Social Security (Mandatory Reviews) Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Social Security (Mandatory Reviews) Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the Social Security (Mandatory Reviews) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

I want to begin by reiterating some key points about this bill. This bill seeks to amend the Social Security Act to enable regular reviews of some benefits. It establishes a process for the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) to regularly review people’s circumstances to ensure that they are receiving the correct entitlement. The changes are expected to create savings to the Government. The full automated decision-making budget package is expected to return $158 million of savings over five years, net of operational costs.

In my final speech, I want to touch further on the processes that will support clients. Firstly, some clients will be engaging with MSD throughout the year to provide updates on their circumstances. The bill provides the review would not be required until 52 weeks after the previous time they confirmed their circumstances with MSD. This process ensures that their engagements confirming a client’s circumstances reset the 52-week period, which is more efficient for MSD and, of course, less onerous for clients. All specified benefits a client is getting will be reviewed together at one time, and MSD clients will not need to seek additional medical certificates as part of the review.

I am aware that, through no fault of their own, some clients will either not be able to respond to the review at all or respond within the required time frame. To support delivery of the policy, the bill will introduce exceptions and exemptions to the process, and MSD will be able to grant some clients an extension of time to respond.

I acknowledge that there’s been concern recently about the use of automated decision-making within the welfare system. However, MSD has a rigorous oversight mechanism for its use of automated decision-making. The automated decision-making standard is required by law and provides safeguards for MSD’s use of automated decision-making.

The changes come into force on 2 March 2026. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Once again, we have another bill that’s been rolled out by this Government that is, sadly, really going to affect our communities. We’re seeing a policy designed to be obtuse, designed to confuse, designed to catch people out so that they can be penalised further.

We see a Government that feels like they’ve given up trying and are now implementing more bureaucracy to ensure that the very people they they’re supposed to be serving are too frightened to ask for help. It’s a real concern for myself, for our communities. I know that Joseph Mooney is concerned about it. He hasn’t been particularly vocal on this, but I’m sure he’ll be a bit vocal later on to denounce what I think is a very, very negative bill for our communities. Beneficiaries shouldn’t fear their Government, but that’s exactly what it seems that this Government wants. It’s a Government that is putting the fear of God into some of our good people at the coalface.

The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) admitted during scrutiny week that they’re already under pressure as their front-line operational capacity has remained broadly unchanged and there have been over 700 cuts to their backroom staff. The rise in main benefit recipients now means they must serve an additional 30,000 people, and we’ve already seen a decline in accurate assessment with a quarter of beneficiaries not receiving their full entitlements. Now, the Government has heaped more pressure on MSD’s operational capacity, essentially doubling the amount of jobseeker applications MSD must process in any given year, notwithstanding the forecast rise in jobseeker numbers.

This is on top of other requests the Government has heaped on MSD such as implementing the traffic light system, increasing the amount of job seekers eligible for case management, increasing the amount of sanctions imposed on beneficiaries, and increasing the amount of meetings job seekers must attend. The pressures on our community are endless and people don’t know whether they’re coming or going. There is a line that shows the Government should not have proceeded with these changes, and that’s just from what we can see because a lot of this report is redacted. Why is the Government so afraid of showing us what this policy will really do?

The short period of time between MSD recording a discrepancy and suspending housing allowances will generate more homelessness, and the Government doesn’t have a problem with rolling this out. We heard the Minister this morning give maybe one of the shortest third reading speeches we’ve heard for some time. Rolling out a third reading speech with a bill of such significance is worrying for our communities and for this country. This is going to have an immense effect on our communities, but this Government doesn’t care about the damage they’re causing with these new harsh sanctions because they’re focused, like Mr Seymour is, on their rich mates. That’s what it’s all about.

Never mind the vulnerable who are struggling at the moment. To get a Budget across, you make a sacrifice, and the sacrifices here have been beneficiaries, have been workers, have been women. It’s just a constant strategy from this Government. It will get this Budget through at any length and the sacrifice has been beneficiaries, workers, Māori, Pasifika, our rainbow community, and our disabled community. This is about getting something through at any cost. So this legislation is just another sad example of how this Government bashes beneficiaries.

💬 Joseph Mooney: The Opposition doesn’t know what it’s talking about.

Oh, do you think so, Joseph Mooney? Oh, it’s a surprise to hear that from you! No, we do know what we’re talking about because everything is pointing to the—

💬 Grant McCallum: Filibustering.

