Analyzing Income Support Policy In NZ: A Meaningful Essay On The Relationship Between Private Troubles And Social Policy.

1. Introduce the relationship between private troubles and social policy

Identify the social policy issue and justify why you have selected the policy issue. It must be a NZ social policy.

2. Analyse the development of a social policy
Brief analysis of the development of the selected social policy issue.
Stating when it became an issue (history)/ Treaty of Waitangi and how responses to it have changed over time.
Give a clear account of the current responses to the social policy issue.
Critique current social policy responses using the literature to assess their strengths and weaknesses.

3. Critically evaluate human rights and indigenous rights - 1200- words

Critically evaluate NZ's progress on human rights and social justice in relation to two parts of human rights in NZ.
2010 Nga Tika Tangata O Aotearoa 2010 (Human Rights Commission, 2010)
a) You must discuss Part 4 Human Rights and the Treaty of Waitangi and
b) Choose one part from Section 4: Rights of Specific Groups (that is, choose one of the specific groups to discuss (for example rights of disabled people; rights of migrants and so on). 

The link between private troubles and social policy

The social justice is a perception of fair relationship between an individual and society. It stresses on people to receive benefits and burden of cooperation. The social policy is referred to the policies which are used by the government for the welfare and social defence. The social problems affect and damages society, so the social policies are recommended to overcome the issues. In this report, the relationship between private troubles and social policy has been defined. The income support policy has been selected to alleviate poverty in New Zealand. The development of social policy has been analysed. Finally, the human rights and indigenous rights have been critically evaluated.

The private troubles have become public issues as it affects a group of people. The troubles are more private and relatable to the individuals. For instance, the unemployment is an individual problem due to lack of skills. It is a personal problem if one person is being unemployed but becomes a national issue if the 25% population of the nation is being unemployed.  The social policy undertakes the human needs or the issues related to the humans. The social policies are created to overcome the private troubles on the national level. The income support policy is taken as a social policy issue to overcome the private trouble which is poverty (Cancian & Haskins, 2014). Many people in New Zealand are unable to earn sufficient income in order to meet basic expenses due to age, impairment, unemployment, underemployment and low wages. The income support policy is all about ensuring the basic needs of the citizens of New Zealand so that they can live a dignified life. It empowers people who are not able to change their situations to take greater accountability for their live phases. The green party’s income support policy endorses restructurings to the income support systems planned to eradicate poverty in New Zealand. It encourages citizens to contribute in a free and fair society to their maximum capability. The policy is also part of the complete green vision for the social and economic impartiality and reads on the aspects like children , work, and employment, housing, education, health and more (Chow, et. al. 2017). The income support policy supports to people by contributing to society through the programmes like employment. It puts greater emphasis on the sufficiency, simplicity, and universality. The income support policy focuses on the social justice, equitable compensation and meeting needs of people.

The income support policy focuses on the standard of the living of people and empowers them to participate in the community. The policy is geared towards achieving poverty relief. The family package bill is designed by the government to provide social assistance for the improvement of low and middle-income families and reduction of child poverty (Bradford, Hawkins & Acker, 2015). The government focuses on the children in order to ensure that they get the best in life. This package also provides income support for the families without children. The government also provides advice to the people in order to access the housing services needed by them. It also helps to reshape the housing system in NZ and provides better service to the people who are homeless and living insecure. The government works with the agencies such as treasury, ministry of business, housing New Zealand Corporation and more (Weltin, et. al. 2017).

Development of a social policy

The social policy is an introduction of social amenities and the welfare state. The administrative social amenities comprise plans for health, housing, income maintenance, education and social work. The social policy affects the service users including poverty, disability, family policy and more. The social policies state to the policies which are used by the government for the welfare and social protection so that welfare can be established in the society. These are developed to meet the needs of people (De Wispelaere, 2016).

