‘Carol’ from WINZ.
How fucking sickening is this…
MSD is treating loans as income in the courts – Child Poverty Action Group
Borrowed money should not count as income that can reduce benefit entitlements, saysChild Poverty Action Group (CPAG).
In a case being heard in the High Court, the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) is arguing that a sole mother who took out loans to pay for her home repairs and to support her children – because she could not otherwise afford to on the benefit – should have to repay more than $120,000 in so-called ‘over payments’.
This Friday, October 27 is the last day of the hearing. Ms X. has name suppression and is represented by Frances JoyChild QC.
No form Ms X. ever filled out for her benefit asked her to list loans as a form of income. The cost of the nearly eight years of reviews and appeal is huge, both financially and in terms of her health.
“It has created libraries of decisions, exhibits, letters, submissions and court time. To say nothing of the costs of Ms X’s time or her lawyers,” says Associate Professor Susan John, CPAG economics and welfare spokesperson.
“It is very worrying that mothers are treated this way and that MSD takes such a narrow view of the law,” says Associate Professor Susan St John, CPAG economics and welfare spokesperson.
New Zealand currently has a punitive welfare system that reduces support for sole parents who repartner, and applies sanctions to those who do not name a father on benefit applications. In finding loans as declarable income, it further reduces the ability of low-income families to support their children, resulting in deeper and longer term poverty and more unfair prosecutions.
…this isn’t an isolated case, when asked by the Judge why the MSD was chasing another beneficiary in another ‘fraud’ case, the fucking scum maggot from the Ministry said, ‘in case she wins lotto’!!!!!!!
FUCK THESE MAGGOTS! Damn what the bloody PSA says, purge these pricks from the face of NZ!
Labour’s greatest challenge in front of it right now is the ideological right wing arseholes who have taken up residence in our public service. Like cancerous tumours, they have spread their hateful right wing beliefs and infected every inch of what should be a welfare system designed to protect and help rather than punish.
We have seen example after example after example of how these smug vicious arseholes damage and kill the poor they are supposed to serve. Hounding a beneficiary into suicide for a debt that never existed should see those wealthy white Wellington bureaucrats strung up in the town square and lynched!
The new Government must use napalm as a disinfectant to cleanse our public service and damn the squeals from the PSA – it’s time to take back our welfare system from the neoliberal scum who with sadistic glee hurt the most poor amongst us. There can be no negotiation with cancer.
Filth only learn when they lose their jobs, let the purge begin!
I completely agree.
After the earthquakes and my partner and I had to flee the city because our respective businesses and our rented home were destroyed we had to go to WINZ in Balclutha for help ( To administer monetary help for us and made available to us, by us, via the taxes we’d paid over our working lives. ) because we were suddenly without incomes. We were deliberately led astray, not told of our entitlements, misled and lied to. And while I was in their hideous office area I was circled by an Armour Guard thug gagging for trouble. He even leaned in on our conversation.
While I’m no rocket surgeon I’m certainly no fool and I found wading through WINZ’s deliberate abstractions of complex requirements clearly designed to avoid having to pay us OUR money back when we were in dire need fucking rage worthy.
And while we’re at it? Lets talk ACC… More napalm please?
Why do you think that under the Nasty Party, razor wire was put up around all ACC and WINZ offices, why guards were put in place, plus special counters designed to make sure desperate people could not lean acorss the 4 metre counter! I have a letter from ACC’s own Lawyer condemming them about the way I was treated after being injured in the Earthquake. Why is it that only 48% of people trust ACC, and I would suggest that the remaining 52% hadn’t been injured during Nationals reign. Nick Smith is in the league of Max Bradford as being one of the worst ministers of all time.
I don’t know why the judge hasn’t just thrown this case out. The chances of this poor woman winning a lotto prize to justify the MSD case would be 1 in 3.8 million; and that’s winning division 1. The average win in division 2 is $19,995, and the woman owes more than this. What a sick country NZ has become…
The sickness NZ has is allowing the inequality, un-incomed and poverty to be continually fleeced and persecuted but the system that supports money creation out of thin air for the investor state to the tune of many billions per year, money which accumulated into assets used to drain further wealth away from the public.
The den if Vipers includes the privately owned banks one of which NZ’s ex PM will soon head.
It is a “family ” matter as to who gets to suck the lifeblood of the nation and who becomes dangerously anemic.
George Orwel said “speaking the truth is a revolutionary act.”
The thing he didn’t see was when the deepstate looks in. We look back.
