Estimates Debate — Vote Social Development

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate on the 2003-04 estimates, and in particular, on housing. Nearly $260 million in extra funding for housing for low-income people and those at risk is contained in the Budget for 2003. The funding, which is over 4 years, consists of nearly $100 million to be spent on providing another 318 State homes, as well as extending 80 houses to better suit larger families. That is on top of the nearly 3,000 more State houses that were already planned.

About $60 million is to accelerate the modernisation programme of State houses, and that is on top of $30.5 million already planned over the next 3 years. That modernisation programme is important for many other reasons, and I highlight the fact that health reasons would be most helpful in the wider scheme of things. This Government is committed to providing quality housing for low-income people in New Zealand, and will work to alleviate some of the conditions that people have found themselves living in as a result of a depleted and rundown State house system, particularly during the 1990s.

We must remember that somewhere in the region of 11,500 State houses, as I recall, were sold off by a previous Government during the 1990s. That caused a great deal of stress in communities such as mine in Wairarapa, where most, if not all, of our State houses no longer exist. However, when this Government came into office in 1999, it made a commitment to return to income-related rents. That has contributed greatly to at least 53,000 low-income New Zealanders in Housing New Zealand houses having the better quality of life that this Government is committed to.

I chair the Social Services Committee that has some responsibility in this area under the aegis of Vote Housing, and the committee was pleased to greet the Minister and other officials who came to speak before it. I also commend the committee for its work on this particular vote.

Given the ability to range on to other subject areas such as social development, which is also under the aegis of the Social Services Committee, I would like to make a few other key points in my contribution to the 2003-04 estimates debate. Unemployment is at its lowest level in 15 years. More people are working now than at any other time in our history. Treasury estimates that declining overall benefit numbers have saved the taxpayer $937 million in projected spending on benefits. That is a considerable amount of money in anyone’s language. Unemployment benefit numbers have dropped by 30 percent since 1999. That is a remarkable figure, and it has been achieved under a Labour-led Government.

Unlike National and ACT, Labour is committed to assisting job seekers into meaningful employment. For example, the 2003-04 Budget increased subsidised childcare and out-of-school care and recreation (OSCAR) assistance from 37 to 50 hours per week to improve support for low-income parents moving into work. That is a very proactive commitment to low-income people who are most desirous—and most people I know are in that situation—of moving into work, but there are certain barriers that get in the way. This particular initiative is gratefully accepted on behalf of those people who will benefit most from it.

A concern was raised during the committee report regarding the rise in sickness and invalids benefits that many OECD countries are experiencing. The primary drivers of that rise in New Zealand are an ageing population, the increase in the superannuation entitlement from 60 to 65, and policy changes resulting in people moving off accident compensation and on to the sickness benefit. Budget 2003-04 provides $400,000 over 2 years. We need to have a better understanding of the reasons behind the growth—the ballooning out, for want of a better term—of sickness and invalids benefits, and this kind of initiative will give us the opportunity to do that.

I now move on to employment, and I have already mentioned some of the good points there. However, the unemployment level is the lowest in 15 years. New Zealand’s unemployment rate of 5 percent is lower than our major trading partners and above the OECD average. That is something this country can be proud of. Indeed, 130,000 jobs have been created since Labour came to office in 1999. There are now more people in work than at any other time in New Zealand’s history. It is encouraging that there is potential out there for employment figures to improve beyond that. The country needs to be prepared—and this Government certainly is—to embrace whatever opportunities there are to get people into employment.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): We have dealt with Vote Employment.

Thank you for reminding me, Mr Chairperson, but it never hurts to reiterate the good news—something we never hear enough of in this Chamber.

I return to some of the interesting points that the select committee reported on regarding social development, and point out that invalid benefit numbers have grown from 32,000 in 1992 to 65,000 in 2002. That is quite a remarkable increase. If current trends continue, that number is set to increase to nearly 80,000 in the next 3 years, which is sobering. I see that a member from New Zealand First, Mr Dail Jones, is also astounded by that possibility, so we expect support in our initiatives to try to tackle the problem. On current trends, sickness benefit numbers are also forecast to grow—to 39,000 by 2006.

Gaining a greater understanding of the drivers of that growth will place the Ministry of Social Development in a better position to manage it, which is a sensible and responsible thing to do. The research will assist the ministry to investigate ways to keep people connected to employment opportunities when they have an illness or a disability, and to the communities they live in. The ministry’s research on sickness and invalids benefits is currently being scoped, and while the time frame is not yet finished, it is proposed that the study will have a number of components, with different completion dates over the 2003-05 period. Interim results will be released as different components of the study are completed.

