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Wednesday, September 27, 2023

Mike Hosking: Finally something being done to fix Jobseeker


One of the great mysteries of the economic landscape is how on earth we ended up with more people on the Jobseeker Support benefit, at a time when jobs were so plentiful it wasn’t funny.

When the borders were closed, there were mass labour shortages and yet, there we were, with tens of thousands more jobless.

National will fix it and in fixing it remind us of what we once had as a country; discipline and consequences and expectations.

Gareth Kiernan of Infometrics has been looking at this mystery of the Jobseeker Support benefit. It's worth looking up and reading, but he claims to be perplexed as to how we ended up where we did.

There are 170,000-ish people on Jobseeker as of the latest figures and over 100,000 of them are job ready.

I'm not confused. Basically, getting Government money has become a way of life for many in this country under Labour.

The idea you have to front for an interview is non-existent and there are no penalties for non-compliance. To even have a system that calls you "job ready" when you clearly aren't, is typical of the farce it has become.

There is nothing radical in what National want; it’s a traffic light system. You get to red, you lose some of your benefit, you do mandatory community work and training.

I am sure the advocacy groups will collectively gasp in horror. A growth industry in this country has been the advocacy group. As an experiment, it has been shown that there is no cause, no dilemma, no problem possible that doesn’t produce a group who are more than willing to offer up an endless series of excuses as to why people shouldn’t be doing what they should be doing.

Think of the carnage of Covid in the horticulture industry, the fruit that never got picked and the jobs that never got done.

Think of the damage to tourism and reputations as places had to close or barely open for lack of staff

Over 100,000 people job ready and yet there were no jobs to be found? That is your legacy of the Labour laziness and excuse making.

There hasn’t been a layabout they weren't happy to fund, or make an excuse for. Carmel Sepuloni on this show repeatedly rolls out her favourite line of "It's complicated Mike".

What it was, was pathetic. And now thank the good Lord the scam is up.

If you want welfare, earn it.

Respect the taxpayer, respect the fellow New Zealander who doesn’t mind their tax helping in tough times, but is fed up to the back teeth with the gargantuan piss-take that the Jobseeker Support benefit has become.

Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.

8 comments:

Anna Mouse said...

It is hard to be 'job ready' when you either do not want a job or you cannot pass the drug test.

People who genuinely want to work do what it takes to find work.

Anonymous said...

Dead right! And then they wonder why gang numbers and crime are exploding. 'Idle hands are the devil's workshop' - what more needs to be said.

Robert Arthur said...

The unemployed today have no grasp of the hardship experienced by those in periods in the past. The threat of drove thousands to leave family and home forever, risk months in a dangerous sailing ship, come here and work industriously all daylight hours to create the wealthy country NZ is today. The standard of living of the unemployed in the 1930s Depression was vastly inferior to today, but for them there was no work however keen they were.
Benefits today are far too soft. A beneficiary enjoys a standard of living at least the equal of many wage earners, certainly into the 1950s. Many with a te ao and similar world view, not driven by cogenital ambition, simply do not see the effort and often tedium of a job as worth the income top up.
Few of the temp immigrant workers would come here if they could pull a NZ benefit at home.
Rules are fine but who is sufficently brave to apply? The sense of entitlement, especially among brainwashed maori, is very great. We already have guards in every WINS office. But personell cannot be shielded 24/7. Many "umemployed" are gang members, or relatives of. It is going to be very difficult to toughen up conditons.
It is made out that those who turn up in pyjamas are mentally troubled. Or are they just artful? Personally if an employer I would not want to waste time with scores who have no intent whatsoever to work diligently.
An unskiklled distant relative who arrived in Nelson first ship 1840 spent years sawing timber after the NZ Co failed. He commented in 1867 "maori do not undrstand work" (although there are notable part maori exceptions today)

Tom said...

I agree whole heartedly with Nationals new policy and the further comment in this article.

Having been an employer myself I can say I have witnessed many who are just incapable of work , who do not want to work, who are not worth employing, who you do not want in your place of work ,who you do not want to offend your staffs dignity with by placing these people next to them.

Many of these front up semi literate or numerate at best, lacking in the most basic interpersonal skill, or even basic hygiene. The most basic command of the spoken language.

Place them on a roster and expect them to front up 5 days a week and play a part in a team. Just not possible.

Several decades now of the progressive left, anything goes, and even they must realise they've gone down the wrong road. Personal responsibility , self achievement, personal pride, a thing of the past for many. For a vast army of the unemployed putting three meals on the table or buying a home is a thing of the past.

There is much less compassion left from those many hard working Kiwis who work hard to buy a home , bring up a family and help their kids get an education and get ahead themselves.

Bugger them they say , and bugger Labour. For too long Labour has been borrowing and spending. Robbing Peter to pay Paul.

And New Zealand is running out of Peters to rob.

N B H said...

Job seeker be buggered they are simply on the dole.

Peter said...

From one of those you mention Tom, you've summed it up well. Add to that an education system that is clearly failing our young and you have a disaster in the making. We are already there and the debt and the crime will only get worse unless its turned around pronto. Having a welfare state is one thing, having those lacking personal responsibility and milking it for all it's worth is something entirely different. Dysfunctional families; a failing education system; a corrupt culture; and a woeful Government are all the making of the perfect storm that's arrived. Either stay and batten down the hatches, or get out before it's too late.

Gaynor said...

I agree with Tom that many are probably unemployable,
I am glad he mentioned they were illiterate and innumerate, undisciplined and work weary.

Having been a tutor I have observed illiterates and innumerate are truly victims of our horrible progressive education system. They have failed to learn the basics because we have teaching methods that are hopelessly ineffective, combined with no discipline and no work ethic which is part of the progressive ideology. The aim of progressivism is not to instill knowledge , work habits or
skills into students for their place in society as independent working citizens
but instead creating socialists. How this nonsense has persisted so long is hard to believe but there have been prophets for decades who have spoken out but unfortunately been ignored , even persecuted.

There is a desperate need for our education system to be overhauled and install instead the effective methods and values of our past called traditional liberal education.

Anonymous said...

They all have AHDH or dyslexia. Not laziness or bad attitude. I am sure there are other conditions as well. So totally unreasonable to expect them to follow other people’s expectations and look after themselves. Far more important others look after them given their unique outlooks on life.

PS these comments do not apply to those who genuinely have very real problems. Just those that love a diagnosis.