Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill

I move, That the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill be now read a second time.

This is a landmark bill, rewriting a piece of legislation that is more than 50 years old. It will be only the second time that the Social Security Act has been rewritten. The first Social Security Act was passed in 1938 and rewritten 26 years later, in 1964. The 1964 Act is long overdue for a rewrite. When it was first passed, it had 135 sections. It has since grown to well over 500 sections, and, of those, only four remain unchanged, with other sections repealed or amended, sometimes hundreds of times. Altogether, that makes for a very disjointed and confusing Act, and there have been many calls, both from within this House and outside of it, for it to be completely rewritten.

The previous National-led Government introduced the rewrite bill to the House. The Hon Christopher Finlayson said, “It is [time] that we have this rewrite, because the Social Security Act 1964 is a shambles. It is unintelligible … The public do not know what it means, in a critically important area of law,”. Labour, Green, and New Zealand First MPs all spoke in favour of this sentiment. All parties in the House were united in thinking the Social Security Act needed to be rewritten. Sir Geoffrey Palmer and Professor John Burrows, members of the Law Commission, even identified the Social Security Act as the worst statute on the book.

When the bill was being considered at select committee, many submitters expressed the same sentiment and supported rewriting the legislation to improve its clarity and accessibility. It was, therefore, concerning that the select committee was given a shortened time frame for consideration of this bill—slightly ironic given the debate this afternoon—in the expectation that the bill would be passed by the end of 2016. Despite this, the bill languished on the Order Paper throughout 2016 and 2017. It was not given the attention it deserved as one of the most significant pieces of legislation in New Zealand.

The previous Government had indicated the rewrite bill would be a neutral legislative clean-up. When the bill was introduced, however, there were several new policy proposals. The principles of the Act had been amended to include a principle relating to the investment approach. The emergency benefit was reformed, and two benefits were merged together, amongst other changes. In the Labour Party’s view, these changes were significant and should not have been included in a rewrite bill. The Green Party and New Zealand First also stood in this House at the time to express similar views.

At the select committee, submitters expanded on these concerns, with the vast majority of submitters opposing the policy changes. More generally, they noted a deep concern with the direction of New Zealand’s welfare system. In the Labour Party’s minority view, set out in the select committee report, we noted our disappointment that their advice was not taken on board by the National-led Government of the time. Labour, Green, and New Zealand First joined with the vast majority of submitters in opposing the rewrite bill. Whilst we all committed to rewriting the Act, the significant policy changes included in the bill made it impossible for us to support it.

At that time, I submitted a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) to include our own policy changes, as it was clear the original rewrite bill presented by the previous National Government had a political policy agenda. I want now, as Minister for Social Development, to progress this bill as a genuinely policy-neutral rewrite of the Social Security Act. To ensure this, I have withdrawn my own earlier Supplementary Order Paper, which I introduced following the select committee stage, as I did not want these policy changes to derail this critical piece of legislation. In further support of a neutral legislative rewrite, I have released a new Supplementary Order Paper that will be considered at the committee of the whole House stage, which removes the significant policy changes from the bill.

This could have all been avoided if the previous Government had had a truly policy-neutral rewrite of the legislation when they had the opportunity to do it. This builds on the widespread support for rewriting the Act, whilst removing the contentious parts of the bill.

There are seven policy changes that National included in the original rewrite bill, which are taken out through this SOP. These are, one, a new regulation-making power to identify specific client circumstances where compulsory redirection of benefit payments is deemed appropriate. This would have reduced the security for beneficiaries and allows these changes to be made outside of the public arena—which is of significant concern. Two, merging the orphan’s benefit and unsupported child’s benefit into a single benefit named supported child’s payment. The policy settings were to be aligned so that step-parents would not be eligible. Three, renaming the emergency benefit as the exceptional circumstances benefit. Four, case managers being given discretion to apply work or work-preparation obligations to a person granted the exceptional circumstances benefit—emergency benefit. We deemed this inappropriate given the nature of this benefit payment, especially as most recipients are over the age of 65. Five, both parents in split-care situations—which is when a parent cares for at least one dependent child from the former relationship—are to be eligible for sole parent support. Submissions during the select committee outlined concerns that this may encourage children to be split up between parents, which is something we do not believe is in the best interests of children. Six, including the objectives of the investment approach and the overarching principles of the Social Security Act 1964. The former Government’s investment approach was seriously flawed and had a narrow focus on fiscal risk and liability.

The seventh policy change, which has been taken out with this Supplementary Order Paper, is the one that was about a single rate of sole parent support for single carers who are paid the supported child’s payment, orphans benefit, and unsupported child’s benefit. While we acknowledge that that was a positive step, it does not belong in a policy-neutral rewrite. We believe, on this side of the House, that it is essential to clean up the legislation first without rushing through policy changes that haven’t been properly thought out. What we see the role of this being is, basically, prior to an overhaul—it’s like sweeping the floor before we put the furniture down.

I want to make progress in this rewrite, as it will bring the old, patched-up Act into the modern era, where legislation can be read and understood by people without years of legal training. The bill looks very different to the 1964 Act. It has a logical structure and flow. For example, in the 1964 Act, the various main benefits are separated and supplementary assistance is in seven different parts, and assistance for young people is tacked on at the end. By contrast, in the rewrite bill, all the financial assistance measures are grouped together.

This bill uses a modern drafting style and provides more explanation and guidance for users. There is a full contents table at the start of the bill and a further contents table is provided for each part and each schedule of provision. Taken as a whole, the bill is easier for people to navigate, use, and understand. This will help ensure New Zealanders understand and have access to their entitlements.

A modern, clear, and accessible Social Security Act will provide a solid legislative platform for changes that stem from this Government’s overhaul of the welfare system. The focus of the overhaul will be on making substantive policy improvements to social security. Completing work on the rewrite bill separately will ensure that potential policy improvements can be considered without any distractions arising from questions about the Act’s clarity or structure.

This Government has already taken steps to improve the fairness of the current system through the Families Package, we’ve provided more targeted assistance through Working for Families to make it easier for people to work and raise a family, we’ve introduced the Best Start tax credit to help New Zealand families and whānau to give their children the best start in life, and we’ve got a new winter energy payment that will help about a million people with the cost of heating their homes in winter. The Supplementary Order Paper includes the relevant changes from the Families Package legislation, including the winter energy payment.

I would like to acknowledge the work of the Social Services Committee, ably—at the time that this went through the select committee—chaired by the Hon Alfred Ngaro. I’d also like to acknowledge the 121 submitters, including the 52 who gave oral submissions. Their evidence was invaluable in scrutinising this bill.

In order to maintain momentum on the bill, I support the adoption of the recommendations of the select committee. The recommendations were predominantly minor and technical improvements to the bill. I have tabled a Supplementary Order Paper, which amends the bill to create a truly policy-neutral rewrite. I commend the bill to the House.

I agree with probably a couple of minor things that the Minister Carmel Sepuloni has said. One thing that surprises me is that in the House this afternoon, there’s been vociferous debate about select committee scrutiny, about the extension of report-backs for the Environment Committee to provide additional scrutiny for the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill—which is a three-page bill to go back to a select committee for scrutiny—and yet, today, we have 500 pages of a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that no member of the public, let alone this House, will get to scrutinise, and—

💬 Hon Member: Policy neutral—listen.