As I conclude my comments on housing and social development—and I reiterated employment, just to get it on the record—I point out that the Minister in charge of this area, the Hon Steve Maharey, and the Budget delivered by the Hon Dr Michael Cullen, are proof positive that this country and this Labour-led Government are committed to tackling the tough and very vexed issues of social development—housing and employment—and getting to the core of them. This Government is working positively to find long-term solutions—not the short-term, slogan-grabbing, work-for-the-dole kinds of initiatives that have been proposed by the Opposition. Its policies exist only in its memory of the last 10 years. Nothing particularly new is coming out of the National Party; it has given us a rehash of the old. Hopefully, as that party sorts itself out, it might begin to see that while it dithers over its policy development in this area, we are actually implementing positivity for low-income people in this country.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Before I call the next speaker, the chairperson of the Social Services Committee dealt with both Vote Housing and Vote Social Development. Is it the wish of the Committee that we combine debate on those two votes? Is there any objection? There appears to be none. We are now discussing both housing and social development.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chairman. I will confine my remarks to housing, because that was my original understanding of the rules for this debate. I do welcome this opportunity to speak.

On listening to the previous speaker, who wanted us to believe that all is well in God’s own country, I thought I must have been looking at a television channel from a different country last week, when I saw a family in need of housing and also saw the Minister of Housing. On One News and Holmes we saw a young lady with three children who was living in a garage with a concrete floor, no cooking facilities, and no running water. If I am to believe the previous speaker, all is well in God’s own country. I think not. Although the Government might be well intentioned, I contend that we are not doing enough. The case we saw on One News is just a small example of the true reality of what is happening in New Zealand.

That family was based in Auckland, but the housing problems of our country are not confined just to the urban areas. I make reference to the fact that in the estimates there is reference to the Special Housing Action Zones programme. Although that programme was established some 3 years ago, there has not been very much progress in that area, and I wonder why that is. That programme is designed to assist those families who can afford mortgages and are prepared to assist in the building of their homes, within a community environment. Yet in the rural situation, that sort of assistance is not being made available to the families who are in need of it.

The Social Services Committee did indicate that the implementation of the Special Housing Action Zones programme has been slow, and, as a consequence, the Housing New Zealand Corporation has moved from it to another programme that is commonly known as the “NECBOP” programme, which means “Northland and East Coast / Eastern Bay of Plenty” and which identifies those three areas as the most-affected rural areas in New Zealand. I note that in the 2001-02 financial review the select committee endorsed the collaborative efforts of many agencies to eliminate sub-standard housing in those areas. But it also noted that although the programme provided suspensory loans for 207 urgent and essential repairs, the planned target for 2003-04 was to increase that to 266 houses.

The select committee notes that it now appears that the Northland and East Coast / Eastern Bay of Plenty programme is taking longer than was originally foreseen to implement, so capital and associated operating funds have been subsequently transferred from the 2002-03 year to the forthcoming 2003-04 year. The select committee indicated it was concerned about the delay in implementation of the programme, as we believe it is a valuable programme. We need to ask ourselves why it is that, when we are talking about approving an increased amount in the Budget for that programme, we are still not able to meet the demands of our rural people.

I need to ask that question because a particular group is most affected by all of that: Māori. Although the family we saw on One News last week was of Māori or Pacific Island extraction, a lot of people from those communities who have decided they will return home to their rural areas, their tūrangawaewae, are not able to move into affordable and liveable housing conditions. That is of great concern to me, because we are talking about increasing the appropriation for this programme, but it is not meeting the needs of those people. I would like the Minister to take a call on that matter, because although his ministry has produced a number of reports, such as New Perspectives on Māori Housing Solutions, it has still not dealt with the problem that a number of our families are facing today.

Although I said I would confine my comments to housing, I realise that we must look at housing in relation to employment and health. Earlier today, we heard the Minister respond to a question about whether he had received any reports commenting on social development in this country. He made reference in his response to the fact that New Zealanders are now living longer and becoming healthier. Although that might be true, the same report that indicated that—which was put out by Otago University—also indicated the disparities between Pākehā and Māori. I suggest that the figures in relation to Māori are related to their poor housing conditions. It is important that we get our housing programme right, because everything else will then fall into place. It is no use for us—or, particularly, for the Government—to expound the virtues of reduced unemployment, when in fact our people still have poor health and are still not being housed in proper and affordable housing.

Earlier, in another debate, I made reference to the fact that in order to increase our housing supply, serious consideration should be given to on-selling those State houses that families have occupied for more than 20 years. Those houses should be sold to those particular families, and, in turn, the money from those sales could be put towards building more homes. The response from Government members was negative then, and I suspect it will be the same now. I ask the Minister to seriously consider that proposal in relation to the appropriation for the 2003-04 year.

I rise to speak in this debate about Vote Social Development, and I refer specifically to pages 1153 to 1198 of the Estimates of Appropriations. But first I would like to pick up on a few comments that were made by Georgina Beyer. She made some pretty positive comments about this Government implementing some of its ideas. Well, if we had not seen some ideas after 4 years, the Government would have been pretty desperate. If we look at some of the comments that members on the Opposition side of the Chamber have made, we can see that one of the major issues of concern has been about the pace of implementation of change. One of those areas of concern, for example, relates to the simplification of the entire benefit system—something that Labour campaigned on in 1999 but that, as we understand from comments made at the Social Services Committee, it has only just recently begun to work on.

