Editorial: Sick or lazy - we need to get it right

Are we really becoming a sickly society? Figures issued this week by the National Party leader Don Brash suggest that about 122,000 people are on sickness and invalid benefits, a 50 per cent increase since 1999. Some of that increase may have been expected because of the ageing population. But it is a sobering statistic, and startling enough to have taken much of the gloss off the Government's announcement that the number of people on the unemployment benefit has under 40,000 for the first time since 1982.

A 75 per cent reduction in the number of people on the dole since Labour took office is readily explainable. A sustained period of economic prosperity created jobs aplenty. But why the big rise in sickness and invalid benefits? The notion that it might be a case of people moving off the unemployment benefit on to other benefits was quickly discouraged by Social Development Minister David Benson-Pope.

That, however, was the suspicion a couple of years ago when some doctors complained of being pressured to pass able-bodied beneficiaries as unfit for work. The unemployed, they claimed, were being encouraged by Work and Income to switch to the sickness benefit. The advantages were obvious. For the beneficiary, the money was the same, but being placed in the sickness category eliminated the work-availability test. For the department, less time was wasted on people who had no inclination to work. For the Government, it meant favourable publicity when unemployment figures were issued. But there the pluses ended. Money saved on the dole would, after all, simply be spent on sickness benefits.

The Beehive was quick to dismiss the doctors' claims. Yet this week's information on sickness beneficiary numbers hardly tallies with that delivered in 2004.

Then, the sharp rise in those on the benefit was said to be part of a long-term trend that New Zealand shared with most other OECD countries.

Now, says Mr Benson-Pope, the lift in numbers appears to be levelling off, with growth of only 2.7 per cent last year. So much for a long-term trend that should, if anything, be producing steadily increased numbers as the population ages.

The increase last year seems more in line with what might have been expected. Doubtless, it has helped that there is now a greater chance of only the right people getting the sickness benefit. Doctors' concerns have been met, at least in part, by a change that makes it possible for them to seek a second opinion on eligibility.

Now, as ever, the task is to get as many sickness beneficiaries as possible back into the workforce. The not infrequent appearance of some in court, and their participation in physically demanding crimes, smacks of misplacements in previous years. Yet the Government's efforts to remedy the situation have not made a major difference.

Mr Benson-Pope has trumpeted the introduction last year of the Paths (Providing Access to Health Solutions) plan, which aims to help sickness beneficiaries back into the workforce by removing, reducing or managing the health problems that were preventing them from working. Yet, says Dr Brash, only 56 participants have declared income since entering the programme and 68 have moved off the benefit.

Many of those on the benefit would obviously prefer to work but cannot. But the number of sickness beneficiaries has ballooned in a manner that bears little relation to rhyme or reason.

If we are not to be given a convincing explanation why and how this occurred, we should at least see a concerted effort to put it right.