Of deception and class war?

Today the Herald has reported on the treasury department's plans to reduce spending on the welfare of our most vulnerable - solo-mothers, children and the mentally ill.

The policies, as reported include:

*Move work-ready people from sickness and invalid benefits on to dole.
*Make sole parents look for paid work before youngest child turns 6.
*Contract out welfare services to private companies and charities.
*Increase sick leave and parental leave to give employers incentives to help workers back to work.

Ever since the Fourth Labour Government of 1984-1990, the treasury has been proscribing hard-right policies, designed to maximise profits for the wealthiest New Zealanders and leave you and me with an ever decreasing share of the economic pie. So this wish-list of newly-sharpened weapons to use in the class war is hardly surprising coming from them.

What's really going to be interesting is John Key's response. Will they adopt these measures? They did after all, outline several of these concepts in a policy document that was released last year - which incidentally has now mysteriously disapeared from the internet, the file having suffered irreparable damage.

http://rogernome.blogspot.com/2008/08/nats-benefits-policies.html

http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2008/08/nationals_benefits_policy.html

So it looks like Key will be making these suggestions appear as treasury's, when really it's what Key and co have been planning all along. They know that the reality of these changes won't make them more popular. It will only add to a growing awareness in New Zealand that the right is looking to re-entrench a late 19th century victorian under-class made up of the unemployed, ill and under-employed (As a self-confessed "classic liberal" this is the stuff of David Farrar's wet dreams). This keeps "gross profit trend growth" of NZ's companies at around 8% while wages hover at around 2% trend growth (for those lucky enough to be in paid employment).

It will be interesting to see how many of the treasury's suggestions are taken, and how much they'll resemble National's Policy Document. This will tell us how much the National Party is willing to stand up and take responsibility for its more ruthless, anti-human policies, and how much it will lay the blame at the door of treasury...