An Open Letter to Anne Tolley, the Minister for Social Development - a Ministry that is systematically broken.

Dear Mrs Tolley,

I am writing this open letter to you to inform you of how the Ministry of Social Development has failed the standard; to tell you about the poor service I received between December and March while I was in receipt of a Job Seekers Benefit which completely negated the empathy your staff was able to provide.  I am also writing to ask how you intend to fix the multiple systematic failures that I and many others encounter ona daily basis when dealing with the Ministry of Social Development.

During 2016 I began my Masters of Education.  I supplemented the Student Loan allowance I received with relief teaching when my studies allowed.  This allowance ended in early November, meaning relief teaching was my only form of income.

In December the school year finished, meaning I had no primary source of income until some time in February when schools required relief teachers to cover illness, classroom release time, professional development and other such absences of classroom teachers.

Consequently I made contact with the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) in mid November in order to kick start the process for the Job Seekers Benefit.  I met with a client manager at the Cambridge office on November 29th and discussed that I was a short term project with my intentions being to return to study in 2017 to complete my Master’s dissertation and relief teaching.  

I had with me some of the documents I had been asked to bring and could obtain, and discussed which documents I still needed to supply in preparation for relieving drying up by the second week of December (due to depleted school budgets for relieving).  It did take several weeks to supply my documentation, but one thing I am very certain of is that I supplied my current and correct residential/mailing address on my form applying for the Job Seekers Benefit.

I made a second and possibly a third trip into the Cambridge office during December to drop in documents, as well as emailing some that I was unable to print due to technical difficulties.  I was assured that I was accepted and the Job Seekers Benefit would start the week before Christmas.  I awaited written confirmation.  It did not arrive.

In the end I made a phone call to MSD in the week leading up to Christmas asking when I would be paid and the amount.  I was told I would be paid $212 each Thursday, including the amount to cover a regular expensive prescription I require - expensive because I don’t get the generic.

My family spent Christmas in Whitianga.  On Boxing Day I went to town to do an errand for my parents and one of the shops I visited had a job vacancy advertised on the door.  I approached the shop keeper and asked her about the job.  I emailed her my CV, she phoned me, and I secured the position which was minimum wage casual hours to relieve her more experienced casual worker over the busy summer holiday period.  I had never worked in retail before, so I was looking forward to the experience.

After the stat days ended, I contacted MSD through their 0800 number.  I explained that I had secured a position and that it was casual hours.  They explained there was an $80 gross cap and then they would deduct from the total of my weekly benefit.  I believe that this $80 gross cap has not changed in many many years despite increases to the minimum wage, rents, and general inflation and that it takes no account of the fact that the job will be secondary taxed, that my student loan repayments must be paid and that I have KiwiSaver.  

I was told that as long as I rang by the end of Friday with my hours worked for the week that my following week’s payment could be adjusted, even if I just guessed the hours I would be working on Saturday and Sunday of that weekend.  

Remember, this is the week between Christmas and New Years, and I’m ringing on the Wednesday after two stat holidays, with the full knowledge that there would be two more stat holidays the following week.

So on the last Friday of 2016, I rang MSD, with my guessed amount of hours I would be doing before the end of Sunday coming and the person who answered the phone told me I should have informed them of my hours on Wednesday just gone due to the stat holidays the following week.  Because I had earned over $80 gross, I was now in arrears with MSD and would have my benefit reduced by $10 a week in order to recover the arrears.

I asked for written confirmation of this.  They said they would mail it to me.  I asked if it could be emailed to me as I was working away from home.  They said they couldn’t do that and it would be sent by snail mail.  Please note: when I returned home for two days two weeks later, there was no mail from MSD at my home.  Not one letter in over six weeks of dealing with MSD.

I continued to work in this shop throughout January, finishing on Wednesday 1 February as I had secured a new job back in Hamilton to start on Friday 3 February and in anticipation of oodles of teachers becoming ill or needing CRT or PLD eventually.  I also needed to start sorting out my re-enrollment at University.

During January, my Job Seekers Benefit was never the same week to week.  The hours I worked in the shop were never the same and lessened towards the end of January as the holiday makers drifted back to their homes and schools.  I never received each week from either the casual job or the benefit combined the amount I was meant to receive for the Job Seekers Benefit, $212.  

Consequently, what I did earn covered my petrol and food.  I didn’t do anything exciting or excessive during that time, but I was in no position to pay my cell phone account, meet the minimum payments on my credit cards, pay the cost of the service and WOF of my car in January, pay my HP or pay the cost of the storage unit where 99.9% of everything I own (including teaching resources) is stored in.  Several times, after my automatic payments for insurances went out, I was left sub-zero, and once I had to ask the shopkeeper I was working for to urgently pay me early so I could survive the weekend.

I was quite stressed out with the amount of arrears I was building up and certain health conditions were exacerbated, and I still haven’t combatted them now.

So let’s just recap on some important points here:

• In November in my initial application I supplied my current residential/mailing address.
• I had received no written documentation by mail from MSD at any point since 29th of November and it is now February.
• I was not given the correct information about when to ring MSD to provide my hours of work during the first week of my temporary casual position when there were stat days changing the normal pattern of how it is done.
• I am now in arrears with MSD and my benefit is accordingly reduced by $10 per week to recoup the arrears.
• There was barely a week in January I received the $212 I was supposed to get if I had of just sat on my arse receiving a benefit instead of working as casual position.

