Successful campaign enables around 20,000 people to claim back their day from W&I

Beneficiary advocate Kay Brereton is very pleased after a successful campaign enabled around 20,000 people to claim unpaid past benefit entitlement before the Government passed retrospective legislation under urgency to remove the historical entitlement.

Kay Brereton says; “In September it was discovered that MSD had been commencing benefits a day late after a person’s standdown ended, that this error dated back to 3 June 1998, and that the Government intended to rectify this ‘error’ by retrospectively removing this entitlement.

It was decided that with no resources the best chance of enabling access for the many thousands of people who had an entitlement, was a campaign using social media. The “Claim Back Your Day from W&I” facebook page was set up to raise awareness, provide information about the issue, and to help and support people to apply for a review back to 1998.

Since mid September the campaign enabled around 20,000 people to lodge a review before the law was changed under urgency, the page has grown to over 21,000 members,and it was a wonderful experience of lots of people pitching in to help others.

It was an awesome experience, everyday on the page there were people helping others to access forms, and people went out into their communities, explained the issues and helped others to apply. We could not have achieved the outcome of 20,000 reviews lodged if it wasn’t for the amazing grassroots response from caring people helping others throughout Aotearoa.

Thousands of people learnt about the process of legislation being passed, and hundreds watched Parliamentary TV watching the bill being debated under urgency, and I trust that they will participate in a more informed way in the next election.

Unfortunately the response from W&I to the campaign was mixed, with many people receiving incorrect information from W&I staff about the issue; to the extreme where some people were told by W&I staff that “Claim Back Your Day” was a hoax. I am very concerned about how many people were prevented or discouraged from lodging a review, and thus missed out on claiming their entitlement before the law was changed.

Ironically since the law was changed W&I has launched an online process for people to claim, as people now have until 8 January 2016 to claim back to 20 May 2014 (not 1998). Unfortunately this has caused a lot of confusion for people who have already claimed, and also among W&I staff.”

ENDS

© Scoop Media