The income support policy is focussed on the alleviation of poverty and it’s impacts. There are 3 alternative causes of poverty. As per one view, poverty is due to lack of motivation. It is society’s barrier to opportunity. The poor people are trapped in poverty due to inadequate education and services. According to the third view, the disincentive effect of the government policy is behind the income and employment problem of the poor (Verbruggen, Apel, Van Der Geest & Blokland, 2015). The poverty is lack of food, water and shelter. It also means not having accessibility to the basic services such as not having a job, not being able to see a doctor and more. There are two measures of the extreme poverty such as households such as incomes below half of the official poverty line and the poverty gap. The poverty rate of U.S rose from 11.3% in 2000 to 15% in 2011. At the same time, the percentage of persons with incomes below half of the poverty line rose from 4.5% to 6.6%. The poverty gap is the difference between the poverty line and income of a person. According to a report, in 2012, the poverty gap per person in poor families was $2806. The inequality is an important ethical issue. The economic mobility is affected by the inequality (Fazel, Geddes, & Kushel, 2014).

The income support policy includes paid work, unpaid work of caring for children and family members and the volunteers. As per this policy, every person should manage sufficient income to contribute in the community in order to live safe and healthy. The policy is committed to providing full employment. It ensures that there is enough work for everyone who needs it. The review of income and support policy reflects that the state played an active role in providing for the welfare of the people of New Zealand (Tikly, 2016). The child poverty states the percentage of children living in families with the income less than fifty percentage of the national median. According to UNICEF, the child poverty rate in New Zealand is less than in the U.S. the consequences for the children of poverty have been highlighted. The children from low-income families have more than double the prevalence of lasting illness and disabilities compared to the children living in families with higher income. The development of social policies addresses child poverty by addressing child poverty by increasing sustenance for parents through family tax credits and accommodation supplement payments (Gilbert, 2017). The income support policy focuses on everyone to have standard living which enables them to participate in the community. The policy ensures that people have sufficient income for their wellbeing. The emphasis is given on the sufficiency, simplicity, and universality and people are in meeting their potential and generating a fulfilling life. The policy protects all the benefits by associating rates to a fixed percentage of average wages. The income support policy has replaced social security act 1964 by a modest two-tier benefit system comprising of collective base rate. The child benefit is promoted by capitalizing towards a home deposit. It supports the action of the government to address the problem of benefit diminution for the persons stirring into employment and the elimination of the poverty trap. The policy removes discrimination from the tax credit regimes and supports to carry out a minimum of hours of voluntary work per week (Overland, Grasdal & Reme, 2018). It also focuses on improving the work culture and income so that individuals are behaved with pride and esteem and enable to access full privileges on time.

The treaty of Waitangi is representatives of the British crown and Maori chiefs. The green policy enables to work with hapu and iwi to review income support policy and execution to make sure promises are met (Wilson, 2017). The income and support policy has removed the limited employment location policy and works with hapu and iwi to contemplate alternate mechanism for the income support. This policy ensures that staff have te tirti education and can articulate Te Reo names and are conscious of the area where they work. It also undermines the economic opportunity and works with them in order to access all entitlement as well as work opportunities (Belmessous, 2018).

The income support policy responds through various systems like the Universal Basic Income (UBI) system, in this system government funds for the complete readings on the influences of UBI. The green party inspects the execution of a universal basic income for every citizen of New Zealand. The income support policy reforms the existing income support policy by implementing the principles of sufficiency, simplicity, and universality of the income support system (Schoen, Buttorff, Andersen, Davis, 2015). The green party sets benefits amount at every level in such a way that the income of beneficiary is sufficient for all the basic needs. The policy focuses on protecting welfare benefit levels by indexing rates and ensuring that benefits do not fall less than a certain percentage of the average wage. The reforms certify that supplementary support payments keep step with the cost of living (Berger, Font, Slack & Waldfogel, 2017). This policy introduced consumer price index-adjusted universal child benefit. It is similar to the family benefit that was eradicated in1991. It capitalizes towards the procurement of a first home by the family of the child. The policy reintroduced assistance for the unsupported idle individuals or sick young people aged 16-17 without necessitating them to form family collapse. It considers people aged eighteen and over as adults for the income support purposes. The policy is stressing on treating all the adults as the potential individuals for the relevant benefit over the holiday. It addresses the problem of benefit abatement and the poverty reduction caused due to the marginal tax rates which exist for the people on low incomes (Hardy, Smeeding & Ziliak, 2018). The green party supports parents and children and encourages engaging in the employment and opposing discriminatory. It supports the eradication of discriminatory tax credit regimes. It is beneficial to single parents and the partners who are responsible for caring dependants.

