Voting Labour to keep 5 years of dole
September 26th, 2008 at 11:36 am by David FarrarA reader helpfully left a message on my cellphone telling me to read the story on Page A8 of the Herald carefully, about someone voting Labour because they have allowed him to be on welfare for five years.
I thought he had it wrong, but sure enough we go to this article on how some immigrants are voting and get:
Indian immigrant B. Mohan said his support for Labour stemmed from the party’s “number-one welfare policies” which had helped him to “survive five years of unemployment”.
“The National Party and its millionaire leader, John Key, will never be able to understand the poor, and we cannot trust the rich politicians who listen to consultants rather than their hearts,” said Mr Mohan, who has been without a job since moving to New Zealand in 2003.
I skim read the article early this morning and missed the significance of this. He has been without a job for five years, since he moved here in 2003. What an indictment on our welfare system.
With the lowest unemployment in the world almost, Mr Mohan has not managed to find any work at all in 250 weeks. How preposterous. And no wonder he is supporting Labour – he knows he won’t have five years on the dole under National.
Tags: immigration, Labour, unemployment, welfare
September 26th, 2008 at 11:38 am
*just waiting for bruv’s rage*
how did he get into our country if hes unemployable?
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Words fail me. People in receipt of unemployment, sickness, invalids, and DPB benefits should not be allowed to vote.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 11:47 am
This is why Helen is so smug when questioned about NZs loss of talent to Aussie and elsewhere. She doesn’t care at all. Gives her the opportunity to fill the gap with idiots like this who will be lifetime Labour voters.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 11:48 am
It also begs the question as to why we do not have a stand down period for eligability for welfare.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Yep, my neighbour admits hes only voting Labour cos he’s afraid that his dole will get cut under National.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 11:48 am
He is not representative of all kiwis. Just the deadbeat ones. SOmeone should warn him that Labour (before the election at least) plan to ‘crackdown’ on beneficiaires, though (see keepingstock)
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Gob smacked… what a complete and utter disgrace.
He can’t of been an immigrant, must have been a refugee.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Mate it is worse than that. Most of the Somali refugees here get welfare and you see how much they remit back via western Union to Somalia each month. Local bagman gets the contributions together and does the transaction at the local ANZ in Lower Hutt. Money is being sent back to families in Somalia. So, given that that money will have it’s cut taken by local warlords in Somalia as “tax” our tax money is more than likely going to pay for RPGs and AK47s in Africa.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Is this New Zealand’s version of the ‘welfare queen’ discourse?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_queen
Let’s not mention that unemployment’s at the lowest levels since the start of the neoliberal revolution, or this story from today’s Dom Post:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4705956a11.html
Beneficiaries are already subject to rules, penalties and suspensions of their benefit payment. And they get paid fuck-all to start with. But hey, who needs the facts when you can beat up an isolated example you read about in a newspaper?
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Yeah how incredibly stupid that Immigration didn’t think to make it a condition of entry that required the applicant to periodically produce evidence of continuous active attempts to obtain work.
Fucking D’oh.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 11:55 am
I will never understand the poor.
Why can’t they just fuck off somewhere else?
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Tane how is it he hasn’t got one for five years, in those economic conditions?????
Don’t obfuscate this into beneficiary bashing. It’s not and you know it.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 11:57 am
I also want to understand how he got in the country.
As an immigrant myself I can confirm this is not easy. There was no way I would have gotten in without a job offer. So how did he do it?
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 11:58 am
It sure beats living and dying on the streets of Calcutta!
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Hi Tane
We dont see you as much these days, where ya been? just too hard to defend your corrupt labour party?
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as for this guy…. imagine moving to another country.. going through the process… say ya move to canada… ya get there.. and ya go straight on welfare.. then brag that you vote left cause they understand before like you lol and the right wingers may take whats rightfully yours lol
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Probably came in under the refugee quota berend.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 11:59 am
I bet the Indian is working evenings at his cuzzie’s corner dairy as well.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
From my days as an Immigration Consultant, I vaguely remember that new permanent residents signed a waiver saying that they accepted they were not entitled to any benefits in the first year – has that changed?
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
This person is a disgrace. Lazy and bludging. Reminds me of another commenter here.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
So Murray M a soldier in Afghanistan loses his leg to mine and is an invalid. According to you he is no longer entitled to vote.
Do you want to rethink your proposition or can we go with ‘only those who have served” should be given a vote perhaps?
