Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. This Government is progressing the most comprehensive package of welfare reforms that this country has ever seen. The reforms have been designed to be carefully staged over 2 years and this bill represents the latest suite of changes to improve the benefit system for all New Zealanders.

It has been some time since this bill was before the House so I will run briefly through the changes this bill introduces. Seven benefit types will be consolidated into three: jobseeker support, sole parent support, and the supported living payment. This is key to simplifying and modernising the system. We are introducing social obligations to ensure that children in benefit-dependent homes get quality early childhood education, are enrolled with a doctor, and get their Well Child checks, and that school-aged children are in school.

We are introducing a requirement for job seekers to be drug-free and available for work. Forty percent of jobs advertised with Work and Income require a drug test. It is simply unacceptable that because of recreational drug use many are unable to work and take up available job opportunities. We will stop the benefit after 10 days if someone has already had an outstanding arrest warrant for 28 days that they have not cleared.

These changes are fair and reasonable. We campaigned on all of these policies at the last election and overwhelmingly New Zealanders support these reforms. We are introducing the investment approach to the benefit system, which will focus support on those most at risk of long-term welfare dependence. This underpins welfare reform and the new modernised benefits system. It is part of the National-led Government’s approach to welfare reform, which will better support people into work.

The old system had a very narrow focus of support for the unemployment benefit, which, as we know from the first actuarial valuation of benefits, is very short-sighted. Those on the unemployment benefit are least likely to stay on long term, yet it is that group we invest the most money in through employment support. Greater support needs to be tailored to individuals who need it most, and these reforms will do that.

A number of changes have been made to the bill through the select committee process. These include allowing for additional parent-led options for early childhood education like the Home Interaction Programme for Parents and Youngsters. The changes have also widened the scope for approved home-based early childhood education through Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu. For those who prefer their preschoolers to remain at home, they can enrol with this home-based early childhood education. I support these changes and thank the chair and the Social Services Committee for their input. There are a number of other technical changes, but I will let the select committee chair and others go through those in more detail if they so wish.

We have heard a lot of rhetoric from the Opposition about welfare, but, quite frankly, I have seen no plan. If hand-wringing and sympathy were the answer to welfare dependence, Labour would have solved that problem many years ago, but it did not. Even at the height of the economic cycle, Labour did not reduce dependency. Today it is no closer to a solution, just an offer of tea and sympathy for those on benefits, whom it clearly sees as victims. This Government does not see people on welfare as victims, but as individuals who, with the right support, can in most cases have a better life in work and off welfare.

For those who simply cannot work, due to severe illness or disability, we will continue to support them with dignity. Changing the name of the benefit is a small but significant gesture to them, because many found the term “invalid” to be, quite frankly, offensive. From July they will no longer be on an invalids benefit; they will receive the supported living payment.

Throughout the recent recession we have heard the Opposition’s hollow call for more jobs. We would all like more available jobs, and if simply calling for jobs actually created employment, it would be easy—perhaps someone should tell Europe. This Government listens to and supports employers to keep people in work and take more staff on. We have done this through a suite of work subsidies, which has made a real difference. We have also cut red tape, introduced the 90-day law, and improved productivity and competitiveness through the Government’s Business Growth Agenda. As you know, the House is currently debating the starting-out wage, which employers welcome because it will help them to take on more young people.

For every tragic story that the media rolls out, where the Opposition stands by, wringing its hands, I can give you a positive story of success, because even through the worst of the recession we have seen real successes. In 2012 we had 81,000 people go off welfare and into work, and that is worth celebrating. Work and Income is getting around 1,000 new vacancies a week from employers. These are jobs in agriculture, forestry, fishing, and construction, in large part, as well as others in manufacturing, administration, and so on. Work and Income is matching people with these jobs every day and is seeing successes every day.

I will continue to sing the successes of every New Zealander who finds a job, keeps a job, and kicks welfare for touch, and do you know why? Because, quite frankly, we on this side of the House back people. I do so because I have never forgotten where I have come from. I have never forgotten how tough it was being a young, single mum on welfare, with the Labour Party telling me that that was all I was worth. I have never forgotten how tough it was going for those job interviews, when I felt I lacked the experience, the knowledge, the skills, and the confidence. But, most of all, I have never forgotten how it felt when an employer said yes and gave me an opportunity. It was the best feeling in the world. It was both terrifying and thrilling, and it gave real hope. The first job was not the best job—not by a long shot—and they did not all last for long, but each job gave me experience and skills and built my confidence as I learnt to stand on my own two feet and took responsibility for my own daughter.

It was National, quite frankly—it was National, not Labour—that spoke to me as a young, Māori sole mum with an ambitious message that said: “You don’t have to be a victim. You can be a success.” That is what I want for others—the feeling of being self-reliant in work and of saying to Work and Income: “Thanks, but I don’t need a benefit any more.” I know it is a big ask. I know that it is not easy, but with the right support and the right policies in place, I also know that we can do it. I want New Zealanders on a benefit to know that they have a Minister and they have a Government that are backing them to look beyond a lifetime on welfare. We will support, encourage, push, and incentivise, and, yes, we will sing the successes of those who can and do find work and of the businesses—[Bell rung]—that make those opportunities available.

💬 Jacinda Ardern: Mr Speaker—

Not yet—not yet, sweetie. The public see where the differences lie between an Opposition encouraging victims and a Government backing ambition.

I have heard the criticism that the number of people on benefits went up under my watch, and, yes, it did when the recession hit. People needed help and this Government provided it to them. I sometimes these days find it ironic that I am the one defending people’s right to welfare if they need it, and Ms Ardern is advocating kicking them off and saying that there are too many on it. I read the minority report on this bill from that member’s party and, quite frankly, it was not worth the time it took to read it. It was so full of inaccuracies. I want it on record in Hansard that the Labour Party minority report is actually factually incorrect and misleading.

The public have already seen the steady decrease in benefit numbers since the peak of the recession. The numbers of people on the unemployment benefit, the DPB, and the invalids benefit all fell during 2012. In the past 2 years the number of young people on welfare fell from 21,576 to 15,858.

The changes in this bill are essential if we want to refocus the welfare system so that it helps New Zealanders reach their potential and reduces the amount of people locked into welfare dependency. This Government undertook to deliver that system—a modern system—and this bill is a significant step towards that outcome. I commend this bill to the House.

Before I call the next member, I just want to caution the House that all members in the House are honourable, and that is it. We refer to each other as “honourable”, despite what we may think otherwise. We call the member what we ourselves would want them and us all to become. So I caution the House. We see the world as we are, not as it is.

We have just heard from that Minister that, apparently, she will never forget the place from which she started before becoming a member of Parliament and, indeed, the Minister for Social Development. I have never felt compelled to reflect on the Minister’s personal experience. I have personally never thought it was necessarily appropriate to do so. But the Minister herself has brought it into the context of the welfare reforms, so I feel compelled now to respond to that challenge.