Policy neutral. So we’ve heard a comment from the other side of the House about the significant rewrite legislation, which, of course, hadn’t been touched for 50 years, and legislatively it was a mess. It was unintelligible and absolutely needed to be tidied up. But one thing that puzzles me is that the Government, who supposedly want to have a more empathetic and responsive system, don’t see that the Government of the day should’ve taken opportunities to make some minor policy changes to ensure greater well-being for vulnerable children, to enable greater flexibility to support some beneficiaries, and to support the very New Zealanders that that side of the House purports to represent.

So let’s just have a look at what these minor policy changes were and see if our listeners disagree about whether or not they would advance the best interests of children. Here’s one around children whose parents are separated, so it is a situation of split care—one parent might have one child, the other parent might have two, and both are not in work. This change would allow both of those parents to claim the sole parent support, but no—that side of the House says “No. We’re going to make those children suffer.” because of this minor change.

Let me give you another one—and, again, I’ll remind the Minister of her own comments, which were about having Work and Income, having a social security system that was “empathetic and responsive”. So guess what? If you are a step-parent, if you have a child and both its biological parents have passed away, that is one vulnerable child that every New Zealander should support, but no, they’re not entitled to the same support as other parents. So the Government’s decided to kick out minor changes that at the very heart of the intent were about supporting children who needed the support the most—which is unbelievable—and about having a system that is easier for front-line staff to navigate and easier for the very people who need it most. It is absolutely staggering.

I want to introduce a couple of other issues, because there is another item that has been amended by this Government, and that is official advice. So the Government is ignoring official advice from the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee 2014 guidelines about how to improve the structure of legislation, which is about what should be in primary legislation and what should be in secondary legislation. I know for some people that doesn’t mean a lot, but when you are rewriting a piece of legislation for the first time in 50 years, make sure you follow the advice of the legislation advisory committee.

But no—no—this Government knows best! They don’t think the public should have a say on 500 pages of an SOP. They’ve dumped it on the table a couple of hours before this debate, with the intention of ramming it through the committee stage tomorrow. Well, I say that’s not good enough. For a Government that’s supposedly open and transparent, who’s open to public scrutiny, this is absolutely lousy, lousy process.

I want to give you another example of how lousy this process is. Normally what happens when a piece of legislation is drafted—or, you could argue, a Supplementary Order Paper of this magnitude—the officials then write a departmental disclosure statement or a regulatory impact statement. Has this been done? No. So here’s another example of a Government short-cutting due process, good process. This is all around making good law.

So I say to the Minister of Social Development, is the Minister saying there is not one mistake—not one mistake—in this SOP? We saw in the bill previously that there was one mistake. One mistake has been quite significant for this House—quite significant. But that one mistake is being fixed and is being scrutinised by a select committee—this isn’t. Five hundred pages is absolutely outrageous for the Government to do, particularly since it’s “Transparency Week” this week. Perhaps they didn’t read the memo about “Transparency Week”.

It’s really interesting. I want to draw your attention, as the Minister did, to the Labour minority view. In the Labour minority view, the Labour Party members were worried about—guess what?—public accountability and scrutiny. The Minister doesn’t care about it now, and is too arrogant to think about members of the public who have an interest in this—the very beneficiary advocacy groups she’s too busy quoting, getting the next person to speak to make sure they fill in the blanks that she didn’t cover. I bet the House that there’s at least one mistake in this SOP, so you’ll be bringing it back to fix it.

But the other interesting thing from the Labour and the Green minority view is—and I would have thought the Greens would be really disappointed with this legislation, because the one critical thing for them as they went into the election was the removal of excessive sanctions. The Minister had the ability in the Families Package before Christmas but didn’t do it. The Minister’s had the ability to remove sanctions in this legislation—hasn’t done it. So the Greens must be pretty gutted that their principal social welfare policy is being ignored by the Minister.

The interesting thing is that this is a completely missed opportunity for the Government. The Minister has said that there’s a significant overhaul required to make the system more empathetic and responsive. The first opportunity, first piece of legislation, is a missed opportunity—not doing it; not doing things that support the very New Zealanders, the very children, that you have said are important.

There’s another item that I thought was worth bringing to the House’s attention. On numerous occasions, the Government of the day, led by the Prime Minister, have talked about the fact that this Government will put the interests of children at the heart of everything they do. I bet the House that this piece of legislation, this 500-page SOP, has not gone through the scrutiny to see what the impact is on children. There are children living in the households who should be getting more than they are today—getting entitlements, Minister, that they’re not entitled to today—and you’re missing the opportunity to help those families, to help those very poor and vulnerable families to get more income, to get more benefits than they are today.

It’s a hugely missed opportunity. I’m staggered. I’m absolutely staggered that the Ardern-Peters Government is ignoring a golden opportunity to support those who need it most, and is instead taking away changes that simplify the system and make it easier for people to get the support they need. The principles that are being removed—the principles of social investment—are about supporting those who need it most. So that’s what I’m finishing on.

This bill originally was about supporting those who need it most, and having legislation that was understandable, workable, easy for the Ministry of Social Development to navigate, and easy for the very people that are supported by it to understand it and get better access to what they’re entitled to. It is a complete contradiction and an absolute outrage that that side of the House won’t allow scrutiny for an SOP that is 500 pages long.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare, kāti rā tēnā tātou katoa.

[Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and greetings to one and all.]

It’s clear that on the other side of the House they’re scared of a bit of hard work. What’s also clear in that particular contribution to this particular bill is that that side of the House don’t understand what a policy-neutral piece of work looks like, because almost half of the speech that was given by the member Louise Upston, who just resumed her seat, are new policy initiatives and ones that are tainted by their agenda. That’s an important part to remember when we consider this particular bill. Why? Because it’s important that when we do this, we make sure that we provide the best platform for what truly is something that is going to take a systematic change—a systematic change.

In order to do that, it’s important that we tidy up some areas. It is important that we—how shall we say?—tidy up the backyard. In the order of tidying up the backyard, only then can we find a platform that will actually make meaningful change for the New Zealanders out there who the member who just resumed her seat purported to be speaking on behalf of. What we see from the submitters on legislation or bills like this—and we saw it under the last Government, when, actually, submitters were very clear about what they saw in the work that was carried out under the last Government on social welfare reform.

Might I add too that submitters were clear about taking a policy-neutral stance or position on the rewrite of the Social Security Act. They were very clear about that policy-neutral stance. We wanted that to happen. The submitters wanted that to happen, and the last Government absolutely ignored them. They were very clearly ramming through—and the member used those words “ramming through”—their policy changes, ignoring completely the submitters who were very clear on a policy-neutral approach.

So some of the aspects that are not included in the bill are those policy platforms that the last Government were really keen on ramming through, to use member’s words. The Minister actually already highlighted the seven policies that won’t be considered in this particular bill, and some of those are pretty straightforward to me. Why they seem pretty straightforward is because, as I mentioned just previously, just earlier, the tidy-up of the backyard is important to get the platform to make the kind of changes into the future, changes that actually align with the agenda of this Government, the New Zealand First and Labour Government with the support of the Green Party; to make sure that many of the issues that we heard in our time in Opposition actually are addressed and addressed properly; to make sure that people get their full and correct entitlement, as the member who just contributed on this bill—things like that are important. But that particular side of the House actually are opposed to that and, I’d argue, take a very punitive approach to the administration of the Social Security Act. So it’s important that we do these things.

