Up Front: Who's Dreaming Now?
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Brilliant!
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3410,
"Plus, plus! Working is good for you! It'll keep 'em sharp, stop 'em getting all depressed and ill and shit..."
I really hope someone gets her to say "Work will set you free.".
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Did Haywood put you up to this?
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Did Haywood put you up to this?
Um, yes. I constantly need to be put up to things. That's why Megan is such a bad influence on me.
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Did Haywood put you up to this?
Why, do you think it's a joke?
After observing that elderly people are treated very generously in New Zealand - something that obviously needs to be put a stop to - the first 2025 Taskforce report commissioned by our esteemed government and released last year offered the following:
Changes to New Zealand Superannuation are vital and are already well overdue. Changes would not be expected to generate material short-term fiscal savings. But over the medium-term the amounts involved are very substantial. These savings take various forms:
- Lower spending on superannuation itself.
- Higher tax revenue from increased participation of older people in the labour force.
- Modestly reduced health spending (it is well-established that if people remain active longer they also tend to keep in better health). (p. 90)Also, this is not quite the Onion article I have in mind, but close.
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Why, do you think it's a joke?
A little pre-posting googling, just in case I'd been accidentally a bit accurate, revealed that this was seriously considered in Australia in 2004. Australia. We practically have to do it.
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and don’t think we won’t have private detectives parked outside their houses watching
Well with the 100,000 they took off the sickness benefit and trained for security, it'll be no problemo watching all the lazy little fuckers taking extended lunch breaks either! Plus, those mobility scooters better be registered and warranted too! ;)
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Since Gio is far too polite to link it directly himself, can I point you all to this superb post on the Bennett welfare reforms?
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Awww, you.
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I think Sam's link should read "The Dream Is Over". But I agree with the label "superb."
As far as Emma's post goes, marvellous as it is, I think I'm too angry to laugh.
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I constantly need to be put up to things
I though we had agreed on that cover story. I should have appended a :)
Oh, and Gio's piece is also magnificent. Two thumbs up.
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Like Stephen, I'm too angry to laugh - and too disturbed by the amazing analysis Gio provides in the above link - here I was feeling overwhelmed by all the awful shit the gummint was up to - and now I realise that's the point. They're trying to overwhelm me so that they can sneak this mean-minded blame-oriented policy through. Those women on the DPB have children - how are those children going to eat if their benefit is halved because their mothers can't get non-existent jobs? t
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Easy, poor people's children don't count
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Those women on the DPB have children - how are those children going to eat if their benefit is halved because their mothers can't get non-existent jobs?
Well, that's their fault for being born to such lazy whores, etc.
This is my way of dealing with my over-powering anger. I saw a friend of mine give up on a relationship because his girlfriend was on the DPB and there actually was a guy in a parked car across the road from her house every night and she could lose her benefit for receiving "emotional support". Which you'd think would lead any sane person to then ask, "What are these people supposed to EAT? Where are they supposed to live?"
I've been on both Sickness and Invalids' benefits, and I know what work-testing will do - the stress will make people sicker. My designated doctor visits would pretty much reduce me to sixteen hours a day in bed again for a couple of weeks just from sheer stress.
What benefit can they possibly believe comes from treating people like criminals? And how can a government possibly retain any credibility when demanding people work while it sacks its own workforce?
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What benefit can they possibly believe comes from treating people like criminals?
Red meat for "hard-working mainstream" New Zillunders too misinformed to realise who's actually dicking them over.
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Red meat for "hard-working mainstream" New Zillunders too misinformed to realise who's actually dicking them over.
Or, in what might be the year's most infamous political quote:
Social Development Minister Paula Bennett says she thinks it is a discrimination that most New Zealanders will see as fair and reasonable.
Along those lines, I really liked this comment in DimPost the other day:
I put up a sign at my motel saying “No Irish No Dogs No Blacks”. After some focus groups and a bit of polling, I twinked out “No dogs”.
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There was some old guy in Tauranga saying this would bring him out of retirement just this morning. Nice suit, too."
LOL.
What benefit can they possibly believe comes from treating people like criminals?
What frustrates me is that I'd be in favour of welfare reform, particularly in the area of the unemployment benefit. By definition that's supposed to be people who want to work, but who are unable to find work, either through lack of skills or opportunities.
More investment in education and training for those people so that they can engage in work that involves some skills and earning some half-decent money, and a sustained effort by the government to put actual work in front of them, and I wouldn't mind an actual stick being brought out for the minority who actually intend to live off the state with no intention of supporting themselves (as long as the stick didn't involve taking money off them which is going to do the opposite of helping).
The current govt plans, more of the same foolish reforms.
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All stick, no investment
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Emma, I think the party line would be that you would be better off in an asylum, then the state could make all of your choices.
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I believe we the people subsidised Paula Bennett's education, do you think it's time we asked for our money back ?
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Forbes-Coates v2.0 release notes: the sugar bags are now in metric measurements.
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New Zillunders
Some of us, in our more unguarded moments, actually talk like that, thank you very much.
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Hence the modifier - unless you're "hard-working" and "mainstream" as well
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A veritable goldmine of intelligent commentary from Emma and Gio - one funny, one serious, both precious.
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I'm going to quietly bookmark this page for future pick-me-up purposes.
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