KEY POINTS:
The Maori Party's call to scrap the dole received a lot of attention last week. Tariana Turia made the announcement during the party's economic policy launch in Flaxmere.
She told TV3 that she was opposed to the dole, that it wasn't healthy for the spirit of her people to give them money for doing nothing and she wanted a return to government make-work schemes.
She didn't provide any details of what it would cost to put people into subsidised work, but the idea has received support from all quarters. Apart from the Greens. No surprises there, on either count.
It's an idea that could have only come from the Maori Party. If Act or National had suggested this, we'd have all been leaping up and down and accusing them of heartlessness.
But the idea of working for the dole has some merit.
I would hate to see us operate as some other countries do, where people either work or die. But when you're working every hour God sends, it's galling to think of healthy, able-bodied people collecting money from the taxpayer for doing nothing.
It might only be a subsistence payment, but nevertheless money for nothing works only when Dire Straits turns it into a hit song.
There's also something unnatural about not wanting to work. Oh, we might all gripe and moan about having to get up and be somewhere at a certain time and place, and at various times we might work at jobs we don't particularly enjoy or for bosses we don't respect. It can also be pretty tough being in business.
I was probably a peasant in all of my former lives - I very much doubt I was the Emperor's favourite concubine lolling about on silk cushions having my grapes peeled.
I would have been out there tilling and toiling, and all that tilling and toiling has imprinted itself on my DNA - as indeed it has on most people in this country.
Even those folk who retire tend to take a weekend off then throw themselves back into the fray - the only difference is they're doing work they want to do, rather than work they have to do.
All the people I've spoken to on the radio who've been unemployed for any length of time say it's soul-destroying. Their confidence diminishes by the day, they become lethargic and unmotivated and a sense of worthlessness pervades.
There's never enough money - rather than being grateful for the money they get from the state, they feel aggrieved that it's not more and they become alienated from the community.
On the other hand, work is good for the soul. I'm not sure about the make-work schemes - they're extremely expensive and if the workers feel they're just marking time, doing something pointless, they don't even get the satisfaction of a job well done.
Making it easier for employers to give somebody a chance might be the way to go. Given how difficult it is to fire someone who doesn't work out, and given the speed with which employees contact lawyers when they're shown the door, many small business owners are justifiably wary of taking a chance on someone whose CV might be a little patchy.
So rather than look to the taxpayer to fund pointless exercises in human activity, perhaps we could match up people looking for work with those needing workers, make it easier for the two of them to connect - and give both of them a break.