These points above are very important, because over the next five weeks, the calamity of systematic disasters that is MSD just pile on.

I began my new position on Friday 3 February.  It is ten hours a week, flexible days to work in with the work I am required to do as well as my study and relief teaching.  Best of all I was being paid about $10 more an hour than the casual retail position I had over January.

On Tuesday 7 February (Monday being a public holiday called Waitangi Day), I rang MSD to inform them I had finished working in the shop in Whitianga and was now working in a new position for ten hours a week in Hamilton.  I informed MSD that I did not know when I would start being paid by my new job (turns out that it wasn’t until March due to numerous technical issues) and that I was currently in the red to the tune of $72 and that the next Job Seekers payment would not get me back into the black as it was about $69.

The person I spoke to was excited about my new job.  She looked into my situation and was able to make the next payment bigger so that I was $70 in the black rather than the red the next day, and informed me I would need to see a client manager as soon as possible, but that she could not make an appointment that day as the MSD booking system had ‘fallen over’.

After speaking with MSD, I began to ring everyone I was in arrears with to bargain with them over paying what I owed.

The following Tuesday I rang MSD again to book an appointment with a client manager.  I explained again that I had started a new job in Hamilton.  I was told I had an appointment the following Tuesday at 2:30pm.

On Tuesday 21 February I arrived at the Cambridge MSD office for my 2:30pm appointment.  By this time, MSD had the security people acting as quasi-receptionists.  They checked my ID and were confused about me having an appointment.  I went in and sat down.  I was approached by an MSD staff member who informed me they had no record of my appointment.  I insisted I had an appointment.  The staff member went away.  The staff member came back and said my appointment was for the Te Awamutu office.  I replied that at no stage during the call on the previous Tuesday did the call centre staff member say “Te Awamutu” and I expected my appointment to be Cambridge because all my previous dealings were with Cambridge.

By this stage I’m pretty pissed off, emotional and extremely thirsty.  I tell the staff member I have had to leave my place of work to come to this appointment and I am not leaving without seeing the appointment through.  She responds that they do not have any gaps in their appointments and I will have to take my chances.  I ask for a cup of water (there are no water stands available or cups for MSD clients) and begrudgingly the staff member brings me a plastic cup of water from their staff room while I ring the MSD 0800 number to make a complaint.

So I spend my time waiting in the Cambridge office on the phone making a verbal complaint to the call centre, who assures me that they will send me a written outcome of my complaint and informs me that I would not be able to get a new appointment in the Cambridge office until Monday 6 March!  

After that I spend my time on Twitter bitching about how broken the system at MSD is.

Eventually I am approached by the deputy manager of the Cambridge and Te Awamutu MSD offices.  She takes me down to a desk at the back of the office and apologises for the stuff up by the call centre.  She talks through my situation with me and I explained for the third time I have changed my job in February, that I was a short term project for them, that it was a matter of weeks before relief teaching really kicked in and my ten hour a week job would pay me.  

She makes adjustments to my Job Seekers Benefit for the week to accommodate the fact that I am yet to be paid by my new job (due to technical difficulties).  We then discuss the accounts I have in arrears and the ones I would like help with to pay, acknowledging that any help I receive for these would need to be repaid.  

As much as she would have liked to help, the way MSD is set up now would much rather see an individual drown in debt and never get out of the poverty cycle.  Rather than get a hand up to ensure that I continued to have a good credit rating and didn’t garner further debt, MSD refuses to help.

I left MSD that afternoon feeling rather despondent and weighed down with sadness at how our social welfare system condemns people to a cycle of poverty and benefit dependency.  It is a full time job dealing with their systems, and if I listen to the 0800 number tell me while I am on hold one more time that I can do stuff online I will scream!!!  If a real staff member can not help me, how the bloody hell is a website going to ensure I get my entitlements and understand the situation and how it should be sorted out - and I am an educated person!!

But what left me most astonished was to find out that MSD has a sinking lid on staff - when a staff member leaves, they are not replaced,  Consequently, they are understaffed.  Some not very bright management person further up the food chain in the Ministry of Social Development thinks that the internet and the kiosks at MSD offices are the answer to everything.  I’m under the impression from another person I know that the kiosks in Te Awamutu usually are crashed and that no staff member at the Te Awamutu office actually knows how the kiosks even work!

So let’s recap where I am at the 21st of February 2017:

• In November in my initial application I supplied my current residential/mailing address.
• I had received no written documentation by mail from MSD at any point since 29th of November and it is now nearly the end of February.
• I was not given the correct information about when to ring MSD to provide my hours of work during the first week of my temporary casual position when there were stat days changing the normal pattern of how it is done.
• I am now in arrears with MSD and my benefit is accordingly reduced by $10 per week to recoup the arrears.
• There was barely a week in January I received the $212 I was supposed to get if I had of just sat on my arse receiving a benefit instead of working as casual position.
• I couldn’t make an appointment on the 7th of February as the MSD booking system had ‘fallen over’.
• I’ve had to explain three times in February that I started a new job in February.
• I’ve turned up to an appointment to find I’ve been booked into an office I’ve never attended and was not verbally told or received a letter as to what office my appointment was for.
• I am left to wallow in debt.

But wait, there is more.

Finally on 1 March, my ten hour a week job is able to pay me what I am owed, out of cycle, as I am facing financial hardship.  During this week I received enough bookings for relief teaching in March to meet my minimum financial needs.  So on Friday 3 March I ring up and ask for my Job Seekers Benefit to be finished.

