Kerre Woodham: Bureaucrats have used incentives to bribe people for years, but does it work?

Act’s Deputy leader Brooke van Velden, gave the Government’s Willow Jean Prime  an uncomfortable few moments in Parliament yesterday.

She questioned her on the fact that pregnant mothers are receiving $50 Prezzy cards simply for turning up to pregnancy assessments, and then when the child is born, the six week assessment.

The catch? You have to identify as Maori to get the Prezzy card. Van Velden said the funding for this devise of policy has been taken from Community Services card funding.

Labour is taking money from a scheme which benefits the economically vulnerable to give it to a scheme which exclusively benefits mothers from one ethnic group.

As you can imagine, outrage and ensued in some quarters, especially when you then add in the bribes for participating in the census.

12,000 people received $934,000 worth of supermarket, petrol and movie vouchers and thousands more were offered Warriors tickets at a cost of $96,000 simply for doing what is required by them by law, the rest of us just ticked away merrily without a word of thanks, not so much as a free coffee for filling in the census form.

Kebabs, burgers and vouchers were offered to encourage people to get vaccinated.

Remember the huge parties that were put on to encourage people to get vaccinated?

Who could forget the sight of Doctor Ashley Bloomfield dancing in the streets at the carnival atmosphere designed to get people vaccinated. That would it cost a bit.

Anybody who’s worked in health for a decade or more, anyone with a memory for news stories will know that there is nothing new in this. This is no new policy on the part of the Labour government to bribe people to try and get results. People have been offered incentives slash bribes for years and years and years now.  

Is it about the Ministry itself trying to meet targets? Do they work? I would love to know if they work. Is it a matter of breaking down barriers?

There's a mistrust of institutions and once you get people who have been on the margins of community, once they see that actually you're there for their own well-being and their own good, they keep coming. They become part of the system and they know there's nothing to be feared.

Are there any results to show that this works? Anyone who's worked in health will back me up, won't you?

For years and years and years, I'm going to say 25 years that I can think of, incentives or bribes have been offered so bureaucrats can box tick and say yes we've reached the required percentage.

Does it help? Who knows? Love to see the results.  

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