Listening to voices in the Welfare Debate: Alternative Welfare Working Group releases first report.

Welfare Justice: the Alternative Welfare Working Group today releases its first report which outlines views and experiences of welfare change received through written submissions and public meetings.

Welfare Justice chair Mike O’Brien says the report aims to ensure that people receiving social welfare support and providing social and community services can be part of the debate on welfare reforms.

The report provides a counter view to the perception that many beneficiaries deliberately choose a life of poverty and exclusion. The report says: “Many people who spoke or wrote to us were at pains to explain that they had not chosen to be supported by a social security benefit, but that this was a consequence of something horrible happening to their life.”

The 48-page report Welfare Justice in New Zealand: What We Heard is the first of two reports by the group. The final report of recommendations will be released on 9 December at the Catholic Cathedral plaza in Wellington.

Today’s release coincides with the presentations of two Welfare Justice members Paul Dalziel and Wendi Wicks, and Welfare Justice adviser Susan St John, at an IPS seminar on welfare reform at Victoria University, 12.30-2.30pm.

Copies can be downloaded from the website http://welfarejustice.org.nz or printed copies are available from Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand caritas@caritas.org.nz

ENDS

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