Labour wants to remove work testing for beneficiaries if they volunteer

The Herald reports:

Labour has proposed allowing beneficiaries to meet their work obligations by doing volunteer work instead of looking for a paid job.

The proposal is one of more than 60 recommendations in Labour's ‘Future of Work' Commission report which was released by Finance Spokesman Grant Robertson today.

It proposed that the Government acknowledge volunteer work alongside paid .

“Beneficiaries would be able to fulfil their working obligations if they chose to do volunteer work. People currently expected to be searching for paid employment could instead do volunteer work for the same number of hours they are obligated to be in paid employment.”

is this a bad policy.

Doing volunteer work is a good thing. I do lots of it. So do most people. But it should not be a choice of working or volunteering – but both.

Labour is saying that people can stay on a benefit for as long as they want, so long as they volunteer work (will canvassing for Labour count?).

They miss the point that who grow up in a household with no adults in employment do worse on pretty much every statistic there is. is meant to be temporary.

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