<&>Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English Version One <&>Copyright 1998 School of Linguistics & Applied Language Studies <&>Victoria University of Wellington <&>side one <&>14:56 doesn't accept that figure he says he can't tell where the figure came from evening brian <&>15:00 good evening if you can't tell where it came from how do we know it's WRONG oh actually i now know where it came from oh you do i've had a rather useful discussion with the treasury ON this matter and um if i could just go through the story a little yep um the question that was asked was a question about household incomes inhales and the answer about household incomes is about the top THIRD of households have a MARKET income of about forty three thousand dollars a year or perhaps a fraction more than that inhales and that's the correct answer to the question inhales now the figure that the treasury generated was for another purpose and what that was based on was not on households inhales but essentially on um <&>exhales noisily into phone what they call families but on groups which are used for social welfare er administration purposes with you we er had that explained to us just a moment ago so we're up to speed on that <&>16:00 <{><[>so the other thing is <.>then the question is the figure they generated treasury generated they generated it for what purpose <[>good oh inhales well um you can guess what they generated <.>it for what purpose it is that in fact that the um government is um planning to er impose user <&>pronounced as ugder charges and it's got to decide on whom it's going to <.>u charge <.>the um put the user charges and its going to do that on um on the basis <.>of apparently of the social welfare criteria inhales that would mean that a um a couple apparently <.>will er with children will be treated as a single unit inhales a couple of people exhales living separately would be treated as a single unit what they're going to do with a tut cohabitating couple I don't know but you may well have to end up with sort of the department of social welfare sort of and the department of health and the department of inland revenue and the department of housing all rushing round finding out whether he and she inhales living in the same flat inhales are married or not has the government looked at the general figure being forty three thousand dollars <&>17:00 worked out that they can't afford to bring it in at that level and then thought thirty three five's a <{><[>good one <[>inhales no i don't think that's the way it happened at all <.>i um um i mean to say in most um of the things that have been happening in the last month or so have been <.>sh through sheer inhales misadventure and incompetence rather than general plot um in fact it was only about a month ago that the minister of EDUCATION said that he thought the figure might be inhales TWENTY eight thousand dollars so the government's been aware for some time that it's going to be a figure <.>at <.>w <.>a at the low end of the scale yeah this is to spook us? inhales no i think what happened exhales was that the government made some commitments on er december the nineteenth package without understanding what the commitments WERE inhales and i think what's happened is that snorts every time they try to work out the logic of those commitments which WERE um to cut g r i to cut inhales the um standard of living of people on top income tax to introduce user <&>18:00 pays into the welfare state those sort of things every time inhales they've tried <.>to to think about it the problem's got more and more COMplicated and i <.>think although it is TRUE that there's spooking um <.>of <.>of of the public i think it's more spooking the government inhales they've got to come up with an answer by the end of july though well <.>i <.>the the <.>adVICE i mean to say <.>i <.>i <.>if if they've learned ANYTHING from the last month it is that they can't DO it by the end of july inhales er you see it took us a long TIME to create the welfare state the first person who actually PROPOSED what it was the nineteen thirty eight social security act was harry atkinson and he did that in inhales eighteen eighty TWO and then <.>in <.>as and then <.>s sixteen years later we have the old age pension and then FORTY years later we get the social security act and then it's another year before they implement it inhales so we're talking about something that evolved over a very long period inhales now the point IS that you <.>can't you know desTROY these things quickly you've got to actually <.>reconstr well you <&>19:00 can't destroy them in a constructive WAY quickly inhales so the advice i think that <.>any you know any SENSIBLE inhales politician who perhaps took the day off and <.>went you know went for in my case it would be for a tramp or something he'd realise that in fact <.>the the economy <.>th <.>th <.>th <.>th the proposals to redesign the welfare state inhales were just a total SHAMBLES that nobody APPEARS to know very well what they're DOING that in fact there are five or six departments all operating and those departments er <.>ha there's no coordination going on between the departments that individual departments are shifting their positions quite quickly which suggests that they don't have much stability of view inhales and while all this is happening in his <.>area <.>in <.>in <.>in in the administrative and policy area there is a sort of a MASSIVE CRISIS <.>of going out in the public and which i think the easier way is to describe fear and confusion and the politician you know went for a long tramp and just thought about that and listened to the birds and so on then inhales CAME back i think we'd say right everything on hold we <&>20:00 won't do anything for the budget um inhales we might have a green paper or something like that or we might have a bit of a discussion but we're not going to do anything in a major way well there's no point in doing that though is there inhales well <.>i <.>m put it this way um if you don't <,> try and think through things carefully inhales there are two things first of all you're gonna make the most TERRIBLE mess and we're seeing that <.