Legislation establishing information sharing between Housing New Zealand and the Ministry of Social Development will be considered by a parliamentary committee.
The Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill passed its first reading in Parliament yesterday.
Housing Minister Chris Carter said it would help minimise overpayments of benefits and student allowances, help the recovery of beneficiary and student debt arising from those overpayments, and help the detection of fraud.
'In addition to minimising overpayments that could result in ongoing repayments, the information match may benefit tenants and their partners and dependants by identifying situations where they are not receiving their correct entitlement to income support,' Mr Carter said.
'All new and existing (Housing) Corporation tenants will be made aware that information supplied to it by tenants may be provided to the Ministry of Social Development.'
National MP Phil Heatley said his party wanted transparency in the welfare system and the bill would go some way towards achieving that.
He believed the bill would help address the problem of 'rorts' in state housing, whereby tenants rented out rooms to boarders.
As at October 31, 6931 tenants declared they had paying boarders.
But Maori Party MP Hone Harawira said the legislation should be called the 'Snooping on the Poor Bill'.
'Seems to me that this bill is about the Government ganging up on the poor to keep them that way - using information from one department to deny somebody their rights from another,' he said.
'This bill is another example of the continued attack by Labour against beneficiaries.'
The bill will be considered by the social services select committee.
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