This is a re-post of an article originally published on pundit.co.nz. It is here with permission.
One wonders what Michael Joseph Savage, Peter Fraser and Walter Nash would have thought of the Social Security Act passed by the Ardern Labour Government in 2018. Its principles were set out as
Every person performing or exercising a duty, function, or power under this Act must have regard to the following general principles:
(a) work in paid employment offers the best opportunity for people to achieve social and economic well-being:
(b) the priority for people of working age should be to find and retain work:
(c) people for whom work may not currently be an appropriate outcome should be assisted to prepare for work in the future and develop employment-focused skills:
(d) people for whom work is not appropriate should be supported in accordance with this Act.
This has a quite different focus from the act Labour passed in 1938 which began:
An act to provide for the payment of superannuation benefits and of other benefits designed to safeguard the people of New Zealand from disabilities arising from age, sickness, widowhood, orphanhood, unemployment, or other exceptional conditions; (I have omitted the provisions for healthcare).
There is a redirection in the purpose of the system described by the 2018 Act from safeguarding those with disability to prioritising paid work as the social norm.
Eighty years ago, statutes did not include general principles. The 1972 (McCarthy) Royal Commission on Social Security codified the principles of the existing social security system, the first of which was:
The community is responsible for giving dependent people a standard of living consistent with human dignity and approaching that enjoyed by the majority, irrespective of the cause of dependency. We believe, further, that the community responsibility should be discharged in a way which does not stifle personal initiative, nor unduly hinder anyone trying to preserve or even enhance living standards on retirement or during times of temporary disability.
I can find no such sentiment in the 2018 Act, which is in many ways a manual for those administering a very different system. (It is over five times as long as the 1938 Act which also covered retirement and health benefits.)
Admittedly things have changed since the 1972 Royal Commission, including higher evident unemployment and women are more likely to be in the paid workforce. (The changes are detailed in my Not in Narrow Seas, Chapter 39.) However, that is not a justification for abandoning the principles which Savage, Fraser and Nash would have applauded. Rather, the challenge was to apply those principles to the new circumstances.
Governments since the 1972 Royal Commission have largely abandoned the challenge. Indeed the Richardson-Shipley ‘redesign of the welfare state’ replaced the 1938 approach with a minimalist neoliberal one of an American-style welfare state instead of the more European social democratic approach which the Royal Commission accepted and where once New Zealand led the world as Lord Beveridge (of the British Beveridge Report – the foundation of their welfare state) once acknowledged.
And so the prioritisation of work as the foundation of social security followed. It was the Clark-Cullen Labour Government which introduced the work focus into the Social Security Act in 2007. It was applied by Minister Paula Bennett under the Key-English National Government.
The 2018 Act itself was enacted by a Labour Government (minister Carmel Sepoloni) in effect endorsing the 1990 redesign of the welfare state and abandoning the system which Labour was once so proud. Yes, the Ardern-Hipkins Government administered the system more generously and fiddled around at its edges but it adopted the underlying framework, just as in 1949 the first Holland-Holyoake National Government adopted the preceding Labour Government’s 1938 framework. (When the statute was being passed in 1938, Sid Holland had described it as ‘applied lunacy’ responding to Savage’s ‘applied Christianity’ – I suppose Christianity is out of fashion today.)
So the Arden-Hipkins Government and its advisers accepted the neo-liberal framework. Was that by default because they had no alternative? One acknowledges that their proposed Social Unemployment Insurance scheme was a more European-style approach to welfare. Its critics included advisers to Labour’s social welfare minister and it was abandoned by the Hipkins ‘policy bonfire’ of February 2023. (My objection was that it was poorly articulated with the existing social security system; a proper articulation would have shifted the system away from the minimalist welfare state approach. I was told those implementing the scheme thought the challenge of the integration was too great.)
This is but one example of the reluctance of the Ardern-Hipkins Labour Government to challenge the neoliberal framework it inherited (although it did in some areas). Given that the 1938 Social Security Act is usually seen as one of the greatest achievements by any New Zealand Labour Government, the reluctance illustrates how far Labour has shifted in the eighty-odd years. Savage, Fraser, Nash and a host of their colleagues must be wondering what has gone on.
