Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill

I’m pleased to stand for the first call of what I think will be a long committee stage on this piece of legislation. I want to put on record, in this first discussion on Part 1, and to first of all to make it clear that the public haven’t had the ability to scrutinise the changes in Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 25, tabled by Minister Carmel Sepuloni. One of the changes is in Part 1, so I will speak at length about it, but, of course, this is a piece of legislation with significant changes by the Minister that won’t have the scrutiny of the public, so this committee will need to provide some of the scrutiny in a short period of time, relatively speaking, in terms of getting on top of the issues that the Government want to ram through.

One of the very important issues in Part 1 that this Government wants to ram through is the removal of one of the principles of the bill. When you’re talking about the principles of a bill, it’s pretty substantial. It’s a pretty significant part of the legislation that did go through a select committee process, has gone through to the public—the public have had the ability to provide submissions at length.

Also, I want to put on record a misconception that the Minister allowed to stay in this House in the second reading, and that was about a report back of the earlier iteration of this legislation. I have to say, it’s significantly different from when it first started. But that piece of legislation had four months’ scrutiny with the parliamentary select committee and with the public—the public had the ability to have their voices heard, both in writing and in oral submissions—and all of these changes will get zero. Four months was a shorter process than the set six months, so I accept it’s a shorter process, but four months is a hell of a lot longer than the zero days that the Ardern-Peters Government thinks this piece of legislation should be considered.

I know those New Zealanders who are listening at home will be as equally outraged as I am when the Minister in charge of the legislation dumps a 500-page SOP on the Table in front of us literally hours before this Parliament is considering the legislation. So in terms of the significant change in this legislation in Part 1—Part 1 of 10 parts—Part 1 includes the principles, and most people would agree that the principles are the things that anchor any activity. In this case, it anchors the legislation around a set of principles, and of course that’s why it is included in Part 1.

So I want to read the words that the Government of the day thinks should be removed. This is in Part 1; the principles are in clause 4: “(c) to help achieve the best possible outcome for people at risk of long-term welfare dependency … MSD may identify appropriate assistance, support, and services, under this Act, for those people.” Well, I’m staggered. I’m absolutely staggered that the Minister doesn’t think those people deserve to be included and considered at the utmost priority of a piece of legislation which is the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill. I’m absolutely staggered that the Government of the day doesn’t think we should include in the principles of the primary piece of legislation those very people that every New Zealander would want to ensure has better opportunities in life—better opportunities in life.

What does some of that entail? I accept there’ll be people at home who are listening to or watching the title of this legislation, “Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill”, and they’re thinking, “What is that all about?” Fundamentally, it’s about making legislation fit for purpose. “Fit for purpose” makes sure that our social security system serves those who need it most—who need it most. But, no, this Minister deems that those people shouldn’t be included in this very important piece of legislation and that that particular piece should be removed.

When we’re talking about people who’ve been on benefits for a long period of their lives—actually, yes, adults we’re all concerned about, but equally across this Parliament—[Time expired]

She couldn’t even do two in a row talking about the social investment approach. Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m actually glad to take a call right after that last member, Louise Upston, because I had pretty much the antithesis of what she had to say about the social investment approach.

First of all, a couple of things that she said—that she was outraged, and members of the public were outraged or would be outraged that they weren’t able to make submissions on this particular clause or part of the principle. The fact of the matter is they already have. They already did. And for all of the talk that that member and every single member of the National Party have to say on this bill, about submissions and being open and wanting to listen to the public—it just ain’t so. If they did, they would have listened to all of the submissions that were against having the social investment approach put into the principle of the Act—against. All of them were against.

So I guess the question that that member needs to answer when she stands up is “Why didn’t she listen to the people?” If she wants to give all the chances to members of the public to make submissions, then why doesn’t that member listen to them? That’s a question. That’s a question that needs to be answered.

The second thing she said was that this was a removal of the principle. First of all, the principle doesn’t exist in legislation. It doesn’t actually exist yet in legislation. There is no removal. What Supplementary Order Paper 25 is doing, and what we’ve tried to explain ad nauseam to the National Party is that this is just bringing about the original state of what National intended the bill to be, which was policy-neutral. Now all that the National Party seem to be clinging to is the fact that we’re actually trying to make it policy-neutral, even though that was the original intent in the first place. It makes absolutely no sense, and what is, I guess, disappointing and surprising to me is that the National Party want to draw this out and filibuster this as long as possible, even though they know that it’s not needed.

I’d like the members of the public who are watching and looking back on this to understand one thing. I speak for New Zealand First when I’m standing here, but I hazard a guess that a number of the other—if not all of the other—parties that make up the Government actually think the same.

The National Party want to try and fool everybody into thinking that the social investment approach means this—that the social investment approach means “whatever they want to fill in there”. Then they start a bleeding heart sort of thing, going on about why and what the current Government wants to take that out for, and why social investment is such a good thing. But the whole entire premise of that argument is that you actually believe and understand that the “social investment” definition is what they say it is. This is not. It just is not.

I know that Nicola Willis and Lawrence Yule—they made a couple of speeches in the House on the previous sitting day when we were discussing the Families Commission Act Repeal Bill. They talked about the social investment approach, because that’s what Bill English wanted—to have his finger in every pie and to put the social investment approach into everything. It’s just unfortunate because those two members, Nicola Willis and Lawrence Yule, they are good people, but they’ve been in for a couple of months now, and it seems as though they’ve already drunk the Kool-Aid of the National Party in their definition of what the social investment approach is. But if you have just a genuine look—look past the smoke and mirrors. Take that little thread that’s hanging out and start pulling it out. Take that thread and start pulling it a little bit. Everything starts to unravel.

There’s a couple of things I want to quote that Nicola Willis and Lawrence Yule said, and I’m going to use them in the explanation of how and why they are so are wrong about the social investment approach and why it shouldn’t be included in this bill, why this Government is taking it out of this bill, and what the actual social investment approach means. It’s vitally important for any National members who want to speak up on this bill to understand actually what it means—and don’t read the notes that are given to you.

Lawrence Yule, for example, says that, “for a”—

💬 Simon O’Connor: Says the member reading.

Well, if that member was listening, he would know that I’m quoting the member. If he wants me to be accurate, then I do have to read it. This is what Lawrence Yule says, “for a small number of families, a massive investment by the State and caring in a wraparound set of services”—[Time expired]

I want to take a call on Part 1 of the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill. Part 1 outlines the general provisions and includes the purposes and principles of the bill. However, I want to start by addressing some of the concerns that have been raised by the honourable member, Louise Upston. Some of those concerns, I think, were responded to quite adequately, actually, by the member who’s just spoken, Darroch Ball, who was on the Social Services Committee and probably has a much more detailed understanding of how we got to this point.

