{"id":288200,"date":"2026-02-17T11:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T11:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/288200\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T11:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T11:31:08","slug":"government-legislation-will-reverse-court-decision-that-could-have-wiped-large-debts-for-beneficiaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/288200\/","title":{"rendered":"Government legislation will reverse court decision that could have wiped large debts for beneficiaries"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLCA chief executive Sue Moroney said this delay can be years and in the meantime, some people will receive supplementary assistance from MSD<\/a>. Supplementary assistance includes payments like the accommodation supplement, disability allowance and winter energy payment. <\/p>\n

MSD has been requiring people to repay any supplementary assistance received during the period the ACC back payment related to, Moroney said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese debts were often very large, and beneficiaries were often not in a position to repay MSD these amounts<\/a>, having spent the supplementary assistance in good faith at the time on essential costs such as accommodation, heating and food.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court ruling would have meant those with such debts after receiving ACC back pay could have had those debts wiped.<\/p>\n

\"PrimePrime Minister Christopher Luxon and Minister for Social Development and Employment Louise Upston during a Jobseeker announcement in October last year. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n

However, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston said the court\u2019s interpretation would mean these people were \u201cin effect receiving two forms of income support to address one need\u201d.<\/p>\n

There were two main cohorts of ACC compensation recipients in the welfare system: <\/p>\n

People who receive ACC and welfare assistance at the same timePeople who receive welfare assistance while they wait for ACC to decide on their entitlement <\/p>\n

\u201cUnder the current situation, as interpreted by the courts, the latter group, who receive lump sum payments, are treated more generously than the former,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis would not result in fair treatment between these groups and isn\u2019t in line with the policy intent. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Government has a duty to fix this situation and clarify the law, so it aligns with the longstanding intent of policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The legislation will go before a parliamentary select committee for public submissions for one week.<\/p>\n

Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLCA chief executive Sue Moroney said this delay can be years and in the meantime, some people will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[36486,124,1349,12625,14134,2082,266,305,49720,3242,20513,111,43,139,69,16402,544,1361,1533,39042],"class_list":["post-288200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-beneficiaries","tag-could","tag-court","tag-debts","tag-decision","tag-for","tag-government","tag-have","tag-introducing","tag-large","tag-legislation","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-reverse","tag-some","tag-that","tag-will","tag-wiped"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}