That Minister claims that she never forgot what it felt like to be on the domestic purposes benefit and the lack of confidence that she felt during that time. She probably also never forgot what it felt like to have the support of the training incentive allowance to help her study to become a social worker—assistance that she has since severely reduced the ability of other people in the same position to access. She probably never forgot what it felt like to be able to study and better herself whilst being a mum on the domestic purposes benefit—something that is an opportunity that is now removed for many domestic purposes benefit recipients, because they will be transferred to a job-seeker benefit and will not be allowed to study. If that Minister truly never forgot what it was like to be on the DPB, then clearly she has forgotten the emotions she has just expressed now, because those are the emotions I get every single day in the letters I receive as spokesperson on social development for Labour. If that Minister wants to pretend that somehow, through these welfare reforms, she is improving the situation for those people, I would like her to explain how that is, because all she has done, as far as I can see, is remove the very ladder that she walked up herself.

That Minister also raised benefit figures. She has tried to claim that somehow, on this side of the House, we have denied that people should get access to welfare when they need it most. That is entirely inaccurate. You will never hear a member of the Labour Party ever claim anything other than that the social security system is there for those who need it most—for those who need it most—and that in their times of need, that is what it is there for. We will defend it because we built it. But I cannot sit back and allow a Minister to claim that her welfare reforms have been successful because of all the people who have come off. That is a complete contradiction, because since 2008 the numbers in all of the major categories have gone up. So it is a contradiction for that Minister to claim success based on numbers. If the Minister is going to stand up and tell this House that 5,000 people have come off a sickness benefit, I will point out that during that time 7,000 people went on. Sure, absolutely, if they need to access it, they should. But it is absolutely disingenuous for that Minister to try to bandy around numbers as though her reforms have changed the world when in actual fact, for the people who are experiencing it on the front line, they have done no such thing.

In fact, if you ask those who are on Government support right now what kind of impression they have been left with from these reforms—well, why not look at what the public probably think about when they hear the welfare reforms? Let us track back through the announcements and the way they were trickled out—probably providing a bit of context about what was happening at the time. Nick Smith resigned over the ACC debacle, and within 6 days we had the first welfare reforms announced. The John Banks - Kim Dotcom scandal broke. Campbell Live started directly implicating the Prime Minister, and within a week there was the contraception announcement. It was part of a package, but it was all dribbled out. The contraception announcement was dropped—

💬 Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. As much as I am reluctant to interrupt my colleague across the aisle, this is the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. It has got nothing to do with Kim Dotcom and a whole range of other things that we discussed during the general debate. I ask the member just to bring it back to the bill.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I call the honourable member.

As I was saying, the first tranche of welfare reforms was released at that time, and there was the contraception element. People might remember that. We were going to give access to long-term contraceptives to beneficiaries, which I understand fewer than 40 people have taken up. We then in June had the resignations in ACC and the continuing Bronwyn Pullar scandal, and in that same period Bill English then raised drug testing. Drug testing was raised again on 21 July, and again for a third time it was announced on 28 August—all at points of convenience for the Government. Drug testing remains one of the most well-known aspects of this form of welfare reforms, the “investment approach” that the Minister talks about. And then we come to the police report that came out on John Banks, which, again, was released within a 24-hour window of the social obligations coming out. The next day the cost of welfare generally, the actuarial valuation, was then announced. I think you get my point.

Forgive me if I am cynical about this Government’s approach to social security, because it seems that any time anything goes badly for it, a welfare reform is handily plucked out from a bill and dropped early before the media. If you ask the general public what they know of the welfare reforms, what will they tell you? Will they tell you about this investment approach that the Minister speaks of? Will they talk about an active social security system? No, they will be able to tell you about drug testing and when a warrant of arrest is out being able to cut a benefit. They will probably tell you about social obligations—cutting benefits for all those beneficiaries who are not doing right by their children. This is apparently the dignified system that the Minister spoke so fondly of that was not going to treat people like they were victims or like they were doing something wrong. Yet every element of this Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill speaks to the idea that people who are on benefits are either criminals, drug takers, or abusing their children in some form. That is the message that these welfare reforms send.

What would an investment approach then look like—this mythical thing that the Minister keeps speaking of? Well, you would imagine there might be something in the bill that would at least talk about the lack of jobs out there at the moment, or maybe even address the high cost of childcare, which we know is a barrier to work for those sole parents. Does the bill do anything on that? No. Does the bill do anything about those who are trying to get into work but do not have the right skills, training, or education? No. In fact, this bill puts in a barrier if you are in a job-seeker category, which will now take in all those on a sickness benefit and all those on sole parent support who have a child over a certain age, by saying: “Sit on this benefit looking for a job. But don’t you think about trying to train, because you must be ready and waiting for a ghost job.” That is what this says.

I have had letters from people who have said: “I wanted to better myself with a course that would mean I would be off the benefit in the longer term, and I was told by Work and Income that, no, I had to sit and wait in case they called me with part-time work.”—part-time, precarious work. The woman who raised that with me who wanted to become trained as a nurse was then told the next day she was not able to, because they had a part-time cleaning job for her. She would have to stay on the benefit, but she would have a part-time cleaning job. Is that the investment approach? Is that the active, dignified system that this Minister speaks so fondly of? In fact, this bill does the exact opposite to what that Minister has claimed.

There are 399,000 people on social security currently. They broadly fall into two categories. The first is those who are working actively to try to find employment. That is the vast majority of people on social security right now. The example I used today of the graduate who has applied for 70 jobs is a real example, and yet this bill does absolutely nothing for her. The second category of people is those who may, for reasons of health or disability in some form, require the support of our social security system for a longer period of their lives. This bill does nothing to change the reality for those two groups of people, but it does a lot to further the political gains of that National Government, which has purposely highlighted particular elements of this bill that appeal to the ugly side of New Zealand. It is the side that says that somehow we should have downward envy to those who are for a period in their lives using a form of social support, when it is all of our intentions in this House that people have a better life outside of that system and in employment.

This bill is a major lost opportunity, but, worse than that—worse than that—it vilifies people who are trying to do the right thing and get into employment, and that Minister has absolutely forgotten what that feels like.

Malo le soifua. It is a pleasure to take a call—as I said earlier during the point of order—on the second reading of the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. As chairman of the Social Services Committee I just want to thank and acknowledge again the role that our Minister Paula Bennett has played in this bill and in the area of welfare, because these reforms are necessary yet reasonable under the circumstances. I want to thank her for the leadership that she has shown in this welfare area. These reforms will have a lasting impact on this country because it is about investment in people, it is about investment in services, and it is about backing people to go out and find work where they are able to.

I also want to thank the Government officials, the clerks, and the parliamentary counsel for assisting our committee to bring this bill back to the House with its report and commentary. We received and considered 683 submissions from interested groups and individuals on this bill. We heard 83 submissions from 35 organisations and 48 individuals at hearings both here in Wellington and in Auckland. I want to thank my fellow committee members, including Miss Ardern, despite her misguided approach to these reforms, for the constructive way that we approached these deliberations, and also the submitters for the time and the effort that they put into both the written and oral submissions to the select committee.

Following on from the successful Future Focus reforms, which the Minister has alluded to, and the first welfare reform bill last year, which all members of this House will be aware of, this is the second part of a comprehensive package of welfare reform. The investment approach is about shifting the focus of the benefit system towards better use of resources. What it does is it puts money up front into services like parenting services and like budgeting services, to reduce the overall cost to not only those people affected but also our economy and the Government. It will require a different approach to working with beneficiaries based on their individual circumstances, which the Minister referred to. It is supported by the best available evidence.

