Invalid Hysteria

Paula Bennett has turned her attention to invalid beneficiaries. In a carefully worded statement, she says:

““This Government will support those that cannot work.

““I just want to be clear that this is not a blanket 85,000 people having to walk through the doors of Work and Income in the first month or something,” Ms Bennett told Radio New Zealand.

“The Government would “work more strategically” with the beneficiaries who were capable of working, she said.”

Judging by the reaction of people like Metiria Turei and Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn, one would think that Ms Bennett has suggested that she throws their blind, crippled mothers out of their wheelchair and drags them off to the employment agency. This is simple hysteria. Even the most right-wing version of National would not attempt to force invalids to work. The current centrist iteration is unlikely to do more than offer people with partial disabilities more help with finding work.

The reality is that people with disabilities find it difficult to find work. Employment agencies are generally not very adept at finding employment for the disabled and employers are often unwilling to go to the expense of changing the work environment to suit a disabled person. There are therefore many people on an invalid benefit who would appreciate the opportunity to work, particularly if it did not endanger their benefit too seriously. To assume that invalid beneficiaries are somehow all unemployable is, frankly, insulting and demeaning.

But, of course, the group-think Greens and Mr. Idiot seem to think the word “invalid” means “worthless”.

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