Estimates Debate — Vote Social Development

This is a massive vote. It is almost $18 billion, so I will not be able to refer to all of it in this speech, which I have only 5 minutes for. I will deal with a few issues that I think are really, really important.

On the front page of the New Zealand Herald today is a story about a 4-month old baby who is in critical care at Starship hospital. The baby has very young teenage parents, aged 18 and 19, and they are from Papakura, in my electorate. We have yet another story that seems certain to involve the police, the courts, and who knows what else. It is another tragedy for those of us who live and work in South Auckland.

Is there very much in this estimate about such matters? I have some notes that the select committee has made about South Auckland. The South Auckland MPs asked for a meeting with the chief executive of the Ministry of Social Development to find out why it is that at 2 o’clock in the morning nobody from Child, Youth and Family is available to pick up the kids who wander around the streets of our South Auckland towns. Why is that? We have not had that meeting. We have now been promised that he will turn up tomorrow to our select committee and talk to us. We asked for that meeting weeks ago, and nothing has happened in that time. Instead, we are told by Child, Youth and Family that it is an organisation that can only react to complaints. Well, it certainly has a lot of them.

I do not understand why we have a huge Government department—there are over 3,000 staff at Child, Youth and Family and they are all part of the Ministry of Social Development, which has over 9,000 staff—yet we know that at around 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning around Manurewa and Papakura, and Randwick Park, there are young people out of control and wandering around with nowhere to go, and when the police pick them up and take them home, so often no one is home. No responsible sober adult is home and nobody cares. I would like to hope that maybe someone is out there looking for them, but someone is not, in most cases.

All we hear from the Ministry of Social Development and its Minister is how wonderful everything is. Well, it is not. I have said time and time again that these bureaucrats will never make a difference until they get off their bottoms and get out there with the Mayor of Papakura and pick up these kids.

What we also see here are all sorts of things that the ministry is talking about. I am pleased to see that the ministry is now going to fund a bit more of the Home Interaction Programme for Parents and Youngsters, which we have in Papakura and that works really well. We find that the ministry had not changed any of that funding since 2003-04, but now we are being promised a bit more.

I do not understand why we cannot do more of this. Why can we not simply take the families who really need the help, give them the skills, teach them a bit of self-esteem, and let them show how wonderful they can be, instead of waiting until it is too late and throwing up our hands in horror and saying “Oh, gee. I wonder how that happened.”? Instead, we have seen an absolute fixation on saying that all families need to be treated the same, when, actually, they do not. Some families need a huge amount of extra effort, and they should get it. At the end of the day, what we have is children who miss out. The children I am thinking of in my electorate are the children who have nothing except what they can get from a benefit-dependent family and what charitable organisations can give to them. They need the extra help. Yet we see more and more for the ministry. There is a massive bureaucracy. We now have 60.5 fulltime-equivalent communications staff in the Ministry of Social Development.

💬 Nathan Guy: How many?

There are 60.5 fulltime-equivalent staff—that is three times the number when Labour first came into office. Considering the fact that there are supposed to be fewer beneficiaries, one has to wonder who the staff are communicating with. There are 60.5 fulltime-equivalents in such senior roles. There are over 370 policy analysts now. The fact is that the ministry is just bloated with bureaucracy. In the meantime front-line staff have been cut under this Labour Government: 450 case managers—front-line staff—have been cut. The Government is telling us that this is because there is less unemployment, but there has been a huge increase in the number of people on sickness and invalids benefits. Those people need to be helped to get back into wellness and helped to find work if it is possible, yet the Ministry of Social Development is cutting the front-line staff and bloating the bureaucracy back at head office. Well, there is a word for that and it starts with “h.”

Tēnā koe, Madam Chairperson. Kia ora tātou e te Whare. Electricity bills are skyrocketing, food prices are increasing, house prices are at the highest level they have ever been, and petrol prices are sitting at record levels. So telling us that Vote Social Development has gone up by a miserly 4.6 percent will bring no comfort to those people in my electorate who are struggling to survive the recent thunderstorms in places like Te Hāpua, Panguru, Kaeō, Moerewa, Waitangi, Whangarei, and Poutō, and to survive the ongoing economic cyclones that continue to bat our region.

