NATIONAL RETURNS TO BENEFICIARY BASHING

With its polling numbers underwater, National has returned to beneficiary bashing in a desperate attempt to shore up its electoral support. According to Louise Upston drug taking among beneficiaries is a problem. But we heard the same thing from Prime Minister Bill English in 2012. It wasn't true then, and it isn't true now.

 

NATIONAL'S LATEST proposal to drug test beneficiaries is less a serious employment policy than the familiar political tactic of blaming those suffering the effects of government economic failure. Whenever support for austerity policies begins to weaken or economic conditions deteriorate, sections of the political right return to the well-worn strategy of portraying beneficiaries as the source of society's problems. This latest announcement from Louise Upston fits squarely within that tradition.

The unspoken implication behind the proposal is that unemployment is primarily the result of personal failings, particularly drug use. Yet this narrative collapses when confronted with the evidence. The reason many people are unemployed is not because they are unwilling or unable to pass drug tests. It is because there are not enough secure, well-paid jobs available. When economic growth slows, businesses reduce hiring, investment falls, and workers are left competing for a shrinking number of vacancies. Unemployment is at an eleven-year-high. No amount of beneficiary drug testing will change that reality.

What makes National's proposal particularly cynical is that its own assumptions are contradicted by official data. The Ministry of Social Development's records show that only a tiny number of beneficiaries fail pre-employment drug tests. Out of tens of thousands of referrals to jobs requiring testing each year, failures number in the dozens rather than the thousands. In 2018 there were just 129 failures, while in 2022 there were only 78. These figures simply do not support claims that drug use among beneficiaries is a widespread barrier to employment.

But this is not the first time such allegations have been made. In 2012 then Prime Minister Bill English claimed employers were struggling to fill positions because too many unemployed New Zealanders were 'sitting around, taking drugs'. The message was clear: people were out of work because of their own irresponsibility rather than broader economic conditions. Yet when the Combined Trade Unions sought evidence to support these claims, the Ministry of Social Development revealed that it had received no complaints from employers about young beneficiaries failing drug tests.

But that didn't stop the National Government beating the drum about drug abuse among beneficiaries. And it didn't stop National's cheerleaders in the media backing the claims of Bill English. According to Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking one of the hurdles that the Government had encountered was the 'alarming numbers' that could not pass a drug test. 

Thundered Hosking on his breakfast show:

'The figures are alarming. This to my mind is a fundamental breach of the agreement you have with the Government and therefore needs fixing. The fixing will come in the form of your benefit being cut.'

The following years produced further evidence undermining the government narrative. In 2014, the New Zealand Herald reported that out of 8,001 beneficiaries referred to jobs requiring drug testing, only 22 either tested positive or refused to take a test. Such a figure represented a tiny proportion of job seekers. If drug use were genuinely a significant obstacle to employment, the numbers would have been vastly higher.

But during an election campaign especially, peddling false claims about drug-taking beneficiaries is designed to deflect public frustration away from the failure of neoliberalism and the National-led Government's economic policies and towards some of society's most vulnerable people. It encourages voters to view poverty as the consequence of bad choices rather than stagnating wages, rising housing costs, insecure work, or inadequate social support. In doing so, it reinforces the idea that those struggling financially deserve suspicion rather than assistance. It does nothing to expand job opportunities and little to improve employment outcomes.

It is also a classic feature of austerity politics. Governments pursuing spending cuts or restrictive welfare policies often justify them by suggesting that beneficiaries are abusing the system. By creating an image of widespread dependency, fraud, or drug abuse, they seek to build public support for tougher welfare measures. It should be noted that, if elected back into government, National plans to cut jobseeker benefits if a person has been on a benefit for two years. 

Most beneficiaries are simply people attempting to navigate difficult circumstances. Most have lost jobs through no fault of their own. Others face illness, disability, caring responsibilities, or regional labour markets with limited opportunities. They are not responsible for the failure of neoliberalism and the crisis of late-stage capitalism. But they are among the first to suffer the consequences of an economic crisis that they are not responsible for.