{"id":310894,"date":"2026-03-03T11:41:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T11:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/310894\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T11:41:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T11:41:12","slug":"labour-asks-govt-to-exempt-abuse-in-care-survivors-people-in-hardship-from-msd-debt-law-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/310894\/","title":{"rendered":"Labour asks Govt to exempt abuse in care survivors, people in hardship from MSD debt law change"},"content":{"rendered":"

The legal reforms are not connected with the compensation payments that abuse in care survivors will receive as a result of what they experienced in state or faith-based care.<\/p>\n

Labour is set to have a meeting with Upston tonight to discuss the changes. Speaking to reporters at Parliament on Tuesday, Upston said she was \u201copen to looking at what changes they [Labour] would like to see\u201d. <\/p>\n

Labour\u2019s social development spokesman Willie Jackson<\/a> said people who could pay the welfare assistance back should do so, \u201cbut it should not be at the expense of the people who need that support the most and are put in a worse situation when faced with huge debt\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t pass policy [that] actively hurts people all because ACC are too slow to process claims,\u201d he said during the bill\u2019s second reading.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe acknowledge a loophole needs to be closed. Labour is prepared to work with National on this.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow is a solo mum with three kids on welfare while waiting for an ACC [claim to be accepted] going to pay back this new debt? This is how bad it could get \u2013 we don\u2019t want MSD sending in debt collectors to hound that wh\u0101nau. We need to be supportive of that wh\u0101nau and we need to show some humanity here.\u201d <\/p>\n

Jackson said Labour \u201ccould only continue to support this bill\u201d if changes were made giving the MSD \u201cclear discretion not to recover payments when that would cause more hardship and further inequity\u201d, or not to claw back debts related to disability allowances, or from beneficiaries and ACC clients who were abuse in care survivors<\/a>. <\/p>\n

On those survivors, Jackson said: \u201cWhy make that trauma worse with a new debt?\u201d<\/p>\n

In her speech during the bill\u2019s second reading, Upston said it had always been the welfare system\u2019s long-standing principle that welfare support targeted those who needed it and whose needs were not able to be met by other means, such as ACC. <\/p>\n

In a previous statement, Upston said there were two main cohorts of ACC recipients in the welfare system: people who received ACC and welfare assistance at the same time, and people who received welfare assistance while they waited 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

That\u2019s because the first group\u2019s entitlements to welfare assistance would have been shaped by the ACC payments they were also receiving at the time, whereas the second group was \u201cin effect receiving two forms of income support to address one need\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis would not result in fair treatment between these groups and isn\u2019t in line with the policy intent. The Government has a duty to fix this situation and clarify the law, so it aligns with the longstanding intent of policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Act and NZ First also voted in favour of the bill. The Greens, Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori and independent MPs Mariameno Kapa Kingi and T\u0101kuta Ferris voted against it. <\/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":"The legal reforms are not connected with the compensation payments that abuse in care survivors will receive as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1903,27518,31036,536,12974,124,5399,12625,170,148078,1644,71,24912,33184,78,6721,3242,8307,61812,39839,5812,6722,137792,111,43,139,69,384,1072,88372,1361,7563,61,117204,102],"class_list":{"0":"post-310894","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-abuse","9":"tag-asking","10":"tag-asks","11":"tag-care","12":"tag-change","13":"tag-could","14":"tag-debt","15":"tag-debts","16":"tag-development","17":"tag-exempt","18":"tag-financial","19":"tag-from","20":"tag-govt","21":"tag-hardship","22":"tag-in","23":"tag-labour","24":"tag-large","25":"tag-law","26":"tag-louise","27":"tag-lump","28":"tag-make","29":"tag-minister","30":"tag-msd","31":"tag-new-zealand","32":"tag-news","33":"tag-newzealand","34":"tag-nz","35":"tag-people","36":"tag-social","37":"tag-survivors","38":"tag-that","39":"tag-those","40":"tag-to","41":"tag-upston","42":"tag-with"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310894","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=310894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}