Pagani on welfare reform
December 7th, 2011 at 9:12 am by David FarrarJohn Pagani blogs:
The sections National has agreed to are not especially obnoxious. The sections are mainly about intervention to have someone else manage household budgets or use a payment card when childrens’ needs are not being met.This isn’t entitlement reform. It isn’t slashing benefits. In order to disagree with them you have to construct an argument about entitlement to a living wage, and somehow also say that parents should be paid by the state to parent even when they’re not doing their job as parent. The consequence of failure is more help rather than punishment….It’s interesting that National has allowed them to be branded as Act gains, which will provoke an automatic assumption that the gains are hopelessly right wing. But they will be highly popular if the public research into voter attitudes to welfare holds.
I hadn’t had time to check out the detail, so it is interesting that the assumption John refers to is not correct. It will be interesting to see if Labour under its new leadership supports or opposes them.
Related posts:
- Armstrong on Welfare Reform
- Why Welfare Reform is a Win Win Win
- National’s welfare reform
- Dim-Post on Nats welfare reform
December 7th, 2011 at 9:16 am
Who is John Pagani and why is his opinion of importance?
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 9:28 am
Ditto above me.
But over a well phrased and concise sum up of why every responsible NZ regardless of party affiliation neesd to support this reform. Long long overdue. As a taxpayer I want this to happen next week!
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 9:41 am
@James.Good question.I was thinking the same thing.Perhaps with a name like that the mind boggles.Could he be a relative of Al Capone,or Lucky Luciano,or even the PM of Italy now redundant Mr Berlusconi.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 9:48 am
Payment Card… Fan – tas – tic!
Healthy food: Tick.
Healthy drink: Tick
Kids shoes: Tick
Kids books: Tick
Doctor: Tick
Dentist: Tick.
KFC: Nah
Lotto: Nah
Casino: Nah
Woodstock: Nah.
Ciggies: Nah.
Good idea? TICK!
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 9:55 am
Pagani is a tiresome hack and staunch Labour supporter who deserves little or no public exposure.
Vote:DPF appears to have a soft spot for this lefty.
December 7th, 2011 at 10:04 am
They are all good drinking buddies “inside the beltway”, DPF & Pagani regularly massage each other’s egos on the wireless. Even Steven Joyce and Annette King sounded like a mutual admiration society on ZB Hoskings show this am. Nearly choked on my Kornies.
This outbreak of reasonableness just cannot be allowed to gain traction. Nice Mr Key and nice Mr Shearer indeed. We might have to seek refuge at The Standard in order to find bile and hate spewing all over the keyboards of the country. I will be a lost soul left wondering in the wilderness if the Left continue to show niceness and rationality as they have started to since nice Mr Shearer came along. Where is the fun in that I ask?
NMemo to DPF – More “mischief” and less “happy” please.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 10:18 am
Elaycee wrote
Payment Card… Fan – tas – tic!
Healthy food: Tick.
Healthy drink: Tick
Kids shoes: Tick
Kids books: Tick
Doctor: Tick
Dentist: Tick.
KFC: Nah
Lotto: Nah
Casino: Nah
Woodstock: Nah.
Ciggies: Nah.
Good idea? TICK!
Absolutely, and this needs to be rolled out to ALL beneficiaries, especially those on the sickness benefit. That said, I dont object to those on the benefit being able to treat themselves to KFC maybe once a week. Sky and broadband I would also be OK with. A life totally devoid of luxuries and treats is not something I’d wish to impose on anyone, its just that taxpayers should not be subsidising self-detructive behaviour, and the State must stop being an enabler.
david I have no objection to “an outbreak of reasonableness” we could do with more of it – on both sides
Regards
Vote:Peter J
Webmaster for http://www.sensiblesentencing.org.nz
December 7th, 2011 at 10:23 am
@laworder – Internet is part of the Telecom / Telstra / Vodafone bill and, fair enough…. Tick.
But 100+ channels to watch on Sky? Nah. My Sky bill is $110+ a month. But its hardly essential viewing. Especially if the taxpayer is being expected to pick up the tab.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 10:28 am
I think an ‘outbreak of reasonableness’ should be based on the two left wing parties renouncing all their policies and not contesting future general elections on the grounds their policies are designed with the sole intention of doing harm to New Zealand and as such should never be implemented.
