Social Assistance (Future Focus) Bill

I move, That the Social Assistance (Future Focus) Bill be now read a second time. This bill is part of the Future Focus initiatives that we campaigned on, that were announced in March, and that New Zealand wants. Future Focus will help people through a mixture of incentives and obligations. It reassures New Zealand taxpayers that we are spending their money carefully as only those who need help will get it. It is fair to both those who need help and those whose tax dollars provide it.

This Government is committed to a welfare system that is fair, sustainable, and helps people in their time of need while not trapping them in a downward spiral of dependence. It is undeniable that in New Zealand we have too many children growing up in homes where the only income is a benefit for years and years. We want them to have aspirations, we want them to have hope, and we want them to have opportunity.

Over the past decade, New Zealand became complacent about benefit numbers. With a relatively good economy and skill shortages everywhere, the Government really did not have to do anything much to see unemployment numbers fall as they did. But the unemployment figures hid the true story. An increasing number of people consigned to welfare long-term were effectively written off. John Key’s Government believes that everyone should be working if they can. They should be in full-time work if it is available. They should be able to have the sorts of opportunities, the upskilling, and the training that matters.

Today we have seen the household labour force survey, and unemployment is up at 6.8 percent. The unemployment benefit story over the last same quarter, though, showed that we were having some stability and that people were getting opportunities. In July alone we saw 6,300 new jobs come into Work and Income, but that does not say that it is easy for people at the moment. That is why we need to make sure we are putting the right supports in place. We are helping those people who need it most, but we are backing them to upskill, to get training, and to look for work.

I believe that the vast majority of New Zealanders want to work. But if someone has not worked for a long time, or ever in some cases, that person might need help, encouragement, incentives, and even the occasional prod. This bill reinforces those expectations on people receiving a benefit. It is very clear about what New Zealand expects people to do in return for the financial support they receive. We expect those on the unemployment benefit to make every effort to find work. We expect someone on the domestic purposes benefit whose youngest child has turned 6 to be looking for part-time work. We expect someone on a sickness benefit whose doctor says he or she can work part-time to be doing so. Those expectations are reasonable.

Those who are looking for work but cannot find it will not be penalised, at all. [Interruption] I say again for the benefit of the member opposite that those who are looking for work but cannot find it will not be penalised by these changes. In fact, there are incentives in this bill that will support and help those people who are stepping up and want to do it. We have taken great care to be reasonable in implementing these work tests. We are making sure that the work is suitable for people who are looking. We are making sure that it fits in with them and their families and is close to home if it has to be. We are giving them those sorts of opportunities.

If we have expectations of those who are on welfare, there need to be consequences for people who do not play their part. It is reasonable to have rules about what will happen if people do not meet these expectations. If someone is not prepared to make the effort to look for work, why should taxpayers continue to provide support? People will obviously continue to receive help if they are trying to find a job, but not succeeding. But there are clear sanctions for those who do not make the effort to attend an interview, get help for alcohol and drug problems that are stopping them from working, or turn up for training courses.

The Social Services Committee, in its consideration of the bill, recommended a number of changes. These changes improve the clarity of the bill in a number of places, and I thank the committee members for the work they have done. I would like to address some of these changes. The committee has recommended that the name of the bill be changed to the Social Assistance (New Work Tests, Incentives, and Obligations) Amendment Bill, which is a recommendation that I support. I am pleased that the committee has recommended a name that reflects the bill’s intent.

The bill introduces a work test for sole parents once their youngest child is 6. Just last week we learnt of an American study into the effect of maternal employment on child cognitive and social development. The study assessed the total effect on a child of the mother going out to work, including factors outside the home. The study, by New York’s Columbia University School of Social Work, found that although there are downsides to mothers taking on work during their child’s first year there are also significant advantages, such as an increase in the mother’s income and well-being, and a greater likelihood that children receive high-quality childcare.

The work test for sole parents is a key part of the Future Focus package. It reflects our desire to encourage people whose youngest child is aged 6 or more back into work. We believe this is in their own best interests, the best interests of their children, and the interests of New Zealand as a whole. We are bringing in some incentives to make work pay, including changes to the abatement regime, which we have not seen for many, many years. Beneficiaries will be able to earn more and keep that money in their own pocket before it affects the amount they can receive each week.

We are also focusing quite strongly our childcare resources where they are needed most. We are putting additional training and industry partnerships in place, and working with sole parents to ease their transition back into the workforce when work becomes available. Already we have 17 employers indicating that they want to work with us, and particularly with those women who are on the domestic purposes benefit and going into part-time work.

The key to the success of this legislation being implemented will be that we work closely with employers and with those who are trying to gain skills and get experience so that they can enter the workforce. A key difference we see is, I think, the fact that I do not see these people as victims. I see them as survivors who have something to contribute to society. There are opportunities for them to step up, and I will back them in that every time.

The provisions in the current Act allow the work test to be delayed for 4 weeks following a child’s 6th birthday. This dates back to the last time a work test for sole parents was introduced. The select committee has recommended removing this provision so that a sole parent can be work-tested straight away. This makes sense as Work and Income will, in any case, be writing to all sole parents who are on the domestic purposes benefit 4 weeks before their child turns 6. As the committee points out, this is enough notice.

There are sanctions in this bill for those who do not take seriously their obligations to work towards getting off welfare. However, we are making it easy to re-comply, because this bill is not about punishing people. It is designed to get them to change their behaviour. If, for example, a beneficiary has been sanctioned for failing to turn up for a training course, a commitment to attend will mean he or she complies, as long as it is followed up with the actual attendance, of course. For persistent offenders, though, Work and Income will be looking for actions rather than just promises.

The committee also recommended that people should have only 4 weeks in which to re-comply following a first sanction for failing to meet their obligations. The setting of a time limit sends a strong message. Two of the submissions on the bill recommended that nurse practitioners be allowed to sign medical certificates for sickness beneficiaries. This issue has been raised on a number of occasions, and I am happy that we are fixing it. It makes sense for the person supervising a person’s health care to assess his or her ability to work. The bill introduces a new requirement that people receiving the unemployment benefit have to reapply for it after 52 weeks and complete a comprehensive work assessment.

Finally, I again thank the select committee members for the work they have done, for their thoroughness, and for the advice, which we have taken, on some of the changes in the bill. I especially acknowledge the work of the chair Katrina Shanks and my colleagues on the committee. They have listened, have sought advice from the officials who worked so closely with them, and have made recommendations that I am pleased to take up.

This bill is a sensible bill. It does not treat people as victims who cannot help themselves. It treats them as the true survivors and heroes they are. I believe in them and in their ability, and I will back them every step of the way. Thank you.

I stand to speak on the Social Assistance (Future Focus) Bill. The first thing I need to say is that it is disgraceful for the Minister for Social Development and Employment to stand in the House, after having platformed herself as some sort of battling solo mother and martyr for solo mums out there, and seek to take away things that she once claimed. She has already denied them the training incentive allowance, and she is putting the boot in again to people who are already down and out. I think it is disgraceful. [Interruption]

I say to Mr Garrett that although Labour supports some provisions in the bill, such as increasing benefit abatement income thresholds and the annual CPI adjustment of certain benefits, it is fundamentally opposed to the provision on work testing and the discriminatory nature of the bill. Also of considerable concern is the Minister’s inability to adequately define welfare dependency, which is the underlying reason for this bill. That point came up over and over again when we tried to get a definition out of the Minister.

Labour agrees with the overwhelming majority of the submitters to the Social Services Committee, who believed that many of the provisions in the bill are unwarranted. Many submitters believed that the amendments are a modern form of beneficiary bashing, the likes of which they had not seen since the 1990s when National was in office. One reputable submitter, a researcher, believed that the bill was so flawed that it had no redeeming features and should be withdrawn. The Law Commission was also critical of the bill, believing that it was in need of a major rewrite and should state citizens’ rights clearly.

Labour has serious concerns regarding the proposed changes to the sickness benefit and the invalids benefit. Setting the limit on work hours at 15 hours per week is an arbitrary distinction that will disadvantage many beneficiaries. For example, a person who is judged by a medical professional to be able to work slightly fewer than 15 hours per week would be eligible for the invalids benefit, while another person who is judged able to work slightly more than 15 hours per week would be eligible to receive only the sickness benefit, and thus would be on a much lower income. Given the minimal difference in capability to work between the two examples, the proposed system would be obviously unfair.