Oh.  My.  God!  It is almost as hard to get off the bloody benefit as it is to get on the damn thing!

Once again I have to explain that in addition to the relieving (which I will get almost $200 in the hand a day after tax, student loan, NZEI fees, KiwiSaver and Teacher Retirement Scheme are taken out) that I also have the ten hour a week job before the call centre guy believes that I will be financially ok!  This is so ironic after MSD systems tell me they can not help me out of the arrears with my phone (essential for schools to be able to contact me on and for me to contact them) and storage fees!  He had been wanting me to supply pay slips and the blood of a virgin to get out of being on a benefit.  I just wanted the benefit to stop before they piled on more arrears (which were totalling about $400 at that stage).

So after I get an almost agreement to end my benefit, I ask about the complaint I made about the call centre getting my appointment wrong.  He assured me a letter had been sent out.  I said I hadn’t received it.  In fact, I said to him, I have received absolutely NO written correspondence form MSD since my initial contact in November, and I thought that was most unusual since they would not email me.

So this is when the next clanger happened.

He read out the address they were sending my mail to.

It was an address I have NOT lived at since May 2013, almost four years ago.  

What really annoys me is that I know who lives there now and I certainly do not want that old sticky beak getting my personal mail from MSD!

This was about when I got pretty shitty again.  This is when I explained that I had written the correct current residential/mailing address on the forms in November.  This is when I asked to make yet another complaint about the conduct and the systems of MSD and how this had been inconveniencing me.

Later that day I received an apologetic call from the deputy manager of the Cambridge and Te Awamutu MSD offices.  She sincerely apologised for the mistake with not updating my address in November, and ensured that my benefit would be paid one last time the following Thursday.

So let’s recap again on the calamity that is the system at MSD:

• In November in my initial application I supplied my current residential/mailing address.
• I had received no written documentation by mail from MSD at any point since 29th of November and it is now March.
• I was not given the correct information about when to ring MSD to provide my hours of work during the first week of my temporary casual position when there were stat days changing the normal pattern of how it is done.
• I am now in arrears with MSD and my benefit is accordingly reduced by $10 per week to recoup the arrears.
• There was barely a week in January I received the $212 I was supposed to get if I had of just sat on my arse receiving a benefit instead of working as casual position.
• I couldn’t make an appointment on the 7th of February as the MSD booking system had ‘fallen over’.
• I’ve had to explain three times in February that I started a new job in February.
• I’ve turned up to an appointment to find I’ve been booked into an office I’ve never attended and was not verbally told or received a letter as to what office my appointment was for.
• I am left to wallow in debt.
• I have received no written response to the complaint regarding my appointment being made at the wrong office.
• I practically have to fight to end my benefit.
• I discover that all the mail I should have received since November from MSD has gone to an address I haven’t lived at since May 2013 because my address details were not inputted correctly, if at all, in November when I applied for the Job Seekers Benefit.

But wait, there is more.

I get a letter from MSD informing me formally of the arrears I owe and asking me to contact them.  It does generously allow me to use my Community Services card until it expires.

What Community Services Card?

They sent me one in December and a new one in February - to the address I have not lived at in nearly four years.

So I ring up asking for a new card.  They can’t send me one because I am no longer on a benefit.  So instead they send me forms to make an application for a new one.

Can I make another complaint?

So let’s just recap again the systematic disaster that MSD is:

• In November in my initial application I supplied my current residential/mailing address.
• I had received no written documentation by mail from MSD at any point since 29th of November until the end of the second week of March.
• I was not given the correct information about when to ring MSD to provide my hours of work during the first week of my temporary casual position when there were stat days changing the normal pattern of how it is done.
• I am now in arrears with MSD and my benefit is accordingly reduced by $10 per week to recoup the arrears.
• There was barely a week in January I received the $212 I was supposed to get if I had of just sat on my arse receiving a benefit instead of working as casual position.
• I couldn’t make an appointment on the 7th of February as the MSD booking system had ‘fallen over’.
• I’ve had to explain three times in February that I started a new job in February.
• I’ve turned up to an appointment to find I’ve been booked into an office I’ve never attended and was not verbally told or received a letter as to what office my appointment was for.
• I am left to wallow in debt.
• I have received no written response to the complaint regarding my appointment being made at the wrong office.
• I practically have to fight to end my benefit.
• I discover that all the mail I should have received since November from MSD has gone to an address I haven’t lived at since May 2013 because my address details were not inputted correctly, if at all, in November when I applied for the Job Seekers Benefit.
• My Community Services card is sent to the wrong address twice and they will not supply me with a replacement despite it being their mistake that I did not receive it.

So what do I think needs to change to ensure that the staff of MSD, who are empathetic and try hard to help but are hampered by a broken system, can actually help beneficiaries break the cycle of poverty and benefit dependency?

• Actually have enough staff to do the job - even a simple job like inputting an address.  
• Cut down the waiting time for an appointment.  No one should have to wait two weeks for an appointment when they are on the bones of their arse.  No one should have to wait more than 24 hours in a working week to be seen.
• Have a computer system that makes sense that anyone can use.
• Clearly display entitlements so that people know what they are entitled to and how to access them.
• If MSD gives the wrong advice that means the client ends up owing arrears, don’t ping the client for the wrong advice - especially when it comes to statutory holidays.
• Up the $80 cap for income outside of the benefit to recognise the fact that the minimum wage has increased and so has inflation.  The $80 cap should not include pinging you for Student Loan repayments or KiwiSaver either.
• When a person is a short term project with good earning potential, help them out to keep their credit rating so they stay afloat.  There are ways and means to ensure it does get paid back.
• Stop insisting on people begging their family for financial assistance.  The whole point of a social welfare system is for the social welfare system to support an independent adult - not to make them dependent on extended family members who are trying to hold their own financial commitments together.

