October 18, 2025 • 11 mins
From tomorrow, beneficiaries will need to comply with two more obligations to continue receiving welfare.
They will need to provide evidence of at least three job searches a week for four weeks, and attend employment-related training courses for at least five hours a week for four weeks.
The sanctions are aimed at increasing employability, but critics think it's punishing beneficiaries for being out of work.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
So from tomorrow, beneficiaries will need to comply with two
more obligations to continue getting welfare. They'll need to provide
evidence of at least three job searches a week for
four weeks and attend employment related training courses for at
least five hours a week for four weeks. The government
says these sanctions are about improving employability and holding people accountable,
(00:32):
not cutting support. However, critics think it's punishing beneficiaries for
being out of work. In Green Party, Social Development spokesperson
Ricardo Menendez March joins me, now, good afternoon.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Good afternoon, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Hey, what don't you like about the changes that are
coming in?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Well, first of all, the Minister has straight up lied
when she calls them financial non financial things. When people
are subjected to these so called non financial things, things
like hardship assistance, a lifeline that many beneficiaries rely on
to be able to cover their basics for food, rent
and their and at a time where we've got around
four beneficiaries per job ad, it just makes no sense
(01:11):
to punish beneficiaries or any economic crisis that they're didn't create.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
What about I mean, what's fundamentally wrong? Do you think
about requiring people on the job seek a benefit to
actually actively look for work.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Because they're already doing it. As you may have seen,
there are reports of showing that we've had job ads
that have had hundreds of applicants each and so if
Work and Income wants to do a better job at
connecting beneficiaries or jobs, they could simply create more tailored
workshops where people are actually connected to jobs that match
their skills and aspirations. Are supposed to pretend that there
(01:46):
are enough jobs for beneficiaries up there.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
I guess so if those people are actually applying for
those jobs, then they're not going to be sanctioned anyway.
Isn't it just the point that they keep looking? I mean,
much as that obviously can be demoralizing, but does it
mean the people you're referring to they're not going to
be in trouble? Are they?
Speaker 3 (02:05):
There's a lot of benefit sanctions that are wrongfully applied,
and I can attest to that as somebody who worked
at the front lines before becoming an MP. Often beneficiaries
are sanctioned for missing appointments despite often having caregiving arrangements
or health conditions. And many beneficiaries who are transcend or
homeless find out that they've been sanctioned too late in
(02:26):
the piece and they've missed out on essential lifelines like
part degrands. And so once again, the situation we've got
right now is that we've got more beneficiaries than there
are jobs available out there, and introducing these sanctions pretending
like there's a job for every beneficiary just makes no sense.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I guess that the other side of the argument would be,
what about people who don't bother who just are on
the benefit. They're not really making an effort to upskill
or get jobs, They've just fallen into that trap. What
do we do about them?
Speaker 3 (02:54):
I think, first of all, it's wrongful for the minister
to pretend like this makes up a large bulk of
people who are on income support. That hasn't been my
experience when I've worked at the front lines for people
on the benefit, and often we've got to realize that
there's often other things happening in people's lives who we
assume they're just not trying. You know, there may be
mental health, there may be situations with the families, and
(03:14):
I think working income meets to do a better job
at getting to the root of those issues, as opposed
to a seeming that cutting them off income support and
the form of parkship grants in the case of these
non financial sanctions will do anything to improve employment outcomes.
It doesn't. We've got mountains of research showing us that
benefit sanctions often tend to reduce employment outcomes as supposed
(03:35):
to improving them.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
What we what about upskilling people? Do you support the
notion that upskilling is a good idea.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Up Skilling is all well and fine, but working incomes
should have the systems in place to support people to
do that anyway, not as a form of punishment. And
the thing is, it's harder to engage in things like
finding work or even upskill yourself as they're cutting off
critical support in the form of harkship grants, which thousands
of beneficiaries rely on when they're subjected to these non
(04:03):
financial sanctions. Because again I go back to the notion
that the government has lighted the public when they say
that these have no financial consequences, they do prevent you
from being able to access a bunch of financial assistance
that often beneficiaries need to even get to work appointments,
or to pay their bills or their rents. When you
can't do those things, it's a lot harder to find work.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Do you think there are I mean, just to drill
into that a bit, do you think there are some
people who could be working or at least seeking work?