When I read this part of the Budget, I had some expectations that there would be some new ideas and new strategies to try to reduce the number of people on welfare, and, in particular, to reduce welfare dependency. I was very disappointed. Nothing that is presented in this Budget will make a skerrick of difference for many New Zealanders who do need additional assistance to make the transition from welfare back into work. The Minister often discusses the fact that we have low unemployment, but that is not unexpected when the fact is that we have had nearly 4 years of the best economic conditions that we are ever likely to have—certainly, the best economic conditions in my generation.

Yet the gains that we should have seen in the welfare area have been minimised, and there are a number of reasons for that. A number of the changes that have been made while Labour has been in Government have served to make the welfare system easier to remain in, and harder to get out of. Certainly, a lot less assistance is provided to help people to make that transition.

One of the examples that I think it is worthwhile to look at is the abolition of work testing for some benefits, and the abolition of community work schemes for some people. For a lot of communities and for a lot of people that I have spoken to, those programmes did provide a lifeline. They provided people with an opportunity to get back into a routine and on to the first rung of the ladder towards getting back into work. I dispute the idea that such schemes do not work. There is plenty of evidence in this country, and certainly in Australia, that shows that such schemes do work, and that there are no substitutes for work itself when it comes to getting people back into work.

This is the fourth year that the Minister has been in charge of this portfolio, and there has been little progress. Yes, unemployment is down, but welfare dependency is higher than it has been before. If we look at the number of people who are supported by the State, we can see that we now have more people supported by the State than we have ever had in this country’s history. Yes, we have more people in work, but let us remember that the household labour force survey defines someone as being in work if he or she is in work for 1 hour a week. If a person happens to be in work for 1 hour a week but has been on the unemployment benefit, or another benefit, for more than 10 years, that, to me, does not count as being in employment. So we need to remember that, and to use that knowledge to temper some of the celebratory comments that come from the Government.

One of the questions that simply has not been answered here is why, after such buoyant economic times, we have not seen dramatic drops in welfare numbers. I have outlined a number of reasons for that, such as the removal of some of the work-test provisions. The Minister would have us believe that work testing was an onerous Outward Bound - type process, but basically it involved asking someone whether he or she was capable of work, and working with the person to overcome the particular barriers that the person might have had. It is of great concern that work seems to be very much an optional part of a job seeker agreement. I was gobsmacked when we sat and looked at the new legislation. We asked officials what happens if one is negotiating a job seeker agreement and one does not want to work but wants to nominate a wide range of other things, like training, to go into that agreement. We were told that is totally possible, and that is of real concern.

It is also of note that despite New Zealand having had good economic times, Treasury projects that the numbers of people on the four main benefits will go up. If I look at the part of the Budget where some of those projections are discussed, I can see that the Government has glossed over the fact that the cost of the domestic purposes benefit, for example, will increase considerably, as will the cost of the invalids benefit.

It is of interest to look at the numbers—the change in invalids benefit numbers from 1998-99 to the present budgeted figures. There were 50,000 people drawing that benefit in 1998-99, and in 2003-04 the projection is that the number will increase to 71,000. It is the same situation with the sickness benefit. In 1998-99 there were 34,000 on that benefit, and that figure is estimated to increase to 40,500. There has been a massive blowout in the numbers on the special benefit. In 1998-99, $43 million was put aside for the special benefit. That figure is estimated to increase to $130 million in this budgeted year. That is a skyrocketing amount of money, and I think the Minister has not really explained why that has occurred.

I go back to the domestic purposes benefit, as it is important to add a bit of history to this debate. When that benefit was brought in, it was imagined that no more than 20,000 New Zealanders would use that benefit, including widows. If we look at the figures now, we see that there are 110,000 parents trying to support their children on the domestic purposes benefit. Most of us in this Chamber know that it is pretty tough being a parent, full stop, but it is certainly a lot tougher trying to do so on a limited budget, supported by welfare. I think it is important that we start to discuss things like assisting those parents who are supported by the benefit back into work. We are one of the few Western countries that do not ask parents to consider part-time work when their youngest child reaches school age. I think it was a huge backward step for New Zealanders when that requirement was removed. That is why we will see a projected increase in the numbers of parents, mainly women, who are drawing that benefit.

I think we have a lot to learn from other countries. When I released my welfare paper, which looked at a wide range of ideas, it did not matter whether the people who read it were from the left or the right of politics. People agreed on one thing, and that was that the welfare system as presently practised in this country is not working. Members will remember that John Tamihere made a similar comment along those lines. That is why we need to consider some new ways of delivering welfare in this country. It is also why we need to consider community work schemes. A recent Colmar Brunton poll found that 91 percent of people agreed that people on an unemployment benefit should be available to do community work. Seventy-five percent of those who were part of that survey said that unemployment benefits should only be available for a set period of time, until an unemployed person finds a job.

We need to start talking about certain benefits being temporary, and not being considered as an option to support people for long periods of time. We know the outcome of remaining on the unemployment benefit for long periods of time; that outcome is poverty. The ministry debates whether welfare and poverty are linked. I say to it that they are one and the same. Certainly, the outcome is the same. So we can be cute with regard to some of our academic discussions about welfare and welfare dependency, but I think a person who is living that life probably does not see very much difference in terms of the outcome for his or her life.

