If it costs the TAX PAYER $3 to stop these LOSERS taking an extra $1 and pissing all over our faces in the process then im all for it.

I thought Tories were supposed to be opposed to government wastage.

You can’t really do anything about the hopeless. We’ll pay for them one way or another. C’est la vie.

Look back at that outrage and remember how pissed everyone was with them

Anyway, I think your argument is breaking down into “the things I do can’t possibly be as bad as the things other people do” – which is what we all think, but again isn’t a very principled basis for making laws. Which is fine – but then lets not pretend that this proposal is anything other than a bone to keep people like dime from slobbering all over the carpet.

It might also be common sense if tradesmen and small business men seen their taxes were not going to pay beneficiaries ripping off the system they would be less inclined to do cash jobs.

I think most people rightly think someone avoiding some tax by doing the odd cash job is nowhere near as morally wrong as someone who contributes nothing to the system

The vast majority if they were honest at some tie in their lives have benefited from cash jobs – the majority by paying cash and getting a discount. This would include MPs, lawyers, judges and law professors.

So … the reason for not chasing and prosecuting tax evasion as aggressively as benefit fraud (and certainly not introducing “guilt by association” offences) is not based on any principled basis, but purely because of the kind of people who commit each sort of offence? That may be the way the world actually works, but it’s pretty ugly when you spell it out that directly … even if you dress it up in the gaudy robes of “common sense”

For example, someone might be chased down the street with a man carrying a knife. You see it. They stop in front of you. The offender stabs the victim to death. You do nothing and walk away. You do not assist at all. You have not committed an offence, despite how repugnant your inaction might be.

The current government has not only done away with the failure to act in the cases of child abuse (i.e. failing to do anything about it is now a crime, even though you are not the offender yourself), they are now proposing that a partner who may not be involved at all in the welfare crime being charged!

These people could quite easily be parties, or accessories under s 71, except spouses and de-facto partners are exempt as accessories. This is because, presumably, the spouse is not a competent or compellable witness in any case against his/her spouse.

This raises a very interesting dilemma actually: If the spouse or de facto partner is an associated defendant in the welfare crime (which it seems they will be) they are not compelled to give evidence against their co-defendant spouse. So, for evidence purposes, this change means nothing as well.

I just don’t like where all of this is going

It is good see a lawyer argue common sense. It is not just about prosecuting someone but recovering money as well.

AG, may be technically correct but his analogy is extreme. I am sure there is a Latin term for his argument.

To say an apprentice should be expected to pay IRD because he should have been aware his boss was doing cash jobs is ridiculous.

Making someone earning good money who has benefited from moving in with a woman who was on the DBP and would have known she if she was still on the DPB at least after a period of time responsible for paying back the money is not unreasonable to many people.

It is a shame lawyer and judges are not required to have a degree of common sense. Binnie is a prime example.

The analogy is not valid. Most people have not ripped off social welfare. The vast majority if they were honest at some tie in their lives have benefited from cash jobs – the majority by paying cash and getting a discount. This would include MPs, lawyers, judges and law professors.

I’m not convinced that s66 is applicable … it seems as though you have to assist, encourage, advise etc, i.e. take some positive action, in order to be covered by s66.

True. But this can be hard to do, if the woman (who usually is the fraudulent party) won’t testify … how else do you prove the man did anything to encourage/advise/etc her to carry out the fraud? So the Government is setting a lower bar – if you know what is going on and passively benefit from it, you can get pinged.

OK – that’s a policy choice. But note that it is criminalising something that isn’t criminalised in any other area of our criminal law – it is not, for example, illegal to sell your car to a drug dealer, even if you know the money you are getting for it was gained by selling P to schoolkids. And note that there is zero – absolutely zero – chance of this approach being taken in either of the other two equivalent examples I gave above. So, the question arises – why is this approach being taken to just this one very small area of offending that is but a drop in the bucket compared to the other ways the tax-revenue stream is diddled.

And the answer, I suspect, looks a lot like Nick K’s above.

I have no problem with all three people in AG’s example being treated the same. But a law change that only captures one out of three cases is still better than nothing.

Nick – arent they trying to make it easier to get a conviction though?

some shitbag loser says “i didnt know she was on a benefit” and our sympathetic society says “fair enough”.

They’re making it politically more sellable/palatable when they do get a conviction, or when someone is charged with it. Then Paula Bennett or Chester Borrows can beat their chests and say at election time “we are bloody tough on crime and benefit fraudsters. Here’s what we did”.

That is easy. It is much more difficult for the Minister to ask police to enforce the current law (section 66) because then he/she is seen as politically interfering in the operation aspects of policing; and/or is not separating his/her executive powers very well. That is a problem for the government. Passing a pointless law and standing on a stage at election time proudly pronouncing how tough on crime you are isn’t.

where and how exactly is all of this corporate fraud taking place?

are we talking the finance companies? where company directors have been sent to jail etc. or something else?

why cant a problem be tackled one piece at a time?

do losers somehow get to go last?! why?

Yeah, benefit fraud should be punished, just like any fraud. Just don’t lose sight of the fact that you are being pissed on in gallons by tax evaders and corporate fraudsters while the benefit fraudsters are directing a thin stream of urine in your general direction.

the losers on welfare are the real heroes!

here is a fact – benefit fraud pisses people like me off. people like me contribute far more than we take, so why not through me a bone? im sick of losers pissing all over good tax paying bastards like me

Well, at least you recognise this policy for what it really is … feeding the muts. Now … who’s a good little boy? Who’s a good little boy? Go vote National … go on!

some shitbag loser says “i didnt know she was on a benefit” and our sympathetic society says “fair enough”.

a lot of deflection in this thread. how about we deal with one issue at a time.

here is a fact – benefit fraud pisses people like me off. people like me contribute far more than we take, so why not through me a bone? im sick of losers pissing all over good tax paying bastards like me

I agree that in the majority of cases it is a joint decision to commit benefit fraud, so the ability to prosecute both is a useful change

A curious turn of phrase to say you agree to a thing that is not a proven fact.

Generally people say “I also think” or “I also suspect”.

Nevermind, it’s a minor thing to notice how an opinion about beneficiaries is so easily mistaken for a fact when I’m sure exactly the same opinion is held about all other possible fraudsters and their partners. Such as the spouses of managers and shareholders of companies.