Q+A’s Panel Discussions With Paul Holmes, Dr Therese Arseneau, Families Commissioner Christine Rankin & Radio Live Talk Host John Tamihere.

The panel discussions have been transcribed below. The full length video interviews and panel discussions from this morning’s Q+A can also be seen on tvnz.co.nz at, http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news

Q+A is repeated on TVNZ 7 at 9.10pm on Sunday nights and 10.10am and 2.10pm on Mondays.

PANEL DISCUSSIONS led by PAUL HOLMES

Response to PAULA BENNETT interview

PAUL What appealed to you most, or what bothered you most, Christine Rankin in what Paula Bennett was saying, what do you make of the DPB reforms for example?

CHRISTINE RANKIN – Families Commissioner
Well I've experienced this before, and I had 24 years in Welfare and for three or four years we did something very similar except it applied to a lot more beneficiaries than this government is expecting now, and I think New Zealanders have to remind, or we have to remind ourselves that this benefit is an entitlement and not a right, and these people do have a lot of potential, and they have their own dreams, and when you tap that it's amazing the things that can happen and I've seen it thousands and thousands and thousands of times, this is a good move, not a bad move.

PAUL So work is a way back, and if you can really guide people to take that first step towards work it can lead to freedom?

CHRISTINE Absolutely you’ve got to support them in a whole lot of ways, and that case management is vital. Now I haven't been in that organisation for a long time, I have no idea what the case management is like now, but if that is not done properly this will fail, and the Minister seems adamant that those people are being prepared well, and that they will support them, because you need support of all kinds to help people to do this.

PAUL Here's what Paula Bennett said about the Case Managers –

Paula Bennett: 'they have the ability to work with people, understand the differences, because we've actually got 9,000 individuals there, all with different illnesses, all with different needs, and I am putting faith in those people to understand them and get it right.'

PAUL Can Case Managers really do it, I mean do you trust the level of expertise of the Case Managers.

JOHN TAMIHERE – CEO, Waipareira Trust
Well no, I don’t want to go down that track, what I was gonna say to you is this. This is bread and butter National Party politics you know they're feeding the heartland so that’s cool, understand that. The second thing is that they’ve got a great salesperson haven't they, you know best curriculum vitae of any Minister of Social Development we've had in a long time and her ability to express these programmes, but every policy, doesn’t matter what government's in, has unintended consequences and perverse results, and the unintended consequences of this, is if there are no jobs, and if you’ve got a whole bunch of bureaucrats managing the process, you can have a feeling that you are being picked on. Secondly, in the even that the sanctions do occur, you are getting people to migrate from Welfare to the criminal justice side of the equation or to the health side of the equation

PAUL Well that’s a very good point you make, I mean if you cut people's welfare what do they do?

JOHN Yes but I haven't said that, there's a huge churn that goes on, and a lot of Kiwis actually use Welfare as a respite facility. There is a growing tale that they're starting to use it as a residence, I mean really these policies, I understand what they're about, they're trying to have a go at people that are using them as a place of residence rather than respite, but like I said there will be adverse outcomes from this and groups like Salvation Army, groups like Waipareira and whoever, will have to step up their advocacy on behalf of these more vulnerable populations.

PAUL What are your problems with it?

THERESE ARSENEAU – Political Analyst
Oh gosh, where to start, I mean John's raised a lot of really interesting issues. I mean the bottom line is, how do they define the problem, and will this actually work. The proof – in the end yes it plays to the political base, but in the end it will be judged by outcomes, and does it actually do what it sets out to do which is to get more people into work, and I think we actually know what gets more people into work, and we saw it actually pre recession, pre recession the overall number of people on benefits declined. We've seen a jump since the recession, so the best thing this government can do is actually to get the economy humming again and make sure there are jobs there for them. The second thing is training and education, the third thing as Christine says is targeted support for the people who need it most, an early intervention.

