Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill

I move, That the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 15 September 2016.

This bill rewrites the Social Security Act 1964. After more than 50 years the Social Security Act is long overdue for a rewrite. When it was first passed it had 135 sections. It has since grown to 523 sections and, of those, only four remain unchanged, 214 sections have been repealed, and most sections have been amended multiple times—in one case, 286 times. Altogether, that makes for a very disjointed and confusing Act, and there have been many calls for it to be completely rewritten. For example, in May 2007 the Rt Hon Sir Peter Blanchard, who recently retired from the Supreme Court, warned that the Act was in need of a rewrite. He said: “Departments get themselves into an awful bind when they don’t keep their statutes up to date and when they don’t regularly review them and re-enact them completely, rather than just adding bits and pieces.” That same year, members of the Law Commission were asked to identify their favourite worst statute. Sir Geoffrey Palmer and Professor John Burrows immediately and in unison responded: “Social Security Act.”

A second Act, the Social Welfare (Reciprocity Agreements, and New Zealand Artificial Limb Service) Act 1990, is also repealed and replaced by this bill. Provisions on social security agreements with other countries are currently split between that Act and the Social Security Act. They are brought together in this bill. Provisions on the New Zealand Artificial Limb Service are also split between the two Acts and are brought together in this bill. I intend that the bill will be split into three bills at the end of the Committee of the whole House stage. The three pieces of legislation to be created are the Social Security Act, the Artificial Limb Service Act, and the Residential Care and Disability Support Services Act.

The bill sets out main benefit entitlements, obligations, and associated sanctions; assessment processes; and appeal rights. These important social security measures will continue to be set out in primary legislation. New regulation-making powers in the bill allow for more of the detail about matters such as supplementary assistance and administration to be moved into regulations. That will achieve greater consistency with the approach taken in other Acts to what belongs in secondary legislation.

The bill is largely a rewrite of existing policy in a more logical structure and in language that is much easier for users to follow and understand. The bill makes it clear when provisions continue existing policy. It also identifies the corresponding section in the 1964 Act in each case to help people compare the two versions. In addition, clause 9 of the bill makes it clear that if there is any doubt about the meaning of the new wording, the old law—that is, the law as set out in the current legislation—must be used to determine the correct meaning. The existing policies re-enacted in the bill have already been debated and passed through the House. I will not waste the time of the House by outlining what they do. If this bill was a revision bill that was simply re-enacting existing policy, we would not be debating the provisions in the bill at all in this stage.

The Attorney-General’s report on this bill identifies a group of provisions that favour people who are totally blind and finds that it is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. These provisions are some of the most longstanding social security measures in New Zealand, dating back to 1924. They help a small group of disadvantaged people: those who are totally blind. These longstanding measures are re-enacted unchanged in the bill as part of the policy-neutral approach. They will remain lawful under the Act. However, a small number of policy changes have been included in the bill that aim to improve administrative efficiency and support modern service delivery.

In the bill, the emergency benefit is renamed the exceptional circumstances benefit, and policy for this benefit is clarified. The new name better describes what the benefit is for. It provides a level of income to people who do not qualify for one of the other main benefits but who would be in hardship without that assistance. The bill makes it clear that the exceptional circumstances benefit is to be paid at the rate of a main benefit.

Rates of New Zealand superannuation are higher than main benefit levels and are linked to average wage levels. People have to live here for only 10 years to qualify at the age of 65. It was never intended that a person who does not qualify for New Zealand superannuation would get a benefit paid at the same rate as people who have qualified for it, and this bill makes that clear.

The bill also provides discretion to case managers to set work obligations and, if necessary, to apply sanctions to people receiving the exceptional circumstances benefit so that they are treated in the same way as a person in similar circumstances receiving a main benefit. The bill also removes the provision that allows case managers to require a person to undergo medical or other treatment as a condition of grant of the emergency benefit. That provision has never been used and it would breach section 11 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

The bill combines the orphans benefit and the unsupported child’s benefit into one benefit. The combined benefit is the supported child’s payment, which is a much more positive and meaningful name. The bill introduces a new single rate of sole parent support for people receiving the supported child’s payment, so single caregivers who need a main benefit will be able to receive the sole parent support without having to give up the supported child’s payment. It will mean that the age of the child will automatically be taken into account when the caregiver’s work obligations are set. They will be treated in the same way as other people who are receiving a benefit and who have dependent children.

When a couple separates and each parent is the main carer for at least one child from their relationship, both parents are sole parents, but currently only one of them can claim the sole parent support. If the other parent needs a benefit, the case manager grants an emergency benefit to give them the same assistance they would receive through the sole parent support. The changes set out in the bill mean that both parents will be treated the same. However, nothing changes for parents in shared-care situations who each care for the same child or children for some of the time.

Finally, the 1964 references to posted communications in a paper-based world are brought up to date. The bill allows for a variety of different methods of communication that are available in today’s world and gives greater scope for modern service delivery, taking into account future advances in technology.

It is fitting that after more than 50 years this historic piece of legislation is refreshed. This bill provides users with a clearer, understandable version of an old Act that has become almost incomprehensible. The new structure helpfully groups together information in logical ways, and there is ample guidance to assist new readers to find provisions that are relevant to them. My thanks go to the officials who have worked hard to achieve this result. I commend this bill to the House.

I need to say from the outset that, fundamentally, on this side of the House, we do support, and have supported, a rewrite of the social security legislation, as we support the idea that there needs to be some clarity and some consistency. Since 1964 the Social Security Act has had amendments made to it continually, so it is very difficult to navigate and it is disjointed, and the Law Commission and others have all stated that that is the case.

We support the Social Security Act being more accessible and cohesive. We think that is very important, but what we are concerned about is that the policy-neutral rewrite that we were promised by the National Government is at risk here when we look at what we have finally been presented with. The Minister for Social Development herself has said that, yes, the Government has gone through and tried to modernise it and tried to look for places where it could make it more cohesive and more consistent, but she has also said that this is being used as an opportunity to actually insert some policy changes. I think that is where we have concerns, and I think they are very valid concerns.

This is not a straightforward rewrite. There are changes that have been made to policy, and we believe that some of those changes should be put through a different avenue and not in a rewrite of social security legislation. There are two different things going on here and they should be kept very separate.

I have had conversations with a number of social agencies that are very keen to make submissions on this bill. Those agencies that I have spoken to have either said that they are concerned but they are supportive of this bill going to a select committee and having it nutted out there, or they have said that they will not be taking a position on whether or not this bill’s referral to a select committee should be supported in the first instance. So I think that already highlights that there are concerns held out there by the experts—by the people who are operating with this legislation on a daily basis—and we take on board their advice.

So I can say from the outset as I get into this that we will support this going to a select committee, but we want there to be a robust analysis of what we have in front of us and we do have concerns, which I will talk about shortly. Given that those social services do want the bill to have that robust attention paid to it and they want to have the time needed to pull together robust submissions on the bill, I am a little bit disappointed to hear that the Minister is asking that this bill be reported back 2 months earlier than actually required. She is saying to us that she wants it reported back by 15 September. If this is going to be done properly, and we should all be committed to making sure it is done properly, then why would she reduce the time period in which we can give this bill the attention that it deserves? That was one of the concerns that was raised by one of the organisations I spoke to this morning. All it wanted was for it to be given the time that it deserves. So I am disappointed already to hear that the Minister is saying it will be 4 months, rather than 6 months, before it is reported back to the House.

