Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill

It is my pleasure to take another call on this bill. I believe this is the final stage of debate for the Committee stage—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Already?

—so I will take this opportunity to—yes, I agree with the member Ruth Dyson that it seems like it has been a rather swift debate. There was certainly eagerness on this side of the Chamber to continue discussing not least some of the excellent amendments put forward by the Labour Party. We might have a chance to at least just reference them again, because not all of them were spoken to and there is some relevancy to them around commencement dates in particular.

But at this stage of the debate, tradition has it that we often use this opportunity to talk about how we might alternatively refer to this piece of legislation. For those watching, they will see the little ticker tape at the bottom of the screen. They will know that this is formally known as the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. But some of our contention on this side of the Chamber has been that the historical architects of the Social Security Act probably meant for the system to be something quite different than it is today. It is almost ironic that we are debating this bill in the 75th year or anniversary of the Social Security Act in New Zealand. It was brought in at a time when, not unlike today, there were hard economic times. The Labour Government at that time wanted to move away from this notion of the deserving and the undeserving poor. It wanted to create an egalitarian society where no matter what circumstances you encountered, you were able to find some kind of support; you were able to live with a certain degree of dignity until such time as you were able to support yourself once more.

Although the Minister for Social Development has entrenched in here these things called social obligations—which by their very nature imply that people who are on social security are not fulfilling some of these obligations, which speak to the basic needs of their own children—in many ways social security has always had a sense of obligation attached to it, because it is a social contract. It says that as a citizen of New Zealand you have a certain expectation that you can be supported—that there is no such notion as the deserving and undeserving poor—but in return as soon as you are able you too contribute back into the common good, as it were, into the net, the pool that contributes to the social security system.

Are we still fulfilling that notion and that ideal in this bill today? Does it deserve to be called the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill? We would contend no. We would contend also that the notion of putting “Work Focus” into the title implies that work has not always been the focus of our social security system. Indeed, it has. In fact, if the Government was truly dedicated to the notion of a dignified system that enabled people to transition back into the workplace, its first port of call would be that workplace. It would be ensuring that those jobs are available, as we have always contended it should. It would be ensuring, for instance, that for those who find themselves with a disability our employers are better placed to employ some of those individuals, who do have some barriers to work. As CCS Disability Action and IHC pointed out, so many of the groups they work with desperately want to get into the workforce, but the work focus from the employers’ end, from their perspective, is what needs to be addressed. So we would contend that this is a mistitled bill.

However, “Benefit Categories” probably is the one notion that, in its simplest form, is quite correct. This bill does merge together the categories of the Social Security Act. We have already traversed the different outcomes of that.

I would, though, like to refer to whether or not in its more simplistic form this bill would be better titled as the “Drug Testing, Warrants for Arrest, and Bad Parenting Bill”—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Again?

—that was the “Drug Testing, Warrants for Arrest, and Bad Parenting Bill”—because those are the notions within this bill that probably the public are most familiar with. If you asked them whether they had heard of the Government’s welfare reforms, those are the bits that would be most well known. In fact, the drug testing, in particular, would be well known because that was actually announced on three occasions—I went back just to check—first by Bill English, to be fair to the Minister.

But if this was genuinely a bill that was about addressing issues of drug dependency, perhaps we might have paid more attention to what the Drug Foundation, expert in its field, had to say on this bill. For the purposes of further exploring whether that would be a more accurate title for this bill, let us go back to its submission. I think it really summed it up quite well. It said: “The Drug Foundation supports measures to prevent drug use or dependence from being a barrier to employment.” We absolutely agree with the foundation, of course. No one in this Chamber is ever going to stand up and say that if drug dependence is a barrier to work, or, indeed, if drug dependence exists, we should ignore that. The foundation said: “Paid employment can reduce recreational alcohol and drug use and make a significant contribution to successful recovery from substance dependence.” It goes on to say, though, that its “concern is that if the details of the drug testing and sanctions regime are not well thought through, they may ultimately do more harm than good.” It goes on to note the Ministry of Health’s strong advice that that may indeed be the outcome of the drug testing regime included in this bill.