But I'm currently not making a genuine effort, and genuine effort.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
In every system that we design, there will always be
a handful of bad actors. I don't think it makes
for good policy decision making to create a bunch of
additional benefit sanctions. With the Minister herself has not been
able to substantiate how many people out there exist that
are not trying. The overwhelming feedback I had from young
(04:56):
people is that often they're applying for a huge jobs
that are available, competing with hundreds of people. And again,
if the Minister had research to show that these sanctions
and improve employment outcomes are good, but to introduce punishments
without having the evidential basis for them just kind of
reaks of punching down at a time where there's less
jobs available than the year before.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Would you put any obligations on people who are on
a benefit or expectations yourselves.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
We don't think that sanctions that strip people's ability to
survive work. What we would instead focus on is greater
resourcing of work and incomes so that they can engage
with people on a genuine basis to connect them to
jobs that match their skills and inspirations. The feedback I
have had on these so called obligations is that people
just go to work semin art to fill papers and
(05:43):
tick boxes and not actually meaningfully engage on employment outcomes,
which kind of a feeds the point. You know, I
think the public would expect work and income to do
more than just at people at job seminars that have
very little evidence of having improved employment outcomes. So that's
where we would start with, rather than continuing to roll
out more ways of punishing beneficiaries that have not left
(06:05):
better employment outcome.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
The skill you mentioned the phraser I think skills and aspirations.
Does that mean that you shouldn't have to take any job,
you should only take a job that really fits your aspirations,
because some people might say that's a bit of a luxury.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Well, but I think it's important that we actually connect
people to jobs that will mean that people will last
in those jobs. You know, I don't think what the
Prime Minister is doing and telling people like well you
just got to life and move to Dargaville to pit
Komada will actually end up working because a meant the
Prime Minister is ignoring that moving cities and towns for
work as he's expecting and people to do, cost money.
(06:44):
It's not within the reach for many people. And that
actually when you do connect people to jobs that match
their skills and aspirations, we know that people tend to
last longer in those jobs. That tends to lead to
better outcomes like people staying in those jobs for longer.
And so I think we need to take a set
back and genuinely think what is the economy that we
want for our country and what the opportunities to want
(07:05):
to give to young people are supposed to just latantly saying,
you know, move to Dargaville to pick up Commodo when
actually the supports even to re look at haven't been
updated in many years.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
I guess there might be some who'd say, look, if
people are stuck, and you know that everyone gets into
a pattern, and if you're not feeling great about life
and you're stuck on a benefit? Isn't there wouldn't there be?
Isn't there some benefit in saying, look, just we just
want you to take whatever job and get moving because
that will lead to It might not be your ideal job,
but at least you're doing something and that will lead
to other activity. What do you reckon?
Speaker 3 (07:36):
But I think there's a difference between sort of saying
look like, I'm not going to take a job until
I find my absolute ideal job too, then just saying like,
we expect you to operate your life and move towns
and cities for any job out there.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Okay, what about what about what the minister has said?
What about within your location?