The proposed changes would also mean that someone with a newly acquired disability would be more likely to receive the sickness benefit than the invalids benefit, and with it face increased pressure to find full-time work. For people who are struggling to deal with significant changes in their lives and who may or may not yet have access to necessary equipment that would enable them to work, such as a wheelchair, eligibility to receive the invalids benefit would allow them to put their focus where it needs to be—that is, on adapting to life with a disability. To be forced on to the sickness benefit rather than the invalids benefit would be an unnecessary hardship.

The submission from the IHC expressed the concern that people with intellectual disabilities, particularly young school-leavers, who are unable to find suitable employment will find it more difficult to qualify for an invalids benefit. They may instead find themselves on a sickness benefit and face unrealistic expectations about finding work. Many intellectually disabled people who can work need the invalids benefit as a safety net as they transition in and out of work. Changing the criteria for reapplying for this benefit will discriminate against intellectually disabled people and place undue financial and psychological stress upon them.

Several of the major social service agencies that presented submissions to the select committee viewed most of the provisions of this bill as unnecessary. They believe that the Government’s concern about growing welfare dependency is not based on any evidence and that the current system is working well. Labour, along with some of the submitters on this bill, also believes that it makes little sense to continue with the changes proposed in this bill before the Government’s Welfare Working Group on welfare dependency has reported back with its recommendations for reform.

Not one of the major agencies that work with domestic purposes beneficiaries and with those on the unemployment benefit supports the underlying assumption in the bill that the change will create a fairer benefit system with an unrelenting focus on beneficiaries entering or returning to employment. Rather, the agencies believe that the bill will make matters worse for those on benefits and will drive even greater numbers to seek assistance from food banks and other voluntary service support organisations.

Many of the voluntary services and support organisations that made submissions highlighted the increased workload that they are handling ever since National took office. One of the things that I thought was very interesting was the submission that came from Caritas, the Catholic Church. It is concerned about the increasing pressure from this Government to support these people because the Government is devolving increasing amounts of responsibility to those organisations. The Catholic Church made it very clear that in its mind the State—the Government—has a responsibility to work alongside the church and similar organisations, not to devolve responsibility to them.

Labour believes that the provisions on work testing solo parents are fundamentally flawed. They show little appreciation of the demands of the parenting role on single parents, and limit the ability of case workers to seriously consider individual circumstances on a case by case basis. They show little appreciation of the effect on single parents of having job responsibilities, even when their children are at school. Labour believes that these pressures are not reduced, because childcare responsibilities are demanding of single parents and often require full-time attention. They have been compared with the model of the two-parent household and on that basis the proposals in this bill reflect the presumption that all single parents with school-age children should be expected to take on employment.

Labour believes that the current provisions of section 154(4) of the Social Security Act are sufficient to signal the importance of work, if it can be reasonably factored into the care responsibilities of single parents. The irony is that in the maiden speech made by Paula Bennett, now Minister for Social Development and Employment, she stated that parents should have the choice “to work part time or full time in paid work, or not at all, or stay at home and raise their children.” However, she seems to have changed her mind, or perhaps when she made that statement she was talking about women who have a husband and the white picket fence, and not those who are attempting to raise their children by themselves.

Labour agrees with submitters that the proposals in this bill do not focus sufficiently on enabling single parents to prepare for the job market while they are single parents. There is evidence that when single parents are able to use the time when they have full-time parenting responsibilities to prepare for the job market by taking up educational opportunities, they are able to come off the benefit and enter into sustainable and permanent jobs on reasonable pay. The effect of repealing the current provisions for a personal development and employment plan is that educational opportunities will no longer be considered. Labour is concerned that domestic purposes benefit recipients will be supported only if they choose to take on study at levels 1 to 3. The changes to the training incentive allowance already disadvantage recipients of the domestic purposes benefit who want to take on level 4 or higher qualifications. This bill will further disadvantage the recipients by acting as a deterrent to their enrolling in tertiary education programmes at levels 4 or higher. It will have a negative impact not only on the ability of those solo parents to develop themselves professionally but also on the children of those parents.

Labour believes that these provisions demonstrate that the Government’s approach to single parents in this bill is punitive. No evidence has been presented on the Government’s belief that an unrelenting focus on work, without taking into account the real demands of parenting, will produce better outcomes for children and their parents. I think it is timely that today we saw the statistics on unemployment and saw the increase in unemployment that is happening in this country. It shows that the Government really does not have a plan, it is doing nothing for those families, and it is doing nothing to create jobs. Government members are saying that they will have an unrelenting focus on getting these people out into the workforce, but they are doing absolutely nothing to build a workforce for them to go out into.

Labour believes that the Government’s not having any targets for reducing the number of people on benefits through the provisions in this bill shows that it is proceeding from an ideological base, rather than one based on good evidence and a real desire to improve the lives of children in single-parent households and enable single parents to prepare for a well-paying job when they enter the labour market. We will not be supporting this bill and we encourage everybody across the House to vote this bill down.

It is my pleasure to take this call and support the Social Assistance (Future Focus) Bill in its second reading. Firstly, I would like to acknowledge our hard-working Minister Paula Bennett, who is the member for Waitakere. She put a lot of work into getting this bill into the House and into the Social Services Committee. It is a bill that will make a difference to the people of New Zealand. I would also like to thank the officials for the hard work they put into our select committee and for the time they gave us. We continually sent them back for more and more information, and they kept on coming back, so I thank them very much for the hard work they put in; we really appreciated what they did to get this bill to the state it is in today.

It is interesting being out in the electorate of Ōhariu. People may think it is a slightly richer suburb, and certainly there are areas that are well off, but there are also areas that are hard up in that electorate. I have my office based in Johnsonville. I have many constituents who come into the office who have lost their jobs in the recession, and they are finding it really tough. All they want is to get back to work and get their lives on track again. I have constituents who come in who have been on benefits for a very long period of time. They like this Government, and I will tell members why. They come in and they say: “It is because you are a Government that is aspirational for us. You’re not going to let us stay where we are. We want to have some choices in our lives.”, and that is what this Government is about. We are about allowing people to have choices in their lives and to get off the welfare system.

I know that the Opposition struggles with the fact that people want to get out of the welfare system, have some options, and have a future for their families. They want to be a little bit aspirational; they do. That is why this legislation is something that New Zealanders are asking for. Let us put a focus on helping people get back into work.

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: That member should be ashamed of herself.

It is interesting that that member says I should be ashamed of myself for having aspirations. You should be ashamed of yourself for wanting to keep people on the welfare system—

H V Ross Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the member, but I have let this go for some time now as I thought that the member might have come to order. Standing Order 103 says that when a member is addressing the Speaker: “A member on being called to speak addresses the Speaker and, through the Speaker, the House.” For the last minute or so this member has used the word “you”, indicating that she is bringing you, Mr Assistant Speaker, into the debate, when she should not do so. I think she needs to be brought to order.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker): The member is correct. I invite the member to continue and to not address her comments to the Assistant Speaker. I am here to chair this meeting, not to be the subject of any comments on this bill or otherwise.

My apologies for that.

It is very interesting that those Labour members sit over there and have no aspirations for New Zealanders. This legislation will address that. I will give members a few facts to just throw out there. Currently, this legislation will affect 345,000 beneficiaries, including: 43,000 domestic purposes beneficiaries who have a youngest child of 6 or over; 12,000 unemployed beneficiaries who have been on the unemployment benefit for more than a year; 29,580 sickness beneficiaries who have been on a sickness benefit for more than a year; and 85,000 people who receive the invalids benefit. That is a big group of people that we are talking about. So that members can see the big numbers we are talking about, I tell them that the cost of paying these benefits in the 2008-09 year was $4.8 billion in total, $1.8 billion in additional support, which includes hardship grants and accommodation supplements, $1.5 billion for domestic purposes benefits, and $586 million for the unemployment benefit. That is a huge amount of money that we are talking about, which we are putting into a group of people who want to go out, work, and help themselves. That is what this legislation is doing.

