Estimates Debate — Vote Social Development

Yes, I will stand up and take a call. I will stand up and take a call particularly on Child, Youth and Family within Vote Social Development, and particularly on vulnerable children. We have been hearing a bit more about vulnerable children of late, which I personally think is a very good thing. I may not agree with everything that the Greens propose, but I actually celebrate those members being part of putting children on the agenda for this campaign period when perhaps people’s interest is heightened and they want to take an interest in children, where we are heading, and what we are doing.

I think any members of Parliament in this House being interested in what direction we take and what we do is really important. I will comment on the record so far in relation to what I have tried to tackle in terms of those who are abused, neglected, sexually abused, and physically abused, in terms of the increasing number of children suffering emotional abuse, and in terms of managing how Child, Youth and Family deals with them in the first instance.

I had concerns about social work practice when National became the Government. At some levels I felt that we have such awesome social workers throughout this country, but could the same high quality of service standard be guaranteed across the country in every office one goes to? I could not put my hand on my heart and say that it could be guaranteed. So it was really important to me that we looked at our own service. It was important in those links between police, health, non-governmental organisations, and Child, Youth and Family that when we found those children who had been hurt and neglected, we made sure we had the right response, that it was quick, and that it incorporated not only families but also extended families and caregivers who were involved.

When I first came into Government I was appalled at the re-abuse of children. We knew their names, we knew where they lived, and we knew who they were. As a New Zealander, when I say “we”, we had tried to care for them, yet somehow they had been hurt again. I found that absolutely sickening and absolutely appalling. We did some stuff to really tighten up that, with a multidisciplinary approach for any child that was hospitalised because of serious abuse. So we are not having just one person decide what happens to that child when he or she leaves hospital; there is a multidisciplinary approach combining police, paediatricians, Child, Youth and Family, some non-governmental organisations, and everything else around the table, and that has made a difference. So there are a number of things around that.

I then wanted to look at teen houses and how we supported them better. Where do those teens who are really struggling and on the verge of losing their children go for parenting support, and to have a roof over their heads? I am about to open the last of those supported teen houses next week, I believe, in Gisborne. I am absolutely thrilled by them. Teens can live there for 3 months, 6 months, and up to a year in some circumstances for some of them. I met a young woman the other day who had had her second baby. The first had been removed, and we were very close to removing the second child, to be quite honest, through Child, Youth and Family. But with her living there for a good 8 to 10 months, there is a really good chance she will bond differently and actually keep that baby, and I think that is kind of fantastic.

I wish we could have more supported housing for teens; that is a goal of mine. I am not sure whether this is a time when Ministers should stand up and state their goals, but I do have a goal that we see more supported housing for teens throughout New Zealand, and that we support people quite differently. The ones I have seen have been run by Māori providers, and others, but I would like to see how we could perhaps do it differently, in real partnership with iwi, and help them—because supported housing is not cheap.

I could list a whole long list of things that we did around vulnerable children and trying to get that practice to be better. Then it came to the next stage. The next stage is gnarly, to be honest. The next stage affects middle New Zealand. The next stage has the potential to affect people who do not abuse and neglect their children, because it could take funding away from them. It could mean that when we share information, we share information about their children. It is one thing to say we want information shared on abused, neglected, and vulnerable children, but it is quite another thing to say we might share information about people who would not normally come to the attention of any services.

I want to talk about mandatory reporting. What does that mean? We saw some evidence of it overseas where there was a particularly heightened awareness of it in some offices, and their reporting thresholds were a lot lower, so they had to do much more reporting. Does that work, and how do we cope with that as a workforce? Is it the right thing to do? Should we be taking resources away from other age groups and putting them into those who are really young? These are really complicated issues, and New Zealand needs to debate them openly and in a way that involves people having their say in what the next big, vital step is. I am proud of the green paper on children.

Kia ora. I first acknowledge the reference made by the Minister in the chair, the Minister for Social Development and Employment, to the work of the Green Party. It is certainly true that the Green Party has put the issues of income inequality—the widening gap between rich and poor in this country—on the political agenda, and we are very proud to have led that work in Parliament and in the community.

I will address some of the solutions to child poverty that are available to us as parliamentarians and as a community, and talk about the solutions that the Greens have for dealing with the child poverty issues that the Minister has touched on this evening. Last week the Green Party launched its solutions to bring 100,000 children out of poverty in just 3 years—by 2014. I acknowledge those who supported that work: the various non-governmental organisations around the country, and Nicole Whippy, Cindy Kiro, and Courteney Moloney. Courteney Moloney is a young woman who was studying at law school while on the domestic purposes benefit and while taking care of her baby. She was prepared to talk about her story and the difficulty that she has in terms of having sufficient resources to take that next step for her into better education and caring for her child.

