{"id":451945,"date":"2026-05-30T01:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T01:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/451945\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T01:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T01:00:09","slug":"new-law-will-allow-ai-to-make-benefit-decisions-to-modernise-welfare-system-government-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/451945\/","title":{"rendered":"New law will allow AI to make benefit decisions to modernise welfare system, Government says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Social Development Minister Louise Upston said it would reduce delays, errors and unnecessary debt, while freeing up staff to better support clients.<\/p>\n

The Government said safeguards would remain in place, including human oversight and protections against bias.<\/p>\n

Social Development Minister Louise Upston was not in the House on Friday, so National\u2019s Scott Simpson introduced the bill instead. He said MSD made millions of decisions every year, and staff were spending too much time on administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not good enough for the clients of MSD, or taxpayers. This bill fixes that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The technology would be used \u201csensibly\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAutomated decision-making will be used for simple, rules-based decisions, and human judgment will remain where it is needed. That means faster decisions, more consistency, and a system people can trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Labour\u2019s Helen White on Friday said the regulatory impact statement \u2013 which summarises the law\u2019s purpose, costs and benefits \u2013 redacted the section outlining the problem the bill sought to solve, \u201cso it is very, very difficult to know what is going on here\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Labour'sLabour’s Helen White said people should be able to expect human contact to be part of the welfare system. Photo \/ Sylvie Whinray <\/p>\n

People should be able to expect human contact to be part of the welfare system, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re talking about the very group of people who are most disconnected, and it\u2019s very, very important we safeguard that connection.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her colleague Ingrid Leary said automation was the Government\u2019s way of replacing staff who could lose their jobs following the Budget.<\/p>\n

\"GreenGreen Party MP Ricardo Men\u00e9ndez March said it was “extremely concerning” that the bill was being passed without consultation or scrutiny. Photo \/ RNZ, Samuel Rillstone<\/p>\n

The Greens\u2019 Ricardo Menendez March said the move was a huge expansion of powers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a carte blanche expansion to basically allow a robot, a machine, to have power of people\u2019s lives,\u201d he said, adding it was \u201cextremely concerning\u201d the bill was being passed without consultation or scrutiny,<\/p>\n

New Zealand First\u2019s Jamie Arbuckle said the bill was a \u201csignificant step towards a more efficient, modern welfare system that serves both the taxpayer and those in genuine need\u201d.<\/p>\n

Act MP Parmjeet Parmar said her party supported it for the same reasons. She argued staff members would have more time to help get people off the benefit and into jobs, and there would be adequate safeguards in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course there will be humans there to help … nobody\u2019s taking that human element out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Social Development Minister Louise Upston said it would reduce delays, errors and unnecessary debt, while freeing up staff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[365,4763,21972,16639,1651,266,8307,5812,230003,117,111,43,139,69,154770,312,6211,61,2443,1533],"class_list":["post-451945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-ai","tag-allow","tag-benefit","tag-decisions","tag-digital","tag-government","tag-law","tag-make","tag-modernise","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-reporters","tag-says","tag-system","tag-to","tag-welfare","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451945","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=451945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}