Media Release

New Milestone In Benefits Reached

Wednesday, 10 October, 2007

According to figures released by National MP, Judith Collins, August 2007 has seen the number of people on Invalid and Sickness benefits reach a new milestone.

Welfare commentator Lindsay Mitchell says that the total number of Invalid and Sickness beneficiaries has grown 56 percent in the last ten years. "To put this into perspective the working-age population (15-64) has grown by only 14 percent over the same period."

"Despite programmes to address the problems that are preventing beneficiaries from returning to work the government seems incapable of curbing the growth, much of which is coming from increases in psychological and psychiatric conditions, migration from other benefits, longer stays and easy eligibility."

"While the public is happy to support genuine cases it is far less clear whether they are happy to support people whose incapacity to work is self-induced or who are simply refusing to face up to their problems due to the availability of welfare."

"Instead of applying some rigorous gate-keeping the government has now changed the rules to allow family GPs to certify or re-certify people eligible for these benefits. Nothing they are currently doing would indicate we can expect a drop in the numbers. In fact Treasury predicts a 21 percent increase in expenditure on these benefits over the next 4 years. "

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