We’re either elitist exclusive fascisim or an inclusive democracy. Pick one. People not voting the way you would want them to is not a suitable method of eligabilty elimination.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
I signed a waiver saying that I would not get entitled to any benefits in the first year of residence when I got a work permit at the end of 2005.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
As an immigrant, you cannot get an unemplyed benefit for the first 2 years. You may get an accomodation supplement but not a benefit.
Vote:There is something wrong here, either he has been in the country for longer than the 5 years and then got onto the benefit. How he has remianed unemployed is quite surprising.
When as an Indian immigrant I got into the county, I initially worked in a Petrol Station (graveyard shifts) so that I could attend to interviews during the day, so as not to dip into savings and eventually withinh a couple of months got what I was looking for. I actually think it is a digrace for the Indian community if people think like this and just plain spoils it for the rest of us due to steroetyping.
September 26th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Well knock me over. I missed that. If that is how others see us then the sooner things change the better.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Murray – I suspect that your fictional soldier would, after rehab, not be sitting on his arse with his hand out. He’d probably try to find some work. Mr Mohan, on the other hand, seems to like the donut.
Liarbour candidates are working the provinces telling parents National is going to cut working for families. Unfortunately most of the dumb bums they’re talking to don’t bother to find out if this is true for themselves.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
“…no wonder he is supporting Labour – he knows he won’t have five years on the dole under National.”
Really? Who do you think you’re kidding.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
FUCK.
Someone do some research and find out who this useless cunt is. Post his address, then I will drive round to his place pick the cunt up, load all his shit and family into my car, take them to the airport and put them on the plane to I couldn’t care less where.
I will gladly pay for the tickets and I’m sure others will be only to happy to contribute!
Simple solution is if you don’t pay tax, you don’t vote.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Grant
I signed a similar thing when I went to work and live in the UK, my work visa contained the clause that I had no recourse to public funds for four years, I had no problem with that as I never had any intention of sponging from my fellow workers and tax payers, I cannot see why we do not have the same thing here.
I would also like to see an immediate end to unskilled non English speaking refugees currently flooding into NZ, unless these refugees have a skill that the nation needs then as far as I am concerned they can fuck off somewhere else, we have our own born and bred losers who we need to sort out first without taking on the dregs from other nations.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Possibly not Buggerlugs but you see the danger of sweeping generalisations.
I could easily use the eaxmple of pne my relatives is was invalided though no fault of his own if you like.
I prefer to take people opne at a time rather than brand them at a distance with nothing to base it own but my own predudice.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
I need a better calculator. Can’t work out how much of my income is going to B. Mohan and how much is going to the sickness beneficiary of Otahuhu who managed to get himself off his sick bed and come into town to murder an employed father of 3. Either way, its better in their hands, they are more deserving aren’t they than my wife and 2 young children?
I’m not a violent man (well, if I was on sickness maybe I would be), but unless Labour First are removed, totally, what are the odds on a citizens rebellion ?!
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Hey I’ve got no problem with taking refugees and sharing a little of our wealth to help them get into a new life but the point is this issue has been around for a long time and it’s fucking simple to detect by sharing between Immigration and DSW.
So WTF hasn’t that been done?
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
I am so over NZ leading the way in Climate Change, rehousing refugees and whatever else the current administration say we should lead the way in.
Vote:Surely some-one else can take the lead while we sit on the sidelines watching and drinking a cleansing ale! And while they are at it they can take little losers like Mr Mohan who are a drain on my hard earned tax money and put them to gainful employment – cleaning road w’ tongue or something similar.
And as for Mr Dutt 55 of somewhere in the never regions of Mt Roskill …
September 26th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Peter C – I will, very reluctantly, vote with my wallet should an unthinkable 4th term happen. if NZ looks like a despot-in-waiting junior banana republic now, can you imagine the state of things if the current batch of ethically shipwrecked crims stay in charge?
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
GS, a number of my colleagues have reluctantly come to the conclusion that if the current regime stays in place then they, and I, will be off across the ditch.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
If this lot stay in power then I’m off to the Ureweras to join Tame and the bro’s, where I will lead the revolution.
In 20 years time people will be wearing t-shirts with Nefarious face on the them.
Like Che Guevara, but more handsome and less communist. Actually, not at all communist. Just handsome.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
I think this is a bit of an extreme example to consider as the “norm”.
