Labour
and the Greens have labelled National’s
promise to drug test unemployed beneficiaries cruel and
deplorable, while Winston Peters has warned it borders on
fascist.
However, ACT leader David Seymour is on
board, saying “people should have to work for their
drugs”.
National also wants to lower payment rates for
people who have received a benefit for more than two years
and double the benefit stand down period if they repeatedly
leave jobs without good reason.
Social development
spokesperson Louise Upston said drug-testing was entirely
reasonable, and it was expected of many people to keep or
get jobs.
Labour campaign chair Kieran McAnulty told
RNZ the idea behind the policy was “frankly rubbish” and
“quite offensive” to people who were desperately trying to
find a job.
He said the government’s focus should be
on creating jobs, not trying to look tough.
“If the
National Party want to randomly drug-test beneficiaries,
then why don’t they randomly drug-test themselves?” he
said.
“It’s a tried and true Tory approach – kick the
beneficiaries and hope that it gives them a bounce in the
polls.”
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McAnulty said his past experience as a Work
and Income case manager had taught him that people were not
on the Jobseeker by choice.
“The
whole premise behind it is that these people are taking the
piss and they’re not,” he said. “These aren’t
bludgers.”
Earlier this week, Labour confirmed it
would not campaign on reversing the new Jobseeker “parental
test” – introduced by the coalition – which prevented many
18 and 19-year-olds from getting the benefit.
McAnulty
said it did not like the policy, but the party needed to
make some trade-offs to ensure its fiscal plan added
up.
Greens co-leader Marama Davidson said National’s
policy was cruel.
“Shame on National,” she
said.
“[It’s] embarrassing, distraction, lazy politics
of picking on people who are already struggling. This is
just old, lazy, beneficiary , because they do not have the
solution to create jobs.”
National said 200,000 jobs
were on the way, but Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said
they were painting too rosy a picture, citing unemployment
at an 11-year high.
“People can’t work Luxon’s ghost
jobs,” she said.
Peters warns of attack on freedoms,
Seymour wants people to work for their drugs
New
Zealand First leader Winston Peters said the policy could be
a massive attack on people’s freedoms.
“How quickly
can that go straight from there to fascist behaviour? You’ve
got to be very concerned about those sorts of
suggestions.”
National
leader Christopher Luxon said he was open to MPs being
drug-tested and Peters said he would agree to
that.
ACT leader David Seymour supported National’s
drug-testing plan, but said its proposal to lower the rate
of payment for those who had been on the benefit for two of
the previous three years was a “cop-out”.
Seymour
said, if people believed being on benefit required them to
be ready for work, rather than a lifestyle of being
dependent, then they must be able to pass a drug
test.
“I look at guys that get up and go to work at
five in the morning, go to a depot, get in a ute, and get
driven out into the forest, work like hell in a dangerous
environment,” he said. “Why should those people have to pass
a drug test so they can keep getting paid, when the
alternative is to get stoned, stay in bed, and actually get
the money from people who do have to go and
work?
“That’s not right, people should have to work
for their drugs.”
On National’s plan to lower the
benefit rate for longer-term jobseekers, Seymour said he
preferred ACT’s plan to put beneficiaries on electronic
income management.
“I’d much rather say we’ll give you
the same amount on a plastic card that works at Pak’nSave,
that will make sure your rent and power are paid,” he said.
“Then people say ‘what about freedom?’
“No problem,
get a job”
‘Really, really cruel’
Auckland
Action Against Poverty volunteer advocate Pip Colgan told
RNZ Checkpoint the policy’s authors had no idea what it was
like to be on a benefit.
“It made me feel sick
actually,” she said. “It just feels really, really
cruel.
“People are trying to get jobs, there are none.
There are some, but I know endless people who have tried and
tried and tried to get a job, and haven’t been able
to.
“You have to remember this government has caused
tens of thousands of jobs to fold, particularly in the
public service sector and other sectors as well.
“In
most walks of life, you’ll find people take drugs and I’m
not sure why you would just pick on people on Jobseeker to
test people. People offering jobs will drug-test people
where it is needed, but it feels like they’re just sniping
vulnerable people again.”
Colgan insisted people with
drug issues needed help, not sanctions.
“Word on the
ground is why would you even apply for Jobseekers, when
you’re only going to be turned down. It’s very hard to get
on a Jobseeker benefit, even if you’re entitled to
it.
“If you’ve been trying to get a job, how can
[reducing benefits] be an incentive? All it will do is make
it harder.
“Being on a benefit now really doesn’t make
ends meet. The moment something goes wrong, you’re having to
ask for an advance and get into debt, so if you haven’t been
able to get a job, receiving less money just creates more
stress, more worries, more domestic violence, more illness,
more truancy, more of all those negative
things.
“Beneficiaries need to be treated with
absolute dignity and given enough to live on, and supported
in a much more comprehensive way than they are
currently.”
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