IMHO, the Appellant in this case has a greater chance of winning a first division Lotto prize than she does of ever receiving justice from our PSA-dominated welfare bureaucracy.
Oh. One more thing.
What do you mean by ” …white Wellington bureaucrats…”
what the fuck does the colour of their skin have to do with anything? hekia parata wasn’t exactly ‘ white’. Neither are paula bennett or simon bridges so wtf?
I don’t think racially charged statements help when we’re all trying to hang together to rid ourselves of neoliberal criminal arseholes of all skin colours.
There are now so many shills within the public service who are sitting there as “sleeper cells for a nationam opposition party and must all be purged for sure.
Every case manager must be re-evaluated if any complants in future are placed against them.
And all staff need to be revieved for crimes against their clients whiom they are meant to serve.
The issue is indemic as the national administrationwas actively promoting hate against the public who were asking for assistance from MSD.
Labour lead adminstration will act in a more kind caring human approach from now on. The help just came to late for some it appears sadly.
I see very little difference between these actions of the MSD and that low-life who stole a mans wallet from his pocket while he lay dying of an aneurism. Why don’t they just apply a little decency and back off?
Or she could inherit some money, they’re leaving the gate open to take anything that comes her way. Using Lotto was a bs example, if they had said “inheritance” it wouldn’t be so easily laughed at.
simple fact a loan isn’t income.
income is a claim on goods and services a loan brings forward that claim a loan is payed back with interest so there is no net increase on an individuals claim on goods and services.
labor needs to take a broom to msd .and clean the place out and up.
Let’s take away the acronyms. Let’s give these people a face and a name.
The Judge ……. Mary Smith (Photo)
The MSD …. William Williamson; John Johns, etc. (Photo)
The PSA …. George Georgeson; Betty Boop, etc. (Photo)
Let’s stand up these suck up civil servants and let’s point a finger.
Naming the Shameless
Civil Servants who hound people poorer than themselves, should have their New Zealand Citizenship removed.
Made stateless and unemployable these shameless people should be shunned and made ineligible for any right or assistance from the Government or the Community.
They should have their drivers Licences made null and void. Their Passports too. Also their property and possessions should be handed over to the State.
Absurd and ridiculous. The expectation of the poor and disadvantaged to borrow an income will really do wonders for the economy and be just great for unscrupulous lenders.
Have these psychopathically vindictive fools way, someone in hard times will be expected to cannibalise their lives to extreme poverty, and they; jeopardise their own wealth.
Those pressing on with this case should have their mental health assessed.
If you never realised that it was a war, you do now.
Today was truly an exciting day. Just when you think the system could be crazier, more rotten, more stupid, and things seem to continually get worse and worse and more illogical and more damaging, there is a breakthrough. The arguments from MSD in court – ‘loans are income’ were so bad they cant possibly believe what they say. Frances Joychild QC was brilliant in defending the sole mother. The media took a real interest- so the publicity has been really good and the outrage is going viral. I have read hundreds and hundreds of comments on social media- and at least 95% express horror and outrage. This cannot be ignored- we wait the decision with interest. Susan St John
You heard it hear first.
Now the Aussies are imploding with kiwis being kicked out of their government too.
Circus of comedies over there eh?
Makes our new Govenment look very smart now doesnt it just.
Yes lets do this jacinda, let’s clean out the bee hive of those pesky national hornets from our newly cleaned beehive eh?
Let us purge the agencies of those National ‘Cling-on’s that acted friendly to us lefties bt are just “slepper cells” waiting for the National ‘call to arms’.
All agencies such as NZTA, Ministry of Transport, Environment, Treasury, MSD, Health housing, and public broadcasting and totally seperate again all the other agencies placed under Steven Joyce as schemed to put them together to hightly control them all under his former Propaganda agency he called MBIE “Ministry of bussiness Inivation & Employment” as this was the most corrupted agency of all.
Let’s do this.
… ” Makes our new Government look very smart now doesn’t it just ” …
Like a brand new shiny pin.
Good on ya , CLEANGREEN !
🙂
+2
Thank you Susan. Heartening indeed!
actually, no.
NOTHING surprises me anymore about MSD and WINZ, after having had to deal with them again and again over so many years. I have also come across other tragic stories.
This case seems to be where Dickens and Kafka meet.
So if a loan, or credit taken for that sake, is supposed to be ‘income’, then we can all go to our bank and say, hey, thanks for paying me that handsome income, on my credit card, I have learned through legal arguments before the High Court, I now do no longer have to pay you any interest and principal, as the ‘income’ you have granted me is all mine.
