Welfare bill rewritten

Press, 9 August 1980, Page 2

Welfare bill rewritten

PA Wellington Parliament’s Statutes Re- j vision Committee : has vir-' tually rewritten a bill designed to speed the recovery by the . Social • Welfare Department. . of part ■of the costs' of the domestic purposes benefits paid to. solo ■parents.: . When the Social Security Amendment (No. 2) Bill was referred to the. committee it ; was 13 pages long. When it reported the bill back to the house yesterday, the committee’s recommendations for change covered 34 pages.

i] The main purpose of the I bill is to allow the depart-! ■jment to assess liable .(parents’ responsibility for • meeting the cost of main- ' jtaining dependent children, i U Rather than having this -'assessment made by the j courts, as at present, it will I be made by the Social Welj'fare Department, under a (.number of complex forAmulas. > | As the bill was' originally t] drafted, little provision was t ■ made for liable .parents to > appeal against the assess- - ment of the department. But s the . committee has inserted .' clauses allowing appeals to

the courts or the Social Security Commission. The committee’s chairman (Mr B. E. Brill) said the three most, significant changes to the bill as introduced were the committee’s recommendation that contributions due from a liable parent to the Social Welfare Department should be assessed on the basis of child maintenance only; the recognition of second families and other dependents when assessments were made; and the widening of the grounds upon which objections could be lodged against assessments by the department.