But let me just start by addressing the complaint made by the honourable member, Louise Upston, that the Opposition were landed with a 500-page Supplementary Order Paper (SOP). I just want to clarify with the Opposition that this is the entire bill. Not the entire bill has been amended. There are amendments in it, and the reason that the amendments are put into the actual bill is so that they can be understood in the context of the legislation. If that member had read this, she would have worked out that there are only a few pages that are actually amended in here. It is not 500 pages of amendments. So that’s the first issue that I want to address.

The second issue I want to address, that that member raised—actually, I think it was raised during the second reading, but I may as well, at this point, bring it up too. There was concern raised that there was no regulatory impact statement (RIS) or departmental disclosure statement prepared for this Supplementary Order Paper, and that’s correct. Officials have advised that the RIS or the departmental disclosure statement was not needed as the SOP does not include any policy changes. It does not include any policy changes because it is a policy-neutral rewrite, which is what the previous Government had attempted to do or at least said publicly that they were going to do, but unfortunately then we saw at least seven sneaky little policy changes put in there for good measure, which we have since taken out.

The member Louise Upston has also raised that she feels that the public should have had a chance to look through this SOP. Just reclarifying for that member, it’s not 500 pages of amendments—this is actually the entire bill, with some amendments in it. The reason that we didn’t feel the need to take it back to the select committee is that overwhelmingly the response from the select committee when this initially went through the select committee—and I was on it, as were Darroch Ball, Jan Logie, and others in the Chamber. I’m sure they can attest to this too. The submissions pointed out their concern with the fact that that Government of the time had said this would be a policy-neutral rewrite, and yet they slipped in about seven policy changes that had not been consulted on or been scrutinised adequately by the public. They have been snuck in to what was meant to be a policy-neutral rewrite. So by removing those, there’s no need for us to take it back to a select committee, because it responds to the concern that was raised by the public at the time, during that select committee submission process.

We’ve been very careful, this Government, to make sure that we’re not introducing anything that resembles a policy change. We have concentrated on making sure that this is a genuine clean-up of the legislation, responding to the fact that people like Sir Geoffrey Palmer have said it was one of the worst pieces of statute in this country, and so we needed to focus on cleaning it up, which is what we’ve done.

So I don’t accept the criticism that it needed to be taken back to the select committee, and if the member was to reflect and check the submissions during that time—I understand she wasn’t on the select committee, so doesn’t have that detailed understanding—she would find that all we’re doing as a Government is responding to what the public wanted in the first place. So I’m pretty comfortable with the fact, actually, that we’re not wasting the public’s time by taking this back to select committee.

The member also said that she was concerned about the fact that this is denying the public the right to scrutinise it appropriately. I’ve already pointed out the reasons why that’s not a valid concern at all. But I also want to point out the fact that at the time this came to the select committee, we were really concerned on the select committee that they were giving it a shortened report-back time frame when it was a 500-page piece of legislation. It was going to be one of the biggest rewrites that we would have seen during our time here. The year 1964 was the last time that it had been given a decent rewrite. Over that period of time, from 1964 to 2016, it has been amended hundreds of times.

So we need to go back to the fact that actually it was the previous Government that was not really undertaking due diligence at their time in office, by not allowing the select committee to have the full period of time to be able to scrutinise the rewrite. I suspect, unfortunately, that that was due to the fact that they had just wanted to get those seven policy changes through in what was meant to be a policy-neutral rewrite.

I think I’ve responded to the vast majority of concerns that were raised. I did want to say also that the member raised the removal of the principle around social investment. I was questioned by the member Jo Hayes about our approach to social investment. I will say that we did remove it from the principles because that was a major change. There were actually 18 submissions just on that one principle being inserted into the un-policy, un-neutral rewrite that the previous Government undertook. Eighteen submissions had advocated for the removal of that particular principle. Submitters had raised their concerns that the principle was discriminatory, targeting certain groups; that it would entrench a punitive approach to welfare; and that it characterised welfare as a burden rather than a community and State responsibility.

In fact, the IHC said, “People with intellectual disability are already subject to a multitude of labels that have been imposed on them by others, … The addition of ‘long term welfare dependent’ will add yet another label …”. It was that negativity that we take seriously in terms of needing to remove from it our social security settings, because for us on this side of the Chamber—and this is where the contrast in what social investment or investing in social well-being is—it is about maximising New Zealanders’ potential, seeing the absolute potential in what they have to offer, as opposed to viewing people as potential long-term liabilities to the State, and only looking for risk factors to be able to measure how the State may be able to avoid having to mitigate risk. And by doing that, the previous Government were absolutely underestimating the potential of New Zealanders—putting a deficit lens on New Zealanders, particularly beneficiaries. Unfortunately, they were never going to achieve the positive outcomes for New Zealanders or help New Zealanders to realise real social well-being, in the way this Government is attempting to do, and no doubt will do. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s interesting that the Minister stood up and one of her statements she made was that she’s only doing what the public have asked. Well, the public asked for Roxburgh children’s camp to stay open. The public asked for partnership schools to remain open and functioning as partnership schools. But, however, the Minister has said she’s doing what the public says. I don’t think that rings true, from this side of the Chamber. I think all of those in the public who are listening today may be a little bit confused by the Minister’s words.

In regard to the comments that the Minister made around this, and the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) being policy-neutral, her response to the fact was that the reason why we do not have a departmental disclosure statement is because the officials said that this was policy-neutral. So if she was claiming that the advisers said that the removal of her further SOPs of those amendments was policy-neutral, then why, in the second breath, did she also say that they were snuck in as being policy statements? I think the fact is there’s a bit of confusion by the Minister there, because it’s clearly not indicating the fact that they weren’t policy statements, so why didn’t they have a disclosure statement in it as well?

But I want to go to the heart of what we are talking about here, and it’s in Part 1 of this bill. In particular, what the Minister and the current Government have been saying to us is that we’ve snuck this in—in other words, when we look at Part 1, the principles, and we look at clause 4, and especially subclause (e), it says: “to help achieve the best possible outcome for people at risk of long-term welfare dependency”. I have to say, one of the interesting challenges is that it’s been called a stigma—the fact that we’re imposing this view. In some words they say it’s “beneficiary bashing”. That’s not the truth. The truth is, if one looks back at Part 1 and the purpose of the bill, here’s what it says—this is an Act that’s over half a century old, it’s from 1964, and in its clause of purpose it declares this: “to help people support themselves and their dependants while not in paid employment”. If one turns over, in clause 3(a)(ii) it says: “to help people find or retain paid employment;”, and in clause 3(a)(iii), “to help people for whom work is not currently appropriate—[be] … sickness, injury, disability”. What it’s clearly stating is it’s the circumstances that a family or an individual finds themselves in that the role of Social Security Act and the responsibility of the Ministry is to support them, but, more intentionally, to help them out of that circumstance and situation. That’s what was intended.