So some of the technical parts of this particular bill are—and I’ve mentioned it—making sure that it’s policy-neutral. So the aspects that we won’t see in there, as mentioned by the Minister—there are seven in particular. One of those is, of course, the emergency benefit, renamed the exceptional circumstances benefit. Another one is the regulation-making power to identify specific client circumstances where compulsory redirection of benefit payments is appropriate in order to ensure positive outcomes for clients.

It’s in that vein that I actually want to touch on a point that the member who contributed to this bill before me made. She talked about investment and social investment. When I look at the parts that have been removed from the original piece of work that was started with regard to this bill by the last Government, it’s important then, as we progress forward, that, actually, investment and social investment takes on a meaning that will provide more change and better outcomes, in my opinion, for Kiwis, for New Zealanders, out there.

Some of the parts that are being retained under this particular bill are the rebalancing between primary and delegated legislation as drafted, except the definition of “accommodation costs” and “cash assets” for the accommodation supplement will be returned to primary legislation and the eligibility criteria for funeral grants will be returned to primary legislation. These are all technical aspects that need to be tidied up, and I can’t reiterate this point enough: those have to be tidied up to make sure that, like I say, the pathway that we lead the social security legislation on into the future is one that is more responsive to our people and the communities that it’s there to serve.

We talk all the time about the kind of administration of public services that our people have received outside the bubble of this particular House. We know that there are some significant issues there. So for the systematic change to happen, I say it once again: this is why we are proposing this particular bill, as a rewrite to make sure that the platform, once again, is a lot more solid into the future.

So, look, I don’t want to go on too much longer, but I do want to just make it clear that that side of the House have also moaned about the truncated process. I’ll say it once again: they seem scared of a bit of hard work, and they also are scared that in the true progression of a policy-neutral piece of work, their agenda—that didn’t work for our people over the past decade—is going to be scrapped and thrown to the side. That’s the important point that we want to make with a piece of work like this—to make sure that the navigation of the public, when they come into the requirement of services like the Social Security Act, actually meets their needs, is more responsive, and caters to, obviously, the needs of the public and those who need it the most.

So, look, I won’t labour the point any more, but I do want to support the Minister in this particular piece of work and say that I commend this bill to the House.

With respect to that member, Peeni Henare, both of us worked within the Ministry of Social Development, and I suspect both of us know that a document of 501 pages, which then sits on top of an existing 500-and-something pages—something like this is not policy-neutral. In fact, that member will know, as I know, that pretty much when any Government, Labour or National, gets into power, there’s very little which is policy-neutral.

I also take a little bit of umbrage around the notion that we’re scared of hard work. I don’t think any member in this House is scared of hard work. But if the suggestion, ultimately, is that we are best to somehow deal with 501 pages of Supplementary Order Paper in the committee of the whole House—that that’s where the hard work takes place, what’s being implied, I suppose, consequently, is we don’t need a select committee process. If this is about hard work for the members of Parliament by going through 501 pages of a Supplementary Order Paper in the committee of the whole House, then we just don’t need select committees. I don’t say that because I’m a select committee chair, but, actually, hard work continues in two ways in this House: one, obviously, through the committee of the whole House, but, importantly, engaging with the public. That is hard work, but it’s rewarding and useful hard work.

So we’ve heard a lot about this rewrite bill—that it’s to be policy-neutral. That was certainly the intention of the previous Government, but what we’ve heard from the other side—and it was in their minority report—is that they did not believe it was policy-neutral. So let’s for a moment accept that whatever came through from the previous National Government was not policy-neutral. You would expect, then, having the new Government taking the moral high ground that they couldn’t vote in support for this bill because it wasn’t policy-neutral, that they themselves would introduce something like that, but no, they haven’t.

The incredible irony has been for them to take what they deemed to not be policy-neutral, which is this document here, and to add their 501 pages, if you will, of a Supplementary Order Paper to really sort of ratchet up the policy quality of their own side. It’s a huge, huge paradox.

It’s also a paradox in light of our previous discussion—

💬 Hon Member: It’s an abuse of Parliament.

Actually, it is an abuse of Parliament. It’s actually an abuse, I would suggest, too, of the public, who should have their say. I was talking about it briefly in the previous Government order of the day around the exclusive economic zone—that the public should be allowed to have their full say.

The thing about Supplementary Order Papers that are introduced in the committee of the whole House, in a stage after the second reading of this legislation passes, is that the public do not get to have a say on this. They get no chance to have their say. This is 501 pages of Supplementary Order Paper dropped on this Parliament at the very last moment around arguably one of our most important areas, which is that of social welfare or social development. For me, this is 501 pages of legal jargon which really dismisses the importance of the people that I used to work with on the front line, who deserve better.

So what we have here is, ultimately, a good intention which has gone array. The bill started as a rewrite, an attempt to modernise our legislation. I think all of us can accept that, and, in fact, if that’s where this bill had remained, that would be excellent. However, it has not. It has returned as a particularly legislative implementing, if you will, of the legislative programme of the Government in a variety of areas.

My colleague the Hon Louise Upston pointed out one area which to us is not policy-neutral, and cannot be policy-neutral, and that’s affirming that a sole parent benefit will only ever be paid to one parent. Under the arguments of some in the social sector that to split the payment on occasions where parents may be actually dually looking after multiple children—so we’re not talking one child; we’re splitting the payment. If you’ve got two or three children—let’s say the dad’s looking after two, the mum’s looking after one—the current proposal in this 501 pages of early-drop Supplementary Order Paper says that that benefit can only be paid to one parent, with the argument being from the social sector that it could cause the splitting of families. I think it’s a valid argument, but that’s probably a small number of people compared to the large number of people who rely on the sole benefit and those parental arrangements, and I can think of a number in my own electorate that would fit into this. We could debate that policy aspect all night, but it is not policy-neutral. The most concerning element of this whole process is that the New Zealand public will not get their say.

The final thing—because I’m conscious the bell will go for the dinner break soon—is that in the minority view from Labour, the now Minister Sepuloni made a big, big plea that her push to, basically, create an affront to the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child, to say that a father doesn’t have to be named—we could get into that, of course. She made a big play that she wanted that removed. She didn’t want that to be part of the legislation; she made a very big push that she’d remove the sanctioning. She was very strong on this. It’s very strange that as the Supplementary Order Paper comes, she’s neglected to add that in. I’m pleased she hasn’t added it in because, again, I know the UN and a number of people have a lot to say about that. So at that point I think the contradictions continue to abound.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Good evening everyone. The House is resumed. When we broke for dinner, we were on the second reading of the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill. Simon O’Connor had the call and he has three minutes and 51 seconds remaining to speak, if he wishes to take it. He is not calling.

Thank you very much. I’m not surprised that Mr O’Connor couldn’t fill another three minutes’ worth of what he was saying just before the dinner break, because it was just rubbish and I don’t think any honourable member in this House would want to repeat any rubbish they’ve already mentioned.

There’s a couple of things that I’d like to highlight firstly, before I get into the substance of what I was going to talk about. I’m going to react to a couple of the things, a number of things, that the National Party has spoken on already. One of the things they keep saying is this term “policy-neutral”. What they’ve failed to mention is that that was the actual intent from the National Party. When they put the bill in, in the first place, it was a policy-neutral bill. I remember coming into this House—and it was quite a while ago now. I think it was over a year or two years, I think, for the first reading. I remember thinking to myself that this wasn’t a policy-neutral bill. In fact, it was quite the opposite—it was quite the opposite. And not only was it full of policy changes, what the National Party and the Minister at that time were saying was that they were minor policy changes. They weren’t minor policy changes; they actually were changes in policy that had some quite substantial flow-on effects that a number of submitters actually challenged and actually had some big issues with, and that the current Government parties as well had a big number of issues with.