While I was not treated as harshly as I was in 2010 when last needed the Unemployment Benefit to pretend I was surviving, it was still a very stressful experience.  Last time the people were incredibly harsh, but that just may be the Thames office experience.  This time I found the staff to be empathic and understanding - but they were hamstrung by a system that is unresponsive and broken.

Once again I am left feeling that our social welfare system is condemning so many to a life of poverty and dependency.  I heard former Prime Minister John Key say in one of his final interviews as and MP this week that he believes that people don’t want to be dependent on the state and do not want the state interfering in their lives.  I think John Key fails to remember what the state did for him during his childhood and that the original purpose of the welfare system was to ensure that everyone could participate as a full citizen in society.  

In 1972, the Royal Commission on Social Security had reinforced the role of welfare as “to ensure, within limitations which may be imposed by physical or other disabilities, that everyone is able to enjoy a standard of living much like that of the rest of the community, and thus is able to feel a sense of participation in and belonging to the community” (Kelsey, 1995, p.271).  Since the National government decimated this social contract in 1991, poverty and dependency on social welfare has been exacerbated and nothing the current National government under John Key or Bill English has improved outcomes for these people.

As an educated person, who has the power to earn five times plus more than the benefit pays a week (if school is in), the benefit is not the place I want to be.  But this experience made it clear how some people are trapped into the cycle because they are penalised so harshly for trying to earn extra cash during the peak summer period or a crop harvesting time to try and get ahead and get out of the benefit cycle.  Employers are also disadvantaged by the system as some people will limit what they will work so as not to be in danger of losing their benefit.  And that is why I think that the $80 cap on earning extra needs to be increased.


So to end this open letter to you Mrs Tolley, I'd like to tell you that the Ministry of Social Development fails the standard (and you know all about standards and failing to meet those when you were the Minister of Education); the systems at the Ministry of Social Development are broken and fail to help people break the poverty and dependency cycle; and I think it is time we did something to #ChangeTheGovt to fix the Ministry of Social Development.


But what are you going to do to fix it Mrs Tolley?


And I mean fix it, not f**k it up any more than the system already is.


Bibliography:
Kelsey, J. (1995). The New Zealand experiment: A world model for structural adjustment? (1997 ed.). Auckland, N.Z.: Auckland University Press.

Outsourcing hospital & Meals on Wheels meals - why this is a dumb as move.

Thanks 3News for the pic!

If you have had the "pleasurable" experience of a hospital stay you will know all about the food.  It is mass produced and has been known to arrive in a tepid state, but for the majority of hospital stays the food has been cooked within the resident hospital kitchen or in a kitchen within a short drive.

 

Tony Ryall, the former Minister of Health from December 2008 until he stepped out of politics into a flash as job at the September 2015 election, was on a drive to cut costs in the health sector and "streamline" systems.  He set up a Crown company called Health Benefits Ltd (HBL) with the goal of  making cost savings in the health sector.  One of those cost cutting efficiencies he looked into was catering of patient meals by hospital kitchens. 

 

In April 2013, the Labour claimed that Mr Ryall was looking at outsourcing patient meals and closing 50 hospital kitchens.  It would come at the cost of 1300 jobs.  (Govt may close all NZ hospital kitchens.  NZ Herald 10/4/13).

 

Tony Ryall - former Minister of Health

At the time Mr Ryall said that they were merely consulting the unions on streamlining services, but believed efficiencies could save more than $10 million per year and be channelled back into "frontline health services".

 

What is more "frontline" than feeding your patients?

 

The Greens also warned against the outsourcing of patient meals (Outsourcing hospital food will cost NZ in the long run.  www.greens.org.nz, 10/4/13).

But this article in the Otago Daily Times Frozen meals - sent from Auckland (13/4/15) shows that not a lot of thought has been put into the practicalities of it at all. 

Meals on wheels will be made in Auckland and trucked to Dunedin and Invercargill under a proposal to outsource hospital food services, the Compass Group confirmed yesterday.
The Southern District Health Board is yet to decide whether to approve the proposal.
The meals on wheels would be frozen, and reheated in local hospital kitchens.
Patient meals would be prepared on-site, using components driven ''around New Zealand'' in trucks, Compass said.
A stock of pre-prepared meal components would be held at a Dunedin distribution centre.
''The pre-prepared components of the meals will be prepared by specialist suppliers based in a number of different regions of New Zealand [including] Tauranga, Mt Maunganui, Dunedin, Auckland.''
Asked if Compass planned to subcontract meals on wheels to another provider, the food giant said: ''Compass Group is working with an Auckland-based supplier to supply the individual snap frozen meals for the meals on wheels solution''. Asked how often the meals would arrive in trucks, Compass said it was yet to be determined.    
Asked what contingency plans were in place for adverse weather, Compass said it was part of planning work that would happen with the health board.
Since the proposal was announced nearly two years ago, it has been unclear where meals would be produced.
Last week, health board members relented to union demands and deferred the final privatisation decision by a month to the May meeting.
Service and Food Workers Union organiser Anna Huffstutler, of Southland, said producing meals on wheels in Auckland reduced the amount of work available for local staff.
She also questioned the logistics of transporting meals during a civil defence emergency.
''What's the back-up plan?''
Ms Huffstutler is pleased about the deferment of the final decision, saying unions had lacked enough information to form a counterproposal.
The counterproposal would include suggestions on how money could be saved. Securing the extra month had given a sense of hope the board might be willing to listen to a proposal from unions, she said.
The Compass Group says it can save the health board $7 million over the 15-year contract.

