Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Graeme Edgeler: Constitutional law expert on an MSD review which found more than 30-thousand cases, where benefits and payments were wrongly suspended

Transcript

Graeme Edgeler: Constitutional law expert on an MSD review which found more than 30-thousand cases, where benefits and payments were wrongly suspended · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We now know why 16,000 pensioners, veterans and beneficiaries missed
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: out on their winter energy payment, urgently passing a benefit law,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: accidentally forcing them to reapply without telling them this was
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: all came out in the wash yesterday. MSD is used
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: of doing and implementing policies in a range of ways,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: including at pace. That is not.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: an excuse. We got this wrong.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Two and a half million not paid, now being paid.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Graham Edgler, constitutional law expert with me this morning. Graham,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: good morning.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Good morning, Ryan.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Who do you blame here? The government for passing a
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: law under urgency or the public service for not picking
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: this stuff up?
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Both, quite clearly.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: So would one have happened without the other? I suppose not.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Probably not. There are occasional things like that But this
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: is one of those things. If this had spent a
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: few months as a select committee, you know, that gives
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: a chance for people outside me or someone else, you know,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: sort of beneficiary advocates to point out this mistake. But
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: it also gives a chance for the people in the
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: department to notice this. You know, going through a select
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: committee process, you know, I'll make a submission occasionally and
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: find something. But quite often, just that process of just
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: even having a select committee, you know, some of the
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: changes are made because the officials are still looking at it.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: and they notice things and the select committee report comes
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: out and says, fishers have thought again or noticed something
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: and we should fix that. And not having a select
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: committee process and then doing the thing over two days,
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: this is always the risk. And when the government decides
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: to do it that way, the government should take the responsibility.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: It's like that is very much something that can and
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: will happen. It's happened before, it'll happen again. Every time
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: you do that, you are running that risk.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Are you surprised it actually took this long for something
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: to crop up? I mean, they've done a hell of
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of urgency. In some ways... Does this prove
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: that the opposite actually is true, that you can move
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: fast without breaking too many things?
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: You can get lucky, but you can only get lucky
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: for so long. And, you know, this is the biggest
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: thing that's happened. But, you know, they've had to fix,
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: you know, things that have noticed without, you know, without
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: the effect on individuals might be effect on government departments realizing, oh,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: we have to do something or, here's some problem we've got,
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: which hasn't had as much of an effect on members
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: of the public, but has absolutely had an effect on
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: how governments operate. And then they fix it up again.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: It happens more often than you think. It's just this
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: is one of the big ones which affected a lot
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: more people as individuals.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Have we had other examples? Because the previous governments have
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: used urgency almost as much as this one. Are there cock-ups? No.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah, no, there have been a few. I'm trying
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: to think if there's been one as big as this
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: for a while there. We had to do it twice. We,
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: or the government, passed something under urgency to fix. They
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: were swearing in, not as MPs, they were swearing in
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: police officers wrong. They passed a law under urgency to say, no, no,
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: all those people who weren't properly sworn in, you know,
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: let's do that properly this time. And they count as
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: being sworn in. And then a few years later, they
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: had to do it again because when they passed that
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: under urgency, none of the changes internally that had to
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: be made had to be made as well. And they just,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: you know, they had to do the same thing again.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: These things do happen. There was a time when, for
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: a while, when we brought in new liquor licensing laws,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: it was illegal to have beer in your car boot
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: after having picked it up at a supermarket. And I
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: just don't think they prosecuted anyone because someone noticed. But
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: they had to six that up. So you will have
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: these mistakes happen.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Graeme, good to have you on as always. Graeme Edgler,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: constitutional law expert.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: to Newstalk ZB from 5am weekdays or follow the podcast
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: on iHeartRadio.