Newman Muriel: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Newman Muriel: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:618;Page:14340] 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I want to address the explosion in sickness benefit numbers and the failure of this Government to stem the surge. To begin with I ask the Minister whether he has contacted Dr Andrew Causer and Dr Rod Hickey whose comments appeared in the lead story in the  
New Zealand Herald 
 yesterday. Those doctors were expressing concern that Work and Income case managers are advising people to go on to a sickness benefit even though the doctors believe that most of them are not sick. The Minister made an outrageous statement earlier in the House saying that we were not providing him with information but yesterday New Zealand’s largest national newspaper named two doctors one of whom has been in contact with me. The Minister also has a Medical Council—an independent practitioners association—that has expressed huge concern about this issue. 
I ask the Minister to take a call and tell us whether he and his department have been in touch with those brave medical practitioners. I say “brave” advisedly because anybody who stands up to this Government is a brave person. I would like the Minister to tell us right now exactly what he has done about the concerns that those two doctors raised in New Zealand’s largest daily newspaper. 
I received this correspondence from one of those doctors: “I am a GP. Many WINZ clients are sent to our clinic for sickness benefit forms to be completed. Most are unhappy with life rather than having true depression and yet WINZ pushes them all on to a sickness benefit. I believe WINZ is being directed to push people on to the sickness benefit to make their job easier because it means they no longer have to try to find work for these people and also it makes the unemployment statistics look artificially good.” 
The  
New Zealand Herald  
editorial also talked about this issue stating: “But if the doctors’ allegations are correct it suggests subterfuge and a dereliction of departmental responsibility. Should it be established that a deliberate policy is being orchestrated resignations should follow. Trickery of such nature would demand nothing less.” I suggest the Minister has failed New Zealand if in fact he has failed to follow up on the allegations made in the  
New Zealand Herald  
yesterday. The information I have claims that some 95 percent of many of the people who are currently going on to the sickness benefit are fit to work. If that is the case I suggest that this Government is actually condoning benefit fraud on a massive scale. 
The sickness benefit costs around $500 million a year. If we add the $1 billion a year that it costs New Zealanders to fund the invalids benefit that is a massive amount of money. The  
New Zealand Herald  
actually makes the very interesting statement that most of the savings made in respect of the dole—savings this Government has crowed about over the last 18 months—are being swallowed up by greater spending on the sickness benefit and invalids benefit. 
The sickness benefit was established in the way that we know it in the late 1930s. In 40 years only 7500 New Zealanders were on a sickness benefit but in just 4 years of this Labour Government the number has gone up by 11000. Under its jurisdiction the number has gone up more than 1½ times what it took 40 years to reach. The only time that relentless rise in numbers actually halted was when the sickness benefit was put into a work-capacity testing regime. In other words where case managers asked people: “What can we do to help you to get well enough to go back to work?”. That was all it was. It was done in the spirit that people were on a temporary sickness benefit because they were not able to work right there and then but that they would get well enough to go back to work. That is the key issue this Government is failing to address.