Benefit rule ‘forcing fraud’

Press, 15 May 1985, Page 9

Benefit rule ‘forcing fraud’

Honest people were being forced to commit fraud because of the restriction on how much they could earn while receiving a benefit, the Budget ’B5 Task Force was told in Christchurch yesterday. Ms Edwina Percival, a counsellor with the Resource Centre, said the present $25-a-week limit on how much people could earn while receiving a benefit was unrealistic. The limit could be increased to as much as $lOO a week, she said. “That still would not be a liveable wage but there would then be room to tax it.

“People are now being paid under the counter because they cannot afford to be honest, and that is sad,” she said.

Many co-operatives of unemployed people had fallen apart because of the restriction on extra income. “We find ourselves in a

position where the Government encourages the setting up of co-operatives but we have to warn them to watch out or they will be cut off at the throat after a couple of months,” said Ms Percival.

The Resource Centre’s submission also called for the abolition of stand-down periods before people could receive some benefits. Ms Percival said it had recently taken everything she had to give to stop a gang member from reoffending after being released from prison because he had to wait six weeks before he could collect the unemployment benefit.

Many former prisoners reoffended because they had nothing when they were released, she said.

“People are being released in Christchurch whose wives and families are in Auckland, and they have only ?17 in their pocket. “What is the first thing

you would want to do when you get out after six months — go home,” she said.

The. Resource Centre also sought free health care for beneficiaries, benefits to be linked to wage movements, subsidised housing for all people who spend 25 per cent or more of their income on accommodation, the abolition of youth pay rates, and for beneficiary groups such as the Unemployment Rights Centre to be Government-funded.

The submission also said the clause in the regulations governing the unemployment benefit requiring beneficiaries to be “actively seeking work,” should be removed. People could not maintain their dignity while looking for jobs that did not exist.

The proposed goods and services tax discriminated against the poor and there was no evidence to show it would benefit people on low

incomes, said the submission.

A tax-free minimum income was needed, said Ms Percival.

“What the Treasury does not spend today it will have to spend 10 times over in 20 years time to solve all the problems created today,” she said.

The chairman of the meeting at which submissions were made to the Task Force, Mr John McKenzie, said he was impressed by Ms Percival’s sincerity while presenting the submission.

“I have never seen a better, more well presented case,” he said.

He said it was a tragedy that there was not more imput into the Task Force by persons such as Ms Percival. He urged her and the Resource Centre to organise a submission to present to the Royal Commission next year on social welfare.

A submission by the Combined Christian Social Services Trust was among others presented to the task force yesterday. The group sought a minimun “in-the-hand” income of $l5O a week for each person aged between 20 and 40.

The trust’s treasurer, Mr Ken Alexander, said people should be able to ask for a minimum income as of right and not have to beg for it. “There is a lot of illfeeling in what people have to go through to get a benefit,” he said.

An increased range of subsidies available to elderly people under care at church rest homes was also sought by the trust. Written submissions on the discussion paper, “Benefits, Taxes and the 1985 Budget,” will be accepted from the public until May 31.