PAUL We know there are 46,000 people on the sickness benefit, and those numbers have risen steadily since 1990 and under Labour sickness beneficiaries went up in number considerably. Is everyone on the sickness benefit sick?

CHRISTINE No and that is the truth of it, it's very difficult I guess for politicians to say that, but no they're not. When I was there I remember having many conversations with GP and their Association because the felt very intimidated by a lot of people, they felt forced to sign sickness benefit certificates, and that is a reality, there are a lot of people who are sick, and they absolutely deserve that support. It's getting the balance and it's being very firm with the people who are not, and shouldn’t be, on all kinds of benefits.

THERESE And I think Christine is absolutely right, John Key has said his objective is to use welfare for the people who really need it, to give a kick in the pants to people who need to get back into work, but my question is, have they done the proper analysis. Do they know who's in the first category, who's in the second, and is this package actually aimed at the group that really needs the kick in the pants?

JOHN Yeah well I think you have to have some sanctions, Labour had sanctions. Labour didn’t use the stick. See Maharey, Maharey had all these sanctions in place, so what National is saying no we're actually gonna bring the stick out. Now that’s a big different, also they're in totally different economic time, cos there's no surpluses and the economy's not raging, but what you do any government, doesn’t matter the hue of it, it's part of political management, you move people away from unemployment to sickness benefits. Why you lighten up on that – this is the real politics of it, why you lighten up on that is because you need some good news.

PAUL So is it tempting for politicians to do this? Has it happened in your experience that you move somebody who's not necessarily sick off the unemployment benefit on to the sickness benefit.

JOHN Yes it's happened under National governments, it's happened under Labour governments, Christine will acknowledge that, you just get softer the policy around it, you then allow people in areas that cannot create jobs, in the Far North, on the East Coast, at the end of the Coromandel where all their nephews are on marijuana...

THERESE I don’t know how workable the sanctions are though, because what happens if the people who really suffer from the sanctions are the children, and I don’t think people in New Zealand have any desire to increase child poverty, and what happens if you halve the benefit for a family with children, what happens to them, do they move – okay maybe you’ve saved money in terms of cutting the benefit but what about care and protection, are we gonna see an increase in care and protection orders, are those children gonna move from getting supported by benefit to going into CYFS?

PAUL We've actually got an illustration here, I mean it's hardly the high life the DPB, so have a look there. If you sanction you know if you cut the DPB by half because a person hasn’t complied by looking for 15 hours work a week, take a 35 year old solo mother of two, now after the sanction she comes back to $510 per week, rent is $350, food $140 in Waitakere, so that leaves you $20 a week. Hardly the high life and as you say the kids then...

THERESE I think it's akin to a nuclear threat you know you can threaten it, it's more value in the threat than actually the implementation, because the disaster goes to the kids and potentially the politicians.

CHRISTINE I absolutely disagree, I think this is a very cynical view, I experienced it for years, we experienced it during a very difficult economic time, we are not giving consideration to the power of the human spirit. If you incentivise those people and you support them and you tap into what they really do, amazing things happen, and there's not all this fallout that we're talking about. We have already got children that are at risk with people on benefits, not everyone on benefit, I don’t mean that at all, but we ignore that most of the time, why is it suddenly going to become worse because people go to work. I think this is just a big fuss.

THERESE No one is saying that Christine, no one is saying that.

JOHN Look in any policy there will be a group that are disaffected because no policy can cover the whole gamut of where every Kiwi's lifestyle is, so there'll always be a vulnerable population in regard to these sanctions.

PAUL And are there always going to be, you know the poor are always with us it was famously said. Are there always gonna be some people who simply cannot be employed...

CHRISTINE Yes, and we should look after those people, the people who really can't do this we must look after really well, that was that whole key to the beginning of the welfare system and it's got way out of control.

