Editorial: Benefit reform a step in the right direction

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Achieving welfare reform has bedevilled successive Governments.

That, however, did not stop the Prime Minister promising substantial improvement as he unveiled a Future Focus policy designed to increase pressure on beneficiaries to return to the workforce.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett was equally bullish, speaking of "a comprehensive package of reforms".

In fact, the Government has made a number of refinements, which, while steps in the right direction, do not foreshadow a wholesale drop in spending or a significant reduction in the numbers on the welfare roll.

The package is, in fact, relatively mild if gauged against some of the ideas voiced by National MPs over the past few years.

Young women who regard the domestic purposes benefit as an open-ended career choice have long been a source of largely unwarranted anguish to the party.

There has been talk of a time limit on benefits. Don Brash, when leader, suggested women receiving the DPB who had a further child should have no automatic entitlement to additional state assistance.

John Key, for his part, has talked of "breeding for business" in reference to unmarried women who get pregnant so they can live on the DPB.

The centrepiece of this package decrees that solo parents will have to look for part-time work once their youngest child turns 6, or have their benefit halved.

As a carrot, those taking a job will be able to keep more of the money they earn before their benefit is reduced.

If 5 per cent of parents in this category got a job, says the Government, almost $200 million would be saved over the next 10 years.

That is a relatively small saving, and a couple of factors could render it even smaller.

The first is the availability of jobs. Unemployment may, as Mr Key suggests, be near its peak but it may be quite some time before part-time work becomes plentiful.

Many employers choose to cut hours, not staff, and in the first instance will restore these, rather than take on new workers.

Paula Bennett says if the work is not there, beneficiaries will not be penalised.

Those making that call are likely to err on the side of continued assistance.

A second caveat concerns the reaction of women when their child turns 6.

For those who are unskilled, uneducated, locked into generations of welfare dependency and with no inclination to work, the easiest course may be to simply have another child.

In such instances, the policy has the makings of an own-goal.

There are few such question-marks over other elements of the package, especially the move to more active management of long-term beneficiaries.

It makes sense for people on the dole to have to reapply for the benefit every year, and for there to be more rigorous assessment of sickness beneficiaries by shortening the time between medical checks.

The growing number on sickness benefits has, rightly, attracted questions.

Likewise, case managers will welcome more graduated sanctions for people who do not comply with their work test obligations.

Rather than simply stopping benefit payments, which managers are, obviously, reluctant to do, they will be able to work up to that through a 50 per cent reduction in a benefit.

At this level, case officers should have the flexibility to look at individual circumstances.

They should, for example, be able to gauge the impact, especially on children, of a woman taking low-paid part-time work.

In some circumstances, the pressure on the family may make the policy a step too far.

In others, it may provide the jolt that sets the scene for a more positive future.

This package's broad brush should not preclude such individual attention.