Hundreds of Aucklanders who don't feel they receive the correct entitlements from Work and Income have been turned away from the Mangere office this morning.

Auckland Action Against Poverty put out a call to people who feel they are being short-changed by WINZ, and then interviewed each person so they were ready with the right paperwork.

By 8:30 this morning WINZ had reached its daily caseload limit of 250 people.

Spokeswoman Sue Bradford said they've never seen anything like it, and she believes it's just the tip of the iceberg.

"When we got here at around 7 we discovered people had been here overnight sleeping in cars and on the streets including a large family who had driven all the way from Whangarei... and mothers with babies in their arms ".

7.30 in Mangere people waiting for advocacy at WINZ @_AAAP_ pic.twitter.com/tsbzAB6RbX

— Kate Davis (@kateinthebay) April 6, 2016

Bradford said she wishes Prime Minister John Key could have been there this morning to see for himself the masses waiting for help.

"We see it as a culture of this entitlement that's trying to keep what the Government pays out in benefits as low as possible; so it's very deliberate what's happening to people, and that's the evil of it. It's actually very hard to advocate for yourself when Work and Income tells you to go away".

Secretary Jonathan King said the group's lawyer saw around 20 solo mothers in one a day, who were being penalised for not declaring a father on their child's birth certificate.

"If a child's father is not listed on the birth certificate then $22 to $28 a week will be deducted from the mother's benefit each week, per child".

King said one father who was on a zero-hours contract had his WINZ supplements cut when he earned over the allowed threshold during one week's work.

"But over summer his work didn't give him any hours at all, so they had no income. They didn't want to reapply for Work and Income because of the way they had been treated".