Considering how long this proposal has been worked on, you really have to wonder why there are no answers to the questions raised by Anna Huffstutler, the SWFU organiser.  It also does not appear that much consulting has been done with the unions over how this proposal will work considering Mr Ryall said in April 2013 that was on the agenda.  And not even saving half a million dollars a year for the Otago District Health Board?  Have they not considered the wider costs to the patients and the community?  By the way, you really should click on the article to read the comments under the article - they're pure gold!
 

No one supports this idea because it is a bad idea.  Like I just said above, have they considered the impacts to the wider community of what Tony Ryall has envisioned for the whole country?  I have, and here is why it is flawed:

• How can a health board justify supplying frozen meals to patients and Meals on Wheels clients instead of freshly made meals on a health basis?
• The practicalities, cost and environmental impact of trucking these components around the country! And don't we have enough trucks on our roads already?
• The personal touch to food preparation will be gone and the likelihood of some food allergy not being catered for increases.
• Who likes mass produced food? Patients and Meals on Wheels clients may as well go get a frozen meal out of the New World (et al) freezer!
• The jobs lost to the catering staff and the impact on their families.
• What about the impact on local suppliers and growers when everything in centalised to Auckland?
• What happens during bad weather or a natural disaster when the "components" can't get through?  (As pointed out by the SFWU organiser).
• So if we're getting rid of the catering staff for patients and Meals on Wheels clients does that mean cafeterias for staff and visitors will also be replaced with a vending machine selling frozen meals and a pay by the second microwave?
• Compass, the company charged with making it happen, has a "colourful" history (horse meat in your hospital meal sir?).
• Considering the cost saving is merely $7 million over 15 years for the Otago DHB (that's less than half a million per year!), how does that compare to the costs of the unemployment benefits that will need to be paid to the redundant catering staff nationwide? And did they consider the impact on the tax take of more workers being unemployed and paying less tax as a result?

As with many ideas from Tony Ryall, this one is a dog with fleas and now he's gone and isn't there to bully push them through the truth is slowly coming out.  In fact his flag ship HBL is now under investigation by the Auditor General (Scheme can't pay back loans, Stuff, 19/4/15):

The Government's flagship health cost-cutting scheme has taken out millions of dollars worth of taxpayer-funded loans, despite concerns it could not pay a cent back, new documents reveal.
Once dubbed a government "ponzi scheme" by district health boards (DHBs), Health Benefits Limited (HBL) has been granted more than $10 million in loans by the Government. HBL was also given three separate extensions to the deadline to pay the money back, amid concerns the original deadline would leave the crown entity insolvent.
The final deadline for HBL to pay at least $10.2 million back is now March 31. If the money isn't paid back, it is likely to be recovered from the already cash-strapped budgets of DHBs.
The organisation is now the subject of an investigation by the auditor-general.
HBL was set up by former health minister Tony Ryall in 2010 to save DHBs $750 million over six years by establishing shared contracts for key hospital services.
But documents show the group took out an initial $8m "short-term credit facility", or a low-interest loan, from the Government in July 2013 so it could develop three detailed business cases for its food services and linen and laundry services and its National Infrastructure Platform programmes.
In a June 2013 letter HBL chairman Ted van Arkel told the Government the loan would be an "interim step" while the group worked with both the Ministry of Health and Treasury to establish a "long-term capital structure".
Van Arkel said it was expected the three projects would deliver $189.7m in savings across the health sector, once the contracts had been filled. It was proposed the money loaned would be paid back through the successful contract providers, but, failing that, DHBs were liable.
Ryall and Finance Minister Bill English approved the loan, with a deadline for repayment set at April 30, 2014.
But subsequent documents show the HBL board had to ask the Government for an extension, after project delays meant it could not afford to repay its loans.
In an email to English's economic adviser Simon Carey, Ministry of Health chief financial officer Mike McCarthy warned that if the loan was outstanding at June 30, "we would have a possible legal issue".
"I have now spoken to the [chief financial officer] and interim [chief executive] of HBL, they advise if the loan is not extended they will not be able to make payment as they have insufficient cash reserves and will be insolvent," he wrote.
On June 24 last year Ryall wrote to van Arkel approving an extension to March 31 this year.
In August, HBL requested the Government lend it more money so it could meet its forecast costs; hoping to increase its $8m debt to $15.1m. Ryall only approved handing the group an extra $2.2m, taking the total loan value to $10.2m.
But a ministerial report shows DHBs were not forewarned of the amount, despite their liability for the loans.
Ryall retired from politics at the election.
HBL is being wound down by Health Minister Jonathan Coleman in June, with its programmes transferred to Auckland regional DHB-led services provider HealthAlliance.
Neither the Government nor HBL has been able to provide any information over whether the loan has been, or is being, paid back.
Labour health spokeswoman Annette King said she had been concerned about HBL for more than two years.
"And I'm delighted the the auditor-general has agreed to my request for an inquiry."
In June 2014, a memo between some DHB chief financial officers branded the organisation a ponzi scheme, calling it the biggest threat to the public health system in a generation.
Coleman has said that HBL had delivered $300m in savings. His office has not yet answered questions and a spokesman for van Arkel refused requests for comment.

