Prime Minister John Key says National will focus on welfare fraud if it wins the November 26 election, releasing a policy touted to save taxpayers NZ$200 million over four years.
Releasing National's final welfare policy in West Auckland with Social Development Minister Paula Bennett, Key said National would increase authorities' investigative powers by funding a new team of fraud specialists. See welfare policies from all parties in Parliament in our party policy section here.
"This year alone. Work and Income's data matching found around six to 12% of people were receiving benefit payments they weren't entitled to," Key said.
"This shows we have to do better by the taxpayer to safeguard their money and protect the integrity of the welfare system," he said.
National would review the Social Security Act, with a focus on making it easier for authorities to prosecute people who abused the welfare system.
"In particular we will review the rules around relationship fraud, and make clearer the rules around when benefit recipients need to let Work and Income know about any relationships they are in," Key said.
"Jobseekers who don't apply for a job because they are asked to take a drug test, or who fail a pre-employment drug test, face having their benefit cancelled," Key said.
Beneficiaries evading a police warrant would also have their benefits cancelled, if they did not make contact with police within seven days.
Social Development Minister Paula Bennett said that over the 2010/11 year there were 690 benefit fraud prosecutions involving more than NZ$22 million, with a further NZ$183 million counted as overpayment, because it fell below the prosecution threshold.
"So in the past year alone, new debt of NZ$200 million was established due to benefit fraud and that's unacceptable. This policy will save an estimated NZ$200 million over four years," Bennett said.
Chunky?
This announcement follows welfare policy released earlier in November, when National said it would change benefit categories and make more people make themselves available for work in an effort to get 46,000 people off welfare and into full-time work over four years, and another 11,000 into part-time work. See earlier article here.
Today's announcement was touted as "chunky" to press gallery journalists, and was the last of welfare policies announced by National before the election.
In February this year the government received a report from its Welfare Working Group, which said the government could be in line to save NZ$1.3 billion a year if it implemented the Group's recommendations for reform of New Zealand's welfare system.
Read the Welfare Working Group's final recommendations here.
The Welfare Working Group said the government should aim to reduce the number of people dependent on welfare currently by 100,000 by 2021 from around 360,000 now. At the time, Social Development Minister Paula Bennett said the 100,000 target was "certainly a big call".
"This will take time and we’ll keep talking to New Zealanders about the kind of welfare system they want, that is fair and effective,” Bennett said in February.
“This Government certainly believes a radical shift is needed, to put the focus on what people can do, not what they can’t do. We have more than 350,000 New Zealanders on benefits and we can do much better by many of them, by backing them into work," Bennett said.
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