Prime Minister John Key outraged all the usual suspects – lefties, bludgers, bleeding hearts and the minor political following known as the Labour Party – by saying beneficiaries who resort to food banks do so out of their own "poor choices" rather than because they cannot afford food.
Responding to a question in Parliament about poverty levels, Key said the benefit was enough to live on, saying: "if one budgets properly, one can pay one's bills."
Key's comments horrified the likes of failed ex-Green MP Sue Bradford who heads the Alternative Welfare Working Group and of course left-wing newspaper the Sunday-Star Times. True to form the SST dedicated a whole feature on the tough life of beneficiaries in this weekend’s paper.
However, despite the SST’s best efforts to portray the PM as an evil ogre – picking on hardworking, down-on-their luck beneficiaries – it got hoisted by its own petard by recounting one of their examples. A real poster boy for prudent and judicious use of a benefit – not!
"Jack" (not his real name) outlines his weekly expenses. From the $240 he receives in benefits, he pays $120 in rent, $50 for cigarettes and $20 on beer. Power is automatically deducted at $25 a week. "By the time I have a bit of fun, that's dole day gone."
Jack, 45, has weet-bix for breakfast and a $2 soup kitchen meal for tea. He sleeps most of Monday through Wednesday. Payday is Thursday.
"I haven't had a decent meal or a proper diet for a long time, probably for the past five years.
"I just don't think you function properly. Your head always feels a bit funny because you haven't got proper nutrients ... you get into this cycle where you get depression, and it doesn't help if you can't get up and look after yourself."
"My first cigarette was at intermediate school. Don't blame me, blame society. I just started because it was one of those things that was cool and I just got hooked."
He worked for the Railways for 15 years. "Nobody told me there was a big drinking culture in that workplace." His crew would go to the pub during work hours, returning when the bosses phoned. "The government folded it up and we all got redundancy ... when the Railway money ran out, that's when everything fell apart."
I don’t know about you, but my sympathy for a beneficiary ‘struggling to make ends meet’ evaporates rather quickly when I learn that he is blowing almost one-third of his weekly handout from the taxpayer on booze and fags – hardly the necessities of life!
But just is bad was “Jack’s” justification for his pissing and smoking up $70 each week. Claiming it was everybody else’s fault, but his. It was either his school mates fault for making smoking cool and getting him hooked, or his former colleagues at Railways for forcing him to go down to the pub each night after work and get hammered.
Get a grip “Jack”. And, by the way, Railways was sold in 1993 – some 18 years ago, meaning that Jack - aged 45 - has been living on a benefit since he was 27!
After reading this I have to say: John Key 1 – the SST, “Jack” and the whinging lefties zero. Perhaps “Jack” should – in the words of the George Thorogood song – “Get a haircut and get a real job!”
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