With an immense pressure on taxpayers at the moment with a smaller workforce owing to recession induced redundancies and ailing businesses, an area of public policy that is growing in cost is the social welfare system. Every person made redundant is one less taxpayer to support the system and an addition to the cost.

The economy's immediate future continues to be grossly uncertain with the head of large retail business, Briscoes Group's Rod Duke, today announcing he believes the New Zealand economy will suffer the ‘w' recovery and with other conflicting views suggesting a myriad of possibilities. But what is certain is that the New Zealand social welfare system is a significant burden on taxpayers and what needs to be determined is whether the current system is sustainable.

For a discussion on this point see Graham Clark and Russell Watkins' latest blog.