Social Assistance Legislation (Budget 2019 Welfare Package) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Social Assistance Legislation (Budget 2019 Welfare Package) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

This bill gives effect to the Budget 2019 income support changes. These changes mean 339,000 individuals and families will be better off. We have heard today from the Opposition on this bill. It has been a heated debate and, at times, rather ugly. We’ve heard from the other side of the House about how we’re attempting to protect deadbeat dads. We heard from Jo Hayes about the fact that we’re protecting people who play and walk away. We heard from Maureen Pugh about—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! I asked for that expression not to be used.

Mr Speaker, we have heard some nasty things in the debate today, and I wanted to point that out because that really indicates where that side of the House is at. What the bill actually does is ensure that some of our poorest mothers and their children are not punished and thrust into further poverty because of a discriminatory policy that has proven not to work. Contrary to accusations that this bill is purely ideologically driven, it is, in fact, evidence based—evidence that the previous Government chose to ignore. And if there is a message that we want to send, it is that this Government is committed to a fairer, more accessible welfare system, and that’s what this bill supports us to do.

It is estimated that indexing benefits to wage growth will lift the incomes of around 329,000 individuals and families. Most main benefit rates will increase by between an estimated $26 and $46 per week by 1 April 2023. Incremental increases will begin next year. Once again, I need to say that this is significant, and, yes, we’ve had the Welfare Expert Advisory Group report to us, and we look forward to further considering the recommendations in that report as part of our phase two.

I am pleased, however, to hear today that in general we seem to have a tentative consensus on the lifting of abatement rates, across the House. That is something that we can be proud of. The Budget 2019 income support changes that this bill gives effect to will make a real difference to thousands of New Zealanders who rely on benefits, but it should not be seen in isolation. The bill and the changes it supports build on the 2018 Families Package. By 2021, the Families Package and the Budget 2019 income support changes will meaningfully improve the lives of between 50,000 and 74,000 children living in poverty.

The bill is part of the Government’s ongoing commitment to a welfare system that ensures that people have an adequate income and standard of living, are treated with respect, can live in dignity, and can participate meaningfully in, and contribute to, their communities. This bill is part of the Government’s work towards a welfare system that provides people in Aotearoa with the support they need today while we work alongside them to help them reach their potential.

The debate on welfare legislation in the House today has at times been nasty. It really does bring out the worst in right-wing ideology. I genuinely feel sad for those who have to bear the brunt of such misinformed, judgmental, and mean-spirited attitudes. Attitudes like this have never helped any individual family or us as a county to get ahead. There is no place for discrimination of people based on income, beneficiary, or family status in a modern New Zealand, especially if we want to be an inclusive country where everyone can reach their potential and thrive.

What uplifts me is that the vast majority of New Zealanders do not share the National Party’s views on our poorest people, beneficiaries, and solo mums and their children any more. New Zealand has moved on, and can I suggest that the National Party get over their archaic thinking and also move with the times. It is, therefore, with great pleasure that I commend this bill to the House.

Mr Speaker, I do realise I probably have only a minute, and I look forward to, after the break, completing my speech—

💬 SPEAKER: Not even that long.

Not even that long? OK. Sorry, are you calling it now, Mr Speaker?

💬 SPEAKER: Not yet.

OK. So, Mr Speaker, I’ll just name the bill just before you sit me down: the Social Assistance Legislation—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! It’s kai time. The House is suspended until 7 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

💬 SPEAKER: The House is resumed. When we broke for dinner, we were debating the third reading of the Social Assistance Legislation (Budget 2019 Welfare Package) Amendment Bill. The Hon Alfred Ngaro had the call, and if he so desires, he has nine minutes and 43 seconds remaining.

I’m proud to do so, even though in the next half-hour, the Blues will be playing the Bulls. Even though I can’t be there, I’m here doing the work that’s really important in regards to this bill.

On this side, it’s been a long day, and those of us who have championed alongside this bill to see it to its completion—you will know and will have heard that we will vote against this bill. But I want to start off by saying that there have been parts of this bill that we’ve spoken about that we actually agree with. We want to be starting on a positive note, so what are the parts that we agree with? Well, the abatement threshold has never been an issue with us. We can see the fact that we’re going from $80 through to $150. That’s an extension of $70, which is a little bit less than what the Welfare Expert Advisory Group had wished for. They were actually asking for $100, but we think that that’s fair and just and reasonable. It will return itself into an Order in Council, where, under regulations, those adjustments can be made. So we’re actually in support of that.

The second part of this bill, in particular, is around indexing—indexing benefits each year to the average wage growth. Well, we are in support of that. However, I’ve had some expert advice from Mr Andrew Bayly, who’s actually just given me some information. I suppose there’s one thing for the Government on the other side just to be mindful of, which is that when indexing, there’s actually no difference between the Consumers Price Index (CPI) and average wages. In fact, when you move to an average wage, what you’ve introduced is a huge amount of complexity because those rates will change, and he’s proven that. He’s got a schedule that will prove that. In fact, what will happen is that when you change the wages, tax and other deductions will actually mean that you make it quite difficult.

So I just wanted to put that on the table. We do support that. We think that indexing is really important. In fact, we want the members on the other side to remember that, in fact, it was under a National-led Government that we increased the CPI indexing, which was there around the benefit rates.

I know that on the other side, they’ve been crying that this is an amazing, amazing piece of legislation that they’re putting through. It’s the generous spirit that has gone out from this current Government, and they’ve said that what this will do is increase the benefit rates by $11, accumulative, to 2023. I had to remind them. There are some new members on this side that haven’t heard this, but I would just remind them that in 2015, it was actually a National-led Government—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! Order! Now, let’s get back to this bill now, not 2015—all right?