Like the war criminals at Nuremberg we need Labour and the Greens to publicly admit their wrongdoing.
How is that for starters?
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 10:34 am
Thread Godwinned in 9 moves, that’s got to be some sort of record.
You are a lunatic. Toddle on over to Truebluenz.com, you will fit in well there.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 10:41 am
Peter J, I will now remove my tongue from my cheek where it had become unexpectedly lodged. More an observation on a detectable shift in the tone and content of the utterings of some of the rabid lefties who have suddenly run out of points and language designed to impart false impressions and denigrate the PM.
I expect normal service to be resumed shortly when Clare Curran and Trevor Mallard crank up the “mislead and confuse” machine and find the right page in the Liar’s Handbook again but in the meantime I suppose we should enjoy the respite while they take a well-earned break from an exhausting campaign leading Labour to a glorious defeat.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 10:52 am
Not at all in favour of this. I think that people on a benefit should have responsibilities, and that amount they get paid by the state (taxpayer) is a privilege, not a right. There are millions (billions?) of people in the world who get far less, and whatever rationale we use to agree that NZers should get a hand up could very easily be applied to those billions of people as well.
Having said that, I am also against the intrusions of the state. Our intent should be for all citizens to have control of their own lives, and to take accountability for their actions. If we want these people to rejoin wider society with proper jobs, taking proper responsibility, then infantalising them in this way is a step in the wrong direction.
Bottom line, it’s a mistake for us to decide centrally what people should or should not spend their benefits on. We make a decision on how much we (the taxpayer) want to provide for that hand up. We provide services they can avail themselves of. And if they turn up for a special needs grant (top up to the base) then we could legitimately look at what they spend the money we already gave them on – and give them help (budgeting advice etc) to avoid running out of money. But we shouldn’t just jump in holus bolus and implement controls on every person on a benefit. It’s wrong.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 11:00 am
I think all of the welfare reforms are **great!**
Vote:They are LONG overdue.
December 7th, 2011 at 11:18 am
hey RRM you are being a whiny lefty bitch again, you should go back to thestandard.org.nz you will fit in really well over there for the next 3 years (at least).
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 11:26 am
You cannot raise children properly on welfare if you get drunk regularly, smoke, gamble. The children suffer. There is no food in the house, children get sick, they do not go to the doctor unless they get really sick. The bottom line is – if welfare money is being diverted into lifestyle choices of the parents then there needs to be increased control over the welfare money. I am in favour of lunches at school for low decile children. At the lend of the day, the children matter not their feckless parents.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 12:06 pm
Grendel – so you also think it’s sensible to compare NZ Labour party, NZ Green Party to Nazis.
Interesting.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 12:16 pm
RRM for an engineer you seem really thick. The comparison with Nuremberg related to the requirement for the accused to “own their actions” and in no way could be a Godwin. I have detected a skerrick of intelligence in some of your comments so perhaps you are just being deliberately obstruse in the vein of “fomenting mischief” but for some reason you aren’t quite carrying it off. I would recommend a humour transplant when you get time.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 12:33 pm
Correct David, I realise it’s “just different” when the right does it, say no more…
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 12:37 pm
PaulL wrote
Not at all in favour of this. I think that people on a benefit should have responsibilities, and that amount they get paid by the state (taxpayer) is a privilege, not a right. There are millions (billions?) of people in the world who get far less, and whatever rationale we use to agree that NZers should get a hand up could very easily be applied to those billions of people as well.
Having said that, I am also against the intrusions of the state. Our intent should be for all citizens to have control of their own lives, and to take accountability for their actions. If we want these people to rejoin wider society with proper jobs, taking proper responsibility, then infantalising them in this way is a step in the wrong direction.
Bottom line, it’s a mistake for us to decide centrally what people should or should not spend their benefits on. We make a decision on how much we (the taxpayer) want to provide for that hand up. We provide services they can avail themselves of. And if they turn up for a special needs grant (top up to the base) then we could legitimately look at what they spend the money we already gave them on – and give them help (budgeting advice etc) to avoid running out of money. But we shouldn’t just jump in holus bolus and implement controls on every person on a benefit. It’s wrong.
