Crackdown on welfare abuse

Press, 27 February 1980, Page 1

Crackdown on welfare abuse

The Minister of Social Welfare (Mr Gair) will introduce new departmental procedures after allegations that beneficiaries are cheating the welfare system.

Mr Gair said last evening in Christchurch that he was anxious to ensure that any abuse of the system be checked and, if possible, eradicated.

“I am at present participating in a study with my senior social welfare officials on a range of new procedures which, I hope, will help to identify abuse at an early stage,” he said.

Mr ' Gair’s comments were in response to allegations by a group of beneficiaries that they were forced to cheat and lie to the Social Welfare Department because of the inadequacy of their benefits. The group included persons on the sickness, domestic purposes, and fam-

ily benefits, who said that they did not tell the department of part-time earnings they received to supplement their benefits. Their welfare payments would be reduced to a level on which they could not survive if they told the department of these earnings, the beneficiaries said. According to Mrs Margaret Grenfell, a. social worker, “every social worker” knew that this sort of fraud occurred. She said that social workers hi the department knew that beneficiaries received parttime earnings, but they overlooked these cases.

“There is no way people can survive on their benefits,” Mrs Grenfell said. _ The group made their allegations at a news conference at the home of the member of Parliament for Papanui (Mr M. K. Moore) yesterday afternoon. Mr Moore said that the bene-

ficiaries were prepared to talk to the news media provided their anonymity was retained.

The group also asserted that the department often gave people bad financial advice, and that beneficiaries could not undo the damage this advice caused. Lawyers were also often ignorant of social welfare law and regulations, they said.

Mr Gain said that every indication of abuse was investigated as quickly as possible within the resources of the department. He said that those beneficiaries who said that they had abused the system were either engaged in exaggerated or false bragging or, if they were serious, were committing a serious offence and helping to bring the benefit system into disrepute. “It is a sad commentary that there may be some

who, on the one hand, are happy to receive a benefit and, on the other, are willing to have it publicly denigrated,” Mr Gair said. Asked if the benefit was shown to be inadequate by the abuse of the system, Mr’Gair said that the benefits were based on a formula which was set by a Royal Commission in 197172, and which had been updated regularly twice a year in terms of the consumers price index since then.

“The beneficiaries must appreciate that they are not the only section of the community which suffers because of economic difficulties and periods of inflation, and in many respects they are relatively better placed than some people at the bottom of the economic scale. The interests of this group must be considered, for they earn their .money and pay taxes on it,” he said.

A sickness beneficiary said at yesterday’s meeting that the practice of cheating the department was “fairly widespread” and it was probably worse at present because benefits had fallen behind inflation. Mr Moore said that the system was “full of holes.” “The system is a shambles and the National Government is failing to show any genuine concern. Necessity and the system are making thieves of many good and honest people,” he said.

Mr Moore suggested that benefits should be abolished, and a minimum income per household guaranteed. He described the beneficiaries who made their allegations yesterday as the “articulate and aggressive ones,” who found their own way to survive. There were many others who withdrew into themselves and lived in “absolute damn misery,” he said.