{"id":87719,"date":"2025-10-19T07:04:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T07:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/87719\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T07:04:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T07:04:08","slug":"new-benefit-sanctions-will-help-beneficiaries-find-jobs-says-social-development-minister-louise-upston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/87719\/","title":{"rendered":"New benefit sanctions will help beneficiaries find jobs, says Social Development Minister Louise Upston"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4K0ZH51_Louise_Upston_1_jpg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"700\" alt=\"Bridge\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\nSocial Development Minister Louise Upston.<br \/>\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Mark Papalii\n<\/p>\n<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\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">RNZ reported in March<\/a> that 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><a href=\"https:\/\/radionz.us6.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=211a938dcf3e634ba2427dde9&amp;id=b3d362e693\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Social Development Minister Louise Upston. Photo: RNZ \/ Mark Papalii Social Development Minister Louise Upston says the two&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-87719","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-public-radio","14":"tag-radio-new-zealand","15":"tag-rnz","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}