Articles By Lindsay Mitchell

The Sham that is Labour's Welfare Policy
Tuesday, November 15, 2011

In an effort to differentiate themselves from National, Labour is promising to extend the In Work Tax Credit (IWTC) to beneficiary parents and scrap any work-testing of the domestic purposes benefit (DPB). The first can only be a cynical vote catcher because the IWTC was a Labour creation after all.  Or are we to accept that it was a good idea in government but not in opposition? [More...]

The Church in the Welfare Debate
Friday, July 9, 2010

The emergence of a 'shadow' welfare working group is an interesting if somewhat predictable  development. Predictable because any welfare debate is destined to become highly political and the idea that all views can be heard and accommodated is farcical. That's  inevitable when any social service  -  health, education or welfare  - is primarily  the domain of the state.  The only money  government has is that which it generates from the public,  and who then benefits from its redistribution  is a highly contentious matter. All parties wanting a slice of the pie, either directly or as advocates for others, naturally become very nervous and defensive when there is a prospect the status quo may be upset. [More...]

There is None so Blind etc
29 March 2010

Welfare commentator Lindsay Mitchell responds to Tapu Misa.
Tapu Misa, writing about the National government's welfare reforms in her Monday column, said my problem is with “unwed teenage mothers who keep swelling the ranks of the DPB”  because the idea of the DPB is “too seductive to pass up. Who would choose this as a lifestyle option? Not the seventh form girls at the Auckland private school I spoke to recently. They'd never even heard of the DPB.” [more...]

More is broken than just the tax system
January 2010

Writing in Friday's New Zealand Herald, Susan St John succeeds in showing how complex and counter-productive the state's attempts to redistribute wealth have become. But because the writer believes in the notion of state responsibility for income equality she is merely hoping that the government can come up with a better design on the back of "an adequate and comprehensive review."
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Condemning women to live with violence
September 2009

The accepted wisdom is that welfare benefits enable women to escape violence. This assertion is frequently used to reject any moves to reform the DPB. But turning this belief on its head, the evidence shows that welfare is actually making many women more vulnerable to violence.
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Increased Welfare Payments Impact on Fertility
January 12, 2009

New British research, from the Institute of Fiscal Studies, has shown that increased welfare payments have coincided with a boost in births and drop in contraceptive use among the group most affected by the higher payments. New Zealand fertility trends reflect those in Britain and it is entirely possible that the same trend is occurring here.
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