Given the noise National had long made about the comparatively low use of those sanctions under Labour, the ministry had presumably worked it out and didn’t need a letter. But the letter gives National something to release now.
The fact it was largely theatre does not mean it is not good politics.
Talking tough about the unemployed is almost always good politics for a National Party leader and Luxon does it well, talking about “tough love” and telling the young unemployed that their “free ride is over”.
He can do it, safe in the assumption a fair chunk of voters will feel he is more than justified. Luxon even baldly identified some, saying hard-working lower and middle-income workers, whose taxes paid for the benefit system, should know the Government was not letting beneficiaries off the hook when it came to finding a job. He did not mention high-income earners - perhaps he assumed it was obvious.
It also allowed Luxon to set the agenda on the issue ahead of his coalition buddies, Act leader David Seymour and NZ First leader Winston Peters.
There were the usual mentions about the importance of the benefit system as a safety net and a brief mention for those who go on the benefit and do their utmost to get a job.
However, most of the attention went on the much smaller group that did not bother to do so.
Luxon’s message to the unemployed was that the sanctions were avoidable: beneficiaries who are able to work just have to keep their side of the bargain, as he puts it, and turn up to meetings and job opportunities.
By the end of the year, he’ll be able to do it all over again once the new system is ready to go.
That will see a bit of a three-strikes approach, dressed up as a traffic light. People who breach their conditions once or twice will be on the orange setting and given a talking to, people on the red setting with three or more will be sanctioned.
Unemployment – especially long-term unemployment - has been a sticky issue for a long time.
Asked what evidence there was that sanctions were effective at getting people into work, Luxon simply pointed to the growth in numbers on the unemployment benefit since 2017 and said something had to be done. Those numbers went up massively during Covid-19, then tailed off and then started rising again.
That does identify the problem, but not necessarily the solution. There has been research by the Welfare Expert Advisory Group showing sanctions have limited effectiveness.
It will also raise the long-standing concerns about the impact of sanctioning households where there are children - the lower sanctions that apply to those with children only partly ease that. It also coincides with a bit of a focus week on child poverty - the latest data is due on Thursday.
In the same week, National will push changes to the way benefits are indexed through under urgency, which will mean smaller increases in the coming years.
In the near future, National will also set its targets for child poverty reduction - and then prove it can deliver on them.
National’s sanctions system is shaping up as a bit of a blast from the past, when the former National Government introduced its sanctions, including on sole parents (now revoked by Labour.)
The politics of it hasn’t changed much, either.
Claire Trevett is the Herald’s political editor, based at Parliament in Wellington. She started at the Herald in 2003 and joined the Press Gallery team in 2007. She is a life member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.
