Estimates Debate — Vote Social Development (continued)

To pick up from where I was last night on this particular bill—

💬 Simon O’Connor: Are your people allowed to buy a house here?

No, not from the people whom you are buying them from. The welfare reforms now expect all people previously categorised as sickness beneficiaries, sole parents, and widows with no children under 14 to look for full-time employment as well. That includes the grandparents who are up to 65 years old, and, if Peter Dunne has it his way, it will be 67.

I agree that we have to be firm against those who consciously and continuously take advantage of our welfare system, but I also acknowledge that things are not always black and white. This is the biggest shake-up of the welfare State since 1938, and such dramatic streamlining of the system may cause many people in genuine need to fall through the cracks. To truly progress social development, it would be useful to refocus on poverty, education, crime, family values, community structure, and other core issues impeding our growth as a society. It is obvious that these reforms are the Government’s way of saving a quick buck here and there without focusing on bigger problems like job creation. Indeed, what is the use of forcing job seekers and the unemployed into work when we do not have enough jobs or reasonable wages?

The paradox of our time under the National Government is spend more but have less. Have more but enjoy less. There are more medicines but less wellness. The Government claims to have more experts, yet there are more problems. National has multiplied its possessions but reduced its values, and it has no principles at all. It talks too much and listens too little.

The Government seems unhappy—well, should I rephrase that? The Government seems happy to push people into low-paid, low-security jobs, instead of encouraging decent employment and education. This means that those on welfare, who are typically the most vulnerable in our society, are not likely to improve their situation amid the bureaucratic harassment and social stigmatisation that now comes with it.

The Government is focusing on moving people off welfare, rather than on providing adequate and secure incomes for families. Other advocacy groups have raised concerns about the detrimental effects on grandparents raising their grandchildren when they are being told to find work, despite their age and ignoring the valuable work that they are doing for society in saving children from broken homes and relationships.

Ahn nyung ha se yo. I would like to start my contribution by saying that the National Party campaigned on these welfare reforms. We actually made a promise to the New Zealand people that we were going to make welfare reforms. We are making sure we keep to the promise we made to the people of New Zealand. The new benefit categories and welfare changes in our reforms that came into effect on July 15 now apply to all beneficiaries. This includes rules around drug testing and outstanding arrest warrants and new social obligations for parents. These are important issues. The obligations are clear and they place a greater focus on moving people off welfare and into work.

I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Minister for Social Development, the Hon Paula Bennett, on the changes that have been made already. We are now seeing the results of these changes, with 309,782 people currently on benefits in New Zealand. This is a reduction from some number over 310,000 in the previous quarter, and down from 320,000 in the year prior to that. That is a reduction of more than 10,000 people on welfare over the last 12 months, and that has to be a great result. Work and Income will be actively working with around 41 percent of beneficiaries, and it expects the number of people on benefits to fall between 28,000 and 44,000 by 2017, resulting in estimated savings of between $992 million and $1.6 billion. When we, as a nation, are recovering from a global economic crisis, that has to be a great thing.

The domestic purposes benefit, the unemployment benefit, and the sickness benefit are now gone, and three main benefits have replaced the seven categories that formed the previous benefit types. The three new main benefit categories are jobseeker support, sole parent support, and supported living payment. This is in addition to the young parent payment and youth payment we implemented last year, in 2012. These changes are part of our efforts to simplify benefit categories and put a greater focus on work and new work preparation activities, along with reinforcing social obligations. Job seekers will have work expectations set depending on their capacity, whether it is full time, part time, or to be temporarily exempt in certain cases. For example, when they have short-term illnesses, they may be exempt from these work obligations.

I would like to now move on to the Children’s Action Plan, which comes from the Government’s white paper and includes more than 40 initiatives to better protect vulnerable children. I think everyone around this House actually agrees that children need to be protected from those who abuse and hurt them. This action plan is a key priority for this Government over the next year. We are driving extensive programme reforms to reduce abuse and neglect, and we are already making progress, with Children’s Teams active in Whangarei and Rotorua. These Children’s Teams support communities to better protect their children, and this Government has set aside $13.7 million in operating funding over 4 years towards the cost of implementing this plan.