The trouble is, and the reason I am so in favour of the state intruding into the spending decisions of beneficiaries is that a substantial number are addicts or otherwise incapable of making proper decisions for themselves (or more particularly their children.)
Let me cite an example from life;
Someone I know encountered an acquaintance a little while back, a guy in his early 30′s, who is on a benefit (sickness apparently) and lives in a flat by himself.
All this guy does is drink and smoke. When he has run out of benefit money to buy alcohol apparently he is selling himself to buy more. He suffers from anxiety/ depression, and is on Prozac which he might as well be flushing down the shitter for all the good it will do if he is drinking – and of course the alcohol is hugely excacerbating his issues. In addition, he’s drinking white wine containing an additive sulphur dioxide, a known anxiety promoting agent from what I have read
The sad thing is that this person has intelligence and looks and could potentially be a very successful young man. Instead, we are paying to turn him into to an incoherent semi-psychotic pain in the ass to all his poor neighbours living (if you can call it that) in a squalid flat and never going out except to the bottle shop.
Yes, cutting his access to benefit cash wont stop him getting alcohol – it also needs for his rights to be overridden so that he is prevented, forcibly if necessary, from drinking. And doctors should routinely be prescribing things along the lines of Antabuse along with antidepressants if they suspect that there is alcohol involved (not all those with depression drink, something I know from personal experience)
This situation is a tragic waste, and I bet it is repeated thousands of times over all through NZ. And we are paying for it.
That is why the State must take a totally authoritarian, controlling and intrusive approach in SOME cases, and make ALL their decisions for them. They are NEVER going to “rejoin wider society” on their own. They actually need to be “infantalised” in order to get them into a place from where they might start to recover. It is cases like this that demonstrate why the pure libertarian approach cannot work in real life.
Yes, I know that not all or even most beneficiaries are like that, and can see a case for some beneficiaries being given cash with no controls when they have a proven track record of spending it wisely. Otherwise, it is the taxpayers money, and taxpayers I suspect would like to see controls imposed on how it is spent. Since they are the providers of all the cash, they should also be the ultimate arbiters
Regards
Vote:Peter J
Webmaster for http://www.sensiblesentencing.org.nz
December 7th, 2011 at 12:39 pm
I am amazed at the optimism some people seem to have about payment cards. Countdown and Pak n Save sell beer and wine (and cheaper than most other places) the systems that authorise cards payments down’t receive an itemised list of all the items on your shopping list before they approve the payment. So which would it be – you ban supermarkets and force beneficiaries to buy their groceries more expensively elsewhere, or you include them and de-facto permit purchase of alcohol (or option three, the enforcement is by the retailer and we outsource the decision to the pimply 18 year old on the checkout?). Good luck trying to include healthy food but exclude unhealthy food – McDonalds and KFC have their much promoted ‘healthy options’ and would scream blue murder at a blanket ban of their businesses (which would also have the perverse side effect of putting a whole bunch of their workforce on the dole. Then there is things like cash out transactions, bundled services (so Telecom bill is ok but Sky is not, how do you handle skyTV + internet bundling), not to mention the endless opportunities for purchasing permitted goods and bartering them for cash or forbidden goods.
The whole payment card is a horribly nanny state, the system would be leaky as a seive, a bureaucratic nightmare to administer, unduly burdensome and annoying to the beneficiaries who are not behaving irresponsibly, innefective against beneficiaries who choose to behave irresponsibly and would involve massive red tape for business.
I agree that beneficiaries should spend their money on ‘good’ stuff and not ‘bad’ stuff. However, there is such a thing as good intentions but terrible policy.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 12:48 pm
Richard29 – a checkout operator already has to get a supervisor to approve a sale of alcohol or tobacco products. All they need to do is verify payment method at the same time.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 12:51 pm
There will always be people trying to cheat the system, but electronic cards are a step in the right direction in any case. So stop trying to make them out as a bad thing. As for paying bills, there are already systems in place to pay providers directly fom WINZ without giving cash to DPB recipients. Supermarkets can simply refuse to sell cigies and booze to card users as the card will be unredeamable, liek a voucher, only valid for certain types of goods.