Yes, Mr Speaker. Well, actually, this relates to this bill. It’s the comparative to that that I am talking about with this bill. In fact, what happened is that when we’re talking about indexing, there was a period of time in the history of benefits that there has been some increase in that base benefit rate. In fact, in 2015, there was an increase of $25—that’s right. It was an increase that hadn’t been made for nearly 43 years.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! We’re now going to get back to the bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. So when we compare the $11 that was given by this current Government, thinking that it’s the hand of generosity that has been spoken out there, well, comparatively, there was previously an increase of $25. There were some independent results that came out here, and this is what $25 will buy you.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will resume his seat. This is a final warning. The member will speak on this bill. He will not speak on the 2015 legislation. We’ve had the second reading. That debate was marginally relevant then. We’re now in the third reading, which is only about this bill as it emerged from the committee process.

💬 Darroch Ball: No—can’t do it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Mr Ball will stand, withdraw, and apologise. He will not comment on my rulings.

💬 Darroch Ball: I withdraw and apologise.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I do have to say, though, that the parts of this bill which we have been contesting throughout most of today are in regards to the removing of those sanctions.

So in my final speech, I do want to talk about this. In fact, the Minister referred to the report that she was given, and this is the report here. She tabled the report. In fact, the report—[Interruption] This is very interesting. So when the Hon Louise Upston asked for the report in an Official Information Act request, the report wasn’t submitted, but this is the report that is directly related to this bill, and it’s section 70A. Out of the report that the Minister had tabled in regard to this bill, she quoted from the executive summary. She said that “In mid-2017, the then Minister for Social Development instructed the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) to undertake research”, but what she didn’t quote was the next sentence, and I’d like to quote that. It states, “This request followed policy advice from MSD that there was insufficient evidence to assess the policy’s effectiveness in achieving its intent,”.

So this is the fact of what’s there. The Minister kept on saying that the evidence was there and that the Minister at that time could have made the decision—these are the Minister’s own words—in regards to the changing of the sanctions, when, in actual fact, the report and the advice given said that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to make that decision at that time.

Mr Speaker, I want to make my remarks because I’ve actually read through this full report as I’ve been here. Again, it does relate to the bill because on the basis of this, the decision was made by the Minister, as declared by the Minister, in regards to the sanctions. In fact, what it actually says is this. It said that there wasn’t enough evidence and it looked for other solutions and other alternatives, which the Minister didn’t actually talk about. But I’d like to talk about this because it is in the tabled report. There’s an initiative called an early intervention programme (EIP), which is a facilitated approach.

So, when the question was asked of the Minister of whether there were any other solutions and were there any other approaches that she could have taken, there was not a reply to that response. I would like to say to the Minister that in the report that she submitted—on the Table—there were other solutions and there were other options. One of them was called the EIP, as it states in here. It’s called the early intervention programme. This is a facilitated approach, and what was found was that when they have facilitators working with those in that situation where there was the potential for a sanction, then that could have actually happened in this regard to this bill that was talked about.

So this bill actually talks about those sanctions, and I’m hoping—I’m guiding myself, Mr Speaker, clearly to the scope of this.

💬 SPEAKER: Yeah, the member got a long way out. He’s getting closer, but he’d better get closer still.

OK, I’m returning back to the bill, where it actually clearly states over here—because the bill talks about removing sections 192 and 194 of the Social Security Act, and the basis of that was based on this report that was given. In this report, it added to this debate, and in my final reading speech on the bill, I would like to submit that I would support the recommendations that are in here that could be added. I hope that the Minister might look at this and see that this would be a good way of actually progressing this bill to another potential solution, and it could be added on.

I also want to add to that that one of the things that we did talk about in regards to sanctions was the discretions that currently are actually in the bill. We referred to those and we think that those discretions were actually discretions that would allow for safety concerns that may have been raised. There could have been issues around family violence. There could have been issues in regard to the fact that they weren’t able to find the actual legal and lawful other parent, which is in there. So we raised these issues there with regard to this bill, and those things are really important. We didn’t feel that it was mean-spirited. They were actually appropriate and, again, to this report—it spoke to those sanctions, and the removal of them in removing sections 192 and 194, in the actual bill that is here, is what we were talking about as well.

In my final two minutes, I’d like to talk about the fact that there are other recommendations which we think are important. The Minister did actually mention these recommendations in the—

💬 SPEAKER: Well, if the Minister didn’t mention them and they’re not in the bill, they’re out of order.

Sorry, Mr Speaker, the Minister did mention them—

💬 SPEAKER: Oh, “did” mention them—sorry.

Yes, that’s what I’m saying.

💬 SPEAKER: That’s all right—OK.

I did say that she mentioned these actual bits here—

💬 SPEAKER: OK. All right, very good. Keep going—keep going.

—hence the reason why I’m actually going to them.

Actually, she mentioned what’s in recommendation No. 5 as potential measures that she would be looking at, so that’s the reason why I’m commenting on them, and I’d like to recommend that the Minister look at these. These recommendations were actually part of Supplementary Order Paper 243, which I put forward, which I think are critically important. They do talk about measurements, they do talk about entitlement, and if this progresses—and it seems like it will progress through—then we think that’s actually a good part of a compromise to the bill, and the Minister has indicated that she’s looking at that, as well.

So we on this side feel that there are parts of the bill that we would support, like the abatement rates and the threshold that is there, and the indexing, even though there will be complexities with those sorts of changes. But when it comes to the sanctions, that’s just one part that we feel we cannot support. We wish that the Minister would look into the recommendations she quoted from the Welfare Expert Advisory Group. We believe that they are a way of both monitoring and increasing the ability to be able to ensure that entitlements could be met by those that this could apply to, but, overall, we cannot support this bill in its final reading. So we say that on this side, we won’t be supporting this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Thank you very much for this opportunity to support this bill in the third reading. There’s something in this bill for everyone, one would say. From the twinkle to the wrinkle, from our young people and babies, to our families and to our veterans, there’s something in it for everybody. It’s on that basis that I commend this bill to the House.

