RETURNED MAN’S COMPLAINT

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23394, 30 July 1941, Page 3

RETURNED MAN’S COMPLAINT

—♦ — . HOME- TO KEEP ON £2 A WEEK «STOOD DOWN FROM UNEMPLOYMENT PAY” A complaint by a returned soldier, invalided home from Fiji, that because he refused to go to a job on the West Coast which meant leaving his family he was debarred from social'security payments, has been referred to “The Press.” The man, who is prepared to publish his name and address if his story is disputed, claims that after his discharge from the Army he was expected to keep his wife and child on an unemployment benefit of £2 a week, when his rent in a State house was more than 30s. His story appears to be confirmed by independent inquiries made by “The Press.” The facts, as related by the returned soldier, were:— He began his Army service .actually on the day before war was declared with the National Military Reserve at Lyttelton. Some months afterwards he enlisted for service overseas and went to Fiji. There he suffered a knee injury and was invalided home, reaching Auckland on March 10. He was discharged from the Army as unfit on April 7 and was paid full war pension until April 30. He secured a job with a city firm and was to start at Easter time, but a recurrence of his injury made it impossible. He called at Ihe Placement Office and was told to apply for a sickness benefit at the rate of £2 a week —after’ he had seen a doctor and was certified as unfit for a month. The following week (he told “The Press”) the sickness benefit was stopped, and he was told to go on the unemployment bene'fit, also at £2 a week. . The rent of his home was £1 10s 3d a week, and there was a wife and a child under 16 to keep as well. Job on West Coast The Placement Office then told him there was a job for him at Stillwater on the West Coast. He refused this on the ground-that on the wage for the Public Works job there he would be unable to keep himself on the Coast and maintain the home in Christchurch, and on the further ground that, having been away on war service for some 18 months, he was entitled to a job in his home town, so that he could live at home. The Placement Office then classified him as “voluntarily unemployed” and stood him down, he claiihs, for three weeks from any benefits—which left him for that time without any income at all. He received some charitable aid in that time from the Patriotic Fund, and in addition did two days’ work on the wharf—a job found for him by the Placement Office. He told “The Press” that that two days’ work was the only employment found for him since he left the Army in April.. He has now secured a job on his own initiative. He approached the Minister for Defence (the Hon. F. Jones) about his position and received with the reply, which he said regretted the circumstances, a form on which to lodge an appeal with the War Pensions Appeal. Board. A further complaint was that before he left New Zealand he was in a house rented from the State Advances Corporation at 25s a week. This was sold, and another house, a State rental one in Spreydon, was provided, but at an extra rental of 5s 3d a week —an extra rental which some of the time had to be paid out of an income of £2 a week, and when he was declared “voluntarily unemployed” out of nothing a week.