Mr Key claimed on the national public broadcaster Radio New Zealand that some citizens “won’t pass a drug test, some of these people won’t turn up for work, some of these people will claim they have health issues later on.
He was responding to a query about the country’s record high immigration figures, which amounted to nearly 70,000 between July 2015 and July 2016, amid questions as to why so many Kiwis are unemployed.
At present, 200,000 Kiwis are estimated to be unemployed in a population of almost 4.5 million people, putting the unemployment rate at 5.1 per cent.
“So it’s not to say there aren’t great people who transition from Work and Income to work, they do, but it’s equally true that they’re also living in the wrong place, or they just can’t muster what is required to actually work.”
Welfare activist and former Greens MP Sue Bradford criticised Mr Key for not providing the unemployed with enough support.
“There has probably never been a time since the 1930s depression when there was a sufficiently large, able-bodied workforce waiting in the provincial areas for the crops to ripen,” she penned in an op-ed for Radio New Zealand.
“John Key’s comments – and his government’s laissez-faire immigration policies – set worker against worker while enhancing the ability of business to make larger and larger profits.
