New Zealand’s unemployed have gone on strike today in protest of thousands of cuts to unemployment jobs that were announced over the weekend.
Minister of Social Development Paula Bennett said yesterday that around 29,000 New Zealanders had left the benefit roles and entered work since 2009, including more than 17,000 from unemployment benefits.
While many are hailing those numbers as a positive step in the right direction, the nation’s unemployed are angry, saying that the government isn’t doing enough to support New Zealand’s unemployment sector.
To express their anger, thousands of unemployed have decided to go on strike today, taking to the streets of Auckland and Wellington, and refusing to go about their usual business of doing nothing.
Organiser of the Wellington strike, Arthur Harrington, said that the people he knew were fearful.
“We’ve got people out here who’ve been unemployed for five, six, seven years, and now they’re afraid they might get a job,” he said. “How the government can look at seventeen, eighteen thousand losses in the unemployment sector over four years, and then turn around and say they’re doing a good job is just beyond me.”
Prime Minister John Key, not long home from his one week trip to China, said he was disappointed to learn of the protests.
“Look, you can agree with the policy, disagree with the policy. We can talk about outcomes, if you like,” he said. “But there are hundreds of people, mums and dads across this country, who are relying on those people to stay inside and not be seen, and frankly I just think it’s irresponsible to say ‘we’re not going to do that anymore.’”
Labour Leader David Shearer fired back at those comments, saying that it was the government, not beneficiaries, being irresponsible.
“If the Prime Minister is going to say it’s irresponsible for hard-working unemployed to just stop not working, then what about him and his responsibilities?” said Shearer. “This government has, in the past, given full and ample support to the unemployed, and then today it turns around and says ‘well, actually, there are less unemployed and less people on benefits, and we’re okay with that.’”
Associate Social Development Minister Chester Borrows said that, while the government disagreed with the protest actions, it was fully engaged with the protestors, and hoped to reach an agreement soon to stop the strike and get the unemployed back to not working.
“Obviously, we understand that yesterday’s news wasn’t good for the unemployed,” said Borrows. “But tomorrow’s another day, and we want to assure them that the government is working on a number of things – cuts to DOC and the possible closure of Tiwai Point, for example – that we hope will create thousands of new unemployment jobs.”