Thousands of dole beneficiaries get 'sick'

new-zealand-national-party

Wed May 09 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

Thousands of dole beneficiaries get 'sick'

Wednesday, 9 May 2007, 9:50 am
Press Release: New Zealand National Party

Judith Collins MP National Party Welfare Spokeswoman

9 May 2007

Some 8,657 working-age people have been shunted from the unemployment benefit to the sickness benefit in the past year alone, says National Party Welfare spokeswoman Judith Collins.

"While the Government is very keen to take credit for the fall in unemployment benefit numbers, it is less keen to talk about how many of those people have actually exited the system, rather than just transferred to another benefit.

"The unemployment and sickness benefits pay the same and there is no work test for sickness beneficiaries.

"Expenditure on the sickness benefit has increased from $375 million in 2002 to a forecast $572 million this year.

"The Government denies that Work and Income have a policy to move people on to sickness benefits to make unemployment figures look better, but only a few weeks ago a Christchurch doctor claimed that GPs are often put under real pressure to green-light certificates for would-be sickness beneficiaries. Many other doctors have made similar claims in recent years.

"Labour likes to claim that the net figures actually look lower because some people have actually transferred the other way - from sickness to the unemployment benefit. In an answer to a recent written question, the Minister described these people as 'working age people who became well and transferred to the unemployment benefit after being on a sickness benefit'.

"Can the Minister not see the irony in that statement? Is moving to another benefit the most a sickness beneficiary has to look forward to when they get well?

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"More than half of those on a sickness benefit have been receiving it for more than a year. Nearly 6,000 have been on it between 4 and 10 years, and 1,000 have been on it for over 10 years.

"The sickness benefit is supposedly for short-term use. There is nothing in these figures that show it is being implemented that way.

"The Government, while crowing about low unemployment, is turning a blind eye to long-term reliance on alternative benefits".

ENDS

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