Governing Social Protection in the Long Term by Gaby Ramia

Author:Gaby Ramia
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030420543
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Renewed Interest in Social Policy, Equal Pay, and the Restructuring of Employment Relations, 1968 to 1983

As was the case in Australia, despite the stagnation in the welfare state which characterised the 1950s and 1960s, the late 1960s saw a renewed interest in social policy. A series of government-sponsored inquiries into the nature and effectiveness of the welfare state were established (Castles 1985: 35–38; Davidson 1989: 299–302). Easton (1981: 12) identifies 1967 as the year which marked the regeneration of government commitment to social policy innovation. In that year, the Taxation Review Committee reported, making a recommendation that social security benefits be increased. Its recommendations were not implemented.

In the same year, the Royal Commission of Inquiry upon Workers’ Compensation released its report, entitled Compensation for Personal Injury in New Zealand. Its overriding recommendation was that the basis of existing workers’ compensation policy—the principle that the party which causes the injury is liable for the compensation of the injured—should be replaced by a comprehensive, earnings-related compensation system administered by an Accident Compensation Commission, funded by employers, the self-employed and motor vehicle owners. The new system was implemented in April 1974, after being extended in 1973 such that its benefits could be claimed by housewives and non-wage earners as well as workers (Davidson 1989: 301). It was thus universal and social insurance-based, and in these respects, a significant departure from traditional social policy in New Zealand.

In terms of the potential to alter the existing basis of social security provision, however, the most significant inquiry was the Royal Commission on Social Security, set up in 1969, reporting eight months before the election of Labour to government in 1972 (New Zealand, Royal Commission on Social Security 1972). The report, Social Security in New Zealand, represented the first major evaluation of the social security system since 1938. Despite the capacity of the Commission to change the pattern of provision, or its funding base, it did not, and a switch to an earnings-related benefit system was rejected.

A minimum income scheme, as had been recommended by the Henderson Report in Australia, was rejected, mainly on the ground that it denied the diversity of circumstances of individual beneficiaries (New Zealand, Royal Commission on Social Security 1972: 162). A wholesale change to social security being foregone, therefore, the substantive amendments recommended by the Commission related mainly to the increase in the level of many existing benefits, including the family benefit, general medical services benefits, pensions, sickness, invalid and related benefits, unemployment benefits, and some specialist medical benefits (Davidson 1989: 299–301). Most of the Commission’s recommendations were implemented.

The Commission on Equal Pay, which reported in 1971, also held the possibility of regime-change. As in Australia, the case for equal pay had been put to the Arbitration Court long before the principle of gender-based wage-equality was officially approved in 1972, and the drift toward its achievement was slow (Du Plessis 1993: 210–217; Dann 1985: 65–79). Importantly, and in contrast to the Australian case, the implementation of equal pay was implemented by the government, not the arbitration system.

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