Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill

We have had much discussion about this bill since the second reading and have gone back and forth on it and reread the submissions, and we come to this Committee with the intention to oppose the bill in its current state. We have lodged three amendments that I feel would make the bill fairer and ensure that young people are provided with much needed support. I am going to give an overview of those proposed amendments, and then I am sure that my colleagues will go into further detail discussing those amendments.

This bill, as we know, amends the Social Security Act 1964 to extend the existing Youth Service to all 19-year-old beneficiaries with children and 18 and 19-year-old beneficiaries without children considered at significant risk of long-term welfare dependency. We on this side of the House support young people having access to educational and employment opportunities and we support State support for services that are well placed to provide the type of educational and employment support that I just mentioned. However, we are concerned that the Government has taken such a deficit approach to young people with this bill in the type of service that it is offering, and is offering only to provide support if these young people tick all the boxes the Government has created through its predictive risk modelling in order to be considered at risk of long-term welfare dependency.

That base is really where the problems start with this bill and what the Government is intending to do, because it is a deficit base. It stigmatises the young person right from the very start, and the way that the bill is currently set up excludes anybody who is not, or has not been, identified as being at risk of long-term welfare dependency via the Government’s predictive risk modelling. We have no faith in the Government’s predictive risk modelling and are uncomfortable with the fact that that is being used to inform the Government department in respect of who should get further youth support or have access to youth services. We maintain concerns about the general success of youth services, given that it is a relatively new intervention and comprehensive analysis has yet to be completed.

The Government’s current approach gives work obligations priority over educational aspirations, and we cannot support that. Currently, the bill supports young people only to National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 2 or the equivalent. If these young people are going to have long-term success, then they should be equally supported on to NCEA level 3 and higher-level tertiary education, especially in light of the expected decrease in tertiary student numbers forecast in the Budget. We have no idea why the Government is adamant that it needs to always set the bar at NCEA level 2 and it is not really aspirational for people to go beyond that. In fact, as I said, it is the work obligations that then take precedence after NCEA level 2, and that is not being aspirational for these young people. Therefore, the amendment that I have put forward proposes amending the level of education supported in the bill to NCEA level 2 or equivalent by inserting “or higher” in new section 88I(6A)(b) in clause 16, in order to provide the opportunity for further education for young people.

I wonder how the Government could even possibly vote against that amendment, so I hope that it is seriously considering voting for that amendment, because why would the Government vote against a young person getting a level of qualification that is higher than the proposed NCEA level 2? For those youth who are looking for paid employment, there needs to be the jobs for them to go into, and that is what the Government fails to discuss. The Government has failed to take responsibility for the lack of job creation, and the Minister of Finance, unfortunately, has now resorted to blaming young Kiwis for being “pretty damned hopeless” to absolve himself of that responsibility to create the jobs. So it is all well and good setting up these work obligations, saying that work obligations are going to take precedence over high-level study, but, actually, if the jobs are not there, then we are going to encounter issues with trying to get these young people into work. If the Government does not have faith in, or have high expectations for, these young people to be able to actually go on and take on these jobs, then we are still going to struggle with our young people being able to get into employment.

Of further concern is the rising number of young persons aged 15 to 24 years not in education, training, or employment, and that number is now at 87,200. So when we are reflecting on the fact that the youth services have been in place for some time and that this bill is just an extension of that, we should all be a little bit concerned about how effective those youth services have been, given that there are 26,500 more young people not in employment or in education since National took office in 2008. So, as I said earlier, one of the concerns we have is that there is not the evidence to support whether or not the youth services to date have been successful, and when we look at that figure for young people who are not in education or employment or training, then we have to question whether or not it has been successful to date, and if it has not been successful to date or there is no evidence to support it, then why are we extending it?

There are rising concerns about the ability of the current Government services to support youth into quality, stable employment, given the failure of this Government to facilitate benefit-to-work transitions for main benefits, and we have harped on and on about this. It applies to all beneficiaries, but in this situation we are talking about youth who are on benefits—the fact that the Government is not accurately reporting on the number of people who are exiting benefit and then actually going into employment. In fact, when we look at the March 2016 figures, only 19,730 of the 49,907 benefit cancellations were actually for people going into work. So we should be concerned about the fact that people are seemingly being pushed off benefit, but the Government has no care or concern about what they are actually going on to do. We see that with the Better Public Services target of reducing welfare dependency. That is hardly the aspirational type of target that you would think a responsible Government would set, because it is not about ensuring that those people are better off; it is just about ensuring that they are off benefit.

Although this bill currently requires certain young people to access youth services—primarily those deemed at risk of long-term welfare dependency—we feel this needs to be extended to any young person who wants the extra assistance provided through youth services, and not just those whom the Government has identified as being at risk. In fact, if it was to apply this rule and allow those who were not necessarily identified as being at risk but who were unemployed and seeking to go on benefit—if it was to apply the rule that they could actually opt into this programme, it would take away that nasty deficit feeling that we currently have when we are looking at that programme.

So I have lodged an amendment that would allow all young persons—as in the definition in the bill—who are unemployed, not in training, and are either on or applying for a benefit to be eligible for the additional employment and educational services. So they are not just the ones the Government decides are at risk, but any young person who feels like they might benefit from this. It takes away the stigma, and the Government should support that.

Labour supports the amendment that came out of the Social Services Committee report requiring consultation with the 18 or 19-year-olds in question about their referral to youth services—we support that. We do have concerns about how this bill in some instances unduly discriminates against young parents by pushing them into work even sooner than is required for parents who are on sole parent support, and we see from the Human Rights Commission—and I am sure one of my colleagues is going to go into more detail about this—that there are concerns about the level of discrimination that exists within this bill.

Why should a young parent not have the same right to stay home for those first 3 years to care for their child that an older parent is able to have? In fact, I think one of the biggest flaws for the National Government in respect of social development is its complete and utter undervaluing of parenting. In this instance, if a young parent decides that for those first 3 years it is in their child’s best interest for them to stay home and look after them, then why would we not support that? In fact, why would we not support a young person to actually enjoy—enjoy—that role of being a parent? There are actually long-term pay-offs in respect of that child having their parent at home for a period of time to care for them. So we have put forward an amendment that amends this discriminatory regulation and, instead, aligns it with sole parent support.

I seek leave for all parts of this debate to be taken as one question and voted on separately.

Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.

Parts 1 and 2, schedules 1 and 2, and clauses 1 and 2