I will just touch on a couple of points to finish off in terms of what this legislation is doing. It says that if someone is unemployed, every 12 months we want that person to go back, be reassessed, go through the criteria, and be refocused again, instead of just automatically rolling over on the unemployment benefit. We say that we would like those mothers on the domestic purposes benefit who have a child who is 6 years or older to go out and get a job, for a minimum of only 15 hours a week so that they can still do the school drop-off and the school pick-up every day. But they can go out there and get a pathway towards getting some work and getting ahead in life.

We all know that welfare is not a way of life; it is a really, really hard way of living. We want people to live better than that. We want them to have a really good living standard, and to go out and give their children the things they got when they were growing up, as well. There are a whole lot of things that are in this bill that I will touch on in the second reading. Thank you.

Labour members believe that people want to work. We believe that if there are jobs out there people want to work. The difference between National and Labour on this matter is that when National members talk about work, it is aspirational. When Labour members talk about work, we talk about real jobs, real wages, and giving workers a fair go in the workplace. But what have we seen today? Unemployment has gone up. There is no other way to say it. Unemployment has gone up from 6 percent to 6.8 percent. Māori unemployment has gone up. Youth unemployment has gone up. This Government is not creating a plan for growth to create jobs so that the people out there whom Labour back, who want to work, can get a job, keep it, and be treated fairly in the workplace.

National members can talk about aspiration all they want, but the proof of the pudding is in people getting real jobs, real work, and real wages. That is really at the nub of this debate. We cannot talk about reform of the benefit system if we do not understand the context of the economy at the time. There are no jobs out there, so any reform of the benefit sector has to take that into account. The previous speaker, Katrina Shanks, made a contribution about the people on the domestic purposes benefit. I, no more than others, have seen the effects of the increasing numbers of domestic purposes beneficiaries at the community level. But let us be realistic. Domestic purposes benefit statistics have gone up. Too many of the people receiving the domestic purposes benefit are young mothers, and that is of concern to me.

I, more than anyone else, would love to see further opportunities for women who are on the domestic purposes benefit, but some of the realities of their lives are not even recognised by members opposite. The plain reality is that if we looked at the domestic purposes benefit statistics and at the proportion of recipients who are young mothers we would see that more should be done to try to keep them in the education system and engaged, so that their future prospects of employment can increase. There is no plan whatsoever from the Minister for Social Development and Employment—and she, of all Ministers, should know the issues—as to what she will do to improve that fact. Far too many of the people who receive the domestic purposes benefit are young mums. They need to continue to be engaged in education so that their future employment opportunities can improve. Sadly, that is not happening.

My colleague Carmel Sepuloni raised the issue of the training incentive allowance. When Labour was in Government it restored the training incentive allowance to 100 percent funding. This enabled the women who were attending foundation courses for free—most of them were funded through adult education, or by the wānanga or other training providers—to use the training incentive allowance to do level 4 - plus courses, which improved their employment opportunities. I know of mums who accessed the training incentive allowance to do a law degree, to do a management degree, or to do degree-based courses that really transformed the opportunity for their little whānau to lead a sustainable and independent life.

This Government took away that opportunity. All that it is providing is $500 for level 4 courses. Will that work? I think not, because these days undertaking a level 4 course means making quite a significant investment. That will make hardly an iota of difference to the mums who want to transform the lives of their families and take on tertiary education. By the way, it will be hard for them to get into universities and polytechnics, under the tertiary reforms that the Government is promoting at the moment.

I am most concerned at feedback, through the select committee process, from services like Presbyterian Support New Zealand. It said that the bill, and specifically the issue of work testing, ignores the distinctions between why people are on a benefit: whether they cannot find work, they are not well enough to work, or they cannot provide support and care for their dependent children, and that there are valid reasons for different approaches to these different groups in terms of assistance.

Presbyterian Support does not comment lightly on these kinds of issues. Its members have real-life experience. In fact, they often pick up the pieces of a number of families who come through their doors at times of absolute desperation and need. They see the matrix of complex issues surrounding the most vulnerable in our society. I think the Government needs to be concerned when organisations like that start to comment on legislation that has not even passed human rights tests. It is discriminatory legislation that is being passed, so we should be very concerned as a Parliament if we continue to head down a track where discriminatory legislation that affects the most vulnerable in our society is being highlighted by the services that pick up the pieces. What will the Minister do?

The other point I want to comment on, which the Social Services Committee considered, is the issues around work assessment for sickness beneficiaries. When we look at this whole area we see again that it is complex. The people who go on to the sickness benefit have often come from full-time employment. When they were in full-time employment they had obligations, like many other people: a mortgage, bills to pay, and things like that. For whatever reason they got sick at work, were unable to access accident compensation—I have a constituent in just this situation—and had to go on to the sickness benefit. There is an immediate drop in income. My constituent had existing and fixed expenditure obligations, and had to make some really critical decisions, like selling the home, because the sickness benefit could not pay for the change in circumstances.

The bill says that sickness beneficiaries should be work tested and go and find a part-time job. That is all right if there is a part-time job out there, it is all right if their condition is taken into account by their new employer, and it is more all right if the beneficiary’s existing employer will accept a drop in hours so that the employee can be taken back on to work part-time. In the case that I am referring to the employer did not want to take the employee back, so that person had to look for work with a new employer. It is not so easy to find a part-time job. The stress that is caused for people who have fixed expenditure, like a mortgage or bills to pay, can be quite damaging to their continued health and well-being. It can continue to aggravate their sickness. So I am concerned about the bill’s inability to take account of real-life issues and the types of challenges that beneficiaries face when seeking employment. That is a real concern to me.

Finally, I commend the one part of the bill that I think should be obligatory for all of those who are in receipt of a benefit, and for all New Zealanders, and it covers the issue of financial literacy. Ensuring people know how to manage their budgets can be a very empowering opportunity. The one concern I want to relay to the Minister in particular, in respect of budgeting activities, is that although beneficiaries can voluntarily ask the Ministry of Social Development, for example, to pay their rent and power, as a result of its budgeting support, I do not believe that finance companies should be a part of an immediate payment from the ministry. I believe that the ministry should take a greater role to ensure that if it knows that beneficiaries are getting finance from finance companies, then greater hands-on case management is coordinated in line with the budgeting activities and the budgeting advice that they receive from the budgeting service.

Finally, I cannot see how discriminatory legislation can go forward in this manner. I believe that the context for considering such legislation has to take account of the fact that there are no jobs out there. It will be really hard for beneficiaries, and from 1 October it will get harder. No one believes more than Labour that people out there want to work; the jobs are just not available. National does not have a plan to grow productivity for good wages and job availability so that people can get a job, keep it, and ensure that they get paid so they can put kai on the table to feed their whānau. Kia ora.

I have a sense of déjà vu about this Social Assistance (Future Focus) Bill, which the National majority on the Social Services Committee has reported back to the House with virtually no significant changes, despite overwhelming opposition from the submitters. I think that only four of the 70-odd submitters supported this legislation.

💬 Hon Member: Four?

Only four. All the experts involved in social policy development for the last 20 or 30 years have opposed this legislation, with some going as far as saying that it should be thrown out. It was not even remedial; there was nothing we could do to make it fair, just, or appropriate for the needs of sole parents, in particular, and their children.

Before I continue with our concerns about the bill, I will acknowledge the work of the officials. It was a very difficult and fractious select committee process, because these issues are very significant. They are about whether we treat children and their families with respect. The officials have to pursue Government policy. If Government policy is cruel and degrading, then the officials have no choice but to be part of the development of cruel and degrading legislation, which this bill is.

Back in 1991 I was very active in the National Unemployed and Beneficiary Movement. I witnessed firsthand the effects of those twin attacks. I suffered as a person on the dole, and later as a sole parent with a small child on the domestic purposes benefit. The previous National Government’s 1991 benefit cuts and the Employment Contracts Act came into effect at the same time. Those measures heralded 10 very long years of low economic growth, high unemployment, downward pressure on real wages and employment conditions, and poverty—severe poverty—for anyone unfortunate enough to be on a benefit or a low income.