Mr Speaker, thank you very much. I wish I’d taken note of some of the quips that we’ve heard in the House today in relation to this bill. I rise to—

💬 SPEAKER: Only some of them.

I won’t repeat some of them either, sir. I rise to speak tonight in the third reading of the Social Assistance Legislation (Budget 2019 Welfare Package) Amendment Bill. It’s been a very big debate today, and many details have been canvassed. I think this actually demonstrates the depth of interest and the raft of feeling around some of the content of this bill. There was a lot debated and questioned this afternoon, and full credit to the team over here for their interest in trying to get the very best legislation that you can when a bill is before this House.

But the thing that has troubled me around this bill is: why the rush? Why the rush, when the commencement date of this policy is not until 1 April 2020? So we’re talking 10 months away—so why are we in urgency, debating this bill, when there is still plenty of time to have actually received the scrutiny of a select committee and still come back to this House in plenty of time to have the policy ready for that date? So it does beg the question: what is it that we are trying to achieve here in rushing it through in this omnibus bill?

We’ve seen and we’ve heard examples already today about the benefit of going through that select committee process. It is open then to submission from affected parties, and I’m sure that we would have received very good feedback from the public, but it also would have given the select committee members an opportunity to question the experts and have that advice challenged and tweaked so that we did get the best of bills.

As my colleague Alfred Ngaro has alluded to, there are parts of this bill that we do support. One of those is the indexing of the veterans pensions, and as part of this bill, we are making that change to the Veterans’ Support Act, because if we hadn’t, they would simply be out of kilter with other benefits as a result of this bill. We all respect and honour the part that they’ve played in our country, here and abroad. This move will allow them, if they so wish, to enjoy more of what they earn, should they be in paid employment, and also have their pensions indexed.

But we certainly don’t understand the need to change the policy around indexing of the other benefits, because we’ve heard—once we saw the scrutiny of the impact that this bill was going to have—that the financial benefit to people by the time this bill is fully enacted in 2023, the difference between indexing to the Consumers Price Index as it would have been in 2023 to now being indexed to the average wage, makes a difference of about $11 a week. At the rate of change in the rate of the cost of living going up, rentals going up, and fuel taxes going up, that $11 is going to disappear very, very quickly.

We do also support the abatement rates that are in here that allow people on benefits to be able to find themselves in paid employment without that affecting their benefits to a huge degree. By allowing them a bit more of a free board so that they can go out and earn more money, I personally believe that that gets them well trained and ready for full-time work. That would be the ultimate gain: to have people gainfully employed.

What’s most concerning about some of the background information that was delivered on this bill is the projected rise in benefit numbers, and we’ve seen that in the information that was delivered to us—up by 13,000 already since the 2017 election. The Budget forecast a further rise of 2,500—a cost of $122 million. Sole parent support beneficiaries are expected to increase by a further 1,600.

By removing sections 192 and 194 of the Social Security Act, we have generated quite a lot of debate today. One of the things that we have noticed over here is that there has been no strong case put forward that really supports this change of direction around the removal of the requirement for someone on a sole parent benefit to name the father of a child. I’ll say this: the rationale is completely lost on us on this side of the House, especially when that policy had its origin in the Labour Government—the Clark Labour Government. So it would have been good to have been able to hear that through the committee stage, but that information was not forthcoming. We also have not heard how the Government plans to keep those fathers involved in their children’s lives, because we all know, and the evidence is—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! Back to the bill, please.

Sure. The bill in its current form allows that a parent does not need to name the father of the child. So we believe that preventing that requirement is also depriving the children and/or punishing the parents, because it’s contributing to the wellbeing.

I use the analogy of someone that has an investment—and I know this from personal experience—in a racehorse. They have a small amount of money invested in it. At least, they go and watch the horse run. They watch it go and race. If a father has no tangible or financial commitment—they have no tie to that child whatsoever—there is no responsibility or need for that father to be there. We know that the support of two parents is very important to a child.

Now, the claim by the Hon Carmel Sepuloni that it will affect all kids within a family if the father is unknown is actually false in the case of kids with a different parent, because the children deserve to know that their father is actually taking an active role in their life. If the Government wants to hold distant parents accountable, the fathers need to be present before the Government removes their own policy from requiring that that is actually done.

One of the concerns that I’ve also got about not naming a father through this process is that we then run the risk of losing track of the siblings of that child. So, for instance, if the parents were living in a close community, then chances are they would remain in that community. They may go on to have separate relationships. They may go on to have further children of their own. What are the chances, then, of those children finding themselves in relationships with siblings that they are unaware of? I think this is a terrible risk that we run by not keeping track—[Bell rung]

💬 SPEAKER: Sorry. I apologise; I forgot to warn the member. You don’t get extra time.

So I think that’s a real risk that we run if these children are not tracked through their lives so that we know that, where there are siblings out there in the same community, we’re not going to end up with some incestuous kinds of relationships later in life.

We don’t fix the problems of society by keeping people dependent on the State, and that’s definitely the direction of travel that this policy is taking us in. We actually fix the dysfunction in our social environment by making sure that people are—[Interruption] Mr Speaker, I have to wonder whether it’s even relevant that I’m even speaking to this bill when you are taking an active role in the Government’s—

💬 SPEAKER: Sorry?

—criticism of what’s going on. I find that a bit disheartening.

💬 SPEAKER: Well, I’m listening to them. If the member wants to put it on the record, I will interrupt them.

I don’t know what that means, but anyway.

