Peters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Peters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:619;Page:14514] 
1. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: Does he still stand by his statement: “Not a single case has been produced to substantiate this claim. Work and Income has no policy of moving the unemployed on to sickness benefits.”? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I absolutely stand by my statement that Work and Income has no policy of moving the unemployed on to a sickness benefit. There is no such policy. Despite requests for information on cases whereby Work and Income is supposedly trying to inappropriately push people on to a sickness benefit I have yet to see evidence of this. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Is the Minister aware that a number of members of Parliament have received direct information from constituents that that is precisely what is happening and does he not consider two damning letters to the editor in yesterday’s  
New Zealand Herald 
 
from doctors convinced that Work and Income does in fact employ a policy of moving people off the unemployment benefit and on to sickness benefits to be substantial evidence of the policy that he denies to be a reality and at work? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I follow the letters in the newspaper very carefully as well. I want to say to the member that none of the doctors has said that Work and Income is pushing people on to a sickness benefit. For example I know a doctor who may well have written to the member and I have the letter in front of me now that points out that doctors have no way of seeing that this is coming from a case manager. In fact what doctors say is that patients seem wilfully or skilfully to be misinterpreting what is going on around them and that they come along to try to get this from their doctor. I repeat that it is a doctor’s judgment as to whether someone gets a sickness benefit not a case manager’s. The doctor makes a judgment on medical grounds. 
Georgina Beyer 
: Who has the central role in deciding whether a person transfers from the unemployment benefit to the sickness benefit? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The answer is doctors. As medical professionals they are the gatekeepers of this policy. We rely on the professional skills and ethics of doctors to certify sickness only when they are convinced it exists. This is the case whether a person is a worker a beneficiary or a patient seeking medication. Work and Income case managers have no medical training and should never try to determine whether a person is too sick to work. None of us wants case managers to decide what assistance people can apply for off their own bat. Doctors are the only people who can test eligibility for a sickness benefit and we rely on them to apply the highest professional standards. 
Katherine Rich 
: Is demanding specific details of patients not a political stunt because the Minister knows that no doctor will breach patient confidentiality; and is he suggesting that the doctors and medical groups who say they are being put under mounting pressure to pass able-bodied beneficiaries as unfit for work so that they can claim the sickness benefit are making it up? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: No we are not asking for a political stunt to be followed through. We would simply like a doctor to say to us: “I have evidence of an individual case manager sending someone to me to be put on the sickness benefit.” Of course doctors would not do that because they are making a medical and ethical judgment and therefore they would not certify someone as sick who is not sick. We have not had one single doctor—the Medical Association has been approached on this—saying that he or she has evidence of a case manager sending a client for that purpose—not one. 
Sue Bradford 
: Does the Government intend to do more to support the work of reputable mental health non-governmental organisations like the Phobic Trust to help invalids and sickness beneficiaries move into paid work; if not why not given the very practical ways in which such organisations can help people who otherwise languish on the benefit? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: As the member knows earlier this year the Government launched its Sickness and Invalids Benefit Strategy which will involve a large number of people who are currently in positions such as the member describes being assisted and in many cases they will be helped by community organisations. 
Judy Turner 
: Is the Minister aware that the number of people transferring from the dole to the sickness benefit for depression has increased by 73 percent since the year 2000 and the number transferring due to stress has increased by 99 percent over the same period and how does he explain such a sharp rise in specific incapacity over such a short period of time? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I am aware of a rise in those numbers due to depression and stress. It is common to all OECD countries that those kinds of conditions are now part of the sickness benefit arrangements. It is one of the reasons why earlier this year we introduced a whole range of new policies. We believe that issues such as depression can be dealt with relatively quickly and people can return to work. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Has the Minister seen Dr Ah Chan’s comments—which I am certain have been brought to his attention—that: “The sickness benefit scam has been going on for decades. The situation came to a head in 1999 when Winz staff started asking patients for whom I would not sign certificates to go to other GPs who would. I lost many patients to doctors who would readily accept new patients and their fees.” alongside the answer given by his colleague Rick Barker on 30 November that over 36 percent of those on sickness benefits were immediately before they moved to the sickness benefit on the unemployment benefit? Who is lying in unison here: the bureaucrats his ministry or the doctors out there who know it is going on as a fact? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: On the second question regarding Rick Barker’s answer to his question I will get the material down here and table it because the member is not quoting it correctly but I do not have it in front of me. So I will get it down here to do that— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I seek leave to table Rick Barker’s answer right now. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: —because that is the right thing to do. Can I go back to Dr Ah Chan’s letter and remind the member that Dr Ah Chan said in his letter to the  
New Zealand Herald 
 that: “Any doctor signing a false declaration is as guilty as the patient.” I go back to the central point in this debate: case managers are not medically qualified people. The only person who makes a decision as to whether someone can get on to a sickness benefit and fill out this sickness benefit medical certificate—the entire form—is the doctor certifying the health status of that person and Dr Ah Chan affirms exactly that. 
Dr Muriel Newman 
: How come everyone in the country appears to know what has been going on with people switching from unemployment benefits to sickness benefits except him as Minister and why does he think it is that he is failing to keep a grip on what is happening in his own portfolio? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Everybody in the country does not know what that member knows. I know she goes to meetings with people in phone booths all over the country but meeting with that few group of ACT supporters does not constitute everybody in the country understanding something that is clearly and utterly not true. 
Judy Turner 
: How will the trial of medical intervention in Manukau as part of the Sickness and Invalids Benefit Strategy produce results when 41 percent of invalid beneficiaries and 30 percent of sickness beneficiaries in that area suffer from psychological disorders yet the provider that has been contracted to treat them ProCare Health is an organisation of general practitioners not specialists in mental health? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I would be very happy to walk the member right through all of the people who have been contracted for the Manukau pilot which does include people who deal with psychological conditions. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Why is the Minister denying the substance of Rick Barker’s answer on 13 November last year that over 36 percent of those on the sickness benefit were immediately before that time on the unemployment benefit; and will he give two undertakings: one that any citizen who writes to him outlining that that is what they were told by Work and Income will get protection; and two will he resign when they do so? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I have said all the way through this debate that if anybody wants to bring a specific case of a Work and Income case manager who has forced a person to go along to the doctor and get the doctor to falsify the fact that that person is not fit for work I want to hear about that case. We will deal with it and that person will be protected from any comeback. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. No allegation has been made that any Work and Income officer has forced someone to go but that those officers have advised people to go otherwise they will receive no benefit at all. This idea of putting up a straw man and seeking to knock him down seeking to justify doctors having some evidentiary responsibility here is a load of nonsense. We who go to our clinics know full well what is going on and we want some honest answers. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister’s answers will be honest or of course he faces very serious consequences. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: That’s right. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is right and the member knows that. That was a political point not a point or order.