SUSTENANCE ANOMALIES

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 151, 23 March 1938, Page 10

SUSTENANCE ANOMALIES

How is it that a married man with a family of nine is able to draw sustenance allowance and yet have enough money to run a car and get intoxicated? Such a case drew from an Auckland magistrate the remark that “it was scandalous that these men on sustenance should run a motor-car.’’ Incidentally, this man was fined fAO, though the magistrate did not suppose he had any money to pay the fine. The whole thing is farcical. A man allowed to draw sustenance is presumed to be in distress, without means. Yet it 'is clear from the cases of fraud that come before the courts that many are able to draw sustenance who have no right to it, and this suggests that the methods used to test the good faith of applicants are too lax. Sustenance frauds became so scandalously frequent some time ago that the then Acting-Minister of Labour, Mr. Webb, felt it incumbent upon him to issue a very plain warning. If this latest instance isany criterion dishonest exploiters of the sustenance system-—who incidentally defraud their fellow-workers—are still active. Stricter supervision is most obviously needed. It is unfair to the contributors to the Unemployment Fund, which is maintained by a tax on income levied on all classes of the community—amounting this year to over £s,ooo,ooo—that it should be used as a convenience by social parasites. This special taxation has now become extremely unpopular, because the revenue _ rom it is being used in ways that were not contemplated when it was first imposed as an emergency measure for the relief of distress through unemployment. This country is now enjoying a degree of prosperity comparable with the conditions of 1929, when there was no unemployment tax. In normal circumstances the need for it would now have disappeared, and .that shiftless class of parasites now preying upon it would have been thrown upon their own resources. Socialist policy has perpetuated its existence, and so we have a dishonest member of it drawing sustenance, driving.a motor-car, and getting intoxicated. We repeat, the whole thing is farcical.