Back in the days when Joseph Savage sat back and the Government of the day put together the Social Security Act of 1964, the principle was this: that the best thing for all people is work. Therefore, what is wrong with this clause here: “to help achieve the best possible outcome”? Is there anything wrong with that statement? No. And: “… for people at risk of long-term welfare dependency”—is there anything wrong with that statement? All it states is this: if the intention of us is to do good, why would we allow people to still be dependent on a welfare benefit? No—if it is our intent to do good, then we should be helping support them, which is congruent with the purpose of the bill. That’s what the intention is.

I take exception to the Minister saying that these clauses were mean-spirited and these clauses should not be included, when the intent of the clause is quite clear. It says this: “MSD may identify appropriate assistance, support, and services, under this Act, for those people.” I have to say to you, when one thinks through this, the wording of that is quite specific. It’s identifying who the people are that we should be supporting, and how we should wrap around that support to ensure that we help them in the best possible way. It’s congruent and consistent with the purpose of the Act. It’s consistent in the ways of what we’re trying to do. When this Government stands up and proclaims that we’re here to help the people, their welfare, and their concerns, then I cannot see how the Government of the day can oppose this inclusion in this bill.

I have to say, I’d like to see some more robust rationale that would come out on the Government side to explain the reasons why—to explain the reasons why. When we look at the previous Government, it was under the National-led Government that 85,000 children were actually brought out of welfare-dependent homes—85,000. You see, the thing is, what will happen is this: this Government of the day will not set a target, will not set a figure, and what they will do is they’ll just open up their arms—because everyone loves populist politics—to care and love and say, “We’ll do good.” But the truth is, the legacy they will leave behind is another generation dependent on welfare.

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Servicing misery.

I have to say, that’s going to be the real concern: servicing misery in our communities and in our country.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair—very pleased to take a call on Part 1 of, effectively, Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 25 around the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill. I think it has to be noted right from the start that the Minister’s being particularly sensitive, it seems, around the size of the bill. While she’s accurate to indicate that the changes of the Supplementary Order Paper are integrated into it, this is, ultimately, a rather large Supplementary Order Paper—which we are working through, I have to indicate, at haste.

So I’d like to indicate two things, if I might, to the committee of the whole House. One is that it will take me and, I’m sure, colleagues across the Chamber time to progress through this. I acknowledge what the Minister’s said—that it’s an attempt to make this easier, and in some ways it is, but it’s not going to make it any faster. The second is, possibly, a heads-up to the chief whip—or Kieran McAnulty, at least—on the other side, that this committee of whole House is going to make the brokering weapons bill look like a walk in the park.

💬 Hon Member: He loved that one.

So here we are at Part 1—I’m sure he’s incredibly excited about this. This bill, with the SOP’s changes integrated into it, is a bill of 10 parts with 16 schedules and multiple subparts, so I’m pleased to start on Part 1, clause 3—because we’ll be getting to clauses 1 and 2 in the title and commencement phase. Part 1 is the general provisions, notably around the purposes of the bill, principles, and so forth, and interestingly—and we’ll have to get to it later—some examples have been put in. It’ll be interesting to know, in fact—and maybe it’s a bit of an indication to the Minister for future contributions—that clause 14, “Status of examples” is quite explicit in that they’re not to be, effectively, legally binding. It’ll be interesting to know if there have been other examples of this in the past.

However, I’ve misled the committee in so far as I said I’d start at the beginning, which is clause 3, the purposes of the bill. Clause 3(a) says, “to enable the provision of financial and other support as appropriate”. In and of itself, “appropriate” is actually a loaded word, particularly in a political environment, and politically so at the moment because of all this talk that something is neutral. If we accept the accusations that what the previous Government put forward was not neutral, then the response by the current Government—that it’s basically doubling down on that lack of neutrality and adding its own bits and bobs—makes it, therefore, not neutral.

So we then have to begin questioning words such as “other support as appropriate”, because as I read the purposes of the bill, it goes into a whole list of, effectively, excuses around people on welfare or on social development. It’s an inherent contradiction, I’d suggest, right from the start, that “to enable the provision of financial and other support as appropriate” seems to imply that there should be support given and benefits given.

But as I begin to read through the purposes of the bill in clause 3 and then continue through the other parts, it seems to me that a lot of the additions, or those things which have been removed by the Minister, are, effectively, putting in excuses for people to remain on benefits. I’ll get into that more when I discuss clause 4, and, with a spot of luck, well after that, I suspect well into days following, to get on to Supplementary Order Paper 28 in the name of one of the O’Connors—one of the O’Connors—in this Parliament.

So, again, just with clause 3(a)—just 3(a)—we’re already getting a question of who is deeming what is appropriate, and are the sections which follow within clause 3, effectively, contradicting what is appropriate? It seems to imply that support will be given as appropriate to get someone into work and into financial support, but, as I’m suggesting, there are some excuses here.

I wouldn’t mind the Minister also answering why, in 3(d) and those following paragraphs—and particularly paragraph (e)—there’s a particular focus on young people. I think that’s incredibly prudent in and of itself—of course we want to focus on young people—but why is it that in clause 3 we talk generally, and then only narrow into young people. So 3(d) is “to provide services to encourage and help young people to move [and] remain in education, training, and employment”. Look, I’ve got no disagreement with that, but, theoretically, would we not have clauses 3(f) and following to say that we’re going to focus on people who are aged, people who have disabilities, and so forth?

It’s just a consistency question, because I hear a lot these days around the questions of diversity and questions of discrimination. They’re often pushed around, and I just have that small concern at this stage that we are actually not embracing the diversity of our New Zealand people, and we may, arguably, be moving into a discriminatory framework here. We’re only in clause 3—we’re barely into the purposes of the bill—and we’re only focusing on young people. So it would be really interesting if the Minister gets an opportunity later to explain why we only are talking about young people—why we haven’t brought in other ages.

And again, I do really want to stress to the Minister that I think the inclusion of young people is a good thing. I’m not disputing the elements here around young people—I think seeking to have them remain in education, training, and employment is excellent—or why we would impose “on the following … people or young people” the provisions in clause 3(e)(i), (ii), and (iii); again, all in itself excellent. It’s probably why a copy and paste job wasn’t done—to put it quite roughly—for seniors, those over 65, and those who are no longer termed as young people.

In fact, maybe that’s a subsidiary question to the earlier question: what are defined as young people? I may have to flick to the definitions page, but is it clear what a young person is? I’m probably ultrasensitive now, in my early 40s, that I don’t fit that, but what are we talking about?

Fundamentally, why are other groups—

💬 Marja Lubeck: Greg’s still a young person—eh, Greg?

And I hear the other side complimenting my youth. It’s just so flattering. Thank you very much.