 - The Dominion Post

This not only raises questions about the management of Tony Ryall and why he conveniently left parliament at the last election for a job in the private sector with Simpson Grierson, but it raises questions about our Minister of Finance, Bill English, and his ability to actually understand numbers and how money works.

There'll be some horror stories to come yet in the health system from the decisions Tony Ryall made.  I predict there will be some particularly nasty stories in regards to the waiting lists.

This is yet another example of how the National led government is really not qualified to led this country based on its own trumpet blowing of being the best managers of the economy.  This is yet another example of how the National led government has failed to meet the standard yet again.

When Life Gives You Lemons, Dealing With WINZ Sucks Even More

Sometimes life gives you lemons... things don't go the way you plan... life is hard.

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you do not have a job.

In 1930 the first unemployment benefit was established in New Zealand.  The Unemployment Act promised relief payments to those who registered as unemployed and then it followed that there would be no payments made without work, meaning those registered would have to participate in government 'make work' schemes such as building roads and working on farms or in forestry projects.  The Social Security Act of 1938 followed and made it that the benefit was "payable to a person 16 years of age and over who has been in New Zealand for at least 12 months and is unemployed, is capable of and willing to undertake suitable work, and has taken reasonable steps to secure employment".  (Wikipedia - Welfare in New Zealand).  And since then more benefits have been added and many changes have occurred.

You can have all the qualifications and work experience in the world... but you may not be the person for that organisation or another one, and the next thing you know you are unemployed, leaving bills unopened on the table, getting inventive with food (or inviting yourself to other people's places to eat), popping $10 in the petrol tank, scraping together enough to pay the rent so you won't be homeless, scouring the net for jobs to apply for (including those out of the sphere of your qualifications and experiences).

This is the reality many people find themselves in at least once in their lives.  Suddenly the rug is pulled out from under them (they are made redundant, the company goes into liquidation, a contract comes to an end and another doesn't materialise, or you stuff up big time and get the "don't come Monday") and they think "It's ok, I'll find another job, and if I have to I'll go to WINZ for help."

If you haven't been there... count yourself lucky.  It's not a place I want to be ever again... but this was my life twice during 2010.

I had a fixed term position and I had not secured a new position so I knew that my pay was coming to an end, and I reduced expenditure in accordance.... but money only lasts so long, and then it is gone.  For nearly two months I was on the bones of my bum.

It was scary, demoralising, depressing, soul destroying.... and that was before I dealt with WINZ.

Dealing with WINZ I was made to feel the lowest of the low, like filth on the bottom of one's shoe.  Like I was an uneducated lay about who was feckless and without gumption.

I was ridiculed because I did not come to WINZ as soon as I became unemployed  -  I honestly thought I could secure another job, or earn enough as a reliever, the eternal optimist.  I was told to sell possessions, which I refused to do as most of what I owned was second hand already when I got it so it wouldn't yield much, and then it would cost me more to replace them later on.  I was told to move to a cheaper house.  From experience, as I have moved a lot, I can tell you it would have been more expensive for me to move than to stay where I was.  I was told to cancel all my insurances  -  I refused as I reckoned as soon as I did that I'd crash into a brand new BMW, my house would burn down and I would need a major operation - never cancel your insurance!!

The day I went to WINZ I actually opened a power bill to find it was a notice of disconnection.  That sent me into a mad panic.

I had to pull the tears out to the lady at WINZ.  To her credit, she probably deals with a lot of sad cases each day who know all the ways to manipulate the system.  But I was at desperation stage.  I had no money left to pay the next lot of rent.  My power, phone, internet and gas were about to be disconnected.  I couldn't put petrol in my car to drive the 90km back to where I lived (no public transport in a rural district where the townships are isolated from each other by geographical land features of a large size).

Luckily for me though, I had been to a job interview the day before and secured the job.  Unfortunately it would be about six weeks before I started the job (the nature of my profession), and another two and a half weeks after that until I would be paid.

I have found before that having a job to start means WINZ is more likely to help you.  They can see that you are a short term project, that you'll be quickly off the books.  If you are going to stick around for a much longer period of time then they will put as many road blocks in the way to them helping you as they possibly can.

So because I was going to be starting a job, WINZ reluctantly agreed to pay my power and gas bills and a contribution towards my phone and internet bills and the next rent.  No money to get the 90km home though.  And I'd be paying them back these advances (this was to take me about two years to do this, as more was later added to the total during the second time as a 'government employee'). 

I was granted the Unemployment Benefit and an Accommodation allowance.  It all came out at close to $240 per week.  My rent at the time was $300 a week (living in a popular coastal town, that I'd moved to because of my previous position, is expensive) which meant I still had a shortfall.

The position was a fixed term position, with the possibility of extending it... which didn't happen, and again I found myself suddenly without employment.  I went to an interview prior to finishing, but another worthy applicant won that position.

This time I didn't wait as long to visit WINZ.  I was back after my last pay went through.  This time I had to do one of their "job seeker seminars" where they taught me to suck eggs on how to apply for a job.  They showed me the jobs they had available.... they were very few and not where I lived.