I have to say that is actually probably indicative of an underlying agenda that we should all be a little bit concerned about here, and that the social sector should be concerned about. This is not an honest and upfront rewrite that is policy-neutral, like we had been told by the National Government that it would be. I am going to talk about some of the examples where we do have a few concerns. We know now, with the rewrite that the Minister has written into the principles—the investment approach. Our concern, and many other providers outside Parliament have concerns, is that actually there is a lot of critique that needs to be put into the National Government’s social investment approach. From just reading some academic articles on this recently, I have got even more cause for concern.

The social investment approach that that Government has presented us with is all about forward liability—the cost to the State. But there is no cost-benefit analysis going on in that if we make this investment into these people and we provide them with this level of support and resource, what will be the benefits down the track and how much money will that actually save for us as a country? It is all short-term gains—all about how much money the Government is paying out in any financial year to benefits. It is all about its issues with long-term welfare dependency, but nothing about real investment. Real social investment, as far as we on this side of the House are concerned, is about investment in people and making sure that if they actually do have to have an interaction with the social welfare system, we support them so that an investment is made, so that when they leave the benefit they are better placed to go into secure work, they are better placed to increase their earning capacity, and they are better placed to support their families.

But none of that focus is part of what that social investment approach from the National Government has given us. When the Government amended, here in the rewrite, the principles of the social security legislation, I would have actually liked to see an amendment to the principles. But the amendment I would have liked to see to the principles would be the inclusion of a principle that every person who goes to Work and Income or who requires assistance is given their full entitlements and given the absolute commitment that they are not being denied anything that they and their family may be eligible to access. I would have liked to see something like that put in the principles. I would have also liked to see something about how people would be given full access to their rights, in terms of how to make a complaint. These are real issues.

Actually, we saw it recently with the impact workshops that were undertaken by Auckland Action Against Poverty, alongside Work and Income. I think it ran that workshop for 3 days. Something like 700 people went through those workshops, wanting to know whether or not they were accessing their full entitlements, and wanting to know whether or not there was any other support they could access. Auckland Action Against Poverty was inundated with requests for support. That support should actually be provided by the Government agency that has been put in place to provide it. We should not need unfunded charitable organisations or voluntary organisations like Auckland Action Against Poverty to step in to make sure that people are getting their full entitlements. You know, it is mean of the Government to constantly find ways of denying people access to things that they actually are entitled to.

The stress and anxiety that it causes these people is huge. I think all of us who are electorate MPs see this on a daily basis with the people who are coming through our offices. I know, having had, at last count, 310 constituents come through my electorate office in Kelston over a period of a year, that it is a big issue for people out there—63 percent of the 310 constituents who came through my office in a year had Work and Income and, in many cases, housing as well, as their primary issue for coming for support.

That is just one area. That is just the principles that we have concerns about. But also there is a mismatch between the operation of the welfare system and the proposed principle of ensuring the best possible outcome for beneficiaries. So by writing that into the principles—but then, on the other hand, with the Minister not committing the ministry to tracking employment outcomes, how can the Government possibly say that the principle is to achieve the best possible outcome for the actual client? All we see, on this side of the House, is that that Government sees the desirable outcome as being only about going off benefit, not about going on to something better. So that is a concern.

There are some changes in here that are not about a rewrite. They are completely different policy areas, including the shift from an emergency unemployment benefit to an exceptional circumstances benefit. It is not just changing the title of that benefit’s name; it is changing the expectations too, in terms of imposing work obligations on to those people who go to access that type of benefit. So it is not a straight switch of title. There are actually obligations that come with that change in name, and with that new benefit.

So we are really disappointed, on this side of the House, that this is not the straightforward, policy-neutral social security legislation rewrite that we were promised. I am disappointed, and I am sure there are others in the House who are disappointed, that all we can see is another sneaky move by the National Government to try to make changes under the guise of something that we on this side of the House had all supported, but now have to question. We are questioning the motives of the Minister and the motives of the National Government in terms of what they are proposing here. As I said from the get-go, we will support this only because we do support having a rewrite of the legislation to bring it into line, to make it consistent, to make it transparent, and to tidy it up. We will support its referral to the select committee, but we will not support the National Government’s hidden agenda around this. We will want the time necessary to make sure we can analyse this—

I am sorry to interrupt the member, but her time has expired.

On a day when we should all be rejoicing, what a negative and mealy-mouthed contribution from Carmel Sepuloni. I was expecting much better from her than nothing more than pettifogging criticisms of what is, in the words of David Clark, the most significant rewrite in 50 years. It is timely that we have this rewrite, because the Social Security Act 1964 is a shambles. It is unintelligible. It requires legions of lawyers in the Ministry of Social Development to go like soothsayers through the legislation and its amendments to try to discern its meaning. The public do not know what it means, in a critically important area of law, and that is why we are doing it. It is something that has been commended to this House by retired Supreme Court judges, by the Law Commission, and by academics on many occasions.

It is a tribute to this excellent Minister for Social Development and her wonderful team of lawyers at the ministry, and the great team at the Parliamentary Counsel Office, that we have reached this stage. So instead of mindless criticism from Carmel Sepuloni, we in this House should be rejoicing. We should be supporting the rewrite of legislation, across all fields, that is out of date, because it is the fundamental right of the citizen to know what his or her obligations or rights are in legislation.

We can do revisions under the Legislation Act 2012, and I will shortly be bringing to the House a very interesting revision. But this is not a simple revision. This is, if you like, a revision-plus. There are a couple of matters that were required to be included to bring the legislation up to date, and this bill is an example of the kind of work this House should be undertaking.

Lest anyone think that the rewriting of legislation is some kind of cold, arid exercise, it actually goes to the heart of a parliamentary democracy. A senior English judge once analysed the rule of law in eight sub-rules. One of his sub-rules was that the law must be accessible and, so far as possible, intelligible, clear, and predictable. A very wise person who served this House for many, many years, the former Chief Parliamentary Counsel, the late George Tanner QC, once said: “A state in which people cannot plainly understand the laws might as well be a lawless state.” So here we are.

It is a great day for Parliament that we are dealing with this legislation to introduce what could be called a plain English approach to complex and often convoluted legislation. Too much of our legislation is wordy and hard to understand. Mind you, it is going to take a lot to beat this real shocker from the United Kingdom, contained in the Banking Act 1979 Appeals Procedure (England and Wales) Regulations 1979, which says: “Any reference in these regulations to a regulation is a reference to a regulation contained in these regulations.” I mean, that is exactly the sort of rubbish that all too often is put in the statute book. It means nothing, and therefore one has to employ lawyers to interpret that kind of garbage and, although I am very much in favour of lawyers getting a fair share of the fees, I think that that kind of reference is simply nonsense.

So my congratulations go to Mrs Tolley, an outstanding Minister for Social Development, who has done such a wonderful job of pushing this legislation reform through. There are no votes in it, but it is extremely important to maintain the structure of our legislation and, if necessary, undertake a leviathan rewrite. Mrs Tolley has done what many, many Ministers in the past have failed to do. She has grasped the nettle, and I am so very, very proud of her.

The second matter I want to just refer to is my section 7 report. Mrs Tolley did say, and it was a fair enough point, that the provisions relating to blind people—the totally blind—have been included in the legislation from time immemorial, but when we did the rewrite it was an opportunity to go through the legislation, even though it is a rewrite, and say: “Well, let’s just kick the tyres, in Bill of Rights terms, to see that nothing breaches the Bill of Rights.” There was this issue that arose, and I hope the select committee will take a look at it and perhaps give the House an opinion.