But no, in all seriousness, effectively, why are other groups not particularly mentioned? We know that our welfare system, our social development system, is designed in such a way—well, they often talk “from cradle to grave”, so why are they not included?

I suppose the last thought I have, particularly around clause 3 alone, is—and it’s probably something I have to draft up as a further amendment—why one of the purposes—

💬 Sarah Dowie: You do that.

Look, I will do that, Sarah Dowie—if I get time. The purposes of the bill, probably, I think, should have something about giving confidence to the taxpayers that the money has been spent accordingly. It’s an absolute privilege, I would say—not a right but an absolute privilege—to live in a society which enables all to be supported. But an element of that support, Minister, is that the money has come from somewhere, and it’s one of the fights I have in my electorate quite often with people, when they say, “Well, the Government should just spend more,”, and, Minister, that’s regardless of whether it’s a National or a Labour Government, and I’m often trying to explain to these young people that the money doesn’t grow on trees, it doesn’t come out of printers, but it actually comes from hard-working taxpayers.

I think, actually, a number of taxpayers—and, look, I’m certainly one of them—want to know that those moneys are being used appropriately. So when people like myself challenge decisions around welfare spending, it’s not because of a lack of care for people. As is well-known, I have worked not only with those people on the ground, on the front line, but also within Work and Income, within the Ministry of Social Development. But the taxpayer wants to have confidence that that money is being spent appropriately, and that’s always a suspicion in my mind when I hear the more leftist thoughts that, basically, money should just be given to everyone, every time, for anything—and never a question to be asked. That’s not prudent.

It’s not prudent for the taxpayer, but I’d suggest to you as well, Minister, it’s actually not prudent for the individuals. If we are to give people dignity, dignity ultimately stands on them being able to stand on their own two feet. I’m not going to get in-depth on that, but I just wonder—and, again, it probably requires a new amendment to be drafted—whether we should insert something here to say that one of the purposes of the legislation is to give that surety to taxpayers that their money is being spent wisely and appropriately, because as I continue to go through here I have concerns.

When I get on to clause 4, around why we dropped the social investment programme, that’s just a responsibility question. It doesn’t surprise me that a number of submitters were against that. It’s, effectively, wanting money without consequence, and just to use one of those really liberal, progressive terms which people like to use: “that really offends me”. I’ll get more on to that when I touch on clause 4, which are the principles, and I again alert the committee that we’ll get on to Supplementary Order Paper 28, which is a Supplementary Order Paper in my name.

I think I’ve taken up enough of the committee’s time just on that clause, but I am looking forward to moving—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Really? Oh, no; keep going.

Look, I could—I could—but I will withhold there.

Usually I’d take this opportunity to make a few rebuttals of the previous speaker, Simon O’Connor, but I can’t at this point, because, actually, I fell asleep halfway through because he was so boring and I didn’t hear what he had to say in the last half. So what I’ll do is I’ll go back to the previous—

💬 Simon O’Connor: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I seek the leave of the committee to repeat my last two contributions for the benefit of that member.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): I’m sure, if I sought that leave, it would not be agreed.

So what I’ll do is to—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Let me call the member. Thank you, Darroch Ball.

Oh, I just didn’t think that was a point of order at all, so I was just carrying on.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): I’m sorry, that is not for you to determine. Darroch Ball.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So what I’ll do is I’ll carry on with my previous story, because it was a good story about Lawrence Yule and what he was saying and the quote that he made. It does highlight an important point about the social investment approach and the amount of Kool-Aid that he has obviously consumed.

In the same speech that he gave, he used two different definitions of what the social investment approach was, and he didn’t even know it—he didn’t even know it. The first thing he said was “for a small number of families, a massive investment by the State and caring in a wraparound set of services would have been far better than a broad-spectrum approach.” Now, that’s what they want people to understand the social investment approach is. He also said that that side of the Chamber would “proudly champion that through this term of the Government,” and when they get back in the Government, because it’s “the best way of supporting my children, their children, and all of New Zealand’s children.” So that’s according to them what the social approach definition is.

In the same sentence, actually, he said, “The Rt Hon Bill English saw that and saw the cost to the State, the nation, and us, as taxpayers, if [it] wasn’t done properly.” That is the absolute foundation and basis for which they actually have created the social investment approach and how they implement it. They are hiding behind smoke and mirrors around the definitions about what’s best for the children and what’s best for the country, but, when it boils down to it, all it is is about fiscal liability to the State—fiscal liability to the State.

Do you know what backs up my comments? How did they measure them? Better Public Services targets. How more blunt a tool can you get than a target that someone has to meet, and if they don’t meet it, that’s it—if they don’t meet it, that’s it. They measure success in very isolated silos. Then we can start talking about data collection and information gathering and things like that and how poor that has been around the social services around the world. But they use Better Public Services targets—or they used to—to put pins in the map or on the graph about how well, and how much money, they are saving as a State long term—saving as a State long term. Yet the members themselves can’t actually hide behind the smoke and mirrors for too long before the truth comes out. Just like Lawrence Yule said, it’s about how much it costs to the State, costs to the nation on us as taxpayers, if it’s not done properly. The only thing that one needs to do is to look at some research about what the social investment approach is—especially in New Zealand and how it was conducted.

I want to quote from Dr Simon Chapple, who was a senior economist and held public policy roles in New Zealand and abroad, including at the Department of Labour and Ministry of Social Development. Now, his definition of what the social investment approach is: “the key unifying feature is managing and incentivising the welfare system in terms of reducing the future fiscal liability”—reducing the fiscal future liability. So it’s got nothing to do with what’s best for the children or what’s best for future generations or how many people they can get off a benefit and what’s best for those individuals; it’s all about reducing the future fiscal liability. It’s not Bill English’s fault, because Bill English was a businessman and he represents big business and small business, and that’s how they run a business. It’s all about commodities, it’s all about profits, it’s all about how you can make more money; it’s not about the people and all of the wraparound issues that go with them—the wraparound issues that go with them. He goes on to talk about the Better Public Services targets. “If you’d look at the government’s relevant Better Public Services goal, the performance target is about reducing the fiscal liability [in] the welfare system and the number of beneficiaries.”—[Time expired]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m pleased to take a call on Part 1 of the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill and add my voice to counter some of the assertions that have been made by the Opposition. I think the assertion has been made that it’s inappropriate to bring back such a large Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) to the House without public scrutiny. I want to add my voice to the view that, actually, select committees listen to the evidence, ideally, and make changes. We don’t have an iterative process of the committee making those changes and then sending it back to the public for their view. That is not how our process works.