In this country, about 12,000 Kiwi children are being cared for by wider family members because of either the death of a parent or family breakdown. Without these carers, more children would be under State care, so an extra $35 million has been set aside in the Budget this year to support these extended family members. This initiative is also part of the Children’s Action Plan in response to the White Paper for Vulnerable Children, and that has to be celebrated.

The welfare system will always be there to help people in need. We have always said that. We will ensure that those people who genuinely need help will get the help. But we also believe that long-term welfare dependency can become a trap, and we know that the dependency trap leads to limited choices and limited outcomes. We also believe that anyone who can work should be in employment or in training or at least looking for a job. Our changes have fundamentally altered the welfare system.

Kia orana, Mr Chair. The New Zealand Centre for Political Research and its commentators have said that the welfare reforms that have been introduced by this Government are some of the most significant since the Social Security Act of 1938—the most significant since 1938. Yet, despite that, what has actually happened is that these reforms have been welcomed and they have been embraced—they have been welcomed and they have been embraced. So what is the point of difference, one may ask, when listening to these speeches? What is the point of difference about these reforms that is truly making a difference? I want to share this. In 2007 the Rt Hon John Key, in a state of the nation address, said: “These are tough problems ….”—what we are facing; these welfare reforms—“But I have no intention of being a Prime Minister who tackles only the easy … But I can tell you that dealing with the problems of our growing underclass”—and our vulnerable families and children—“is a priority for [the] National [Government]”. He has kept that promise, and these are the things that are making a difference.

So here is the point of difference that is making a difference. On Friday I was out there, visiting one of my constituents, a Mr David Bruce. He has got cerebral palsy, and I went to visit him at 54 Pah Road in Epsom. He is in the hospital there. As I sat there with him, the first thing he said to me was this—he pointed to his watch and he said I was 1 minute late for my appointment. I apologised for being 1 minute late. He could not speak well, but then he motioned to me to come and sit down while he was there in his wheelchair. He began to speak to me and communicate with me—here are the things that are really important. In having a lifetime of disability, he talked about the vulnerability and the protection of vulnerable adults. He talked about the potential of a member’s bill. What he started to say to me—and here is the point of difference that adds to this debate around social development—and what he was communicating to me was that he was not a problem to be solved, but a potential to be realised. I knew at that point in time, at that meeting with him—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Take his cash to Skycity.

This is what he was saying, Mr Mallard. He was communicating this to me: “We are an investment. We are a potential to be realised.” The intent of this welfare policy is about an investment for the future for our children.

But here is where it gets really ugly for the Opposition, because as political commentators for the New Zealand Centre for Political Research have gone out—[Interruption] That is right. They do not want to listen to this, but here it is. An online New Zealand Herald poll of 13,450 voters showed that 58 percent of respondents believed that the reforms were—here it goes—sensible and about time. Only 13 percent thought they were totally unjustified. A Stuff poll of 8,300 voters found that 52 percent thought that the reforms were needed, and, interestingly enough, 21 percent thought they were not going far enough. What are these reforms telling us and telling the rest of New Zealand? We do not have people marching in the streets. We do not have people protesting. Instead, what do we have? We have people who are saying that they welcome these reforms, they are needed, and they are positive because they are investing in the future of the young people and the families of our communities and of our nation.

Here are some of the investments we are making. I have had constituents come to see me in my electorate office. One of the challenging issues is housing, but there are also issues around budgeting. The extra funding and support of budgeting services of $1.5 million will help, and it is on top of the $8.9 million, so that we can ensure that budgeting services are meeting the needs. But that is not all. There is microfinancing support for people on low incomes. I sat down with a family with five children. They are struggling with their own finances. They owe money to five different finance companies. As we sat there together, working through these issues, we realised that the policies and the direction of the reforms will meet these very needs. We got the family to go to the Ōtara Budgeting Service. We got them to be able to talk about these issues. In the long run, these reforms will truly make a difference as well.