Clause 33 deals with the supported living payment on the grounds of restricted work capacity or total blindness, and sets out the requirements. I also refer honourable members to schedule 4 on the rate of benefits and, particularly, to Part 3 of that schedule, which deals with the supported living payment. Clause 1(e) of that part sets out the payments to a beneficiary, but, further on, clause 1 says: “in computing the income of any beneficiary receiving a supported living payment under section 33 for the purpose of this schedule, MSD must—(a) disregard that part of the beneficiary’s income (not exceeding $20 a week) earned by the beneficiary’s own efforts; and (b) disregard all of the income of a totally blind beneficiary earned by the beneficiary’s own efforts.”

So on the face of it there would appear to be an issue that engages the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act substantively. It may be understandable, but in New Zealand Bill of Rights Act terms there does appear to be a discrimination between various classes of groups suffering from a disability. Individuals who are totally blind are eligible for certain entitlements that people with other disabilities are not entitled to, so that is why I reached the conclusion that the distinction materially disadvantages people with disabilities other than total blindness. So that is the reason why the section 7 report was produced, although it was produced in the knowledge that the provisions have been in the social security legislation for quite some time.

I hope that there will be other examples of rewrites in the months and years to come. Both parties have done it in Government. In the Labour Government, Mrs King, when she was the Minister of Justice, kicked off the reform of the Limitation Act. That was a piece of legislation that was so lousy that the Court of Appeal was saying: “We can’t do anything with this legislation. It’s beyond repair so far as the judges are concerned. There needs to be work done.” That is why Mrs King, when she was the Minister of Justice, got on with reforming it and got the Law Commission to look at it, and the result is we have a Limitation Act that is now fit for purpose. So these things do matter.

Keeping our legislation up to date should not be the cause of that biting negativism - type speech that we heard from Carmel Sepuloni. We as parliamentarians should be very pleased this sort of thing has happened. As I said, law commissioners have told us to do it, judges have told us to do it, and now we are actually doing it—the first rewrite of social security legislation in 50 years. I have no doubt at all, given the gruesome smile by the Green MP sitting down the back, that we are about to endure another negative speech on the subject. But I say to her, as I say to all in the House, in the immortal words of Mrs Thatcher: “Rejoice, rejoice. This is indeed a great day.”

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill in its first reading. The member who has just resumed his chair, Christopher Finlayson, likes to quote leaders from around the world. I want to bring one right back here into Aotearoa. Meri Ngāroto is famed for having said “He aha te mea nui o tēnei ao, māku e kī atu he tangata, he tangata, he tangata!”.

[What is the most important thing in this world? I say it is people, people, and people indeed!]

I have already mentioned in this House that at one point in time, in a former life, I was a case manager. In fact, I was a case manager at Work and Income as it went through a rebranding process, and the rebranding process plastered Meri Ngāroto’s phrase all across the walls, right across the country. The intent of that was to put people at the forefront of what we did, to put people at the forefront of the services we provided to them as they came in off the street or as they came in out of their homes to seek much-needed assistance, because, let us be very clear: people actually do not want to come into Work and Income if they do not have to. We know that it is a safety net.

In 1964 a bit of a groundbreaking piece of legislation, really, was passed to make sure that those who do need that assistance are able to get it. If I can cast the minds of this House back to 1964—just very briefly, for somebody like myself who was not even born in the 1960s, but this will be familiar to many of the members on the other side of the House. In June 1964 the Beatles arrived in New Zealand—something a little bit interesting. On 30 May 1964 the Marsden Point oil refinery plant was opened after several years of construction. There were so many things that happened in those times—exciting times—but we do acknowledge and we support the fact that a rewrite is required in modern times, a rewrite that will allow more accessibility and a clearer understanding for those who are affected by this particular piece of legislation. We want to see that that information is available to them so that they are able to understand exactly what they are eligible for. But, more important—I have mentioned those who need to receive the services. Just as important, I want to remember, are those case managers who are there and have to carry out the new policy directions—despite the assertions of this Government—in some of the rewrite that is in front of us today.

We do have some concerns on this side of the House. We are supporting this bill. Let me be clear—I will say that again—we are supporting the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill, but we do have some serious concerns. My colleague here, Carmel Sepuloni, mentioned—despite the assertions of this Government that it is a policy-neutral piece of legislation—that this is about modernising what is, essentially, old legislation. We on this side, after having read through many of the proposed changes—and there are many—would argue that, in fact, some of the changes go a little bit too far. They are not as neutral as the Government is asserting. We would argue, on this side of the House, that in following true democratic process we will be here to make sure that we hold this Government to account. We are here to read through these things to make sure that (1), yes, people are put at the forefront of all policy decision-making around social welfare and that (2) things are clearly accessible, coherent, and easily understood by those who are (1) affected by the piece of legislation and (2) those who are asked to carry out this piece of legislation. Also, we will be here to challenge any part where we think there is a bit of a hidden agenda.

One of those parts I want to talk to is the introduction of a new power to make regulations specifying groups of beneficiaries whose benefit instalments can be redirected without their consent. Redirected without their consent—I wonder how that might impact on the individual’s rights. We know, as MPs in Tāmaki-makau-rau—my colleagues here on this side of the House—that for many of those Work and Income clients who do come into our offices, quite often it is admitted by Work and Income that “Sorry, it was an administration error.” or “We are really sorry about that. We were under the impression that we could redirect these.” Although that is something that can be sorted with the case manager, one of the fears I have is that if you take $20 out of a person’s benefit, where does that leave them? In even more hardship. It takes kai off the table. It takes away some of the things that we would like to think our families can provide for our tamariki and for our mokopuna.

Redirecting $5 is a huge difference, and I would argue in this House that redirecting $2 is a huge difference. To just simply redirect money without the consent of a client or those most vulnerable in our community is going to make a huge impact—I say that again: a huge impact—because the assertions by this Government are that it is policy-neutral, that there is not going to be significant impact, and that, if anything, it is going to make things a lot easier. I would argue that it will not. That particular case is a very clear example of how things will not get easier for those families who are affected by decisions like this, decisions that simply redirect their money to other places. What does that do? I reiterate, it takes money away from the families who need it.

We support this bill. We are always keen on seeing sensible legislation pass through this House—sensible legislation that makes things easier. I wonder, though—speaking from experience of the SWIFTT benefit payment system. SWIFTT is an acronym for Social Welfare Information for Tomorrow Today, which was groundbreaking stuff back in the 1980s and 1990s when they introduced it. However, because of that piece of technology and the assertions by this Government that it will make things easy in terms of the technology, I would argue that that is actually not the case, because the benefit payment system—and I have worked with this benefit payment system. I have spoken to many of the case managers who are currently working at the front line today, and they say that the benefit payment system is so hard-wired that any flexibility is stripped from it. I understand why it has to be that way, because you are dealing with billions of dollars. You are dealing with payments to beneficiaries, to—

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: Superannuitants.

—superannuitants, and to those who need these services. The Government is telling us that it is going to make things easier in the technological space, and I am going to argue that it will not, simply because the benefit payment system does not allow that.

What, then, should we be doing to make things easier? We have already mentioned some of those things: do not redirect payment without people’s consent, and make things clearly understood by the clients and those who go in to receive those services. Although we acknowledge that this rewrite will do some of that, we still maintain that there is another policy agenda here, and we are going to be making sure that as this bill passes through its first reading in the House—with our support today—we will be holding this Government to account. We will be making sure that all of those who are impacted on by these types of omnibus bills, as I like to say—even though this is a big piece of work, we have seen it time and time again in this House that omnibus bills come in and the devil is in the detail. We know that, yet time frames are being circumvented—time frames are being circumvented—so that we can push these things through. It does not allow the public and those who are affected by these types of legislative changes to come in and make sure that they clearly understand what is being proposed here and that they have a say on what is going to affect them. We on this side of the House will be sure to make sure that this Government is held to account as this bill progresses.