What this SOP represents is actually an accurate reflection of the submissions opposed to the bill that came back from the committee that represented the National majority on that committee who refused to listen to the submissions and the views that were coming to us. The member Louise Upston on that side is shaking her head—though she wasn’t on the committee, strangely enough, whereas I actually heard the evidence and I know what’s come back and what we were told. I believe that this bill, in the SOP form, is a much fairer reflection of what people presented to us, as well as what the Government’s stated intent on the introduction of the bill was, which was a policy-neutral rewrite of the legislation, and that is what we are delivering and debating in this House today.

So, to ensure it was policy neutral, the point in Part 1 is that the Government, with the support of the Green Party, has removed the additional principle that the National Party wanted to add to the Social Security Act. The principle provided that, and I’ll quote, “to help achieve the best possible outcome for people at risk of long-term welfare dependency”, and that that is defined as “an indefinite period, not been able to obtain full-time employment;”. So let’s unpack that for a second. “Indefinite period”—that could be three months, as long as you don’t have a defined end-date on when you’re going back to work; that could be two months and you’re deemed to be at risk of long-term welfare dependence because you’re not able to put a date on when you’re going back to work, and that is obtaining full-time employment. I do need to say that many of the submissions that we heard in the Social Services Committee came from people who were working with, or who did have, disabilities, who were telling us very clearly that, by that definition, they would fit the definition of being “dependent” and that this would be characterising them as a burden on our society.

We heard from a previous speaker, Alfred Ngaro, that this is entirely consistent with the original 1964 legislation, except that it also said that work was important. Everyone believes that work, for those who are able to work, is important. There is no disagreement with that. But the 1964 legislation said clearly that one of their principles was: “people for whom work is not appropriate should be supported in accordance with this Act.” That was based on the idea that every single person in this country should be able to live in dignity, regardless of whether they are able to participate in the paid workforce. We all have things to contribute and we all have value, regardless—versus this view that is saying that if you’re not able to be in full-time employment for any certain time period, then you are dependent, you are at risk, or you are long-term welfare dependent and a burden on us as a society.

This is what the submitters raised with us as a concern, and the Green Party supports that concern and we are very pleased to see this come out. We are also pleased to see it come out for other reasons that have been just briefly touched on, which is that it is an embedding of the social investment approach. Again, the previous speaker for National seemed to have a bit of confusion—well, he was accusing the Government member of having confusion about the regulatory impact statement. There is no regulatory impact statement for this Supplementary Order Paper, because there is no new—[Time expired]

Thank you, Madam Chair. The speaker before me, Jan Logie, seems to be a little confused about principles in the bill. The principles are in Part 1, which is what we are debating in this committee of the whole House. The committee of the whole House is an important stage to be able to look at proposed changes both from the select committee process and, of course, Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that are tabled. My colleague Simon O’Connor has a Supplementary Order Paper on Part 1 that he will speak to shortly, so I won’t steal his thunder.

When there is a substantial Supplementary Order Paper tabled by the Minister to the degree that’s been tabled just over a week ago, it actually does require, and good governance should allow, scrutiny other than only this opportunity here in the Chamber. But, in terms of the principles in clause 4, I think the speaker before me didn’t understand how the principles of the bill work. One of them says, “(d) people for whom work is not appropriate should be supported in accordance with this Act:”. There is no disagreement with that. There is absolutely no disagreement. Absolutely, people who need to be supported should be, and I don’t think there’d be any New Zealander that would dispute that.

It also says, and principle (a) states, “work in paid employment offers the best opportunity for people to achieve social and economic well-being:”. That is the first principle. That is the first principle that’s stated. The speaker before me started to go off on a complete tangent about the fact that the Government wouldn’t be able to support people with disabilities, so I’m not quite sure where the member has gone with that.

What I do want to say, and I think it’s important for this committee to recall this, is in the departmental report of this legislation when it was in the Social Services Committee—and it’s a pity it’s not returning—the departmental report really quite clearly stated Labour’s and the Greens’ view of this legislation, so I’m somewhat surprised that the member who’s resumed her seat wasn’t focused on those issues. Also, one of the areas that both Labour and the Greens seemed to talk about—and this was an opportunity to put that talk into action—was about placing the well-being of children at the forefront of everything the Government does. Yet there was an opportunity to do that with this legislation that they’ve just allowed to completely slip past.

When we talk about—and, yeah, I accept it will be uncomfortable for members opposite—families who are in long-term welfare dependency, some of those families have significant challenges in areas of dysfunction. By having a principle here that is actually about providing front-line staff—providing Work and Income and the Ministry of Social Development (MSD)—a greater ability to respond to the needs—

💬 Jan Logie: Are they social workers?

—the greater ability to respond to the need—I’m sorry, but the Greens member has just suggested that front-line MSD staff aren’t trained and wouldn’t be able to do this job effectively. It probably echoes, actually, the Minister’s own complaining and criticism of front-line staff and the decisions they make, which I, quite frankly, think is embarrassing. The Minister should be supporting her staff, first and foremost.

But this principle that the Arden-Peters Government is removing in this SOP is the ability for front-line staff to respond to the needs of some of the most complex cases they deal with. The Children’s Commissioner talks about 10 percent of the children in New Zealand, who come from and have incredible difficulties. Some of their parents, some of their caregivers, are the very parents that we are talking about and trying to support in principle (e) in this legislation, and so it is very surprising that the Minister would get rid of an opportunity to provide greater levels of assistance to those very families and their children.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am very keen to talk about the Minister for Social Development’s Supplementary Order Paper 25 under principles, which is to remove the wording in clause 4(e) “to help achieve the best possible outcome for people at risk of long-term welfare dependency”. But before I talk about my views on this removal of these words, I want to actually respond to the New Zealand First member Darroch Ball, who I see is so fixated on how to define social investment.

💬 Darroch Ball: Yeah.

Yes, repeatedly—repeatedly—you’re so fixated on that one issue: how to define social investment. I think the member should focus on seeing the outcomes of social investment that we managed to achieve. And the member from the Green Party, Jan Logie, yes, she recognises that jobs are important. We fully agree. Yes, jobs are important, and that is what a social welfare system is about. It’s about providing support to people—those who have no source of income. So, yes, there are people—they cannot be assisted to get into employment, but there are other people that can be motivated.

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Part 1.

It’s not “Ha, ha”. In reality, yes, there are people—they can be motivated, they can be helped to get into employment, and I can tell the member that I know that the caseworkers work really, really hard—really, really hard—understanding what their qualification is, what their experience is in, and how they can help them fit into some kind of business, for employment reasons. They connect with local businesses, to the extent that they help them prepare their CV, forward the CV to businesses, and arrange their interview times as well. So, yes, there is a lot of work that caseworkers do at the Ministry of Social Development to help these people get into jobs.

