Richard Prebble: Getting jobseekers into employment must be an urgent priority

OPINION

It is what was not said at Tūrangawaewae that is important.

If 50 per cent of Māori children do not turn up for school this February, then it will not matter what happened in February 1840.

In 2023, 249,500 new migrants arrived, up 135 per cent, and 122,100 residents departed, up 29 per cent. The majority of those who left are well-educated. The majority of those coming permanently are on family visas. Some are skilled. Others are bus drivers and fruit pickers coming to do work New Zealanders will not do.

When Labour left office, the number on Jobseeker Support was 189,798, a figure equal to the population of Hamilton, our fifth largest city.

Under Labour, at a time when employers could not get workers, the number on the Jobseeker benefit increased by 66,759. Last year the increase was 19,695.

Everything Labour did failed to reduce benefit numbers. The Labour government embraced co-governance. The minimum wage was increased by 31.4 per cent. An extra 2300 staff were employed by the Department of Social Development and Employment. The government drastically reduced the use of sanctions.

Labour’s failure has been disastrous for Māori, who are over-represented in the unemployment statistics.

National has pledged to reduce the numbers on Jobseeker. National says that, without sanctions, the benefit is a lifestyle option that too many young people have adopted. The statistics back National up. The number of under-25-year-olds who have been on the benefit for more than a year has increased by 84 per cent.

Among my wider whānau, I know two teenagers who left school with no qualifications. They tried work, cleaning and fruit picking. They lasted three weeks as cleaners and just two days fruit picking. It is easier to hang out with their mates and smoke weed.

It has always been the rule that to qualify for the Jobseeker benefit the beneficiary must take a suitable job. Just enforcing this rule will be enough to get these two young men into work.

Other cases that I know will be much harder. Those who are long-term unemployed with drug and alcohol issues, for example. National proposes to contract with work coaches from non-profits such as Iwi.

For many, a job coach will assist them to get work. There is nothing special about non-profits. An organisation with an over-95 per cent success rate in returning long-term ACC cases to work is a company.

Where the Minister for Social Development and Employment Louise Upston is correct, is that the only measure of success by job coaches is the number they place into employment. The bureaucrats destroyed the successful Access programme when they persuaded ministers that graduating to another scheme was deemed success. The work-shy went from one scheme to the next.

The minister needs to act. I was the chair of a special Cabinet committee on employment. The bureaucracy had no sense of urgency. The civil service opposed allowing the private sector to have any role.

“After having everyone for 16,000 hours of compulsory education,” I said. “It is time to let the community have a go.”

“The majority of the unemployed are Māori or Pacifika,” said the officials. “Being Māori or Pacifika should be a selection criterion for employment schemes.” Wellington has no sympathy for poor whites. We surveyed the jobless and found that leaving school with no qualifications was a much better predictor of future unemployment.

The officials’ way of delaying any action is to write yet another report.

I only got the bureaucracy to move by publicly announcing the date that the Access scheme was starting.

“But minister, we are not ready.”

“You will have to explain that to the applicants,” I said.

Civil servants can move fast. They were ready.

Upston should announce that, from Monday, jobseekers who refuse to take a suitable job or look for a job will lose their benefit. Then call for job coach proposals, not just from non-profits. She will receive an amazing response.

For long-term beneficiaries, there is an even better scheme: work for the dole. Peter McCardle, the New Zealand First Minister in the Jenny Shipley government, introduced a very successful work-for-the-dole scheme. Long-term jobseekers were required to work for the dole.

Beneficiaries, some of whom had never had a job, were introduced to work through having to work for the dole. For the hardcore unemployed, only a work-for-the-dole scheme will get them into employment.

The Treasury will be opposed. Short-term, work for the dole is expensive. Long term, it is one of the best investments the nation can make.

The Left’s objective is to make us all dependent on the state. The Left has opposed any proposal for a work-for-the-dole scheme. While the Left is focused on 1840, Upston has an opportunity to implement effective welfare reform.

The coalition must make getting jobseekers back into employment an urgent top priority.

Richard Prebble is a former leader of the Act Party and a former member of the Labour Party.