In conclusion, I started with the proverb from Meri Ngāroto—“he tangata, he tangata, he tangata!”—and I want to return that way. I want to make sure that it is people at the forefront of these decisions. Although I am all for making legislation such as this—in particular, large pieces of legislation like this one, the social security legislation—easier, more understandable, and more accessible, we will be here to make sure that it serves the people it says it will. He tangata, he tangata, he tangata. Kia ora.

I rise to take a call on the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill in its first reading, and firstly I do want to commend the Minister for Social Development. As has been mentioned by the Hon Chris Finlayson, for over 50 years this legislation has been in existence, and over that period of time I imagine there have been a number of opportunities for there to be a rewrite to address the inconsistencies and the lack of clarity that are in the legislation, and yet people have passed this by. Possibly it has been a bridge too far, in the too-hard basket, or maybe too difficult or too complex, and yet this Minister has taken the courage of her convictions to believe that it is an important piece of legislation that does need to be rewritten.

It is important that this be taken on board in the context of not just a rewrite in other areas, such as the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act, but also an overhaul of the system. Many people have talked about the system, of its need and of its concern, but, at the same time, talk is cheap but action actually is what counts. That is what our communities look for. This piece of legislation is a piece of action, not just talk, although there have been a number of conversations that have been taken part in. This bill is an important part. It is “a technical revision or consolidation of existing legislation” and improves clarity and, especially, the ability for others to be able to navigate the legislation, whether they be in the legal fraternity or others who are there as advocates. It is important that there is clarity and the ability to be able to work through the system, as well. But most of all the bill as a whole, in its majority—there are parts that do, as has been mentioned by the previous speaker, Peeni Henare—“does not change the effect of [the] existing law.” I think that is important to point out.

I just want to talk about a few things. I may not talk about the Beatles, because, like the previous member, I was not even a twinkle in the eye at the time of 1964, but the intent of the legislation as it was written at that time was clearly to provide for those in need. It is one aspect of our law that I am sure that all New Zealanders would say that they are proud of. Why? Because it makes provision for those who are in need. For those in undue circumstances, they need the support of the State to provide a form of protection and provision for them at that time.

In some particular areas I want to give some examples of reasons for that rewrite, in particular of the Social Security Act. If we talk about income assessment, Work and Income case managers carry out close to 1 million transactions relating to income in a year. Nearly half of those relate to income received in the previous pay period. Changing the rules around how income is recorded and assessed could save huge time, and also resources, for beneficiaries and also staff. Another example is calculating the stand downs. Complicated income calculations are required to assess whether a beneficiary will have a 1- or 2- week stand-down period before getting a benefit payment. Onerous processes are required for every application when only 3 percent of beneficiaries will actually have a 2-week stand-down applied to them.

The last example I would like to give is the use of letters. More than 6 million letters were sent out in the past year to beneficiaries and superannuitants at a cost of more than $3 million. The Electronic Transactions Act 2002 already enables information that is required by statute to be provided in writing to be delivered electronically, ensuring the Act is permissive across a full range of communication methods. These are just three examples of how this bill will reform and modernise what we believe is the Social Security Act 1964.

We have heard of different examples of those in the sector. I know that there has been other commentary about wider consultation. The fact is that there have been a number of consultations with the sector and with key stakeholders. I think it is quite critically important when we go into this to hear from those commentators. I would like to quote from one organisation in particular that has been quoted. It is not commonly an organisation that we on the other side here would quote from, but this is from Auckland Action Against Poverty, which did make a statement on 4 November 2015. This is taken from the statement that it made: “Government is due to introduce a rewrite of the Social Security Act into Parliament next month …“MSD should focus on supporting unemployed people into decent work rather than cutting the benefits of sole parents …”, and “This is a golden opportunity for National to reconsider the entire thrust of its”—in Auckland Action Against Poverty’s words—“punitive and pointless welfare strategy.” But even in that form, there is obviously unanimous agreement that there is a need for the rewrite.

I also want to quote from an article written by Kate Newton, “Major welfare changes not planned”. She quotes from the law lecturer Māmari Stephens, who said that an overhaul of social security is long overdue: “Ms Stephens said the current legislation was messy, but that should not be used as a chance to reform social welfare by stealth. ‘I know how difficult it is to understand and I can see how difficult it is to navigate … so part of me thinks it’s a fantastic opportunity to come up with a piece of legislation that works a lot better than the current one does’ ”—in her own words. So I think that is quite important as well.

We have heard from Minister Tolley herself, who actually said that—I mean, previously, in 1964, in June, there were 135 sections to that legislation. There are now 491 sections, 187 have been repealed, and only four remain unchanged. That is a huge amount of change in this piece of legislation, and that goes to the heart of proving why this legislation is important.

I want to conclude my remarks just on a couple of remarks that have been made by Mr Peeni Henare, especially in regard to, I suppose, the aspect of redirecting from those who are clients who come into the system and the question of whether this is a just cause and action that should be taken. I would like to just remind the member that this is actually what currently happens at the moment anyway, in certain circumstances, for that. So the bill makes it clear that the exceptional circumstances benefit is to be paid at the rate of a main benefit. Rates of New Zealand superannuation are higher than the main benefit levels, and are linked to average wage levels. People have to live here for only 10 years to qualify at the age of 65. It was never intended that a person who does not qualify for the New Zealand superannuation would get a benefit paid at the same rate as people who qualify for it. The bill makes that clear.

So what we are talking about are minor changes. They are not changes that we would say would constitute—and I am sure that that would raise the interest of the Attorney-General—a breach of any form of human rights at all. I know that the concerns that have been raised have talked about this, but we believe that this not only complies with current human rights, but it is also appropriate as well.

As the chairperson of the Social Services Committee, I look forward to the bill coming to our select committee. I look forward to opening the committee up for submissions and to hearing a further expression of both concerns and issues but also to opportunities for this bill to truly make a difference to the lives of the families whom we serve—and especially through the department as well—for which this legislation has been intended. I commend this bill, in its first reading, to the House.

The Green Party will not be able to support this bill. We absolutely supported the need for a rewrite, and we may have been able to support a completely policy-neutral rewrite of this legislation.

When we were considering previous welfare reforms passed through this House, I remembered the submission from the Legislation Advisory Committee complaining about the state of the legislation, noting that since it had been introduced in 1964 it had been amended—this was in 2012—131 times, that there had been 54 new sections added, and that the Act as it existed included over 50 points of discretion. Nobody would argue—and I have not heard anybody arguing in this House—that there was not a need for a simplification to make sure that the legislation that applies to some of the poorest people in this country and protects their ability to put food on the table on a good day should be simple and easy to follow. Nobody is arguing against that.

What we are upset about with this legislation, though, is that the Government has taken this shared concern and used it as an opportunity to entrench its world view and its policies and attitudes towards welfare—which were not in legislation—and has them put into the legislation, and it has gone even further and applied some of its sanction regimes to people who were not covered by them previously. That, to us, is actually a bit of an abuse of the process, and it is a shame because people in New Zealand deserve better than that.

I do want to put on the record that we oppose the entrenching of the current practice for several reasons. One is we believe it is punitive, and the second core reason is that it is not working. Actually, unemployment is not going down at the rate that labour force participation is going up by. Under previous legislation, without sanctions and without this punitive approach, unemployment went down at a much faster rate as labour force participation went up. So the approach is just not working, and people are suffering.

We had the news last week about 161,000 people who have potentially been sanctioned since these new regimes were introduced. That is probably over 100,000 children living in households that had their already below-poverty-line incomes cut, with a result of not actually changing the unemployment figures to the extent that we would have expected to happen naturally. So this is an approach that is not working, and the Government has taken the opportunity to extend that failed approach under the auspices of simplifying the Act, which was something that we absolutely supported.