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Yeah? And I think I think it's important that Work
and Incomes does the greater effort to connect people to
jobs that are genuinely matching people's skills and aspuratis. So
I'll give you an example, right working at their front lines,
I have seen people who are genuinely quite stistic as
physically fail and would clearly not cope or do well
at you know, jobs that require a lot of physical
activity like stucking crates has been one of the you
(08:14):
know things that people would be asked to do. Like
if you connect someone to that kind of job, you
know they're not going to perform well. You know, they're
less likely to lascen that job for longer. And actually,
when you talk about people's kind of moral it won't
do much to people's moorrow. And so again, when we
have situations where there's not enough jobs out there and
there's literally more ganefuish reason that our jobs out there
(08:35):
at the moments, we've got to have a focus on
job creation as opposed to what the minister is doing.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
When you talk about bad actors, you know, you say
they're always going to be some bad actors. What is
the you know, for people who are stuck in that
pattern of either not wanting to work or just getting
used to being on a benefit. So you've got to
try and break that. How would you propose dealing with
and I don't like the expression bad actors, but let's
just roll with that.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
I think well, Work and Income could be putting more
resources into far more tailored and and interventions to get
to the root of the issue, because I think I've
seen politicians and people in the public alike make assumptions
about why someone may not be engaging with employment, and
I think it's really easy to make assumptions as to
why that may be the case. But often Work and Income,
(09:21):
because of the under resourcing and the way that the
government has rolled up policy, doesn't have the space to
actually create settings where you're actually sitting someone down and
going by what's going on in your life, what is
preventing you from seeking employment? You know, let's let's identify
some areas that you can work on and then genuinely
have someone walk them through that. And my experience prior
to becoming an MP and working at the front lines
(09:42):
is that the people we often make, you know, these
assumptions about often do have a lot of stuff going
on in their lives. And it doesn't and it may
not justify some behaviors, but it does not mean that,
you know, you shouldn't try and address the stuff going
behind their lives, and we want Work and Income to
focus on those things. Politicians stop making beneficious in the
head and assuming what their motives are.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Okay, just lastly, I mean, probably isn't helpful calling them lies,
but let's pretend that you can actually get on well
with each one. Another national label or whoever. Are there
points where you could work with the government on something
about getting job seekers back into work common ground?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Yeah. I mean, look, there are programs that we've supported,
like the apprenticeship schemes that do tend to have better
outcomes and have shown to lead better employment outcomes as well.
Those are the things we want to be focusing on.
And you know, with national I think the key question
I would put to them would be, well, let's work
together on creating jobs. And this is why, you know,
(10:42):
we've tried to put out policy solutions in place to
create tens of thousands of jobs in constructing and manufacturing,
so that then actually the opportunities are there to begin with.
So we're quite happy to work across the aisle on
these sessues. But I think the key thing is that
they do have to be evidence led. It can't just
be like, I think there's beneficiaries out there who don't
want to work, so I'm just going to make up
a bunch of punishments as opposed to actually listening to
(11:04):
the research, listening to the stats and the people at
the front lines to design things that will actually lead
to better outcomes for people out there.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Okay, Hey, Ricardo, I really appreciate your time this afternoon.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Thank you so much, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
For more from the Weekend Collective, listen live to News
Talk ZEDB weekends from three pm, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
So from tomorrow, beneficiaries will need to comply with two
more obligations to continue getting welfare. They'll need to provide
evidence of at least three job searches a week for
four weeks and attend employment related training courses for at
least five hours a week for four weeks. The government
says these sanctions are about improving employability and holding people accountable,
(00:32):
not cutting support. However, critics think it's punishing beneficiaries for
being out of work. In Green Party, Social Development spokesperson
Ricardo Menendez March joins me, now, good afternoon.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Good afternoon, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Hey, what don't you like about the changes that are
coming in?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Well, first of all, the Minister has straight up lied
when she calls them financial non financial things. When people
are subjected to these so called non financial things, things
like hardship assistance, a lifeline that many beneficiaries rely on
to be able to cover their basics for food, rent
and their and at a time where we've got around
four beneficiaries per job ad, it just makes no sense
(01:11):
to punish beneficiaries or any economic crisis that they're didn't create.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
What about I mean, what's fundamentally wrong? Do you think
about requiring people on the job seek a benefit to
actually actively look for work.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Because they're already doing it. As you may have seen,
there are reports of showing that we've had job ads
that have had hundreds of applicants each and so if
Work and Income wants to do a better job at
connecting beneficiaries or jobs, they could simply create more tailored
workshops where people are actually connected to jobs that match
their skills and aspirations. Are supposed to pretend that there
(01:46):
are enough jobs for beneficiaries up there.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
I guess so if those people are actually applying for
those jobs, then they're not going to be sanctioned anyway.
Isn't it just the point that they keep looking? I mean,
much as that obviously can be demoralizing, but does it
mean the people you're referring to they're not going to
be in trouble? Are they?
