Judith Collins MP National Party Welfare Spokeswoman
06 September 2005
E-mail tip suggests Labour is fiddling figures
National Party Welfare spokeswoman Judith Collins is calling on Labour to deny an e-mail which confirms the true state
of unemployment is being hidden from the public.
"A long-serving staffer at Work and Income recently wrote to me to expose what they described as 'distorted unemployment
figures'."
The e-mail says: 'I witnessed case managers transferring their unemployed clients to Sickness Benefit from the
Unemployed Benefit. Of course this shows movement off the Unemployed Benefit, but what concerns me is that WINZ was
taking credit for a reduction in unemployment, yet it was never noted that clients were just being moved from one
benefit to another. And it's still happening'.
"Labour has repeatedly assured us that this is not happening because it suits their own political ends. But the reality
is that there has been an explosion in the Sickness and Invalids Benefits under Labour.
"Numbers on the Sickness and Invalids Benefits have risen more than 40% since 1999, to 121,000. Yet in the last two
years of the previous National Government, the number of community wage (sickness) beneficiaries had been decreasing.
"National is calling on other concerned Work and Income staffers to expose the rort which is being quietly condoned by
Labour," says Ms Collins.
ENDS