Here we see National, which claims to aspire to closing the wage gap with Australia, doing exactly what the Australians have just confessed was a failed policy. National is attacking workers’ rights with measures such as this bill, and the precise opposite of what it claims it wants to do will occur. This legislation will not close the wage gap with Australia; it will make it much, much worse. Not only that, it will increase further the gap between rich and poor in this country to an even more unacceptable level.

I challenge the Minister for Social Development and Employment to tell the House why the Government is forcing tens of thousands of beneficiaries—many of them will have limited skills and a marginal capacity to work because of their illness or disability, or they will be parents who want to be good parents and care for their children—into a labour market that cannot provide them with work. This bill will do nothing for those people. It is simply a matter of supply and demand: if more people are competing for the same number of jobs, then real wages for everyone will go down, not up. If the trend of recent employment rates revealed today in the June household labour force survey continues, then we will have even more people competing for fewer jobs, which will create even greater downward pressure on wages.

This bill is a driver of poverty. This bill is a driver of low wages. This bill is a driver of child neglect. That is what this legislation does under Minister Paula Bennett. Policies such as these were a large part of the cause of the wage gap with Australia blowing out under the previous National Government. With bizarre, back-to-the-future reasoning, National is claiming that even though this plan failed and increased the wage gap in the 1990s, somehow it can close the wage gap with exactly the same plan now. We know that this is ideological, faith-based legislation. There is no evidence—no evidence—that any measures in this bill will achieve the outcomes—

💬 Hon Nanaia Mahuta: Faith-based, ha, ha!

Faith-based legislation is what it is. There is no evidence that it will do anything. We will look at the Australian example in a moment.

I want to make the point that motherhood is a job. Motherhood is a highly valuable, significant job that is never given the credit it deserves. The women and the men—the mothers and fathers—who are sole parents, who are out there caring for and raising their children, are doing an incredible job. What they do not need from anyone is the disrespect and disgraceful disregard that this legislation and this Government is showing them. Parents need support to continue the most essential job of raising our children to be productive and happy citizens of this country. That will happen only if they are treated like respected citizens of this country. This legislation does not do that.

We in the Green Party do not agree with the “work first” ideology that says that any paid work, no matter how menial it is or how lowly the pay rates and conditions are, is better than no paid work at all. In fact, we know that a significant contribution is made by those who are on benefits and who cannot work because of their circumstances. They make a huge contribution to volunteer labour in this country, and that adds enormous value to the services that provide support for the people who need it. That is being attacked in this legislation, as well.

The punitive approach in this bill, particularly towards domestic purposes beneficiaries, coupled with the abolition of the training incentive allowance for tertiary education risks parents being moved off benefits and into low-paid, temporary, or casual work. The result will be an increase in labour market churn, which will be exacerbated by the extension of the 90-day fire-at-will law. That will make it worse, and make it even more insecure for families who need a much more secure base. As a consequence, there will be significant negative implications for workforce productivity and wages.

Parents are the best-qualified people to make decisions about what is best for their children and about how they should balance their childcare responsibilities.

💬 Hon Paula Bennett: Ha ha!

Paula Bennett laughs at the idea that parents are the best-qualified people to make these decisions. So much for the nanny State accusations made by National! Paula Bennett does not think that parents are the best people to decide. Paula Bennett says that she is the best person to decide. She knows what children need. She knows what solo parents should be doing. She knows what those children need in their childcare and how they should be raised, so she will force their parents out to work, knowing that if they cannot find work and if their case manager is not supportive, then those beneficiaries could lose half of their benefit. A beneficiary’s children—

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: But she won’t support them to study.

She will not even support beneficiaries into study, which, in a recession, is the most practical new thing that we can do. For people who have low qualifications in a very poor job market with high unemployment, we should be supporting them into study. But not this Minister. This Minister will use punitive measures to attack their children and drive those families further into poverty.

There are significant child welfare concerns about children being left at home alone if sole parents are forced against their better judgment to go out to work. Those risks to child welfare were identified in 2002, in the evaluation of the 1999 welfare reforms. That was the last time we applied work testing to sole parents. The 2002 evaluation clearly showed that there was a serious issue and that further work needed to be done on child welfare if that programme was to continue, but there has been no further research. There is a very serious concern that the Government is undertaking these measures knowing that there is no evidence to show that it will achieve its objective. No evidence or work has been done to ensure that there will not be serious child welfare issues if sole parents are forced to go out to work.

Leaving children at home alone is a form of child abuse; this is structural child abuse in my view. What will happen with those families and those children? The Minister can frown and shake her head, but she knows as well as I do how difficult it is for sole parents to be able to take good care of their kids. Other members in this Chamber also understand very clearly what that life is like, and know of the efforts that sole parents go to in order to make sure they can raise their kids well and take care of them. When sole parents need social support, they go to the Government and ask for it, and they get it. They get it, they deserve it, and they are entitled to it, because it helps them to raise their kids well. But this Government will make that virtually impossible for those people—virtually impossible for those people.

We know that this policy has failed in Australia. In fact, just this year, Australia relaxed its work-testing regime for sole parents to make sure that part-time study and volunteer work are also part of the package for social assistance. It is not just paid work in that package, as this Minister is imposing here. Not only is there no evidence that these proposals will work but also where similar proposals have been put in place elsewhere, there is evidence that they have failed. Everywhere else in the world is backtracking from these sorts of proposals. The issue is that if we guarantee the essentials, then we can guarantee the opportunities for beneficiaries and their families.

Kia ora tātou katoa e te Whare, tātou e hui nei i tēnei rangi. Kua tū ake tēnei nā ki te kōrero mō te taha ki a mātou o te Pāti Māori. I roto i tōku ngākau kei te kī atu, kei te hiahia te Minita ki te āwhina i te hunga e rongo nei i te ngau o te rawakore, o te hiahia ki te hoki ki te mahi. Ēngari tōna whakatinanatanga, kei reira tonu te uauatanga. I roto i ngā pire ka tae mai ki mua i te aroaro o te Whare Pāremata, kei reira tonu ētahi wāhanga e āhua pai, ahakoa pēhea mai, Reipa mai, Nāhianara mai. Ko te mate kē, kei reira anō hoki ētahi wāhanga he āhua uaua ki te whaiwhai haere. Nā runga i te aha? Nā runga i te uauatanga. Nō reira, ko tā mātau, ko tā tātau o te Whare nei, he āta titiro ki ngā taha e rua mēnā, āe rānei, he kaha ake ngā painga ki ērā o ngā mea āhua kino nei. Mēnā ko te tikanga o tēnei pire, he whakarite i ētahi huarahi kia tangohia ngā here o te Karauna i runga i te tangata, he mea pai tērā. He mea pai rawa atu tērā. Ēngari, tōna whakatinanatanga pēnei i tāku e kōrero nei, kei reira tonu te uauatanga.

Kua roa te Ao Māori e kōrero ana, kāre e tika ana kia noho here te Māori, me ki, ki te penihana, ki te Karauna. Kua roa tērā e kōrerohia ana, kua roa tērā e wāiatatia ana. Kei roto i ngā waiata a Tuini Ngāwai, kei roto i ngā haka a Tā Apirana Ngata, kei roto i ngā kōrero a John Tāmihere mā; ko rātou te hunga i kī atu, i whakaatu mai ki te motu, kāre te Māori i te hiahia kia herea e ngā taura ki te penihana, otirā ki te Karauna. Nō reira me pēhea e taea ai te tango mai te here kia taea ai e te Māori te hoki ki te tiaki i a ia anō, otirā, kia taea ai e te motu te tiaki i a tātau anō kia waiho ake te taha ki te penihana ki a ia anō, me kī, kia panaia ai ki tāwāhi.

[Greetings to us all, the House, those assembled here today. I rise to express the view of the Māori Party. My heart is saying that the Minister wants to help those experiencing poverty and who want to return to work. But the implementation is really difficult. There are some provisions in the bills coming before the House that are somewhat beneficial, whichever way one looks at it, be it Labour, or be it National. The real problem is that there are provisions, as well, that are quite difficult to address. And why is that? Because it is difficult. We propose that we of this House should examine both sides to see whether, yes, the benefits outweigh those aspects that are somewhat bad. If the purpose of this bill is to consider ways of removing encumbrances placed by the Crown on the individual, then that is a good thing—a really great move. But implementing it in the manner that I am saying here still presents a difficulty.

