Te Radar takes on Don Brash's beneficiary bashing this morning, and once again shows that sometimes humour is the best response. But it's not just funny, it's also pointy - for example, this bit:
To be fair, the scheme greatly reduced the numbers of unemployed up until the early 1980s. The only difference was it wasn't called "work for the dole", it was called the Post Office, or the Railways.
I do find it rather curious that those advocating work-for-the-dole are the same people who opposed these government "makework" schemes. If it was a bad idea then, why is it suddenly a good idea now?
maybe it was a good idea all the time or a bad idea al the time.
ReplyDeleteBut you cant use that as an argument that it must have been a bad idea then and a good idea now and yet it sounds as if that is exactly what you are doing... maybe Im mistaken.
i think the difference is between whether it is a job or a form of slavery. big call i know, but in create-work schemes, as opposed to force-to-work schemes, the workers are employees of someone, with rights and can join a union etc.
ReplyDeleteI think the distinction is between the idea of workfare and the idea of the government as the employer of last resort. The railways and post office and other government department used to employ people who, to put it kindly, possibly would not have been employed elsewhere- but they had all the rights of employees, minimum wage, unionization etc- and importantly they chose to work rather than it being a condition of receiving a benefit
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