Dependency

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• Tax/benefit/welfare/savings reform is needed to encourage self-reliance and reduce dependency in retirement.
• Each generation should provide for themselves to the maximum extent possible.
• Assist and reward effort and, in a broader sense, self-help, participation and dignity. (more here)

Not set out on their website.

• Labour believes that sustainable employment is the best way for individuals to achieve social and economic independence. It also helps industries and businesses to grow, prosper and in turn assist more workers to develop greater skills.
• Under Labour, the unemployment rate fell and we introduced significant increases in the minimum wage to boost incomes for those at the bottom of the labour market. We ensured that Work and Income was better connected to the needs of employers to identify their workforce needs. We introduced industry partnerships as an effective way for industry and government to work together to minimise skill and labour shortages, and maximise job opportunities.
  Labour will re-establish Work and Income’s primary focus as finding sustainable employment for those ready to work, rather than make-work schemes or punitive sanctions against those who have genuine barriers to employment or important childcare responsibilities. (more here)

Not set out on their website.

Not set out on their website.

• Focus on welfare fraud and those abusing the system by data-matching information in benefit applications with information held by other agencies by making greater greater use of technology.
• If someone is on the run from the Police, with a warrant out for their arrest, we will stop their benefit
• Sanction jobseekers whose recreational use of drugs affects their ability to apply for and 

  secure a job.
• Review the Social Security Act, focusing on how to make it easier to prosecute people who defraud the taxpayer. (more here)

• Assess those who have been unemployed for a year or more for work readiness. If they are not work-ready then they will be referred to training and other services (e.g. health) that will help them to be. If they are work-ready they will undertake part-time work on a community project or for a voluntary agency of their own choosing, or they will be placed in wage-subsidised employment, where they will receive in-work training. Priority for wage-subsidised places will be given to the older unemployed and those with disabilities. (more here)