When visits to the doctor or the dentist, buying warm clothes, fixing the washing machine, or getting the car registered are seen as luxuries for people, members can start to get a picture of the level of poverty that many of my people are having to deal with. Last month five community organisations were forced to meet in Whangarei to deal with the growing levels of desperate need. The fact that food bank use in Whangarei has doubled this year and that the status of child poverty is worsening—including the fact that kids from poor families are getting sick three times more often than kids from families on higher incomes—means we know that something is seriously wrong with the priorities this Government has for running the country.

Even though the Social Services Committee report states that “the appropriation for the unemployment benefit is less than last year”, “we expect the number of sickness beneficiaries to decrease by about 5 percent”, but that “the number of people seeking budgetary advice is increasing.”, it is not too hard to work out that if there are fewer benefits available but more people struggling with debt, then we have a national scandal on our hands. And let us get one thing straight: just because many Māori people are forced by economic circumstance and racism to survive on benefits, it does not mean Māori Party members support the kind of intergenerational dependency on benefits that Labour uses to control Māori people, because we do not. In fact, we hate it. We hate the way in which benefits have been used to reduce Māoridom to a level of subservience that bleeds the soul, sucks hope out of people, destroys community initiative, and devastates our people’s future. When we get the chance, we will put in place the economic programmes that will allow our people to contribute fully to our country, and to do so on a decent living wage.

We should judge a nation by the way in which it treats its most vulnerable citizens. Catholic Communications put it pretty clearly in its recently released statement entitled “Poverty in an Affluent Society”, which describes poverty as “an evil when it is forced on people through oppression or disadvantage.” It goes on to state: “When a section of our society is allowed to fall into poverty and hardship, everyone is at risk from the symptoms of that economic violence. The diseases that thrive in conditions of poverty threaten the health of everyone; the violence that accompanies economic stress does not confine itself to the poorest suburbs; and the uncertainty of those living with insecure work is exposed in mental illness and suicide rates.”

Again, although the estimates report of the Social Services Committee on Vote Social Development states: “The ministry aims to achieve further productivity and efficiency improvements.”, I also note that Grey Power is saying that 75,000 old people are living in poverty, and another 230,000 are living just above the poverty line. The Child Poverty Action Group tells us that 230,000 kids are denied benefits simply because their parents cannot get a job.

We know that productivity and efficiency improvements will neither feed nor clothe nor pay the power bill for those sectors of our society whose needs are greatest. I ask this simple question: how can the Ministry of Social Development talk so blandly about its role in detecting, snooping, preventing, and investigating benefit fraud, and achieving further productivity and efficiency improvements, while our nation’s most vulnerable citizens continue to suffer?

The ministry can prattle on about the confidence it has in falling benefit numbers, but our interest is not in crystal-ball gazing; our interest is in the right for all people in this land to lead a positive and dignified life, not just a life in which simple survival is the primary focus. The Māori Party wants to see communities where neighbours care for each other, where the immediate needs of hardship are addressed immediately, and where the State plays its proper role in ensuring fairness, justice, and equity for all of its citizens. Kia ora tātou.

I certainly support the comments made by Hone Harawira in his contribution to the Committee in respect of the latter part of his speech. I am sure that he is as pleased as I am that our policies in the area under discussion, social development, mean that 130,000 fewer children in our country are living in poverty now. We talk about poverty in New Zealand only now because the Labour-led Government, for the first time ever in our history, publishes an annual report on all the statistics, which allows us to measure poverty and measure the success or failure of all our social policies right across the spectrum. Public accountability from central government for delivery of its policies is new and has been established only in the last 8 years so that we can see what areas we have made progress in and what areas we still need to continue to work on.

Clearly, in the area of poverty there is more work to be done, but the work that has been done in the last 9 years has had a lot of success. From 2004 to 2007 median household incomes grew by 6 percent in real terms—in real terms, not just in total. Over the same period, income inequality in our nation reduced for the first time since it began to rise in the late 1980s, when, literally, the rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer. From 2004 to 2007 that inequality reduced for the first time ever. Income for low to middle income families grew much more rapidly than it did for average-income households, and much of that is attributable to our Working for Families package.

