{"id":15383,"date":"2025-10-20T05:17:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T16:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=15383"},"modified":"2025-10-20T05:17:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T16:17:13","slug":"new-benefit-sanctions-will-help-beneficiaries-find-jobs-says-social-development-minister-louise-upston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=15383","title":{"rendered":"New benefit sanctions will help beneficiaries find jobs, says Social Development Minister Louise Upston"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Social Development Minister Louise Upston says the two new sanctions being introduced for beneficiaries are practical and will help improve their chances of finding a job.<\/p>\n<p>Upston said, from tomorrow, anyone failing an obligation for the first time must either do a minimum of three job-search activities every week, or attend one or more employment-related training courses.<\/p>\n<p>This follows two other sanctions introduced earlier this year as part of the Traffic Light System, which put half of a benefit on a payment card or required community work experience for those who failed to meet what was considered their obligations.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/political\/556301\/beneficiaries-on-money-cards-may-not-be-able-to-pay-rent\">RNZ reported in March<\/a>\u00a0that government data showed beneficiaries sanctioned with money management cards were often unable to pay rent, putting them at risk of homelessness.<\/p>\n<p>The sanctions were considered an alternative to harsher options, Upston said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;One of the things that we committed to was to introduce non-financial sanctions as an alternative to somebody having their benefit reduced in half, or suspended or cancelled as the final, kind of, steps.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What we do want to see is people taking the steps that they are obligated to take to prepare for work. There is no sanction for someone who cant find a job.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We do expect them to be taking steps to look for and find a job, though.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>No other sanctions were planned at this stage, Upston added.<\/p>\n<p>rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Social Development Minister Louise Upston says the two new sanctions being introduced for beneficiaries are practical and will help improve their chances of finding a job. Upston said, from tomorrow, anyone failing an obligation for the first time must either do a minimum of three job-search activities every week, or attend one or more employment-related [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15383"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15385,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15383\/revisions\/15385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}