💬 SPEAKER: Well, I’ll explain it to the member, although her time’s up. If I interrupt, or if she interrupts by way of point of order, the interjections become part of the records of Hansard, and I think, given the interjections, the member probably would have desired that that not be the case.

Fair enough. Thank you.

Contrary to what the National Party’s just been saying, this is a very, very good bill. New Zealand First will support it. It helps to ensure that the robustness of the essential safety net is there constantly, but it also allows the incentivisation of people getting into work. But, most importantly, it gets rid of a demonstrably failing provision, which is the sanctions in section 192 of the Social Security Act.

Talofa lava, Mr Speaker. Thank you. I’m pleased to take this call on the third reading of the Social Assistance Legislation (Budget 2019 Welfare Package) Amendment Bill. It’s been an interesting day. It’s been a long day, as we’ve traversed the various stages of this omnibus bill. But it’s important that we do spend the time to debate this bill—in particular, the parts of it that we oppose. There have obviously been parts to this bill that my colleagues have indicated we are supportive of, but I’d say it’s fair to say the arguments from both sides have been heated and emotional. That’s understandable given the nature of parts of this bill, because, ultimately, it comes down to a clash of ideologies between this side of the House and that side of the House, where on this side of the House we don’t see welfare as wellbeing.

So for me the biggest objection I’ve had to this bill, and I’ve relayed that in my first and second reading speeches, is the removal of the sanctions—the repeal of sections 192 and 194 of the Social Security Act 2018. I see it as an affront to the values of accountability, to the values of personal responsibility, and to the values of parental responsibility. It is not good enough for a sole parent, normally the mother, to not name the father of her child merely because she’s uncomfortable about doing it. I’m not talking about mothers who are at risk of violence, or other cases, because those parts are already covered in the exemptions. So I fail to see why the Minister for Social Development wanted to remove these sanctions. As my colleague Maureen Pugh has said, there has been no case, really, as to why those sanctions are being removed. We have a duty of care to hard-working, taxpaying New Zealanders who have their own families to pay for. We have a duty of care to where we put their tax dollars, and, basically, the Government is saying in this bill that we’re going to let dads off the hook. We’re just going to let them off the hook.

It’s been amusing to hear some of the exchanges from the other side of the House during the course of the proceedings of this bill. There were comments that we “pull the ladder up”, or something like that. “Pulling the ladder up behind”—what does that even mean? No one on this side is pulling the ladder up. This side of the House wants to build bridges so that we can move families out of welfare dependency and into independent self-determination for themselves. That is wellbeing. How about the Government just tries to build some ladders so these people can get up? Why don’t you just actually try and build some ladders?

This bill—in particular, the removal of sanctions—is a shallow patch-up job that does not really address child poverty at all. If the Government really wanted to address child poverty, then there are other ways that we can look at it—for example, addressing the costs of living. Stop adding taxes to everything. These are the taxes that affect the very families that we’re talking about—the ones that can least afford it. And it’s not just us that don’t want to have these sanctions removed. New Zealanders up and down this country also want these dads to step up and take responsibility for their children. We owe it to the taxpayers to challenge this—to challenge this in this House.

As I mentioned in my earlier speech as well, there was no acknowledgement around the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which New Zealand is signed up to. It protects a child’s right to preserve their identity, including their nationality, name, and family relations, without unlawful interference. So the child is not at the centre of this bill. It is right and just that a child knows the name of their father. That is right and just. They may not have a relationship with them at the point in time that the mother has to name the parent, but it is about a future relationship. It was unfortunate that the Minister did not give any real response as to why they would not consider the amendment in my name, which was merely to insert a clause which would require the Ministry of Social Development to, during the annual interview and reporting stage process, give that parent the opportunity to add the other parent’s name at that point in time. Relationships are complex, and in that year some things may have changed. It would have been great to give that parent the opportunity to maybe put down the name of the father. I didn’t really get a chance to speak to that amendment, and it was unfortunate that the Minister didn’t really give an explanation why she would be opposed to making that amendment to this bill.

I’ve said that we on this side of the House believe we absolutely need to ensure that all New Zealand children, no matter where they come from, no matter where they live, have a warm, dry home, have food on the table, and have the opportunity to have a good education. But why, then, put in a barrier to them knowing who their father is—just having that name down? It’s not just about that: it’s not just about taxpayers having to pay for these dads; it’s also about the State interfering with families. It’s that the State—no, it is. It’s about the State interfering, thinking that they know best. It is absolutely that. So this bill just lowers the bar—lowers the bar—for people to get into welfare and to stay in welfare, and for the communities that I come from, that is an indictment. It is an absolute indictment that we don’t look for more aspirational measures and goals for these families.

I just want to go back to, again, the reasons—all I could hear that the Minister wanted to give—as to why the mothers didn’t want to put down the fathers’ names. Again, we’ve covered that. That has been covered by the exemptions. There is no reason—there is no reason. It’s actually not about the children; it’s actually about removing that responsibility of dads that they should have to their children.

💬 Hon Member: That’s right.

It is. It is absolutely about that, and it’s about saying, “Actually, you know what? Taxpayers and New Zealanders, you can foot the bill for these. You can foot the bill for your children, and you can foot the bill for these other children because we’re not going to follow up on these dads. We’re not; we’re just going to let them off the hook.” So what does that say? You know what? That sends a really bad message to the children about the values of personal responsibility. It actually does. It sends a really bad message because, actually, children learn from their parents. They do. They learn from their parents. So this is the wrong message that we’re sending to our communities, to our children. On that note, I oppose this bill.

I am going to take a short call. I know it’s been a long day, and I just had to sit through that member’s whole entire speech about what messages we are sending our children. Well, when you continue to punish mothers and their children with a cruel sanction, that is not a good message.

