Media Statement

21 February 2011

When Facts Must Get In The Way Of Debate

The Welfare Working Group was appointed by Government in April 2010 to conduct a fundamental review of New Zealand’s welfare system. It is due to release its final report to government tomorrow, Tuesday.

The report will offer an extensive review of New Zealand’s current welfare programme and policies and is likely to form the basis of significant policy change in the immediate future. The Prime Minister has already suggested the government intends to adopt many of the recommendations the report will contain.

Mary Richardson, Executive Director of the Christchurch Methodist Mission says “I am concerned the Prime Minister is suggesting the adoption of the report’s recommendations even before there is the opportunity for public scrutiny. Welfare reform is always a hotly debated topic. But it is a debate often centred around misleading or speculative data”.

“In that debate” Richardson says “the convenient caricature of benefit dependency and welfare costs is often built on little more than urban myth. It is therefore critically important that on the release of this report, the debate become freshly re-centred on fact and free from the extremes of political ideology. This time, hard facts have to get in the way of the debate.”

In a detailed information sheet published by the Methodist Mission today, Richardson notes that

• The total number of people receiving benefits has dropped over the past decade
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• The number of people unemployed has only increased in the past 3 years because of an economic recession
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• New Zealand long term unemployment as a proportion of total unemployment is a quarter of the OECD average
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• Most people receive social support for only a limited period
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• Only 0.4% of the working population have received a Domestic Purposes benefit for 10 years or more
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• Between 2004 and 2009 growth of expenditure on welfare benefits as a share of GDP, declined
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• Benefit spending is predicted to decline substantially as a share of GDP over the next 40 years
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• Benefit fraud is minuscule: 0.1% last year.
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“Everybody has opinions about welfare” Richardson said. “But few of these are based on any actual acquaintance with the poor”.

“But every day, the Christchurch Methodist Mission provides services to more than 200 people, young and old. The Methodist Mission is therefore well placed and well informed to comment on welfare reform. And we will vigorously do so throughout this critically important debate.” Richardson said.

The Christchurch Methodist Mission will make a further statement to the media immediately it has the opportunity to review the Welfare Working Group report tomorrow, Tuesday.

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