Discussion
Reapplying for my benefit, there are about 7 check boxes I have to tick before I can submit the reapplication form. This is classic consent theatre.
WINZ could literally put 'supply us with full custody of your first born as a mining slave on a distant planet' on the form. Then claim I'd voluntarily sold her into slavery when they turned up to deport her to Pluto, because my only alternative to ticking that box is starving on the streets.
This is not how consent works.
(1/2)
It's kind of like trapping someone in a room, and presenting them with a form that reads 'I consent to sex with whoever is in this room', with a tick box next to it. Then saying to them, 'if you'd like to leave this room, please indicate your agreement with this list of conditions'.
Again - and I can't emphasise this strongly enough - this is not how consent works.
(2/2)
Now I have to book an appointment, so I can waste my time and that of a WINZ staff member, by going over all the same answers I just gave on the MyMSD form. But MyMSD can only book me an in-person appointment, despite the fact that I'm on a medical exemption for mental health reasons.
To get a phone appointment, I'll need to call the 0800 number and sit on the phone for an hour or 2. Waiting for a call centre worker to book me an appointment. Which they could let MyMSD do.
So I called WINZ, and somehow it was worse than I thought. The robot told me they're experiencing very high call volumes. Hmm, what could possibly have caused that?
Then it told me they can't answer my call, didn't offer to automate a callback for when they're less busy, and just hung up on me. WTSF?!?
I tried calling WINZ again later in the day, and then I tried again just now. Same answer as the first time;
We're experiencing very high call volumes right now, and we can't answer your call.
So ... automate a callback, and hire some more fecking call centre staff FFS!
Also maybe get rid of all the pointless hoop-jumping that wastes staff time. Like making people reapply every 6 months for a benefit we obviously need, or your data-matching with IRD would have flagged fulltime income.
I tried calling WINZ again today. This time the robot took me through the full rigmarole, including asking me for my client number, and botsplaining how websites work. It giving me every indication that someone would finally answer the phone. It really had me going.
Then, right after saying "let me hold while I transfer you", it read me the line about heavy call volumes, and hung up on me.
Pranked!
This has gone beyond ridiculous. It's time to allow beneficiaries to select the social service agency we want to manage our case. Fully funded, independently of WINZ, and with the same access to MSD systems they have.
Or, as I've said before, wipe the steaming remains of WINZ from the face of the earth, hand over benefits payments to IRD ("reverse taxation"), and move work brokers etc back to an employment service with no responsibility for benefit payments.
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