By AUDREY YOUNG
National leader Bill English last night said beneficiaries were buying expensive sports shoes with social welfare vouchers that people in work could not afford.
"The social welfare chit is back," he said in a speech in Dunedin.
He recounted what one woman, whose husband had a sports shop, had
told him: "Often people come in with vouchers from social welfare because they say they need new shoes. They buy $200 sports shoes, shoes I haven't got.
"We see girls with prams and their babies in Nike shoes and they come in to see what else they can buy with their welfare chit."
That was Labour's welfare reform, said Mr English, and it was not fair on people in low-paid jobs who could never afford $200 sports shoes.
National was considering a time limit on the dole, and penalties for those who did not actively seek work.
It was considering contracting out work placement of beneficiaries to private and community agencies, as Australia did.
National would reinstate a work-test for domestic-purpose beneficiaries for return to part-time work once the youngest child was six and full-time work by the time the child was 14.
