Category: Welfare Reform
The Key government campaigned on reforming welfare, but as the recession bites deeper we shall see if John Key and Paula Bennett are serious or not. This government campaigned on the welfare state helping people, not trapping them in poverty. If this is to become a reality in New Zealand, international experience suggests that the government has its work cut out.
In the seventies, the famous writer and philosopher Ayn Rand described the pervasive danger of the welfare state:
During a recent radio interview I was asked, is this a bad time to be talking about reforming welfare? No, I replied with little hesitation. There is no bad time to be trying to reform welfare.
As the government progresses it’s so-called “razor gang” line-by-line review of government expenditure, it will be interesting to see whether those controversial and costly policy areas, that are clearly long overdue for reform, go under the microscope.
The next few months will be critical for the new government. It’s a time when the expectations of change must be honoured.
Whenever we try to assess the meaning and significance of particularly horrible cases, such as that of Nia Glassie in New Zealand or Baby P in Britain (between which there are several parallels), it is important to bear in mind that there is nothing new under the sun, that some people have always done terrible things to others, that some humans have always behaved with the utmost cruelty, that there has never been a golden age of universal benevolence and good will to all men, and that no social system will entirely eliminate the human capacity for evil.
New Zealand is now emerging from nine years of creeping socialism. During those nine years, we have been told that the state knows best how to run our lives - and our country. Whether it is what we eat, how we bring up our children, or what sort of light bulbs we can use in our homes, laws have been developed to control our behaviour.
Nia Glassie’s crime was two-fold. Firstly, and tragically, she lived in the same dysfunctional household as a bunch of boozing, dope smoking, layabout no-hopers who got a kick out of torturing her when they were bored. Secondly, she had a woman as a mother who brings total shame on the honoured tradition of motherhood. Rather than being prepared to protect and defend her child to the death, she stood by and allowed her to be killed.
In the wake of the Nia Glassie case, New Zealanders across the country are asking “How on earth did this happen?” The death of the gorgeous three year old and the details that have emerged during the trial have left us, as a nation, shaken to the core and in a state of disbelief.
Congratulations to our new Prime Minister, National Party Leader John Key, and his support parties Rodney Hide’s ACT New Zealand and Peter Dunne’s United Party, on a successful election outcome. In his victory speech, John Key stated that the election result showed that New Zealanders had voted for a safer, more prosperous and more ambitious country: “They voted for hope, they voted for action and they voted for results. They voted for a better life for all New Zealanders.”
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