hey i have a case manager again! no i dont..yes i do..no i dont..oh im so confuse the way they keep changing their labels and titles. perhaps thats the plan? because the services never really change, there just shuffled around, re organized, re branded but at the end of the day its still the same narrow minded structure that causes it to fail. why not ask people on welfare what would work to best help them get into jobs? i mean after all some of us have been captives to that system for years! some deserving and some not deserving for sure, but some deserving.( deliberately put deserving twice because most would emphasis the word not deserving to highlight their opposition to people on benefits.) That said. i went in to wins today with the flue after having spent the morning at the doctors on the nebbulizor, nebliza nebulizer for assma Asthma. god if this spell checkker doesnt start to recognize my Dyslexia im going to introduce it to my Tourette Syndrome. ok so the point i was making is that i went in to winz not to give them all the flue by the way as someone had beaten me to it and the lady that served me wasnt looking to hot on it either. apparently Im now told i will be having to turn up to a meeting on a monthly basis with my case manager to meet and talk about my work obligations. Its all quite fuzzy in my mind as my heard was stuffed up with snot and and half the time i could hardly hear what she was saying. i said i cant hear you, and she totally understood i think because she couldn,t seem to hear me that well either. anyway i asked some questions as to how this new monthly meeting could help me and what i would get out of it that i couldnt already do from my self employed income. Sudden pause deep frown then response as predicted, have you declared your income? I so would have liked to have not leaked that little bit of information out just then because it detracted from the point i was trying to make. so after we resolve that i will now be required to bring in a set of income, expense, statements every month, we then got on with the show. so what can you do for me that i cant do for myself with self employment earnings? Well she said, we can assist with medical expenses, transport and a few other things my brain wasnt interested in. Im not interested i said, although i was a little interested after just blowing 50 bucks at the doctors. however i resisted the tempt and asked and what else would i get out of these meetings? well we have agencies outside winz that can help you transition(god i hate that word its like a ride in an elevator to no where. into employment. oh you mean like work bridge? She looks at me suprised that i know about it as though its new lol. heck i was with work bridge 30 years ago so i know its nothing new. so ok she must have decided the ruse was up and that i had realized that it was all just another way of dishing up the same stuff in a different wrapper. So she get s back to the self employment issue and opens a screen. client verbally admits self employment activities. ok just to be clear i actually do have a medical issue besides azzma fatigue and a heart valve transplant as well as periods of depression so work in any way classed as full time just doesnt work for me so self employment became an option because as i saw it if i was sick down or otherwise unable i could just monitor my own needs and work withing my limitations at the time. now i know out there that there are a few employers who have the compassion and ability to cope with people with disabilities and with the aid of agencies like work bridge usually can find a placement with them. But i dont believe that they could do any better for me than i could and Ive experienced this in the past. I decided i would do what ever work i could get and as a result started picking up window cleaning work to start with and then painting. That of course meant i had to purchase tools and materials etc as i was able to add to the few i had so i could take on bigger jobs should they arise, so as you can expect my ledger shows more expenses than income at this point. Now most of us know that winz has a program that they run where if you jump through these hoops and develop a business plan and bla bla we might just help you by making you stand on tipi toes oh so like a diamond reach for the sky just before it all comes crashing down around your ears as they say no. but as far as im concerned its an overly expensive program that sets the Barr to high to obtain the ability to keeps some government support going whilst you grow a business and hopefully get to step away from that support. I mean thats the hope right? so i decided to go it alone and yes whilst receiving a benefit i have been working and im proud of it. I even get to pay secondary tax on it like them rich dudes. i have declared income paid through a business that takes paye and i have not declared income that directly pertains to my self employment activities this year, because as some of us know excluding those at winz, business dont run on a month by month cycle it runs on a tax year. However i can give monthly reports of activities as far as income verses expenses go but what about working out all my depreciation, tools, insurance costs, acc levies etc. all these factors would have to be included on the monthly report to accurately gauge true income figures and do not allow for what i might have to invest in pre job quotes and materials before i even get the next job. I new where this was going strait away. they wanted to know how much they could reduce my benefit by. Any fair enough if i could sustain some consistant figures that would make this possible but as yet i cant. The hole point of the exercise here for them is that they may be paying me too much benefit money compared to what my earnings are. our very basic needs for a family of 5 are $760 per week. Why you ask? rent $400. why should rent be the same as a frigging mortgage? from winz we get $490.00 per week and thats with a 13 week extra help of $30.00 then we have child support of 221 for the kids which brings it to $711.00. Where did i get the $50.00 to blow on the doctors this morning? did i mention the credit card? already maxed out. no i used money from the business account to pay for it rather than getting winz to give it to me and take money from all those poor tax payers, which i might add i am one of. I actually didnt want to get it from winz. paula bennet claims that many people do not apply for the extra funds that are available to them.we know this is because they are to intimidated to do it