Māoridom has long said that it is not right for Māori to remain tied to the State through benefits. That has been talked and sung about for a long time. It is in Tuini Ngāwai’s songs, Sir Apirana’s posture dances, speeches by the ilk of John Tāmihere, and others; they were ones who revealed to the nation that the Māori people wanted to be unencumbered by systems like benefits and being a State dependant. So I ask how the Māori people can be unshackled so that they and the rest of the country can return to a situation where they care for themselves; and that matters relating to benefits be addressed by them or be driven offshore.]

I think the aim of the Social Assistance (Future Focus) Bill is to create a shift away from State dependency into full or part-time employment. It is obviously a laudable aim and one that our people have often spoken about passionately. As I said, from the waiata of Tuini Ngāwai, through to haka by Sir Apirana Ngata, even right down to people like John Tamihere, and others who have graced the halls of Parliament, there has been a desire to be free of the so-called benefit of the welfare system that has held our people for a very long time. Although the aspirational goal of reducing State dependency is a logical one, the economic downturn, however, has actually resulted in a greater need for social security, which is significantly so for Māori people. Can that be realistically achieved if there is a shortfall in the employment sector? A big factor in obtaining and keeping work is the availability of jobs, but the needs of the whānau remain the same, whether or not the jobs are there.

Right now, the statistics tell us as recently as of today that the unemployment rate—for Māori in particular—is going up and up; thereby lie some of the issues we face. The fact that Māori are disproportionately represented in the beneficiary sector, coupled with the downturn in the types of jobs our people expect to be employed in, mean that the bill would probably be detrimental to Māori at this point in time. We do not deny that there is an issue there. The total numbers of main benefits for all ages, excluding New Zealand Superannuation and the veterans allowance, have increased from 293,562 at the end of November 2008 to a total of 355,858 at the end of February 2010—an increase of 62,296 or 21 percent. The numbers of those of all ages on the unemployment benefit have increased from the end of November 2008 to the end of February 2010 by 40,340, or by 168 percent. The answer should not involve forcing people who are already in circumstances of hardship to face more hardship, but that is the dilemma at the moment.

The primary focus of the bill centres on Part 4, “Amendments to the Social Security Act 1964”. From our perspective, the key to the bill lies in the single focus of gaining employment, which, as I say, is a laudable aim. The bill repeals section 60O(a)(ii) of the Act, which states that a personal development and employment plan is “designed to support the economic and social participation of the beneficiary who developed it:”. The economic and social participation aspect of the old definition is dropped. Yet what do we do in areas where there is limited employment available, as discussed by other members? Do we not want to create opportunities for development? What about volunteering or supporting other members of the whānau? What do we do if in the end all the ducks do not line up to follow, I suppose, the logical course that people will move, and have the opportunity to move, into employment?

The primary purpose of the bill is to require that people receiving certain benefits, who can work, accept offers of suitable work as a first priority, encompassing within its scope work testing for beneficiaries. The real concern for the Māori Party is the promotion of a punitive policy designed to penalise those who fail to gain employment. For instance, beneficiaries who fail to meet their obligations will be subject to a sanction of a 50 percent reduction in their benefit. The bill determines that for a first failure the person’s benefit must be reduced by 50 percent, until the person re-complies. If a person’s dole is reduced or suspended and the person is re-granted the dole, the reduction continues to apply to the re-granted dole until the person re-complies.

Of course it is not just beneficiaries who will bear the brunt of this policy’s effects. In fact, the Child Poverty Action Group also warns that the changes proposed under the Government’s future focus legislation—which insists on 15 hours’ paid employment—will worsen child poverty if parents are unable to find jobs. It was stated just last week by the Child Poverty Action Group that “New Zealand’s children have borne the brunt of changes in welfare, education, and the labour market in the last 20 years. If we leave their welfare to a minimal safety net we gamble with their futures. Children’s needs must be at the centre of policy decisions—not a by product of an increasingly precarious and volatile labour market.” We say that the Child Poverty Action Group has a very valid point.

In addition, there is, of course, concern regarding the availability of part-time work and the 90-day probation period, especially where solo parents are concerned. We are interested in solutions, actually, in terms of how we can contribute as a party, that would turn round the fortunes of our people. For instance, the Mississippi-based Choctaw Corporation employs more than 6,000 people in tribally owned businesses throughout America. It owns a whole range of businesses, including aerospace manufacturers, motor vehicle and electronic assembly plants, casinos, golf courses, theme parks, hotels, commercial real estate, and US defence contracts. In doing so, the corporation has been able to liberate its people from poverty, unemployment, poor educational achievement, and benefit dependency to be one of the most vibrant and successful socio-economic Indian models of development in America. That is where, as a party, we want to head.

Last week I was fortunate to attend an event at Te Rapa, with Tainui Group Holdings. Some of the amazing initiatives there include a new mall at The Base, the retail centre in Hamilton, which will see $120 million injected into the Waikato economy, and generate an estimated 770 full-time and 760 part-time jobs. Our preference would be that we support iwi in determining their own solutions—solutions that include the opportunities for wealth creation and employment alternatives—but we must not neglect our responsibilities either as iwi or the State in supporting those of our members who are the most vulnerable. Unfortunately, at this point in time the Māori Party cannot support this bill.

It gives me pleasure to rise and speak in the second reading of the Social Assistance Future Focus) Bill, and I recognise that the Social Services Committee recommended that the name be changed to the Social Assistance (New Work Tests, Incentives, and Obligations) Amendment Bill. I will comment briefly on a number of speakers from the Opposition who have raised points before me. Then I will talk about a couple of parts of this bill that I think are very important, and that New Zealanders need to hear more about. The first speaker on the side of the Opposition in this debate—in fact, the first Opposition speaker in this debate—Carmel Sepuloni, showed us all of the reasons why New Zealand decided to change Governments at the last election. Ms Sepuloni’s speech—as with her party—was out of touch, her speech lacked vision and it lacked aspiration, and Ms Sepuloni told beneficiaries all over New Zealand that that was as good as they could get and that they should be happy with what life had dealt them. Ms Sepuloni stalked into this debate with her mock hyena print scarf, and all she could do was talk about Minister Paula Bennett, and she mentioned a picket fence occasionally.

But the whole of her speech, virtually, was about the hard-working Minister Paula Bennett, and I think that Minister Bennett is probably Carmel Sepuloni’s role model. I detected a little bit of envy there and, can I say to those listening, there is a lot to be envious of. She is a Minister who cares for New Zealand. She is delivering for New Zealanders but she is not delivering slogans or hype, unlike the member opposite, and the people of Waitakere recognise this. I hear the hyenas want their scarf back, because the member opposite has given them a bad name.

I will also comment briefly on the speaker from the Green Party, and I cannot bring myself to mention her name after the horrible, horrible things that she did and said in undermining the real concerns about child abuse in this country. She belittled the seriousness of the need to care for our children, and I think she should be ashamed. She should wake up and do a bit of research to see what the difference is between what she is trying to suggest this bill is doing—and it is certainly not—and what child abuse actually is. I have yet to meet anybody in this House who is not appalled by the horrible statistics and incidents of child abuse in this country. I think what that member said is appalling.

This legislation is about balancing obligations and support so that beneficiaries can achieve the best outcomes for themselves and for those who depend upon them. This legislation will support people when they are most in need, it will encourage them to get back to work, and act when they do not take responsibility for themselves. The legislation focuses on what people can do, not on what people cannot do.

I congratulate Minister Paula Bennett, because she is delivering on a pre-election promise to reform the welfare system—something we campaigned on and that New Zealanders accept. I also congratulate Minister Bennett on believing that those New Zealanders who can work should work. I know that the Minister believes that it is not fair on ordinary, hard-working New Zealanders if the people receiving benefits are not making every effort to get back into the workforce. This Government is committed to a system that supports people when they need it most but that also encourages people to get back to work as soon as they are able to. This Government wants people to take responsibility for themselves, for their families, and for other taxpayers. I have had feedback from people who have been on benefits, and from those who still are, and who echo those sentiments and actually want that, as well.

