Three separate welfare stories caught my eye this week, all on benefit fraud. The Bay of Plenty Times reported that more than $1 million of benefit fraud was committed by 41 Western Bay people prosecuted in the 18 months to the end of last year. According to a lawyer for the Ministry of Social Development, benefit fraud is on the rise.
Benefit fraud cost New Zealand taxpayers nearly $16 million last year, and fraud detected by the Ministry has almost doubled from $8.1 million five years ago. That figure includes fraud committed by 10 social welfare staff, who were sacked for ripping off the system.
MSD chief executive Peter Hughes says:
I do not tolerate benefit fraud and whenever a client has [been] deliberately involved in planned and premeditated benefit fraud they are prosecuted.
And yet I read in Tuesday’s New Zealand Herald about 5000 people who had moved…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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