It goes further. It says: “Drug tests are a blunt instrument. They fail to differentiate between recreational substance use and problematic substance use. As such, an occasional cannabis user could test positive despite their drug use having taken place more than one week ago, outside of work hours, and having no bearing on current workplace safety or productivity.” That point is an interesting one, because what it was trying to point out was that a blanket regime says that if you are a recreational user, then we will apply a sanction; if you are dependent, though, we might let you go on to a different benefit category. We will not sanction you; you can go on to some other form of benefit, which does not then penalise you. Well, that naturally creates the incentive to shift on to a different category. The flow-on is that you are then treated in the system for a dependency you may not, in fact, have, and you are treated in a system that is already choked. We have up to 6 weeks’ worth of waiting lists in some of our areas around genuine drug and alcohol dependence issues. So are we creating a perverse incentive to declare dependence where dependence does not exist? I think it is a fair question, and it was not one that was adequately answered through this process.

Coming back to the other options for what this bill could be titled, I heard from that side of the Chamber the line: “Jobs are the best route out of poverty.” We are not going to argue with that on this side of the Chamber, but that requires there to be a couple of jobs around for someone to move into. Just on the other side of that argument, jobs are in fact important for that sentence to actually be able to become a reality, plus we need to acknowledge that for sole parents, in particular, there will be a period of time in which work is simply not the best option for them or their child—when their child is first born, when they are in their infancy. Then what? Then what is the best route out of poverty? So we have got to take into account the many and varied situations that this bill will be covering. Perhaps, then, given the job argument, we should just call it the “Ghost Jobs Bill”, because we do not seem to have at any point really discussed the context in which this bill is operating, other than on this side of the Chamber.

If this bill had had a greater focus on children, we may have been able to imply in the title that it had their interests at heart. But as the Children’s Commissioner pointed out in his really useful submission, one simple little amendment to this bill could have got around some of the concerns we have about the way that sanctions would be used and the impact that would have on child poverty, further exacerbating it. That was the suggestion where he said: “I am firmly of the view that all decisions made through the social security system that directly or indirectly impact upon a child or children, should be required to formally consider their welfare and best interests as a primary consideration,”. Who could be against that? And yet that suggestion was not picked up.

I want to come to the commencement of this bill. It will come into force on 15 July 2013. One of the recommendations, however, from the Labour Party has been that, given we do not know the details—and the Minister claims that these are being worked through with the sector, and I am pleased that the sector is involved—surely we should have a little more transparency than that. One of our suggestions is that before that commencement date kicks in we as a Parliament have the opportunity to debate the final provisions of that policy. I accept that it is not a policy that requires legislative change, but I think that it is only a fair suggestion, given the amount of public interest there is in that element of the wider policy, that we have the ability to discuss it as parliamentarians. That is a relatively simple suggestion. It does not change the substance of the bill—

I am pleased to take what no doubt will be my final call in the Committee stage of this Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill on the title and commencement clauses. I thank Jacinda Ardern for that last series of comments because she appears to get to some of the more important questions about this bill that have not been answered. Certainly the title does not reflect any of the kind of thinking that Jacinda Ardern was talking about.

We know so much in today’s world about children and families. We know so much today about the historical ways in which we have addressed their needs, and which ones have failed and which ones have been successful. When we go back even to residual forms of provision for the vulnerable, we know how unsuccessful they have been. We also know today how there are so many opportunities to take a developmental approach to this sector, yet this bill has not taken that opportunity, and that bothers us.

We also live in a time—and even the Minister talks about this ad nauseam—when we are ensuring that our social policy and our legislation are evidence-based. Well, this bill is not. It is very, very clear from the submitters, from the research that is around—unless you are very, very selective about that research—that the evidence that is available has not been utilised. Even those of our major institutions in New Zealand that submitted to us would agree that the bill does not reflect current knowledge and it is not evidence-based. Perhaps a more appropriate title might be the “Social Security (Not Based on Evidence) Amendment Bill”.

If we look at what the Human Rights Commission told us, it said that there were less intrusive ways to achieve the goals of social obligation than through the kinds of sanctions that this bill has come up with. There are less intrusive ways. Why have we not taken those less intrusive ways? Somehow the Government wants to appear tough. It wants to appear to knock those who in their own way seem to be abusing the system, and this will fix it. In that, the Government and the Minister are pandering to that element of a support base that actually sees this as a troubled and troubling part of our community. But these are still our mums and dads. These are the people who are bringing up our children. They deserve the best. That is why this system has been designed.