One of them—which was a huge one, from New Zealand First’s point of view and perspective, and I think from the Greens and the Labour Party as well—was how, nestled into the half a dozen so-called minor policy changes, there was a change in principle, a change in the guiding principle of the entire Act. That isn’t minor, in anyone’s books—not minor in anyone’s books—especially since at that time, when New Zealand First, the Greens, and the Labour Party were in Opposition, we had vehemently opposed the social investment approach, which was what the then National Government was trying to put into the principle of the Act.

I noted back then, during the first speech of the Minister for Social Development—back in 2016, I believe it was—there was not one mention of the social investment approach being put into the principles. So I think that the National Party needs to recognise where this bill has come from, what the absolute intent of this bill was originally when they were in Government, how they didn’t manage to be able to do that, and where we are today, with, ironically, going back to the original intent of what the National Party wanted it to be, which was a policy-neutral bill.

We’ve also had complaints from Louise Upston, I think it was, that this wasn’t a policy-neutral bill and that’s why it should go back to select committee to be scrutinised by the public. What the Hon Louise Upston needs to do is just read the explanatory note of Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 25, and it might give it away that it’s not full of policy.

So it states that “This Supplementary Order Paper sets out amendments to the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill. The amendments are in 4 groups:”, and I’ll just read the titles and not read through the couple of pages. First of all: “Removing some identified changes to effect of current law”. So that is what we’ve said it would do—it is going to remove the policy that the National Party wanted to place into the bill in its original form. So we’re going to remove it to make it policy-neutral.

The next heading is “Adding some minor … clarifications to effect of current law”—so just some minor clarifications. Then: “Making some minor drafting corrections or improvements”—making some minor drafting corrections or improvements. And: “Updating since Bill reported from [the] Social Services Committee”, because that’s how long ago it was—the law changes since then and now. So all of the law changes that have occurred between when the original bill came back, reported from the select committee, to now—logically, we’ve got to put in and update the laws that have been put in place to make it sensible. The references we updated, the commencement date will be updated, and that’s it. There’s no actual policy changes in this SOP, just like the Minister has stated, just like every other Government member has stated, and that, clearly, the National Party and the Opposition have not been reading.

There’s been a few changes since this was in its first reading in this House. There were originally a few small changes recommended by the select committee. There’s definitely changes been made through this SOP getting rid of those policies, but the biggest and most important change to this that happened since its first reading in this House is that the Government has changed. So now we can actually make some sense of what the process should be in actually rewriting the social security legislation.

The original intent was to make it so that it is more readable, more accessible, and easier to understand. That’s the starting point at which we need to start adding policy through the overhaul that will be coming later on, through this Government. But what the previous Government and National Party wanted to do was add in their little bits. They could have had this bill through a lot earlier, a lot sooner, and likely with the support of every party in this House if it was just a policy-neutral bill and tidying up, because we all agree on that. I believe that 99 percent of all of the submitters praised what the bill was intending to do. The original intent was to make the Act more readable.

I am—like I mentioned—happy, and New Zealand First is happy, to see that the social investment approach is not going to be used as a guiding principle in the Act. We have forever stood in this House and given evidence upon evidence and reason upon reason about why the social investment approach doesn’t work with the provision of social services to the people of this country. It’s got evidence from around the world where they have implemented it or had trials of implementing it, and it does not work. It just simply does not work.

What the National Party would like to do is to try and own what the term “social investment” means, the definition of social investment, because even with bills going through this House at this moment, with the Social Services Committee, we get the National Party members asking submitters—talking about what the social investment definition is and why and if it should be implemented in the legislation coming through. They believe that the social investment approach is investing wisely in the people who need it the most. Now, that’s a nice-sounding thing and sound bite, and if that was the actual case then I don’t think we’d have any problems with it. It’s not the fact that New Zealand First or the Government is against investing socially responsibly or the social investment approach. It’s how the previous Government—the National Party—took the social investment approach for what it was, and it was totally wrong.

What I’d like to just quickly do, in my last couple of minutes, is have a look at the departmental report from the Social Services Committee. It’s dated August 2016. One of the things that I got highlighted for me was the comments from the submitters around the purpose and the principles of the Act and what social security actually means and what it should mean. A number of them mentioned that social security should be acting as a safety net and a minimum social floor that no one falls below.

With the nine years of the National Government, when they moved through with this legislation and the social investment approach, that was not their main purpose. That was not their definition. What they hooked themselves on was Better Public Services targets—things like reducing the number of beneficiaries, and not necessarily at all looking at where they are going to if they move off the benefit, or whether that is a good thing for that individual. What the National Party lost over the last nine years—or the better part of a decade—was the meaning of what the social security blanket should mean.

New Zealand First will be supporting this bill and the changes that the current Minister is wanting to make over the next little while because we support the original intent of this bill, which is being policy-neutral. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I stand to take a call in the second reading of the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill. It’s been interesting sitting back here listening to the contributions in the House and some of the, I suppose, explanations from the Government about why they’ve done what they’ve done, especially around Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 25, this 500-page document, which I must say is going to take a bit of reading to get through. But I also see it as a Government that talks about transparency and openness to the public, and yet this here arrived, as everybody knows, on our desks just before question time today and heading towards the second reading, and the public won’t get to actually have any say or contribute to any parts on Supplementary Order Paper 25. So I find that rather extraordinary about this Government, who state that they are a transparent Government.

I just want to look at a couple of the entitlements that were spoken about today. My colleague the Hon Louise Upston spoke about step-parents that would be looking after a child or children of parents that have passed away, and how this bill will not actually include them—they will not be able to actually access any sole parent benefits for these children. I just want to add that that could also mean the role of the grandparents as well, when parents pass away and their children end up living with their grandparents. The grandparents, in some cases, may be on a pension and may need to have some extra support to actually help them to look after those children, and I think that it does actually put them way behind in that support. I just feel for the grandparents that may be faced with a situation like this.

In the bill, it actually states that there’s nothing there for parents of a shared care situation, where one parent may have one child, the other might have two children, and both are caring for those children, but what it actually does is it adds hardship to one of the parents. So while one parent will be able to access the sole parent benefit, the other one will miss out. So what’s to say that that other parent might say, “Well, OK, you look after all the kids and we’ll leave it at that.”? It does put hardship on that other parent, and, at the end of the day, it also takes away the freedom of the parents to be able to parent their children and still be able to access that sole parent benefit as well.

I just want to also add, around the naming of the father of the child, that I think that that particular piece of policy that we, the National Party, had—whereby those accessing the DPB would have to name the father, otherwise it would penalise between $22 and $28 a week in their benefits—hasn’t actually come through in this bill, and I think that’s rather amazing after all the furore that the Labour-led Government went on about it when it came to light. I think that it seems a little bit hypocritical, but I’m pleased it’s not in there.

I want to also add, around when Minister Peeni Henare got up and said that this side of the House—the National Party—aren’t hard workers, that I have never ever been in a group that works this hard, if not harder, as a political party. We will continue to keep working hard. We always work hard. We work hard and give voice to the people that support us; even those that don’t support us, we also give them voice.

