THE PRESS THURSDAY, JULY 16, 1987. National’s welfare policy

Press, 16 July 1987, Page 20

THE PRESS THURSDAY, JULY 16, 1987. National’s welfare policy

Few taxpayers, and probably not many social welfare beneficiaries, would argue with the assertion of the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Bolger, that the welfare system has “lost its way.” Whether voters will accept that the National Party can navigate it back on to the right track is another matter. The welfare policy that the party released this week has a few features calculated to gain or hold votes in some sections of the community. Equally, these facets of the policy might antagonise other voters, or at least confirm the opinions of some whose support would not have been likely anyway.

Repeal of the surtax on national superannuation, and the gradual reform of the scheme to delay payment until after the age of 65, can be counted on to appeal to superannuitants while giving taxpayers some hope that the burden of the scheme’s cost will also be addressed. Scrapping the unemployment benefit and replacing it with training programmes and community work — and withholding benefits from anyone not prepared to train or to work for it — also has an easy appeal; but there is still too much guesswork about how many training places will be available and what sort of work is contemplated.

Drawing a bead on the domestic purposes benefit must be counted a risky election tactic; the attempts of a previous National Government to curb abuse of the benefit played no small part in the unseating of the then Minister of Social Welfare, Mr Bert Walker, in 1978. The social and economic sense in doing away with the blanket availability of the domestic purposes benefit could again become obscured by an emotional debate; but many of those who do not consider themselves personally disadvantaged by the proposal are likely to see merit in the renewed emphasis on individual responsibility and reduced reliance on the State that it embodies.

The biggest hurdles in the way of National’s social policy are not matters of philosophical direction, however. Many of the features had been announced earlier. With the exception of the new policy on the

domestic purposes benefit, most of the package was known to the public and agreement with or opposition to the principles involved already decided. Any voters who have reserved final judgment until they had been told just how the package was to be drawn together financially, where promised savings were to come from and how the promised policies were to be paid for, are little wiser. The policy announcement lacks a most important ingredient: details of where the money is coming from and going to. This uncertainty has been compounded by the pledge contained in the party’s economic policy that $lOOO million would be pruned from Government spending under a National Government. References by party spokesmen, from Mr Bolger down, to the rapid increase in spending on social welfare, and to the high actual cost of welfare, can be interpreted only as an indication that substantial savings will be made in this vote. The announcement of the full policy could have been expected to show just where and now National hoped to achieve them. The opportunity was missed and less charitable voters probably will put that down to inability rather than reluctance. National’s best chance of impressing voters probably was with a pretty detailed blueprint of how its policies would be achieved. Simply stating that the system has “lost its way” and promising to do some things differently from the present Government hardly gives voters confidence that the party has a workable plan. For its part, the Government can agree earnestly and magnanimously with Doctor Bolger’s diagnosis, concur that something must be done, but say it is delaying the prescription until specialist advice has been received from the Royal Commission on Social Welfare. The National Party could have tried to make some capital from the argument that, by then, the taxpayer might have bled to death; the point was not taken up, suggesting — once again — that the homework is not being done.