The American
economist Milton Friedman once said that it’s a great mistake to judge things
by their intentions rather than by their results. Unfortunately it’s a mistake repeatedly made by
agenda-driven reformers on a mission to create the perfect society. A Radio New
Zealand Spectrum programme brought one such instance to public attention
earlier this month.
Until 2007, intellectually disabled people in New Zealand
were exempted from minimum wage laws. This meant they could be employed doing
menial work in facilities known as sheltered workshops.
It was a system whereby thousands of New Zealanders who were
incapable of holding down proper jobs were nonetheless able to occupy
themselves each day doing simple, repetitive work.
They were paid only a token sum, but the money wasn’t
important. What really mattered was the companionship they enjoyed in the
workplace and the satisfaction they got from having a job to go to each day.
It was an arrangement long supported by the IHC (originally
the Intellectually Handicapped Children’s Society) and by parents with
working-age disabled children. The IHC was itself the country’s biggest
operator of sheltered workshops.
Then ideology intervened. Disability became politicised.
Sheltered workshops may have admirably met the needs of
those working in them, but reformers looked at them and saw only exploitation
and discrimination.
Where others saw contented workplaces, left-wing activists
saw a vulnerable minority being deprived of their rights. Sue Bradford, then a
Green MP, called it “systemic oppression”.
Pumped up with reformist zeal, the Labour government in 2007
repealed the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion Act, which since 1960 had
allowed disabled workers to be employed for less than the minimum wage.
A system was adopted whereby everyone working in sheltered
workshops was individually assessed to see whether they were capable of
mainstream employment at normal pay rates. Those who were judged incapable were
given a continuing exemption from the minimum wage law.
The IHC applauded. It too had been ideologically captured.
Over opposition from many of its bewildered members, the IHC seized the
opportunity to shut down 76 workshops and “business units”.
In Blenheim, locals were so appalled by IHC’s plan to sell a
nursery and plant centre which employed intellectually disabled workers that a
community trust was set up to buy the business and keep it going.
Part of the problem was that the IHC itself had changed
radically. Originally an organisation run largely by parents and volunteers, it
had evolved into a government-funded Wellington bureaucracy led by disability-sector
careerists.
The reforms had predictable consequences. True, a minority
of the more “able” disabled found paying work. But the closure of those
sheltered workshops deprived hundreds of intellectually disabled people of the
satisfaction of going to work each and enjoying the camaraderie of others.
Despite extravagant promises, no satisfactory form of
alternative activity was found for most of those tipped out of work.
Where previously they had delivered firewood, done ironing,
mowed lawns, made letterboxes, worked in garden centres and sorted goods for
recycling, they now watched TV, sat idly in “day bases” or went for walks. This
was euphemistically called community participation.
In many cases, denied constructive work, their behaviour
deteriorated. Some became difficult to manage.
Parents and caregivers were left bitter and disenchanted.
Many felt betrayed by the IHC, the very organisation they looked to for
support.
Of course none of this directly affected the well-paid
ideologues, politicians and bureaucrats in Wellington, who were safely
insulated from the consequences of their policies.
Now it seems the reformers aren’t satisfied with the damage
already done in the name of bogus “inclusiveness”. As Spectrum reported, the
exemption permits issued to more than 800 disabled workers nationwide are now
under threat of cancellation.
This is presumably Phase II of the project commenced in 2007
– the final solution, if you like.
Let’s give the reformers the benefit of the doubt and assume
they want to create an ideal world in which no one is disadvantaged.
The problem is, they’re willing to make people suffer for it
to happen.
Spectrum focussed on Southland Disability Enterprises in
Invercargill, one of a small number of independent sheltered workshop operators
that continued to function after IHC abandoned the field.
The 80 disabled people working at SDE were all issued with
exemption permits, but now the government wants to cancel those permits. If
that happens, SDE will cease to be viable and the people who happily work there
will be out of jobs. This is madness.
The Wellington bureaucrat driving the change explained that
exempting disabled people from the minimum wage law was “out of step with
modern thinking”.
She went on to pronounce that people with disabilities
mustn’t be treated differently from others. Problem is, they are different. Or
perhaps she hasn’t noticed.
And what’s being offered in return? Nothing at all, if you
unpicked the bureaucrat’s vague and non-committal reference to possible
subsidies, employment supports and training schemes.
I was reminded of the far-fetched promises made in 2007,
when the reformers cruelly misled intellectually disabled people with
phantasmic visions of the fulfilling new life that awaited them.
I wonder what National’s Invercargill MP Sarah Dowie (no, I
hadn’t heard of her either) is doing to save the jobs of the SDE workers. This
is her government, after all. Or do politicians find it too hard to resist
agenda-driven public servants? If that’s the case, we’re in deep trouble.
I started this column with a quotation, so I’ll finish with
another one – this time from the great Christian writer C S Lewis, who
memorably said: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good
of its victims may be the most oppressive.”
Karl du Fresne blogs at karldufresne.blogspot.co.nz. First published in the Manawatu Standard and Nelson Mail.
5 comments:
Karl, I sent this article to a friend of mine in Brisbane who works with disabled people.
He said that it was difficult work, and the bureaucracy of the over lords made it harder.
He said the disabled people rarely missed work. They love it
As the parent of a disabled child soon to leave school, who will never be capable of a 'normal' job, the continuing policies and effects of bureaucrats captured by ideology but utterly incapable of genuine interest, concern and understanding of the effects of it is depressing. I have spent over a decade fighting for my son against disinterested, uncaring bean counters who are the sum total of the people who staff the agencies responsible for engagement with this sector of society. Their only interest is in budgets, keeping their careers safe and brown nosing their masters and superiors to keep their promotional ladder secure. As to the effect on their 'clients'? Who gives a @#$%^?
Karl, My wife and I have a 56 YO Downes. We live in Picton & he in Blenheim. We were always involved in IHC from when he was born in Chch when we were 21, particularly when we went back to our home town Ingill. IHC was a parent run organisation. Our son, when old enough, moved into the sheltered wkshp situation, he loved it. Two bucks a day, and he loved payday. He always said what I taught him "no work, no pay". He lives in an IHC house now, & does, everyday, exactly what you say they do and he has completely retreated into himself. There is absolutely no interaction on any intelligent level at "work" and except for the dedicated caregiver, he has none at his home. I absolutely endorse everything you say, it is a bureaucratic fortress now.with staff that only go to the office to eat their lunches and have meaningless meetings. Well done Karl, 'yo the man.
As a retired taxi driver on the North Shore, I used to take these people to the workshop in the mornings, and home in the afternoons. They were happy people, and greeted me with big smiles. I reflected then just how lucky they were to be treated the way that they were, and to be looked after the way they were. They wanted for nothing. It sounds to me like "If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It," but fix it they have. Another National disgrace! Thank you Karl. K. G. Marks.
When one lives in a so called democracy, how do we get an overabundance of bureaucrats? It makes no sense. It may be expected in communist or socialist run countries, certainly not here. Helen Clark is to blame for adding 30,000 of them, and to do what - other than the absurdities detailed in your article. Their presence on local councils and elsewhere proves detrimental to most people's genuine desires, where people seem to obstruct most endeavours. Not to mention the time they take to do so, at our expense. In the private sector they wouldn't last a month! It's outrageous that we stand for this, there should be a severe culling of bureaucrats throughout the country - and the exercise should NOT be undertaken by the government!!
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