So this is going to take us some time to get through, but we will get through it and we will give it the best review that we can possibly give it, and we will continue to look at the various funny little idiosyncrasies that this Government seems to throw our way at the last minute. So I thought that was rather an insult to this side of the House, because we are hard workers.

Once again, I just want to say that this particular bill is actually supposed to help those that need it, and, to be honest, I don’t think it does help all of those that need it. I think it helps a certain section of the community, and that’s it. But what about all the others that are left to actually carry the rest of the childcare and other areas within this SOP, within this bill—what happens to them? I think it’s going to be those people that are going to be sorely disappointed with the areas within SOP 25 and all the other changes that are being made to this bill. It does disturb me that this is what the bottom line of this bill is going to do. It’s going to marginalise a number of good people who can deliver very good, caring services to the children and it’s going to just wipe them out. So even though we are supporting the bill in the second reading, we are not supporting SOP 25. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise to take a call on this, the second reading of the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill. At first reading, I indicated that in spite of the Green Party having previously—many times—raised concerns about the complexity of the social security legislation, and having, in fact, called on the Government to simplify it, we were, sadly, unable to support this piece of legislation because, despite promises to the contrary, the bill that we were presented with by the National Government was not a policy-neutral rewrite. It was, in fact, an entrenchment and embedding of the National Party ideology that went as far as changing the principle of the Act, an Act that is pretty—it’s hard to see how anyone could interpret that as policy-neutral. So we were forced into opposing a piece of legislation that we had been calling for for years.

I do want to just reflect on the importance of this piece of legislation that we know is one of the most important pieces of legislation on our books. This legislation can support or deny people the ability to keep a roof over their heads, to put food on the table, or to have any semblance of dignity. We absolutely need this piece of legislation to deliver certainty and to be simple and easy to read. That is why the Green Party was calling for the rewrite of this legislation—to give us that foundation to work with.

As I think the Minister mentioned in the introduction, this is legislation that had been last rewritten in 1964. It has been amended over 131 times, with at least 54 new sections added to it since then. I think it has now over 500—or around 500—sections in it, including 50 points of discretion, where it is up to the judgment of the staff to be able to interpret the legislation and the need. This does not—did not—deliver certainty or make it easy for people who need this legislation to be sure of what their rights were. So we supported—and support now—a policy-neutral rewrite to give us a foundation for moving forward, to be able to move forward to a comprehensive overhaul of our welfare system to return the safety net to our society.

I want to address, too, the point that was made by Jo Hayes, the previous speaker, challenging the lack of transparency of a Supplementary Order Paper being introduced at this stage in the debate and there being no chance for the public to comment and participate in that process. The irony of that just cuts rather deep, considering we sat through the submissions on this bill, hearing from so many people telling us what needed to change in this legislation—that they did not want the social investment approach embedded in this legislation or the principles changed. They thought there was too much being put into regulation as opposed to the substance of the bill, and they raised serious, deep concerns about the legislation.

So a party that says that it’s very concerned that the public should have the opportunity to be able to comment and help make us make decisions doesn’t make sense to me. It doesn’t seem quite consistent that they would have heard all that information and not made any changes in response. So I really do want to call them out on that. I do also want to just draw people’s attention to their concern that this isn’t progressive enough.

It is traditional in second reading speeches to reference submissions, so I would like to do that now. I would like to share in this House some of the stories people told us in select committee, because it is very rare—in my time in Parliament in the over six years, it is seldom I have heard beneficiaries give submissions, whereas they did on this piece of legislation. What they told us was that there are some terrible things happening under the previous Government’s social investment approach to welfare.

We heard of a woman on supported living who had never had enough to cover all her basics. She didn’t have enough for petrol and food, so when her children had an event on at school that she needed to drive to, she would go without food. This is a woman on a supported living payment who is medically unable to be in employment.

We heard from a woman for whom slippers, heating, and new knickers are a luxury; a woman who regularly has to wait until benefit day to pay for her prescriptions; a woman who could not afford to go out for dinner for her daughter’s graduation.

We heard of a man who went into Work and Income to get a food parcel because he didn’t have enough to cover his bills and food. He told them how he didn’t have enough to buy food and so he had been eating at his girlfriend’s house, and then the staff interpreted this as being in a relationship in the nature of marriage and sought to cut his benefit.

We were told how life is such a constant struggle it doesn’t enable people to get well enough to get into work.

We heard from the Disabled Persons Assembly. One of the people presenting with them told us her story about how she had spent three years as a job seeker with a medical exemption because of her muscular dystrophy, which meant that she wasn’t able to work. She realised that she needed to transition to a supported living benefit, rather than being on a job seeker’s benefit. That was a really tough decision for her because she had spent her life as an HR manager and was used to being financially independent, and to come to terms with the fact that she was not able to be looking for work or to be in work was a tough personal decision.

Before she made the appointment, she spoke to three different Work and Income officers about what she needed to bring with her, and then cross-checked that against the information on the website. She turned up to her appointment with all of the documentation, and was told by her case worker that it was insufficient and that she would need a new medical certificate with different information on it. To get to that point, she’d had to make trips to her GP in Lower Hutt—in a different city—and a specialist in Wellington. This was exhausting and painful, and the Work and Income offices in her region do not have disability car parks outside, so she had to walk further than she should have. She then had to wait an hour on inappropriate seats, and then the appointment was another hour, again, on inappropriate seating.

She was upset to be told that the information she had taken so much effort to provide and get right was not enough. When she expressed this frustration, she was told the case manager couldn’t help unless the right information was provided, and when she was upset and stood up to leave, they called security because they were worried that she was a risk. Then it took a long time, three medical certificates, a Work and Income officer calling her GP and asking the GP to change her certificate, and three formal complaints before she finally managed to get the supported living allowance.

Is this what the Opposition heard and considered was fine? In all of their nine years in Government, they decided to ignore all of those stories and go ahead and embed their social investment approach, which has a concept of dependency in it which is exactly what the submitters told us feeds that type of response in the institution. It tells those workers in Work and Income that if you’re not in work, then, actually, there is a problem with you and that you need to be fixed, rather than given the support that you need. So I am so pleased to see legislation coming back in that gives us a foundation for a comprehensive overhaul to fix that and ensure that everyone is supported to live a decent life in this country.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I’m taking this call to support the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill in its second reading, in its current form. So I want to make it very clear from the start that this side of the House will be supporting this bill in its second reading only in its current form.

It was the previous Government—that is, the National Government—that undertook this huge task of rewriting the Social Security Act 1964. This Act was passed 55 to 56 years ago. Yes, it started with around 130 sections, but now we have more than three times that number of sections in this legislation. So not only have we added more sections but we have amended almost every section of this Act, and, obviously, what happened with that is there was a lot of patchwork. It turned out that it was causing some confusion and a rewrite was needed. Given it’s huge legislation and very important legislation for our social welfare assistance, when we were in Government, we undertook this huge task of rewriting this legislation. So, yes, when we took this opportunity to rewrite this legislation, we also wanted to reflect the modern-day approach towards social welfare assistance.

I want to remind the member who has just resumed her seat, Jan Logie, that it was the National Government that increased benefits for the first time in 40-odd years for families with dependent children.

💬 Jan Logie: Ha, ha!

