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New Zealand law explained for everyone

Social Security Act 2018

Factors affecting benefits - Factors affecting benefits - Factors affecting benefit: voluntary unemployment or loss of employment through misconduct, etc

229: Interpretation

You could also call this:

“Explaining important words about benefit rules”

This part of the law explains some important words and ideas used in sections 225 to 228. You need to understand these to know how the rules about benefits work.

The ‘basic rule’ is a rule explained in section 225. When the law talks about a ‘benefit’, it means a type of benefit where you have to do some work or look for work.

‘Employment’ means different things for different people. If you’re applying for a benefit, it usually means working full-time. But it can also mean part-time work if you earned enough money from it for at least 13 weeks before you stopped working. For people already getting some benefits, it might mean regular part-time work or full-time work, depending on their situation. The law says that losing your job because of redundancy doesn’t count as ‘employment’ in this case.

A ‘scheme’ is a program run by the government that MSD (Ministry of Social Development) thinks is similar to a benefit.

These definitions help make sure everyone understands the same thing when reading the rules about benefits.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM6783601.

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Part 4 Factors affecting benefits
Factors affecting benefits: Factors affecting benefit: voluntary unemployment or loss of employment through misconduct, etc

229Interpretation

  1. For the purposes of this section and sections 225 to 228,—

    basic rule means the rule set out in section 225

      benefit means a work-tested benefit

        employment,—

        1. in the case of an applicant for a work-tested benefit, means—
          1. full-time employment; or
            1. part-time employment if MSD is satisfied that, for a period of not less than 13 weeks preceding the termination of the employment, the income from that employment was sufficient to maintain the person; and
            2. in the case of a part-time work-tested beneficiary, means regular part-time work; and
              1. in the case of any other work-tested beneficiary, means full-time employment; but
                1. does not include redundancy

                  scheme means a Government-assisted scheme that MSD considers analogous to a benefit.

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