Estimates Debate — Vote Social Development

It is very unusual in an estimates report from a select committee to have to say that the Minister had not answered the questions that we on the select committee had submitted in time for the estimates review. It is simply an indication of the fact that this ministry and this Minister simply cannot get their act together, and do not wish to answer the questions that the select committee legitimately poses, at the right time, so that the answers can be elicited before the Minister and the ministry turn up in the select committee.

For a ministry that has grown in size massively under this Government, one would think that somewhere in there someone could be found to answer the questions. That was one of the comments that was made in the select committee—and it was a cross-party view—that people felt very strongly that an effort should have been made by the Minister and the ministry not to appear arrogant, and to actually take the questions on board, and to answer them. At the end of the day, it is by that select committee process that we hold to account the ministry and the Minister for the taxpayers’ money. In fact, it is not OK just to ignore it and say: “Too bad. We won. You lost.”, which is what Michael Cullen said when the Labour Government came to power.

One of the issues that we raised with the Minister and the ministry was that of sickness beneficiaries and the way in which sickness beneficiary numbers have massively increased under this Government. One of the concerns we have is the level of low-quality but high-cost programmes that have been operated. One of the concerns we have had is the fact that, for instance, the designated doctor scheme, which this Government runs in relation to sickness benefit numbers, means that there is a doctor who has issued 325 medical certificates for sickness benefit entitlements within one quarter—that is 3 months—or 5.1 every working day. The cost rose from $67 to $119 for each person. That is $600 a day, just for signing off sickness benefit applicants. Then there are all the other times of the day in which to make even more profit.

We have said to this Minister that we should be asking questions. We should be asking why it is that suddenly we are a country with a massive epidemic of sickness. After all, we now spend so much more on the public health system that one would have to wonder why it is that we cannot keep people well. We have never had a proper answer, other than that apparently people are getting older. When they get past 65 they are on New Zealand superannuation and would not be on the working-age benefit, so most people have not quite worked out what the Minister means by that.

One of the things we would really like to talk about is the single core benefit and the amount of taxpayers’ money that has been thrown into it. In 1989 Michael Cullen was Minister of Social Welfare. That is a long time ago. Except it is not so long ago, because that was when he first started talking up a single core benefit. We were going to have every working-age beneficiary on one benefit. That scheme emerged again in 2000 and again in 2002. Lo and behold, it became Labour Party policy again in 2005.

I remember, during that election campaign, attending a meeting with Steve Maharey, who was then the Minister of Social Development—because the portfolio turned from social welfare to social development, for some reason. He gave this very long presentation at Victoria University, with lots of PowerPoint things flashing across the screen, about the single core benefit and how tying in—I think it was—seven benefits into one and adding multiple add-ons, about another nine or 10 add-ons, was somehow going to sort out benefit issues and make everything easier.

We have found out from getting our work done and looking at what Treasury said and at the Official Information Act requests, because clearly the Minister is not very good at fronting up with answers, that the single core benefit has died a very, very quiet death. It died in August last year. But it was never announced. It was one of those silent things—the sort of thing that happened when we used to be secretive about our SAS if anything secret happened. But in fact it was swept under the carpet, and it has now reappeared only because we have decided to say: “By the way, whatever did happen to the major welfare plank of the Labour Party in 2005 or, by the way, in 2002?”. It has gone, just the same way as the taxpayer dollars that paid for it have gone.

Vote agreed to.

Vote Commerce agreed to.

Vote Women's Affairs agreed to.

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