Social Welfare Policy Seen As “Sacred Cow”

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32077, 27 August 1969, Page 14

Social Welfare Policy Seen As “Sacred Cow”

Social welfare policy in New Zealand bad unjustifiably become a sacred cow, said the chairman of the public questions committee (the Rev. D. C. Clark) in his annual report received by the North Canterbury Methodist Synod in Christchurch last evening.

The report will be brought before the Methodist conference in November. Mr Clark said that there was an urgent need to review the whole structure of social welfare policy, the social security system as such, and the role of the Government in redistributing income from the bulk of the income-earn-ing section of society to those inembers who had a particular social need, on ac-

count of old age, physical or mental disability, sickness, unemployment, loss of income-earner or some other factor.

The basic problem seemed to be one of spreading the available funds too widely and too thinly, he said. There bad been a substantial rise in budgetary expenditures with little to show for it in terms of improving the standards of those whose need was greatest.

“Basic rates of benefit have not kept pace with rises in wages or prices,” said Mr Clark. “Furthermore, there has been a marked reluctance by successive governments to make any serious attempt to examine the system as a whole or, more particularly, to consider the adequacy of basic rates of benefit payments.” Particular examples of areas which required consideration included toe principles underlying toe system, the adequacy of present basic rates and a more realistic assessment of needs and the relationship between these and benefit outlays.

Consideration should also be given to the nature of provision for retirement and old age and whether a social insurance system was called for, perhaps with an income, and the inclusion within the system of a wider concept of need. Within this context the present beneficiaries of voluntary welfare work should be considered.

The synod agreed that the Methodist Conference urge the Government to undertake or initiate a complete review of social welfare policy.