The Benny bash is back

Walking through Wellington city, you might be forgiven for thinking that we're still in thick of recession. Willis St has vacant shops a go-go, Thorndon is awash with colourful For Lease signage, and the queues outside the WINZ office are as long as ever. However, Bill English is assuring the nation that the worst is over and it's time for all those bludgers on the sickness and invalids benefits to head back to work:

The Government is poised to implement a key election pledge requiring parents on the domestic purposes benefit to find work or training once their youngest child turns six.

Sickness and invalid beneficiaries are also in the Government's sights, with plans to make it tougher to sign up and stay on either benefit indefinitely.

It's not all stick, according to the Nats. Beneficiaries will now be able to earn an extra $20 a week before their benefits are abated. That's one hour of cleaning Bill English's non-residence in entitlement-speak, although I don't imagine many Nat MPs will be hiring me to do their dirty work.

That's right dear readers, I am an invalid beneficiary. Hire me. Yes, I'm half deaf and have a mind that is part fluffy duck, part gin trap, but the Nats think I'm up for work. Yes, I have been on the dole before and been turned down as under- or over-qualified, or just plain not-what-we're-looking-for. But, like Tolley's testicles, the Nats want to tick the boxes more often to see if I am still strange.

I tell you what, Nats. You can introduce your Benny bashing bolicy once you get WhaleOil a job and off the disability pension. Go on, he's just one man. If you can't do well with one of your own, what hope do you have with all the others apart from locking them up in jail at three times the price of an out of town MP allowance?