Bill Seeks Rise In Benefits

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32382, 22 August 1970, Page 44

Bill Seeks Rise In Benefits

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 21. The Social Security Amendment Bill, introduced in Parliament today by the Labour Party spokesman on social security (Mr N. J. King, Birkenhead), calls for an increase of $250 a week in aged, widows’, invalids’, sickness, and unemployed and related emergency benefits for single persons.

It would increase these benefits by $4 a week for married couples. The private member’s bill also calls for an investigation into the living costs of beneficiaries “with a view to compiling an index showing the day-to-day expenditure of a representative sample of such beneficiaries.” This index would be used for an automatic adjustment of benefits every six months. Since the bill involves the spending of Government money without the support of the Government, it will be ruled out of order by the speaker (Sir Roy Jack) if it is allowed to reach a secondreading stage, or unless the Government takes the highly unlikely step of taking over the sponsorship of the bill. The Minister in charge of war pensions (Mr Thomson) said the bill was an extreme measure by the Labour Party to prop up its fading interests among social security beneficiaries in New Zealand. The provisions of the bill would cost between §3lm and §43m a year. Mr King said there had been a great disparity between the increase in social security benefits and those in other incomes and in the cost of living in recent years.

Mr D. A. Highet (Nat., Remuera) called Mr Douglas’s claim “absolute poppycock.” After every general wage [ order increase the National , Government had immediately . increased benefits and had . undertaken to review benefits , from time to time, he said. i Mr A. J. Faulkner (Lab., i Roskill) said Government members had criticised the I figures in the bill but had . offered no alternative figures themselves. • “Now this bill is introduced t the only thing standing be- ’ tween the beneficiaries and ■ economic justice is the • National Party,” he said.

“Much more needs to be done,” he said. “This bill deals with the urgent economic plight of beneficiaries." Mr N. V. Douglas (Lab., Auckland Central) said the Minister had made it clear that pensioners and beneficiaries would get no help from a National Government.

“They have no compassion for people bn the lower incomes,” he said. “The Minister has revealed that his interest is to protect one section of the community—that section that is least in need.”