Stop talking like we live in 1846 and everything is steam driven, get digital baby.
You’re so smart in shooting this idea down, what do you propose instead Richard?
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 12:53 pm
As for McDees and KFC not getting a cut. Fuck them. Not essential for survival it’s dinning out anyway. I’m more concerned about the chinese vege shops missing out.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 1:02 pm
And of course, we should also look at having varying GST on different sorts of food. What’s that, too much work for the retailers? Surely not!!
Richard29 is right. This is incredibly burdensome, and is punishing those who were managing just fine without really materially impacting those who fail to budget and plan. Joe average who is doing just fine, and has McDonalds with their kids once a month, will be impacted. Joe waster who spends his life drinking, stealing and toking up, won’t be impacted at all, he’ll just go buy a 24 pack of toilet paper and sell it to the neighbours for cash, then spend that cash on McDonalds.
If the real problem is that we think some people aren’t seriously trying to get off a benefit, then the right thing to do is to introduce time limits on benefits.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 1:05 pm
If Joe Average is on the benefit and living off my money he’s pretty far from fine and needs to be regulated. It’s privilidge and not a right. I agree to help people out while they look for work. Nothign else.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 1:07 pm
I don’t bust my hump every day so Joe Average can take his kids to McDonalds.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 1:09 pm
A checkout operator at a supermarket has already got enough on his plate, without providing front-desk WINZ services for free.
Especially to people who are inevitably going to be angry at being denied their booze / smokes.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 1:12 pm
immigant – I would be interested in knowing what benefits, exactly, are the ones that supposedly make fine dining at McDs a possibility?
My wife was on the DPB briefly (few years ago when her daughter was a baby) and when they felt like really splashing out, they got a $2 loaf of bread for the week instead of a $1 loaf. Going to McDonalds just wasn’t an option, that would be the crazy heights of unaffordable luxury.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 1:13 pm
@RightNow
Great – I look forward to the effectiveness of this red tape obligation we are placing on business and the incremental price increase and checkout delays I will pay as a customer to cover it. I’m sure it will be a roaring success much like the age limits on alchohol and violent video games.
Out of interest are you envisaging a voluntary code (premised on the desire of businesses to deny themselves substantial profits in the pursuit of idealistic government welfare reform goals) or a punitive system of sanctions where we severely fine or shut down fast food restaurants, putting innocent people out of a job, because they commited the grand crime of feeding a fat beneficiary a hamburger?
I’m not against welfare reform per se. I have no great objection to work readiness testing and job search support, occasional medical assessments for sickness beneficiaries and drug and alchohol testing for people with drug and alcohol convictions (though I think it would be a waste of time and money to get every DPB mum, invalid, unemployed person in the country to piss in a cup once a week for a drug test just to satisfy our collective moral outrage at people with addiction problems). But the payment card is a gimmick, it’s likely to prove to be a stupid, unworkable, expensive, innefective political stunt…
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 1:20 pm
RRM
What’s your point? Your wife would be able to buy all the bread she wants with the new card.
If you don’t work and you are not sick, crippled or old, you have no rights. You get a handout from me so you don’t starve and you have a roof over your head, but thats only so you can go get a job.
And if you go on crying : “But I used tobe be a middle income Mr Average and now I lost my job and I can’t afford a 5 bedroom house and 2 cars cause I lost my job.”
That’s not my (Taxpayer) problem. Move to 2 bedroom unit in Otara untill you can afford a big house again, I don’t see why I should pay for it.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 1:23 pm
I think you’re over-reacting Richard29. Supermarkets already have the technology to flag products that require age verification. It would only be a few lines of code to marry up whether those products are being purchased using a benefit payment card. Having flashing lights go off and a recording of “Benefit Card used for payment, no tobacco or alcohol products allowed” played at 90 dB is my idea. Should only happen once (except for slow learners).