There are 270,000 children who live in poverty in this country. That is one in every four—a quarter of all of our children. These are not nameless or faceless kids; these are kids that we know. They are our friends’ children, they are our neighbours’ children, they are the children of our colleagues and our acquaintances, they are our nieces and our nephews, and they are our mokopuna. They are our children and they deserve better than that. They deserve the best possible start in life, and they deserve to be guaranteed the essentials, because when we guarantee our kids the essentials, we guarantee them the opportunities for the best possible life.

We need to take action to bring these children out of poverty for their sake and for our collective future. International research, particularly in the UK recently, has shown that the cost of not addressing child poverty is around 3 percent of GDP—3 percent of GDP. In this country, that means some $6 billion lost in health, justice, education, and welfare spending that could be saved if we chose to do something—if we chose to take action and invest a little bit now in these kids so we do not have to spend that later. Bringing children out of poverty does not just make humanitarian sense; it makes economic sense, as well.

We have developed four costed solutions that will bring 100,000 children out of poverty, and they address a number of the inequities first put in place, I have to say, by the Labour Government under Working for Families, and exacerbated by the decisions of the National Government, particularly around welfare spending and the training incentive allowance. Our solutions are achievable and they are affordable. They will work to bring those kids out of poverty, and that is what we need to do.

We have four solutions. The first is to make Working for Families fair for every family. Children have the same needs whether their parents are in paid work or not. Working for Families helps low-income families to make ends meet, but parts of it do not apply to those families who are reliant on a benefit. We would incorporate what is now called the in-work tax credit into the family tax credit, and extend it to 140,000 of the poorest households in this country. That means an extra $60 a week for those 140,000 New Zealand families.

That alone would bring at least 100,000 children above the poverty line. That poverty line is at around $14,000 a year, so it is a very miserable income that those families have to live on, and that those kids have to live on. For those families, every week it is the difference between paying the power bill and having enough food. These choices are real for our families, and they need to be made real for the politicians and for the Government, which makes the decisions about whether those kids get the money they need to have just a decent life.

Our second solution is to provide better study support for sole parents and for sickness beneficiaries. We know that kids do better when their parents are better educated. The training incentive allowance is designed to help sole parents on the domestic purposes benefit to upskill and retrain.

I am very pleased to speak in this debate. I am a bit surprised to hear how few members opposite are interested in doing so; I think it is probably because we actually have a very good track record to talk about in this area. I do not think that any member of this House fails to care about these issues or is lacking in real passion about youth development matters, but I pay tribute to our current Minister for Social Development and Employment, Paula Bennett, because she rolls up her sleeves, gets stuck in, and just does the job. As I listened to what Metiria Turei was saying, I thought that a lot of the principles she was talking about were the right ones. It is about talking about what works and what will make a difference—and we are doing that. I am very pleased to have this opportunity to tell Metiria Turei exactly what we are doing.

We have heard some bizarre contributions. I was very disappointed with John Boscawen’s contribution earlier, as he talked all around the issue but did not actually get stuck into what we are doing. I remind Mr Boscawen that he is a member of the Government; he is not a member of the Opposition. One would have thought he was having a bob each way. Mr Boscawen and Ms Turei both need to be reminded that young New Zealanders in particular have been really hard hit by this recession. There is no question of that. They are the ones who will find it hardest to get jobs, and they are the ones who most need the support of the Government to get training, to get an education, and to get a head start. Getting the first step on the ladder is often the hardest thing to do. That is why we have put in place opportunities like Job Ops, like Community Max, and like the Limited Service Volunteers scheme. It was very disappointing that Mr Boscawen did not talk about any of these things, because, in fact, they have made a huge difference, and I am happy to give him some of the figures on that.

The Limited Service Volunteers scheme is a $55.2 million package, and it is a really important part of our work to build skills and knowledge and build the stronger economy that we all want. That stronger economy will come when young people are engaged, focused, and motivated, and have a sense that they can get ahead in the modern economy and have an opportunity to become self-reliant and build a better future for themselves.

The Skills for Growth package provides a $5,000 subsidy for employers to employ and train young people in high-demand industries. That is what we need. Last Friday I was in my electorate in Hamilton and was able to acknowledge some young people—and some not so young, I have to say—and present them with certificates. As part of an industry training organisation scheme they have had the courage to go back after, in some cases, years out of education and get some training. In this case it was training with regard to double-dipped galvanised products. They got themselves some qualifications, and what a fantastic thing it was to see those people realising they could lift their qualifications, become a bit more adventurous in what they are doing, become infinitely more employable, add value to their company, and also have the opportunity to make some decisions for themselves. These things are good, and about a thousand young people a year will benefit from the good job and industry-specific qualifications that this Government, of which Mr Boscawen is a part, is offering. They will cost $7.2 million over 4 years.

The Job Ops programme, I think, is one of the most fantastic things that this Government has offered. It incorporates a flexible $5,000 subsidy, as has been said, that can be used for both wages and training. That flexibility is really important. The programme costs $13 million—or it will do over the next financial year.

💬 Hon Steve Chadwick: Yeah—really works in Murupara.

