📄 PARLIAMENTARY PETITION
 
To the House of Representatives of New Zealand:
 
We, the undersigned, respectfully request that the House of Representatives:
 
Urge the Government to repeal the Social Security (Accident Compensation and Calculation of Weekly Income) Amendment Bill, and take immediate steps to protect compensation payments awarded to survivors of abuse in state care.
 
The reasons for this request are as follows:
 
This legislation enables the Ministry of Social Development to deduct compensation payments from vulnerable people who have received welfare support while waiting for ACC claims to be resolved. For survivors of abuse in state care, this creates a profound and unfair injustice.
 
Many survivors live with lifelong trauma and mental injury resulting from abuse experienced in state institutions. ACC claims — particularly those for mental injury — can take years to resolve. During this period, survivors often have no choice but to rely on welfare support simply to meet basic living costs. When compensation is finally awarded, this law allows the Government to reclaim significant portions of that payment to recover past benefits. The result is that survivors receive recognition of the harm done to them, only to have much of that redress taken back — leaving them trapped in poverty.
 
This policy disproportionately affects those with the least financial means. Those who can afford to wait without welfare support are not impacted in the same way; it is the poorest survivors who bear the full weight of these deductions.
 
The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care has clearly documented the profound harm suffered by survivors and the critical need for meaningful, effective redress. Clawing back compensation undermines the very purpose of that redress. Instead of supporting healing and recovery, this policy re-traumatises people who have already been failed by the state.
 
Therefore, we call on the Government to:
 
- Repeal the Social Security (Accident Compensation and Calculation of Weekly Income) Amendment Bill immediately;
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- Protect compensation payments for survivors of abuse in state care from benefit clawbacks;
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- Ensure mental injury compensation cannot be treated as assessable income for the purposes of recovering past welfare payments; and
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- Develop and adopt trauma-informed policies that prioritise justice, healing, and the wellbeing of survivors.
 
And we note that 758 people signed a similar online petition hosted on change.org.