The aim is to get more people back into work. National is a party that strongly supports the welfare safety net, and always has done so. But at the moment, some of the changes that are included in this Budget are not a step forward. That is why we have not been able to capitalise on what should have been good economic times, by bringing down the welfare numbers and making the welfare decreases sustainable. It is a travesty that Treasury now predicts that the number of people on all four major benefits will go up again. The Minister has not explained why invalids and sickness benefit numbers are going up. His answer was to commission some research, at the cost of $400,000. I was shocked to learn that that research will not be reported on until 2005.

I rise to speak now because I think one of the most interesting things in the social development debate, which is what I will focus this 5-minute speech on and I will come back to housing in a later contribution, is that we have a good comparison now between the main Opposition party—at least in size—and the Government at this time.

We came into Government 4 years ago on the back of a debate about welfare, which had been fundamentally about blaming and punishing beneficiaries. There had been an unbroken 10-year period of saying that if a person was on welfare, it was very likely to be his or her own fault, and of saying it was very likely to be the case that if pressure was placed upon a person individually to acknowledge it was his or her fault, that person might come off the benefit. That policy, for example, drove unemployment up to 11.9 percent. There were 170,000 people on the register in 1992. That policy gave us work for the dole, the campaign on television about how we were supposed to dob in our neighbour if he or she was a beneficiary, and a culture where beneficiaries felt that they were fundamentally under attack, under siege, by the Government. Every single year the beneficiary numbers went up.

Words fail me, to be truthful. I am speaking in this debate after the National Party spokesperson on social development, who says she wants to see fresh ideas in the Budget and that she wants to offer fresh ideas, yet what we heard was that the same analysis that National adhered to previously underlies Ms Rich’s analysis. It is all about the individual being wrong, and about blame and the punishment because we know that that is the case. Ms Rich said that her alternative Budget, effectively, would have been based upon her welfare document. What did that state?

When Opposition members were asked the reason for the kind of attack on beneficiaries that the welfare policies of the National Party signified, we heard from Bill English and Katherine Rich that Jules Mikus; a convicted rapist and murderer, is the motivating force for the National Party’s welfare policy. I know that that is an exaggeration, but I did not say that—they did. Bill English and Katherine Rich had the cheek to go on the radio and say it is a cheap shot to say that Jules Mikus is the face of their policy. But we did not say that. We would not have dreamt of saying that somebody who was a convicted rapist and murderer was the motivation for introducing time-limited benefits, but they said that. Bill English and Katherine Rich said we had to get people moving off the benefits, because Jules Mikus was on them for all that time, so that is why they want to have time-limited benefits.

That was said despite the fact that the only country that does run time-limited benefits does not actually apply them, because they do not work. Only 8,000 people in the entire United States have been moved off a time-limited benefit, because either the federal budget just carries on paying for people or they move on to a state benefit. They do not move off the benefit, because the results of moving people off the benefit just mean poverty. Even the US, under the kind of regime that is there now—which is clearly one the National Party likes, in terms of its policy towards beneficiaries—does not limit the time spent on benefits.

What we have from the National Party is a policy of compulsory immunisation of beneficiaries’ children, and, Mr English told us, of removing $40 to $60 a week from the household if parents do not have their kids attend school—if they are truants—time-limited benefits, and that wonderful old chestnut, work for the dole.

Work for the dole in this country was proven to be worse than doing nothing for someone, in terms of getting that person into a job. Why is that? It is because as soon as we put people out in the community working for the dole, the community becomes dependent on that cheap labour, like my local schools did, I am afraid. Up to 16 people who were working in a primary school worked for the dole, and the school fought tooth and nail to hang on to that cheap labour. Work for the dole creates that kind of society. It does not get a person a real job, a real wage, a real career, and a real future, like the one that everybody here expects. It gets them locked into the dole. I will not have a Government that I am part of lock people into the dole. I want people to be in a real job with a real wage and a real future, because that is what every single person should have an opportunity to have in this country.

I know I have to finish my 5-minute contribution, but I say the contrast between Labour and National is absolutely clear after listening to Ms Katherine Rich, who unenthusiastically went through the National Party’s policies. They are policies that have been proven to be wrong. We should provide people with a positive opportunity, and this Budget does so.

A number of interesting issues were raised during the Social Services Committee’s examination of the estimates for the Ministry of Social Development this year, particularly in relation to the Work and Income side of its operations. First of all, there is the ongoing question of why so many more people are to be found proportionately on the invalids and sickness benefits than in years gone by. For example, the number of people on the invalids benefit has doubled in the last 10 years, and the number on the sickness benefit has increased by over 50 percent. As a result of rising concern about why that is happening—and it is not new news—the Government has responded by investing $400,000 in research into it this year.

