Hon Steve Maharey
Minister for Social Development and Employment

13 September 2005 Media Statement

Nats announce $100 million work-for-dole scheme

National has today announced its long awaited work-for-the dole scheme under the guise of an 'environment policy', Social Development and Employment Minister Steve Maharey said today.

"As usual, no costing was provided for this policy, despite it being previously estimated at around $100 million a year," Steve Maharey said. "This is an attempt to hide the true cost of this scheme by dressing it up as an environment policy.

"It is also a completely worthless policy which has been proven to have no practical value.

"Why on earth are they announcing a $100 million make-work scheme when there are only 49,000 people on the unemployment register and employers around the country are crying out for workers?

"What we should be focussing on is getting these people the skills they need and then getting them into real jobs, not make-work schemes.

"The solution is not to have these people off digging holes to plant trees but to get them real training and get them off to work as quickly as possible for the businesses who badly need workers.

"National's 1990s work for the dole scheme was so unsuccessful the evaluation found people had less chance of getting a real job than if they hadn't been part of the scheme at all. An Australian study had similar results.

"Labour's policies focus on real jobs not 'make work' programmes and we have been hugely successful.

"The announcement today once again demonstrates National is not ready to govern and is just warming up the policies from the 1990s."

ENDS

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