It is important to recognise that people who receive a benefit are able to do so only because others are going to work every day and are earning wages and paying their tax. We want people to help themselves, and we will give as much support as possible to them in these tough times to make sure that that happens.

This legislation does a number of things. It will introduce part-time work-testing for mothers on the domestic purposes benefit when their youngest child reaches the age of 6. It will also provide additional support to those families in the case of child support and care and assistance, and the work testing will be reasonable and will take into account the importance of the security of those children. The legislation will also look at sickness benefit recipients. Where medically they are assessed as being able to do some work, then there will be an expectation that they will be looking for that work.

When it comes to the unemployment benefit, it will be limited to 12 months. We heard from the ministry that at the end of this period of time, in good time, a letter would be sent to people who had been on the unemployment benefit for 12 months, telling them that they needed to reapply. If they do so, then there will be assistance and more talking given to them about why they have not been able to find a job, and some of those issues will be talked through. I get feedback from hard-working people in my electorate who pay their taxes, and who say that after a year, this action is more than reasonable. I think we have the balance right, but many others in this House and outside this House believe that a year is a very long time. I am not one of those.

We have also recognised that there will be graduated sanctions for non-compliance with these work obligations. Instead of a straight-out cancellation, this legislation is about working with New Zealanders, making sure that they can have the skills, that they are looking for work, and that, where jobs are available for them, they realise it is up to them to go out and take those jobs. There will also be new criteria for hardship grants. That is right; contrary to what members opposite say, hardship grants will continue. We have not heard that from the members over there. That is certainly not the message that those members are delivering when they are frightening and scaring some of the most vulnerable New Zealanders. There is a boost of income abatement levels in a number of areas where benefits are received—for those who are on the domestic purposes benefit, the invalids benefit, and the widows benefit, and for the non-qualifying partners of those on superannuation and the veterans pension—to assist them to make them better off and to help them back to the workforce.

Then there is training support. There is a study loan to support solo parents on the domestic purposes benefit to study again. Members opposite said that that would not happen, but it is happening, and I have mentioned the additional child support.

It was a very difficult bill to see through the Social Services Committee. We had a wide range of views, but I think the amendments and changes that have been made have got this legislation right. The information I get from the public is that they support it. I look forward to the next stage, when we get to speak about this bill more. Thank you.

For me, this Social Assistance (Future Focus) Bill epitomises a contest between two futures for New Zealand. One view for New Zealand, which is advanced by this Government, is a future in which we are urged to suspect that our less wealthy citizens are lazy, and to be insistent that they would not be in that position if they had just worked harder and had not utilised the social benefits of a collective society like ours. Those adopting this view, like the members opposite, give to themselves the right to insist on their particular moral code, to which they expect every other citizen to subscribe. When others do not adopt that particular code, they see that as being eventually damaging, and as keeping the poor in their particular place—a place from which they cannot move.

That is the view that the Government holds as the support for everything else it is proposing. But that has always been the view of National Governments, and subsequent Labour Governments have always had to come along and fix up the huge gaps and problems that National Governments have left behind. No doubt the next Labour Government will have to correct the effects of this National Government’s policies, and redress the particularly punitive, residual approach of its particular type of conservatism.

💬 Hon Member: Don’t be holding your breath for that.

The member who speaks realises that that is absolutely true.

A second view of the future is based on an intimate understanding of the independent nature of our society, the society in which we live. In this society all citizens are valued, their input into developing the human and social capital of our nation is understood and appreciated, and no citizen is valued above any other. This maturity and compassion has been brought to policies that Labour has proposed for a long time, and Labour has been following that view, along with like-minded members of this House. However, this debate has already begun to testify to the existence of these two views. Members on the Government side have been couching their view in the language of expectation and belief in using taxpayers’ money effectively, but underneath all of that lies a firm belief, a punitive belief, in residual social welfare.

The New Zealand welfare State, which is what we have in this society, was born out of the realisation that no matter how desperately a person wanted to work and earn sufficient income to sustain his or her family, structural and other forces could always compound achieving that particular ambition. The violence perpetrated on the families of the poor by owners of capital—through poor work conditions, poor wages, and the withdrawal of work—have led many families to crime and relationship breakdown, and to a gulf between rich and poor. The welfare State was the response to those inequalities, and followed the realisation that no nation could take advantage of only financial capital; it also had to develop social and human capital, which were partners with economic capital, in order to develop a decent society. Therefore, welfare policies were put in place, and from the time that they were put together they served the citizens of this nation well.

However, welfare policies have had to be tweaked from time to time; they have always had to be tweaked. We remember well when Ruth Richardson, a National Minister of Finance, attacked beneficiaries and took a billion dollars from them—and it is vulnerable families who are beneficiaries. Then the previous Labour Government had to tweak the policy again to address the low wages of New Zealand’s working families through the Working for Families programme. Through a series of policies about the focus on work, Work and Income has achieved tremendous results.

I thank Katrina Shanks, who is the chair of the Social Services Committee, and the members of the committee. Katrina chairs this particular committee very, very well and gives us all a fair go. I think that we as members of that committee worked quite well. Although members on the other side of the House are not generous in acknowledging the contribution of members on this side, I shall acknowledge theirs. I also acknowledge the work of the officials. The officials do not have a pleasant job to do, but they do it very well and I congratulate them and their department on providing straight advice, and on getting the information required from time to time. They did their work very, very well.

The purpose of a select committee is to place the Government’s ideas before a group of parliamentarians, served by its officials, and the committee is where any citizen can come and really say from their experience and backgrounds what they like about the particular provisions of a bill, what they do not like about it, and what other advice they would like to give. We are required to interrogate them, to listen to them, and to use their advice to produce better legislation. But that did not happen on this particular occasion. As other speakers have said, only a small number of submitters supported this particular bill, and in fact I cannot recall who did. The overwhelming majority of submitters did not support this bill, at all, and gave some very, very serious advice.

One of the driving forces here is the notion the Government has that we need to reduce welfare dependency. We have asked the officials, as well as the Minister, to define welfare dependency, but they have been unable to define it to anybody’s satisfaction. We have asked them time and time again; it is just not possible to do so. The officials are put in an unenviable position when they are asked to define it; I appreciate that. But the Ministers who proposed this set of ideas, and the members opposite who are pushing it, must come up with a definition, and unequivocally and simply put it before this Parliament. I invite the next speaker to do that. The National members have not been able to define welfare dependence, so I do not know what they are trying to address. In the absence of that definition, all I can assume is that it is their particular ideology, their particular form of conservatism, that they are trying to push.

Another point is that the Government is trying to push this legislation through even before its own Welfare Working Group has reported. But where is the sense in that? The Government has asked the group to look at welfare dependency, and the group is spending a lot of time and money doing that, yet major, major changes are being made here to our welfare State, and to the social provisions that affect our most vulnerable, but the Government is not prepared to take the group’s report into account. In the end, this is only a political process that the other side plays around with; it is not based on any evidence, at all. Somebody should respond to the challenge put before the Minister by Metiria Turei, who asked where the evidence was. It is interesting how members on the other side talk about evidence but produce nothing.

The other point is to realise what the submitters are saying. It is very instructive that Associate Professor Michael O’Brien, a former colleague of mine, gave the advice to the select committee, unequivocally, that this bill should be removed and withdrawn; it had no redeeming features. The Minister should listen to that advice, because that person is the professor of social policy who taught social policy to the Minister herself. It is absolutely clear that there are no redeeming features in this set of provisions, or in the ideology or principles that guide them, because they go nowhere. Presbyterian Support New Zealand also provided similar advice. There is nothing in there, at all. The Human Rights Commission and the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services have both asked for this measure to be removed.

I will speak briefly on the work test. For sole parent beneficiaries, the work test is a form of abuse, because it provides no understanding of what a sole parent does to bring up children from the hours of 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.. Somehow, the parent is required to go and work, then come home and provide ideal care for the two or three children that that parent might have. The work test is a rather nasty piece of work. It does not even define appropriate work, nor does it acknowledge voluntary work. [Interruption] Many of those women who are sole parents provide huge amounts of support, particularly to our schools, as Mr Macindoe would surely confirm.