While the Green Party commends the Government for its willingness to confront and analyse the problem, I suggest that with some 350 or so policy analysts at its beck and call within the Ministry of Social Development itself, that particular ministry should already have the capacity to find out the answers. I also suggest that those answers are actually self-evident, both to the Minister and to the ministry—and, in fact, pretty much to anyone else who has been following socio-economic and health trends in our society over the last decade.

The Government acknowledges, as Steve Maharey himself did in the Chamber earlier this afternoon, that a lot of the reasons for the increase in numbers on the sickness and invalids benefits are well known. They include the fact that we have an aging population, like many other countries, that the retirement age has been lifted to 65, that people are being pushed forcibly off the accident compensation tail and into the benefit system—that is, if they are lucky—that hospital waiting lists are growing, and that the number of people with a serious mental illness is rising.

When people are older and disproportionately sicker, whether physically or mentally, in part because of failures in other parts of the Government like the health system, it is no wonder that the number of people on those benefits goes up. Personally, I think it would have been a lot more useful to spend the extra $400,000 on finding and actioning solutions across and between various parts of Government, like Work and Income, the Accident Compensation Corporation, and the mental health, physical health, and disability sectors, rather than on more analysis that I believe will simply tell us what we know already.

The second area I would like to touch on today is that of special benefits. The cost of the special benefit is forecast to increase from nearly $83 million in 2002-03 to over $130 million in 2003-04. The Green Party welcomes this Government’s avowed commitment to do more to make sure that people receive their proper entitlements, but at the same time we are concerned at the ever-increasing reliance on third-tier income support, like special benefits and special-needs grants, to make up what families need to live on, when what really needs to happen is a wholesale reform of the benefit system so that the core benefit for all beneficiaries is enough to live on in the first place.

As the Ministry of Social Development itself pointed out last year in its report to the incoming Government, a huge amount of Work and Income staff time is wasted on administering the massive complexities of the around 35 different benefits, allowances, and supplements that are potentially available to people. I am sure it would be much more economical for this or any Government to throw the 1964 Social Security Act out of the window, along with all its amendments, and to immediately rewrite all relevant law and regulation in the form of a slimmed-down sensible system, governed by the principles of simplicity, sufficiency, and universality.

The Minister himself continues to promise that under Labour that will happen one day, and that a lot of work on it has already been done—and I say good on Labour. However, that day is an awfully long time in coming, and it is galling for people who are barely surviving on benefits right now to see $4 billion or more in Budget surpluses, and billions more in the “Cullen superfund”, while benefits stay at levels where they cannot be lived on and Work and Income itself depends on food banks to feed many of its so-called clients.

Finally, and again in relation to the special benefit, the Green Party would like to highlight the ongoing disparity in how that and other third-tier benefits are administered around the country. The Ministry of Social Development rejects the findings of the Widening the Gaps report put out last year, which showed that Pākehā were more likely to obtain a special benefit than Māori and Pacific Island people, and that there were huge geographical variations in how special benefits were administered. However, even in the department’s own statistics for February of this year, variations continue. For example, at one extreme 59.1 percent of the potentially eligible people receive the special benefit at the Kapiti office, while at the other extreme 2.7 percent of those at Gisborne and 2.5 percent of those at Ruatoria luck out. If that does not show regional and ethnic variation, I do not know what does.

I would like to address the issue of housing. I notice that the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill is Government order of the day No. 11 at the moment, and it looks like it is speeding up the Order Paper, which is a good thing because it is timely. For too long landlords have been disadvantaged in terms of the law and their ability to recoup the costs of their investments because of very lax tenancy laws and the inability of the tribunal to action some of the judgments made by it.

There are 315,000 rental housing units in New Zealand, of which 230,000 are privately owned. That means that a rather large and substantial proportion of the New Zealand public have skimped and saved their money throughout their lives to buy an investment property to let. They are being responsible, and for many of them that property is their retirement fund. The inability of the law to protect the integrity of that investment is something that needs to be looked at. I look forward to working with the Minister to try to push through a few amendments to try to balance what has so far been an imbalance.

I look now at some particular issues. The 4-week bond should, I think, be completely between the landlord and the tenant to decide, depending on the kind of tenant. This is part and parcel of accepting a certain risk with a certain type of tenant. There may well be situations where a tenant with a good track record could prove financial hardship, so that the landlord might forgo the need for a bond. In another case, a tenant with not such a good history might be asked for a slightly larger bond in order to satisfy the landlord that there is some protection on the property.

Another issue is the landlord’s right to enter an abandoned property and relet it without a tribunal order. It is a frustrating, expensive, and protracted bureaucratic procedure for the innocent landlord to enter an abandoned property and relet it without going through the tribunal. It makes no sense. I turn now to the matter of fines for such things as wilful desertion, breaking lease, breaking the agreement, or failing to attend the tribunal or mediation. Right now, people can walk away from mediation and they accrue no fine—no penalty at all. In fact, the penalty actually accrues on the landlord. That is wrong. That issue has to be addressed.