I want to speak to some of the specifics in this because I am aware that this is actually quite a large piece of legislation and I do want people who are affected by this legislation, or might have a need for this legislation in the future, to be able to have an input on it. So far, I have not heard all of the provisions in it mentioned by anyone yet, so I would like to outline some of our concerns, to give people a point to consider for themselves and, hopefully, submit on the bill. I would also say that we will be supporting the amendment to extend the consideration period, rather than having the 2-month, shortened period that Minister Tolley has offered, to support people doing that and participating in this process.

One of the things we oppose is that this will entrench in legislation—where it does not exist in legislation at the moment—the investment approach, changing the purpose statement of the bill. The regulatory impact statement noted that a point for doing this is to avoid accusations of discrimination—to head off any legal challenge on the basis of discrimination is the justification for putting this in the purpose of the Act. Sadly, in this House I have become quite familiar with the Government justifying discrimination and saying: “Well, you know, it’ll have a short-term pay-off for us in terms of our welfare payments. We think it’s justified.” The Green Party is never going to support that view, and we do not support putting an investment approach into the purpose of this Act when its reason is to head off any legal challenge on the basis of discrimination.

We also want to point out that this investment approach is, at the moment, highly critiqued and people are not exactly sure what it means. There are some concerns that what it means is that the Government can provide services to a group of people whom it thinks will get off the benefit quicker, whereas those services will not be available to people who will not be in a position to go into a paid workforce. The Government is really denying some people services on the basis that they may not be able to enter the workforce.

Then we have this situation, with this legislation in front of the House at the moment, of punitive services being provided as an investment in one group of people, as well. That has a real potential to actually heighten stigma and entrench discrimination as it exists at the moment. This kind of provision has the opportunity to actually give more support for those kinds of policies, and that is definitely not something that we would want to see. I note a kind of, I think, very measured concern in relation to the investment approach from Bill Rosenberg from the Council of Trade Unions. Critiquing the investment approach, he said: “It is better viewed as a one-dimensional performance indicator rather than a systemic approach to policy and evaluation.” So this is a highly debated approach that the Government has, and we are not ready to see it in legislation.

I also want to raise the point that has been raised already that the bill formalises a new power to make regulations for benefit redirections without the beneficiary’s consent. Currently, 80 to 85 percent of beneficiaries who are tenanted in Housing New Zealand properties have a benefit redirection in place, and community housing providers have had this ability since 2014, but case managers use their discretion to decide whether to do a redirection or not. A mandatory redirection can leave families without enough to meet essential expenses and no individual discretion to meet those challenges. Given that benefits are often not enough to survive on as it is, this will make things harder for those who are struggling.

There will be changes to the emergency benefit, which will be renamed the exceptional circumstances benefit and will require work testing and open people up to sanctions. That is not appropriate, and that is a significant change in policy and an extension of the Government’s work-test regime.

There is also another policy in here that will require people accessing the unsupported child’s benefit to use it for the benefit of the child, and that will be put into legislation. In the regulatory impact statement that is justified by saying it is to empower Work and Income staff to discuss with carers issues that fall below the threshold for Child, Youth and Family involvement. It is trying to make Work and Income staff—who are already underpaid and under-resourced—social workers. They are not social workers and they should never be empowered to be taking a social work role, particularly when it is in relation to people being able to get their money and being able to feed themselves.

The bill will also enable both parents, when they are in a split-custody situation, to be able to get the sole parent’s allowance. There is something potentially positive about that. That is when parents have one child each, and that has been decided through the courts, potentially, or separately. But there is also the potential for this to be a perverse incentive for parents, when breaking up, to split the children into each parent’s care so that both parents can get a certain amount of money. I doubt anyone in this House would want to see that eventuate. When people are living below the poverty line you could not blame them for that, but that is not at all going to be for the benefit of those kids.

The bill will also remove the requirement for notices to be sent by letter. Although we totally support the reduction of paper use, we need to ensure that people get these notices because it can affect their ability to feed themselves. We cannot support this bill.

It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill. Before I do, I would just like to take a second to acknowledge the life and work of the pioneer of modern social work in New Zealand and former Palmerston North City Council councillor, Merv Hancock, who passed away on Saturday. He was the first president of the New Zealand Association of Social Workers, and he was appointed to run the first New Zealand undergraduate degree in social work. He truly made and will make a difference across many generations and future generations.

New Zealand First will be supporting this bill’s referral through to the select committee, but we do have some reservations. We do support the fact that, as the Minister for Social Development and other members mentioned, the legislation has been full of amendments for 50 years. There is an intent to clarify the legislation for ease of reading, which New Zealand First supports, and, obviously, there is an aim to improve the administration of the legislation. I would like to actually mention I agreed with Carmel Sepuloni when she said this was a promised rewrite, not policy changes, and that is exactly what has happened here. Although the Minister has said they are somewhat small changes, they will have effects. New Zealand First, although we do agree with most of the small changes the Minister spoke about, would like to see, through the select committee process, submissions and evidence to go with it.

We do have one large concern, and it has been mentioned by both Labour and the Greens also. All you need to really do is look into the regulatory impact statement to see how it actually stands out in regards to the writing of the policy proposals in this bill. Under the policy proposals—there are five of them. If you take four of them, you are looking at the removal of an unused provision, and it states there are no changes provided; another one is about the enabling of redirections to be applied to certain groups, where, again there are no changes to the support; merging the orphans and unsupported child’s benefit, where we are talking about a name change; and renaming the emergency benefit as the exceptional circumstances benefit. Those are four of them. Then the other one you have got is including support for an investment approach in the actual purpose of the legislation.

Those are two very distinct and different things. You are talking about small, practical changes that the Minister was talking about—small changes. But that is versus the inclusion of the investment approach in the purpose of the legislation, which is, actually, the overarching National philosophy in the umbrella—that is the purpose. What that means is that every piece of legislation in the social security legislation and every decision, every deduction, and every inference has to be tied back to the investment approach. The question is what the investment approach is. When it boils down to it, it is, first and foremost, National mantra and philosophy and modus operandi. But it is also about data collection, predictive modelling, and targeting of people who are at high risk of becoming a liability to the State. That is about the financial liability to the State. That is what National wants to put into the overarching purpose of this legislation.

What that states is that it is all about the financial approach, and it is about numbers and not about need. In theory, really, it works quite well in business, but not when you are dealing with people. This is a country; not a business. We are dealing with people; we are not dealing with stock and we are not dealing with money. But, given that is the National stance and pathway into the social services legislation rewrite, you would assume—hopefully, quite rightly—that if it is being put into the purpose that National would know that it will work. But it is actually the contrary to that. Not only do we have evidence that it does not work, which the Government itself comes up with, but we actually have international evidence that the investment approach does not work.

Going back to the regulatory impact statement, I would like to highlight the fact that the investment approach is actually not a small change. Putting it into the purpose of the Act is not a small change. The Supreme Court has said “Even if the meaning of the text may appear plain in isolation of purpose, that meaning should always be cross checked against purpose in order to observe the dual requirements …”. That is not the minor change that the Minister spoke about. In fact, I would like it highlighted that the Minister did not even talk about the investment approach being included in the purpose of the Act in her entire first speech. The regulatory impact statement also goes on to state, in the very first sentence of its definition in supporting the investment approach, that it “applies a long-term liability perspective to the cost of the benefit system.” It talks about client outcomes and overall liability. Again, as I mentioned, it is about the financial liability to the State, and it is a new approach to welfare that is not well-supported in the current wording of the bill. It is not supported in the current wording of the bill because this is new and it is a social experiment that National wants to put into legislation.