*Brian Easton, an independent scholar, is an economist, social statistician, public policy analyst and historian. He was the Listener economic columnist from 1978 to 2014. This is a re-post of an article originally published on pundit.co.nz. It is here with permission.
15 Comments
Not really, not in any large way compared to other parties. In fact many have a clear separation of work and home lives, so the relevance of gender or sexual preferences rarely comes into it.
On sexual matters all parties rarely care about staff unless crimes are committed, e.g. sexual assaults. Sadly while all people are equally capable of committing sexual assaults it is the actions of a party & installment of good governance procedures that shows whether they condone the crimes & their ethics. If they are coming from law, finance, student reps, media management etc those fields have historically terrible track records in sexual assault history and even worse horrific responses to them... however as a whole NZs workplace bullying and assault record has been pretty patchy so it could also be a function of society.
Hence it does not matter which alphabet you are, who you are married too in NZ political parties. They are all set up to be able to ignore the home lives of politicians but equally turn a blind eye towards risks & criminal behaviour behind the scenes in the government & party campaign workplace.
In many respects the ones who are most likely to commit repeated assaults with many victims (often children) are those who go to church, who say they are celibate or married heterosexual. Just take any church organisation and in recent history there will be mass sexual assault scandals. Proven and demonstrated. So lets be clear it is the actions of any organisation in response that show their true ethics and morals... what has the response of these church organisations been to condemn the perpetrators, support the survivors and ensure there is more prevention & governance going forward... oh right massive ostracism of survivors, pursuing legal cases against them, covering up the scandals and enshrining the pedophiles so their names photos and positions are honoured to allow the abuse to continue. No wonder our church going politicians seem so disturbed. It must be hard protecting their teenagers from those who will inform them of what consent means (often far later then the first sexual abuse or activity has already taken place).
How much do we still consider the limitations timeframe in cases of sexual abuse these days, is it still 6 years from the point of comprehension & effects of harm taking place?
If we are looking to reduce risk of harm perhaps we should do an in depth ethics review of politicians on multiple levels of legal cases (not just those that are a priority to the party leaders) prior to them going on the party list. After all you seem so concerned about which end of an alphabet someone is for odd reasons. Lets test those ethics you seem to want to uphold.
The community is responsible for giving dependent people a standard of living consistent with human dignity and approaching that enjoyed by the majority, irrespective of the cause of dependency. We believe, further, that the community responsibility should be discharged in a way which does not stifle personal initiative, nor unduly hinder anyone trying to preserve or even enhance living standards on retirement or during times of temporary disability.
The perfect definition of a Universal Basic Income (UBI).
Labour needs to pick this up and run with it - and again become the world leader in ensuring human dignity for every one of our citizens.
The pension benefit is the closest we have to full UBI and what it shows even in experiments with a smaller population is that
1. We Really Cannot Afford a UBI. We cannot even afford a UBI for a single age group.
2. That those with the most need are actually worse off then then they would be if we had targeted benefits as they receive less then they need to live and cannot supplement their benefits with working income & rental income. They have the least housing and often become homeless and without enough funds for the essentials needed to survive e.g. food, housing, medical access, heating. Those on UBI benefits who actually need the support often have to forgo even public medical service access as they cannot afford the transport to even see a GP, pick up medication or get blood tests.
3. That those who are the wealthiest with the least need are more often the largest beneficiaries as they are also able to spend money on legal services to structure things to be able to claim more benefits. Even those that are meant to be targeted solely towards the poor, e.g. claiming on accommodation supplement & retirement housing supplements while trusts and businesses hold property assets. A UBI only increases the amount of funds going to those who least need them leading to: We Really Cannot Afford A UBI
4. Perhaps if we had trillion dollar industries in fossil fuels we could afford a UBI but unlike northern countries we don't and will not. So the comparisons to countries that do have them is illogical as we do not have a functioning productive economy. We have a housing market with some farms tacked on. We literally have the worse case scenario to implement as even a UBI to cover living costs cannot meet the basic housing needs of those over 65 now.
Written a while ago now but if it was viable then it should be able to be made viable now;
https://morganfoundation.org.nz/product/the-big-kahuna-turning-tax-and-…
Which reminds me - I ought to re-read it and check that out :-)!
