The National party has released its welfare policy; a National government would require single parents receiving the domestic purposes benefit to work 15 hours a week or undertake training when their children reach school age. In the past leader John Key has accused those receiving this benefit of “breeding for a business.” The requirement for part time work would also apply to 5600 sickness and invalid beneficiaries categorised as capable of working. People who have been on a benefit longer than a year would be required to reapply and beneficiaries who need frequent benefit advances would be required to obtain budgeting advice- those who do not take it up would not be eligible for further advances.
Child Poverty Action Group chief research analyst Donna Wynd told Radio New Zealand that the policy would only affect about 38,000 of the 96,000 single parents on the benefit, which she says seems like a lot of policy work for a small number of people. She also pointed out that single parent families have double the rate of disabled children compared with the general population, and it would also be hard to find work with suitable hours.

It 1991 the National government cut benefits by 20%, putting most beneficiaries on below-subsistence incomes. And in 1999 National brought in a ‘Work for the dole’ scheme requiring those on the benefit to work for it. After winning the election that year Labour scraped work-for-the-dole but retained the 1991 benefit cuts.
One political commentator has described National’s welfare stance as:

simply bad policy, particularly in an economic downturn when people are going to be needing the state more than ever to insulate them from outside shocks. It failed in the 90’s, and it will fail now. It is almost certainly bad politics as well. By dredging up failed policy from the 90’s, National has shown that their thinking is still firmly mired in the past