So the concern we have is that the Minister for Social Development is taking that flexibility away from caseworkers to be able to help these people—those who just need some motivation, just need some assistance and they will be in employment. And, yes, I ask the Minister what’s wrong with this wording: “to help achieve the best possible outcome for people at risk of long-term welfare dependency”? It’s about identifying risk. It’s about finding the evidence. But, yes, I know you should say, “Ha, ha.” The member should say, “Ha, ha.” now, because you don’t want to—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Order!

Sorry, Madam Chair. I just meant that member there. So, yeah, because they don’t want to believe in evidence, they don’t want to collect data, they don’t want to see what’s coming up in different information that we can collect. If we try to tailor solutions depending on what the problem is, then we can get better outcomes, but it looks like this Minister just wants to sprinkle money away and hope that the problem will go away. We don’t believe in that. We believe in looking at where the problem is and how we can address that issue. That’s why we believe that this wording is really, really important.

We know that the evidence shows that when people go on benefit at a younger age, it’s likely that they will remain on benefit for a longer time. So that is a risk. The age of that individual is a risk. So if we know that, why should we not act on that? Why should we not help those people in that age bracket who we know are at higher risk of staying on benefit for a long time? I don’t see any problem with that, and I don’t understand why the Minister sees a problem with this. That’s why I ask the Minister what’s wrong with this wording, why she wants to take this wording away. If the Minister will take a call and repeat that, “Oh, this is just the rewrite of the social security legislation.”, then the Minister is taking us back to the 1960s.

Yes, we know that there have been so many sections added to this legislation. The rewrite was important, but we also want to reflect on the changes that have come in these years and how we can make the service delivery better. So I believe the Minister is completely ignoring that bit and is just focused on rewriting this bill and wasting the House’s time—not only the House’s time but I believe that she has also wasted our submitters’ time. Actually, it has been, really, a very undermining process where submitters came with a lot of hope, they thought they were being heard on this legislation, but, no, because of us going back to where we were. That means that whole process was of no use to us here, to make this legislation more effective.

So I really urge the Minister to think again about the whole process. We should not undermine the select committee process, because that is what the Minister is doing. If it’s just about staying away from social investment because that is the term used by the previous National Government that has been so successful—[Time expired]

I call Kieran McAnulty.

Sorry, Madam Chair—did you call me?

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): I did call you, yes.

I’m struggling to hear—is the microphone on? Anyway, I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for giving me the opportunity to speak on this particular part of the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill. I too want to add my concern around the deletion of clause 4(e) in “Principles”. I think that a lot of this particular bill here is focused on the high number of Māori that are actually on benefits. To be honest, some of my family have been long-term unemployed. They’ve been on a benefit for most of their lives. They’ve seen that there has been no hope for them. I think, by removing this clause, they will actually see that Government really doesn’t care—they don’t care. They don’t care that they can linger on as a long-term beneficiary for the rest of their lives. Their children will see it, their mokopuna will see it, and it will be something that will be normalised in that whānau. I don’t want to see that happen.

I’ve talked to a number of my family members that suffer from this long-term welfare dependency, and a lot of them have lost hope. By retaining this particular clause, we give hope that those people—my whānau—will actually have a hope to actually stop being long-term welfare dependent. To be honest, the Supplementary Order Paper that has been submitted by my colleague Simon O’Connor will actually help to put that particular clause in a bit more perspective and actually give some hope to those that are long-term unemployed.

I think that a lot of it doesn’t really address anything around those people that are dependent on welfare. I think we need to give them hope. We need to be able to show them a way and support them. I think that this bill, by taking out those words—and some people might think, oh, well, they’re only a few words, but they’re words that are very, very important.

I think that the key aim of welfare is to reduce dependency. That’s what I believe it to be—to actually reduce dependency, to give people a hand up, not necessarily a handout. Welfare is the type of support that you need every now and then, but not all the time for the rest of your life. I see it in the eyes of some of my family members that are long-term welfare dependants. They have lost hope in their eyes. They don’t see anything past it. They don’t have any support there with this clause taken out. I think that it is a bad move. I would like the Minister, I ask the Minister, I plead with the Minister to please consider Supplementary Order Paper 28 and the wording that my colleague Simon O’Connor has actually put together to reinstate a clause that will look at helping to achieve the best possible outcome for people at risk of long-term welfare dependency, to reinstate that particular paragraph in “Principles”, clause 4.

I think that today many people have talked about it, but talking about it and actually seeing the whole thing rolling out are two different feelings. For some of my family members, I think that they do need hope, they do need the ability to be able to get that support from Government to move them off long-term welfare dependency, and I think that the Minister does need to take another look. I think it’s our responsibility as Opposition MPs to keep debating this bill, since it’s not going to be open for public scrutiny; that it is our responsibility to make sure it is scrutinised to the nth in this House to give the people of this country some sort of satisfaction that we gave it the very best that we could across the whole of the House—but mainly on this side of the House, because that is our responsibility to the people, not just to ram these Supplementary Order Papers through, not just to accept a 501-page Supplementary Order Paper. I don’t know why the Minister just didn’t pull out those 22 amendments and just start to debate those rather than doing it the way that she has done it.

So, without any further ado—there are other things that I could talk about. I don’t want to hold up the House any longer, but I think that we need to debate this particular clause to the nth, so we know that we’ve got a good outcome for all New Zealanders. Thank you.

There’s been a few speakers from the Opposition who have spoken in support of Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 28 that’s been put up by Simon O’Connor. I’m just going to make it very clear that we will not be supporting that SOP and why we will not be supporting that SOP. The reason that I won’t be supporting that SOP is because it actually reverts back to a policy change that was in the previous Government’s supposedly policy-neutral rewrite, which ended up not being policy-neutral. So inserting principles and changing principles is actually quite a serious task, and it shouldn’t be something that’s done on the whim or off the back of what a particular Government is feeling on the day, with no discussion with the general public about what they think our social security legislation and our social security system should look like. So, by doing that, there are concerns.

💬 Hon Louise Upston: You’re not giving them the chance.

The member Louise Upston seems to have completely missed everything I said earlier about the reason why we’re not taking the whole SOP 25 back to select committee. It is because, firstly, this is not 500 pages worth of SOP—this is the whole bill—and, secondly, it’s because the vast majority of submitters wanted us to do what this Government is doing today, so we don’t need to go back and check that.

My second issue with Simon O’Connor’s SOP 28 is it’s just that very tired, old-fashioned, right-wing framing of the benefit system and those that have to access support from it. So to say that to help achieve it—so the actual principle that Simon O’Connor would like reinserted back into the rewrite is “to help achieve the best possible outcome for people at risk of long-term welfare dependency”. I just want to say that to assume or to assert that those that need support from the Ministry of Social Development are at risk of welfare dependency already starts it off on such a negative deficit foot, and I don’t think the previous Government understands that by having that type of framing and making that type of assertion, they are actually willing those seeking support to fail. So, you know, like to achieve the best-possible outcome for people—absolutely—but then to assert that they’re all at risk of welfare dependency is just unnecessary and actually counter-productive.