So I want to talk about a story, because the Greens are supporting this legislation, which includes changes to increase benefit rates to the same rates as average wage increases, to changing abatement amounts so that you can hold on to more of your income in part-time work, and, lastly, removing a cruel and callous sanction where the mother will lose an amount of money if she is not able to name, and does not name, the father. I want to talk about why that is so important in a particular story of a mother who is close to me—is all I will say—whose son is 18 years old now. She and her son were both sanctioned with this very sanction. They were not included in any exemptions. She desperately would have liked to have held on to that extra bit of money, which would have helped her to live in her tiny little flat that she could afford and was doing the utmost in to be a good mother. But the father of the baby refused to put his name on the birth certificate. She had to take him to court; she had to go through an entire court process—expensive, shameful, stigma-associated—where a judge there then had to order a paternity test, which was another whole and expensive process. Yes, for this father. That’s what she had to go through just to be able to afford an extra bottle of milk in her fridge that week. That is callous. That is a message that we should all be ashamed of in this House.

So that Opposition would rather punish mothers and babies—they would rather punish mothers and babies—on some notion of a sanction which doesn’t even do what they think it is supposed to do, which is to encourage healthy and enduring relationships. Sanctions don’t do that. The evidence has been very clear that imposing this punitive sanction is not the way to encourage enduring, sustainable, loving relationships between children and their parents. The evidence from here, from around the world, has been very, very clear. We all in this House want to encourage good, healthy relationships between children and their close loved ones, but sanctions are not the way to do that. I’m trying to control myself here because I’m pretty frustrated about the ongoing rhetoric that has come from that side of the House.

We are supporting this bill because people just want to be able to live decent lives, and most people are doing their darnedest best to achieve this. The Greens want to re-establish a social contract that supports all people and families to be able to live decent lives, not extravagant lives, my goodness; decent, low-emission lives, actually, to be able to support all people and families to be able to thrive, not just those fortunate enough but for the grace of—who happened to be OK right at this moment but could end up not being OK at any other moment.

The Welfare Expert Advisory Group report, Whakamana Tāngata, was very, very clear that incomes are inadequate. So while we support the indexing of income increases to the growth of average wages, we know that that can only be a first—a vital, but a first—step. We expect to change the fact that too many New Zealanders lead desperate lives with seriously inadequate incomes.

I just wanted to respond to something that I think the previous member, Agnes Loheni, talked about: “We don’t see welfare as wellbeing”. Well, what do you call entrenched generational poverty, then? What do you see that as? Instead, see this as an understanding that people will go through different phases of their lives and, at some point, will need some support, and that those who are so-called successful did not get there on their own backs. They just did not. In actual fact, many of those, the few—the one percent—have actually achieved that wealth by exploiting low-income communities and families in low-wage exploitative jobs. Those very low-wage jobs are a big part of the reason why we need a strong social security system, because people are going in and out of low-paid employment and needing benefit advice even if it’s purely an accommodation supplement and other support, if not a whole core benefit—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Back to the bill.

Back to the bill.

It was hard sitting through a lot of Opposition rhetoric today, I have to say. What a callous view of our society, and communities, and people who are just trying to do their best. What a cruel and inhumane logic of families and people who are just trying to do their best. It is downright nasty—it always has been. They are making a decision to sit on that rhetoric once again, while, on this side of the House, we are very clear that we need to uphold a social security contract that allows for everyone to live in dignity, to be able to have the support when times are tough. We have faith in people actually wanting to do their best, whatever their best means in their particular lives, whatever living a life with dignity might mean for them. We on this side understand that living a life with dignity includes not always being in paid employment—that there are dignified contributions happening for people who are not being paid to do it; that it is a dignified life if you are unable to be in paid employment because of, say—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! The member has strayed away from the bill, yet again—last warning.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m happy to support this legislation and a vision for a much-improved social security contract. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m pleased to stand for the third reading of the Social Assistance Legislation (Budget 2019 Welfare Package) Amendment Bill. I am really disappointed that we were unable to make headway with some of our Supplementary Order Papers, some of the amendments that came through, because they would have actually made this bill much better. However, it is what it is.

Here we are on the third reading. It’s been interesting sitting here listening to some of the contributions, especially this contribution around living a life with dignity. Well, at the end of the day, I think that there are some people that can live a life of dignity on a benefit, but many of them actually do strive for employment, at the end of the day.

So, anyway, this bill—and back to this bill—looks at some key areas of indexing the main benefits, which some of my colleagues have already traversed this evening, and removing some of the abatement thresholds, and it also looks at changes within the Child Support Act and that Veterans’ Support Act as well.

The area that has been of contention for our side has been the repeal of sections 192 to 194 of the Social Security Act. That has been because we have felt that the dad must take responsibility, which we have traversed. What we have also said is that the rights of the child have actually been ignored and that nobody has actually listened to what the child actually wants. To me, that is a contravention of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, especially the principle of all children having the right to an opinion and for that opinion to be heard. In this particular part of the bill that has gone through, the child’s voice has been silenced throughout, especially once they start getting older and realising that dad is no longer in their lives, hasn’t been in their lives, and the only life that they have lived is within a one-parent family.

The changes that have been made to this bill—as you know, sole-parent beneficiaries, because they are no longer able to name the parent, or they don’t have to any more, that reduction that was in there of $22 for each dependent child has actually been lifted, as well as the reduction of $6 a week after 13 weeks regardless. So that has actually been lifted. Will that actually help these parents? I’m not sure. What it will do, as my colleagues on this side have actually said, is give the responsibility for that to every taxpaying New Zealander in this country. Is that the right thing to do? I don’t think so. There will be a lot of people out there tonight listening to these debates and wondering just how much of Parliament is actually listening to those hard-working Kiwis who are paying their taxes, who are looking after their kids, who are proud to be mother and father of those children, and who are thinking, “What on earth is this Government coming to?”