The regulatory impact statement talks about the key building blocks. A few of them, which I will mention, talk about the actuarial evaluation, which, I must mention, has not been done yet, especially in regards to the Child, Youth and Family overhaul, and identifying “clients who we should focus on based on how long they might stay on a benefit …”. It is based on how long they might stay on a benefit. That is written in the regulatory impact statement. Why is it not based on the need of the individual? Why is it based on how long they may stay on the benefit? It talks about the fact that it is actually trialling new approaches and seeing what works best. National is still trialling new approaches to see what works best. It does not know whether the investment approach actually works or not.

Then it starts talking about the goals and how it measures them. It goes back to talk about the Better Public Services target that this Government implemented in 2012 and has not yet evaluated. It has not had an independent review or evaluation of the Better Public Services targets since their inception. The Government made the target, it reviewed the target itself, it changed the target itself, and then Government members come out to the House and to the public and say how well they are doing. The Government tests it, itself. Obviously, that is not a good position to be in.

It was highlighted not too long ago by the Salvation Army, actually, when it talked about moving targets—Moving Targets was the actual title of its annual report. It said the title is: “an allusion to the way in which some government agencies appear to be using targets and the numbers behind them in a less than straightforward and reliable manner. … While the targets may not change with such practices, the meaning behind them can.” It is not actually “mindless criticism”, like the Hon Christopher Finlayson said, but there are very reputable organisations that have evidence that it is not working. When it boils down to it, this is a social experiment currently being run by the National Government.

Let us look at some of the international research and what the Government says itself in regard to data collection, because if we are talking about the investment approach, we are talking about what the targets have been measured with and we are talking about the data that needs to be collected to maintain those targets. Statistics New Zealand, on the Government’s website itself, says that “Some of the methods used are exploratory, so results are indicative only, and not accurate estimates or forecasts of the outcomes and costs that will be incurred in the future.” This is from the Government’s own website.

Statistics New Zealand is talking about Social Investment Insights. “The scope of the data is limited by the information collected in agencies’ administrative systems, … data provides only a partial picture of childhood adversity, service use, and service costs.” This is information that the Government has available to it, and it is still making the decision to put this in the entire purpose of the Act so that every piece of law that has been implemented in regard to social services has to rely on that purpose, but the Government does not even know whether it works in the first place.

I would just like to finish by quoting some international research on the investment approach and data collection. Stanford Social Innovation Review says: “Beyond the infrastructural impediments that social sector users of big data face, data itself can be a problem. Oftentimes, data are missing and incomplete, or stored in silos or in forms that are inaccessible to automated processing.” What it is saying is that even though the investment approach is based on data, the data is limited in itself—the data is limited in itself. You run the chance of focusing on the data that you have and ignoring the data that you do not have. You would be focusing on the victims and not on the situation that they are in and what caused them to be victims in the first place.

We will be supporting this bill through the first reading to the select committee, but we have massive reservations. Hopefully, those questions can be answered and the concerns can be mitigated later on through the process. Thank you.

I too just want to pause at the beginning of my contribution on this bill to acknowledge Merv Hancock QSO. Merv, as has been said, was a city councillor in Palmerston North, but is most widely known across New Zealand as the pioneer of modern social work. He was instrumental in setting up the Bachelor of Social Work degree at Massey University in 1975, and beyond that throughout the community of Palmerston North he was also instrumental in establishing Methodist Social Services, Birthright, Marriage Guidance, Parents Centres, the National Society on Alcohol and Drug Dependence, and many, many others.

There was, I think, something about the man, who was incredibly humble and incredibly approachable. I know he was always prepared to give me some wise advice from time to time, but his humility was incredible, and, in fact, when the community house was named after him in Palmerston North, I remember taking a considerable amount of time to actually have to talk him into it. He was a great man who will be well remembered for many years to come. Ā, ki tōku hoa, haere, haere, haere atu rā!

[And so, to my friend, depart, farewell, and journey on.]

This Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill is a pretty substantial kind of a document, considering all 700 pages of it are sitting in front of me. I have not had the chance to read all of it just yet. Is it 700 pages? Oh, it is 446 pages, sorry. I have not had the chance to read it all yet. I am looking forward to it, as we go through it. If this is the simplified version, you can only be quite grateful that we are simplifying it down from what we did have before. We have had a number of speakers talk about the gazillion different versions there have been, and amendments over time, so it is important for us to do. A rewrite was clearly needed and on the cards, and so that is what has been done.

In my brief contribution, I just want to pick up on a couple of the provisions that have been highlighted, at least in the Bills Digest, if not from me being able to digest the whole bill, as such, yet. In particular, I want to focus, firstly, on the renaming of the emergency benefit to the exceptional circumstances benefit. Although people ask what is in words, I think there is something incredibly important about that, because if you find yourself in exceptional circumstances and you start to become accustomed, unfortunately, to those exceptional circumstances, you may not see it as an emergency. I think it is really important that for those people who are desperately—sorry, Mr Assistant Speaker, I do not mean to refer to you. If people were to find themselves in exceptional circumstances, we want to make sure that we can break down some of those barriers for them to be able to access the things they are entitled to. I think this is a really good initiative. Just that little tweak of a word is, I think, clearly really, really important.

I do want to touch on how the last couple of speakers have been very critical of the investment approach, which is, again, one of the underlying principles that is going into this rewrite of the social security legislation. I find it quite bizarre there has been this opposition to an investment approach, because if you look at the fact that 18 and 19-year-olds—what we know is that when somebody under the age of 20 is going on a benefit in New Zealand, the average time, at the moment, that they can expect to be on that benefit is 13 years. I do not know about you, but I reckon it is worth investing in some of those young people, and not just simply so the taxpayers can save some money over time by not paying them benefits for 13 years. Let us actually invest in them to ensure that they get the best possible outcomes.

We have seen that with the young person’s benefit, the young parents payment that is being paid, the work that is being done with the Youth Service, and investing in those young people—we are going to see some really good results over time. If we do not actually take that investment approach, we are clearly just going to say: “We’re just prepared to sit back and see what happens.”

These are some good principles that are involved in this bill. I am quite convinced we are going to see more positive things happen for people in New Zealand. It was overdue to get the Social Security Act rewritten, clearly. That is what has been done. I am looking forward to the bill coming to the select committee so we can discuss some of these things in greater detail, but at the first reading I am, clearly, happy to support it. I think we will see some great results in years to come. Thank you.

This is a rewrite of social security law. Māori are 35 percent of benefit recipients. Māori saw the biggest rise in unemployment across the whole country—a 2.2 percent increase in Māori unemployment, from 10.6 percent to 12.8 percent. I am standing as the spokesperson for Māori development in light of what this legislation means and how this impacts directly on Māori.

There is clear agreement from all of us in this House, I think, that the current law is an unwieldy mess and needs to be tightened up. It needs to be straightforward and clear—we absolutely agree. That should not at all be the excuse, therefore, to put through sneaky reforms, especially when it is going to impact mostly, and disproportionately, on Māori families and Māori babies. That is why I stand for the Green Party today very gladly and thankfully to say we are outright opposing this bill from the get-go.

I want to again highlight agency and the loss of it in this rewrite, with the redirection of benefits without consent. Immediately, I remember, actually, from 6 months ago, when I was not on an MP’s salary, what redirection does to a family. I know that personally. My redirection was not of a benefit, but it was because when you are struggling and making trade-offs between buying food, paying for the heaters to be able to be put on and for your hot water to stay on, and paying the rent, there is not a whole lot of choice there. If you do not have a say in trying to manage something in a really difficult situation, gosh, the stress is incredible. It happened to me. I know firsthand that this is not a good and sustainable way to manage and care for our people.