Speaker 3 (02:05):
There's a lot of benefit sanctions that are wrongfully applied,
and I can attest to that as somebody who worked
at the front lines before becoming an MP. Often beneficiaries
are sanctioned for missing appointments despite often having caregiving arrangements
or health conditions. And many beneficiaries who are transcend or
homeless find out that they've been sanctioned too late in
(02:26):
the piece and they've missed out on essential lifelines like
part degrands. And so once again, the situation we've got
right now is that we've got more beneficiaries than there
are jobs available out there, and introducing these sanctions pretending
like there's a job for every beneficiary just makes no sense.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I guess that the other side of the argument would be,
what about people who don't bother who just are on
the benefit. They're not really making an effort to upskill
or get jobs, They've just fallen into that trap. What
do we do about them?
Speaker 3 (02:54):
I think, first of all, it's wrongful for the minister
to pretend like this makes up a large bulk of
people who are on income support. That hasn't been my
experience when I've worked at the front lines for people
on the benefit, and often we've got to realize that
there's often other things happening in people's lives who we
assume they're just not trying. You know, there may be
mental health, there may be situations with the families, and
(03:14):
I think working income meets to do a better job
at getting to the root of those issues, as opposed
to a seeming that cutting them off income support and
the form of parkship grants in the case of these
non financial sanctions will do anything to improve employment outcomes.
It doesn't. We've got mountains of research showing us that
benefit sanctions often tend to reduce employment outcomes as supposed
(03:35):
to improving them.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
What we what about upskilling people? Do you support the
notion that upskilling is a good idea.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Up Skilling is all well and fine, but working incomes
should have the systems in place to support people to
do that anyway, not as a form of punishment. And
the thing is, it's harder to engage in things like
finding work or even upskill yourself as they're cutting off
critical support in the form of harkship grants, which thousands
of beneficiaries rely on when they're subjected to these non
(04:03):
financial sanctions. Because again I go back to the notion
that the government has lighted the public when they say
that these have no financial consequences, they do prevent you
from being able to access a bunch of financial assistance
that often beneficiaries need to even get to work appointments,
or to pay their bills or their rents. When you
can't do those things, it's a lot harder to find work.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Do you think there are I mean, just to drill
into that a bit, do you think there are some
people who could be working or at least seeking work?
But I'm currently not making a genuine effort, and genuine effort.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
In every system that we design, there will always be
a handful of bad actors. I don't think it makes
for good policy decision making to create a bunch of
additional benefit sanctions. With the Minister herself has not been
able to substantiate how many people out there exist that
are not trying. The overwhelming feedback I had from young
(04:56):
people is that often they're applying for a huge jobs
that are available, competing with hundreds of people. And again,
if the Minister had research to show that these sanctions
and improve employment outcomes are good, but to introduce punishments
without having the evidential basis for them just kind of
reaks of punching down at a time where there's less
jobs available than the year before.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Would you put any obligations on people who are on
a benefit or expectations yourselves.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
We don't think that sanctions that strip people's ability to
survive work. What we would instead focus on is greater
resourcing of work and incomes so that they can engage
with people on a genuine basis to connect them to
jobs that match their skills and inspirations. The feedback I
have had on these so called obligations is that people
just go to work semin art to fill papers and
(05:43):
tick boxes and not actually meaningfully engage on employment outcomes,
which kind of a feeds the point. You know, I
think the public would expect work and income to do
more than just at people at job seminars that have
very little evidence of having improved employment outcomes. So that's
where we would start with, rather than continuing to roll
out more ways of punishing beneficiaries that have not left
(06:05):
better employment outcome.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
The skill you mentioned the phraser I think skills and aspirations.
Does that mean that you shouldn't have to take any job,
you should only take a job that really fits your aspirations,
because some people might say that's a bit of a luxury.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Well, but I think it's important that we actually connect
people to jobs that will mean that people will last
in those jobs. You know, I don't think what the
Prime Minister is doing and telling people like well you
just got to life and move to Dargaville to pit
Komada will actually end up working because a meant the
Prime Minister is ignoring that moving cities and towns for
work as he's expecting and people to do, cost money.
(06:44):
It's not within the reach for many people. And that
actually when you do connect people to jobs that match
their skills and aspirations, we know that people tend to
last longer in those jobs. That tends to lead to
better outcomes like people staying in those jobs for longer.