I think the disclosure of sensitive personal information from Work and Income case managers is one of those things that are a big miss in this bill. I think that we do need to keep tabs on and files on our people on benefits, including this benefit as well.

I’ve talked about the child’s right, and I’m going to talk about what I call “whakapapa interrupted”, because this is where, when the father is no longer named, he is out of the child’s life, and I assume that, because if the father is there within the same household as the child is, then the father should be paying, or there should be some reductions made, and that does happen. We would be foolish not to think that that doesn’t happen in our society, where the dad of a sole parent is actually on site even though he has not been named as the parent.

When we then move on with the related amendments to section 9(5B) of the Child Support Act in order to enable sole-parent beneficiaries to discuss with Inland Revenue—all of that has been taken away because of the repeal by clause 6 of sections 192 and 194. That is a shame, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, sooner rather than later, we’re back here because things have gone a little bit awry because of this bill. It is one of those bills where there has been a history of that happening—where we have come back to relitigate some of the areas where the bill lost its momentum.

The annual adjustment of rates of main benefits—and this is the abatements—bringing it up to an additional $70 on top of the $1,850, and bringing all of that up to the Consumers Price Index (CPI), which is by Order in Council annually—everybody else has that. We do support abatement as long as it doesn’t favour others over, and I think that bringing the abatement up to the average wage does that.

As I have said, I have traversed this bill quite thoroughly. I have stood and listened to the Minister in the first reading debate, who started her contribution by saying this bill will lift people out of poverty. Benefits shouldn’t be something that people are on for the rest of their life. It should only be a portion of their life and then it sets them on a road to their independence without a benefit. I don’t think that this bill will lift people out of poverty, to be honest. I think it might be a step towards it, but it sure as heck won’t do that. There are a lot more other things that will actually help lift people out of poverty, like good education.

The Minister said that she wanted a welfare system to be comfortable under a benefit—for people on a welfare benefit to be comfortable there. I think that a lot of people that are on a benefit aren’t that comfortable. I think that what they want to do is get off that benefit as soon as they can, and that’s called dignity. That is actually called dignity, at the end of the day.

Finally, the Minister mentioned, in her first contribution, that she felt that people with a benefit should return to work when they are ready. That did concern me, because they might never be ready, and that is a concern for all New Zealanders—that people who are beneficiaries may not be ready, and they need to be encouraged to be ready and to end up going through the various work programmes, etc., to get them ready. I mean, that side over there is laughing, thinking, “Yeah, everything is sweet as and we’re going to win this.”, and whatever, but, really, all they are doing on that side is consigning beneficiaries to something that will actually not be of help to them in the long run. That is a shame, really, and it is shameful when dads are let off the hook, as my colleagues on this side have said.

One day, the Government members may wake up to the fact, when it all hits them in the face, when people who are earning good money realise exactly how much is actually going into supporting these women who will not name the father, and that’s when the proverbial will hit the fan and we will end up coming back here again. So it is no wonder that this side of the House cannot and will not support this bill. It is an ill-thought-out bill. It should have actually gone to a full select committee process so the public out there could have come in and we could have listened to the officials and what the officials had to say and keep asking questions, the way that you normally do it in a parliamentary process. So, again, I do not support this bill. Thank you very much.

I know we had a problem with light bulbs in here earlier today, and I have to say that, as I read this Budget, I had a light bulb moment of my own. I understood what a Budget means, where instead of just having a profit and loss account—dollars in, dollars out—we actually had it in the Budget what we want to achieve, and that was where I fully understood what this Budget actually means.

Perhaps, just again, another one of those light bulb moments: the member opposite, Jo Hayes, talked about being on a grant and being able to move on out of there. Well, that’s actually probably pretty true, but to move on I liken perhaps to trying to send a rocket to the moon—you won’t do it with a Morris Minor engine. You need a decent engine, and unfortunately, with how things have ended up, we’ve had people there trying to launch into real life, trying to get their life back together—we’ve given them the equivalent of a Morris Minor to do it with. What we need to do is give them some power, and what this Budget does is give them some power, some opportunity, and some fuel to do it with. So I recommend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. You’ve encouraged—indeed, instructed—us to be pretty specific and pretty tight in this debate, and I wish to accept that challenge by giving my most outrageously pedantic contribution yet. In my contribution, I will focus on the placement of the apostrophe in clause 19—“(Abatement of veteran’s pension)”.

The word “veteran’s” is spelt with the word “veteran, apostrophe, s”, meaning that it refers to a veteran, singular—and I might note that all veterans are singular in that other sense of the word, too—rather than veterans, plural. And this is significant to the bill in five main ways.

💬 SPEAKER: The member is wrong. Clearly he didn’t have a good English teacher.

I didn’t realise it was your turn to make a contribution, but I look forward to any heckling that may—

💬 SPEAKER: Sorry, I thought the member was being light-hearted in his approach.

Yeah, OK—very good. Thank you, sir. I’m pleased to maintain the light-hearted approach, and anyone who cares to listen along can no doubt gain some enjoyment as well as some education from the experience.

So we’re talking about a veteran. Now, no doubt that applies to all veterans to whom the legislation applies, but I think it’s significant that we’re talking about a veteran in the singular, notwithstanding that the principal Act that’s being amended by Part 2 of this bill is the Veterans’—plural, apostrophe—Support Act 2014.

The five ways that it is significant, briefly—which I’ll go through more fully, you’ll be pleased to know—are that it personalises the concept of the benefit; second, it stresses the individual relationship to the society inherent in the nature of a benefit; third, it recognises the service that has been provided by the veteran on a very personal basis—

💬 Kiritapu Allan: Leader of the Conservative Party!

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! This is actually interesting.