As for fast food outlets, I never said anything about them. It’s more of a Green’s thing to ban people from eating fatty foods, for my 2 cents worth I don’t care if they eat junk food or not, at the end of the day (or the next morning) it’s all going to look the same going round the S bend.
edit: Of course when tobacco is simply outlawed completely that will take care of half the issue.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 1:44 pm
Richard29 wrote
I am amazed at the optimism some people seem to have about payment cards. Countdown and Pak n Save sell beer and wine (and cheaper than most other places) the systems that authorise cards payments down’t receive an itemised list of all the items on your shopping list before they approve the payment. So which would it be – you ban supermarkets and force beneficiaries to buy their groceries more expensively elsewhere, or you include them and de-facto permit purchase of alcohol (or option three, the enforcement is by the retailer and we outsource the decision to the pimply 18 year old on the checkout?). Good luck trying to include healthy food but exclude unhealthy food – McDonalds and KFC have their much promoted ‘healthy options’ and would scream blue murder at a blanket ban of their businesses (which would also have the perverse side effect of putting a whole bunch of their workforce on the dole. Then there is things like cash out transactions, bundled services (so Telecom bill is ok but Sky is not, how do you handle skyTV + internet bundling), not to mention the endless opportunities for purchasing permitted goods and bartering them for cash or forbidden goods.
I’m not. The technology is already in place for the most part to do this without the intervention of the checkout operators. The new smart EFTPOS terminals designed for chip type credit cards can be programmed to do this lind of thing, as Right Now has just pointed out. That said I do agree with the healthy/unhealthy food distinction. The payment card system will be far more practicable to implement if we keep it simple and only exclude alcohol, tobacco, pokies and cash out. I have no major issues with beneficiaries being able to purchase fast food, Sky or other bundled services, not to the point where it is worth the hassle of excluding them.
Yes, there will be some leakage and bartering. That is inevitable, but it can be addressed to some extent by severely penalising both parties in such transactions when they get caught. This system is not however perfect. It will never be perfect. But it is an improvement on what we are doing now… which is basically enabling addicts by giving them cash, and giving all the good genuine beneficiaries a bad rep in so doing.
Regards
Vote:Peter J
Webmaster for http://www.sensiblesentencing.org.nz
December 7th, 2011 at 3:05 pm
Immigant – but I’m not “crying” anything at all like that!
And my point is that I think you are starting to believe all too fervently in the Right’s imaginary beneficiaries who – we are told – cunningly cream vast amounts of money from the taxpayer, and live in the lap of luxury at our expense.
They are a bit like the Yeti – a lot of people say they exist, but no-one has ever seen one…
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 3:38 pm
What about the corner dairy? What about the garden center? The hardware store? The green grocer?
The practicalities do not just come down to whether or not the supermarket can handle a benefit card or not.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 3:44 pm
“They are a bit like the Yeti – a lot of people say they exist, but no-one has ever seen one…”
1) http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/4511808/Harris-to-get-benefit-axed-after-26-years
2) http://www.odt.co.nz/source/apnz/187789/benefit-cheat-continues-taunt-paula-bennett
There’s 2
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 3:45 pm
I don’t think anyone is trying to cream anything. We are just giving it to them for free that’s the problem.
Vote:Charity somehow became a right, that’s what I don’t like. Retired people get less then unemployed from the tax payer. How is that fair?
As for the Yeti, I don’t know what neighbourhood you live in, must be a good Central Auckland one, but I have one of your mythical beasts as a neighbour.
December 7th, 2011 at 3:51 pm
@immigant: The unemployment benefit for singles is currently $225.03 per week (i.e. 11.7k). NZ super is around 17k for singles.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 3:54 pm
Add the housing allowance, hardship allowance, I don’t know who the father is allowance on top of that i think you get a tidy package.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 3:57 pm
@immigant: Yes, the DPB (i.e. solo mums) is typically more than NZ super (24,207 vs 17,676). It is the only benefit that pays more than super as far as I’m aware. Gareth Morgan has a table here that may be useful for you: http://www.gmi.co.nz/bigkahuna/work-income.aspx
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
Doesn’t show accommodation supplement, which is roughly about $100 if not more in most cases. Table and argument invalid.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 4:05 pm
Actually I retract that. I’m invalid and that kinda ruins my whole argument.
Vote:Still seems unfair that I can be on DPB and be not far off a retiree. Or play station and sell weed like my neighbour and be better off.