The term “unemployed” is a strange thing. You have to seperate idleness from unemployment. The stereotype encourages a view that person A has done nothing at all since being on the dole. I’ve met a broad cross section of people in many different places in NZ and some of them have filled 30years with techinically “illegal” activites, have not collected any dole and have not had a mainstream job. Regardless of the illegal part, they certainly have been busy and in some way “contributed” to society. NZ is a big place in real life and there are some abstract ways of living, just outside the city limits. Hell, there are even some inside the city limits. I can only imagine the myriad ways to get by in a large european town.
I’m not sure what offends people the most, the idleness, or not paying tax.
Being completely idle is very hard to do – unless you are some kind of perpetually meditating buddist monk. Plenty of business people would love to find a way to not pay tax and indeed it is their responsiblity to pay the least amount they can. There are plenty of examples in that field. To have done absolutely nothing for 5 years would be remarkable and in this case I doubt it is true. It would be on par with the “chicken man” scientists wanted to bring here from Fiji to study. As a person interested in motivational techniques, I’d sure like to test a person who had been idle for 5 years. They may hold some interesting insights into the human mind – and in that way, they could contribute to society. But of course, this is not to encourage people to do nothing for 5 years and pay them for it. It’s the natural occurances that matter.
So what fires the outrage, really? It could be the shallowness of the examples – there is no deeper examination of person A’s life. It could be some are just having a hard day; that they need a holiday themselves; that they need to find a better job, since they’re under-employed. There’s more to it than what the commie-socialist-biased-MSM are willing to publish.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I didn’t know Philu was an Indian. (I’m sure B. Mohan is just an alias).
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
NZ is still letting this happen?! This is one of the main issues which underpinned what was widely decried as NZF’s “racist” immigration policy of the 1990s (the one which led to NZF, much to the disgust of the left, receiving more support from people polled than Labour could manage at the time).
What people who express the sentiments typified by Tane seem to forget is that our immigration and refugee policies both set a quota. That means that for every B Mohan calculatedly thieving from the taxpayer there is a deserving immigrant or refugee somewhere that’s been told “sorry, we’re full up”.
They also forget that there’s a limited amount of welfare money to go round, and if these leeches were excised there’d be more to divide up amongst the genuinely deserving.
Because I’m not an Australian citizen, I could work and pay taxes here for the next 40 years and still be entitled to nothing in the way of welfare. Even when I was tossed out of prison and onto the streets with $111 in my pocket I was told by Centrelink that not even an emergency payment was possible, as Helen Clark had happily signed away any rights I, or any other NZer in need overseas, had.
Yet she permits this sort of thing to continue back home. The only possible conclusion is that Labour are using taxpayers’ money to buy votes, because any reasonable government would have put a stop to this long ago.
And yes, there are restructions and rules and penalties imposed on the unemployed – I’ve lived under them. They’re punitive and unfair in many cases. Yet B Mohan seems to have avoided them, or else he wouldn’t be so happy with his lot. Wonder why that is?
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Aussies used to get rightfully pissed off at Kiwi bludgers heading to to Gold Coast, piling six blokes into a two bedroom flat and all promptly signing up for the dole while spending alternate days surfing and working on building sites for cash. They finally wised up and instituted a two year stand down period which coincidentally is how long it takes for NZers to qualify for full Australian citizenship. I don’t want to bash immigrants because that’s Winston’s preserve and I think immigration is generally positive for any country. I think this guy is either an isolated case with a fucked attitude or is likely to be a refugee and that is a whole other can of worms.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
I met a person the other day that shifted from Aussie back at the beginning of February.
They told me that they recieve the base payment of Aussie WFFTC for the next three years after they have left the country becuase they are citizens.
I was amazed that Aussie payout 3 years after they have left the country.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Then there was the English couple that got sent back to Pomgolia a few months ago because it was deemed that they wern’t contributing enough to NZ society. They’d spent a year and a million bucks developing a farm up North somewhere.
Not Liarbore voters I guess.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
All the Trevor Mallard and Labour election signs in the Little Mogadishu area of Lower Hutt have been erected on state houses being let to Somali refugees at cheap rates. Does having these signs on state houses mean that Housing New Zealand supports Labour?
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
people people Please calm down As the PM and Minister of Labour have just pointed out this is one isolated case.
The other 99.999999% or those on an unemployment benefit are earnestly striving with the asiistance and support of the Department to gain meaningful employment.
the Department take very stringent steps to ensure only those who meet the qualification guidelines has access to benefits.
