The Government is to crack down on sickness beneficiaries.
Social Development Minister Paula Bennett said today that from May next year beneficiaries assessed as being capable will be required to work part time.
Speaking on TV3’s “the Nation” she said that currently 9000 sickness beneficiaries were assessed by their doctor as being capable of part time work.
“The doctor thinks they can work part time, we at the moment do nothing about that, we don’t insist that they do look for part time work, but we actually know it's better for their health,” she said.
“So where a doctor says yes we think you can work part time we will be work testing those people and helping get them into part time work.”
And if the beneficiaries refuse to work, Ms Bennett says the Government will reduce their sickness benefit.
“There will be expectations that they are fronting up and working where they can, and if they're not actually doing those sorts of activities then yes we will be cutting their benefit by 50% to start with,” she said.
“Then they can actually come up and do that sort of activity that’s needed, and then if they're not actually fronting up then there will be other penalties to it.”
In April this year the Government set up the Welfare Working Group chaired by Paula Rebstock to investigate reforms to social welfare and particularly to look at the so-called insurance model for welfare.
The Group is due to report later this year but Ms Bennett said she did not currently have an opinion on whether an insurance model would work.
“What we're more focused on is making sure that the right people are getting on to the right benefits, and those that shouldn’t be on them are not getting on, and that we're actually getting them back to work,” she said.
“I also think the ACC model is one that we can learn from and am asking them to look at that.
“You know we put people on benefits and leave them there, why aren’t we actually working towards what will get them well.
“Should we be frontloading a bit more support which I'm pretty keen to look at as well.”