Overall poverty fell from 19 percent in 2001 to 13 percent in 2007, and that represents 190,000 fewer New Zealanders living in poverty. At the same time, relative poverty fell. Over that same period—2004 to 2007—child poverty rates fell on all standard measures, and that is something we can be proud of.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: What about now? What about 2008?

If Nick Smith knew anything about social reporting and measures he would know that those figures are not available yet.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: You don’t want them to be, either.

Oh yes, we certainly do. We certainly do because for the first time our Government published those figures, and every year they have got better. That member should hang his head in shame that under his watch, under his Government, and under his Cabinet child poverty increased every single year. Every single year that that member was in this House as a Cabinet Minister the number of children in our country living in poverty increased. That member should hang his head in shame.

Benefit numbers have reduced dramatically since Labour has led the Government. If we add up all the benefits—invalids benefit, sickness benefit, domestic purposes benefit, and unemployment benefit—the total number of working-age people on benefits has decreased from 1999 to June of this year by 36 percent. All main benefit numbers have reduced from 401,415 when Nick Smith was a Cabinet Minister—I am sorry if I have just put anyone into the position of needing to be on a sickness benefit, with that thought—to the current level of 258,317. That is a reduction of 36 percent.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: How much has it gone up on the sickness benefit?

I say to Mr Smith that there has been an increase of 41 percent, and there has been an 89 percent reduction in the number of people on an unemployment benefit. The best way of giving people their self-esteem, their confidence, and their independence, and of reducing poverty and giving them a brighter future is to support them into paid work.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: You’ve just changed the label!

There has been not one single change in measure—not one single change in criteria. The only reason the figure between 1999 and now is looking good is that we had a change in Government. That is the difference between then and now. There has been no change in criteria, no fiddling the books, and no telling one story to one audience and another story to another audience. There has been a 36 percent reduction in the total number of people on a working-age benefit, and the only change is that Mr Smith is no longer in Cabinet. That might now make people who previously thought about Nick Smith in Cabinet and needed to go on a sickness benefit feel a little better and be able to go out and get a paid job. Every week that Labour has led the Government there has been an increase of nearly 1,000 jobs in our economy—an additional 1,000 jobs in our economy—and we are supporting people to get into that work and off benefits.

The other point that I want to make during this debate is that, as well as moving people from a benefit into a paid job, the other substantial contribution that we have made to eliminating poverty in society is the introduction of the Working for Families package. The reason I am keen to talk about it is that a lot of people in New Zealand have benefited from it. Thousands and thousands of people have benefited from Working for Families, and those same people are now very nervous about the future because they have heard John Key and Bill English make completely contradictory statements about the future of Working for Families.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: They have not!

I just happen to have quotes in case Nick Smith does not watch TV, does not read the paper, and never goes on to the Internet to see what is the favourite story on Stuff and Scoop most days—it is the contradictory statements from John Key and Bill English.

Bill English put out a statement a little while ago saying that Working for Families would remain unchanged if National were the Government. Then over the weekend he decided that National cannot have a family of four going on the TV during the election campaign and saying, “John Key will take money off us.” He is not stupid; he knows that that would not be a good look for National. People who are dependent on Working for Families to be able to afford the additional things in their life do not want to know that National will take that money off them. Bill English said “We can’t do that. Later on we’ll have to do a bit of a sort-out. We have to do something, but we can’t do it now.” As David Henderson would say—and I would not quote him terribly often—be afraid; Be Very Afraid. The National Party has said that it will borrow money, that it will privatise the services of our nation, and that it will cut the Working for Families package. It has also hinted at hocking off Kiwibank and at getting rid of the employer contribution and the Government contribution in KiwiSaver.

So who is affected by those changes of policies? Who feels the effects of no increases in the minimum wage, of cuts in benefits, of cuts to Working for Families, of ensuring that the employer contribution and the Government contribution to KiwiSaver go, and of hocking off Kiwibank to yet another Australian bank? Who feels the impact of those policies? We know who would feel it: the most vulnerable members of our society. These are the people whom Labour has put the strongest focus on to ensure that people who are on benefits, Māori and Pacific Islanders, people who are brought up in dysfunctional families, and disabled people have the support that they need and deserve to be able to move from a benefit into a paid job, or, if they are not able to do that, to receive the level of financial support that they need. That is the commitment that our Government made prior to 1999 and has delivered on, year after year—increasing support, and ensuring that people do get the support that they are entitled to.