—fourth, it emphasises that the circumstances in relation to the work now being performed by the veteran are different in each individual case; and, fifth, it notes that the pension belongs to the veteran himself or herself. It’s possessive in the best possible sense of that phrase.

I’ll start with the first of those, and I regret that I don’t have more time—I might seek that at the end of my call. Personalising the benefit: while it might be a symbolic point that I make—and I do appreciate the Speaker’s feedback on that point, without wanting to bring him into the debate, despite having just done so—the benefit that we’re talking about, the pension of the veteran, is very much one that belongs to him, or her as the case may be, and that’s appropriate because the nature of service is that it is very personal. It is a personal commitment—sometimes, I suppose we would say, a personal sacrifice—that he or she has made in the service of God, king, and country, if I can use that phrase. I know it’s out of date; all three are out of fashion these days—

💬 SPEAKER: Queen.

—but, in any case, for some to whom this legislation applies, that might be how they feel about the matter.

The second is to understand the relationship between society and the individual involved, and that’s the nature of a benefit, in the sense of the social assistance being provided in this legislation. So it’s a good thing that the veteran has done for their country, and then it is a good thing—literally, a benefit—that is being provided back in turn. It’s something of a contract between the two.

The third point, as promised, is that it’s recognition that the service has been provided on a personal basis. That links back to the first point that I made, in relation to the personalisation of the benefit. Of course, it’s the nature of abatement, as is the particular mechanism of the Act, that it is a very personal situation because it depends crucially on the amount that he or she is earning and the increase in that that the benefit is abated at, and the proportions change, of course, in the way that’s set out in there.

My final point, as my time reaches towards the end, is the fact that we’ve got the word “veteran’s” expressed in that way, seemingly relating to an individual veteran, notwithstanding that there will be many to whom it applies. We’re emphasising the possessive case—literally, the possessive case—and the pension, of course, does belong to the veteran. It’s possessive in the sense of both the semantic and the syntactic, as my colleagues across the House have no doubt picked up on. They are, indeed, heckling grammatical points at me even now, as I speak.

So with that all in mind, it’s disappointing not to be able to commend the bill to the House in its entirety, but there is some interesting education, I think, that we can gain from that particular aspect.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Just following on from that stellar contribution about punctuation, I would like to bring it back up to the bigger picture and just talk about what a pleasure it is to speak on this bill. What this bill does will make a significant contribution to many families. Basically, what it does is it removes sanctions for sole parents who don’t identify the other parent, indexes benefits to the average wage, and allows for regulations to be created to change abatement rates. It’ll make a huge contribution to families’ lives, and I commend it to the House.

Mr Speaker?

💬 SPEAKER: Away you go.

Oh, thank you. I was just waiting for the call.

💬 SPEAKER: I gave the member the nod. We’ve got a bit flexible towards the end.

Jolly good. My colleague Chris Penk, who has just resumed his seat, has, I think, usurped my usual attempt to get into the grammar nomenclature and so forth—the declensions in Latin and so forth—so I’m going to steer away from that. I’m going to acknowledge first and foremost—

💬 Fletcher Tabuteau: Why don’t you go and have a cup of tea together?

No, not yet. Queen’s Birthday is Monday, strictly, and then we’ll have a cup of tea for Her Majesty.

💬 Chris Penk: Huzzah!

Huzzah? It’s clearly been a long time. It’s actually a serious bill, but it has been a long time as we come to this third reading. In fact, it’s been almost eight hours of sitting—that precludes the breaks—that we have been progressing through this bill, to bring it now to a third reading. It has been, I think, a very thorough eight hours of discussion, primarily from this side, into what is a topic of great importance: obviously, the care of our veterans, the care of our beneficiaries in particular, to enable them to seek work and entitle themselves to the money that they’ve earned, and then, of course, the discussion around children.

I do regret that, from the other side in particular, we have not had as much engagement. In fact, as I noted in the second reading, the paradox of a Government pursuing a non-sanction approach has sanctioned itself in terms of its short contributions, but they’ve been indicative themselves—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! We’ll just keep going, because the member is risking breaching the Standing Orders if he keeps going like that. I’ve thought about what he said earlier.

Oh, very good. You’ll have to think of what he said earlier.

There are, effectively, three parts to what this bill is, as we come now to the third reading. We traversed a wide array of topics in the committee of the whole House stage. Not all of those—in fact, none of them—have come through. So where we’ve ended up, first and foremost—again, working backwards—is with an abatement scheme for veterans. This side of the House has been very keen and supportive of that. I think it’s an idea, a conception—which is now soon to become law, I assume—that fits and works well. The scheme is relatively simple; it’s aligning it much more clearly with other beneficiary approaches.

Certainly, one thing that I was keen to seek, and the Minister was kind enough to reply to this, was that they have anticipated the extra number of veterans that will be coming into, effectively, the veterans’ affairs portfolio or area. That’s to do with another piece of legislation, as you’ll be aware—the Veterans’ Support Amendment Bill that’s currently going through the Parliament—but, as I noted earlier, the fact that it seems at this point to have unanimity is a positive thing. So, in terms of that, the Minister has been very clear that they have the budget and the scope through the changes of this bill to cope with that. I had hoped that there might have been a little bit more breadth in the abatement to recognise those who serve the Realm. That wasn’t forthcoming, but I don’t criticise the Government for that, either. I think, again, as it sits in the bill currently, it’s a pretty good system.

I think it’s probably prudent to actually separate out veterans’ benefits and superannuation from other benefits, such as the unemployment benefit or the sole parent benefit—and the abatement rates there are, I think, positive. I still have concerns despite where the bill—well, I should say, where the bill has landed is, I think, fine. Again, nothing has changed, which is always a little bit disappointing, but I don’t think it has started from a bad place. Where the bill has landed with abatements, providing the scope for an Order in Council, is prudent. I think there’s always a bit of an issue in this House if you have to come back with primary legislation time and time again to make the changes.

