Pagani on welfare reform

John Pagani blogs:

The sections National has agreed to are not especially obnoxious. The sections are mainly about intervention to have someone else manage household budgets or use a payment card when childrens’ needs are not being met.

This isn’t entitlement reform. It isn’t slashing benefits. In order to disagree with them you have to construct an argument about entitlement to a living wage, and somehow also say that parents should be paid by the state to parent even when they’re not doing their job as parent. The consequence of failure is more help rather than punishment….

It’s interesting that National has allowed them to be branded as Act gains, which will provoke an automatic assumption that the gains are hopelessly right wing. But they will be highly popular if the public research into voter attitudes to welfare holds.