The Government spends $21 billion on social development. It is the largest Government portfolio and it accounts for one-third of all Government expenditure across the country, so we need to gear these support services towards the 21st century and actually achieve results for taxpayers, which, again, the Minister referred to in her speech. This bill includes simplified benefit categories, a greater work focus, new expectations for partners of beneficiaries, and work preparation activities. It will also require job seekers to be drug-free, allow benefits to be stopped if there are outstanding arrest warrants, and include social obligations to ensure that children access the appropriate education and health services.

The main policy issues of significance raised by submitters were in relation to social obligations, the medical assessments of disabled and mentally impaired people, and sanctions as well as procurement, but I will touch on only two of those. The most contentious issue was the obligation to have preschool children enrolled in and attending early childhood education centres. Arguments were made around the appropriateness of this to all children, and some interesting and compelling evidence was produced to argue this. Parental choice was referred to, and that this bill would restrict it. So, in response to these concerns, the select committee worked hard to amend the bill to allow approved programmes to be included in the social obligations, with decisions on criteria to be set through ministerial direction. In doing so, we have listened to the submissions of organisations that pointed to the positive and significant contribution of home-based programmes for preschoolers.

The select committee also clarified the policy intent that the 15-hour target for early childhood education attendance is somewhat aspirational and that flexibility would be preserved through regulations. The issue of home-schooling was also prevalent in the submissions and, in particular, in the forceful submission of the Home Education Foundation. The select committee amended the bill to clarify that home-schooling meets school attendance requirements at the age of 5 if the parent meets other criteria for work obligations. This recognises that, obviously, school attendance is not legally required until the age of 6.

One of the other issues that the select committee grappled with was around the drug testing of beneficiaries. This bill does not authorise drug testing, but it focuses on whether a failed drug-test or a refusal to undertake a drug test is acting as a barrier or otherwise to suitable employment. In terms of sanctions, the Ministry of Social Development will act under lawful drug-test results only in respect of the job being sought. Under sanctions generally, the bill really gives beneficiaries maximum time to re-comply at the three stages of asking, and there is a maximum of only a 50 percent financial sanction as a last resort.

I want to finally mention the issue of advice from the Regulations Review Committee that subsequent changes to the primary legislation should be subject to parliamentary scrutiny, which most members agreed with. So in response to its concerns we amended the bill so that the annual benefit, expiry, and reapplication processes apply to all beneficiaries, with some exemptions, and these will be done through regulations.

In summary, then, we believe that being in paid work is the best thing for people on welfare. It is plain and it is simple: if you can work, you should work, and you should be looking for work. This bill introduces the requirement for beneficiaries to be interviewed for and accept any offer of suitable employment. This bill introduces social obligations, as we have stated, and it really looks at those families with dependent children, of which there are 220,000 across this country. This bill, as I said in opening, will go a long way to making sure that these kids have the best start to life. It will have some of the most lasting, positive impacts on families over time, and that is why I support this bill.

Labour strongly opposes this bill, the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. Introducing reforms like these at a time of such high unemployment without tackling the well-established barriers that, it is widely agreed, keep people out of jobs, such as the high cost of childcare and inadequate training and education opportunities, means this bill will surely fail. Further, we believe that the whole idea underlying this bill is wrong and unfair. It starts from the assumption that those people who temporarily seek the support of the State are bludgers, are shirkers, and do not want to work. That is the underlying idea behind this bill.

Last night we debated the Minimum Wage (Starting-out Wage) Amendment Bill and, frankly, I felt sick being in this Chamber debating that bill, because of what it said about this Government and what this Government thinks of its fellow New Zealanders. Its idea of helping young people get into the job market is to cut their wages and, frankly, I think that is a disgrace, and this bill is no better.

It is really interesting. This bill is based on the assumption embedded deep in the reptilian brain of the National Party that anyone needing assistance from the State is a shirker—a shirker and a bludger. The members on that side of the House should reflect on the history of our country and what their party and its forebears did in the 1930s, sending people off to work camps, and in the 1990s Ruth Richardson’s “mother of all Budgets”. It is exactly the same punitive fear of the poor and demonising of people who are out of work, and it is exactly the same ethos and idea that underlies this bill.

We know that under the fifth Labour Government, when jobs were plentiful, people took them. I remind the members on that side of the House that year after year—in fact, for almost 9 years—this country enjoyed the lowest unemployment rates in the OECD. Year after year after year.

💬 Hon Paula Bennett: How was invalids? How was sickness?

Do you remember that, Minister? Do you remember that we had the lowest unemployment in the OECD? And you know what? When there were jobs, people wanted to work. They took those jobs. People took those jobs when they were there, but now, mysteriously, because there is a National Government, suddenly all of these New Zealanders are lazy. They are bludgers. Young people who have barely left school, who cannot get into the job market, apparently are wasters and are bludgers. Middle-aged men and women who have had half a lifetime of work in the workforce, who were laid off for no reason, through no fault of their own, apparently are bludgers and are lazy. People who are battling with mental illness and with disabilities, under this National Government apparently need a good kick in the arse because they do not want to work. Let us give them a bit of stick and let us give them the bash—that is what this bill does. The members on that side of the House do not want to hear it. They do not want to hear it. Nikki Kaye does not want to go back to the people of Grey Lynn and explain to them why she is voting for a bill that demonises the unemployed and actually makes life more difficult for people who temporarily need the assistance of the State because they are out of work. That is a sad indictment of what this National Party thinks of its fellow New Zealanders.

Instead of seeing the problem as a lack of jobs, instead of seeing the challenge to come up with an active employment policy, and instead of rethinking this Government’s economic policy in light of its signal failure to manage the economy in a way that generates new jobs, what does it do? Ms Bennett frames the problem as one of welfare dependency. So the problem is not that there are not enough jobs. The problem is not poor economic management that has given this country one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world. No, the problem is welfare dependency. Ms Bennett, the Minister, is the former beneficiary solo mother who, as one of the first things she did once she got into power as the welfare Minister, cut back the training incentive allowance so people in the same life circumstances would not be able to benefit from the same support that she received from the State. She frames the problem as welfare dependency, and her role as the Minister for Social Development is to rescue people from welfare dependency, not to go to Cabinet and argue for a jobs policy, but to rescue people from welfare dependency by putting in place a regime of punitive sanctions. I just think the National Party members should be ashamed of themselves, coming to the House with a bill like this and voting for it.

I want to touch on a few key parts of the bill that we have concerns with, and on the basis of our opposition to this bill. We believe that the introduction of social obligations on parents who are welfare beneficiaries is both wrong and unfair, and an overwhelming number of the submitters who came to the Social Services Committee submitted along those lines. We support the principle that all children should take part in early childhood education, but we do not believe that it is fair or reasonable for that aim to be backed up by a sanction that would cut a parent’s benefit in half. What will that do for the well-being of children in some of the poorest families in this country? Decreasing the income into a child’s home in that way will ultimately do severe damage to the child.

We remain disappointed that the Government has put in place an obligation on parents to put their kids into early childhood education without addressing the obvious holes in the provision of early childhood education. The Child Poverty Action Group came along to the select committee and told the committee, provided the data that shows a large gap between the number of children in low-income areas in particular and the provision of early childhood education. But that is a mere detail to this Minister and to these National members. They do not care about the reality. They do not care about the facts. They are simply obsessed with a punitive approach that demonises people who need the support of the State.