Caritas noted—and it is a highly respected organisation—the potentially severe impact of financial sanctions, and submitted that there needed to be checks and balances. Here the kind of financial sanction—a 50 percent financial sanction—is a severe sanction on the most vulnerable. So the title could have “50 percent sanctions” in there somewhere to say that this will punish the children and revisit the sins of the parents on to the most vulnerable. I cannot see how the Minister could defend that other than simply as wanting to be punitive towards this particular vulnerable section of our community. So “punitive” and “punishment” ought to be in the title as well, because that is what the bill reflects.

The Methodist Church raised concerns that the sanctions will not be used with great discretion. It was concerned about that. Sanctions of this type in our Work and Income and social security legislation, in practice, take on a life of their own despite the assurances given to us by officials. That is a concern that we would want to raise again. Perhaps the title, to be honest, might have reflected that, as well.

The Children’s Commissioner, actually, gave advice to the Social Services Committee that it was much more important to use non-monetary sanctions. It said there was some good evidence around the use of financial incentives and including that in the bill somewhere, around attending parenting courses and things like that. There is lots to be said about how this bill does not use either the current signs available to us today or the current knowledge available to us today. So there is something else that is driving this particular bill. I think members opposite, when they took calls on Part 2 and Part 1 of the bill, actually did give the lie to that type of perspective, which is that this is about concern about the amount of money that is spent in this field, and about those people taking advantage of the system.

The next series of comments is really about bringing up children. This bill says nothing about how we ought to be bringing up children today. Again that could be because the underlying assumption in this bill is that bringing up children is not work. That is the underlying premise, the underlying value of this particular bill. And why is it not work? Any mum or dad bringing up children, particularly if you are on your own, but for any mum and dad it is important work, and yet we give that no value. If you happen to be not reliant on the State for an income, then, yes, you have that choice. But why is it that our most vulnerable are not enabled to spend time with their children in those critical years from 0 to 5? In this bill there is no value placed on parenting. I think that was a point that the Children’s Commissioner was making. If parenting is what we ought to be focused on, then let us build some incentives around parenting. We would have supported something like that, but it is not here. We seem to separate out this need to punish, and not use the knowledge available to us. I am concerned that that is a worry, and the title could reflect that.

The next point I want to make is punishment is the theme. No matter how the Minister for Social Development and her colleagues dress this thing up, it is about punishment. It is punishing those who get to a particular place in their lives. The Minister says: “I know I am expecting a lot of people.”, which gives the impression she understands that. I do not think she does. If she did then the provisions here would have been different. Certainly I think that not enabling a sole parent with a 14-year-old teenager—taking that right out of the system—is something that we will regret down the line. Because bringing up 14-year-olds is still a difficult task, particularly if you have got a 15-year-old or 16-year-old as well. But they are now taken right out of the system and others do not have that opportunity.

Finally I want to say this, and it is the last opportunity to do so with officials being here. I want to acknowledge the work of the officials. They worked with us for several months, answering all kinds of questions we put to them, and dutifully, and indeed pleasantly, they brought that information to us, explained it, and even at times when it was difficult they did that. So I want to sincerely thank the officials here, and that includes the legal people as well from Parliament here. Thank you very much for that.

There are lots of reasons why this bill ought not to be supported. I think my colleagues, over the months that we have debated these provisions, have not convinced this Minister one iota. There ought not to be this distance between those of us in this Chamber with some knowledge and experience in this field bringing that to bear on good policy and practice. But the Government has been blind to that. The Minister has turned her eyes away from that, and has brought together a bill that I think in time will be regretted and we will need to fix. I am sure it will be left to a Labour Government to fix it, as indeed it has had to do in the past to fix all of the mistakes in the social legislation of a conservative Government. With those words I thank you very much.