Yes—that’s not a laughing matter. It’s a very serious matter, because we care for children in families that are dependent on benefits.

So what we are seeing is that this Government is changing their stance hugely from the stance that they had when they were in Opposition, and that is reflected in the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that the Minister has come up with. So, yes, the bill went through the first reading, it went to the Social Services Committee, it went through the select committee scrutiny, and then it has come before the House for the second reading, and just this afternoon, before it came before the House for the second reading, what we see is that the Minister has come up with SOP 25, which is 500 pages long.

With this SOP, what I can see is that this Government and this Minister are letting down all the submitters, because submitters—[Interruption]—yes, the submitters took time—

💬 Hon Carmel Sepuloni: She must have been asleep during the submission process.

—and made a special effort. They took time—don’t undermine the submitters’ efforts, honourable Minister Carmel Sepuloni. Don’t undermine their contribution. So they turned up, thinking that they were being heard. Some appeared before the select committee, and I know that some of them actually travelled from far distances. The purpose of having a select committee process is giving the public of New Zealand an opportunity to be heard. Now it’s come back for the second reading—

💬 Hon Member: They don’t like the public, Dr Parmar.

Yes, they don’t. Now it’s come back for the second reading, and what we see is this Government, this Minister, coming up with this SOP. Yes, very rightly, the Hon Louise Upston wanted to seek the leave of this House to send this back to the select committee, but, no, the Government refused.

So how is it fair? How is it fair for those submitters, those who were thinking that they were heard—actually, they were not heard, because of the stance that this Government is taking with this SOP before the House. They think that they stand for children, that their policies are going to be children-focused, but no. We have several examples.

I just want to give a couple of examples, one which is outside of this bill, and that is my member’s bill, which is to see that all newborns are enrolled with general practitioners before they are six weeks old, but this Government will not support that legislation because it needs more resources. In this SOP, what we see is that the Government—just giving an example. If there’s a family, for some reason they split—for example, if they have four children and one parent decides to look after three dependent children and the other parents decides to look after one dependent child, then in that situation this Government thinks that both parents getting a sole parent benefit is not fair.

So what I see is that there’s a huge change in their stance since they have come in Government, from the stance they had when they were in Opposition. So, yes, with this SOP and the stance that this Government is taking, actually, they are really letting down all the submitters. So we will support this bill only in its current form. Thank you.

The next call is a split call.

I stand to speak on the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill. Like so many things when you first come to the House, when we get a new piece of legislation before us, it is something of an awakening, an understanding. As someone who just likes to look at the history—and someone looking at my age would say I’ve been part of some of that history—how we’ve arrived at where we are today, I think it’s pretty important we understand that.

I see that this piece of legislation went back to 1938—the Social Security Act of that year. I’m reminded of going through an elderly uncle’s—great-uncle’s, actually—belongings after he died, and reading his diaries. He was one of those people who was unemployed during the Great Depression, the sugar-bag years. Seeing a slip of paper that he’d kept where he was ordered to go to a work camp and leave the family behind—it was necessary for him to do so, just so they could survive. So it’s really important we do understand in our history of where we’ve arrived, and why such legislation was important.

What makes New Zealand so much different from many other places—and I think those who are critical of our system we have today, who think somehow it’s too soft, I invite them to go to places that don’t have systems like this in place, and they’ll understand just why we have it and how it is something we should be so proud of. So something that really forms the basis of that which we are so proud of in New Zealand should be updated. It should be something that’s modern, and it should be something that is relevant.

So the rewrite bill, obviously, is the second time this has been done. The Social Security Act 1964 was passed—

💬 Andrew Bayly: Looking forward to hearing about this bill, Gregory.

As I say to those members, just understanding that life is a building block; you can’t fix things, just one little short thing, without a full in-depth understanding. If that member would sit down and be quiet, he would just understand and he will get such a necessary lesson.

💬 The Social Security Act: the Minister in 1964 then talked about the present Act—nearly 26 years old—being amended approximately 30 times. It is extremely difficult to follow, both by the general public and by those whose responsibility it is to administer the Act. For that reason alone, the Government thinks a consolidation is well overdue.

I come to this Act and why we need to rewrite it. Well, it’s just long overdue for a rewrite. There are over 500 sections in the current Act, and only four remain unchanged while other sections have been repealed or amended, sometimes hundreds of times. Again, I go back to one of the most important pieces of legislation that makes it our point of difference so often with the rest of the world. It will make social security legislation easier for people to navigate, use, and understand—again, bringing the legislation into line with the modern times.

I speak about one particular aspect of it that is straight from the bill. This one, Mr Bayly will be pleased to know, has the rewrite bill talking about the role of nurse practitioners in the new legislation. Although I only have one minute and 10 seconds left, Mr Bayly, I will endeavour in this time to educate you through the bill.

The rewrite bill enacts existing provisions, allowing nurse practitioners to give certificates to certify that the capacity for work of an applicant for job seeker support on the grounds of health condition, injury, or disability is affected by their health condition, injury, or disability; the nature of this problem; the extent to which their capacity is affected; and how long it is likely to last. Once again, in bringing this into modern times—nurses. We’ve seen in so much other legislation that nurse practitioners have been given so many more other roles that were the sole province of medical practitioners in their day. So this, again, will ensure that for those who it is absolutely necessary—they do get the assistance.

There is a little bit of an attitude that anybody who is on welfare is in some way undeserving: “It’s about time they got off their backsides.” I think that so many of the other failures that we have bring people to that place, so it’s important that when this time in their lives arrives, we have a fair, modern piece of legislation which ensures they get what they need. So I commend this.

I stand tonight to speak to the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill in its second reading here tonight. There’s no question that this is an extremely huge piece of work. In fact, the original—the Social Security Act of 1964—has been very overdue for this overhaul, but it was such an enormous task that had been filed away into the too-hard basket. So who was it who took the initiative to make the legislation clearer, more user-friendly, and appropriate for the 21st century?

💬 Hon Members: Who?

The former National-led Government, of course. This bill is simply about making the law clear, about updating the language so that it is fit for implementation in the modern world.

The Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill will repeal the Social Security Act of 1964 and the Social Welfare (Reciprocity Agreements, and New Zealand Artificial Limb Service) Act of 1990. It does provide consistency and clarity across all of those Acts.

I support this bill in its current form, but what I do not support is this [Holds up Supplementary Order Paper 25]. Earlier today in this House, I heard a very passionate speech from a Green Party member who insisted that that Government believes in this process, that it believes in the select committee, and that it believes in the right of the public to be able to have its say, yet this afternoon we received this, and we have only had time to print it and bind it before the second reading debate happened in this House today. What we have got here is a 501-page rewrite of a rewrite.

Today, there was no time for the public to scrutinise this bill, because we have short-circuited the select committee stage. Now the public’s opportunity to speak to these changes in this Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) is gone. I think it is disingenuous of this Government to dump a document of this magnitude—and it does propose changes to the original bill after the public has made its submissions.

There were concerns with this SOP and the original bill, and they were raised by the Regulations Review Committee. There were three regulation-making powers that were highlighted, that provide for the making of regulations to identify persons or benefits that are exempt from requirements set out in the bill. The Regulations Review Committee was really clear about the fact that they should set out clear purposes for the granting of exemptions, that they should set out clear criteria for the granting of exemptions and be consistent. They should give good reasons to state them in the exemptions instrument itself and they should expire within five years and should contain sunset clauses to that effect. But we don’t know if those issues have been dealt with in this SOP because there’s simply no time to scrutinise it.