Secondly, I turn to work obligations and the whole issue of assessment. We object to the assumption, as I have said, that underlies all of these provisions that people who are on welfare do not wish to work. We heard compelling evidence from people in the disability sector who said that many sickness beneficiaries and invalids beneficiaries are desperate to work, but there are so many barriers in the way that make it difficult for them. Nothing in this bill will make it easier for people who battle a disability to get into the workforce.

We remain concerned that the Minister has signalled a UK-style medical assessment regime for people who are on a sickness benefit or an invalids benefit. That is extremely concerning. That medical assessment model in the UK has been a disaster. In spite of repeated requests at the select committee to put more detail on that proposal, the Government has failed to be transparent on that issue.

We have seen a huge increase in the use of sanctions under this Government in the social development area. There is no assessment in place, there is no evidence that the increase in sanctions has had any kind of success, and we should see an assessment regime that actually looks to measure the harm or benefit that families have received as a result of the sanctions regime.

In terms of drug testing, Labour agrees, of course, that there is a problem with drugs in the workplace, and that needs to be tackled with practical issues. But the Government has turned a deaf ear to the evidence, the very persuasive evidence that was brought to the select committee by the Drug Foundation, which said that a simple testing regime, with sanctions, is inadequate and actually could do more harm than good to our drug treatment system. The foundation argued that categorising all drug users as dependent, when they may not be, and placing them into treatment programmes will put pressure on an already under-resourced service. Labour does not support this bill.

I am pleased to stand on behalf of the Green Party, and particularly on behalf of Jan Logie, who is the Green MP who has seen this Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill through the Social Services Committee and heard the submissions on the select committee. Jan is not able to be here, but she has prepared a speech for me to deliver today.

In this speech she describes her real sadness and disappointment about this bill being returned to the House. She describes how hard it is in New Zealand at the moment to talk about the needs of people receiving income support and their families. It seems as if just the word “beneficiary” has become synonymous with a drain on society, with vitriolic attacks on families and beneficiaries. These are people who are injured and unable to get accident compensation; people with cancer; people with physical, mental, or neurological impairment, which, sadly, most workplaces do not accommodate; people who are sick; sole parents leaving violent relationships; sole parents caring for children with disabilities; sole parents through no choice of their own; people caring for parents who may be dying; and, of course, people who lost their jobs when factories and public services shut down or moved out of our smaller cities and towns.

These are people who, because benefit levels are so low, are surviving on incomes that mean many of them need to choose between adequate heating in winter and food, have to save in order to go to the doctor, ask for more money to replace their children’s shoes when they get holes in them, cannot afford to take their children to the movies, or for whom paying the school donation means sacrificing school trips for their children.

All these examples, these stories, that she heard at the select committee simply deepen her concern and distress that this bill will continue those attacks on people suffering from financial vulnerability. But it infuriates me. I am infuriated because this Minister and the heartless Government of which she is a part know that children will suffer as a result of this bill. They know that fewer children will access health care. They know that fewer children will get medicine. They know that more children will present at emergency departments when their chronic bronchitis or their asthma or their rheumatic fever gets so bad it puts their lives at risk. This Minister knows that she puts the health of children at risk if this Government passes these reforms, and they still do not care.

What is an example? I have described a few today. The Ministry of Health says that making Well Child checks compulsory, under the threat of losing the benefit, will put children at risk of worsening health and more presentations at the emergency department. The Ministry of Health said to the Ministry of Social Development that “There are risks to the Well Child programme if the checks are seen as a punishment or a sanction. One of the valuable traits of Well Child”—they say—“has been that it is non-threatening and has a high degree of public and family acceptability.” The risks to the Well Child programme are very real because the intention of Paula Bennett is to misuse this programme as a punishment.

As an example of what the intention is, how Draconian the intention from the Ministry of Social Development was, in July 2012 the Ministry of Health asked the Ministry of Social Development to amend the wording of a paper that was going to Cabinet. The Ministry of Health said this: “Please remove the word ‘surveillance’. The Well Child programme is not designed or intended as a mechanism for surveillance of beneficiary families or indeed any families. It is a health promotion child development programme that works from a basis of partnership and engagement between the practitioner and the parent and child.”

This shows what the intention of Paula Bennett was then, and is still now. Paula Bennett intends to use the Well Child programme to investigate families, simply because those families have to rely on a benefit to pay their rent and put food on the table. It is a deliberate attack on poorer families, the families who are desperate for work whom this Minister ignores. Ultimately the problem is that this Minister does not start from the position of looking at what is best for the child. If she did, she would have listened to the Ministry of Health advice that said: “Don’t make Well Child checks compulsory. Don’t impose financial sanctions on beneficiaries.” If she did, she would not make early childhood education compulsory for beneficiary families either, because while increasing access to good quality early childhood education is a good idea, the sector itself has told this Government that the best way to achieve that is to provide early childhood education where it is needed first. This Government has gone about the whole process in completely the wrong way.

The fact is that not all parents want their 3-year-olds to spend 15 hours—that is, nearly 3 school days—at the local early childhood education centre, at the creche, at the local kindy, or even, as is now revealed, with the lady down the road, who might be employed as a home carer, looking after kids of her own. Let us just think about what this means. I would have been forced, when I was a sole parent on the benefit, to send my child off to another home, into the home care of another woman down the road, because there was no other early childhood education centre that I could choose or that was appropriate, who has even more children to take care of, including her own. Yet I would not be allowed under this regime to prioritise the care of my child in the best interests of my child. That is what this Government is removing from parents—ordinary New Zealand parents—the right to decide themselves what is in the best interests of their child and to make decisions about the best interests of their child.

This Government removes that right from parents just because they are poorer and just because they do not have a job and, therefore, have to rely on a benefit to pay the rent and put food on the table. It is saying to these beneficiaries: “You are not trusted, and if you don’t do what the Government says, the Government will hold to ransom what you value the most in this world. The Government will cut off the support that you need to feed and raise your child if you don’t do what the Government says.”—just because you are poor.

It is clear that the current situation and the hopelessness and the hardship that people are experiencing are unacceptable. So the question for the House becomes what we can do to make it better, because it is clear that the Government’s approach is a deficit approach, and it seems to start from the belief that no one wants to work—we have heard some of this before—and people will do everything they can to avoid work.

💬 Nicky Wagner: From Labour.

Well, this is National’s position. It believes that no one wants to work. National believes that people will do anything they can to avoid work, unless they are placed under so many obligations that it makes it impossible for them to make any decisions about their own lives, or National will force people into such a position of low self-esteem that they are not able to take the opportunities that might be offered around them. This is a time of such high unemployment that the Minister for Social Development is compelled to send out a press release about the creation of 16 census jobs. This is the employment environment we are in—16 census jobs and the Minister for Social Development is crowing about how great that is, and in the meantime punishing parents who want to take care of their kids and do what is in the best interests of their children.