And so I think we need to take a set
back and genuinely think what is the economy that we
want for our country and what the opportunities to want
(07:05):
to give to young people are supposed to just latantly saying,
you know, move to Dargaville to pick up Commodo when
actually the supports even to re look at haven't been
updated in many years.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
I guess there might be some who'd say, look, if
people are stuck, and you know that everyone gets into
a pattern, and if you're not feeling great about life
and you're stuck on a benefit? Isn't there wouldn't there be?
Isn't there some benefit in saying, look, just we just
want you to take whatever job and get moving because
that will lead to It might not be your ideal job,
but at least you're doing something and that will lead
to other activity. What do you reckon?
Speaker 3 (07:36):
But I think there's a difference between sort of saying
look like, I'm not going to take a job until
I find my absolute ideal job too, then just saying like,
we expect you to operate your life and move towns
and cities for any job out there.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Okay, what about what about what the minister has said?
What about within your location?
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Yeah? And I think I think it's important that Work
and Incomes does the greater effort to connect people to
jobs that are genuinely matching people's skills and aspuratis. So
I'll give you an example, right working at their front lines,
I have seen people who are genuinely quite stistic as
physically fail and would clearly not cope or do well
at you know, jobs that require a lot of physical
activity like stucking crates has been one of the you
(08:14):
know things that people would be asked to do. Like
if you connect someone to that kind of job, you
know they're not going to perform well. You know, they're
less likely to lascen that job for longer. And actually,
when you talk about people's kind of moral it won't
do much to people's moorrow. And so again, when we
have situations where there's not enough jobs out there and
there's literally more ganefuish reason that our jobs out there
(08:35):
at the moments, we've got to have a focus on
job creation as opposed to what the minister is doing.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
When you talk about bad actors, you know, you say
they're always going to be some bad actors. What is
the you know, for people who are stuck in that
pattern of either not wanting to work or just getting
used to being on a benefit. So you've got to
try and break that. How would you propose dealing with
and I don't like the expression bad actors, but let's
just roll with that.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
I think well, Work and Income could be putting more
resources into far more tailored and and interventions to get
to the root of the issue, because I think I've
seen politicians and people in the public alike make assumptions
about why someone may not be engaging with employment, and
I think it's really easy to make assumptions as to
why that may be the case. But often Work and Income,
(09:21):
because of the under resourcing and the way that the
government has rolled up policy, doesn't have the space to
actually create settings where you're actually sitting someone down and
going by what's going on in your life, what is
preventing you from seeking employment? You know, let's let's identify
some areas that you can work on and then genuinely
have someone walk them through that. And my experience prior
to becoming an MP and working at the front lines
(09:42):
is that the people we often make, you know, these
assumptions about often do have a lot of stuff going
on in their lives. And it doesn't and it may
not justify some behaviors, but it does not mean that,
you know, you shouldn't try and address the stuff going
behind their lives, and we want Work and Income to
focus on those things. Politicians stop making beneficious in the
head and assuming what their motives are.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Okay, just lastly, I mean, probably isn't helpful calling them lies,
but let's pretend that you can actually get on well
with each one. Another national label or whoever. Are there
points where you could work with the government on something
about getting job seekers back into work common ground?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Yeah. I mean, look, there are programs that we've supported,
like the apprenticeship schemes that do tend to have better
outcomes and have shown to lead better employment outcomes as well.
Those are the things we want to be focusing on.
And you know, with national I think the key question
I would put to them would be, well, let's work
together on creating jobs. And this is why, you know,
(10:42):
we've tried to put out policy solutions in place to
create tens of thousands of jobs in constructing and manufacturing,
so that then actually the opportunities are there to begin with.
So we're quite happy to work across the aisle on
these sessues. But I think the key thing is that
they do have to be evidence led. It can't just
be like, I think there's beneficiaries out there who don't
want to work, so I'm just going to make up
a bunch of punishments as opposed to actually listening to
(11:04):
the research, listening to the stats and the people at
the front lines to design things that will actually lead
to better outcomes for people out there.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Okay, Hey, Ricardo, I really appreciate your time this afternoon.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Thank you so much, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
For more from the Weekend Collective, listen live to News
Talk ZEDB weekends from three pm, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio
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