I would like to bring Parliament back to some key facts around the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill in regard to the commencement date and the title. The Labour Party members have enjoyed a little bit of getting out their rhetoric, which we are so familiar with. I would like to bring the Committee of the whole House back to some key facts. First of all, regarding the commencement date, it is very important that we make it clear that there are two commencement dates here of import. The first date is a key one—15 July 2013—for most of the changes in the bill, such as the transfer to the three new benefit categories and the introductions of new obligations and expectations. So that is 15 July 2013. This date gives sufficient time for transition purposes to ensure that the Ministry of Social Development’s systems—IT systems—and payment staff are ready for the changes. So that is a key date to note.

The second commencement date, of course, is the day after the date on which the bill receives the Royal assent. This is for two transitional purposes: so that certain people aged 65 years or older can be transitioned to an emergency benefit, and so that the disability allowance can be used to fund specified expenses, and the preferred suppliers of goods or services for beneficiaries. So those people listening who are interested or who are directly affected do need to know the importance of those two dates.

Moving to the title, Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill, I would like to repeat what the Minister for Social Development said today in press releases, and that is just to clarify some of the rhetoric that is out on the airwaves that the Labour Party and its good friends the unions are pushing. What the Minister says—and this how you melt down this bill to the most simple form—is quite simply that all we are asking for, all New Zealanders are asking for, all Kiwis are asking for, is that people need to be available to work. If they are genuinely in a situation where they cannot find work, that is OK. We will support them.

However, the National Party and our support parties are with the majority of New Zealanders, who do not believe that we should be funding people to smoke dope. We do not think that we should be funding people to run away from the police and commit crimes. We do not believe that we should be funding people to commit fraud. There is a small proportion of those on a benefit who do smoke dope, and employers will tell you that they turn up for jobs and do not pass tests. There are those people who used to be funded to run away from the law after committing crimes—they would still receive a benefit. There are those people who do refuse to work, and we want to hold them to account.

The Labour Party could never have a bill that had within the title the term “Work Focus”. The Labour Party could never do that. I think New Zealanders on the whole who are listening to the debate tonight instinctively know that the Labour Party would not get under control the whole welfare system. I look at the record. Labour shifted beneficiaries between different types of benefits when it was in Government. It did not shift people into work when it was in Government; it simply shifted them on to other benefits. For example, the sickness benefit numbers under the Labour Government went from 33,000 in 1999 to 46,000 in 2008. In the time Labour was in Government there were 33,000 people on the sickness benefit, and it went to 46,000 people. And that was during good international economic times. So either the Labour Government was lax in getting people into work or people were sicker under Labour. You make the choice.

The invalids benefit numbers increased from 53,000 to 85,000. Labour abolished compulsory budgeting advice. Labour continued paying benefits to criminals on the run from police. How do listeners feel about that? The Labour Party, which has been appealing to listeners all night, essentially continued paying benefits to people on the run from police. I mean, really! Who at home supports that? Labour allowed recreational drug users—

I almost do not know where to start after that. I thought that the member, the Hon Phil Heatley, was standing up to try to give a speech without any rhetoric, but we have had dope-smoking criminals, apart from any other factors, and a whole lot of trying to say that the Labour Party is scaremongering about this bill. What we are actually trying to do is point out that this bill is absolutely ridiculous and that it is not what the Government’s energy should be focused on. What the Government’s energy should be focused on is job creation and supporting an economy that provides jobs for people to go to.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Clauses 1 to 3.

This legislation, the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill, I believe would be more rightly called the “Social Security (Beneficiary Blaming, Absence of Work, and Sanctions) Amendment Bill”. The component parts of this legislation are basically there with some underlying assumptions, and I think the last member was right there on the old beneficiary blaming or beneficiary bashing. We have had them smoking dope and we have had all the criminals, even though earlier in the member’s speech he did note that the people who were on social security who were not looking for work were actually a very small percentage. We would all agree that there are probably some people like that.

I take absolute exception to the notion that was put up that Labour does not support people being in work. That is so absolutely contrary to the facts. Labour has always prioritised job creation and has always seen that paid employment and decent work are the best way to get people out of poverty. You will get no argument from this side of the Chamber, and our track record stacks up.