Well, the submitters did have solutions. This Government has none, but the submitters certainly did. They talked about job creation, the definition of “employment” and “suitable employment”, the minimum wage exemption, additional funding and resources to support disabled people into work, and the availability of services and supports for people with disabilities. Submitters talked about a universal basic income, the rates of benefit payments such that people can survive with some decency, income adequacy, and extending Working for Families so that we eliminate the abuse that beneficiary families suffer as a result of the Working for Families rules. They offered solutions around the abatement rates and discretion to disregard income for the purposes of calculating income so that beneficiary families could save, so that there could be some more flexibility for beneficiary families in the system, but all of these options were ruled out of scope by the Social Services Committee. That just highlights the opportunities that have been missed in this wave of punitive reforms. Opportunities to improve access, to remove barriers, and to eliminate poverty have all been sacrificed for the sake of increased work-testing, increased assessment, social obligations, drug testing, and sanctions that will ultimately cause families, and especially their children, harm.

This bill is a terrible failure for families in the most need. It is blind to the real work people are engaging in and wilfully ignores the structural barriers to employment. Thank you.

It is a pleasure to rise to speak on the second reading of the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. Before I make my contribution, I would like to respond to a couple of points that other speakers have made. I guess, to start with, Ms Turei talked about how infuriated she was and how she felt that this Government was actually heartless. I would like to respond by saying that I am infuriated by her comments, because it is incredible how Opposition members make out that this Government and this National Party do not care about beneficiaries. That is absolutely not true.

We believe that most people do not want to be on the benefit but have to be on it in certain circumstances, when they fall on difficult times. Whether it is a marriage breakup or they get ill, there are many circumstances where people have to rely on State help. As Jacinda Ardern mentioned earlier, Labour was, in fact, the architect of social welfare. Well, let me say that we support that—people who are in difficult circumstances being on benefits. But let me quote from the Dominion Post last year, which said: “Those pioneers of the welfare state would never have envisaged the benefit system New Zealand has today. They would have been appalled by the thought of thousands of perfectly healthy adults spending more than a decade on the dole and thousands more 16 and 17-year-olds being paid to sit around and do nothing.” Welfare dependency is what we are trying to prevent. Mr Phil Twyford sort of said: “The whole idea behind this bill is wrong.” What is wrong with backing people? What is wrong with telling people that they are better than being dependent on welfare?

This bill forms part of a package of reforms being introduced over 2 years that will basically shift the focus of the benefit system towards encouraging and supporting beneficiaries to move into paid work. National actually campaigned on reforming welfare by taking an investment approach that will make sure we have an enduring welfare system that supports Kiwis who fall on difficult times. That is what welfare was designed to do—to help people when they are caught in a jam. It is not about a lifestyle choice, and we never said that people who are on welfare are choosing to go on welfare as a lifestyle. There are some who do, but not all, and the majority do not.

Having said that, the Government’s reforms have at the core a belief that most people can and do want to work and that most people do not choose to be on a benefit as a lifestyle choice. But this Government spends $8 billion a year on welfare, and that is for 330,000 working-age people. That is about 12 to 13 percent of the working-age population who receive the benefit, and there are 220,000 children who live in benefit-dependent homes. Evidence shows that children are better off when parents are working, not when parents are on welfare.

I would like to thank the Minister for Social Development, who has put in a lot of work. I see her passion when she talks about welfare reform. This is the biggest amount of work that any Government has done, and no matter what Opposition members say—and they can criticise the Minister and this Government all they want—let me say this. Under the 9 years that Labour was in Government, what did Labour—the architect of social services, the architect of State help—do for the people who are on welfare? It did nothing. This is a great bill. I commend it.

We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare because they have secured employment, not by how many are added because they see it as an easy way of living. Success in welfare is also dependent on paid employment or jobs being created for beneficiaries to undertake. More important, these outcomes must be achieved without dictating to the good citizens of New Zealand how they should raise their children or that all childcare centres are better than good, dedicated parents who passionately believe in quality home education that they themselves are more than capable of providing.

As a member of the Social Services Committee, I know that Paula Bennett’s second phase of welfare reform seeks to alter categorical distinctions in the current benefit system, and attach employment availability expectations upon those who receive a benefit. Currently we have seven categories that all beneficiaries fall under. The proposed changes reduce these categories to just three: one, jobseeker support; two, sole parent support; and, three, supported living payment. The three new categories are designed to reinforce the work focus slogan that is attached to these welfare changes, which will ultimately affect any future eligibility criteria because there are strings attached to these three newly proposed categories. Guess what? It is work, work, and work.

The Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill is designed to reinforce its primary focus of supporting beneficiaries to move into paid employment by introducing a suite of detailed rules for the new benefits that work collectively to create a much more active benefit system that encourages independence. New Zealand First supports this intention, but New Zealand First challenges the Minister for Social Development and this Government to say how they can ensure that it is done fairly and properly.

The new changes will not only seek to establish a work focus initiative within the benefit system but also include recipients who are either sick or disabled. There are absolutely no exemptions. But if the beneficiary is found to be unable to gain paid employment, then they are afforded a delay in the work focus initiative. In addition, payments will be temporarily stopped for beneficiaries who have arrest warrants that have been unresolved after 28 days of the incident.

Furthermore, beneficiaries are also expected to undergo drug tests in order to meet the requirements to partake in training programmes. New Zealand First supports this too. Anyone in this category should see this as a tool to help him or her to be detoxed from drugs or to kick the habit. After all, at the end of his or her life, they will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict, or not closing one more deal. Drug testing is mandatory, and failure to comply with the rules attracts penalties regarding benefit payments, even though not all beneficiaries will be drug tested. As if there were no societal double standard about how beneficiaries are perceived, this will create further inequality within our welfare system, where some beneficiaries are targeted and others are not. This will become problematic in the future and foster greater disharmony for New Zealanders, whether they receive a benefit or not.

This may prove to be counterproductive if we examine the underlying intentions of the bill, which aims to improve social and economic outcomes for all beneficiaries. It also intends to incorporate measures that protect the interests of children, by encouraging parents to gain paid work and also increase their participation in programmes such as Well Child and early childhood education. Compulsory? I am sorry, but that is not a good approach.

New Zealand First supports the overall goal of the bill in assisting welfare-dependent individuals to gain paid employment. However, we have reservations regarding job availability and the Government dictating how parents ought to raise their children. Our reservations are centred on practicality and how these changes will be administered. It has been established that the bill will adopt an active work-based approach, but how will the Government roll out new welfare reforms that are attached to expectations of being available to work in regard to people who are on the invalids benefit or domestic purposes benefit for the care for the sick?

The measures are drastic and forceful for New Zealanders who already have no choice and must do what they can with the variety of situations they must deal with on a day-to-day basis. Most beneficiaries already feel socially excluded. The proposed changes in this bill will further exacerbate inequality and expose beneficiaries to further scrutiny from the public and amongst themselves.

With regard to drug testing of job seekers, how is the Minister going to incorporate supportive measures to ensure that treatment is available? More important, how will the Government determine who ought to be drug tested and who should not? That would require categorising beneficiaries with assumptions that they are all most likely taking drugs. It is highly counterproductive to be on drugs in the first place, but how will job seekers be afforded a platform to attain paid employment when the Government is doing very little to assist them? We need to emphasise the importance of obtaining employment to those who pass the work test and receive offers of paid employment. We also need to emphasise our commitment to ensuring that beneficiaries stay off drugs, by investing in initiatives that will help achieve this. Children will be better protected and have better chances in life if the Government is willing to invest more into helping beneficiaries who are on drugs to get off and stay off them. The way I see it is this: we are not simply investing in helping people to get off drugs; we are helping to secure a brighter future for the children who are affected and to improve their chances in life. Is that not worth fighting for?