They wish to remind the public that under Labour New Zealand society have advanced over the past 9 years at three times the rate of that under the National government of the 1990s
This political message was unauthorised and the author is prepared to lay down their life before submitting the the dictats of the EFA
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
phool, you should be pissed off with this guy and rightly so.
The bastard is stealing YOUR benefit money.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Can anyone confirm that B. Mohan is real or simply an unimaginative piece of journalist license.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
B Mohan is the pseudonym of Ashraf Choudary who hasn’t done a days work since entering Parliament as a Labour MP all those years ago (except perhaps for his ‘bold’ and ‘principled’ decision to stand his ground and abstain from voting on the Bill to legalise prostitution).
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
As an Indian immigrant myself, I’m embarrassed and mortified that some people of my own ethnicity stoop to such levels. I came here with my parents 10 years at the age of 12. Both my parents got jobs within a week of landing here, (never on the dole), and this was in one of the worst economic periods that NZ had seen. Both parents had to struggle for a while doing jobs that were nowhere near the seniority or pay of the ones they left in India. The difference between us and that fucker who calls himself Indian is that we never even countenanced being unemployed.
I would heartily like to believe that most immigrants are hardworking, and truly don’t want to depend on the state, however I have come across examples in the Indian community (and others) where the welfare state is truly feeding these creatures. Like many other kiwis, I was a paperboy, and then worked in a supermarket through school. Now I work fulltime, and my taxes go to feed this piece of shit? I am ashamed. I have nothing more than pure contempt.
Oh and for that other freak, if you want family unification, dont bother coming here in the first place.
I apologise for these Indians guys, I am truly mortified.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Yeh don’t worry Nindian most people here make that distinction.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Mr Mohan has never heard of picking apples, packing applies, trimming vines, picking grapes or any other job we import people from the Islands to do every year.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Good on you Nindian. Its people like you – hard working immigrants – that improve any country they come to
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
NindianZ said: I am ashamed.
Please don’t be ashamed, you are no more responsible for this oxygen thief than you are for any other shit bag who thinks the world owes them a living.
IMO NZ’s Indian community, on the whole, are a model for all other immigrant communities to follow in terms of work ethic and integration into NZ soceity.
And as for B Mohan’s statement: “The National Party and its millionaire leader, John Key, will never be able to understand the poor….”
Perhaps he has been so busy wallowing in pathetic self pity to have heard the news the Key grew up in a statehouse?
Vote:Key is a role model for the poor.
September 26th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Murray @ 12.04pm, an extreme example but I will humour you. Ever spent any time in the military Muzz? Soldiers actually have private insurance, it is after all a hazardous occupation. Failing that the military will look after them, and failing that it would be an ACC case (you know work related). So think before you type bloody nonsense. From one Muzz to another.
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
This guy’s not an embarassment to Indians, he’s an embarassment to the human race
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
I am sorry to say..
Yes there are many very good and hard working Indian migrants..
Unfortunately they seem to be outweighed by so many that are absolutely just plain lazy..
When they are good they are outstanding.
Vote:There seems to be very little middle ground ..
When they are useless they are also outstanding in that position.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
“People in receipt of unemployment, sickness, invalids, and DPB benefits should not be allowed to vote.”
That’s quite ridiculous for people on the sickness and invalid’s benefits (which are only possible to get to from an assessment that says people on them are sick or otherwise incapable of working).
Vote:September 26th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
“Beneficiaries are already subject to rules, penalties and suspensions of their benefit payment. And they get paid fuck-all to start with. But hey, who needs the facts when you can beat up an isolated example you read about in a newspaper?”
Thing is buddy, there are still people sitting on the dole because they are in the too hard basket for Winz to deal with. I don’t doubt this is the latest version of Labour’s attempt to grab back ground they lost as far back as 2004 or so when Don Brash first got traction in the polls (leading to Jobs Jolt). Each attempt shows up that Winz lacks the institutional knowledge and experience to know exactly how to deal with the problems of the long term unemployed, they call in a lot of community groups as contractors to provide services – and I don’t doubt for one second that some of these people are opportunists.
That aside, all beneficiaries should be looking for the maximum amount of part time work they can do while looking for a proper job, or training – at the moment up to $80 a week on the dole can be earned, and this 50% increase in income will make a big difference to the lot of most beneficiaries.
Vote: