John Armstrong: Both parties look to benefit

I don't understand. We're a family, not a cluster," an indignant "Sally", a beneficiary, insisted on Campbell Live, her face shielded from the camera.

Both Sally's revulsion and her wish to remain anonymous were understandable. It is her bad luck that she shares one thing in common with members of the Kahui extended family. She, too, lives in a household where a number of occupants receive the benefit - a so-called welfare "cluster".

Prime ministerial fiat has decreed such clusters get the third degree from Work and Income - the agency first checking whether everyone claiming a benefit is entitled to what they get and then assessing what can be done to deal with what Social Development Minister David Benson-Pope calls "multiple levels of disadvantage".

But few labels have so quickly taken on such negative connotations as has the word "cluster" - for obvious reasons.

To be tagged a "cluster" household is to be ghettoised alongside the Kahuis, even though that family's refusal to co-operate with the police investigation into the deaths of the twin boys puts it on a different, barren moral planet from others suffering equal or worse disadvantage.

Hence Sally's grievance. She has been stigmatised by association.

However, there was a degree of inevitability about that.

The parliamentary consensus not to exploit the twins' deaths for political purposes was always likely to evaporate once everyone had dutifully turned up for Parekura Horomia's all-party meeting on family violence.

Normal service quickly resumed. Labour and National were soon arguing over who had the best policies to tackle hardcore welfare dependency.

The sudden debate on welfare reform has left people like Sally wondering how a police investigation into criminal behaviour in one household could morph into Work and Income checking the bona fides of other beneficiaries on its books.

However, when public anger runs deep but seems to be having no effect on its target - the case with the Kahuis' intransigence - then governments live in mortal fear of copping the backlash instead.

The Prime Minister wants to prevent that by showing the Government is doing something. While that may make people feel better, the targeting of welfare clusters has Labour facing charges of beneficiary bashing. Coming largely from Labour's left, they will be ignored.

However, it is more the case that the Prime Minister wants to sound both punitive and paternalistic.

It is ironic that John Tamihere should enter the debate by calling for non-government agencies to control the benefits of dysfunctional families - a notion dismissed by Helen Clark as running the risk of increasing dependency.

However, her description of the Kahui family as Once Were Warriors territory and her insinuation that those in cluster households tried to "rip off"' the benefit system has Clark cannily talking the language of Labour's unstable blue-collar vote that Tamihere previously spoke for.

That constituency will also applaud Clark and Benson-Pope flagging the Ministry of Social Development's initial work on clustering as the first stage of an offensive on hardcore welfare dependency.

This follows a number of Labour initiatives to get the long-term unemployed back into the workforce, such as tightening up on work-testing. And there is more to come, with yet-to-be-disclosed measures awaiting sign-off.

It has always been difficult to judge whether such moves signify a rightwards shift on Labour's part - or whether Labour is merely covering its back knowing it is vulnerable on welfare, particularly the blow-out in numbers on the sickness and invalids' benefits.

Determining whether Labour is more bark than bite may come down to the checks on cluster households and whether those receiving unemployment benefits have been getting the intensive case management from Work and Income that Benson-Pope says they should now be getting.

He has been advised that some members of the extended Kahui family lost their entitlements because they failed to meet Work and Income obligations.

However, the question cannot be fully answered until he gets the final report on whether benefits paid to the Kahuis and other cluster households are legitimate.

That leaves the current debate on welfare policy occurring in something of a vacuum. But it is much less of a vacuum than when Don Brash made welfare reform the subject matter of last year's Orewa speech.

National is happy to get the chance to debate welfare reform, and happier still that the Prime Minister's announcement about welfare clusters provided the cover to get political, rather than being hog-tied by Horomia's push for consensus.

His initiative was highly political, of course. Such all-party discussions are far more valuable for governing parties, allowing them to display leadership on a vexed issue while defusing it.

However, all-party agreements happen only when everyone gains from staying in the tent - the case with superannuation policy in the 1990s when Labour and National were discredited by broken promises and voters were demanding a solution that would stick long-term.

No such provisos apply to welfare policy. National has used it as a branding device, with promises which include requiring beneficiaries ensure their pre-school children get health and dental checks and vaccinations. And in Judith Collins, the party has a spokeswoman who exudes toughness to match.

But how tough is National?

The party has been willing to import welfare reform initiatives from America, but has been uncomfortable about the punitive sanctions that necessarily go with them, especially if children are the ones who suffer.

Collins, whom Labour would wish to pigeonhole as another Ruth Richardson or Jenny Shipley, is indicating something of a rethink. She is saying that breaking the cycle of welfare dependence starts with helping the children. Policies will have to meet that benchmark.

She also wants reform to be incremental so that changes have "buy in" from the community and voluntary agencies.

This does not necessarily amount to a softening of National's policies. But Collins is selling them more gently.

It all looks a bit topsy-turvy. Labour is trying to convince people it is strict. National is trying to persuade people it is not being punitive.

Both parties are trying to pitch their messages to where they think the bulk of public opinion resides on the left-right spectrum of the welfare debate.

However, though Labour and National may appear to be converging, it still won't be difficult to tell them apart.