Ironically we cannot afford even targeted benefits for those in need below 65. Many do experience homelessness. The UBI based on massive increased tax intact is completely fictional and without any solid financial basis. We do not even have the funds for the UBI above the age of 65 and most of those who need support are still left out in the cold (based on exceptionally bad management practices for administering benefits that benefit those most wealthy and does not account for disability). See our current UBI & decades of failure and homelessness especially amongst those with disabilities over and under the age of 65.
See our disability surveys to see if a UBI would be managed any differently to the extreme deprivation currently. Where access to transport has not improved over decades (in fact it has gotten worse), access to medical care & housing has dropped sharply, less then 2% of houses are accessible (much less are affordable) and the current UBI still leaves many with severe deprivation while at the same time those wealthiest are literally over burdening our system of benefits that we literally cannot afford even if we added billions onto the tax intact of the government.
Morgan foundation is simply the wealthy trying to trick the public into more benefits for the wealthiest in the country. They are self serving greedy arrogant ignorant morons who have not done any real research in deprivation and disability in NZ ever. Even the meta-analysis assumes disabled people do not exist and no disability issues are real. How kind of them to think for their own pockets instead of the most deprived socioeconomic groups in NZ. If anything they are even further right leaning then Act. They would never fund disability equipment or transport and so think everyone can catch a bus or walk, and think if someone needs a powerchair they should fund that from the UBI and forgo housing, food, medical care etc for years afterwards.
Think on the reality of what life with a disability costs compared to an able bodied person. If you need an example compare the difference of catching a bus compared to private premium mobility van taxi company charges for cross town travel to the hospital (most companies also start charging disabled people before they even pick them up, and they will often not use/deny use of the TM card so end up charging disabled people full fares even though they have a TM card). It is quite different when your entire food budget for weeks is gone in a single trip and you are paying over 20x the cost of an able bodied person for the same journey. Yet no UBI accounts for a cost of living difference of more then 20x.
The UBI will never be equitable because it is never able to provide an equitable standard of living. The UBI will always discriminate and has deprived those most in need and most vulnerable of the essentials to live and that is because it is designed on a discriminatory basis that assumes no disability exists and that disabled people do not deserve equity; they do not deserve a place to live, food to eat, transport to living needs etc. As all UBI fails to consider the funding difference for overcoming disability barriers & medical safety. For example, housing that is accessible costs more because most houses are not accessible, accessible transport costs more for disabled people then those ablebodied as they cannot walk/cycle, safe food for celiacs or those allergic costs far more for the same energy intake/meals etc. Have you ever thought of how much it costs to live without access to a bathroom in a home and what if you needed support to do day to day travel because of how inaccessible our cities are designed to exclude disabled people from the outset. We literally had better access before we were stripping away parking support workers & disabled people used to get to houses and cities.
Hence the poverty extremes are exacerbated under UBIs. Those most able bodied and wealthy do really well and those with impairments will suffer and face sharp drops in support that crucially they cannot live through without added benefits on top like social housing (of which most is inaccessible to them anyway). We already see that now with our current UBI system that has directly led to early preventable deaths decades earlier then the national averages.
All you need to do is query Morgan on his thoughts and research into disability issues in NZ. It will be quite enlightening for you I am sure. Morgan though reflects Wellington where a culture of eugenics and extreme ableism exists. E.g. Te Papa is inaccessible inside for many disabled people, they removed disabled parking access to Te Papa, there is no mobility transport at night so you cannot work normal hours and have to book weeks in advance just for a single trip and often they do not turn up so you can never plan work or study reliably and often have to forgo access to both in Wellington, along with forgoing access to family dinners or public events (which also deny access to disabled people). Even the golden mile is designed to be the most inaccessible so literally it would be more honest to put up a 'no cripples' sign around Wellington. Hence fossils of ableism like Morgan thrive in Wellington while disabled people cannot even get a hotel with accessible bathrooms and have to go without. It is Morgan's foundation built by the wealthy ableist for the wealthy and their reports can easily be discredited as ensuring worsening outcomes for those experiencing deprivation in NZ.
Here is a simple acronym to remember to help when considering those who bring up UBI: Utter Bullshit Ignorance. (and it is UBI since the 1920s & 1930s).
