Prime Minister Christopher Luxon defends beneficiary sanctions

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says he has spoken to a lot of Work and Income frontline caseworkers who say their biggest frustration was people abusing the beneficiary system.

“They don’t feel that they can apply the sanctions when they need to be applied, people who are wilfully and knowingly abusing the system and not taking their situation seriously,” Luxon told Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking.

He was unsure how many people the sanctions would put back into the workforce.

”Look, there are these rules that exist already today, previous National governments used them, Labour sent out a message to not worry about them too much,” Luxon said.

”And we just sent a message to the CEO of [Ministry of Social Development] to say hey listen, in the spirit of people holding up their end of the bargain, we expect those sanctions to be applied.

”A big growth in jobseeker numbers in a time of low employment and lots of [worker] shortages, and then we have also had a drop in people being sanctioned.”

Luxon is looking to make good on a promise he made in his State of the Nation speech on Sunday that the “free ride” was over for beneficiaries who were taking advantage of the welfare system.

Luxon and Social Development Minister Louise Upston yesterday announced a return to a more strict regime of sanctions for those on the unemployment benefit. A sanction means someone’s benefit gets reduced or cut if they don’t comply with certain expectations such as attending job interviews or completing training.

“In 2017, 60,588 sanctions were applied to beneficiaries who did not comply with their obligations to prepare and look for work. That nosedived to 25,329 in 2023,” Upston said.

“Over that time, people on jobseeker benefits increased by about 70,000 and about 40,000 more people have been receiving this support for a year or more.”

Luxon told the AM Show he doesn’t think they will need more staff to carry out benefit checks.

”What we need to do is have job checks, and one of the things we can do is have one too many talking about job obligations and checking in to make sure people are compliant.”

He said having a parent in work was good for children.

”Children in benefit homes don’t do as well and don’t have the same opportunities as those that have one or both parents working.

”Let’s be clear, we’re not talking about supported living and we’re not talking about sole parents ... we’re just talking about those deemed capable and able to work.”

Attacking former Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni, Upston said the “previous minister set the tone for a lighter touch to benefit sanctions by saying they needed to be used ‘sparingly’ and as a ‘last resort’, dampening their effectiveness as an incentive to fulfil work obligations”.

Upston said she had written to the chief executive of the Ministry of Social Development “to make this Government’s view clear that we want to see all obligations and sanctions applied. If jobseekers fail to attend job interviews, to complete their pre-employment tasks, or to take work that is available, then there needs to be consequences”.

She also announced that from June, the ministry will “begin work check-ins for jobseekers who have been on benefit for six months, particularly young people”.

Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston is defending the change in use of benefit sanctions. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Under the existing sanctions, if a person did not meet work preparation obligations without a “good and sufficient reason”, their benefit would be reduced by 50 per cent for four weeks. After a second breach, that would be extended to 13 weeks for someone with dependent children, or suspended altogether if they did not have children.

‘Politics of cruelty’ — Opposition responds to welfare changes

Sepuloni, Labour’s social development spokeswoman, claimed yesterday’s announcement was unfair and out of touch as she criticised Luxon for speaking down to beneficiaries by assuming jobseekers didn’t want to work.

“People deserve to be supported into meaningful, long-term employment, and sanctions will not do this.”

Green Party social development spokesman Ricardo Menendez March said the Government was quickly building a legacy of cruelty.

“Instead of supporting people to provide for themselves and their whānau, this Government has actively sought to push people further and further into poverty.

“Now, today, we have yet another measure to penalise the poorest people. It is a symptom of the politics of cruelty that is driving this coalition’s policies and steering New Zealand backwards.”