SMOKE AND MIRRORS

The mainstream media has just woken up to the fact that many beneficiaries are not receiving the full $20 benefit increase promised in the May Budget. Pity it didn't bother to listen to groups like Auckland Action Against Poverty when the increase was first announced...

WHILE TVNZ news insisted it had scored an 'exclusive' when it 'revealed' on its six o'clock news bulletin last night that many welfare  beneficiaries are not receiving the full $20 benefit increase - part of an eventual $50 increase - this was actually pointed out by some community groups when the increase was first announced as part of the May Budget and the Minister of Finance  loftily declared it was all about 'restoring the dignity' of beneficiaries.

Both Auckland Action Against Poverty and Campaign Against Child Poverty pointed out that many beneficiaries would be no better off because an adjustment would made to their benefits to compensate for any further financial assistance they were receiving to cover such things as accommodation costs.

That observation has been confirmed by the Government's own data which suggests that some 193,000 beneficiaries will receive less than the promised $20 a week.

But why has it taken the mainstream media over a month to wake up to this fact? That's certainly because it barely ever listens to community voices and prefers to rub shoulders with 'the movers and shakers' in Wellington but also because that would of upset the narrative it was more than keen to push at the time of the Budget. So we had Tim Watkin of RNZ declaring that the Budget was 'dyed the deepest red'. And he was more than willing to accept the Minister of Finance's claim that Labour was undoing the damage done by Ruth Richardson's 'Mother of All Budgets'. Wrote an enthusiastic Watkin : 'Take that Ruth.This is Labour fighting back, Roger'.

Meanwhile, over on The Daily Blog, the ubiquitous Chris Trotter was flying the flag for the Labour Government, suggesting that the Budget represented 'democratic socialism with  Keynesian characteristics.'

How ironic then that Trotter's old mate, Martyn Bradbury, is now slamming the $20 increase as a con job and declaring that the Labour Government 'hates beneficiaries so much that a crumb is sold as a mountain'. Not much 'democratic socialism with Keynesian characteristics' here but where was Bradbury a month ago when this increase was first announced?