💬 Mike Sabin: Yes.

I am glad that you agree. Evidently, the new approach is focused on getting beneficiaries off welfare and into paid employment, but how many jobs is the Government going to create in order to accommodate requirements surrounding sole parents—for example, that they work part-time when their youngest child is of school age and then full-time when their youngest child is 14 years? In what capacity will Work and Income assist in training and upskilling beneficiaries for “desirable” jobs? And how many resources are we going to roll out to complement these changes?

One of the most crucial and problematic issues with the bill concerns the State trying to dictate to parents how they ought to parent. We never know the love of a parent till we become parents ourselves. This bill in theory means the State is forcing parents to put their children through early childhood education by the age of 3. This will not only impose rules on parents that will conflict with their freedom of choice but also separate parents from their children. I have gone through the submissions, and an overwhelming majority of parents want to decide for themselves how they raise their children and when the appropriate time would be for them to be enrolled in early childhood education. This is a domain where the State needs to tread with caution, because the backlash will only worsen the situation and the intentions of this bill.

New Zealand First is committed to ensuring that people move from dependence on the State to a state of independence. We also believe that it is important for people to obtain and retain a sense of worth and self-esteem by making a contribution to their society. Can the Minister honestly say that she would be happy to clean toilets on the minimum wage, with five children to feed, because Work and Income is forcing her to accept paid employment? Can she honestly say that she would gain a sense of worth and self-esteem from being threatened with payment reduction or cancellation of benefit payments, even though she would be contributing to society by cleaning up their waste? This will not only encourage people—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member, but her time has expired.

I rise to take a call on the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill in its second reading. I do not want to be negative in my approach; in fact, I want to be quite positive. So I will not be talking about Labour doing nothing to stop fraud abuse in the welfare system, allowing it to go largely unchecked, or fudging the welfare fraud data to hide the problem of welfare abuse. It even shifted beneficiaries between different types of benefit, rather than stopping that and supporting them into work. Labour let the number of sickness beneficiaries increase from 33,000 in 1999 to 46,000 in June 2008, and the number on the invalids benefit increase from 53,000 to 85,000. I will not talk about those things, because they are negative statistics. They are the results of a previous Government, which said with all its intent that it was wanting to benefit the people of our communities.

Instead, I am going to talk about the purpose. We are investing in what people can do, not in what they cannot do. This bill introduces new benefit categories. It ensures a work-focused system. It introduces new social obligations and provides benefit payments to be stopped for those who are running from the police. We are fixing the system and investing in people’s potential. The reforms we are making still hold on to the original intent of the purpose and principles, and my colleague Melissa Lee spoke about the editorial in the Dominion Post. It talked about the critics of this bill, who either have been misled and are not reading the details, or are misleading with untruths about the intent.

The intent of these amendments is still true, supposedly, to the architects of the Social Security Act itself. If you read section 1A of the Social Security Act 1964, here is what the purpose says: “The purpose of this Act is to enable the provision of financial and other support as appropriate to help people to support themselves … to help people to find or retain paid employment;”. In the “Principles” of that Act: “Every person exercising or performing a function, duty or power under this Act must have regard to the following general principles: (a) work in paid employment offers the best opportunity for people to achieve social and economic well-being:”. This is the intent of the amendments and the changes that we are making.

I just want to address a couple of issues before I finish. There has been a lot of scaremongering about the sanctions that we are introducing. I wonder how many members on the other side—when was the last time they were actually in a Work and Income office? I visited the Māngere Work and Income office. I spoke with some of the staff there. I asked questions about this. We are not about just protecting policy for policy’s sake or for legislation and its changes; instead, we want to know whether this is making a difference.

I want to ask this question to the members over there on the other side. What happens in a Work and Income office when the bell is rung? What does that mean? I will tell you what that means. It means when the bell is rung that someone has been able to secure full-time employment. That is right. So the bell is ringing—[Interruption] The bell is ringing, Mr O’Connor. Why? Because a father who had been unemployed and on a benefit for 10 years finally found an opportunity for work and employment. The bell was rung. Why? [Interruption] That is right, Mr Prasad. Because a mother who had been on a domestic purposes benefit for 15 years found full-time employment. The bell was rung. Why? Because people found opportunity. The sanctions that people talk about are not the hardships that are being realised in the offices of Work and Income, in the places of hardship that have been talked about. Instead, people are realising that here are opportunities. Regarding work-test obligations, there was a mother who said for the first time she was asked what it would look like if she could work. She said that she was afraid. The office staff took her through a process where not only did she gain confidence but the bell was rung for her. So what this bill is doing is ringing the bell for opportunity, so that the very people we are talking about—those who are vulnerable—will realise their potential. Why? Because we are investing in what they can do, not in what they cannot do. I support this bill.

The bell should have rung for that member, Alfred Ngaro, a lot sooner, but I notice the bell did not even have to ring for that member. That member did not get a job. The bell did not ring for that member. I want to say to that member that when Labour was in Government there was no need to ring a bell. People had jobs. There was full employment—the lowest unemployment in the world. Melissa Lee, who does not know the record of Labour’s 9 years in Government, asked what Labour did. I say to Melissa Lee that people were in work. They were working. There was no need for the bell. That is some kind of Pavlovian experiment—some kind of Pavlovian reinforcement—that that member believes in. He should be ashamed of himself. I would not want to put people through having to listen to bells so that they can be in jobs. What do you think this is? A psychology laboratory? This is real people we are talking about. I hope they do not ring bells in the way that that member describes. The unemployed have become some kind of a joke—some kind of a tool. So when they get a job, you ring a bell. Oh, come on! Give us a break—give us a break.

This Government has an awful record in any of the social areas—any of them. It has been in Government for almost 5 years, and what has improved? Has housing improved? Has education improved? Has health improved? Has abuse prevention improved? Are children better off? No, they are not. So the record of that member’s Government is awful, and people out there are suffering. Of course, they blame all of this on—what? Oh, that is right, there was that global economic crisis—the global economic crisis. Well, much of the difficulty has been made by that member’s own Government and by the Minister for Social Development, who presides over this.

The National Party has always had difficulty—always had difficulties—supporting beneficiaries, and this bill represents another example of how National members malign beneficiaries in order to reduce support for them. That is its track record, that is its modus operandi, and it is happening again. National would have destroyed the welfare State. It has tried, but the people in this country are smarter. By golly, National tries every day! That is all it does—it tries to destroy it. It is getting clever in how it is doing that, but it is still trying to destroy it.

You see, New Zealanders are fair-minded people, I say to those members sitting at the back there. They are fair-minded people who are happy for people to contribute to the nation’s development when they are in work and in every other way, and for them to receive support when they need it. This Government is trying to do away with that social contract. But that is the nature of New Zealand society, and New Zealanders have understood that since 1935. Some of those members who have not been around very long do not actually appreciate that, but many others do. Most of us embrace it and are proud of the caring society that we have created, that we understand, and that we have developed.

