'We have to pay, so why shouldn't they?'

Work and Income NZ says Diane Potter owes it more than $3000. 'It's their mistake but you just have to pay, ' she says. Picture / Paul Estcourt

Diane Potter is not quite in the same category as the Labour Party. Her debt to the Government is only $3323.50, less than 1 per cent of the $446,000 cost of Labour's election "pledge card" that was, apparently illegally, billed to the taxpayers.

But she's not arguing that she shouldn't have to repay the debt because, as Labour leader Helen Clark argued yesterday, it would be "like trying to change the rules of the game after it's all over".

Ms Potter, of Papakura brought up three children as a solo mother on the domestic purposes benefit until two years ago, when she got a fulltime job as a budget adviser on $450 a week.

She was still entitled to a small special benefit and accommodation supplement to make ends meet, but in November 2004, Work and Income NZ decided that it had paid her $948.89 too much. She has been paying that back at $20 a fortnight ever since.

When she rang up recently to check on the payments, she was told that her debt had now been revised upwards to more than $3000.

This time she is challenging the figure, because the department treated her fulltime job as her "secondary" income and counted $75 a week that she earns from a weekend merchandising job as her main income.

"I paid my tax. It's their mistake, not mine," she said. But very few of her clients have ever succeeded in getting either Work and Income or other agencies such as Inland Revenue to write off a debt once it is established.

"You just have to pay it back. You just start making payments on it," Ms Potter said.

The political parties that had overspent their election budgets should be treated in exactly the same way.

"Why should they get away with it? They have a budget as well and they should stick to it.

"I think that if they've broken the rules, then they have to pay for it."

Combined Beneficiaries Union president Helen Capel said ignorance of the rules was no excuse when it came to the law.

"Surely that applies across the board if it applies to beneficiaries and tax and housing and God knows what else, where the people have to make sure all the 'i's are dotted and the 't's are crossed, or get penalised," she said.

"You only have to miss a phone bill and you get penalised. Everything these days is really quite tough, especially for people on fixed incomes ... It only needs a small blowout with a doctor's bill ... and you're in trouble.

"As far as the [Labour] Government goes, if they can get away with it, why can't we?"


What do you think?

* Should the Labour Party repay the $446,000 cost of its election pledge card that it billed to Parliament?

* Should MPs who sent letters during the election campaign pick up the cost that taxpayers covered?

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