big brother will manage beneficiarys money

[Maleficent]

yeah, I have, because I'm going on the latest round of beneficiary bashing which has been aimed at solo mothers, particularly teens.


This crumble aint that fab to be honest. Still, it'll do.

Daggers, you rule. That recipe is fucking awesome! I expect to physically resemble on those puddings in a few months

Wonder what it would be like with maple syrup..... mmmmmm

[Red_switch]

I'll post again later... MKR is on.

i hate that shit

[akaxo]

whatever MKR is i'm never going to see it if it's on now. coro is on.

sorry to post something on the original topic but this is an interesting aspect to the whole food card concept that i haven't seen mentioned anywhere else yet

If, as seems likely, loading a proportion of benefit directly on to a food card is rolled out and applied to all beneficiaries, the consequences are going to be significant additional hardships for many people.

Here’s why.

Food grants can be applied for if an unforseen expense such as the cost of taking an injured pet to the vet for treatment – or paying out money due to some other emergency has occured.

In other words, the food grant is a mechanism whereby hunger can be avoided in instances where money for food has had to be used on other things.(Receipts, proof of money in bank, proof of where money was spent etc are required by WINZ.)

Simply put, where the cost of food is ring fenced, there is no financial lee-way to react to life’s unforseen circumstances.

So the pet suffers or dies and the other emergency (whatever it might be) rolls right on over the top of the person on a benefit because they have no room to manouvere; no way to deal to to it or stop it in it’s tracks.

[Red_switch]

THat is a cunty situation indeed

[Hamtown Dave]

[quote="mmmm....good crack"]bro you suck at quoting olol[/quote]

Yeah and spelling... I'm new to posting on a smartphone.

Damn autocorrect and all...

[FrankGrimes]

Keen 4 microwave pudding

[Maleficent]

whatever MKR is i'm never going to see it if it's on now. coro is on.

sorry to post something on the original topic but this is an interesting aspect to the whole food card concept that i haven't seen mentioned anywhere else yet

If, as seems likely, loading a proportion of benefit directly on to a food card is rolled out and applied to all beneficiaries, the consequences are going to be significant additional hardships for many people.

Here’s why.

Food grants can be applied for if an unforseen expense such as the cost of taking an injured pet to the vet for treatment – or paying out money due to some other emergency has occured.

In other words, the food grant is a mechanism whereby hunger can be avoided in instances where money for food has had to be used on other things.(Receipts, proof of money in bank, proof of where money was spent etc are required by WINZ.)

Simply put, where the cost of food is ring fenced, there is no financial lee-way to react to life’s unforseen circumstances.

So the pet suffers or dies and the other emergency (whatever it might be) rolls right on over the top of the person on a benefit because they have no room to manouvere; no way to deal to to it or stop it in it’s tracks.

Awesome korero. I read the comments while eating aforementioned apple crumble and some mandarins.

Loved this one

This is a straight-out hate campaign against the poorest, weakest, most disadvantaged.
The benefits are not designed to help people survive with any kind of basic health or dignity. In the long, or even medium term, “managing” on a benefit with no other means of support can’t be done.
It’s slow death.

Kicking beneficiaries is NZ’s real national sport. If there were a world cup it would be a sell-out.

From No Right Turn

And for what? This doesn't target a pressing social problem. We're not facing an explosion of IYB recipients, and I'm not seeing a lot of evidence that National's prejudices on their spending is true. Instead, this is being pushed solely to prop up National's support in an election year, by stigmatising and demonising and humiliating an already powerless group (who, as a bonus, can't even fucking vote). Its the ultimate triumph of spin over substance. And for the kids who will be victimised by this? Sorry, guys, National has an election to win.

Its cruel, its vicious, its divisive, and its based on myths rather than evidence. But its so very, very National, isn't it?

http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2011/08 ... hobes.html

[yvon]

Seriously, the taxpayer money shit is a fuckin weak argument.

Fuck I'd say

The amount of horse shit the government spends my 'hard earned tax dollars' before any gets to the poor bastards living in a crumby house off jack shit, is staggeringly enormous. And if they want to spend their pittance on something that will brighten there day like booze and cigarettes, then power to them.

True dat.

The taxpayers should look upon it as a form of protection money!
Support the poor bastards just enough to deter them from coming around and robbing your house!
lol

That point about:
"Simply put, where the cost of food is ring fenced, there is no financial lee-way to react to life’s unforseen circumstances."

..it's so fucking true.
I had a friend some years back, a single mum, who's kid got really sick. Multiple hospital visits sick. Couldn't even afford to put petrol in the car to get to the hospital.

[akaxo]

i'm sure there's ways around that problem, though they'd involve a wad of law changes to the stuff around SNG's to make them available for other things and would be quite complicated. but would still be crap as when an emergency occurs you don't usually have the three days or so notice you'd need to get an appointment at winz to apply for one. it does show that with any policy change like this there's always unintended flow on effects that need to be dealt with and can make the whole process of changing it way more expensive than intended. especially when they haven't been thought through properly like so many of national's ones.

i'm pretty convinced that the food cards idea for youth is just a trial run and they'll eventually roll it out for all beneficiaries. they've just found a small discrete group to apply it to that will have little to no bad impact on the govt if it all goes to shit and proves to be a failure. 16-17 year olds can't vote after all.