THERESE Look I think we actually agree on that Christine, it's all about this poor targeted support, and there are elements of that in this package but the proof will be in the pudding, and in terms of the Case Managers the Minister said that she's putting a lot of faith in them and that’s great, but you know are we gonna have consistency around the country in terms of the policy and how it's implemented

PAUL In the end this is just about politics sending the right message to the Heartland as you said right at the beginning of our discussion. I mean is it really going to reduce numbers on welfare, will it really improve the lot of people on welfare.

JOHN Yeah well if it changes the culture of expectations on people that are in a difficult time churning through, I think that’s good. If however it has perverse or unintended consequences where you're actually hitting the bottom well you’ve got problems.

PAUL In that case we'll be clogging up the health system.

THERESE John Key says it's designed for example to send the message to the unemployed that that benefit is temporary, well you know December 2009, 84% had been on it for less than a year, so you know I think the message is there already, and I think it's the solution is more illusionary than real.

CHRISTINE It is the long term that they're actually attaching to this policy it's not everybody at the moment, it is the long term and some of those people should not have been on that benefit for this long, a lot of them.

PAUL If you use it as resident instead of a respite we're after you.

*********

In response to MARTIN SNEDDEN interview

PAUL Is it going to be of benefit to the country, that Rugby World Cup do you think?

JOHN Oh I think it will be, look the amount of money that we're gonna have to underwrite for it, what it does is events around the world, countries and capitals and states in Australia have poured huge dollars into capture global events to actually add hugely to their tourism industries, and so it's all a part of trade offs.

THERESE It's like showcasing New Zealand I think to the world and saying this is what we're capable of, so it does come down to, if we're showcasing ourselves the logistics have to be right, and you raised that issue of transport, security. So we need to get it running well.

PAUL One thing I mean it is good spreading the games round the country to the provincial homes of Rugby, but also some of the teams are going to be billeted in some very smaller places and that’s probably a very good thing, overseas media will film much more of the country than the stadiums.

JOHN Oh watching Swaziland play Scotland in Whangarei doesn’t turn my wheels at all you know.

CHRISTINE As long as we win, none of the issues will mater, if we don’t win we'll be discussing it for the next 20 years.

PAUL Eddy Jones says France will win next year.

THERESE Oh he's just yanking our chain. Yeah.

PAUL I guess he is. Interesting thing though Therese the tournament does not finish next year till October 23rd. My understanding is there has to be an election or certainly an election called by November 10th. Now how does this work, I mean if they're a few weeks' delay after that we're getting close up to Christmas, might they go early?

THERESE It's funny in my world I hear a lot more discussion about this than actually who's gonna win the Rugby World Cup, and it certainly is going to impact I think on the election and let's remember it's also a referendum on MMP, so is there potentially incentive to go early, perhaps. You know there is sort of this urban myth that in 1999 losing the World Cup cost National the election, I don’t think there's actually any proof of that in the data.

PAUL Nevertheless that must make, I mean the money the government's underwritten and committed and so forth, and the government wants a win for New Zealand, and Martin Snedden must be getting it from all sides I spose.

THERESE And it's about having a really good election campaign where people are actually focused on it, particularly with the referendum on MMP.

JOHN Well you go early then, you go early.

PAUL News next week.

JOHN Oh this government now is starting to roll out some of it's pre-election ideas, I think the shake up that Joyce has said in the tertiary sector, they will not go silently into the night, what's still happening over there on national standards in that education sector is up, mining's still bouncing away very well organised rowdy groups, they're minority groups but they're rowdy. It's all there.

CHRISTINE Oh look as long as it's not about me I don’t really care, but I have to say I would love a story, you know we've got another baby that’s almost battered to death and will probably die, I'd love to see the government – someone come out and say finally we've had enough, but I'm always hoping that and it never happens.

THERESE I'm looking forward to the Budget policy statement to give us a bit broader idea of what's coming in the Budget, but also being from Canterbury I'm very interested – I hear the decision about the Ecan councillors and the future of the Regional Council will be announced this week as well.

PAUL And I spose some people around the country, a good number of people are going to be wondering as to the future of the Mayor of North Shore City.

ENDS

© Scoop Media