Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Willow-Jean Prime: Labour Social Development spokesperson on jobseeker numbers

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Willow-Jean Prime: Labour Social Development spokesperson on jobseeker numbers · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Benefit numbers not looking to flash for the government. The
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Social Development Minister Louise Upstin wanted fifty thousand people off
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: job seeker support by twenty thirty, but the Treasury forecasts
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: still show ed'll miss the mark by sixty thousand. In
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: other words, it's going up and it's all forty four
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: percent higher than they initially wanted with those targets. To
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  Speaker 1: talk about this, Willow jene Prime is Labour's Social Development
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  Speaker 1: and Employment spokesperson.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Good morning to you, will I, Good morning Andrew.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: So you said the target was not sabotage, The target
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  Speaker 1: was not inherited from you guys. They said that they
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: promoted and they failed to deliver. It was Louise Upstin
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: in the wrong for setting an ambitious target.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Well, what this government is She was wrong to set
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  Speaker 2: this target of fifty thousand job seekers and ever since
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  Speaker 2: they have become the government and she has become the minister,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: the information that they have been provided with shows that
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: that target is unachievable. When challenged on this fact, she
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: continues to distract and talk about the ambitious task that
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: she's set herself, but failing to acknowledge the challenges that
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: we are actually dealing with. So we had this exchange
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: yesterday in Select Committee about her target that she wants
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: to focus on, and I think at the same time
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: the punitive measures that the government has put in place
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: for beneficiaries when failing to acknowledge that there are so
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: many people who are looking for work, who are wanting work,
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: but they haven't created the conditions for more work. So
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: the example that I gave her yesterday was a recent
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  Speaker 2: job application, over twelve hundred people in Auckland applying for
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  Speaker 2: one cleaning job. So these job seeking numbers that she's got,
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: people are wanting work, but they cannot get work.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Are you, though, failing to acknowledge the difficult situation that
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: we're in, the uncontrollable factors like the around war in
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Trump's tariffs. Because Louise ups and shot back at you
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: yesterday and she said, under your under your regime, and
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: there was a fifty four percent rise in number of
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  Speaker 1: job seekers compared to fourteen percent over the last two
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  Speaker 1: and a half years.
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  Speaker 2: Well, the government likes her conveniently forget that we were
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  Speaker 2: dealing with a global pandemic when throwing those numbers around.
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  Speaker 2: And what she also seems to forget is that under
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  Speaker 2: our government we actually had unemployment down to three point
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  Speaker 2: two percent. Under this government it's five point three percent.
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  Speaker 2: It's decades high unemployment. And that is my concern that
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: I was raising the Minister, that she continues to focus
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  Speaker 2: on this fantasy target of fifty thousand less when all
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  Speaker 2: reports say it's actually going to be sixty thousand more,
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: and failing to acknowledge and address the fact that there
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: just simply aren't the jobs for these job seeker beneficiaries
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  Speaker 2: to go into.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: What's wrong with the ambition.
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  Speaker 2: I think the ambition that she has is a bumper
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  Speaker 2: sticker target. It is a distraction from the real issues
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: that New Zealanders are facing. There are New Zealanders who
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: do not believe that the government has done enough to
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: create the economic conditions to create employment, so we have
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: a decade high unemployment. We have seen the government investing
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: billions into landlords and tobacco companies. They have canceled state
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: housing builds and other infrastructure projects that have led to
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: significant job losses. They're announcing another nine thousand job cuts
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: from the public sector. New Zealanders are doing it really tough.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Now before this is before we even had the latest
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: conflict in Iran.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: All right well as jem Prian. Thank you so much
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: for getting up so early for us.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
• 3:41
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• 3:44
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