Lindsay Mitchell: Free-for-all benefit system is untenable

Barrister Catriona MacLennan recently recommended improvements to the social welfare system via the current rewrite of our social security legislation. She wants to “…ensure all New Zealanders in hardship receive the help they need.”  The original intent of social security was to alleviate unforeseen hardship. Not self-imposed hardship. One in five babies  born onto welfare every year is not unforeseen hardship.

She wants “…the reduction of poverty [to be] the aim of social welfare, rather than the current focus on reducing the number of beneficiaries.”