Ryan Bridge: Confused advice from the Ministry for Social Development

Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

Couple of stories in the news today, one of them and I'll just read you the first line from this story.

"Ministry of Social Development officials warned their minister that using payment cards as a sanction for beneficiaries can be stigmatising and open to exploitation."

What? So either the poor things will stigmatise them, will tarnish their good reputations or those bludgers that will just exploit the hell out of the cards, which is it?

Are they bad? Are they good?

It just seems a very confused piece of advice from the Ministry for Social Development, in my eyes at least.

They're going to flog them off these cards on Facebook, sell them, or are we tarnishing their good reputations by giving them to them in the first place?

When you design a system, a safety net like this, it should be done for the dignity and the simplicity of those who desperately need it.

I think we can all agree with that.

However, you need to have enough hoops and barriers and checks and balances for those who would exploit the system.

We're good people, we're fair minded people us Kiwis, but there are dicks among us who rip systems off, who don't look after their kids, who don't use the money for the purpose of feeding their families, et cetera.

Those people do exist and treating them with free cash and no consequences is not going to change that situation.

Surely not.

Why would you change when everything is just handed to you on a silver platter and whether that's cash or whether it's a card, you're not going to solve that problem.

It is a balancing act, but you have to design a system that is there for people who need it, but also can't be exploited by those who would seek to do so.

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