Electoral candidates for Napier have clashed over National's crackdown on beneficiaries.
On Tuesday, National's social development spokesperson Louise Upston announced, if elected, her party would introduce sanctions for beneficiaries who "persistently do not meet their benefit obligations".
National will introduce a traffic light system to make it "crystal clear" to beneficiaries what their obligations are.
The system:
- Green – The beneficiary is meeting their obligations to prepare for or find work, no change to their benefit
- Orange – One or two breaches of their obligations, face additional requirements, targeted support
- Red – Breached obligations three times, face sanctions such as benefit reductions, suspension, money management and mandatory community work experience.
Against a backdrop of hardcore party supporters waving their hoardings, Labour's Napier candidate Mark Hutchinson and National's candidate Katie Nimon joined AM on Wednesday to canvass some of the issues facing their community.
Hutchinson said Labour had lifted more than 70,000 children out of poverty in its term and believes National's beneficiary policy "will put thousands of kids back into poverty through no fault of their own".
"Our approach to beneficiaries has been to get people into work and get the number of people on benefits down to the lowest in a generation."
Nimon hit back saying the number of people on benefits is "up 60,000 since we were in government", though Hutchinson was quick to point out there were "more people in the country".
"Overall, the percentage of people on the dole is only 3.6 percent, that's phenomenal after a pandemic."
AM's Ryan Bridge put what a beneficiary advocate told AM to Nimon, saying National's policy is going to make more work for them, make people more anxious and will not bring down the number of people on the benefit.
Nimon rejected that and said, "it's a strong policy that's going to help get more people into work".
"We need to give people incentives because at the moment, you know, what is the difference? And so, we've got to encourage people to get back into work."
But Hutchinson doesn't believe a fix is as simple as what National is proposing.
"If a traffic light system as banal and simplistic as that, could make some of the most difficult, intransigent problems in society go away, then we would have magicked that away years ago Katie."
Nimon fired back saying, "doing something is better than nothing".
Watch the full video above for more.
