Letter to Tarnya Burge 07-09-10 from Hon Paula Bennett
Please find linked a letter from the Hon Paula Bennett to me personally regarding the DPB and work requirements.
The relevant section of the regulation :
“6 Exemption from work test obligations: work-tested sole parents
“(1) A work-tested sole parent may apply under section 105 of the Act to be exempted from some or all of his or her work test obligations, on any ground specified in regulation 4 or in subclause (2).
“(2) A person described in subclause (1) may be granted an exemption from some or all of his or her work test obligations on the grounds that—
(a) it would be unreasonable to expect the person to undertake employment because-
(i) the person is the principal caregiver of a dependent child or foster child with special needs whose welfare would be unduly harmed if the person attended employment or training, and for whom
satisfactory alternative care arrangements are not available, or unable to be made, by the caregiver;
or
“(ii) the person would qualify for an invalid’s benefit under the Act; or
“(b) the person needs time to adjust to managing the care of children alone because-
“(i) the person’s spouse or partner has recently died;
or
“(ii) the person has recently separated from or ceased to live together with his or her spouse or partner;
or
“(c) both the following apply:
“(i) the person is actively engaged in teaching the person’s dependent child or foster child who is aged 5 years or is exempt from enrolment in school
under an exemption granted under section 21 or 22 of the Education Act 1989; and
“(ii) it would be unreasonable to expect the child to attend school because of the family’s circumstances.
I notice that the clause says “because of the family’s circumstances” – that narrows things down a lot, and says to me that they are not particularly concerned about individual children and their needs. How is it going to affect a child who has been home educated and was expecting to be home educated for their entire education to suddenly be thrust in to school?
Was there any community consultation or options for submissions on this matter? As a group are we going to lobby the government on this? I am prepared to be involved in co-ordinating action over this matter. I think this is infringing too far on our parenting rights. I home educate in large part because I am trying to be a responsible parent. To me, putting my children in school would be irresponsible parenting. I have a child, nearly 14, who is in the school system, somewhat against my wishes, and the further through he gets the more determined I have become to fully home educate my other children.
Cathy
My daughter 14 is being bullied again and again and we complained about to the schools she was attending. Nothing was done about it. She became a very lonely and sad girl who didn’t want to school anymore. She was falling behind in school because her learning was affected by all the bullying. And she didn’t want to talk to us about it anymore.
As long nothing is done by the Government and the schools, my daughter will not go back in that environment.
Since she is homeschooling she is a different child, she is happy again and her learning is good now. We don’t mind to spend time with her homeschooling and we like to keep it like that.
JJ Polak
How can the government enforce this??? The MoE granted the exemptions. How can another Ministry suddenly saying certain exemptions are now only valid till the end of 2010?
I am not a solo parent but my heart goes out to those who are. Some of my homeschooling friends are solo parents. And they are amazing!
It makes me angry that the government can suddenly take away their parental right and choice of education for their child(ren).
It makes you wonder who’s next…
And why focus on homeschooling solo parents? They must be such a tiny group! If the National Party is serious about getting large(r) amounts of people off the benefit, why not focus on those on the unemployment benefit???
I wonder too if sending solo parents who are now homeschooling out to work will actually save any money. It will cost the government thousands of $$$ per child that then has to go to school, let alone any after school care subsidies and then the stress that the parent will be under because of having to juggle work and (a) child(ren) who might be unhappy in the school system.
What a crazy world we live in!
It is confusing. The homeschooling exemption from Ministry of education previously also exempted someone from work requirements at WINZ.
Single parents on the DPB from next year will have to available for 15 hours work whether they have a homeschooling exemption or not. They will not lose their homeschooling exemption.
One does not lose the homeschooling exemption but if one does not meet the work criteria a person can lose part and then all of their benefit.
You are correct this will not save tax payers’ money.
Regards
Tarnya
Hi, I’m a 33 year old solo-mother to a wonderful 3 year old son.
I was a stay-at-home mum, and when I tried returning to the workforce my ex-partner made it really hard, saying he wasnt going to look after our son and fighting with me before I was due to go in, the father of my son was the one that decided that a relationship was too much hard work, and after the 4 years of verbal and emotional abuse he put me and our son through, “threw” us out stating it was just too much hard work, leaving us both broken, and very unstable.
I have since moved 10 hours away to be closer to my parents for support, and 5 months after am well on my way to recovery, but have still alot of work to do to get myself completely healed, plus my son…well, he was so unbalanced all over the place, and next week his dad is coming to visit for the first time since we broke up, and he has been so stressed that he’s biting his lip that it bleeds. I’ve place him into daycare two months ago, but for the last 3 weeks i’ve been hearing “I dont want to go mum”, “I dont want to make friends mum”, “I hate it there”, and “I want to stay at home with mum”. He has even resorted to resisting sleeping at nights till 11pm so that in the mornings it can take up to half an hour to coerce him to getting out of bed for kindy.
This takes me back to schoolyears, I absolutely hated going to school, not because of the learning, but because of the bullies, my mum made me go, even getting the school counsellor to come and pick me up in the mornings so I would get out of bed…so it really pulls at my heart-strings that I make my son go somewhere he is saying he doesnt want to go…and im getting told by everyone that I have to do whats right for him, he has to learn how to have relationships, friendships with other kids…so why do I feel this is just wrong?
I love being with my son, and chose to be a full-time stay at home mum, and went from being completely dependant on my ex-partner who was earning $1300 p.w. to $400p.w. on the DPB and am living week-to-week, no money left over to go out somewhere nice for dinner once a week, no extra money to buy a special toy for my son, struggling to get enough nice winter clothes for us both…it just doesn’t seem fair to me, since my ex was the one that chose/decided for me that the relationship was finished…and now, it feels like i’m being punished, I won’t even be able to afford to homeschool my son in the near future, also means I wont be able to afford a private school like Steiner, or Montessori, which means, im going to have to be forced into returning to part-time work when Id much prefer staying home and teaching my son to grow up into a man!!
I don’t like being on the DPB, but I did work my ass off for 15 years, I paid my taxes too, and if it wasn’t for my ex-partners decision to run, although I really thank him for this, because we are both much better away from him, I wouldn’t have to depend on the Peoples money, the Government to finance me.
Any advice for a struggling solo mum that would love to homeschool???