I want to actually refer to a meeting I had not long after becoming Minister with the 20 top case managers in the country, and they were deemed top case managers because, actually, they were the most successful at getting people into work, but the conversation that they had was not about welfare dependency. The thing that they raised as being of number one importance to them and what helped them do a great job was making sure that everyone that sought their support got what they were entitled to up front, so that they could stabilise that person and that family situation. That was what helped them be successful.

The second thing was they’d built a meaningful relationship with that person that was seeking their support, gained the trust of that person, and actually ascertained what their needs were. If they weren’t immediately ready for employment, then they worked out maybe what were the steps to becoming ready for employment. Perhaps it was upskilling and training, so they didn’t try to privilege the next minimum-wage job over an upskilling or training opportunity; they actually worked with them where they were at to see what was the best pathway for them. Then, by doing that—building trust, giving them what they’re entitled to up front, working with them with respect to where they were at, and sometimes, you know, supporting them to take up upskilling and training opportunities, rather than going into the next job that popped up—they were able to be successful in their job as case managers in terms of placing people into employment.

So I just want to point out that it’s not necessarily about—well, actually, it’s not at all about, and it shouldn’t be about, trying to avoid situations where someone might be welfare dependent, because if that’s your primary consideration, then you’re already starting off on a really negative foot with the person that’s seeking your support. So I really liked what those 20 top case managers had to say about how they got to the point where they could support people into meaningful and sustainable employment. A lot of what they had to say were things that the previous Government completely overlooked as being of any importance.

So it’s good to listen to front-line staff. I do value the front-line staff and the learnings that they’ve gained on the job, and I am looking forward to working with them with respect to tidying some of this stuff up.

I rise to speak on the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill. Now, I’m a new member, and I came to this House thinking that what we did here was we made amendments to laws to make them serve New Zealanders better—that we came here to change laws to make a difference to people. So we’ve just heard the Minister Carmel Sepuloni speak at length about caseworkers and what could be done to help them apply their work better and to get more people out of welfare, so I had a little flick through this 501-page bill and amended Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 25 looking for the amendments that actually enable any of the things that that Minister just spoke about.

💬 Hon Member: It’s policy neutral.

Curious, it is, there is none of that in here. Yet, in fact, what there is is the removal of the very principle that would have empowered those caseworkers to really look at individual lives and make a difference. That is the principle of social investment, and that is what this bill removes.

So we have members opposite calling out a little phrase, which I’m sure everyday Kiwis would be curious to have a definition for, and that is “policy neutral”. I actually think that this is a reasonable aspiration: that members on both sides of this House would say, “Well, let’s work together to tidy up this old Act that’s in a bit of a mess.” In fact, that’s what National got to work on doing, got to work on tidying-up an old Act that didn’t make much sense. But, sensibly, because we do not want to waste time and resources, sensibly, because we do want to be effective and efficient and put children, families, and New Zealanders first, what we did do was we said that on the way through, if there are small incremental changes we can make to improve the way the welfare system operates, we will. And then what happens is the Labour Government come in and they say, “No, no, no, no, no. We are going to take it all—strip it back and make it policy neutral.”

So I’ve been sitting here as a new member thinking: what is this all really about? And, you know what? I think I’ve worked it out. I think that this is actually about the new Labour-led Government not being able to agree on what changes should be made in the welfare area. I actually feel sorry for them. On the one hand, they’ve got the Greens, who want to remove any punitive measures, who don’t think that work should be an obligation, and then we’ve got New Zealand First, on the other hand, who are saying that, actually, we should be introducing ready-for-work programmes. So if we look at Part 1, as amended in SOP 24, and we think about what the general provisions in there are, which are outlined in clause 5, and we look at that guide to the legislation, we say to ourselves, “This is a bit uncomfortable, isn’t it?” Because, actually, there is something inserted here which is far from policy neutral, and that’s the winter energy payment. So I don’t think that’s policy neutral, because it certainly wasn’t policy that was introduced in the bill previously.

So, instead, what I’d like to turn to is the principles of the bill that remain in Part 1 and that I think, based on question time today, there may be some concern about on the Opposition benches: clause 4(b), which says, “the priority for people of working age should be to find and retain work.” and clause 4(a), that “work in paid employment offers the best opportunity for people to achieve social and economic well-being:”. We had the Hon Willie Jackson get up in the House today and imply that picking fruit is beneath some people, implying that that is not appropriate work for some people. So my question to the Minister is: does she intend down the line to re-examine these principles, which remain in this bill, around the priority of finding work? Because what she did just suggest in the previous speech was that she’s concerned that any change to principle needs to be considered.

So I want to know whether or not these principles are up for review, because it shocks me, and I think it would shock most New Zealanders, that this Government would remove the principle of social investment that was written into this bill, because that principle is simply common sense. [Interruption] Now, the member opposite—I forget his name—the New Zealand First member, wanted some help with a definition. I simply point him to Part 1, that we’re debating right now, where we’ve got a very nice definition of what social investment means in the context of welfare provision. It says, “to … achieve the best possible outcome for people at risk of long-term welfare dependency”.

Now, the hoops and jumps you’d have to go through to say that somehow that’s something of malign intent! It is simply ridiculous to suggest that, because what in fact we are allowing to happen by inserting that principle into this bill is empowering those who implement the welfare system to take steps to take measures that best target those who need help. But members opposite want to take a generic approach—want to do silly little things like not calling something an “emergency benefit” but calling it an “exceptional circumstances benefit”. They take issue with the semantics but they don’t attack the substance.

Tēnā koe, Madam Chair, and thank you for the opportunity to make a contribution. Well, I think that just really summed up the approach from the Opposition about how we deal with and work with our most vulnerable in our community. What became clear throughout the campaign was that systematic change needed to take place, to make sure that those get full and correct entitlements where they deserve it and where they need it. This is a particular bill that makes sure that those people in our communities actually do get fair and correct entitlements.

I want to pick up part of the point and speak to the principles that the other side of the Chamber keep going on about, and it’s certainly related to Supplementary Order Paper 28, in the name of Simon O’Connor. It speaks to the systematic change that’s needed. It speaks to the ability to make and empower our case managers, and indeed the Public Service that actually work with this particular piece of legislation or this bill, to make sure that they are better equipped to serve our people.

Now, as a former case manager, I can tell this committee—I look across the other side and I don’t see any other former case managers in this Chamber. The Minister in the chair, Carmel Sepuloni, made reference to the 20 top case managers, and what they talk about when they highlight what makes them so effective—the Minister’s already touched on some. When I asked a particular one of them, “What were some of the challenges?”, actually, they made it very clear that it was the legislation that creates the systematic problem, which is what this bill is addressing. It actually makes some very technical and some very smart changes to this particular piece of legislation, and that’s needed, because the systematic change that that particular case manager—one of the most successful in the country—talks about actually is defined in its principles. It’s defined in its principles.