That is not to say that cheats should not be brought to justice. Nobody on this side actually supports cheats. This is another cornerstone belief of the New Zealander: do not game the system. But, by golly, I know that that side there does not stand up to the rich who game the system; it is just the poor. But, anyway, that is another story for another debate.

The National Government and its previous manifestations have demonstrated their contempt for welfare beneficiaries and have always tried to put them down.

💬 Melissa Lee: Oh, rubbish!

I will take the member through it. They have painted the beneficiaries as cheats, as criminals, as fraudsters. Remember the motorway that that member was against, because the criminals from the south would come to the west? Remember that, Melissa Lee? That member was maligning this group when she was campaigning for Mt Albert. So do not come here and cry false tears. That member was doing it, and that member’s Government does it all the time. You see the prejudice it creates. Then it creates this notion of dependency. It has been created. Anybody on a benefit for over a year is now a dependant. Dependence is bad. It is pejorative, and we must do something about that.

Then it does this intellectually dishonest thing. This Minister has done this absolutely intellectually dishonest thing, which is to ask what the cost of welfare is. It is taking a leaf out of Nick Smith’s awful, awful approach to ACC. At $67 billion, it is absolutely alarmist—absolutely alarmist. Nobody has to pay for all the welfare costs and lifetime costs of any beneficiary up front, any more than ACC, but, no, that is how those members do it. Then they say “We are going to fix it with this investment approach.”, but members on that side fool nobody. The mechanisms that that member’s Government has used over the years are legendary.

Do you remember what Ruth Richardson did? She actually cut benefits. She took $1 billion, at a very early period, from the poor, and many of those poor people in our suburbs have suffered until today. That generation probably never recovered. They produce adolescents who are unprepared for the modern world and their children probably still suffer. That is National’s record.

Do you remember what Jenny Shipley did? She tried the Code of Social and Family Responsibility. That was just another code of social responsibility. New Zealanders rejected it. The Government put it in every house in New Zealand, and it was rejected in its entirety.

💬 Todd McClay: Yeah, that’s actually a better speech—have another.

Nobody—nobody was fooled by that. I say to that member there, the member for Rotorua, Mr Todd McClay, that nobody was fooled. But that member has not been around long enough to appreciate that. When it came to tax cuts, what did the Government do? It gave the poor a miserable few dollars. The member took for himself over $100 a week, but the poor did not. So here, where was the fairness in that?

In the last Parliament and in this one, this Minister has embarked on a mission to punish the poor and those on limited incomes through a series of so-called welfare reforms. And those members who came recently to Parliament are really just the cheering mob. They are just the cheerleaders here. That is what they are. I noticed how they were pleading to the Minister a little while ago. She tried to sell the current policies as emerging from real concerns. She told her own story, and opened up the door for us to talk about that experience. But that fools nobody. The Minister cannot tell that story about herself and then demonstrate how she takes it away from others. That is exactly what has been done.

They reflect endlessly on the importance of evidence, and so do the select committees—the importance of evidence-based policy and practice. Where is the evidence for this policy? Where is it? It does not exist. The English have tried it. What is the English experience? I ask of the members there, what did the English tell us in the select committee? That suicide rates are up and people are miserable, so there is no evidence about this in the UK experience. I say to the members to go and read the research evidence and they will find out. I want to say to this Minister that the deficit model will never achieve the goals of what her own party campaigned on—a brighter future. This is the deficit model. These are people on the line, and then you come up with Draconian policies and you try to sell them as something the country needs. There is no fairness in that. There are no ethics in that. There is no evidence that that will actually work.

If the provisions of this bill are such a great idea, then why is it that the overwhelming majority of submitters were against it? Why? Are they all wrong? They are all wrong? No, no—nothing from my colleagues on that particular point. It was painful in the select committee to see those members on the select committee actually defend these provisions. It was sad, because all they could say was that they were trying to be fair. Here were people pouring their hearts out to the select committee about the impact of these provisions on them.

Members on that side talk about choice. What choice? They love talking about choice, but they do not give parents themselves the choice about how they are going to bring up their children. Why? Only because they happen to be on a benefit for a period. That is the only reason. Well, the Minister had a choice. The Minister had a choice to have a child, to go to university—I know, I was there—to have all of those benefits, but they are not there now. Why? What changed? What changed between that Minister’s background as a student and as a sole parent, and the sole parents of today? What changed? I will tell you what changed. She joined the National Party and she became a member of Parliament. She got seduced by the ideology of that particular party. The submitters saw through this. One submitter said the provisions in this bill were another form of abuse—another form of abuse.

💬 Todd McClay: Apologise like you did to the Families Commission.

I will not apologise to that member or to those people who support him, because there is nothing to apologise for. That is what they said, that this was another form of abuse. The Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind—hardly a radical organisation—said that it believed that this focus on work would make life more difficult for the blind. The disabled sector said the same thing.

Finally, the one thing we did not get in the select committee was what the assessment method is going to be. They could not present it to us. We did not see how these people are going to be assessed by outside contractors. It is another arm of the ideology of that Government—privatise it and it will be good. It will not be. This is a terrible bill, and we will fight this—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry to interrupt the honourable member.

Well, that was a hail of words from Rajen Prasad that did not seem to make much sense to many people in the House—

💬 Le’aufa’amulia Asenati Lole-Taylor: Don’t sound like a saint now. Not every saint’s got a past.

—not that we had much more sense from that member either, I have to say. Choice and rights—choice and rights—are two words we heard a lot from that side of the House, but not much about the responsibility that should accompany them.

💬 Dr Rajen Prasad: Oh!

Well, that is what life is about. It is about rights and responsibilities. It is about getting that balance right. Arguably, over the 9 years of that member’s Government that balance was right out of whack. We saw those numbers go through the roof. We saw people migrate off the unemployment benefit on to the sickness benefit and invalids benefit. I do not see the member talking too much about that. Perhaps it is about keeping them beholden because when they are beholden they are more inclined to vote for that particular party to get it back in Government. I do not know. A cynic might say that. A cynic might say that; I do not know. The member Jacinda Ardern made a comment about ghost chips—

💬 Darien Fenton: Ghost jobs.

—or, rather, ghost jobs. That is right. Well, I can tell you I am one person who is internalising a very complicated situation in my head. All we hear from that side of the House—and I can summarise the Labour Party approach by saying this—is those members saying that there are no jobs out there, and yet they vote against every single effort of this National-led Government to grow the economy. There are no jobs, but they do not want to support economic policies that will help grow the economy. It is a tough time, with the global financial crisis and the Canterbury earthquakes. They will have convenient memory lapses when it suits them and they will pull that one out of the back pocket when it does.

They also say that there are too many people on welfare, and yet they will vote against every measure that this Government is putting in place to support people into work. They say that people want work, but they vote against every initiative that is about getting them into it. Do not let me hear from that side of the House that what they were doing was getting it all right, because it was not. This Government has been brave enough to make the sorts of changes that make sure that people are work-ready, that make sure that people have the appropriate childcare so that young mothers can get out into work. We are making sure that we support the most vulnerable young people who are on a collision course to an adult benefit and ensuring that they have got the wraparound support, the knowledge, and the mentoring that they require to get them into work. We will hear again that there are ghost jobs, that there are no jobs. Well, I say to you that there are plenty of jobs. Listen to what the IMF has to say about the economic policies of this Government getting us back on track to an economy that ultimately creates the jobs that people need.

