assessments of sick and disabled;
outsourcing job referrals, training and so forth;

stricter "pre benefit expectations" (harder access to get any benefits);

regulated, controlled "supplier services" for Disability Allowance (more checks, limits and so forth);

sundry other nasty limitations, restrictions, increased expectations, plus likely use of more biased (outsourced) medical professionals to make work fitness/capacity assessments.

For more information about the legislation see:

http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Legislation/Bills/5/2/a/00DBHOH_BILL11634_1-Social-Security-Benefit-Categories-and-Work-Focus.htm

http://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2012/0067/latest/DLM4542304.html?search=ts_act%40bill%40regulation%40deemedreg_Social+Security+%28Benefit+Categories+and+Work+Focus%29+Amendment+Bill_resel_25_h&p=1