The strength of income and support policy can be evaluated from the wellbeing of children and the emphasis on the adult employment. It also contributed to the parental self-sufficiency. It supports the people of the low-income group. It provides benefits such as housing, council tax reduction, child benefit, child tax credit along with the health costs. The individuals seeking for the claim should be between 16 and pension credit age. The policy introduced a tax-free zone as a portion of ecological tax reforms (Bertone & Witter, 2015).

The measurement such as income support policy has been taken to alleviate the poverty comprising child benefits.  But these solutions have not been truly operative. The income support payment for families with dependent children replaced various benefits and tax credits along with the housing for poor families (Huang, et. al. 2015). Even after the implementation of such policy, the child poverty rate is relatively high. According to UNICEF, the child poverty must also comprise worldwide child programmes and decline in poverty. The children of low-income families have twofold the prevalence of chronic illness and diabetes than living in the families on higher incomes (Bloom, & Phillips, 2017). There is a lack of units to be directed for reducing child poverty.

New Zealand has made various international obligations with respect to the protection and advancement of human rights. Over the last few years, the interest of the government has been increased on the policy-making process. However, there is improbability about the requirement of appropriate rights-based approach to the social policy. In 2003, the human rights commission produced an issues paper on the insinuations of applying a right based investigation for the development of social policy in the country. It aims to facilitate implications of the social policy for taking a rights-based approach. The policy stresses on the human rights and how rights-based focus can help to human needs. The report also focuses on the international human rights commitments as they are particularly linked to the social policy. It also focuses on the economic, social and cultural rights along with the objectives of the state (Karney, Bradbury & Lavner, 2018). Finally, the article also analyses the capability of prevailing processes and structures of the government for giving consequence to human rights and making suggestions to modify the issues. The legality of using rights-based framework conceptualize the responsibilities of the state.

The treaty of Waitangi is the formation deed of New Zealand. The agreement was retained between the representative of the British crown and Maori chiefs in 1840 which permitted consequent relocation to New Zealand. The preamble set the purpose of the agreement in order to protect the rights and property of Maori and the government. The treaty of Waitangi is New Zealand’s exceptional statement of human rights. It comprises both universal human rights and indigenous rights. The human rights built a better understanding of interrelations between individual and communal rights. The treaty and universal announcement of human rights manage the relationship between the people in New Zealand and between the people of the crown. They set out a foundation which respects the human rights of all the New Zealanders (Came, Cornes & McCreanor, 2018). The treaty protects and preserves the land, forest and other treasures for the upcoming generations. The treaty of Waitangi includes the right to impartiality, equivalence, and freedom from the discrimination. The Waitangi look for the recommendations for compensation by the crown for past violations comprising colonial wars, repossession and large-scale land loss linked to the gaps of the Treaty of Waitangi. The crown apologizes for performing unconsciously and in constant breach of the moralities of the Treaty of Waitangi in dealing with Ngai Tahu in the acquisition of Ngai Tahu land. The board has come up with the criticism from the senior international human rights officials in the case of human rights and essential freedoms of the aboriginal people. The provisions of the Waitangi treaty requirements are not openly enforceable under the laws of New Zealand. The entrenchment of the treaty of Waitangi in the statutory law is unsettled from long. The committee should be prudently acknowledged and became obligatory on the crown. The assessing of the claims of Waitangi represents only one of the two treaty parties. In 2006, 1315 claims were registered with the Waitangi Tribunal. There had been eighteen settlements of historical treaty claims between 1992 to 2005 with a total value of $718 million. The treaty settlements have been negotiated so far for involving quantities of reparation that represents a fraction of the value of land and resources lost during the colonial period (Pecora, et. al. 2017). The vision of Waitangi committee is to create a future of two peoples as one nation. The lack of legal teeth denotes that the committee is not able to address human rights violations in an enforceable way (Norris, 2016).

