Why thousands of pensioners lost their winter heating payment — and what the government is doing about it
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Social Development Minister Louise Upston have apologised after thousands of pensioners missed out on their Winter Energy Payment in 2026.
The Winter Energy Payment is money paid automatically to superannuitants, veterans, and people on a main benefit to help with heating costs over the colder months. Between 1 May and 7 August, the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) confirmed that 14,862 people had their payments affected. A review on 13 August found 4000 to 6000 people still had payments stopped or cancelled. By the Saturday morning after the error was discovered, all affected payments had been resumed and backdated. (RNZ)
The error came from a law change passed the previous year. The government used a process called urgency, which lets Parliament pass laws quickly without the usual steps where the public and experts can check the detail and flag problems. The law change required people receiving certain payments — like the Supported Living Payment, Accommodation Supplement, and Disability Allowance — to confirm their circumstances at least once every 52 weeks. But the Winter Energy Payment was not left off that requirement. So when people were asked to confirm their details for those other payments, their Winter Energy Payment was stopped at the same time. (RNZ)
Shannon Soughtton, a senior manager at MSD, said the ministry found that some people receiving New Zealand Superannuation or the Veteran's Pension had their Winter Energy Payment stopped when it should not have been. MSD apologised to everyone affected and briefed the minister the previous week. The error was first reported by The Post, which said MSD had been receiving complaints and was working around the clock to fix the error and backpay the correct amounts. (RNZ)
The Post's Henry Cooke reported on 18 August that the apology followed Winter Energy Payments being removed from 15,000 people in error, under the headline "Law blunder punishes pensioners." (The Post)
The small difference between MSD's figure of 14,862 and The Post's rounding to 15,000 comes down to how MSD counts people. MSD counts each person individually, so a couple receiving the payment can be counted as two clients. (MSD)
Work and Income published an update on its website acknowledging that the Winter Energy Payment had been stopped for some people receiving New Zealand Superannuation and the Veteran's Pension. (Work and Income)
Upston called the error "unacceptable" and "appalling" and apologised. She said MSD failed to exclude the Winter Energy Payment from the law change. She pointed out that superannuitants do not have their income checked to qualify for the payment — it is something they are entitled to. She said she found out about the error on a Thursday night and had asked MSD for more details, adding she was not yet satisfied she had all the information she needed. (RNZ)
Luxon blamed an IT issue, apologised, and promised a review into what happened. (RNZ)
The Labour Party said the error was caused by rushing the legislation through Parliament. Upston instead blamed a mistake in how the policy was designed at MSD, rather than the speed of the law's passage. Luxon pointed to an IT problem. These are not necessarily contradictory — a gap in the law, a failure in how MSD put it into practice, and an IT issue could all be parts of the same problem. But as of 18 August, the government had not yet settled on one clear explanation. Upston's own comment that she did not yet have all the information reinforces that.
The broader context here is that the law was passed under urgency, which skipped the normal checks where outside groups and officials might have spotted the gap. The Winter Energy Payment is paid automatically to pensioners and veterans without any income check. Stopping it was always going to be politically damaging. With the election campaign underway, the image of pensioners losing a winter heating payment during the coldest months is a serious one, and the speed of the apology and the fix reflects that.
The review Luxon promised will be the thing to watch. It will need to explain why the Winter Energy Payment was not excluded from the re-confirmation requirement, why the gap was not spotted when the policy was being put into practice, why MSD did not notice the stopped payments sooner, and what will change to stop this happening again. Until that review reports, the government's account of what went wrong is still incomplete.
