Kerre Woodham: Kick abusers off the dole

The Harris family has been living on taxpayers' money for 25 years. Photo / Christchurch Star

Opinion

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I would hate to live in a country in which there was no welfare system, and I accept that no system will ever be perfect.

But the story of the worst benefit abusers released this week made my blood boil, especially the case of the notorious Harris family.

Marcia Harris and her husband, a former white supremacist gang leader, have been claiming unemployment and sickness benefits continuously since 1984.

Darryl Harris' sickness is not your run-of-the-mill disability, either. He's addicted to cannabis and, because of that, he's entitled to the benefit.

Add to that the fact that three of their four children are also drawing benefits, and you have to wonder whether our system needs an entire overhaul. I don't know what went wrong with the fourth Harris sprog, if he or she is in work. There's a black sheep in every family I suppose. Except, perhaps, a white power family who wouldn't appreciate the metaphor.

The Harris family is also one of the few that is handled by a special remote-monitoring unit that deals with beneficiaries deemed too dangerous for face-to-face meetings with staff. Can you believe it?

Add to the cost of the poxy bludgers' benefits the amount of money that would have been spent on investigating, prosecuting and imprisoning some family members, the social agencies that would have been involved in a futile attempt to help the kids, the hospitalisation, and you have a very small number of people costing us an absolute fortune.

I put it to Social Development Minister Paula Bennett that if beneficiaries are too dangerous to be dealt with, then their benefits should be cancelled.

She said that was impossible because it was against the law. She also admitted that Work and Income didn't have the mechanisms to deal with the hardest cases.

Well, Paula, you're the Government. Change the law so you can expel criminal ingrates from the welfare system and create mechanisms that will root out the welfare abusers who give other beneficiaries a bad name.

A welfare system only works if we all have faith that it's fair. And there's nothing fair about this case.