December 7th, 2011 at 4:08 pm
The table does show the accommodation payment (for individuals it’s 50% of the average payment as per the note at the bottom of the page).
And there’s nothing stopping a retiree playing playstation and selling weed…
My personal preference is for a universal allowance similar to what Morgan proposes – it does away with all the different ones we have at the moment so gets rid of the “do they deserve it” mentality.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 4:15 pm
leftyliberal wrote
What about the corner dairy? What about the garden center? The hardware store? The green grocer?
The practicalities do not just come down to whether or not the supermarket can handle a benefit card or not.
All of these will have EFTPOS. The current generation of EFTPOS terminals rolled out before the World Cup ball game thingy are all spec’d to handle chip cards. Problem solved
Regards
Vote:Peter J
Webmaster for http://www.sensiblesentencing.org.nz
December 7th, 2011 at 4:35 pm
@laworder: The EFTPOS machine does not know what you have in your trolley, so whilst they’ll be able to accept the card for payment, the decision about what is allowed to be purchased rests with the teller or manager of the store in question. The practicality of that is what I was getting at. What is the list of banned products? Who decides the list? Does every store need to be informed of what the products are that they mustn’t sell to the poor beneficiaries?
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 5:11 pm
“My wife was on the DPB briefly (few years ago when her daughter was a baby) and when they felt like really splashing out, they got a $2 loaf of bread for the week instead of a $1 loaf.” – what high rent area was she living in? did she have flatmates?
cause the DPB aint that bad. hell we used to love it back in the day, every two weeks the skanks we knew would shout us beers and jim beam.. georgie pie, even gas for the car
glorious!
a benefit is a HAND OUT! its charity. its not a right. you want FREE MONEY then bad luck. heres your card. go buy your pre approved carrots. no beer sorry.
“oh, whats that? youre hungry because you sold all the legit food for a 1/4 of its price to get beer? well fuck, youre gonna be hungry this week. maybe dont try it next week or youll be even more hungry!”
can we make it so they cant buy petrol too? they can use public transport. free up the road for Dime
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 5:18 pm
A benefit payment card (or vouchers for those that prefer, or those that get caught misusing the payment card) would at it’s simplest level be intended to prevent three things:
1) Getting cash out
2) Alcohol
3) Tobacco
All of these things can be denied to the card-holder by the shop teller. Two of them are already denied in theory to those not old enough. The same deal would apply – it would be illegal for the shop teller to sell alcohol and tobacco, or give cash out, to anyone using a benefit payment card. If they do so anyway they would be subject to prosecution if caught. Sure some will flout the law, just like some sell booze and smokes to kids now, but that’s at their own risk (and I’d expect the beneficiary to have penalties imposed also) and not likely to be a prevalent activity.
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 5:21 pm
remember how banning smoking in prisons was the end of the world? has that happened yet? cause ive heard bugga all about it if it has
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 5:35 pm
I reckon if there weren’t riots within the first month then it’s all gone fine. Same if they simply made smoking illegal for everyone, after the first month nobody would mind (except the tobacco companies).
Vote:December 7th, 2011 at 6:39 pm
leftyliberal wrote
The EFTPOS machine does not know what you have in your trolley, so whilst they’ll be able to accept the card for payment, the decision about what is allowed to be purchased rests with the teller or manager of the store in question. The practicality of that is what I was getting at. What is the list of banned products? Who decides the list? Does every store need to be informed of what the products are that they mustn’t sell to the poor beneficiaries?
Thats why we keep the list simple as RightNow posted;
1) Getting cash out
2) Alcohol
3) Tobacco
To that I’d add pokies/ lotto
The cash out prevention can be built into the card if its a chip card
That way the only item that will have to be controlled by corner dairies is tobacco
As for the other two categories, they are rarely if ever carried by corner dairys, garden centers hardware stores or green grocers, and if they are they shouldnt be.
Regards
Vote:Peter J
Webmaster for http://www.sensiblesentencing.org.nz
December 7th, 2011 at 9:02 pm
What about turps or meths from the hardware store or the warehouse? Paint or glue? Petrol? Plenty of ways for folk to get fucked up on the taxpayers dime.
Vote: