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.
Further through the looking glass of WINZ in 2025. After failing to get anyone to answer the phone so I could book a phone appointment, I girded my loins and tried to book an in-person appointment using MyMSD.
It took me through the full rigmarole of choosing a day and time and showing a confirmation dialogue (no address for the office I'm supposed to go to I note). But when I clicked 'Confirm', it said;
"Sorry, MyMSD is experiencing a problem. Please try again later."
(1/3)
I'll try book through MyMSD again tomorrow, and of that doesn't work, I'll try that and the call centre again on Monday morning. Failing that, I'm going to have to go down to the WINZ office and refuse to leave until they see me. Or at least book me an appointment so I can get my sickness benefit renewed before it expires.
(2/3)
This is getting hellish. I really feel for anyone who doesn't have years of experience with how WINZ works (or doesn't), or lacks the confidence to push through the bullshit and get what they need.
It's no wonder so many people have become homeless so fast, if this is the kind of Kafkaesque nightmare people have to wade through. No only to get a benefit started but *every 6 months* to keep it coming in, if they haven't found secure, fulltime work during a time of increasing unemployment.
(3/3)
@strypey ugh, certainly hellish.
If you haven't already seen the short film "Nobody WINZ", "script is based on a series of interviews with real beneficiaries and Work and Income employees. " here it is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH23qYXKo-s
Maybe to close to the bone for you right now though.
"One thing, it's just going to take a while. These old girls, they've got old software. OK? It's just because that's what the government buys, they go for the cheapest software, that's why everything's crap, and that's why the government's so inefficient. LOL.
Don't quote me on that."
Jeremy, 'Nobody WINZ', 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH23qYXKo-s
#HatTip to @bigblen for the short film link. It's a bit surrealist, but it perfectly captures the Kafkaeque feeling of dealing with WINZ.
@RedRobyn
> Turning up in person was at one stage mostly useless
Until recently the bouncers wouldn't even let you in the door without proof of an appointment. That started with the Ashburton incident IIRR.
> Now (or at least a few months ago) it's usually a pretty quick route to an appointment, at least at both of our local offices
Thanks for the tip : )
@strypey @RedRobyn Yup. I tried the calling thing a few months ago, had the same experience. Gave up. Went into the nearest branch, talked to someone within 5 minutes, cleared up a matter, and made an appointment to sort out the other matter.
The advice the lady I spoke with gave me was "just come in, don't bother trying to call".
To cancel another appointment on someone else's behalf which was no longer needed, I popped in, done and dusted in 10 minutes.
They were also okay with having a meeting in a real meeting room with the lights dimmed when I was with someone with bad concussion who couldn't handle the noise or bright lights in the normal meeting booths.
Your local budget advisory place is funded by MSD and they're taking on a lot of the workload that WINZ used to do: form filling, finding entitlements, in addition to budgeting.
This shit government is shifting the workload around, moving WINZ functions out to these non-profits, and not providing services.
My partner has had to march people down to the local WINZ office and get them some help because the WINZ staff weren't interested.
Can you get someone to assist you down there?
Strypey
bigblen
Robyn
Andrew
Future Sprog