or afraid or tired of the run around or abuse. she sees it as getting results and perhaps this keeps her blind to whats really going on for us? Now all business know that there comes a day of reckoning usually march 31st when you start hunting high and low for any receipt that you can prove to be tax deductible. so you can legally not pay tax on business related running costs. its allowed. IRD even tells you what things are allowed deductions, and for most business i would think that this the norm. But not at winz no there you have to deal with the immaturity of little frightened children who hate it when you stop being afraid of them. and face it how Manny kiwis arent afraid of them after just one dealing with them? Now do i have a point? i will get to it soon i promise. I once went to ird to see if the would support me and my family under the Working for Families Tax Credits which guarantees that the government will give you support to the tune of around 22,000.00 a year as long as you work 30 hours a week be it you or your partner, if you have children. i thought surely i could do that with my medical condition and of course there is a stipulation that if you earn over that amount then you pay it back dollar for dollar but you would still be OK. so i went in to apply and the lady sat me down and i explained that i really didnt want to be on a benefit but wanted to be working and just needed some support till i was able to generate enough income to be self supporting. she seemed ok at this point untill i mentioned i could easily do 30 hours between me and my wife at self employed income to qualify and then that frown returned again. Actually now i think back im sure thats the most commonest expression we get from the cradle to the grave. Anyway she stared back at me with almost disbelief and said sorry we dont support business. and i remember thinking how bloody right you are. this government doesnt support business. so i left. Ok back to main thrust of this things what ever it is. i guess Im frustrated. at the end of the year i will have tax to pay! so what so do most people. whats the big deal. so i sit there and explain that being self employed is a way for me to still be able to participate in earning money whist monitoring my physical well being. this she seemed to grasp and then she said your not allowed to be self employed whilst on a sickness benefit. Im not? no only if your on job seeker support. im like wait on didnt you guys just make it all the same thing? i am on job seeker im not on job seeker? started to feel that fuzzy confusion creep over me again. ok so remember what i was saying how they switch labels titles and the such to give you the impression that things have changed but in reality they havent? well this another case in point the sickness benefit still exists in entirety as it was before the national government but the same name has been given to both sickness and unemployment but within the frame work two branches emerge where you are led indiscriminately once again back to the old unemployment or sickness benefit regime. Its probably why the unemployment figures remain high despite what national would term a major success in getting people of one benefit or another only to realize that all they have done is is hide the acorn under the cup, spin it around a few times and ask you to guess where the nut is. At this point i want to cry Here i am ha ha. My point once again is this. Couldnt we the people. do it better? why must we rely on government bureaucrats to play these silly games with our lives by way of intimidating, bullying tactics that scare and threaten us when they no full well they offer no real solutions? They may have experience but its mostly as dictator not as a public servant to help those in real need. So what about You the people who have endured this for so many years, living in fear of being left penniless because you had become unprofitable, expendable, uneconomically viable. If you have a PC why not use it? You may have much more knowledge of what would work best for you to be able to be gainfully employed or self employed. your not just a pack of dole bludgers, your office workers, accademics, students of sciences, mothers, fathers, people with long memories, ha you almost got mammories but i caught that one in time, postmen and woman, accountants, no probably not accountants, someone help with this list, surly we cant all be con men, fraudsters and other stuff. getting tired now. lets think of alternatives not just complain and kick one government out just to put another one in its place with the same old material as the last one. flood the government parties with ideas as well as your experiences whilst in the system. I remember when i was in social welfare care when i was a 14 year old kid and i was asked if i wanted to meet with a panel of social workers to give them some insight as to what it was like to be in their care. this was back in 79 or 1980. i was kind of shy and shell shocked and i didnt think i would have said anything except how utterly broken i felt to have been abandoned, how the hell did i know what was wrong with their system. i lacked the courage for it so i said no. But its time for people to be bold in this day. protests are one thing and the government and media have stirred up enough decent against unemployed people to know that any protest we make will by and large be ignored or create hostility from the working class. but solutions! giving the government alternatives to whats been done before. we could be a vanguard country again, leading the way instead of following along mewing like lambs to the slaughter. find ways that can allow a person to keep some level of dignity and hope for the future as they dare i say it, Transition themselves into gainful employment. what i propose is that someone might create a group or page where all your ideas could be expressed and accessible to those in power so that they may be better educated on how to treat us like people and not like a disease that blights the productivity of new Zealand. Im hoping a page just like this one. Yes there is a problem with debt but you and i know that debt is created by the decisions of those at the top not at the bottom. it reminds me of a movie called Cold Mountain . https://youtube/watch?v=xotWaUIAuC4 i know im sick and tired of being part of the political football tossed around every election and i so hope you are too. Good night all
Posted on: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 11:09:24 +0000
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