No filibustering here. Everything is pointing to the communities rising up. This Government does not care about the poor. They do not care about the vulnerable. They have the audacity to pretend that harsh measures are for the benefit of the job seeker, when nothing can be further from the truth.

The regulatory impact statement (RIS) highlights, as I said earlier, that one of the consequences may be that MSD will have to direct more resources towards compliance and therefore away from employment initiatives. They will literally have to put less resources into helping beneficiaries into work, and surely that is not what any reasonable Government should be doing. Research cited in the RIS highlights that sanctions—and that’s where we’re heading, even though they might be denying it—may increase mental and physical health problems, including substance abuse and poverty. But that’s acceptable. That’s acceptable collateral damage for this Government.

Nothing in this legislation is a helping hand for job seekers. It’s a closed fist used to punch down on them. The Government should be ashamed of their cruelty, pretending to care, because our communities are seeing through this. They are seeing through this ACT Party. The ACT Party leader is currently embarrassing himself as the Deputy Prime Minister, attacking good people out there. I don’t mind him attacking me; I enjoy him attacking me. I quite like it. I quite like the Acting Prime Minister attacking me.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sounds like an offer, but we might come back to the bill.

I might be diverting a little bit. But, Mr Seymour, you attack me—I enjoy it. But stop attacking great people like Professor Anne Salmond. These are great people. These are pillars of our community. Show some courage, Mr Seymour, and just attack me. I enjoy it. Anyway, back to the bill, Madam Speaker.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you.

This bill is not, if we’re being honest, an effective way in terms of supporting our community—to deny people welfare and make the process as frustrating as possible so that people give up. This is not how you build a society; it’s how you tear one down. The Labour Party opposes these amendments. We can see no value in harassing job seekers any more than they currently are. And we have deep misgivings about some of the aspects in terms of some of the automation, although we understand AI, but, you know, automation at the expense of workers who know the job and who are equipped to do the job is a worry.

We want to see policy that helps people find work, not punish them for seeking help in the first place. I want to wrap up here, but I remind our communities that Labour will continue to respond on their behalf. We will not put Budgets out at the expense of workers, at the expense of women.

💬 Andy Foster: Yes, you have. You did it for years.

No, no, we haven’t. We won’t sacrifice our communities. We won’t sacrifice our women for landlords or the rich mates of David Seymour. We will not attack good leaders and good people in this country and have a little fun because it suits us. We will always advocate on the behalf of our people, our constituency, and our community, and we are absolutely opposed to this bill. Kia ora, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand to strongly oppose this bill, because this is a bill that is continuing this Government’s agenda to punch down on the poor, to create more blue tape for the people of Aotearoa New Zealand, and, to be perfectly honest, to a Government that loves cars so much they want more people to live in them. To start with, it is, frankly, insulting to have a Minister who makes all of these sweeping changes to the people of Aotearoa New Zealand, to put this bill under urgency, but could not even muster the courage to give a third reading speech that was longer than even three minutes. That is, frankly, insulting.

Now, when it comes to this bill, let’s start with the committee stage. We spent some time in the committee stage yet we’ve got very little out of the Minister other than her hot takes and her one-liners and party positions and political statements, but not genuine responses to people’s questions. This is a bill that is brought to this House under urgency. We expect there to be, at a minimum, good-faith engagement from the Minister on this and we saw none of that during the committee stage. What we do see is a Government whose agenda is to reduce or cut $200 million of cost into the people, into beneficiaries, and, you know, when we are looking at this $200 million in savings over the next five years that they’re trying to do, but instead giving $2.9 billion to landlords in exchange.

We still haven’t seen, to be honest, any significant decrease in rent in here. We have seen, however, increased stats on homelessness, which this bill will only exacerbate. The Government would like to paint a beautiful picture about how there are fewer people in emergency housing. Well, it’s because they’re on the street. This is a trick. We know that this is the Government’s trick; the New Zealand public know that this is the Government’s trick. They’re making their stats look pretty, and this bill will also be a justification—another example—of that trick, which is: “We want to make sure that people are not eligible to apply for things in the first place, as a way of creating an illusion that we are somehow bringing the stats down.”, when, in fact, when we talk to community organisations, when we talk to City Mission, everyone will tell us—everyone will tell the Minister, if the Minister dared to show her face in front of those organisations—that things are getting worse.

This is the reality: you can’t make the stats pretty in a way and ignore people’s existence altogether, because these are New Zealanders. You can’t. They will be here regardless of whether they are in your stats or not, and you will have to find a way to address them, eventually.