The Labour Party approach—and I would have to throw its friends in the watermelon patch into the mix—is very much about its own ambition to be in Government, in my view. It wants the economy to fail, and it is quite happy to see those numbers go up, because then it can say: “Oh, no, vote for us, because we’ve got all the answers.” Well, actually, the New Zealand public have woken up to that, and they wholeheartedly embrace the changes that this Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill involves.

I just want to touch very briefly, if I can, on one aspect of the social obligations that I think will make a lot of difference, and that is the drug-testing provision. There are a number of people in New Zealand on welfare who have problems with drugs. Drug use should not be a barrier to work. I say if it is good enough for those out there working in the New Zealand workforce to be drug-free, it is good enough for those who are on welfare, supported by the State, to also meet that obligation to be drug-free.

Let us not forget in this equation the value of work. There is value in work, and no matter what that work is, I say that people are better off being in that work than being reliant on the State. There is no dignity in that. This bill is about providing all the mechanisms they need to be in work. I commend it to the House.

I understand the next call is a split call.

I am happy to take a short call, as I am no longer on the Social Services Committee. When the Government began beating the drums for its welfare reform legislation, Radio Samoa in Auckland picked up the issue and started discussing this on its talkback shows. The Samoan community, like all the Pacific communities, are people who are proud about their family and have a strong work ethic. Thousands of callers a week called in and hammered consistently, following the views by the Government, the need for greater personal responsibility. There was a unanimous voice from callers on that programme that any Samoan on the benefit ought to get off the benefit immediately. There was a strong sense almost of shame: if any of our people were on the benefit, that was wrong and they needed to get off it. That was how it was, based on what I would say are dog whistle politics used as part of this welfare reform. So instead of supporting those in need, we turned on those in need and started attacking them. I suspect that that was the same throughout New Zealand.

As the dutiful MP for Māngere, I felt it was my duty to talk to the community through the radio waves and through community meetings about what this was all about. I reminded the community that this Government has now experienced the worst economic record in 51 years. It has the highest unemployment rate in 13 years—6.9 percent as of the end of last year, or 175,000 people. The Pacific and Māori unemployment numbers are now at double digits, after being, under a Labour Government, at a single digit. This Government, despite its many promises, has failed to rebalance our economy, and now we have a current account deficit that has risen to 5 percent of GDP, our exports fell last year to $1.3 billion, and our international liabilities have worsened, now at $150 billion and 72 percent of GDP.

I think that when you explain the thrust of what this Government is doing, people gradually begin to understand. You see, they were suckered in when the mantra that this Government used in introducing its welfare reform was that it would have an unrelenting focus on work—an unrelenting focus on work. Despite the smarty one-liners and short-term headlines, we know, and the community out in New Zealand knows, that this Government has no long-term solution to fix New Zealand’s economic woes. It continues to mismanage New Zealand’s economy with these short-term, short-sighted gimmicks. Time and time again in the first reading leading up to this second reading, Government members said this Social Services (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill was about their unrelenting focus on work, yet nothing in this bill addresses the three main barriers to work. How many jobs does this bill create? None, I say. What support is given to parents for childcare costs? None, I say. What training support is given to match those without skills to jobs that require high-level skills? None, I say.

We heard from the submitters that this bill was more about an unrelenting focus on attacking children, attacking motherhood, and attacking single women who are mothers. One of the submitters who stands out in my mind is Charlotte Murray, a single mother with two children. She said her main job is raising her 2-year-old and 5-year-old children. She said forcing her into work is not good for her children. Forcing a mother into work when a child reaches 3 years, 5 years, or 6 years will cause stress and will harm her children. And the Office of the Children’s Commissioner backs that up. In its submission it said that where sanctions are imposed on beneficiaries with children, who suffers? It is the children. So we should not be believing the Government’s one-liners that this is an unrelenting focus on work. This is an unrelenting attack on children and motherhood. The Salvation Army’s state of the nation report of earlier this year, She’ll be Right, reaffirms that under this Government, child poverty has worsened.

The Green Party opposes this bill, the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. We believe that it is fundamentally flawed in its approach. Imposing sanctions for failing to comply with what the bill terms “social obligations” means that parents and caregivers will be coerced into adopting specific parenting practices, even when it is not in their child’s best interests. A parent may have a child who, for whatever reason, is simply not ready to attend early childhood education for 15 hours a week. It may be that their child has a disability. It may be that their child has poor health, or they cannot find a centre that will meet the social and cultural needs of their child.

We also believe that it is both unethical and counter-productive to enforce these social obligations by cutting the benefit by up to 50 percent. We fully agree with the advice from the Ministry of Health that imposing financial sanctions will cause children harm and that there are more effective and more constructive approaches to enable better uptake of primary health care. The other huge area of concern we have with this bill is how it will impact on disabled people and those with chronic illnesses and mental illnesses. The reality is that in New Zealand there are many people with disabilities who want to work and who have tried for years and years to get suitable employment and constantly get knocked back because of systematic failures, because of negative attitudes around disability, and because of assumptions about what disabled people can or cannot do.

Take Jack, for example. Jack is profoundly deaf. He is unskilled but fit and capable. He has applied for many jobs over many years, and he has been constantly told: “We cannot take you on, for health and safety reasons.” This is the stark reality of trying to find a job in New Zealand for many deaf and disabled people. After more than 20 years on a benefit Jack was so desperate and so frustrated that he sat down in the middle of the floor of a Work and Income office, crossed his arms, and announced: “I want to work. I want a job. I am not leaving until you find me a job.” The staff flapped their hands and ran around in a fluster, but then they actually found him a job in the catering industry, and 2 years later Jack has that job and is proud of it. But he should not have had to take such drastic steps to get Work and Income to do something constructive about it.

There are many people like Jack who want to work but are being constantly knocked back. Placing yet more obligations on people like Jack to look for work and be work-ready is cruel and ignores the reality of the barriers to employment that disabled people face, no matter how hard they try or how work-ready they are. Thank you.

Although I am no longer a member of the Social Services Committee, I was for 4 years and until quite recently a member, as a result of which I had the opportunity late last year and early this year to work with my colleagues on this bill, the Social Services (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. I want to correct Dr Prasad. It is fundamentally dishonest to suggest that all submitters were against the bill. They were not. But, more important, I want to remind him that this was a major campaign issue in the 2011 general election. We campaigned hard on it, and I am absolutely confident that this bill enjoys very strong public support from throughout the country, because there is a very strong desire to see everybody who can be supported into work get that support. The unrelenting focus of the bill, as Mr Sio has just reminded us, is on achieving exactly that end.

The other thing I want to say to Asenati Lole-Taylor is just that I believe that all honest work is inherently valuable, and although some is work that a lot of us would shy away from and that some of us are fortunate enough not to have to do, I have nothing but respect for those who are working on some of those humble and at times very, very unpleasant jobs. I am sure that every member of this House would want to support those people, and not in any way undermine their efforts.

I believe that this is a bill that was already very good. The select committee has worked incredibly hard and has made it even better. It is in the national interest, and I have great pleasure in supporting it at its second reading.

The question was put that the amendments recommended by the Social Services Committee by majority be agreed to.