What does the Government’s new traffic light system mean for beneficiaries? - The Front Page

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The Government’s new traffic light system for beneficiaries may be less about punishing beneficiaries, and more about sending a signal of the Government’s priorities.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Minister for Social Development Louise Upston announced a new system for beneficiaries on Monday, with people receiving a benefit, such as Jobseeker support, now given a green, orange or red status.

This colour depends on their compliance with their obligations:

• Green: The benefit recipient is complying with their obligations
• Orange: The recipient is on their first or second obligation breach and does not have a good reason for the transgression. They have five working days to contact the Ministry of Social Development to discuss the breach. If the person successfully disputes the obligation failure and the original decision is overturned, they will move back to green. If they don’t comply within five working days, they will move to red.
• Red: Once someone is classed as red, they are sanctioned. This could include their benefit being reduced or stopped. New sanctions are being introduced next year for certain benefit recipients.

The system is already in place, with an accountant on a Jobseeker benefit revealing that he had already been notified of a cut to his benefit as a result of missing a meeting last week.

NZ Herald political reporter Julia Gabel told The Front Page that the Government intends for this system to make it clear to beneficiaries what their responsibilities and obligations are.

“[Upston] described the welfare system as always being a safety net that catches people when they fall, but had become in the past few years a dragnet that had captured too many people who can work and allowed them to, as she said, languish on, on job seeker support for too long.”

She said that Luxon himself has noted that this new system will impact only around 10,000 people on the benefit who are not meeting their current obligations.

“The message given appears to be stronger than that,” Gabel said.

“National’s ethos is to have a smaller welfare state. Reducing welfare dependency has been something the National Party have campaigned on, and, and the Prime Minister in the State of the Nation speech in February said that the free ride for beneficiaries who were not adhering to their obligations was over and he vowed to kind of break the shackles of welfare dependency.

“And then again on Monday, when he announced this new traffic light system with the social development minister, he said there was a strong expectation that those people who can work should be in work and that fewer people were at fewer people on welfare was better for them themselves, for their future, for their families, and better for the economy and better for New Zealand.”

She said that Luxon told the media the Government wants to support young people getting off welfare and into jobs.

Listen to the full episode for more on the details of these changes and what sanctions exist, and how Opposition parties have responded.

The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.

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