Social Welfare System in New Zealand

New Zealand is a great place to live in. Beautiful sceneries, nice weather and people, and social welfare system that takes care of its people who are in need of support.  I strongly believe that every country needs to have a good social welfare system.  Most western countries do.  Unfortunately, this is lacking very much in the Asian countries. We in New Zealand should be grateful for what we have in this country.  The social welfare system in New Zealand may not be the best in the world, nevertheless it is still good.  Many families and individual have benefited from this. Sadly, there are quarters who are abusing the welfare system.  Many who are in the welfare system should not be in the system.  These people believe that if the government is giving out financial assistance then they will stand in the queue to get it regardless of whether they need it or not.  These people are shameless, they are opportunist in the lowest level.  It is disgusting how some people can own $250,000 worth of cars and other assets, yet live in a state house and collect monthly benefits.  This is daylight robbery !!

It is time that Work and Income New Zealand (WINZ) conducts proper checks before approving a person's entitlement for welfare.  I think we need a stringent Means Test in place.  Every individual who applies for welfare will have to pass the Means Test.  The means Test should take into account  :-
- the individual's income,
- the joint family's income,
- if the applicant has adult children, their children's income needs to be taken into account regardless of whether they are living seperately. This is because, I believe that children should be responsible for their parents first, not the state. The state's money is the public's money.
- WINZ should also conduct assets search to ensure that the applicant has no hidden assets.  WINZ should not take their word for it.
- WINZ should also ensure that they obtain consent from the applicants for the banks to share their financial details with WINZ.  WINZ should write to every bank to ensure that the applicant has no undisclosed bank accounts.