Using Hanlon's razor it is mostly because they are ignorant that disabled people exist, they have human rights too and they deserve an equitable basis to live and interact with their community so they should have equitable levels of transport to jobs, housing available and equitable access to government services, public spaces and community events. Whereas society instead discriminates heavily against disabled people denying mobility transport, and denies access to most living needs like housing, essential needs, community education & public health systems etc that ablebodied people design for ablebodied people by preference (often just ignorant that disabled people exist at all with different abilities).
Not just Labour and not just here.
It would be more correct to say capitalists the world over have steadily abandoned the social contract while the populous slowly forgets there was such a contract in the first place.
A little history of how capitalism has been maintained in the West (from my perspective)...
Early 19th century Western Europe was rapidly gaining wealth and industrialising - largely supported by resource exploitation in the colonies. Capitalism was still a relatively new thing and many people that had moved to urban areas for factory work had direct experience of - and so remembered - the agrarian lifestyle that came before (i.e. a largely pre-capitalist existence). They become increasingly unhappy with their new 'industrious' lot - watching a very small class of capitalists get very wealthy very quickly while their own quality of life was heading in the other direction (overcrowding, disease, dangerous workplaces, no 'seasonal' breaks, etc). Cue the multiple uprisings of 1848...
Bismarck was smart enough to see what was going on and managed to convince the wealthy industrialists that if they didn't make any compromises they may lose everything to an unhappy populous. It was still understood at this time that capitalism was not simply 'the natural order of things' but was one of many ways of organising society and that it was a privilege granted by the people that capitalists could enjoy so long as it also worked for the general population. Hence compromise is made and the social contract is upheld.
As is the nature of capitalism, it tends toward inequality, and each time that gets too unbearable a 're-balancing' occurs - not through doubling down on 'more capitalism/laissez-faire policies' but through political means. Some future examples would be full-suffrage, the emergence of the labour movement, and the new deal (with Joseph Kennedy playing the part of Bismarck and helping convince his peers that compromise was necessary if they wanted to protect what they had).
Today, we live in a world (at least in the West) where people have essentially forgotten that capitalism is not the only way and so have also lost sight of the social contract. That won't last. As inequality increases (as is inevitable with capitalism) a fresh round of political compromise will eventually happen. Hopefully things don't get too ugly before that occurs.
Personally I see the fact that things like UBI and LVT are now seriously discussed at places like Davos as an indication that the ruling class are aware that we are approaching breaking point again and that new compromises will soon be necessary.
Sadly everyone wants a revolution and yet no one wants to do the day to day management tasks after one. Hence the growing apathy. What is a better system of governance and if we have to pay our debts with interest how do we do that after the revolution... normally you get crickets or outlandish eat the rich ideas. We can protest the bank foreclosing on a house but that does not stop it from happening and all large social unrest & riots are far more destructive and deadly then any system prior and the long time to restore functioning governance systems to save lives takes far too long which only prolongs harm.
Ideally we need a better tailored system towards consensus with living needs taken into account. I.e. no more destitution for those in essential roles that are being paid close to the minimum wage. If the roles are so essential they need to function even over lockdowns or other health risks then they obviously matter more then the CEO & board wages. This also applies to government departments. In other countries they have a system where the maximum pay cannot exceed a certain multiple of the minimum pay for companies & orgs (especially those in governance & key industry roles). Perhaps we could do something similar amongst our politicians. I am sure they would be up in arms improving the cost of living & pay rates if the maximum weekly pay they could receive was only 4-5 times that of a support worker or carer pay each week on legislated pay rates (i.e. currently they sit below the minimum wage for those starting with a new employer regardless of years of experience, and for many they stay below minimum wage; sick eh).
Or even better imagine if their maximum weekly pay could only be 4-5 times that of a benefit and if they have a working partner they receive no pay, regardless of the relationship length of time or if they live or don't live with that partner.
Social change would be rapid and for the benefit of all in society especially those who will be more vulnerable in their elderly years.
After all we are told these roles must be so hard having to read reports each day & turn up to events on occasion, then feign complete ignorance when something hits the fan. Somehow most students can do this in highschool without being paid. We are told by these same people they all must be deserving of extreme wage levels comparable to other often more despotic leaders. Somehow I see a price fixing issue. I am sure we will find plenty of skilled people even paying 1/5th of the current rates. We currently do that for essential high risk roles, so non essential low risk high perk government roles must be even easier to hire for.
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