Unemployment benefit check ‘too loose’

Press, 1 March 1984, Page 26

Unemployment benefit check ‘too loose’

PA Tauranga Checks on people receiving the unemployment benefit are too loose, according to a former supervising employment officer in the Labour Department, Mr A. K. Girle. Mr Girle, who has also been unemployed for brief periods, said yesterday it was “incredibly easy” to get the benefit and stay on it for a long time. “The only requirement on a person once he or she receives the benefit is to report to the department once a month,” said Mr Girle. “You are only required to report by telephone. The departmental checking system is so slack that anyone can telephone for you,” he said. Mr Girle, who worked for the department in Auckland

and Palmerston North before going to Australia, said he was not trying to “knock” the department. The New Zealand system was wide open to abuse compared with Australia’s. Telephone reporting was wrong, he said. The Labour Department’s Tauranga district superientendent, Mr K. N. W. Downs, said the registered unemployed were required to re-

port to the department fortnightly. “They can report by telephone, but if we have any reservations about anybody we can ask them to report in person,” he said. Mr Girle, who has received the unemployment benefit for brief periods in recent years, said he was surprised no-one had suggested that a commission of inquiry investigate the departmeht’s efficiency.