Friday, April 02, 2010

History repeating

I have been reviewing older issues of the NZ Social Policy Journals this afternoon and realised that under the National government (of the 1990s) the contributors brought a far less 'government must' attitude. For instance there was a contribution by Gareth Morgan, and a number of people who wrote publications by the NZBR around that time. During the 2000s it was predominantly left-leaning academics contributing. But here is a statement, 17 years-old, that caught my eye.

Breaking the dependency cycle is one of the two top priority outcomes for the Department of Social Welfare in the 1993/94 year, and a number of new initiatives have recently been undertaken aimed at facilitating the “welfare-to-work” process.

During the 17 years another generation has become dependent. What is National's latest stated goal?

"...aiming to break the cycle of welfare dependency."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nothing new under the sun nor it seems the National Govt.
Bill advised today that he is happy with the IMF report and would not be bothering to take much notice of their recommendations. He was happy that it would be a few more years before our deficits turned around. Heard all that before as well.