Thanks folks, do you perhaps have some more ‘income’ for me?
I have said this many ,many times , Martyn ,…
That there needs to be a purge of all neo liberal ideological miscreants.
Starting first with its political wing , then the public services , and ,… to strike right at the very heart , the engine room as it were,… those far right wing neo liberal think tanks for the obscenely rich which pushed this agenda in the first place – looking at you , @New Zealand Initiative.
Perhaps first against the wall are the ones in the Reserve Bank , Treasury ,- which , – fortunately looks like Peters along with Adern , are going to be conducting a review on , – which is code for ‘ taking an axe to the root’ of the problem.
I hope The Guardian picks this up.
If they did succeed, it would set a tremendously dangerous, grotesque precedent. It has the potential to render social security void and almost entirely eliminate upward social mobility and basic dignity for members of our society.
I think it is very unlikely that they will succeed. Loans are not income. They are liabilities, which must be paid back plus interest. The defendent was never required to declare loans by MSD. The defendent has not at present “won lotto”. The prosecution appears to be taking this as a big joke.
The prosecution’s lawyers need to be sacked and whoever else is behind this for allowing this to go ahead.
It’s absolutely revolting that MSD would attempt this, knowing the case is absurd, and considering the tremendous cost of litigation to this person and her family. Right-wing New Zealand at it’s finest.
This is Crown Law at work, with lawyers you and all of us pay the government taxes for, to deny us justice. I wish more people would damned well wake up, and stop feeding the government, in this case the Nat one, to fund tactics with money to attack and humiliate us.
That comment about lotto was for Kathryn’s case- when asked why they would pursue her for the rest of her life when she was so ill and had already gone to jail for the non crime of relationship fraud- they said well she might win lotto. The debt is not written off on death but goes into her estate. She has fought this for 17 years.
In the current case MSD have pointed to the fact MsX has some equity left in her own home that means she can repay this debt.
The huge cost over nearly 8 years of appeals and court hearings is so absurd. The problem is that they have been doing this to many beneficiaries who have not had the means or stamina or legal representation to challenge it to date. The machinery and power of Crown Law is daunting and out of control
The sad truth is, so much work and info was ever prepared, but the lazy and also self righteous know it all never bothered to inform themselves, that is why you have this shit happen.
You cannot help people who reject help and stay ignorant and go to their detriment, due to this.
Sad really, I learned so much, tried to share, but most want easy answers and hand outs, they never fight, they lose and then they wonder.
Only when you realise the reality, fight and learn and stand up, will you have chance, all else is loser territory, and some deserve it, I am sad to say.
I have been repeatedly about to commit suicide, and I hate the shit that goes on here, I am angry and will even self destroy :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuNHsoJVjTE
They present this one sided nonsense that is ttotally BS, yet the MSM report it as gold value.
FFS, I has enough.
Hi there hang in there please – things are changing for the better.
. I hope things change soon. As if they don’t society is going to get worse with civil unrest as the poor and alienated fight back and the rich start building gated communities. It will not be pleasant.
God love you Martyn. From my memory the welfare department since ’84 has been straight Oliver Twist. In Godzone! I feel it like shame. But my fellow middle-classians with less imagination were pocketing salaries. Trustees and navvies. Prison blocks. 33 years is enough for this crap. So parallel to vile America. When , unlike our Appalachian second cousins, we had put love first(1935).
Let’s not turn this into a beat up on the PSA. The real problem here is that successive governments have politicized the public service. Ministries and department heads are chosen by the government of the day, rather than rising through the ranks, and hire and fire according to the ideological dictates of that government.
The new government could play this game, but that means that so much of what they put in place can be easily replaced by a future government. Instead, I’d like to see them return the public service to a neutral state, where public servants are still accountable to the people through Ministers, but can’t be fired simply for not comforming to ideological fashion. That way principled public servants, backed up by the PSA, can defend the public interest even when governments don’t.
Let’s not turn this into a beat up on the PSA. The real problem here is that successive governments have politicized the public service. Ministries and department heads are chosen by the government of the day, rather than rising through the ranks, and hire and fire according to the ideological dictates of that government.
The new government could play this game, but that means that so much of what they put in place can be easily replaced by a future government. Instead, I’d like to see them return the public service to a neutral state, where public servants are still accountable to the people through Ministers, but can’t be fired simply for not comforming to ideological fashion. That way principled public servants, backed up by the PSA, can defend the public interest even when governments don’t.
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