From August 2009, I say to Mrs Chadwick, through to the month ended 31 March 2011, over 10,000 young people were placed in employment through Job Ops. Is that not worth celebrating? I can see how excited Mrs Chadwick is—over 10,000 young people had an opportunity through Job Ops. Well done, Minister! Well done, the National Government—what a fantastic record that is.

As I said, the Limited Service Volunteers scheme—and there is Mrs Chadwick, shaking her head—gives an opportunity to provide some of our most challenging young people with a really life-changing experience. I am so passionate about the Limited Service Volunteers scheme that I want it to be in every town and city in the country. I certainly want it to be in my electorate, because—let us be honest—the young people who are being catered for by the Limited Service Volunteers scheme are pretty challenging. They are not exactly the people who are starting ahead of the pack. They need all the help that we can give them, and they need to have some life-changing experiences. The Limited Service Volunteers scheme is a fantastic programme for doing just that, and I say the Minister should go for it and keep delivering it. We know that it will make a long-term impact, and I will back it all the way. I think it is fantastic.

I tell Mrs Chadwick that the number of young people in work has risen by more than 5,400 over the last year to June, and the percentage of young people not in education, employment, or a training scheme has fallen steadily from 10.7 percent to 9.8 percent. Throughout the whole of this debate we have not heard much about the statistics; it is worth hearing them now.

I am sorry for my delay. I was expecting a call from the Opposition on Vote Social Development, since the Government will spend $22 billion in this round, which will affect about 1.6 million New Zealanders—981,000 at any one time—who are on either superannuation or benefits. I quite wrongly, obviously, thought that maybe it would be a priority for the Opposition to stand up and speak about Vote Social Development and how $22 billion worth of taxpayers’ money is spent.

Just to give the Committee a bit of an idea, there are 300 sites around New Zealand within Child, Youth and Family, Work and Income, Community Link, and other offices like that. As I said, there are about 981,000 clients at any one time, and of that number about 580,000 are superannuitants. The Ministry of Social Development takes about 13.3 million phone calls a year, which is 255,000 calls a week. There are 2 million applications for assistance in a year, and about 140,000 student allowance applications and other applications in relation to that, as well. As members know, Child, Youth and Family receives about 125,000 notifications in a year, which is about 12,000 a month. So that is pretty massive, and I do not know but I would have thought it was a priority and that maybe the Opposition would think about standing up and taking a call.

We saw the unemployment rate peak in, I think, January 2010, and just over 63,000 people were on the unemployment benefit; now we are at about 57,000 people. For the month of June, we saw nearly 800 people net come off that benefit, which was pretty exciting. It was the first month of June in more than 4 years when we had actually seen a drop in the number on the unemployment benefit, which was pretty exciting. Last month we saw the number go up again slightly, which was not so exciting, but it was nowhere near what we normally see. As I say, the increase was not nearly what we would see in normal seasonal employment. In fact, we cannot recall a time when a July total has not gone up slightly, even in the best of times, if you like, which were squandered in that 2005, 2006, and 2007 period, when nothing was done. We are already starting to see that sort of seasonal employment bounce-around again. It has started going down, and we had a week most recently where it went down again. So it just says to us that these are really interesting times as far as employment goes—people taking people on. What I loved about June was the fact that out of the about 784 people who came off benefits, 91 percent of them were young people—91 percent were young. I reckon that is pretty amazing.

We have heard a lot over the last couple of days about the Future Focus changes that the Government has made. We are obviously quite thrilled with some of the results of that. I will say that the results for the unemployment benefit have been better than I expected. I was certainly told by others that I did not need to do a reapplication process—you know, the work test was such that we would not need to do it. But it proved to us that when people come to sign a form, they might at times think differently about how they reapply for a benefit and what they do. Before we had Future Focus, 75 percent of those on any benefit in the system were not work tested, so there were no work obligations. They were not expected to be getting work-ready. They did not have to have a CV. Even after Future Focus we still have, unfortunately, 63 percent of people who go on to a benefit with no expectations of them. Currently, we have about 327,000 people on main benefits in New Zealand, and for 63 percent of them there are no expectations, whatsoever.

In fact, in most cases we put them on a benefit and leave them to sit there, with no intervention, with no support, with no help, and without looking at how we might support them to get off the benefit. I actually think it is a tragedy of our system, and it was something that was identified by the Welfare Working Group. I think it is pretty appalling to see people sitting on benefits year after year. I am not particularly proud of the fact that we have intergenerational welfare dependence and that we meet children who have not known an adult in their house to work. They think that that is the norm. So I must admit I am pretty focused on finding out how we can do better by them, how we can look at the support we give to people who need it the most, and how we can perhaps front-load some of that support. I am interested in knowing how we can look at what people can do instead of the pretty appalling focus centred only on what they cannot do. Someone’s eligibility for the system is based on what they cannot do, and I want to focus it on to what they can do.

Vote agreed to.

Vote Youth Development agreed to.

Vote Fisheries agreed to.

Vote Housing