In terms of going after tenants who wilfully damage property or do not pay the rent, Work and Income, the courts, and the Inland Revenue Department must be made to hand over details of where those people are. Why is it that rent arrears will not be paid for by Work and Income but emergency accommodation will be paid for by Work and Income? That makes absolutely little sense when we are talking about tenants who abrogate their rights to a property, run off and leave behind a whole stack of debts, yet can front up, happy as Larry, collect another amount of taxpayer-funded money, and move into another home while having no sense of accountability for the home they have just moved out of. That makes absolutely no sense, either. There are no teeth in the legislation.

If we have a look at the obligations that are set out for landlords and tenants we quickly find that there are 12 obligations on landlords—one is an obligation on both landlord and tenants, which is that there will be no changing of locks, and that makes sense—and only one obligation on tenants, which is not to refuse entry to the landlord. That makes no sense whatsoever. In some circumstances, for example, a landlord who wants to use force to enter his or her premises—sometimes because it is abandoned—is liable, according to section 48, to a fine of up to $500 or 3 months in jail. That is plainly ridiculous. Entry without a tribunal order can also attract a penalty of up to $1,000 or 3 months in jail. That is clearly crazy and all out of proportion with the obligations of both tenants and landlords.

💬 Stephen Franks: And you support those people.

No, I do not support this bill, at all. I do not support it unless we can make some decent changes. We will try as much as we can.

💬 Stephen Franks: As much as you can, but you will vote for it.

Not necessarily. Why is it not possible for there to be direct deductions of rental payments, by Work and Income, directly to landlords? That would take away the opportunity for some tenants to abuse the money they have been given through the taxpayer in order to find accommodation. That makes absolutely clear sense, but it has not been done at all. I refer to the 90-day termination notice, which is found in section 51 of the Residential Tenancies Act. Troublesome tenants who are noisy or irritating to other tenants in a close-by block can be very difficult to remove. Good tenants have been known to leave premises because of bad tenants who play music at loud decibels all through the night, destroy the property, and so on. The law is causing landlords potential losses of rent. If the Government argues that rental property is a business, then the law should not intentionally hinder or delay due process of recovery, or countenance losses, sometimes of considerable amounts.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

I want to talk about two things, one of which is compensation. Currently, there is no compensation for a landlord for rental arrears, or for damaged or stolen goods—and nearly all the offences are directed at the landlord—no fair and reasonable compensation for abandonment, wilful damage, arrears, leaving premises without notice, etc. At present, a lease to stay for a certain duration is worthless. Tenants can and have walked out of a lease, with no redress for the landlord—all other courts allow this, but not the Residential Tenancies Act. Once the application has been made for arrears, etc., and a further amount for compensation and interest on the outstanding rent has been made—after all that—a tenant can bring exemplary charges against the landlord, but it is very limited with a landlord on a tenant. This is permitted in commercial leases, in the District Court, under section 20 of the Disputes Tribunals Act. All other avenues of redress permit this, apart from the Residential Tenancies Act. That needs to be addressed.

The Residential Tenancies Act is in dire need of review to protect landlords from being victimised by a small minority of irresponsible and unscrupulous tenants. Why are there 12 obligations on the landlord, with fines of up to $3,000 and 3 months in jail? One obligation applies to both landlords and tenants, yet only one applies solely to tenants. It is ridiculous to inflict so many provisions on landlords, who have, for the most part, scrimped and saved to have such an investment in the first place, and not impose an equivalent number of provisions—provisions in order to safeguard the investment—on the tenant. How can it be right that a tenant’s failure to pay rent does not negate the tenancy agreement? There are no fines for tenants if they desert or abandon a property, or fail to attend a tribunal hearing. How, therefore, can redress be sought? Why is the landlord liable for property in an abandoned premises, whereas there is no obligation on the tenant to be liable for damage to the landlord’s property?

How come Work and Income does not address the rent arrears of tenants who abscond, yet will pay an emergency accommodation grant so that those scoundrels can get their foot in the door to prey on yet another unsuspecting landlord? Most important, why is it that the Inland Revenue Department, the courts, and Work and Income will all share information on a tax matter but will not do so when money is owed to individuals, such as landlords? Is there a double standard there? I suggest that there is. The bottom line is that we need a register to vet tenants. We need a register that gives accurate and up-to-date information to prospective landlords and is backed up by legislation with teeth. The opportunity is coming up. Let us seize the moment, and do something to redress the imbalance and look after the landlords, for once and for all.

I want to spend a little bit of time speaking about the benefit system and about some of our observations to date. Last year, United Future supported the passing of the Social Security (Personal Development and Employment) Amendment Bill, and received much criticism from the Opposition for doing so. I have taken an interest in the implementation of that legislation at a community level, and recently I visited some of the groups—non-governmental organisations that provide a range of services for beneficiary families with single parents and dependent children—that work with single parents. Those who are involved at the coalface with single-parent families have reported that they are not particularly happy with the implementation of this legislation. When I questioned them closely I was interested to note that they were very happy with the new abatement procedures and the ability to earn more money without losing money from their benefit—they all agreed that that was helpful—but what concerned them was that they are now being held far more accountable on a yearly basis, which is the very reason that United Future supported the legislation.