This legislation, the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill, or, as I say, the “Social Security (Beneficiary Blaming, Absence of Work, and Sanctions) Amendment Bill”, is based on some pretty terrible underlying assumptions, I think. I think the member who just spoke before me illustrated with his comments about beneficiaries the underlying assumptions that people who are receiving benefits do not want to work or that people who are parents and on benefits are not good parents.

Let us look at the facts. There is 6.9 percent unemployment—163,000 people are registered as unemployed. Those are the people who are eligible to be registered as unemployed. There are many, many hundreds of thousands more who cannot register and are not counted in those figures. There are 111,000 people wanting more work. We have had numerous examples all afternoon of people queuing for a limited number of jobs, so let us get real here. Earlier today there were comments about 16,000 jobs on the SEEK website. Well, even if those 16,000 were all potentially jobs that the pool of unemployed could take, it is not going to make even a dent in 163,000 people being unemployed.

I want to talk about the domestic purposes benefit, because that is one of the categories in which there is real potential for these sanctions to be used. Those on the DPB are one of the groups that I think are much maligned. Sixty-three percent of those receiving the DPB at the end of last year were doing so for less than 4 years, and yet the image that is constantly presented is of teenagers deliberately going out, getting pregnant, and then staying on the DPB for ever and a day. It just is not so.

There are real issues and barriers for people going back into work, and the main one—I will repeat it again—is the lack of jobs. There is a lack of jobs, and despite all the crowing about economic growth that has been going on, it is jobless growth that has happened in recent times in this country. Where are the jobs? That is the biggest barrier for those people getting back into work, which is why I think the title should include this “Absence of Work” component rather than “Work Focus”. I think that would be much more accurate.

But training, education, childcare, or early childhood education are all issues for people who are on benefits and who have children. A 2009 Inland Revenue Department paper found that among sole parents 67 percent of those available for work had problems getting work that paid enough, 66 percent could not find work for enough hours for it to be worthwhile, and 64 percent did not have the skills that employers wanted. In terms of the access to work, the availability of jobs, that will have got significantly worse since 2009.

I want to talk to the title of this bill, the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill, which should really be called the “Social Sanctions Amendment Bill”. So many of my colleagues on this side of the Chamber and in other parties on this side of the Chamber have talked about this issue tonight—about how much this bill is about sanctions and what its focus is.

I want to talk to you about Bronwyn, who came into my office last month to ask for advice. She is 55 and has worked for a school for the last 12 years as a literacy tutor for 22 hours a week. Her husband was made redundant last October. He has worked all his life. Since then, he has managed to pick up a little bit of casual work, but he and his wife finally approached Work and Income for some assistance because he could not find full-time work. Instead of getting that assistance, Bronwyn, who has worked in this job as a literacy tutor for which she has trained for, for which she has a lot of experience, was told to leave that job and find a full-time job. She loves her current job. She is well qualified for the position and she feels that she makes a bit of a difference. But, because of the necessity of accepting a helping hand from the State during an economic downturn, she is likely to have to leave that position and get a full-time entry-level position that does not pay nearly as much as she is earning at the moment. Jobs in her area for her husband are scarce, and these people are between a rock and a hard place.

When a new Countdown supermarket opened in South Dunedin last year, around 1,400 people applied for the 115 positions that were available—1,400 people. Of the 1,285 people who did not get those jobs, they have not just walked into other jobs. This is the fundamental issue with this bill. People want to work—people want to work. Why does this Government not understand that? Why does this Government not understand that what people want is a job and an income and to look after their families? We are not all as well off as everybody else. Some people do have disadvantages. This bill is ultimately about pushing the buttons of making those people feel as if they are second-class citizens, as if they somehow do not fit the bill; therefore, they have to be treated differently from everybody else. I do not understand that. I do not think anybody on this side of the Chamber understands that. So that is why we fundamentally object to the underlying assumption in this bill that those on Government support, who are there because they need to be there, do not want to work.