The number of individuals moving across international borders is predictable to increase in the future. The individuals have the right to leave a country but there is no right to enter or live in another country. The government exercises authority to resolve who to admit into their region. The national government is responsible for protecting the individuals and their rights who enter in the country. All the individuals are eligible for the fundamental rights and labor protections in New Zealand (Schluter, et. al. 2017). The new immigration legislation has been ordained in the review of the human rights in 2004. The immigration act 2009, governs the migration in New Zealand whereas the migration advisers certifying act regulates the person who seeks migration advice. The recognized seasonal employer's scheme (RSE) 2007 and the introduction of Supplementary Seasonal Employment (SSE) 2009 delivers workforces from the Pacific with entrance to the New Zealand labor market. It aims to safeguard the privileges of the workers. There has been an improved prominence on the settlement and providing support to the immigrants through central, local government and the voluntary sector. It also includes the establishment of migrant resource centers and the introduction of local newcomers’ networks. There are global laws for the migrants and their families in order to protect them. These laws are for the equal treatment of immigrants and inhabitants, the general rights apply to all the immigrants irrespective of status and universal standards for the security and circumstances at work. The rights of the migrants are set in the international instruments (Marchal, Marx & Verbist, 2018). The provision for the core human rights is applicable universally and therefore protects migrants. The international contract on protecting human rights of the migrant workers and their families and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) applies to the migrant workers. The ILO implements the rights of workers by various conventions and recommendations. The ILO convention offers the foundation for equivalence and treatment of residents and migrants in the field of recruitment, living and working conditions, accessibility to justice and social security regulations. It also sets out the conditions for the contribution of workers in job training, promotion, termination of employment and regulation of entire migration process (McAllister, 2018). The ILO was approved to reduce the irregular migration. It defines the requirements in order to respect the rights of migrants with an irregular status. It also provides measurement to end concealed trafficking and penalizing employers of irregular migrants. The convention adopted by the U.S. government which brings the rights that protect the migrants. The immigration act of 2009 oversees immigration in New Zealand. The citizens of New Zealand should hold a visa to travel to or be in New Zealand. There is a number of the categories of visa such as permanent resident, resident, temporary, limited, interim and transit. The migration consultants licensing act 2007 purposes to endorse and protect the interest of individuals receiving immigration advice. The act also enhances the reputation of the citizens of the country as immigration destination by offering advice for the persons who need migration advice (Saunders, 2017).

Conclusion

The income support policy has been selected to alleviate poverty. The income support policy has focused on the standard of the living of people and empowered them to participate in the community. The policy is geared towards achieving poverty relief. The family package bill is designed by the government to provide social assistance for the improvement of low and middle-income families and reduction of child poverty. The development of income support policy have been analysed along with the response of Treaty of Waitangi. At last the human rights and the indigenous rights are evaluated by focusing on the NZ’s progress on the social justice.

References

Belmessous, S. (2018). The Treaty of Waitangi in historical context. In Indigenous Peoples and the State (pp. 85-101). Routledge.

Berger, L. M., Font, S. A., Slack, K. S., & Waldfogel, J. (2017). Income and child maltreatment in unmarried families: evidence from the earned income tax credit. Review of Economics of the Household, 15(4), 1345-1372.

Bertone, M. P., & Witter, S. (2015). The complex remuneration of human resources for health in low-income settings: policy implications and a research agenda for designing effective financial incentives. Human resources for health, 13(1), 62.

Bloom, B., & Phillips, S. (2017). In whose best interest? The impact of changing public policy on relatives caring for children with incarcerated parents. In Children with Parents in Prison (pp. 63-74). Routledge.

Bradford, A. B., Hawkins, A. J., & Acker, J. (2015). If we build it, they will come: Exploring policy and practice implications of public support for couple and relationship education for lower income and relationally distressed couples. Family Process, 54(4), 639-654.

Came, H., Cornes, R., & McCreanor, T. (2018). Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand public health strategies and plans 2006–2016. The New Zealand medical journal, 131(1469), 32-37.