>al already inhales and then i suppose it doesn't really matter if politicians <&>pronounced as politations make messes inhales but in fact I know and i'm sure from talkback YOU know HOW much um disruption there is in the public and if by an accident the government <.>were on er july the thirtieth was to get <.>the get it right most people wouldn't believe them they no longer trust the competence of the government to get it right inhales and that would mean that exhales er we'd have a situation where the government would almost certainly er lose er more er more competence in the polls <&>21:00 more votes in the polls and would go out the back door inhales so er you know in the next election so the sensible thing would be to tie ho and try and get it right and not only get it right tut in the technical sense but to try and take the people along with you all right so let's try and get it right in the technical sense what's the answer inhales oh i <.>m think myself <.>that <.>i <.>i <.>i i think there are <.>s is a role for user charges <.>in <.>in <.>in in the economy inhales <.>wh um but <.>i i think the <.>fact the notion of a widespread use is not nearly appropriate for instance inhales user <&>pronounced as udger charges in health are likely lead to an insurance system <.>an and a system rather like the um american which is probably the most inefficient health system <.>in in the world inhales so <.>i in my sense in each technical area you've got to look at <.>it look at what the circumstances are and then try and identify what you really want to do inhales again in the area of g r i i happen to take the view that in fact um that we should have <.>a um a universal voc <&>22:00 er benefit but only for very <.>hi <.>hi um <.>for for people much older than sixty and i've said on a number of occasions that i hope inhales that er um when i reach the age of seventy inhales that will be about the age of the universal benefit inhales i think there's a case again for g r i trying to um to increase the age of the incomes tested g r i which you've got at the moment inhales but let me tell you the sort of MESS that the government has got itself into swallows remember it said inhales that it wanted to <.>intr introduce the royal COMMISSION proposal on um on retirement income the royal COMMISSION said that from the age of sixty to sixty five you'd be on the unemployment benefit and after that you would go onto g r i inhales now the government snorts sort of has chopped about fifty <.>million fifty dollars a WEEK inhales so that there's now that sort of gap between the unemployment benefit and g r i so you see a decision they made last december has MUCKED UP the <&>23:00 possibility of getting coherent decision um in july inhales so what you have to do is look at EACH case bit by bit that's what technicians do try and <.>ab <.>a um get the objectives not be too ideological try and just get it right so they go to us er next election having promised a balanced budget and every other thing they promised and they can't present any of it well i think the first thing is that um they've already er um reduced er gone back on some of their promises i think the current euphemism is you AMEND promises inhales um perhaps it's not right to balance the budget <.>i you know i'm quite willing to er exhales to er exhales review that and talk about it in a reasonably sensible way i think if you get into government and <.>you inhales you find you made mistakes i think er mister bolger's quite wise to er own up and let's say er they go into the election as did the labour government in nineteen thirty eight and they have a proposal for the redesign of the welfare <&>24:00 state inhales and they put that to the electorate and if it's as good as the proposal in nineteen thirty eight they'll win with an increased majority mm <{><[>the real <[>you don't sound er quite convinced <{><[>because the <[>well <.>i i'm trying though brian i'm <.>just all these experts and people flying things at me i'm trying desperately to <{><[>word <[>what i was going <.>to what i was trying to imply was that i suspect that if <.>in <.>in <.>the in the current situation if they went to the electorate ON a redesigned welfare state the electorate would reject it mm and that's partly because they haven't got it right tut what about means testing things like that with g r i well i think that's a good illustration of the government not understanding issues that were involved now <.>in <.>in <.>i <.>a among the proFESSionals among the experts there are two terms one is which is INCOMES test and the other one is MEANS test now for most people they don't make that distinction and i regret to say the government hasn't also inhales let me tell you what an incomes test is inhales what they look at is how much your income is and then <&>25:00 they change the <.>en your entitlements according to that inhales the best known incomes test that we have is the tax system which is <.>the the amount of tax you pay depends on your income <{><[>right <[>yep yep so that's an income test now a MEANS test differs from an incomes <&>pronounced as incymes test because it involves investigation of ASSETS inhales and voc i think it would be very UNUSUAL for a national party to want to start investigating inhales um rich er elderly people's ASSETS and it's worse than just assets because a means test CAN include inhales and in nineteen seventy four <.>th so sorry seventy one this was the situation inhales on the number of pairs of UNDERPANTS you had inhales and they can also in a means <.>test er the most extensive ones look at your RELATIVES and say well your relatives ought to be looking after you mm so i don't think the government actually proposed a MEANS test what it MEANT to propose was an incomes test and as i said i happen to support tax <,> er income tax i think it's a good way to fund er fund a government so i don't have any problems with <&>26:00 incomes tests at all providing it's not too onerous <&>26:02