John MacDonald: The community work sanction is an opportunity

Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

The Government is describing the 20 hours unpaid community work that people on the Jobseeker benefit will be made to do from today if they don’t follow the rules, as a penalty.

And there’ll be no shortage of people cheering on from the sidelines, who will also be seeing it as a penalty.

I think it’s great too. But not for the obvious reasons.

The Opposition doesn’t like it, saying it will mean people getting stuck on the benefit for longer; that it could push people into homelessness, and they’re describing the community work as “forced labour”.

The Green Party’s social development spokesperson Ricardo Menéndez March is saying: “This community work sanction will leave people without homes, without food, and with worse employment outcomes. Louise Upston is making it harder for beneficiaries to find employment.”

But he needs to open his eyes a bit.

Because I think the complete opposite. I’m seeing it as an opportunity for people - not a punishment.

Because we all know how easy it is for someone to go down a rabbit hole and how difficult it can be for them to come out of it. For all sorts of reasons - including unemployment.

It can happen to people in all sorts of situations and I reckon it must be very easy for someone who is unemployed to fall into the trap of putting stuff off and isolating themselves.

Thinking they’ll get around to writing up that CV tomorrow. Thinking they’ve got heaps of time to get that job application and, generally, letting time drift away on them.

And, in the process of all that delay, delay, delay, they start to feel worse about themselves and they cut themselves off from people and society. To the point where they look up one day and wonder where the past year has gone.

And they know themselves that if they just got out a bit and mixed with people then they might start to feel a bit better about themselves and might be more motivated to sort their life out.

But straight away the prospect of trying to organise something is all too much and nothing changes.

These are the types of people who don’t do what the Government says is expected of people on the Jobseeker benefit. They don’t apply for jobs; they don’t show-up for interviews; and they don’t attend employment expos. Because they’re broken.

But if they get a call from MSD one day telling them to turn up at such-and-such a place, on this day at this time, to do community service work - then I think it could flick a switch inside some people.

They’ll see it as the kick up the pants they know they need and they will turn up and they will do their five hours of unpaid community service work each week for four weeks and, while they’re doing it, they’ll be meeting people; they’ll feel like they’re contributing something and they won’t be as stuck as they had been.

For some of them - not all of them, of course - but some of them, won’t want to let go of that feeling of belonging somewhere and being part of something and they will do all the things the Government wants them to do and they’ll much have a much greater chance of finding work and turning their life around.

You might think I’m being over-optimistic. That I’m giving people on the dole too much credit. You might think that if someone wants a job, they’ll find one.

But there is more to it than that. Yes, I’ve made my way in the world. Whenever I’ve found myself out of work, I’ve always managed to find something or been able to make something happen.

But I don't take that for granted and I know very well that, just like the next person, I’m only a few steps away from going down that rabbit hole I’m talking about.

We could be that person I describe before who loses their job, loses their confidence, loses their self-respect and who looks up and finds that they’ve pretty much sat on the couch for a year. Hiding from the noise and letting their world get smaller and smaller and smaller.

And that is why I think the Government is actually doing unemployed people who don’t follow the benefit rules a favour.

It might think 20 hours of unpaid community work is a punishment. But I think it could be the best thing any government has done for the unemployed in New Zealand.

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