Posts by weka
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Hard News: On benefit fraud, in reply to Dennis Frank,
The whole department ought to be disestablished via switching to a suitable UBI
We will always need welfare because not everyone's income needs or abilities are the same. And that necessitates an administering department. I'd be ok with dismantling WINZ if it were replaced by a smaller Dept of Social Welfare and a socially designed UBI.
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Hard News: On benefit fraud, in reply to Dennis Frank,
Re giving the rich an unnecessary payment, a suitable design for UBI could negate that criticism by defining it as a universal entitlement based on citizenship and adulthood, but including the right for the government to withold it from those who don't actually need it.
Some UBI models balance this out by having a higher tax rate for people on higher incomes i.e. they don't literally get the extra $ in their bank account. But if for any reason their income drops, then like everyone else they have a universal entitlement and the UBI comes to them without fuss. It's administered by IRD.
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Hard News: On benefit fraud, in reply to Katharine Moody,
Agree with that too - do you think the Green's proposal comes close to what is needed?
I think their general Income Support policy along with the announcement on the weekend is very good in terms of addressing the changes that need to happen in the culture, the structure, and the income rates at WINZ. They also want to take the UBI to the country and investigate whether it's a good idea. Given the social intelligence displayed by Turei on Sunday, these are the people I'd want in charge of this stuff.
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Hard News: On benefit fraud, in reply to Katharine Moody,
but then what it did do was free people up to make their own life decisions.
It would do that for some people. Others would be pushed into worse poverty, and have less autonomy and self-determination. That's not a universal scheme.
I'm not sure there are many other policy answers to a UBI.
At the moment we are using a very dysfunctional, monkey-wrenched welfare system. I'd like to see that put right first, structurally and culturally. Trying to build a UBI out of the mess we have now is fraught (hence the problems intrinsic to TBK). I like the idea of a UBI, but it really comes down to how it is designed. I'd prefer to see it designed by people with social justice in mind rather than economics first.
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Hard News: On benefit fraud, in reply to Katharine Moody,
yes, that's my understanding. Also it's on top of any benefits, whereas TBK would replace them, which is a massive (unexplained) difference.
The Big Kahuna would make things worse for many people, because it scraps all welfare and replaces it with the equivalent of the dole. If you need topups, you're out of luck. Very few people can live on the dole rate.
Mostly I'm pointing out that UBIs aren't inherently good. TBK contains some useful starting ideas, but we shouldn't be looking to it as an exemplar for NZ (likewise TOP's policy).
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Hard News: On benefit fraud, in reply to Katharine Moody,
Gareth Morgan's UBI proposal would make the lives of many vulnerable people worse because it has no plan for those people currently dependent on supplementary benefits. Anyone who can't work would be forced to live on less than they get now (most beneficiaries are dependent on supplementary benefits). So that's people with disabilities and solo parents at least. No Disability Allowance, no hardship grant, no Accommodation Supplement, no special needs grants. Any UBI intended to mitigate poverty (as opposed to being an economic tool for managing changing patterns of unemployment) needs to be designed with those people in mind.
Yes, a UBI can be universal. But TOP's isn't a Universal Basic Income, it's an Unconditional Basic Income, and their current policy is aimed at a limited section of society. You can achieve similar results with a properly managed welfare system that addresses all people in poverty, not just the ones that Morgan deems deserving.
(in case it's not clear, Morgan's Big Kahuna UBI is different from TOP's, although Morgan claims the TOP one is based on the Big Kahuna. I've not seen an explanation for the difference).
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Hard News: On benefit fraud, in reply to Emma Hart,
How do they not know? How do they not already know?
I'd love to know when that system was designed. Does it predate the Lange government?
I'm think that benefit abatement was seen as different than tax, and it took a long time for anyone to start looking at the whole. You were meant to be on a benefit for a short time, then get off and into full time work. That sounds like 80s rhetoric to me, no longer matched with work reality by the 90s.
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One of the issues here is that additional income for long term beneficiaries can be assessed yearly. At the end of the year they look at earnings, divide by 52 and take that off your benefit for the coming year. Relatively simple, although it has some issues too.
With benefits like the dole, you're not meant to be on them for long, so they assess weekly. This is crazy making for people with variable income. I hear stories from people who work weekends but can't technically report the wages in the timeframe that WINZ insist. They get into these crazy levels of accounting for income that then gets abated. Needless to say, I know people that just figure out what their average income rate is, declare that instead, and hope that if they get investigated they won't end up owning much. Technically that's fraud, but it's also sanctioned by WINZ staff who also think the system is daft and who themselves don't have enough time to administer it.
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Not voting can be interpreted in many ways, the least of which is a protest vote. NZ typically has a low turnout for referenda, so not voting is more likely to be seen as couldn't be bothered/don't care.
Spoling the vote is more likley to be seen as a protest. At the last referendum the spoiled vote was .3% If the flag1 referendum got 20% spoiled votes it would be hard to interpret that as anything other than protest/FJK.
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Hard News: Word of the Year 2014: #dirtypolitics, in reply to Sacha,
roflnui
Oooh, I hope that's on the list next year.