In terms of, again, going back to this bill, there are a couple of things I want to pick up on that are really important discussion points during the select committee stage. I think the first one is around the automatic decision-making. The first thing is, during the select committee stage, we have yet to hear from the Minister what the algorithm is that is going to be used as part of this decision making and this automatic decision-making. Because if we look at the regulatory impact statement, page 3, it says that “assumptions”—assumptions—“that [an] ADM will create more positive outcomes for clients.” There is no actual data. The Minister can stand there all she wants and say like, “Trust us, we’ll make sure that it’s correct.” But trust is earned; it needs to be based on evidence.

Again, without a select committee stage, without hearing from the officials, there was very little clarity during the committee stage around the algorithm that is going to be used and the robustness of the automated decision-making system (ADM). Instead, what we’ll see is that when the automatic decision system fails or gives incorrect data or an incorrect decision, people don’t know when they’re going to hear from an actual person. Because there’s been more than 700 staff cuts in the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), it is already a department where the front lines are struggling with the workload and with their capacity. There’s no guarantee about timeliness—when a staff member will actually get back to them.

So this leaves the question for those in those inaccurate situations, and these are genuine New Zealanders who are, like, “Am I going to be homeless because my benefit has just been sanctioned, has just been cut by MSD, and I don’t even know why, other than a system has told me that I am no longer eligible.” That is an appalling decision to be made under urgency.

Other things we also discussed that deserve some highlighting are: when we’re looking at Section 310D, one of the things that we see not only in this bill—and it could have been a stopgap for the potential error that we’ll see with the automatic decision-making—is the requiring of information from MSD. This is just one example of that: when MSD or other agencies require information from people, there’s a genuine attempt that they receive a response before triggering any decisions. Because, yes, although there are some people who may be overseas who may not wish to respond—but we also understand that people are in precarious situations. Sometimes, you know, in certain areas they do not have access to internet. In certain areas, they may not have access to letters or to a regular accommodation. If MSD simply just sends information out into the ether, hoping that the person will read it and if they don’t hear back then they will make decisions, it actually puts more people at risk because we are not addressing—through that clause, alone, it shows a lack of consideration and in-depth thinking that the Government is doing towards the most vulnerable of our communities.

Another point that we addressed in the committee stage is around Part 2 in terms of the regulation-making power by Order in Council, and this is section 438A. I think one of the reasons why this was so important is because they are able to add on, by Order in Council—i.e., as a secondary legislation of the kind of regulations or the changes to the specified benefit or specific benefit that is named. Part of the concern around that is—and, again, we didn’t hear from the Minister exactly what some of the details are over here—exactly what is going to be the scope of that regulation-making power? What are, if any, the potential changes or additions of different kinds of benefits as a result of that particular section, that might be included as a result?

So there are a lot of things that we didn’t hear from the Minister during the committee stage. We’ve seen a lot of redactions in the regulatory impact statement and, to be honest, if we’re going to be having this under urgency, the Minister is able to waive any sort of legal privilege and be able to present the House and also the New Zealand public the full comments that were made in that regulatory impact statement. But we also didn’t see any of that.

So we saw very little in this bill that is going to address the concerns of the most vulnerable of our communities. I agree with my colleague Ricardo Menéndez March when he said that this Government has a rotten heart and wants people to suffer in Aotearoa New Zealand. It is the reality that we are facing. What we are seeing is a Government who is desperate—despite Treasury’s very conservative estimate—to keep our debt at 20 to 40 percent, and without making meaningful investments to decades of underfunding in our public services, in our infrastructure. Poverty is a political choice. This Government has chosen to do harm to our communities and that is the reality. So the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand will not support this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I am taking this call on behalf of ACT to support the Social Security (Mandatory Reviews) Amendment Bill.

First, I would like to respond to two speeches that I heard just before, one from the Labour member the Hon Willie Jackson. That member believes that this bill is going to punish those who are on a benefit, and the member who just spoke before, Lawrence Xu-Nan, believes that this is about reducing or cutting benefits. Actually, this bill doesn’t do that. What this bill does is ensure that the information of clients that is held by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) is up to date. It puts that responsibility on MSD to ensure that information is updated. By doing that, what happens is they can decide what the level of assistance is that these clients need. It’s not about cutting. It’s not about decreasing. It’s about ensuring that the right level of assistance is provided to people—those who are receiving a benefit.