I think the Government has made a good step to bring it to $150. It sounds like a lot of money, but with a quick breakdown with the minimum wage, that is, effectively, eight hours in a week. I think there will be, potentially, some challenges to come, and I acknowledge the Minister of—is it “Labour”? I’ve forgotten the exact title—“Workplace Relations”? There could be some challenges coming forward, and I’m sure the Government will be able to respond to it, to changing the abatement rates, because, as the minimum wage goes up, of course, we’re going to have—well, they won’t be able to do eight hours, strictly speaking, once they are at $20, I imagine. If they’re at $20 an hour for eight hours, it’s not going to work.

So an encouragement is that, as we put this legislation forward, the abatement provisions and that through Order in Council are well used, because I think fundamentally it seems prudent that a person on a benefit can at least do a full day’s work. I think the benefit of that—again, all puns intended—is that it’s a chance to be part of work, to see the benefit of work. The word “dignity” has been thrown around quite a bit tonight, but it shows the dignity of work. But the real important element is that the dignity of work shows the dignity of the person. That’s fundamental, and it’s one of the elements why on this side we support the abatement scheme, as it’s an encouragement to those people on benefits to begin exploring their work. As I’ve said, I think they’ve got the balance right at this point in time. Ultimately, the benefit plus the abatement provides some income, but not so much that it’s actually an encouragement to remain, effectively, in and on the welfare system.

The most contentious part has been, of course, the removal of the sanction for those sole parents who will not declare who the other parent is. Now, it’s primarily the father, but there are, I think it’s important to note, occasions where it’s a solo dad. To what extent solo fathers do not declare who the mother is is something that we weren’t able to actually get into. I don’t think that was a reflection of the committee stage, but perhaps it’s an encouragement to this House, as we move forward, to understand and get some better reporting around this. Certainly, some of the Supplementary Order Papers put forward are to try and understand these things.

Look, it’s been controversial, and I think rightly so, partly because it does come down to this discussion of social contract. That’s been tossed around a lot in the various readings, and as I mentioned in earlier contributions, I actually think there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what a social contract is. The social contract, when it comes to this piece of legislation, must remain a two-way street. New Zealanders work hard. They pay their taxes in order that others may seek benefits when required. But the reciprocal nature of that is that those who are getting benefits of whatever nature are actually open and honest with information. The fundamental problem I still have with this bill is that it enables, effectively, an act of dishonesty to occur; that a person who—let’s just use one side of the equation—knows the father, who knows who the father is, will no longer need to share that. We are facilitating dishonesty.

💬 Angie Warren-Clark: There it is.

We’re facilitating dishonesty here, which the other side is very keen on, by the sounds of it. That is actually not a social contract.

💬 Angie Warren-Clark: Shame.

I think they’re saying “shame”, which is interesting because, much earlier on, they were talking about stigmatising and how bad it is to shame people. But I’ve never found much consistency from the left—in fact, it provides me great frivolity at times. The key point for me is that what the bill has done, and will continue to do if it passes, is allow people to not share a piece of information that they have. Fundamentally, in this case, if someone does not know who the father is or, for some reason, doesn’t know who the mother is—I mean, it’s almost nonsensical, but let’s keep it gender balanced—

💬 Angie Warren-Clark: It is nonsensical.

But I want to be gender balanced, because we wouldn’t want to have any bias. So, fundamentally, if they’re not sharing the information, does that consequently apply to other elements of the welfare system? If I happened to be on a benefit tomorrow, do I no longer need to tell the Ministry of Social Development my employment status or the nature of the house that I live in? I know what house I live in and I know what employment I work in, but in line with what this bill is thinking to do, it’s setting a precedent that the person does not have to share the information that they have, and I think that’s fundamentally dishonest.

I think, also, this does sit in a situation—and I did bring it up much, much earlier, but it remains seen that the bill has been unchanged—that, fundamentally, many, many other fathers now are going to be paying for what a father chooses not to do, and that is, actually, to contribute towards their child. I want to put it really clearly on the record: there is far more to being a father than simply money. In fact, I think a number of the speakers, particularly on this side but not exclusively, have talked to the role of fathers and what they need to contribute. I said it, actually, in one of my maiden speeches: love is not an economic commodity and the role of fathers is much more than money. But with bills like this, it’s a subtle change which continues to send out a subtle—well, arguably, a not so subtle—message of the importance of fathers and the importance of their contribution and what should be expected.

So, really, that is about the social contract. I’m not going to get into the deep etymology of it, but a contract is a two-way street, and if we’ve listened to contributions, particularly from the Government’s side, they have not actually put forward any contract; it’s really just a single track—that one person should be able to make their choices and then, effectively, everyone else pays for it. I don’t find that appropriate. I’ve mentioned before that, really, there are no obligations on the Crown and there are no obligations on taxpayers to pay for other people’s choices, and if people are into—what is it?—pro-choice and free choice, they also have to understand that their choices do not create an obligation automatically on other people to begin paying for it, and so—

I apologise to the member. Your time has expired.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I’d like to begin with a quote from the Welfare Expert Advisory Group report that is relevant to this bill: “A social contract between the Government and its citizens was established in New Zealand legislation with the Social Security Act 1938. Government would provide financial assistance for New Zealanders unable to achieve an adequate standard of living (which remains central to the social security system), alongside other critical support such as access to health care, education, housing, and adequate employment. In return, people receiving financial support would participate in training or other activities and seek employment when appropriate. This social contract is now out of balance.” This bill takes significant steps towards rebalancing that social contract. I’d like to thank New Zealand First and the Green Party for their support on this bill, and the Minister for her leadership. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.