When that happens, when we are causing those most vulnerable to face even harsher situations, it has a cumulative impact. It makes things worse and worse and worse, and, as a country, that ends up falling upon all of us and particularly on our children. This law is far too important to sneak anything through that is driven by an agenda. Why should we not be clear that there is honesty in what the agendas are in rewriting this bill? That has not been proven to us by the National Government so far.

So, again, I have some really clear concerns, especially about the investment approach. It absolutely is narrow. The investment approach will unfairly profile those whom the Government thinks are liable and a risk. Why have none of the Government members bothered to mention the word “risk” when they are trying to celebrate the investment approach? Who is it going to impact on?

Sixty percent of children in care are Māori. Even just the fact that you have been in contact with Child, Youth and Family automatically gives you a bad mark against your name and assigns risk to you. This is going to unfairly impact on young Māori people, and of course I oppose that. This is actually profiling in action. This is totally profiling, and it does not take into account any of the wider indicators that need to be considered, at all. So I absolutely agree with my colleague Darroch Ball in raising clear concerns, not mindless opposition, about these very damaging approaches.

Again, we say the punitive approach—Māori unemployment has risen 2.2 percent—is not what we need here. We need a whole-of-system review that addresses the real problems with the law, but also this is a distraction. We do need good, clear law, but I do not want it to be used as a distraction from the underlying issues. It would be better to aim to not have to use this law at all in the future. I do not want this work programme to be taken as the work programme to address the wider social issues. That is what I am also concerned about in this rewrite.

Māori children—have I gone over time? Oh, I did not get a bell. Sorry, Mr Assistant Speaker.

Just to make it clear to the member, generally in a 5-minute call the bell does not ring. I did wave my finger at the member to give her a 1-minute warning.

Thank you for this brief call on the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill. New Zealand has a proud history where we are usually forward-thinking about the social security of our citizens. New Zealand has led the world in instituting measures to ensure that there is a safety net, that every New Zealand family has a house or a home to call their own, that no one should starve or be forced into poverty, and that our children are healthy and well educated.

In practice, however, we are nowadays falling far behind other developed countries and our child poverty numbers continue to rise. This Government is failing some of our most vulnerable families and some of our most vulnerable children. This Government is ignoring the big and very real issues that everyday New Zealanders are facing each day—for instance, the housing crisis, particularly in Auckland and Christchurch; the ever-increasing rents; health cuts; a lack of jobs; low wages; and growing education costs, particularly for our parents. Safe, warm, dry homes are becoming scarce in parts of our community, including in South Auckland, where I am a member of Parliament. We are seeing people who are living in severely overcrowded conditions. They are living in garages, tents, and caravans.

Most of the time, as electorate MPs, we sit in our offices—in my case in Ōtara—and families walk through the door telling us that they are homeless, or that they are living in cars. They come in their minivans, sometimes. But last week I drove past a house on one of the roads in Ōtara, and I saw this tent pitched at the front. I stopped and I went and knocked on the door. But before I got to knocking on the door, as I walked past the tent I looked over and I could actually clearly see that there were four, or possibly five, beds set up in this tent. When I knocked on the door the mother answered the door, and I said: “I’m the local MP and I can see that you’re living in an overcrowded kind of condition. Can you just tell me how many people live in this household of yours?”. This mother said to me “17 people”—17.

People lived in the tent at the front. People lived in the garage. She had a caravan out the back, as well. People lived in the caravan. She said: “Look into this house. You will see that there are beds in the hallway.” Some of her children were even sleeping in the hallway. People are living in severely overcrowded conditions and living in—this is an example of just one house, where you saw all of these issues in the one household.

Our social security legislation, which we are discussing in this bill, has itself been admirable, but the Social Security Act of 1964, like many other Acts, is pretty old. It has been kept going and been subjected to patches and amendments. Until now it has been just limping along in a fragmented and confusing way. It is indeed time that this particular legislation was consolidated into a clear and accessible piece of legislation. We owe that to New Zealand.

But may I just talk about another example. Down the road from me in Māngere, a few weeks ago, they had what was called the Auckland Action Against Poverty beneficiary impact day in Māngere, which was an eye-opener. They had over a hundred benefit advocates who were there on hand to help struggling families get their benefits—get their full entitlements. Organisers reported that they were stunned by the size and the desperation of the crowd waiting for help. On the final day of this action, they had hundreds and hundreds of people lined up. Many of them had been lined up since before 7 a.m. that morning, but there were so many people that, unfortunately, they had to turn some of these families away.

Can I just end by saying that Labour supports this bill. However, we have major reservations. One of the things that we have reservations about is that we can see that the principles need to be altered. However, when we are looking at a bill like this one, where many families are actually looking at it—ultimately, they rely on this kind of help for the necessities of life—we as legislators must approach changing this kind of legislation with a lot of caution. Thank you very much.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the first reading of the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill. The purpose of this bill is to rewrite the Social Security Act 1964, as implied by the name of this bill. This is intended to rewrite the legislation, which means to tidy it up, reorganise it, and make it simpler and clearer to understand. Why is this required? This is required because when the original Act was passed there were 135 sections in it, and now, bit by bit, it has grown to 491 sections. Most of the original sections have been amended, and some of those sections have been amended several times. With those changes and additions, the Act is very difficult to understand and very difficult to follow. It is a very important Act for the country, and if people are finding it difficult to understand, if people are finding it disjointed, it definitely needs attention. It needs fixing, and that is why we are rewriting this Act.

The main social security measures—that is, the main benefits and things related to the main benefits, which are the entitlement obligations and sanctions, assessment, and the right to appeal—will continue to be part of the primary legislation. A number of small policy changes are being included in this bill, and these changes are only to support modern service delivery and improve administrative efficiencies. The member from the Greens, Marama Davidson, used the words “sneaky reform”. This bill is not intended to reform the welfare system; it is just intended to rewrite the Social Security Act for the reasons that I have already spoken about. Yes, this is a rewrite, not a reform of the Act. It is rewriting the existing policy to make it clearer and easier to understand.

One thing I have noticed is that when people get used to one kind of document, any change will be confusing for them and it will take longer for them to understand the document. This bill is really good for new users, but for existing users it is, again, very good because it makes it clear when provisions continue existing policy. It also identifies the corresponding sections in the 1964 Act in each case, so that people can compare it, see where the changes are, and see what that section was in the original Act. Also, clause 9 is about any confusion that can come up about the meaning of a word, and for that this bill makes it clear that the old law—that is, the law as set out in the existing legislation—should be used to determine the meaning of that word. So this bill is good for new users, as it will make it simpler and clearer, and it is also good for existing users.

I look forward to working on this bill in the select committee process. I support this bill and commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

I am happy to be able to take a call in New Zealand Sign Language. [In New Zealand Sign Language.] It is my pleasure to take a call in this debate and to begin that call using one of New Zealand’s official languages, New Zealand Sign Language, in recognition that this week is the official week for New Zealand Sign Language.

It is also, I think, particularly appropriate in this debate to acknowledge the passing of Dr Merv Hancock, who, as colleagues earlier in this debate have noted, was a pioneer of the development of the social work profession in New Zealand. He founded the school of social work at Massey University in Palmerston North—he actually taught my wife when she did her social work degree at Massey—and he really did more, I think, than anybody else to develop the practice of family therapy in New Zealand. But what the previous speakers did not say is that Merv Hancock was a lifelong member of the Labour Party and, in fact, he stood as a Labour candidate in the 1972 election that swept Norman Kirk’s Labour Party to office in New Zealand. Merv missed the Horowhenua electorate by only 200 votes, so there we go. I want to pay tribute to Merv Hancock, and give my condolences on behalf of the Labour Party to the Hancock family.