There was no explanation for the purpose of these exemptions, no criteria included, no requirement to give reasons for the exemptions, and no time limit on the regulations made after this clause. So there is a lot of work still to be done, and especially now that this SOP has been dumped on us today, I say that this process has done the public no service at all. I thank the Regulations Review Committee for their feedback. It’s signed by the illustrious Andrew Bayly.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is indeed an honour to stand and take a call on the second reading of the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill. As members opposite have pointed out time and again over the course of tonight’s debate, it is indeed a huge and significant bill.

I want to start with a well-known whakataukī: He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata. What’s the most important thing in the world? It’s the people, it’s the people, it’s the people. That’s what underscores this bill, or at least that’s what should underscore this bill, and that’s what underscores our rewrite of the social security legislation.

New Zealand has a proud history when it comes to leading the world on progressive social reform. In fact, it was the first Labour Government, back in the 1930s, who led on a wide range of progressive social reform and set the tone, really, for this country’s economic and welfare policies for a long time. My colleague Greg O’Connor has reflected a little bit on the history and the roots of this legislation rewrite bill, so I won’t rehash that except to say that the 1938 Act was a cornerstone of that Government’s welfare programme, in fact. The values that underpinned that Act and continue to underpin today’s rewrite were the fact that we believe, on this side of the House, that everyone has the right to live with dignity.

What we do agree on—both sides of the House—with regard to this particular bill is the fact that it is disjointed, that it’s difficult to navigate, and that those to whom this bill will apply specifically don’t find this bill user-friendly. We’ve heard, of course, that there are about 500 different parts, and there are a whole bunch of different discretions that are contained within this bill. And, of course, all of us, regardless of which side of the House we’re on, agree with the fact that it needs to be user-friendly and that it needs to be modernised and that it needs to be cleaned up. So we definitely agree with that—the modern drafting style, the logical structure, and all of that, and making things much more discrete.

But here’s what we’re concerned with, on this side of the House. This is particularly taken from, I guess, the Labour Party’s minority view at the Social Services Committee, but it holds true obviously today as well. The emergency benefit—so this is one part of the bill that we don’t agree with, and that we’ve consistently disagreed with: the fact that it will change to what the Opposition members, formerly in Government, wanted to call the exceptional circumstances benefit. It wasn’t just a name change; it was also that with this name change came a whole bunch of work obligations. The fact of the matter, though, is that the primary demographic of those who were availing themselves of this benefit are those who are over 65 years and don’t qualify for superannuation, largely because of residency constraints. So these are people who need this benefit in order to be able to survive. What the Opposition members wanted to do was to change that around and bring in work obligations as well, which is completely unfair.

The other aspect of the bill that we found incredibly problematic was the redirection of benefit payments. They can happen, as it stands, without consent. But under the current Act, there needs to be good cause. What this bill would have done if it had been passed was to remove that clause, remove that need for good cause to be proven, which then means that you can just redirect benefit payments, and it largely could have been, and would have been, to the detriment of those who are most vulnerable. So when Opposition members then stand up and pretend that this was a bill that was being championed because they are those who fight for the underdog—I call you out on that because it absolutely was not.

The other aspect of this bill that members opposite have been waxing lyrical about is the fact that the bill allows both parents in split custody care situations to be eligible for sole parent support, but those in shared parenting arrangements cannot access this. Now they’ve stood there and they’ve lauded this aspect of the bill, and they’ve said, “Oh, but it’s so unfair.” Now, if you split the family up and one parent has custody of two children and the other parent has custody of two children, well they should avail themselves of this. Why didn’t they then change it to allow for those in shared parenting arrangements to avail themselves of that as well? Why not actually keep the family together and ensure that we’re not actually forcing families to split their children up, just to avail themselves of this? Why didn’t you do it the other way?

But regardless of all that, what we on this side of the House actually find disingenuous—and that’s a word that’s been bandied about by members opposite as well—is this: members opposite claimed that this was a policy-neutral rewrite. But was it, though? Because they snuck in all these things. They snuck in all these absolutely punitive measures. They snuck in the fact that what they wanted to really do was to write into legislation their social investment approach.

At that point, let me bring in a part of one submitter’s submission. I’m going to read that out in a bit, because it’s absolutely worth listening to. It’s the bit about the social investment approach. It’s about enshrining that in legislation, in a rather sneaky manner, that we object to. We’ve consistently objected to that, and we continue to.

This was a submission from E tū, and I quote: “Unfortunately”—[Interruption] Well, yes, they are the largest private sector union, with 55,000 members. If you want to turn your noses up at that, that’s your call. But this was their submission: “Unfortunately, the Ministry of Social Development has an Investment approach that seems to focus solely on the cost of people receiving a benefit and to focus on investing in employment and work readiness services and supports to reduce the long term costs within [the] Vote Social Development [budget].”

They then go on to point out, quite rightly, that this is about reducing the people of New Zealand to a financial cost—“future liabilities that need to be dealt with.” That is the social investment approach that members opposite laud. It goes on to say: “Often people go on benefits through circumstances that no-one would wish on another: redundancies, death of partners, relationship breakup, unexpected pregnancy, ill-health, mental illness, to name a few. These are not future liabilities that need to be reduced within a budget line. These are people that are hurting, are stressed, and need to be treated with dignity and we help them get back to being in a position to help themselves.” That is what a true investment approach would look like, but instead it was this whole limiting of liabilities that members opposite wanted to enshrine.

The public scrutiny of legislation has come up. Again, members opposite, multiple members, have gone on and on about this and pointed to the fact that—I don’t know what they pointed to, but they were trying to make out that we didn’t agree with the public scrutiny of legislation. Can I just point out that this bill, when it went through select committee, received 121 submissions—52 of them wanted to be heard. But the time was reduced to six weeks. When those of us on this side of the House were in Opposition we pushed for that to be given an extension, so that members of the public had more than six weeks to submit on a bill of such substance. But did they agree? No—it was truncated. The submission period was truncated by the former Government to actually shut people out. And then when those who came to submit actually submitted, were they heard? No. The submissions fell on deaf ears. Did they change?

Do they understand what “policy-neutral” means? We’ve been hit on the head on this side of the House for not including substantive policy in this rewrite, but let me just point out to you: this was supposed to be policy-neutral. It was your former Government that snuck in bits of substantive policy; now, when we remove it, you slam us on the head for that? Do you not understand? Do the members opposite not understand what “policy-neutral” actually means?

I’ll end on this point: we’ve heard from members opposite that they’ve been slammed with a Supplementary Order Paper, but others have quoted it. So which one is it? You can’t have it both ways. Thank you.

I’d like to try and have it both ways, actually.

I rise to speak on the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill 2016. This was a very sensible piece of legislation. It sought to do very sensible things: to rewrite the Social Security Act 1964 to make it clearer; to deal with some of the inconsistencies; and to make sure that some of the sections, which had been amended as many as 286 times, made sense to members of the public. The Government was doing a good job of it, and then today we get landed with this: a 501-page Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) dumped on us a couple of hours before the second reading—[Interruption]

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Order! Come on.