We know that people’s situations change. Sometimes the number of boarders they have will change. Sometimes their income will change. Sometimes their family situations will change. All these things are taken into consideration when a benefit is decided. That is what this is about. Sometimes, people forget to update their information and proactively call MSD. Yes, there is an obligation that they should be calling MSD and updating information about any changes in regard to their income or family situation, but sometimes they forget. That is why we are putting this responsibility on MSD to ensure that the information is updated. This is done every 52 weeks, but if it has already been updated, through any other mechanism, MSD doesn’t need to chase these people. And there will be provisions for exceptions, exemptions, and also extensions. What we require is these people to actually communicate with MSD and inform MSD of what their circumstances are, and then MSD can decide if an exception is needed, an exemption is needed, or an extension is needed. But that information is really crucial to decide what level of benefit people should be receiving.

It’s a really good bill, because this actually puts more trust in our welfare system. We are really proud of the way our welfare system works, and we want to see it continue to deliver for people—those who really need the system. That’s why the ACT Party supports this bill and commends this bill to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to stand in support of the Social Security (Mandatory Reviews) Amendment Bill. Now, I stand on behalf of New Zealand First, a party that does in fact have a big heart, not a rotten heart, from a Government that have big hearts. As much as I like the member opposite—Lawrence Xu-Nan—what he said before wasn’t very becoming, unfortunately, and it did spoil his speech somewhat. But, no, we do have big hearts.

One thing that I would like to compare is a speech given by a fellow member, actually, during the last sitting week on this particular bill. it was a very endearing speech, and she made the comment, “Now, what would Jesus do?” and it got me thinking, well, Jesus is someone with a big heart. So what I think Jesus would do is he would help feed others; he would help feed as many as he could, but another thing that Jesus would do, because he’s got a big heart, is he would teach them how to fish and catch their own fish. He may not supply rods; I don’t think they had rods back in those days, but he would supply nets. And he would teach them how to fish.

So New Zealand First, we really do believe in personal responsibility, and whilst we really agree in ensuring that everyone gets a leg up and a hand up, to ensure that in some way we help them to find that greatness within so that they can then make the decisions to move up in life themselves and say, “Hey, I can do a little bit more for myself.” I commend this bill to the House.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: The next call is a split call.

Mōrena, Madam Speaker. Kia ora tātou e te Whare. This is the third reading, and so I recall taking a first reading call—might even have been the second reading, I think, when we were doing this work over the Budget, in urgency. It’s interesting observing, this morning, the first reading speech from the Minister. She opened up her discussion with the amendments. These amendments will, despite the circumstances of families, bring some savings in, which I think is not a great thing to start a speech with, when you’re talking about savings that are made on the backs of beneficiaries, made on the backs of the most vulnerable. I think it’s in bad taste. It was possibly a mistake, the way in which she opened up the discussion, but I do think there’s something telling in the opening comment.

I’m just going to read some of these reviews to begin with: supported living payment—right?—emergency benefit, accommodation supplement, disability allowance, and New Zealand superannuation. Now, all of those spaces are tough spaces to live and exist in. They are tough, and they have certainly been a whole lot tougher in the last 18 months. It concerns me greatly that this is where the Government has decided “Let’s make some savings; let’s go there. Let’s go to beneficiaries.” Sanctioning beneficiaries only increases poverty and homelessness. It increases poverty and homelessness. Why do I know this? Having worked in the sector. It is one thing to write a pretty fancy English policy and then a bill, but when you come to apply it, it is completely different, because you’re applying it with and to people, and to people that are already suffering, that are already vulnerable, and not by their choices. They are there under a range of circumstances, which many here just could not imagine. I want to make those points, as I provide the third reading call for Te Pāti Māori.

Sanctions do not help people find jobs—despite the kōrero; you know, “Get off the couch.” Of course get off the couch, but who will be there to help make that happen? The majority of people that I know, having worked in the sector, are not lying on the couch because they’re hopeless; they’re lying on the couch because they are disconnected and they do not belong. Many feel they do not belong. This is not a “Boo Hoo!” statement that I’m making. These are real circumstances for real people who would want circumstances to change but just cannot get there, for whatever those reasons are. I think amendments and ideas like this might sound reasonable on paper, but when you come to apply them, they are completely harmful. They are harmful to a space and a reality in which people exist, where they’re already feeling they’ve pretty much had it. I do want to make those statements, with compassion and kindness, added reality. It is one thing to write a policy, but it’s another thing to apply it in reality.