There have been some interesting contributions in this debate so far, and those following it will know that Labour is supporting this bill, the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill, with reservations. I want to stress that we are supporting its referral to a select committee, but we do have reservations and we are somewhat disturbed by the attempt by the Government to push this bill through with a truncated period for review by the select committee. This is a big bill. It is a big and complex bill rewriting the principal Act for our social security system. It is not good enough for the Minister to come here today and propose that the bill should get only 4 months at the select committee when 6 months is the norm.

It is a large and complex bill, and I note that Government members have tried to argue that it is—I think the term that has been used is “policy-neutral”. Well, there have been enough contributions already in this debate, I think, to put to rest that notion. There is plenty of contention about the provisions of this bill, and we strongly believe that it needs the normal, 6-month period at the select committee so that it can have proper scrutiny by members of the committee and the officials, and, of course, public submissions.

It is a bit of a no-brainer that an Act that has been in place since 1964 and has had numerous amendments and changes over the years as the social security system has evolved and developed—I think it is a reasonable argument that the Act needs some streamlining and to be brought into the 21st century. We have got no problems with a rewrite exercise that is designed to bring clarity and consistency to the legislation. The principles of accessibility and cohesiveness that are included in the bill are great, but you do not have to get very far into this exercise to realise that there are significant substantive changes that are worthy of debate and detailed scrutiny.

The bill writes into the legislation the so-called social investment approach. On the face of it, Labour, and, I think, most people, would not have any problem with the professed intention of the social investment approach. Do we want to spend taxpayer dollars more wisely? Of course we do. Do we want to help the people who need it most—do we want to prioritise the provision of services and the spending of money? Of course we do. But what we observe about Bill English’s investment approach is that it is a little bit more about investment and a little bit less about the social side, and we would feel a lot more comfortable if it truly put people at the centre.

I think the inconsistency of this Government’s approach in relation to social investment can be seen in its stewardship of State housing, where it is proceeding to sell off billions of dollars’ worth of land and housing that is there for the purpose of putting a decent roof over people’s heads. It justifies it with the rhetoric of social investment, but actually the practice is something totally different, and what we witness is a running down of the State housing system and a selling-off of the resources, and the consequences of that are predictable: an explosion in visible homelessness all around the country. So forgive us for being sceptical about the intent in this bill to write into the legislation the so-called social investment approach, because, in fact, what we see is typical National small government and a winding back of the social development mandate of the Government, in the interests of actually just cutting spending.

Some other points that I wanted to make are that we currently see a real mismatch between the way that the welfare system currently operates and the principle in the bill about so-called best possible outcomes for beneficiaries. The problem here is that adequate data is simply not being collected on what the outcomes are. So the Government is out there in a very punitive and controlling way, chucking people off the benefit and incentivising staff to throw people off the benefit, but it is actually not tracking the employment outcomes. It is one thing to actually try to reduce welfare numbers by pushing people off the welfare rolls, but who knows what kind of life situation they are going to end up in? So unless the Government is actually serious about tracking employment outcomes, how are we in this House to take seriously the idea that the Act should be about best possible outcomes?

We support having a much stronger focus on promoting the welfare of children, but the failure in this bill of any serious attempt to assess the likely impact on children of the various changes that are made in this bill to benefits and payments to do with child policy really begs the question of whether this is just a rewrite—whether it is just a streamlining and just about modernising the legislation.

An additional concern we have is that this bill extends the ability of the Government to amend the regulations. It puts more extensive powers with the Government of the day to write regulations to put into practice the mandate of this bill. That raises real concerns about the potential lack of accountability and transparency in relation to this. It reduces the Government’s exposure to public feedback and scrutiny, and it is yet another thing that undermines our confidence that this is a policy-neutral rewrite simply designed to modernise the legislation.

We are worried about the changes to the emergency benefit. It is renamed the exceptional circumstances benefit through this bill, but on top of the name change there are actually some substantive changes as well that would allow the department to impose work obligations on people receiving the newly named exceptional circumstances benefit. There is a lot of good data that shows that fewer than 10 percent of the people who currently receive the emergency benefit are able to meet work obligations and, given the track record that this Government has of taking a punitive and controlling approach to the administration of the system of social development, that rings alarm bells for us.

We recognise the need to update this legislation. We are supporting this bill, with reservations, to go to the select committee. We are going to be voting for and supporting the amendment that Carmel Sepuloni has put on the table, which would extend the time that this bill is at the select committee by 2 months, on top of the regulation 6 months. It is indefensible that the Minister is proposing that a bill as large and complex and important as this is pushed through with a truncated time frame at the select committee.

It is my pleasure to rise and speak in support of this, the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill. One of the four key priorities this Government has set is to deliver better public services. In order to deliver better public services, the legislation needs to be clear and easy to interpret and easy to deliver on. In its current confusing and patched state, the legislation is a long way from being fit for purpose. After more than 50 years of tinkering, amending, and repealing, the Social Security Act 1964 needs a significant tidy-up.

Why, some may ask—why? The Act as it currently stands contains 491 sections, which has grown from the original 135 sections when first passed. Only four of those sections remain unchanged. Over time, 187 sections of the Act have been amended. Some have been amended multiple times and, as we have heard today, one of them nearly 300 times. The Act also needs to recognise the modern living environment and the working environment and allow for different methods of communication, not just paper-based methods as it does now. The changes proposed by this bill mean that it will be more comprehensive and easier for everyone to understand.

This Government has rolled up its sleeves and is facing this rewrite head-on, after it being in the too-hard basket for far too long. I congratulate Minister Anne Tolley on not shying away from hard work and rolling her sleeves up and getting on with the work.

Minor changes will see some similar benefits merging under one heading, such as the orphan’s benefit combining with the unsupported child’s benefit to be called the supported child’s payment. Some benefits will have a change of title, and other Acts will be repealed and replaced by this bill, such as the Social Welfare (Reciprocity Agreements, and New Zealand Artificial Limb Service) Act 1990. Another change will allow for both parents to apply for sole parent support in cases of split care. When a couple separates and each parent is the main carer for at least one child from that relationship, both parents are sole parents, but, currently, only one of them can claim sole parent support. The changes set out in the bill mean that both parents will be treated the same.

There is no doubt that this is a huge piece of work, but it is one that we are keen to undertake. I am confused, however, about some of the comments today that consider some of the aspects of this bill as being sneaky, when every word is to be dissected, debated, and consulted on in a public forum. This Government is committed to openness and transparency and to investing in those who find themselves in need of social support. As a member of the Social Services Committee, I look forward to taking this bill through the select committee stage.

This is what I liken to good housekeeping. All of us know what it is like when you work at your desk for a long period of time. You accumulate papers and you accumulate files, books, business cards, notices, and maybe even the odd apple core, banana skin, and lolly wrapper. It is not until you have tidied your desk that you are able to work more efficiently. This rewrite will do exactly that, and I commend this bill to the House.

I move, That the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill be reported to the House by 15 September 2016.

Before I put that motion, I will make it clear to the House that I have an amendment that has been proposed by Carmel Sepuloni, to replace “15 September 2016” with “10 November 2016”. I will refer the member to—and the best reference I can find is McGee, third edition, page 217, where it says “an amendment must not be a direct negative of the motion before the House. The proper course of action for a member directly opposed to a motion is to vote against it, not to try to amend it,”. Therefore, I will rule that amendment out of order.