[Red_switch]

Plenty of families establish trusts to fund their childrens university education, the maori scholarship is just a bigger, collective, extension of that. It's not even that different to large companies providing scholarships to employees kids.

It fucks me off when those same people also line up for student allowance.

[Maleficent]

I guess it really depends on how big the scholarship is. I am certainly going to go for one next year if I am successful for teachers college.

I received a scholarship from a land trust earlier this year. I had to get written references from tutors, show my results for the last 2 years and write down my whakapapa to the shareholder.

Land trusts are made up of thousands of shareholders and this increases with every successive generation. If you receive any profits from the land blocks (a lot of them around here are under scrub and considered worthless, are not reticulated but owners are still required to pay rates on them), then that means the trust is doing a wonderful job of managing that land.

As Red Switch said, it's no different to other scholarships, trust funds etc.

[akaxo]

haha even paula bennett thought it was a terrible idea a few months ago

It has emerged the Government's much publicised payment card plan for youth beneficiaries was utterly rubbished before it became policy, and by the very minister who is now in charge of it.

That minister was Paula Bennett, who wrote a letter criticising such a payment card scheme just months before her boss John Key was publically championing it.

Next year, 16 and 17-year-old beneficiaries will not be able to buy cigarettes or alcohol with money from the Government - instead they will be given a payment card.

It was National's big idea at its weekend conference. They all talked it up and they talked tough.

“If it all sounds a bit hands on to you I make no apologies,” says Mr Key.

But the same cannot be said for Ms Bennett who has been caught out criticising the same card just a few months ago.

In a letter to a voter in March she “rejected” the idea of extending payment cards to “all” beneficiaries saying:
“[It] would require the Crown to make moral judgments about the appropriateness of each decision.”
“Such oversight by the Crown would be highly intrusive and rob individuals of their freedom of choice.”

So how does she reconcile her private statements with her public policy?

We tried to ask her earlier today.

“[Can we ask you about the letter brought up by Annette King in the House?] Sorry, I haven't seen the letter so until I have… [I've got the letter here]…well, I’m not going to read it over your shoulder.”

Ms Bennett was not willing to answer questions on the letter.

And when asked if she would like a copy of the letter she revealed that she had one up in her office.

Earlier in the House, Ms Bennett was not able to walk away so easily.

“I have said before I do think it’s intrusive, that I do actually think it’s intrusive. I do think that the administration that comes with that is worth it and I am backing these young people into a better life,” she says.

The opposition says it is hypocritical.

“I think they've been conned by the Minister, the Prime Minister and by Mr Joyce who have been saying that this was a new approach - radical approach - that was going to make a difference. They rejected such an approach just a few months ago,” says Labour’s deputy leader Annette King.

So Ms Bennett has spent the day explaining her conflicting views on the payment card. Her critics say that is embarrassing.

[Martli]

Everyone knows that Paula Bennett is a puppet and doesn't actually have a functioning brain cell...

[akaxo]

[Red_switch]

yuck. think i just became sterile.

[mmmm....good crack]

belongs in the masty thread

[Red_switch]

Yea for when someone walks in and you need a boner-killer

[wassup rockers]

[Red_switch]

lol

[jont420]

nice work grant

[xsfat]

Only members of the iwi can generally access these sources of funding.

So this has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with genealogy and familial connection.
A pakeha that cannot have access to the trust cries racism, but what about a maori of another iwi similarly deprived?

[Red_switch]

To get the independent youth benefit, you've normally got to be in school/training right?

Is it just me or do National have a habit of announcing stuff that is already in place as new policy? I remember thinking the same about something else they did recently, can't remember what though...

[dustbinflowers]

http://www.conjobs.co.nz/

[dustbinflowers]

also found a database of scholarships available.

http://www.fis.org.nz/index.php?page=BreakOut

There are all sorts- academic and non academic, seconary and ertiary. I kept the criteria as general as I could, except for picking scholarships for men only. Got 1500 results back.
I didn't look at the results, as you have to subscribe, but apparently there is free access in Libraries. Possibly Studylink or somewhere too?

I thought this might be useful in general for people- I'm going to do a search later, to see if there is something that might help me go back and do a phd...

[Martli]

Pretty sure I could have applied to get a scholarship based on my Italian heritage. Didn't bother, but still.

[storm_]

Yeah, I milked the shit out of scholarships.

[Maleficent]

Fuck yeah, if you can get any scholarships, you should go for them.

[scott penk]

and one is some kind of online version of holding hands and crying.

late in the game, but if thats aimed at the 'man alive' link.. man alive is a group that helps men beat their own cycles of domestic violence.. so yeah, total pussies

if it was aimed at a different link.. same probably applies anyway

[scott penk]

and with these cards.. will they be personalised to the actual beneficiary (name / photo ID or similar), or will they be like a gift card that anyone can use?

[scott penk]

read thread, now going to in n out burger