Under the old legislation, work test or no work test, there were only two definable moments when a person on the domestic purposes benefit was asked to consider his or her working future. Under the new legislation—and this is what has been causing some grief—there is now yearly accountability and questions being asked of recipients of the benefit as to what the future holds for them, what plans they are making, and what steps they are taking towards eventual sustainable employment. It is an extremely exciting development, even if there is some resistance out there towards it. United Future is pleased to see that that is happening. It may mean that the $14 million, from memory, that was budgeted to train case managers needs to be increased, I say to the Minister, so that some additional training can be done. I have had concerns that case managers have had their roles severely redefined, and some additional training to make sure that they are doing well by their clients may be essential.

We have mentioned before some concerns we have about the increasing numbers of people who are going on to the sickness benefit. This is not because I want to bash sickness beneficiaries. In fact, over the years I have worked in a voluntary capacity with a number of people on benefits and have always found them to be people who genuinely needed some sort of State assistance. Our concern is whether the form of the assistance is appropriate to the existing needs. My concern is illustrated by some of the current problems that we are having with the sickness benefit.

The Government is in a very fortunate position of holding office at a time when unemployment is at a record low, but it is also apparent that the numbers of those on the sickness benefit and other benefits are increasing at the same time. Yesterday’s Dominion Post reported that unemployment is down in the Wellington region, but at the same time the number of sickness beneficiaries is steadily increasing. Occurring as it does in one of New Zealand’s most employable regions, I have discovered that I am not the only person concerned with that. During question time today I mentioned the Downtown Community Ministry director, Kevin Hackwell, who has mentioned his concern at the growing number of people claiming the sickness benefit.

We understand that the Minister points to the aging population as the reason for that increase, but we need to look a little more closely at the figures. On a national basis, there has been a 17.3 percent increase in the number of sickness beneficiaries since the end of 1999, and a 7.4 percent increase in the past year alone. The ministry’s statement of intent acknowledges that the numbers of people on that benefit will continue to increase, and we repeat that we understand that changing demographics as a result of an aging population will, over time, contribute to benefit trends. But the fear is that the relationship between the increase in sickness beneficiaries and the reduction in the number of registered job seekers is not a healthy one. We see an obvious bubble in the graph when we look at the breakdown of why people need to be on the sickness benefit. That huge bubble is called “stress”.

It is refreshing to hear that even United Future members are talking about the problem of the rise in invalids beneficiaries and sickness beneficiaries. The test that remains is what they are going to do about it. United Future continues to support the Labour Government, which does not seem to be able to keep its social welfare portfolio under control.

When I read through the select committee’s report I immediately got the message that there is bad news for the Minister for Social Development and Employment, Steve Maharey, because even his own caucus members are no longer convinced by his spin that the social welfare portfolio is under control. Even the Labour members on that select committee are frustrated, because they state in this public document that the number of people on the invalids benefit has been increasing for some years, and they urge the ministry to proceed with its pilot study to find the causes of the rise. Just to get a feel for why they are worrying, in late 1999, when National was in Government, there were 52,700 invalids benefit beneficiaries. By this year there were 68,800, and the numbers are forecast to increase to 71,000 people.

The number of people on the sickness benefit has increased from 32,000 to 39,000, and the warning that an urgent study needed to be done into that area was already recorded in the select committee’s report last year. But what has the ministry done, or, shall we ask: how did the Minister respond to that urgency? We learn that the ministry is now conducting four pilot demonstration projects, but apparently all those results will not be due until August 2004. I think that the public should get as worried as the select committee and myself that it took about 3 years just to learn the result of a study on that urgent issue, and some members on that select committee believe that the research findings will not be made available until 2005. I think that the Minister should take a call and say whether that is how he responds to an urgent problem at hand.

Talking about benefits, the other issue that I learn from the select committee’s report is that the expenditure on special benefits is forecast to increase from $82.9 million in 2002-03, to $130 million in the coming financial year—a whopping 57 percent increase. I notice that the only other items that have increased at the same speed are the number of increases in taxes imposed by the Labour Government. There are 17 tax increases. I think that is about the only area that has kept up with the increases in these special benefits. Apparently we have some explanation. According to the select committee’s report, it is partly to do with some people who might have been entitled to special benefits but who were not aware of that, and the ministry’s task is to increase their awareness of those benefits. But the other explanation in the select committee’s report, which I find really fascinating, is that it reckons one of Wellington’s social welfare agencies claimed that the Ministry of Social Welfare’s staff might have some bias against bringing the availability of those special benefits to the attention of the Māori and Pacific Island communities. When I read that in the report I begin to get quite worried, because the ministry says it has implemented a policy to ensure that staff members are not—even subconsciously—operating a bias in order to fix the problem.

I took a short call earlier on in the debate, and I thought that, given that the debate is drawing to an end, I would take a short call again. It is interesting to follow on from another National member. The earlier speech by Katherine Rich outlined the blame-and-punishment policies that the National Party wants to follow, and Pansy Wong has just introduced a series of criticisms of the Government that are, once again, gobsmacking in their misguided nature.

