Lauren
Crimp Political reporter
Prime
Minister Christopher Luxon has apologised after people’s
benefits were wrongly suspended because officials were
overwhelmed with paperwork.
But he’s standing by his
statement to Parliament that had
not happened, saying it was correct at the
time.
RNZ on Thursday revealed people had their
benefit payments wrongly
suspended following a law change that was rushed through
Parliament last year.
The new law requires some
beneficiaries to re-confirm their circumstances at least
once every 52 weeks, to check whether they are still
eligible.
The Ministry of Social Development (MSD)
said processing delays caused by a high volume of people
confirming their circumstances meant some of their paperwork
was not checked in time, so their benefit payments
stopped.
That same law change had also caused a
separate issue: thousands of pensioners missed out on their
Winter Energy Payment, because that payment was incorrectly
included in the legislation.
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Luxon
and the Social Development Minister Louise Upston apologised
for the missing Winter Energy Payments last week.
On
Friday Luxon also said sorry for the second
problem.
“There’s clearly an issue, our job is to fix
it … I apologise for it, I’m sorry that it’s happened,” he
said.
“It’s really disappointing to see that there are
further issues there.”
Luxon said he was focused on
ensuring people got the money they were owed, and that the
underlying problem was fixed.
MSD said everyone had
been paid back, and there were no longer processing
delays.
Luxon last week told Parliament he was
confident that no beneficiaries had lost payments due to
processing delays.
“My statement was correct at the
time,” he said on Friday, adding that he had only found out
about the problem on Friday morning.
Meanwhile Social
Development Minister Louise Upston refused to comment on her
statements in Parliament.
On Tuesday she was asked
whether benefits had wrongly been suspended due to
processing delays.
Upston said no, but changed her
answer to “possibly” after multiple further
questions.
RNZ asked whether Upston would clarify her
statements.
She said she would not be commenting
further until she received the findings of MSD’s review into
the
matter.
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