Thursday, September 08, 2011



John Key's New Zealand

From the Herald, an example of just what National's cuts mean for people in need:

A young mother and her baby facing a cold night with nowhere to stay in Gisborne turned to a real estate agency for rescue, after three social service agencies were unable to help.

The plight of the 20-year-old woman and her four-month-old baby has highlighted the lack of emergency housing in the Gisborne area.

[...]

But Work and Income staff at the Gisborne office said they could only offer her an appointment eight days away. The Work and Income regional director has since issued an apology for this.

People who go to WINZ needing help should get it. Instead, this woman was told to fuck off, thanks to service cuts and a deliberate policy of limiting costs by imposing bureaucratic barriers to access.

This isn't good enough, and the people responsible, the government, should be held accountable for it at the election.