Kiwiblog

Chester Borrows announced last week:

Associate Social Development Minister Chester Borrows today congratulated Police and the Ministry of Social Development on a joint investigation which has uncovered a sizeable welfare payment fraud out of South Auckland.

As part of the government’s new interagency fraud group, the Welfare Fraud Collaborative Action Programme, MSD and Police worked together on a case involving a bogus dental practice and hundreds of thousands of welfare dollars.

Police have arrested a 48 year old man and 51 year old woman as part of ‘Operation Novocaine’ and they face deception and other charges. They are being held at the Manukau Police Station overnight and will appear in the Manukau District Court tomorrow.

“Police worked closely with the Ministry of Social Development after it uncovered a scam involving beneficiaries who falsely claimed for emergency dental treatment,” says Mr Borrows.

“Providing false documents the pair allegedly took a 25 per cent cut of each payment. In total $375,000 was paid out since December 2011. The vast majority of the payments were benefit advances and the beneficiaries in the main are repaying these out of their regular benefit payments. The small number who received grants will also now be required to repay the money.

The amount is not major, but the number of people involved was. Each person on a benefit knew they were making a false claim or loan, as they paid the fake dentist practice 25% of the money they got from the taxpayer.

So I asked how many people were involved in this fraud scam, and it totaled 280 people. That’s a shocking number – and they are lucky all they’ve had to do was repay the loan or grant.

Shane Cowlishaw at Stuff reports:

Concerns have been raised about the plans to investigate people without their knowledge as the Government introduces measures to prosecute the partners of benefit fraudsters.

Announcing the changes yesterday, Associate Social Development Minister Chester Borrows said a new offence would be created to allow the partner or spouse of a person wrongly collecting a benefit to be charged.

It would mean partners could face a fine of up to $5000 or 12 months in jail, as well as their share of the repayments.

Last year more than $20 million was lost because of relationship fraud, making up one-third of welfare fraud cases. …

Beneficiary Advocacy Federation spokeswoman Kay Brereton said she was supportive of the move to target partners.

Currently the majority of people being punished for relationship fraud were women, who were often pressured into the crime. While there would be situations where a partner was not aware of the fraud, this would be the minority, she said.

“I’d love to think that this would discourage men, and I know I’m being very sexist but what we see is mostly men, to discourage them from pressuring their partner into doing this.”

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.

Stuff reports:

Benefit fraudster Eileen Farquer is embarrassed that, at 83, she’s become a hero to all the wrong kinds of people.

“You’d be amazed at the people who show up here,” Farquer says, standing in the living area of her tiny rented bach in the Bay of Plenty seaside settlement of Little Waihi, where she is imprisoned on home detention.

“To some people, I’m a hero – ‘you ripped off the Government, wow’. This is what’s so bad, everybody feels it’s OK to rip off the Government. If I’d ripped off a little old lady, I’d be stoned to death. But the Government? ‘They’ve got plenty of money.’ “

While I condemn Farquer’s offending, it is good to see that she fully recognises it was wrong, and is pointing out the abhorrent attitude some people have that it is okay to steal from the Government.

Using the name Lee J Strauss, she gained an unemployment benefit in 1987, and continued to receive benefits in that name until June last year. She collected $215,000, which she is paying back at $10.50 a week.

Under the welfare reforms, I would hope this could now never happen – someone spending 25 years on an unemployment benefit.

I blogged earlier this week on David Shearer using the example of a guy on a sickness benefit painting his roof, and how it wasn’t fair, and how Shearer won’t tolerate people who don’t pull their weight. I commented:

Almost sounds like a speech from a National MP. How often do Labour MPs talk about welfare fraud?

A few of the left blogs have complained about it, saying how does Shearer  know that the sickness beneficiary didn’t have a mental health problem. I think they missed this part:

Last year before the election, I was chatting to a guy in my electorate who had just got home from work. In the middle of the conversation, he stopped and pointed across the road to his neighbour.

He said: “see that guy over there, he’s on a sickness benefit, yet he’s up there painting the roof of his house. That’s not bloody fair. Do you guys support him?”

I think we can assume that the neighbour knew enough about the situation to know he was being a bludger. He wouldn’t know the guy was on a sickness benefit, unless he had been told by the beneficiary – and presumably why he was on it.  So I think people are unfairly attacking Shearer for making a valid point.

But one comment was notable, based on who it was from on Shearer’s Facebook page:

Joan Caulfield Unhappy you chose to take a cheap shot at a sickness beneficiary. 

Do you know what his illness is? Maybe he has a mental illness and cannot hold down a job. Passing the test set by Work and Income is very difficult and requires a medical certificate. Sickness beneficiaries I know live in poverty and need support from families to survive. 

I expect a comment like that to come from the Nats.

Joan Caulfield is the former electorate agent for Mt Albert, when Helen Clark was the MP. To have a staff for the former leader and MP severely criticise the current leader and current MP for Mt Albert is a very rare thing.

David Shearer in a speech to Grey Power said:

Last year before the election, I was chatting to a guy in my electorate who had just got home from work. In the middle of the conversation, he stopped and pointed across the road to his neighbour.

He said: “see that guy over there, he’s on a sickness benefit, yet he’s up there painting the roof of his house. That’s not bloody fair. Do you guys support him?”

From what he told me, he was right, it wasn’t bloody fair, and I said so. I have little tolerance for people who don’t pull their weight.

Almost sounds like a speech from a National MP. How often do Labour MPs talk about welfare fraud?

The irony is that Labour has opposed almost all the changes by the Government to tighten up on benefit fraud, such as more stringent work testing!