Are disclosures of violence genuine?

Having reflected on yesterday's release about the high number of family violence disclosures in Nelson I have another thought.

Briefly, in 1996 the Court of Appeal ruled that women in a relationship where violence was present were not in a relationship that met the criteria of being "in the nature of a marriage" and could therefore continue to receive a benefit as a sole parent.

It is possible that women may disclose violence to avoid losing her benefit or being prosecuted for fraud.

After the court made this ruling 2,865 women had their debts disestablished and thousands of dollars were refunded.

I believed that the judge who made the ruling was opening a can of worms. Essentially we went from paying women to escape violence to paying them to live with it, or say they are living with it.

So we might be looking at a two-pronged problem. Yes there is rising violence but there may also be women who are falsely disclosing violence. (With our very broad definition of domestic violence it would be difficult to establish any disclosure was 'false' however.) Nelson may have a particularly active benefit control unit. It is a well known destination for welfare/alternative life-stylers.

If this effect from the ruling is happening I would expect it to show in an area where there is strong advocacy for beneficiaries. I don't know about Nelson but the Bay of Plenty, second highest for violence disclosures, has one such Rotorua-based group which forced Work and Income to recognise split-custody DPB through court action.

In my experience there are genuine cases and there are people who routinely 'lie' to Work and Income. That's just the way it is.