Social Assistance (Debt Prevention and Minimisation) Amendment Bill

As National members have stated tonight, we support this bill. We support clauses 1 and 2. We are of the view that this is good legislation. It is not often that we say that, but we do so with regard to this bill because absolutely amongst our core beliefs is the belief that the benefit system should be efficient and fair. People should be able to properly access benefits when they are in need, but they should do so for themselves and not for people who are either dead or not actually in existence. We are particularly concerned about making sure—and we have canvassed this rather fully tonight—that when benefits are paid, they are paid to the right people, they are paid for exactly the right amount of time, and they are not overpaid.

I stress that, not to be mean to people who receive benefits for a week or 2 weeks longer than they should. I say that because if someone is overpaid a week’s wages or a week’s benefit, that is normally quite a lot of money for that person. Whether someone is paid $500, $300, or $200 a week, a whole week’s wages is a lot of money. For the people we are talking about—people who are absolutely on the breadline, people who are very much in that situation—1 week’s pay is a huge amount of money. They are not people generally with savings; they are not people generally with credit cards they can just whisk up. If they have to go and pay back money they often end up with a loan shark, which is a situation we do not want to see them in. Certainly, it is incredibly important that with a great big Government department, a department that looks after $18 billion of taxpayer money—I said “looks after” but I meant “pays out”; the amount has actually gone up under this Government, not down—it is absolutely incumbent on that bureaucracy, with its staffing, to be able to cope with the benefits system. It is incredibly important that it does so.

I note that one of the things we recommended in the select committee—we certainly talked about it—was the need for some sort of assistance to be available in courts, and for representatives in the major courts to be able to adjust benefits immediately when a recipient is imprisoned. We said that to prevent a situation when someone is imprisoned on, say, a Friday, a weekend, or some time like that when the benefit system does not really work, yet still receives the benefit. We want to make sure that that person’s benefit is immediately adjusted to avoid the very situation we are trying to prevent, which is that of people going into prison and then receiving benefits.

I think it is also worth noting that it was not that long ago when there was a bit of a scandal about people in prison accessing student loans. It caused a great deal of embarrassment to the Government—hence the need for student loans to be mentioned specifically in this legislation. There was a situation where a fraud was going on—a matter of only a couple of years ago—with hundreds of people accessing student loans from prison, when of course that was not necessary. Even with the technology that was available then, the technology was still not being properly used. That is why it is incredibly important that we have this legislation.

I do not believe that the public of New Zealand see a lot of difference between one Government department knowing information and another Government department knowing that information. Most would have thought that it was just a matter of course that the Department of Corrections, when it received a prisoner listed as being on the sickness benefit, the invalids benefit, or the unemployment benefit, would actually be checking to make sure that Work and Income knew about it. But of course under the incredible political correctness that has absolutely permeated this country for the last few years, it is almost unthinkable that one Government department would talk to another unless it had permission to do so. I understand there may be legislation put in place to stop them from doing that; I do not know why there would be such legislation. I understand that most people think back to the days when people in the Public Service felt free to be able to express their views and felt free to talk to each other without being frightened of reactions.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2agreed to.

The Committee divided the bill into the Corrections (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill, the Customs and Excise (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill, and the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill, pursuant to Supplementary Order Paper 185.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.