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Speaker 1: Nearly one in four beneficiaries are being paid incorrectly. This

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Speaker 1: according to an annual report from the Ministry for Social Development.

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Speaker 1: It found only seventy seven point six percent of clients

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Speaker 1: had their entitlement correctly assessed in twenty three twenty four.

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Speaker 1: That is worse than the previous year's result, which was

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Speaker 1: eighty two point seven percent. Riccardo me and INA's march

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Speaker 1: is the Green Party Social Development spokesperson needs with us

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Speaker 1: this morning, Riccardo more than a good morning. Well, this

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Speaker 1: is obviously not good and the worst part of this

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Speaker 1: is that if you're a beneficiary and you get overpaid,

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Speaker 1: then you have a debt that you have to pay back.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. And so what often happens is that

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Speaker 2: you could be overpaid by say it could be you know,

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Speaker 2: you know, fifteen dollars each week, but that accumulates and

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Speaker 2: if at MSCY picks that up way letter than the line,

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Speaker 2: you could end up then slap with a you know,

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Speaker 2: thousands of dollars worth of debt from overpayments for something

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Speaker 2: that wasn't really your fault. EMMSDY couldn't even tell us

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Speaker 2: that they would guarantee that if it was their fault.

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Speaker 2: They would not then slap someone with a massive death

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Speaker 2: later than the line. That means that pushes people further

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Speaker 2: down the poverty line and in a hardship as they

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Speaker 2: have to repay it.

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Speaker 1: The fault thing is crucial because it, as you say,

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Speaker 1: will determine who might be responsible. But isn't this just

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Speaker 1: a too hard basket thing because you've got somebody who's

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Speaker 1: working irregular hours, thereby changing what their entitlement to the

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Speaker 1: benefit might be. And every week you've got to basically

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Speaker 1: update MSD with how many hours you've worked, otherwise you'll

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Speaker 1: be overpaid.

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Speaker 2: And part of the problem is particularly for people who

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Speaker 2: are in casual work or moving in and out of work,

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Speaker 2: is that we have an updated and haven't improved the

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Speaker 2: system that a lot of people, for example, move from

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Speaker 2: being on a benefit into part time work. And because

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Speaker 2: of the way that your benefit effectively obeys, yes, you

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Speaker 2: do have that moment in which it's really difficult for

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Speaker 2: a beneficiary to be adjusting those things. Equally, it's difficult

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Speaker 2: for the work and competitions as well.

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Speaker 1: It's so the whole thing sounds so inefficient. You have

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Speaker 1: to pick up the phone and ring them and tell them,

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Speaker 1: what your ows are that week? What is your solution?

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Speaker 2: So there's two things here. If you lifted benefits above

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Speaker 2: the poverty line and allow people to live with dignity

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Speaker 2: work and income, case managers actually wouldn't have to spend

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Speaker 2: so much time delivering things like hardship and emergency grants

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Speaker 2: that could be focusing on the basics like getting benefit

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Speaker 2: entitlements rights. But the other thing is then.

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Speaker 1: You do also make work look less attractive.

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Speaker 2: You know what I mean, Well, there's no actually, there's

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Speaker 2: no evidence of spaces for that. If anything, Actually, when

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Speaker 2: you have people living way below the poverty line, you

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Speaker 2: make it harder for them to find work. That's been

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Speaker 2: marrid and researched across many countries where they have similar

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Speaker 2: welfare systems. The other part is that we need to

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Speaker 2: make our abatement rates better. So this is how much

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Speaker 2: or you lose your benefit when you enter work. If

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Speaker 2: we make that a lot more stable, it means you

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Speaker 2: wouldn't have a super complicated welfare system that even case

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Speaker 2: managers that work and then come struggle to understand.

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Speaker 1: Rakarda what about an app? I mean, why have these

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Speaker 1: bureaucraits got a simple app that you can log in

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Speaker 1: and you can punch and I've done twenty seven hours

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Speaker 1: this week. Last week I did twenty six. You know,

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Speaker 1: why can't we make this simple?

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Speaker 2: Well, part of the issue is that successive governments have

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Speaker 2: tried to make the IT systems better, but that requires

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Speaker 2: an upfront investment, and right now we've got a government

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Speaker 2: that actually is refusing to put enough money to update

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Speaker 2: the IT systems from work and income that are frankly

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Speaker 2: decades and decades old. All right, well, what you're transported

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Speaker 2: to the eighties or well.

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Speaker 1: I mean obviously the last government had the same approach,

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Speaker 1: otherwise we wouldn't still be living in the eighties. Ricardo,

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Speaker 1: thank you very much for being on the show. I

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Speaker 1: appreciate Riccarvman in India's March talking there about nearly one

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Speaker 1: in four beneficiaries being paid incorrectly.

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Speaker 2: For more from early edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live

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