Finally, there is the notion of beneficiaries having to reapply for the unemployment benefit. There is no need for that. Work and Income does a fantastic job at the moment, triaging day in, day out, those who register for unemployment, so I ask why they have to apply again after 1 year. What is it that Work and Income does not know about those beneficiaries? There is no need to do that, and we do not need this legislation. Thank you very much.

It is a pleasure to follow my friend Dr Prasad to debate the Social Assistance (Future Focus) Bill. I acknowledge his genuine interest in these issues and his constructive contributions during our Social Services Committee consideration of the bill. I also want to pick up on a point that Dr Prasad was talking about a minute ago. He talked about a moral code and he inferred that members on this side of the House have an underlying sense that people on a benefit are lazy. I want to make it very clear that that is not the case.

But when we talk about a moral code, it is very important to remember that the Government has an overriding moral obligation to ensure that every dollar of taxpayer money that it spends is spent responsibly, appropriately, and fairly, because it is not its money; it is money that comes out of the pockets of hard-working New Zealanders, many of whom are on very low incomes and work long hours to earn that money. The Government has a strong moral obligation to ensure that it does not take one more cent from their pockets than is absolutely deserved. So it is for that reason that I am very pleased to lend my support for this very important bill that has come before the House.

Reforming our welfare system to create incentives for those who can move off welfare and into work was a major campaign plank for the National Party in the 2008 general election. It was certainly a theme that resonated very strongly in my electorate as I knocked on the doors around Hamilton West. It is a policy that regularly continues to generate regularly favourable comment from those who take a close interest in how our society responds to the needs of those who for whatever reason do not have paid employment.

Like our Prime Minister and our excellent Minister of Social Development and Employment, I am firmly committed to preserving a compassionate, fair, and responsive welfare system in New Zealand. Tens of thousands of New Zealanders have suffered, or will in future suffer, significant setbacks or health problems and so on. I will always argue that a decent society should respond to their needs and circumstances as generously as possible.

I acknowledge the contribution of my Waikato colleague the Hon Nanaia Mahuta, who is a thoughtful member, but I need to correct the point with which she concluded her speech. She inferred that those who genuinely seek paid work and are unable to secure it will be penalised under this bill. In her remarks at the outset of this debate this afternoon, the Minister stressed that no such threat or concern exists. Genuine job seekers will continue to access the unemployment benefit, which is, of course, exactly what it is there for.

Opposition members on the select committee expressed concern that the bill will hurt New Zealand’s most vulnerable families and exacerbate the gap between wealthy and poor families. The logic of such an argument is seriously flawed. Yes, it is possible that beneficiaries will be out of pocket if paid employment is available to them and they could reasonably be expected to undertake it but refuse to do so. But that will be their decision. I fail to see why hard-working, low-income earners in my electorate should be required to bail them out. That is the inevitable consequence of healthy people of reasonable working age who do not have young children to care for during the daytime refusing to undertake honest paid employment.

The Opposition members’ logic is even more off-beam when one considers that those who are on benefits and move into the paid workforce will increase their household income as well as enjoy the other benefits that accrue from increased independence and the self-esteem that regular employment generates. It is absolutely fundamental to this bill and to this Government’s intention that we want people to help themselves. We will give them as much support as is possible and necessary to make that happen.

Let us look at the potential benefits of this bill. Over the course of a 4-year period, it is estimated that this bill could result in a saving of $100 million. We have 9,000 sickness beneficiaries at this moment who have been assessed as being capable of undertaking some part-time work. They would not be forced down into the mines for 50 hours a week; they would be undertaking some part-time work. The health benefits of undertaking that work are considerable and well proven. I say that 50,000 more people will be subject to the part-time work obligations under this bill.

Let us look at the figures. There are currently 345,000 beneficiaries in New Zealand, of whom 43,000 are on the domestic purposes benefit with families with children over the age of 6. There are 12,000 unemployment beneficiaries who have been on that benefit for more than 1 year. We are simply saying that they must continue to prove their eligibility for it and be available to undertake work when it becomes available. There are 29,580 sickness beneficiaries who have been on that benefit for more than 1 year, and 85,000 receive the invalids benefit. Those are significant numbers in a country of 4.3 million people with an ageing population where there are huge demands upon the dwindling taxpayer dollar.

💬 Dr Rajen Prasad: What’s the target, Tim?

Many hard-working people in my electorate, I say to Dr Prasad, put in very long hours to care for themselves and their families. I am constantly impressed and humbled by their efforts, and I am very supportive of them. Without their efforts, we would not have the comprehensive welfare system that this country enjoys.

I close by repeating the point that I started with. It is their taxes that they pay on their hard-earned wages that fund the system. It is our responsibility to ensure that every dollar we take from them in taxes is spent fairly and wisely. That is what the Social Assistance (Future Focus) Bill is all about. My constituents tell me it is exactly the right approach to take for a responsible Government that is charged with spending taxpayers’ money. I commend the bill to the House.

I acknowledge up front that for as long as I can remember, and even before I was a member of this House, New Zealand has been very poor at having fair, reasonable, and rational discussions about our benefit system. Too quickly we tend to descend into stereotypes, wedge politics, and discussions that can be interpreted as being no more than categorising the worthy and unworthy poor. I feel that all those debates are to the detriment of all of us, but in particular to the children whose families are dependent on the State in some form. I am saddened to say that in lots of ways I do not think we have improved, if this debate has been anything to go by.

I have heard a lot of generalisations and assumptions during this debate. But I want to start from a principle that was mentioned by one of my colleagues, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta. It is the simple premise that Kiwis want to work. Stemming from that premise come a lot of the obligations we have, both as Opposition members and as Government members.

If this bill were genuinely about getting Kiwis into work—which members on this side of the House believe all Kiwis wish to do—then it is our job to do three things. Firstly, we must make sure we do all we can to use the levers of the State to create real, sustainable jobs. That means doing all that we can, whether it be working with business or looking at our monetary policy. We must do absolutely everything we can to create jobs. I have not seen enough of that from the other side of the House.

The second duty we have is to make sure Kiwis have the right skills for those jobs. That is why the previous Labour Government looked very closely at creating a comprehensive skills strategy to make sure that we were meeting the demands of the business sector and of the new emerging economy, and to make sure we had invested in those areas that were providing skills training for Kiwis, particularly those who were leaving school without the necessary education and background to get into work in the first place. That is our second duty.

Our third duty—and this is one that I think probably only this side of the House takes especially seriously—is making sure that once people are in jobs, they have some basic rights while they are there, but I perhaps digress. Nothing in this bill that I have seen focuses on those three elements, those three premises, those three criteria that we should be focusing on if we all do believe that Kiwis want to work.

I want to reflect on the context in which this bill now finds itself. We have, of course, new information before us that tells us where unemployment is at in New Zealand, and I think it is indicative of the fact that we have the wrong focus with this bill. Unemployment is up to 6.8 percent and we have heard discussion around that, but I want to focus in particular on the fact that youth unemployment continues to grow.

We have seen a slight decline of half a percent in unemployment for 15 to 19-year-olds, and I point that out in particular for Sir Roger Douglas, who still seems hell-bent on believing that these young people are not getting into work because of how much they are paid. I do not believe that is true. The situation for 20 to 24-year-olds is much worse. Since the last quarterly survey unemployment numbers have gone up by 2.6 percent and now sit at 13.7 percent. That is a total of 68,200 young people who are not in work, and the number of young people not in educational training is higher. The Government claims it has a plan, and apparently this bill forms some part of it. I will go on to have a little bit of a discussion as to why I do not feel that that is the case.

The Government also claimed that the Job Ops package would assist with the escalating unemployment numbers. But there are three problems with that package as it stands, and they relate to this bill to some degree. The initiatives in the Job Ops package tended to focus primarily on young people who are already on a benefit. We know that anyone who is under the age of 18—

💬 Hon Member: Not true.

By and large it did. That was how it identified the young people it needed to work with. It is an easy criterion to use. That is how the Government has interaction with young people who are not in work. It is perfectly understandable. But there is very little opportunity to find the young people who are under 18 years of age, are not in education or employment, and are not accessing a benefit because they are not eligible. These initiatives were crafted primarily for the ones who are easy to find. That is an area we need to work harder on.