But I was no slouch.  I investigated several options.  I had interviews for two very different positions loosely linked to my expertise.... came extraordinarily close to taking one, which would have led me out of the country for a while.... and then a new opportunity came along.  I applied on a Friday, was rung that afternoon to come for an interview on Monday, got the job to start Friday (someone else was in a hurry to leave, and this is a short time frame for my profession).

This brought in new complications for dealing with WINZ.  The job wasn't in the area I lived in, but just over two hours away.  I had accommodation with family close to the job.... but I didn't have the dosh to physically get to the job - I needed petrol in the car. 

I made an emergency appointment with the local WINZ office to sort this out.  I turned up at the appropriate time to find all the staff had gone home sick!!!  This was too much.  I raged at the poor person at the other end of the 0800 number, who then put me onto the main district office 90km away.  I was never going to make it to that office to get it all sorted, so they sent me to the local community centre who gave me petrol money to get to the new job.

That was my 2010 experience. 

This week Paula Bennett, the Minister of Social Development (or whatever they are calling it this year!) introduced changes to the beneficiary system - not just the unemployment benefit, but ALL benefits.

On Monday 15 July, the following came into being:

• the DPB, Unemployment and Sickness Benefits won’t exist.
• Replacing a complex system of seven categories are three main benefits:

            -  Jobseeker Support for those actively seeking and available for work            
            -  Sole Parent Support for sole parents with children under 14 years           
            -  Supported Living Payment for people significantly restricted by sickness, injury or
               disability.

• all beneficiary parents will have to ensure their children:

            -  attend 15 hours a week in ECE from 3-5yrs           
            -  attend school from age five or six           
            -  enrol with a PHO, Integrated Family Health Centre or GP

            -  complete WellChild/Tamariki Ora checks

 

• The changes also require anyone with work expectations to be drug-free, and benefits can now be stopped if people fail to clear outstanding arrest warrants. 
• From October 2012, changes for sole parent beneficiaries introduced expectations to be available for part-time work when their youngest is school-age and full-time work when their youngest turns 14.

Some of these reforms look like good ideas.  I think those with outstanding arrest warrants should not be getting my tax payers dollars, particularly if it is for something more significant that parking fines.  Getting more kids enrolled with a GP for consistent health care and enrolled in early childhood education is great too.  I also agree that it is a good thing to get people back into work for their own self worth as well has for their ability to earn more money and be contributing members of society. 

But here is where I have some problems (like many others):

• Show me the jobs!!!  Those ghost jobs.....  most part time work for solo parents does not fit into school or ECE hours... so then there is the problem of childcare and the expense of it and the safety of it.  Until you address those issues, this is not going to fly.
• Forcing people into work when they have valid health reasons for not working is going to be problematic.  Who makes that decision?  The individual's own GP, or is this going to be like the ACC debacle of the last few years where some contracted doctor reviews the paperwork without meeting the client and declares they are fit for work.  Then what happens if one (or more) of these people goes back to work and they end up in a worse condition as a result, or go postal?  This is going to be a huge problem, and it will blow up in Paula's face if she has not done this properly, which knowing National, it won't have.
• Duh - it's already a legal requirement to have your child enrolled at school by age 6.  That is a dumb one.
• 15 hours of ECE for children of beneficiaries - another problematic issue.  For starters, this takes choice away from the parents.  Is anyone forcing a family with one working parent and one stay at home parent into a minimum number of ECE hours?  What makes that stay at home parent any better at educating a pre-schooler than a stay at home beneficiary parent?  What if there is no appropriate provider in your area where you live?  What if you do not have the transportation to the ECE provider?  And for three year olds, most kindergartens don't offer sessions meeting 15 hours, in fact in some areas you are lucky if you get your child into a kindi before they turn four... and playcentres don't count under this policy... so again the beneficiary parents are denied choice for how their pre-schooler receives their pre-school education.
• Children in ECE last year were given an identification number.  While the article Kindy kids to have ID numbers in the NZ Herald proclaims it is for children of beneficiaries, all children received one on enrolment (or if they were already enrolled).  However this raises questions about how these numbers and the data collected will be used as well as privacy issues.  Will these numbers be used to monitor and dob in beneficiaries?
• While doctors visits for under 5s are supposed to be free, that is not the case in every area.  And children under 5 do not always wait for business hours to need a doctor.  Consequently parents fork out big time when they have to do an out of hours doctors visit.  Just this week a case in Hamilton was highlighted of a parent leaving a doctor's surgery as there was a $35 cost for her ten month old baby to be seen as she was from out of town.  So make ALL consultations free for under 5s even out of normal hours and even when it is not their actual doctor or clinic (provided they are enrolled).
• Not every parent is a fan of vaccinations.  Part of being a parent is making those decisions.  I do not think it right for the state to force the parents of a child into giving them a vaccination that they fundamentally don't agree with.  If that is the parent's choice, then get them to sign a document stating that they made the decision not to vaccinate after researching thoroughly.  Then be it on their heads if something unfortunate happens.
• Drug testing - while I agree that being drugged out on the job is not a good thing I do have an issue with making beneficiaries do a drug test and pay for it themselves.  If you have a history of drug taking, lost a previous job as a result of drug taking, or are applying for a job in an industry that requires a clear drug screen, sure, go for testing them... and in the first two instances, make the beneficiary pay.  But I see this as a slippery slide into all beneficiaries having to pass drug tests to get a benefit very regularly, and if you have no history of taking drugs, then this would be on the nose.  Just because you are a beneficiary does not mean you take drugs.  If I had been asked to do this I would have been highly offended. 
• WINZ says it will continue your benefit  "If you agree to take part in an approved activity for at least six weeks and you are still entitled to your benefit, it will be restarted."  (http://www.workandincome.govt.nz/individuals/benefit-changes/pre-employment-drug-testing.html).  That's great.  But we have a significant lack of drug and alcohol programmes in New Zealand, and the ones we do have are struggling to keep up with demand and gain appropriate funding.  Providers are sounding a warning.