The other thing we are doing is getting a better deal on the procurement of whiteware, to make sure we do not have second-hand, shoddy whiteware. We are going to have the opportunity for them to have whiteware, which will make a difference for them. There is an extra $35 million for extended family members raising children. I have been meeting with grandparents, with kin carers, who have been working and looking after their grandchildren. This is much-needed relief. Often, at times, when there has been a breakup in the family and they have had some difficult times—

I am happy to pick up from where my colleague Alfred Ngaro has left off in the social development area. I want to talk about three important areas of significant change—in fact, the biggest change in a generation by far. Those are the work around vulnerable children, the focus on youth, and the change in the benefit categories and the introduction of social obligations, which should, one would assume, be a mainstay of the welfare system, but we have had a welfare system that has got out of control over the years. Arguably, although it will always be needed, it does not serve the interests of those who need it most, when it gets out of control. The bill is around $22 million per week for the taxpayer for some 320,000 New Zealanders, but the lost potential in those individuals is capital that we can never really put a price on.

The changes around youth, which we dealt with as a Social Services Committee last year, deal with the 14,000-odd teenagers who are in that gap between education and training and employment. They have fallen into that gap. What we know for those individuals is that if we do not do something about them, the chance of them finding their way on to an adult benefit and staying there for a significant period of time is very, very high. It is an unacceptable situation. The wraparound supports, the payment card system, the mentoring system, the interventions that have been put in place there, are about upfront investment in those young people who have often had a very challenging upbringing, and ensuring that we do as much as possible to make sure that they are in employment, in education, or in training and that they are ready, willing, and able to take up the opportunities when they appear—and, of course, they do.

One of the things that we cannot legislate for is attitude. One of the difficulties that we see with young people today is that a lot of them, unfortunately, do not share the attitude that their parents and grandparents have, in that there is some expectation that society, the community, owes them something. I just want to share a little anecdote concerning my own family. My partner’s daughter left school late last year and is now doing a level 3 course in the sports and recreation area, with the hope to go on and do a diploma and degree in that area. She was a 16-year-old girl at the time she left school. She has made her way. She found some accommodation, she was boarding, and within months had a part-time job to help cover the costs of her new life. She has now found her way into a promotion in that job as a waitress because her front-of-shop attitude, her willingness to want to excel and do well, needed rewarding. The employer is rewarding her. I can assure members that she is earning well above the minimum wage—considerably above what many others would expect.

There is one reason for that, and one reason alone. It is because she has got off her backside and has shown the attitude and the determination that says: “If I want something out of life, I have got to go and grab it.” When they do, employers jump up and say: “Yes, I welcome you.” This is particularly relevant in my electorate of Northland, where, unfortunately, we are dogged with a lot of people who think that the world owes them something and they do not have to meet it in the middle.

We are doing a lot of work on that focus on youth. The benefit category changes introduce social obligations. Well, there are social obligations in every walk of life—in sports clubs, in the workplace, and in the family. There is no reason why those social obligations should not exist for those who are dependent on the State for welfare because they are not in work. That is why they should be receiving welfare—because they are not in work, not because they cannot find a job, necessarily. They are not in work. What we need to do is to ensure that the settings are right for them to be in work, and often drug use is a barrier to that, so introducing drug testing is a positive in that. Ensuring that children are enrolled in early childhood education, enrolled with a primary health organisation, and, of course, getting their well child checks is a social obligation that means everything to those children. Of course, we will not be letting those who are on a warrant run around at the taxpayers’ expense, to evade justice and to evade the police.

But, finally, in terms of the Children’s Action Plan, here is a Government that is doing something. Since 1999 and the inquiry into James Whakaruru, the Labour Party has sat there and done nothing for year upon year. The Children’s Action Plan is a demonstration of doing, not talking.

Vote agreed to.

Vote Defence