Originally posted by artemis
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At the moment we tell people receiving benefits they can make their own decisions about how to spend the money they receive from the government/taxpayer. If we think there's a "correct" set of things to spend that money on, and there are going to be consequences for spending it on other things, then there must be a list of what the "correct" things are.
So I wasn't arguing that there shouldn't be consequences, but saying that if there are going to be consequences, people need to know what the rules are. Currently, there are no set rules for what people spend their income on (or if there are, they don't include "must not subscribe to Sky), so how can there be consequences for breaking them?
If Norwest thinks "No Sky subscription allowed" should be a condition of receiving a benefit/HNZ house, that's a valid opinion. But as it's not currently a condition, the government/WINZ/MSD wouldn't collect data on it.
Fair enough, calling collecting information on people "punishment" was a poor choice of words. Some people might argue that any right of the state over an individual, even if it's only collecting data, is an imposition and therefore a "punishment" of sorts, but I am not one of those people.
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