Also, unfortunately, anecdotally I have heard evidence that young people are being turned away more and more from the unemployment benefit. Some are being told they will be unable to access it unless they go on a Limited Service Volunteers course, which is often held far away from their home. Instead, they are staying where they are, not accessing any support, and still struggling to find work. Recently I heard from the Auckland City Mission that it is seeing an increasing number of young men in the under-24 age bracket who are not on a benefit but do not have work and are seeking food parcels in the Auckland City area.

We also need to keep in mind that the whole package the Government produced was meant to be targeted at those whom the Government considered to be unskilled. One challenge I wish to throw to the Government is this: if it identifies a young person who is unskilled, what is it doing to upskill that young person instead of just putting him or her into work? We have seen some demonstration of that through the Job Ops initiative. I have heard of people who have been unable to stay in those jobs and have been released from them. There is not enough survey work to tell us why that is, but I would wager that it is because they never had the skills for the job in the first place. We would be much better off if we were replacing this bill with something that focused on that issue.

I want to go through the main provisions of the bill and just touch on some of the individual challenges that we have been posing against each of them, but I want the House to keep in mind the premise that I outlined at the beginning—that is, Kiwis want to work.

The first provision in the bill requires unemployment beneficiaries to reapply for their benefit every 12 months and undertake a comprehensive work assessment at that time. Again, I hark back to the fact that if people are unskilled when they go on to the unemployment benefit and if the Government’s sole focus is on continually work-testing them to see that they are trying to get into a job, where is the focus on upskilling those individuals to get them into work? We have seen the Government cap numbers for tertiary education, so rather than assisting, the Government is in fact making it worse. A work assessment does nothing to upskill an individual.

The second provision is the introduction of a part-time work test for solo parents on the domestic purposes benefit once their youngest child turns 6 years old. My colleague Rajen Prasad did a really good job of outlining some of the challenges in relation to that provision, as have some of my other colleagues. I do not feel the need to traverse that one again.

Thirdly, the bill introduces a part-time test for people on the sickness benefit who are assessed as being able to work part-time. I have to say that this particular provision does not sit with the reality of what any MPs working in their electorates—whether they are list or constituency MPs—will be seeing coming through their front doors. Any MPs worth their salt who are listening to people will know the reality. Many members will be listening to those who are on the invalids benefit and are facing the consistent threat of being moved on to the sickness benefit. Members will also be listening to people on a sickness benefit who are being work tested.

I am seeing some extraordinary recommendations coming out of Work and Income. I have seen a woman with a fused wrist, unable to lift her hand without severe pain, being told in a work assessment that she should stack shelves for a job. I have seen much worse than that, as well. I have seen individuals with severe brain injuries—in some cases, individuals who have had brain injuries for 6 to 10 years—who have suddenly been told that, somehow, their situation has changed dramatically and that they should be working an extraordinary number of hours. Some of the assessments I have seen go beyond what would be considered reasonable by any individual, and now we are entering into a phase where we already are seeing this happening.

I wager we will see much, much worse as a result of this bill. Again, it flies in the face of the premise that Kiwis who are able to work want to work. These provisions do nothing to assist them into work. If these provisions are going to create jobs, then I challenge the Government to tell me how and how many. The fact remains that we cannot sanction someone into a job that does not exist. People are losing their jobs because factories are closing down and unskilled work is decreasing in this country, and this bill will do nothing to assist those people into jobs that do not exist.

Tēnā koe e te Mana Whakawā. Huri noa i tō tātou Whare i tēnei ahiahi. Tēnā tātou katoa. I am thankful for the opportunity to stand and make a contribution on the Social Assistance (Future Focus) Bill. I will start by complimenting the Minister in charge of the bill, the Minister of Social Development, who has had to depart the House.

As speakers from both sides of the House have commented this afternoon, any debate on social welfare will be fraught with emotion, as it should be, and quite oppositional views, and it is not an easy area to change or bring reform to. The Minister has had the courage to do that, while also putting up with insults as she goes about her work. So I commend her for her courage in leading work on the reform of this part of the social welfare system. As colleagues on this side of the House have said, it reflects a campaign commitment that we made to reform the social welfare system as part of the context of a culture of aspiration.

We do not think that a life on a benefit is any life at all. We think that the opportunity for New Zealanders to get into work, to earn an income, and to model for their children the norm of going out and participating in society and contributing to the workforce is aspirational and we want that for all New Zealanders.

We underestimate the contribution that being in work makes to homes that have otherwise been completely dependent on a benefit. Dependency is a disease. I make no apology about stating it as starkly as that. Dependency on the State gives no life to families or to generations of families who find themselves trapped in a 2-week horizon. That is not the kind of life that I foresee as being well for my whānau, for the communities I have been part and parcel of, or for communities across New Zealand. As I have said, life on a benefit is no life at all.

My colleague from the Māori Party Te Ururoa Flavell made reference to some wonderful composers—Tuini Ngāwai and Sir Apirana Ngata—whose songs, poetry, and narratives tell us how important it is that we have no dependence on benefits. They talk about it in comparison to the devil. That is the kind of linkage that our forebears have made in exhorting us not to be dependent on the State in any way, shape, or form.

This bill reflects a principle of reciprocity. Yes, we are committed to a caring and compassionate State. We are committed to helping those who are unable to help themselves. We are equally committed to respecting and honouring those people who are in work and whose taxes fund our compassion. This principle of reciprocity must be applied evenly. If we ask New Zealanders to give, as we do, then those who are receiving have an obligation to do as much as they can to move themselves into the category of giving. I support absolutely the reciprocal obligations that we are seeking here. I ask what is wrong with work testing a parent, be it a mother or a father, whose child reaches the age of 6. The horror with which this measure seems to have been greeted by members opposite pays no respect to parents who have children who are 6 or older, or, indeed, younger, and who are in the workforce already and through whose taxes we assist those who are not in work. Let us be fair. It should not really matter whether someone is on the benefit. If someone has a child who is 6 or older, I think it is totally appropriate to apply a work test to see whether that person can rejoin the workforce. Again, I point to the fact that this side of the House is committed to the idea that all New Zealanders have the opportunity to be in work. I do not see what is at all wrong with someone having been on the unemployment benefit for 12 months—

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: They’re committed to following their right-wing agenda, even if it discriminates.

It is easy, as our colleague Jacinda Ardern said, for both sides of the House to resort to stereotypes and throwaway insults. I do not believe that that has very much to do with which level of the continuum of politics or ideology that side of the House wants to throw out. I come from a community that experiences every day the consequences of State dependency—and they are not pretty consequences. I do not wish that to be the lifelong legacy for my relations who live in those communities. So I stand here speaking authoritatively on this bill because I know how important it is for people who are dependent on the State to have opportunities through the encouragement and support of a State that cares.

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: Only Hekia Parata knows beneficiaries.

I tell Carmel Sepuloni that only I can speak about my own experience. I am the most authoritative on my experience, contrary to that member’s view of her omniscience about everybody else’s experiences.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy): I am sorry to interrupt the member, but the member cannot continually interject if she is not in her own seat.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. As I said, I can and will speak from my experience. I absolutely support the provisions in this bill, because I think that they give greater hope than would otherwise be the case. We are a caring and compassionate Government, and we are prepared to support people who need that support. We are—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: 20,000 more unemployed—it’s a small city.

Look, it is very easy for members opposite to throw insults, when all the previous Government did was contribute to consigning people to lifelong dependency because of the saviour complex that that side of the House suffered under for so long. Unlike that side of the House, we embrace and celebrate people having the opportunity to make decisions for themselves about themselves. This bill facilitates people to do that.

I am conscious that my time is running out, so before I sit down I want to particularly thank the officials. The officials had to answer very detailed questions from all members of our select committee, and they did so by assiduously providing us with information that has allowed us to make what I think are very good decisions. It has resulted in a bill before this House that will help bring about the sea change that we need in New Zealand so that the culture of aspiration that this Government is committed to can be shared by all New Zealanders. I commend this bill to the House.