For example, we were invited by that speaker to say what we will do about the sickness benefit. We have spelt out that, just like all OECD countries, we believe we face a real issue because of problems like the aging nature of the population, which means more people are eligible for benefits. We have said that we should get it into proportion. There are 13,000 people going on to the special benefit from other benefits, and 8,500 coming off. Let us not get into a situation in which we start to make people who are on a sickness benefit somehow feel—as the National Party always does—that they will be hunted down individually for daring to be on a sickness benefit. One of the main ways people get off a sickness benefit, can I stress, is that they die. That might be worth remembering by the National Party—that that is why people get on to sickness benefits, after they go through all the processes of getting on to them.

But what was the National Party’s answer? Its answer was the capacity test in the 1990s, which even its members did not agree with in the end because no one could make the thing work. In the end the entire mental health community turned on the Government prior to the last election to say that it was unworkable and put people in situations that were simply condemning them to even worse situations. Even the National Party said: “Look, we can’t do this.” Since then, I have not heard a single answer from National Party members about the sickness benefit. All it does is whine about other people doing something about it. We will. We understand the issues, and we want to individualise and tailor the assistance to people on sickness benefits, so that we can ensure that what assistance they get is tailored to their needs.

The member asked what we were doing about the special benefit. The reason we have the special benefit going up is that one of the things this Government has done is paid people their full entitlement. That is unlike the National Party, which did not pay people their full entitlement, such that it created the food-bank industry at the beginning of the 1990s—because it cut benefits by up to 30 percent. Out of that came the food-bank industry, and out of that came the tiers in the system of social welfare benefits that we have to operate. That is why we pay people on the third tier of the benefit system, because if we did not pay them that kind of money they would not be able to live. I guess we are hearing from National Party members tonight that, because they blame and punish people if they happen to be unlucky enough to be on a benefit, they do not want to pay them a special benefit. That means $40 or so coming out of 32,000 households in this country, because that is what we do—unlike the National Party, which, when it left power, was paying about 7,000 people the special benefit.

So I think the debate, which is supposed to be a forward-looking one tonight, would benefit from the National Party stopping rehearsing its failed ideas, like work for the dole, as Ms Katherine Rich did. The National Party would benefit from not having members getting up in the House and crying crocodile tears over issues that they have no answers to, but simply saying that the Government is dealing with these very, very difficult issues extremely well. There has been a 33 percent drop in the unemployment rate since we came into power. I know that members say: “Oh gosh, only 33 percent.” But we have to compare that with an 11.9 percent unemployment rate under the National Party. There were 170,000 people on the register under the National Party. Until that party breaks from the 1990s and starts telling us how it intends to provide solutions in this debate, no one will listen to it.

What a wasted few minutes! So this Labour Minister will take credit for the decrease in the unemployment rate—which is because of good weather and a low exchange rate—but as soon as it comes to the increase in the number of beneficiaries, then somehow that is out of the Government’s hands. I would like to remind this Minister that the questions I raised just now were listed in the select committee’s report, and the Labour members were part of that committee. It was the Labour members who got so frustrated—which I can understand—by the Minister doing nothing. That is what they put down in the report—for the issue of the increase in the invalids and sickness benefits to be addressed with urgency. All they can get from that Minister is that he really has no solution, so he blames the National Party.

I am very proud of my colleague Katherine Rich, who came up with a well-researched, logical, good piece of documentation concerning the social welfare issue of getting rid of the dependency attitude in the second generation. The honourable Minister should look to that document for solutions and stop blaming the National Party, which would be very happy to fix the problem.

But before the interruption of the Minister’s speech, I was commenting on the scary thought that the Minister—I presume—influences the ministry, which then says that it wants to implement policy to ensure that the Ministry of Social Welfare’s staff members would not, even subconsciously, operate on a biased base. That is the type of action we came to associate with autocratic regimes overseas, in which people were told they were not even allowed, subconsciously, to operate with certain attitudes. But I can assure the public that denial, and trying to control the mindset of staff members, will not solve the issue of the increase in beneficiaries.

The other issue in the select committee report that I want to raise is the issue relating to caseload management. Apparently, the reduction of caseload management is an important priority for the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. It currently works on the basis of one staff member to 160 clients, and the aim is to reduce the ratio to one staff member to 120 clients. If the Minister is so keen to take a call, I would like him to take a call to explain why, at the same time that there is a target of reducing the staff-to-client ratio, this department can spare Shannon Pakura, the chief social worker, to operate out of the Associate Minister of Māori Affairs’ office. She is in a $100,000-a-year job, and can apparently spare a day to work in the office of the Associate Minister of Māori Affairs.

I think the Minister should take a call and explain that to the public. What sort of message is that sending to the staff at the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, who, on the one hand, were told to reduce the staff-to-clientele ratio and to reduce the caseload backlog, and who, on the other hand, learn that a senior manager, who is on $100,000 a year, can spare a day for a secondary job in the office of the Associate Minister of Māori Affairs? How can the Minister expect his departmental staff to get the message that they have to work harder? I think that is not sending the right message.