I want to talk to you about the other group of people in society. I know some of my colleagues have touched on this. These are people with disabilities, people who struggle—who struggle—to get to first base, to get that interview, because they either do not have the skills or do not have the ability to get chosen for an interview. These people, many of whom are on the sickness benefit or the invalid’s benefit, are desperate to work. They are desperate to contribute to society, to be productive members of society. But for some reason, that side of the Chamber is actually putting more barriers in their way by introducing bills like this. That is an absolute disgrace. As CCS Disability Action eloquently stated during the submissions on this bill, this bill will not add one more single job for a disabled person. It does nothing about the attitudes of employers and workers. It does nothing about the ability to make adjustments in the workplace and nothing about access to education or work experience. If the bill wishes to provide opportunities for people with disabilities to move into the workforce, it does not contribute. I mentioned earlier about the freezing of mainstream funding. I would like to know what this Government is going to do about that.

I move, That the question be now put.

We have had seven speeches, and half a speech has been on clauses 1 to 3. I will give Darien Fenton an opportunity.

“Dah-rien”.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Darien.

Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to round off the debate on clauses 1 to 3, the title and commencement, and so on, of the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. I thought what I would do is just drill down a little bit into that title, starting with “Benefit Categories”, and just remind listeners exactly what this bill does. What it is doing is re-badging a range of current benefits that we have.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Clauses 1 to 3.

Yes, the title. I am talking about the title, and I am certainly talking about the new benefit categories, which is part of the title. What the bill does is re-badge a number of existing benefit categories and squash them into a range of three. It squashes them up. It will take away the benefit categories that we have had for many years. Jobseeker support, for example, is one that a lot of people have talked about. It is not only a misnomer, but also quite an insulting kind of category because it suggests that job seekers can actually find a job, as does the title, indeed, when it talks about “Work Focus”.

Jobseeker support, just to remind the listeners, will cover people who currently receive the unemployment benefit, the sickness benefit, the DPB, the women alone benefit, and the widows benefit, and DPB sole parents whose children are older than 14 years of age. So all of those people who currently have different conditions and different titles for their benefits are going to be squashed into this jobseeker support by this apparent work focus amendment bill to try to pretend that all of them are going to be able to get jobs, that there are many, many jobs out there for them to apply for. Of course, we all know that what happens is that if they do not take a job that is offered, under clauses 1 to 3 of this bill, their benefit could be cancelled and a 13-week stand-down could apply to any beneficiary who fails to accept an offer of suitable employment, and beneficiaries with children will lose up to 50 percent of their benefit. How can that be? How can the title of this bill be “Benefit Categories”—well, I think “Benefit Categories” works OK. But how can it be “Work Focus” when, actually, you are talking about sanctions and punishment for people who cannot find jobs? As my colleagues have suggested, there are much better titles for this bill, particularly around the area of sanctioning and punishing people.

Also, I suppose you could call this bill the “Social Security (Punishing the Children) Bill” because what is going to happen if beneficiaries with children lose up to 50 percent of their benefit? Who is going to suffer? Who are going to be the people who pay the price for that? Children are going to pay the price for that, and that is extremely concerning. The Minister for Social Development goes on and on about how she cares about children. Well, I think this is most uncaring, and we should all in this Chamber be deeply concerned about that particular measure.

But, apparently, this is all about a focus on work, which is in the title of the bill—“Work Focus” is in the title of the bill. It is also extended to those on the sickness benefit. So people on the sickness benefit will also be considered job seekers. They may well have a long-term illness, but they are going to be job seekers too. We are pretending that people in those categories can also find a job.

Then, as we heard last week, of course, we have had a new bill before Parliament, which was passed last week, covering 18 and 19-year-olds on the benefit who, if they turn down a job paid at the youth rate after they have been on the dole for 6 months, will be punished as well.

So this bill definitely has nothing to do with work focus, everything to do with punishment, everything to do with sanctioning, and everything to do with blaming the people who are unable to find the jobs, because this Government has completely failed in its plan and failed to have any plan in terms of getting a job.

So I think that the title of the bill is fitting when it comes to “Benefit Categories”. It is completely ridiculous when it comes to talking about “Work Focus” because, as I have said, it does nothing to address the issues of work, it does nothing to address the availability of work, it does nothing to address the other barriers such as childcare costs, and it does nothing to address whether an individual has the necessary skills. All it does is put people through hoops.

Jacinda Ardern has a typescript amendment to clause 2. This is out of order as it relies on an indeterminate event. Members can refer to Speaker’s ruling 117/2.