Cancian, M., & Haskins, R. (2014). Changes in family composition: Implications for income, poverty, and public policy. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 654(1), 31-47.

Chow, C. K., Corsi, D. J., Gilmore, A. B., Kruger, A., Igumbor, E., Chifamba, J., ... & Gupta, R. (2017). Tobacco control environment: cross-sectional survey of policy implementation, social unacceptability, knowledge of tobacco health harms and relationship to quit ratio in 17 low-income, middle-income and high-income countries. BMJ open, 7(3), e013817.

De Wispelaere, J. (2016). Basic Income in our time: Improving political prospects through policy learning?. Journal of social policy, 45(4), 617-634.

Fazel, S., Geddes, J. R., & Kushel, M. (2014). The health of homeless people in high-income countries: descriptive epidemiology, health consequences, and clinical and policy recommendations. The Lancet, 384(9953), 1529-1540.

Gilbert, N. (2017). Welfare policy in the United States: the road from income maintenance to workfare. In Welfare Reform(pp. 55-66). Routledge.

Hardy, B., Smeeding, T., & Ziliak, J. P. (2018). The Changing Safety Net for Low-Income Parents and Their Children: Structural or Cyclical Changes in Income Support Policy?. Demography, 55(1), 189-221.

Huang, T. T., Cawley, J. H., Ashe, M., Costa, S. A., Frerichs, L. M., Zwicker, L., ... & Kumanyika, S. K. (2015). Mobilisation of public support for policy actions to prevent obesity. The Lancet, 385(9985), 2422-2431.

Karney, B. R., Bradbury, T. N., & Lavner, J. A. (2018). Supporting Healthy Relationships in Low-Income Couples: Lessons Learned and Policy Implications. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 5(1), 33-39.

Marchal, S., Marx, I., & Verbist, G. (2018). 12 Income support policies for the working poor. Handbook on In-Work Poverty, 213.

McAllister, A. (2018). Five challenges of designing disability income support for people with mental illnesses: a qualitative case study of Australia and Ontario. Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health, 36(4), 1-18.

Norris, M. (2016). Introduction. In Property, Family and the Irish Welfare State (pp. 1-19). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Overland, S., Grasdal, A. L., & Reme, S. E. (2018). Long-term effects on income and sickness benefits after work-focused cognitive-behavioural therapy and individual job support: a pragmatic, multicentre, randomised controlled trial. Occup Environ Med, oemed-2018.

Pecora, P., Whittaker, J., Barth, R., Maluccio, A. N., DePanfilis, D., & Plotnick, R. D. (2017). The child welfare challenge: Policy, practice, and research. Routledge.

Saunders, P. (2017). Bridging the Welfare to Work Divide: Economic and Social Participation among Income Support Recipients in Australia. In Welfare to Work in Practice (pp. 63-86). Routledge.

Schluter, P., Lee, M., Hamilton, G., Coe, G., Messer?Perkins, H., & Smith, B. (2015). Keep on brushing: a longitudinal study of motivational text messaging in young adults aged 18–24 years receiving Work and Income Support. Journal of public health dentistry, 75(2), 118-125.

Schoen, C., Buttorff, C., Andersen, M., & Davis, K. (2015). Policy options to expand medicare’s low-income provisions to improve access and affordability. Health Affairs, 34(12), 2086-2094.

Tikly, L. (2016). Language-in-education policy in low-income, postcolonial contexts: towards a social justice approach. Comparative Education, 52(3), 408-425.

Verbruggen, J., Apel, R., Van Der Geest, V. R., & Blokland, A. A. (2015). Work, income support, and crime in the Dutch welfare state: A longitudinal study following vulnerable youth into adulthood. Criminology, 53(4), 545-570.

Weltin, M., Zasada, I., Franke, C., Piorr, A., Raggi, M., & Viaggi, D. (2017). Analysing behavioural differences of farm households: An example of income diversification strategies based on European farm survey data. Land use policy, 62, 172-184.

Wilson, K. (2017). The Treaty of Waitangi: Preparing beginning teachers to meet the expectations of the new professional standards. Waikato Journal of Education, 8(1).