Those same people now are feeling very threatened, not just because they can hear Nick Smith’s contribution in this House—he is chipping away—but because they have read the contradictory statements made by John Key and Bill English. They know that those members will say one thing to one audience and another thing to another audience, and they know that if Bill English and John Key lead the National Party into Government in the future, their lives will be significantly and negatively impacted upon.

Over the last 6 years United Future has been the proverbial dripping tap in the ear of the Minister for Social Development and Employment on the issue of grandparents raising grandchildren and of kinship caregivers. We were absolutely delighted when it was announced in the Budget that, with the aim of achieving better outcomes for these families, an additional $24.6 million will be given to 7,500 caregivers who are caring for more than 10,000 children. This new funding will apply to those who will have been receiving, up to 1 April 2009, the unsupported child’s benefit and the orphans benefit. That core benefit will match the foster care allowance, and I thank the Government for hearing that call, because I know it means a lot to those people.

However—and I have already said this to the Minister—United Future does not feel that we have quite finished this call for help for these people yet. There are still some areas where foster parents benefit in a way that kinship caregivers will currently still miss out on, and that covers the allowances that foster-care parents get—additional amounts that they get to supplement children’s pocket money, school uniforms, doctors’ visits, etc. There is a whole host of other additional payments that foster parents can get for the children they care for that are still unavailable to kinship caregivers, such as grandparents raising grandchildren.

People have asked whether we should pay family members to look after their own. That is the ethical issue around this. The case that United Future has tried to make on this question is to flip it around and ask what it would cost us if we did not support these people to do the job they have nobly stepped up to the plate to do. That is a much more interesting question from an economic point of view. When we talk to grandparents raising grandchildren—to people like Diane Vivian, who is one of the unsung heroes of this nation—we discover that these people largely look after seriously traumatised children. These are children who have been at serious risk of harm. Half of the time, Child Youth and Family has made the approach to the grandparents and said: “Would you please consider stepping up to the plate, at least for a short period of time?”. Some of these grandparents took on children for what was going to be a couple of weeks, and 3 years later they still have them and have finally figured out it is a permanent arrangement.

These people lose a season of their lives. If they are in their late 40s or 50s, they quite often lose that season of their lives where they would be putting away some money in a nest egg for their retirement; that season is gone, and they are at home looking after children who need additional care as a result of what they have been through. If they are superannuitants, then the strain is even more phenomenal. These people make decisions every week about whether to fill their prescription or to pay school fees for their grandchildren. These people often live in fear; they have been threatened by family members who have lost income due to them stepping up to the plate and taking care of those children. These people pay a price socially. They tell us they no longer fit with their peers, because they have grandchildren in tow among a group of people who no longer have the care of young children. They do not fit comfortably with the parents of their grandchildren’s friends, because they are from a different generation. They can experience a huge amount of isolation.

These are people for whom half of the time their greatest worry is: “Will I live long enough to fulfil the obligation I have now committed myself to?”. We are talking about literally thousands and thousands of households, not 100 or 200, of grandparents raising grandchildren, doing a very good job and the best they can, and the last thing they need is to be struggling financially. They have enough pressure with the job they have taken on. So although we congratulate the Government on hearing our call and making an adjustment so that grandparents in this situation will now get the same base rate as foster-care parents, we call on the Government—and I think it even falls on the National Party, which is polling very well—to state very clearly what it is prepared to do into the next financial year for grandparents raising grandchildren. Will they offer the additional allowances that other foster-care parents get?

One of the other issues that needs to be considered for these people is respite care. They sometimes have very few options for having someone look after the children for a weekend or even a week or two so they can get a much-needed break. It really is something that United Future is concerned about, going forward. We are glad for this gain but we call on the Government to look to the additional needs.

Vote agreed to.

Vote Commerce