And so we ask ourselves—we ask ourselves: what is so important in this SOP that means that there should be no departmental disclosure statement, that means there should be no regulatory impact statement, and that means there should be no public scrutiny—that there should be no select committee process? We ask ourselves: what is in this SOP that’s so important? Let me answer that question.

The really important thing that this SOP has in it is removing something that members on the opposite side of the House say is a terrible, awful thing, and that is this principle in the bill on social investment. The principle, in clause 4(e), reads this way, and I challenge members opposite me to explain to the member of the public why it is bad to say a principle of this legislation should be “to help achieve the best possible outcome for people at risk of long-term welfare dependency”, and “MSD may identify appropriate assistance, support, and services, under [that] Act, for [these] people.” Now, members opposite us oppose that principle, and so they land on us an SOP that seeks to overturn what is the most sensible policy for ensuring that people are not trapped in lives of long-term welfare dependency.

So we ask ourselves: what is it that will come into this bill instead of such a sensible principle? Is it the things that the members opposite have been talking about—things like making sure that people shouldn’t have to name the father of their child? Is it things like ensuring that people in the public shouldn’t have to face too many obligations when they are seeking welfare? Well, we don’t know, because it’s not contained in this bill and it’s not contained in this SOP. But I think we would be right, on this side of the House, to fear that a Government that will land an SOP this big without scrutiny may also seek to remove some of the fundamental principles of this Act in due course, which require people to be in work, which say that being in work is a good thing, that say that paid employment offers the best opportunity for people to achieve social and economic well-being, and that say that that should be our priority. That’s why the principle of social investment was in this bill: because it allows those things to happen.

On this side of the House we proudly support those principles, and we oppose Government members landing SOPs like this that do not further the bill, that are not for the betterment of New Zealanders, and that defy common sense. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Madam Deputy Speaker, the Hon Carmel Sepuloni has had to table 500 Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs)—

💬 Hon Carmel Sepuloni: 500 pages.

Five hundred pages. Five hundred pages—sorry—of Supplementary Order Paper to amend and remove the punitive measures that that particular Government, now in Opposition, had introduced, when this bill was supposed to be policy-neutral. So the question is: what is being policy-neutral?

I would draw your attention to the original Social Security Act of 1938, where the overarching purpose of that is set out in the preamble of the legislation, and it reads: “An Act to provide for the Payment of Superannuation Benefits and of other Benefits designed to safeguard the People of New Zealand from Disabilities arising from Age, Sickness, Widowhood, Orphanhood, Unemployment, or other Exceptional [Circumstances]; … and, further, to provide … other Benefits as may be necessary to maintain and promote the Health and General [Well-being] of the Community.”

That’s the policy setting that should have remained and should remain right throughout this process, but the Opposition changed it, and that’s what we’re resetting tonight. Furthermore, the underlying principle of the Act said that every citizen had a right to a reasonable standard of living and that it was a community responsibility to ensure that its members were safeguarded against the economic ills from which they could not protect themselves. That’s what needs to remain constant throughout the rewrite that we’re doing on this legislation, but that Opposition, when they were in Government, changed all that. They introduced punitive measures which weren’t about helping and supporting those in need; they were about punishing them. They were about forcing them into things that they had no control over.

This new Government will now continue this work because it is significant work, and because when we were in Opposition we objected to that previous form. This new Government’s vision is for a welfare system that ensures people have an adequate income and standard of living, are treated with and can live in dignity, and are able to participate meaningfully in their communities. Progressing the rewrite bill now will provide a solid legislative platform to undertake the overhaul of the welfare system, and will assist users of the social security system. I want to acknowledge the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, a new Minister with a huge portfolio. She’s come in and seen the mess that that previous Government has left, so she’s gotten to work and this is the result. It will pass—it will pass—because if I had a bucket, that bucket would be filled with the crocodile tears that I’ve heard time and time again from that Opposition.

You see, the underlying principle of the 1938 Act was also carried through in the 1964 Act, and this is what one of the—during the neutral rewrite of the 1938 Act, in the Minister of Social Security’s first reading speech, that Minister said “The present Act, which is nearly 26 years old, has been amended approximately 30 times and is extremely difficult to follow, both by the general public and by those whose responsibility it is to administer the Act. For that reason alone the Government thinks a consolidation is well overdue.” In 1964, the Social Security Act had 135 sections; it’s now since grown to over 500 sections, with only four remaining unchanged.

Why do we need to rewrite the Act? The 1964 Act is long overdue for a rewrite, and the Social Security Act 1964 is one of the most important pieces of New Zealand legislation. It sets out the financial support available to people who aren’t able to fully support themselves and their families, and the rewrite bill will make social security legislation easier for people to navigate, use, and understand. But I think, more importantly, it’s about delivering the help and support to those who are less fortunate than many of us and to those whose situation is because of things that are out of their control.

I draw your attention to the Social Services Committee, when they received the bill in the first instance, and the select committee made a useful contribution in identifying areas where the bill could be further tidied up. The committee responded to a submission by practice nurses who want to make life easier for the patients who consult them. The changes prompted by that submission will save patients from having to wait for a further appointment with a doctor before they can have the documentation they need for their benefit assistance.

I don’t know what it is that that other side in the Opposition keep harping on about as if their rewrite, in the initial stages, was truly neutral. It wasn’t neutral. If it was neutral, we wouldn’t be having this debate at all. The fact that you’ve got 500 pages introduced by the Minister is evidence that there is a lot of work to be able to bring the legislation back to what it was originally set up to do, and that is to be able to safeguard the people of New Zealand from disabilities arising from age, sickness, widowhood, orphanhood, and unemployment and, further, to provide other benefits as may be necessary to maintain and promote.

In no other time has it ever been more important than now. Because of the circumstances that many in this country of ours face after nine years of neglect, it is now more critical that the rewrite takes place and that we remove what the previous Government had done by setting the course into something that the framers of the 1938 Act had never envisioned. I don’t know how it is that members on that side could get up in this House and talk about what they had done by grounding our safety net, which is what I call our social welfare system, into an instrument where they can hold up punitive measures to punish people.

How do you encourage somebody that is unable to find a job? [Interruption] Sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker. How does one encourage somebody that is in a desperate situation—a solo parent, young children to feed—when that previous Government would tell those people, “If you don’t find a job, we will cut your benefit. If you don’t get an interview, we will deem it that you are not genuine about looking for a job.”? That’s the kind of goings-on under the previous Government.

💬 Simon O’Connor: What a load of rubbish.

That member might say it’s a load of crap, but it isn’t. That member, that member most of all—how sad it is that that member, who should know better, would say something like that in this House? I’m ashamed that he’s a member of this House, because a lot of people think that he would be defending the needy, the poor, the orphaned, the disabled, and those who are widowed, but he doesn’t—he doesn’t. He pretends he does, but he doesn’t. Certainly, that kind of commentary should reveal to his constituency that he’s all talk but he can’t deliver, and for nine long years he associated himself with a Government that didn’t have a heart, that didn’t show any kindness whatsoever to the very people that they now pretend to be defending.

As I said, if I had a bucket, it would be filled with the kind of crocodile tears that I’ve heard over and over again from the members of that side. Shame on them. Shame on them if they’re now going to be supporting this. They disguise their rhetoric by saying it was a neutral rewrite, but we now know better: 500 pages—500 pages to redo and rewrite the damage that they were trying to cause to this country. Shame on them.

Amendments recommended by the Social Services Committee by majority agreed to.

Bill read a second time.