Of course if you don't comply with the changes, your benefit gets cut.  If you are a parent, how do you feed your kids then?  Do these changes really benefit children in the long run?

I was watching a documentary a few weeks ago late at night A Civilised Society.  The synopsis is as follows:

This documentary looks at the new right ideology that transformed public education in the 80s and 90s and the schism it caused with teachers. Interviews with parents, teachers and unionists are cut together with archive footage of treasury officials and politicians advocating that schools be run as businesses. There are vexed board of trustees' meetings, an infamous deal between Avondale College and Pepsi, and teachers take their opposition from the classroom to the streets. The film is the third in Alister Barry's series critical of neo-liberal reform in NZ.

In the fourth segment, from memory, it shows a principal from an Auckland school saying that children were coming to school hungry, the only meal of the day of consequence was what her school was providing that day, and the children would go home to a cup of tea and some bread for dinner that night.

New Zealand has an epidemic of rheumatic fever.  Other western countries have eliminated this disease.  It is rife here.  Why? 

Rheumatic fever primarily affects children between ages 5 and 17 years with only 20% of first-time attacks occurring in adults, and occurs approximately 20 days after strep throat. In up to a third of cases, the underlying strep infection may not have caused any symptoms.  The illness is so named because of its similarity in presentation to rheumatism.  (Wikipedia)

Rheumatic fever in New Zealand has been shown to be predominant within Maori and Pacific Island groups and with poor people.  Over crowding within the home is one significant factor, as is cold and damp homes.  It causes heart problems when left undiagnosed and untreated.

Last November, Professor Norman Sharpe, the medical director of the National Heart Foundation, said, "I feel ashamed, I feel it is intolerable - we have people coming here from overseas, young doctors from the UK and they can't believe we have rheumatic fever. It scarcely exists in the UK."  He praised the Government's sore-throat swabbing programme in schools, which he expected would control rheumatic fever, but it was a "bandaid" and the problem needed to be addressed "upstream" too, by dealing with poverty, overcrowding and poor quality housing.  (NZ Herald 9/11/12)

There is a programme in South Auckland aiming to eradicate rheumatic fever, and even they are surprised by its extent.  Nurses have found higher rates than expected of streptococcal throat infections in a mass South Auckland programme aimed at cutting the high rates of rheumatic fever in the region.  Because overcrowding is a major factor in strep-throat contraction the coalition is also looking to grow the programme so that housing needs are addressed by Whanau Ora workers or Housing New Zealand.  Nurse Lynn Vasquez, 27, works at East Tamaki and Dawson Road Primary Schools. Her work also includes treatment for serious skin infections such as scabies - which have been eradicated from her schools - boils, infected eczema, cellulitis and school sores. Across the region 2404 children have been treated for skin conditions.  "Overcrowding is a massive, massive issue," she says.  (NZ Herald 17/7/13)

And how will these welfare changes improve things for kids like these? Because I predict a rise in rheumatic fever and serious skin infections and other respiratory ailments like asthma (cold, damp and mouldy houses contribute to this) due to these welfare changes, because overcrowding in houses will increase, people won't be able to afford to go to the doctor or pay for their power bills to get heating (thus increasing sickness), and there will be considerable problems arising from a lack of appropriate diet affecting how children perform in schools so therefore a comprehensive food in schools programme is essential.

But what sticks in my craw the most about these changes and the previous changes to the welfare system since November 2008, particularly the ones against solo parents trying to better themselves, is the hypocrite that Paula Bennett truly is.

Credit where credit is due, Paula Bennett has pulled herself up by her bootstraps... but every piece of help provided to her under the beneficiary system has since been scrapped by her.

Is Paula Bennett even human?  Because I see no compassion for children or their parents in any of these policies.

Her track record in how she deals with those who oppose her is on par with her colleagues (in particular Judith Collins reworking events and reports to suit her, Hekia Parata breaching privacy and Anne Tolley being the bully), but to breach the privacy of WINZ clients and bully them is beneath the level of behaviour expected for a Minister of the Crown.  Ms Bennett clearly doesn't see anything wrong with herself breaching privacy of WINZ clients, that she is above the law.  And then to claim that she won't rule out doing it again is to further question how ethical Ms Bennett is.

I contend then that Paula Bennett fails the standard for the following reasons:

• She is a hypocrite - she wouldn't be where she was today if it wasn't for all the programmes she axed in 2009.
• She is clearly not putting children at the centre of her policies, because all these policies will have an adverse affect on children whether she likes it or not.
• These policies will lead to more people being trapped in a cycle of poverty, and consequently poverty related illnesses (e.g. respiratory conditions, lack of nutrition, mental illnesses).
• Paula thinks that families slip in and out of poverty on any given day, so does not recognise that poverty is a huge factor in the current New Zealand society.