So the systematic change we’re talking about is exactly what the Minister highlighted to the other side of the Chamber. Instantly, if we are to consider Supplementary Order Paper 28, what that does is it automatically places a lens on the Public Service and their engagement with the public, and that’s a problem. That’s a problem because this particular Supplementary Order Paper actually takes us backwards. It takes us back in time. It takes us back to, dare I say it—as the Hon Alfred Ngaro mentioned—1964. If anything, in 1964, we know Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in the States. That’s probably something more progressive than what they’re offering in this Supplementary Order Paper at the moment.

This is the systematic change that needs to happen to make sure that, once again, all of our people in this country—and it isn’t just beneficiaries under the definition that I know that side of the Chamber supports or believes in. We know that, actually, many Kiwis right across the spectrum—some that do work, some that don’t work, some that have dependants, some who are unwell—we come in all walks, shapes, and sizes. It’s important that when we hear from the other side—they keep throwing around the term “beneficiary”. That only proves that this piece of work that’s being done, in Part 1 in particular, around the principles is very, very important and much needed.

I won’t go on too much longer, because I know the other side’s chomping at the bit to repeat themselves. I just wanted to make the point, as somebody who has worked in this system, worked with the people on the front line, it’s very clear that in order to get systematic change, we must start with the legislation, and that’s what this bill does.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I rise to speak to the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill today in its committee stage. I’ll talk to the parts of the bill, which is Part 1 that we’re discussing today, which, of course, everyone in this Chamber will know contains the general provisions.

There are 10½ pages of indexing in the contents of those provisions, so it simply signifies how big this particular piece of legislation is. And it’s massive, but unfortunately it is quite changed from the version that we had been discussing as a Parliament, and this Supplementary Order Paper 25, of course, has made some significant changes to the social investment approach that the former Parliament was discussing.

The purpose, as we’ve heard today, of this bill is, as stated in clause 3(a) to “enable the provision of financial and other support as appropriate”—and it is appropriate in New Zealand. We are very proud of our welfare system and the welfare state that has evolved in this country over many decades, and it is rightly so that we should be held up as an example of a compassionate country that supports our less fortunate people.

As part of that “Purpose of this Act”, it is, in clause 3(a)(i), “to help people to support themselves and their dependants while not in paid employment; and”—not “or” but “and”—“(ii) to help people to find or retain paid employment;”. That is the bit in this bill that I find quite ironic from the people across the Chamber. We are asking people to find or retain paid employment when we are constantly hearing about the efforts of the present Government to compromise small businesses that provides most of the paid employment to the people in this country, and where most of our small businesses provide those employment opportunities to the very people that we are discussing in this bill today. It is “(iii) to help people for whom work is not currently appropriate”, and, of course, that is for people who may have some kind of a disability or may be injured or sick. So the welfare system supports people of all ilks.

I’d like to just pay tribute to the Minister for Social Development, who stood up before and mentioned the caseworkers that she had been working with, and to use the opportunity to thank the people of the Ministry of Social Development, the social workers, and all of the front-line staff, because I know that they do a fantastic job in supporting people in their workplace, but it’s one of those jobs that I hope will work itself into redundancy. What a great day that will be when we no longer need so many of those people employed to support people on welfare, because they will all be then in paid employment and able to sustain themselves.

We have heard quite a bit today about the deletion, which is in clause 4(e), where the only deletion in the definitions in this bill has been the piece about helping people achieve the best outcome for those at risk of long-term welfare dependency. We know that the best opportunity for those people is to be off that welfare cycle, to stop this cycle of benefit dependency within families, to set good examples for our children. I’ll use the example of a young man that I knew who got his first job at our local council and it was simply washing the fleet of cars after school. Although it seemed like quite a menial job, the pride that that young man got from actually earning his own money, saving up to buy something that he had aspired to, was quite encouraging, and I think that is what we aspire to for all of our people—that they have paid employment.

We’re hearing quite a lot about how this provision is just about making sure that everyone who needs help gets the right help, and freeing up Work and Income officers to be able to provide that help. I just want to provide a little bit of a reality check on that, because, actually, the regulatory impact statement that supported the introduction of this legislation pointed out that this provision was being included to protect the Crown from accusations of discrimination that might be taken to court—for discriminating against people. And, in fact, that is what the social investment approach does. It discriminates; it’s a risk profiling system that seeks to embed discrimination. We’ve seen it introduced in legislation under the last Government, around the young persons’ services.

At that time, in that service, the previous Government had put into legislation that they could send young people who met a particular risk profile off to a different service. Coincidentally, they got extra obligations and potential sanctions applied to them if they met this profile, and the profile was: prior contact with the department of Child, Youth and Family, gender, reasons for leaving school, and educational outcomes. So that kind of formula had been critiqued by Treasury, where they had found that young people who didn’t have those criteria were more likely to have negative life outcomes than those that had all those criteria.

So you can see in that that this is setting up a process of discrimination that is just going to embed the fact that a whole lot of people who could benefit from getting assistance won’t get it. That isn’t what is being described by the National Party members at all. I think they’re showing a fundamental misunderstanding of what this legislation and this provision were seeking to implement. I raised it earlier—in legislation—around this point about the problems, particularly of including contact with the department of Child, Youth and Family as a measure for providing a different service when we know that it’s about 58 percent, I think, of tamariki who are in contact with Child, Youth and Family are Māori. Actually, we are, in fact, setting up a de facto racial profiling system by doing that. When we have just so many reports telling us that we have embedded racial discrimination across our State agencies, to be embedding a risk profiling model that will result in different service through the Ministry of Social Development is a really dangerous thing to do, and it’s not something that the Green Party is happy to support.

I also want to echo the message that the Minister was stating: we know through evidence and through practice that what works is taking a strength-based approach, and this model is inherently defining people on the basis of risk and what you see as wrong with them, rather than actually sitting down and listening to what they might need. Actually, the truth is they know what they need better than anybody sitting across a desk within a Government institution could ever know.

We need to be creating a system that listens and responds to what people’s needs are, because the truth is people have aspirations. People want to be able to contribute and have meaning in their lives, and our system at the moment—and progressively under the last Government it moved away from being able to provide people with the assistance that they needed. We’ve seen that by the increased homelessness on our streets, by the really entrenched poverty, and by the increased inequality in our society. That was the result of the previous system that was seeking to be embedded by that provision in the legislation. It didn’t work. I really think the Opposition just has to come to terms with that. It is time to get back to what we know works, which is kindness.

I move, That the question be now put.