I want to close now. I received an email this morning from Te Rangitukiwaho Edwards. Now, he emailed me this morning. He’s going to be gracing this House when the rangatahi MP programme comes into play in July, and he’s going to be standing, hopefully, right where I’m standing. He’s a mighty young Māori man with the power of both languages: te reo Māori and te reo Pākehā, adequate as. He wrote to me saying a number of things, but he went on to say there is a future—what he observes—and, you know, he understands what’s going on. To think that young people, particularly young Māori, don’t know what’s going on in this political space! They absolutely know. He writes, among other things, “A future being carved out without us and, at times, against us will bring us harm.”

What I want to proffer and put to the House today is that amendments like this, which sound reasonable, are completely unreasonable when they hit the ground, and Te Rangitukiwaho understands that. These comments were not specifically to this bill, actually; it was the range of things that he’s seen as a young Māori—about to join this House shortly—and telling his truth as a young Māori man. I’m linking these because—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I just draw the member’s attention to her time.

OK. I can only commend this not to the House but probably to the wharepaku.

E te Māngai, tēnā koe. E tika ana te kōrero i ō tātou tūpuna “Mā te manaaki i te tangata e tū ai te mana”. Engari kore he take kei konei kei roto i tēnei pire.

[Madam Speaker, thank you. The saying of our ancestors is true that “It is through care and hospitality for others our reputation is enhanced”. But there is no purpose here within this bill.]

The whakataukī that I have just shared is “By providing care, hospitality, and support to others, mana is enhanced.” I don’t believe that the essence of this whakataukī is seen in this bill.

I rise with a heavy heart to speak at this third reading. At this final stage, I want to speak directly to the truth of this bill, in that it completely ignores the advice of experts, including that of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group. The Welfare Expert Advisory Group’s advice was the advice that was based on thousands of submissions, lived experience, and years and years of robust analysis. In fact, this bill does the complete opposite of what they recommended. The Welfare Expert Advisory Group comprised non-partisan experts chaired by Dame Professor Cindy Kiro. It told us clearly in recommendation 11 to remove the requirements to reapply for a benefit every 52 weeks. Their reasoning was simple: this requirement adds unnecessary stress, disproportionately harms disabled, Māori, and rainbow and Takatāpuhi people, and creates more work for no good reason. It’s costly, it’s inefficient, and, most importantly, it’s harmful.

Instead of removing that 52-week burden, this bill entrenches it. It mandates these reviews for every person on the supported living payment and disability allowance, people with long-term, often permanent, disabilities. What the experts called cruel and unnecessary, this Government is now making mandatory and routine. That’s not evidence-based policy; that’s ideology at the expense of our community’s wellbeing. Disabled communities, sole parents, carers, and mental health advocates have been telling the Government for years to stop making them prove their disability again and again. The Welfare Expert Advisory Group heard them. They put that voice into policy recommendations, recommendations that should have been taken seriously by this Government. But instead of listening, this Government has chosen to double down, to stay within the same broken welfare system that the Welfare Expert Advisory Group said must change. We heard this theme consistently in other welfare bills, such as the sanctions bills passed just a few weeks ago.

The Green Party believes in a welfare system built on manaakitanga. We support the full implementation of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group recommendations. We believe no one should have to fight a system that’s meant to support them. We believe the experts, the advocates, the whānau, and the disabled communities who have already said loud and clear: this approach is dehumanising and it must stop. To support this bill is to say the voices of our community don’t matter, that expert advice doesn’t matter, that kindness and dignity don’t matter. The Green Party refuses to support this bill. We will vote against this bill and stand with those that this Government has chosen to ignore.

Let this be clear: the evidence says this bill causes harm. The experts said don’t do it, and this House should have listened—“Mā te manaaki i te tangata e tū ai te mana” [“It is through care and hospitality for others is our reputation enhanced”].

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I want to take this opportunity to bring the House back to reality rather than the fantasy that members in Opposition live in who don’t actually read bills.

This bill is very simple. It amends the Social Security Act to enable an efficient and proactive welfare system where clients receive the correct entitlement and ensures that every year—every 52 weeks—there is a requirement that the Ministry of Social Development must review a client’s eligibility and the rate of a specified benefit to ensure they’re getting the right amount. That’s all this bill is about rather than that nonsense that the Opposition’s been on about. It’s a great bill and New Zealand will be surprised it’s not already in place. I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call to speak against this bill. I’d just like to start my contribution more or less on the same theme as I made my last submission, and it’s in regard to the lack of good process. We heard the Minister for Social Development and Employment in her third reading speech be extremely brief in terms of her contributions, and I just wanted to express concern about that.

I see that there are lawyers on the other side of the House. As a lawyer myself, one of the things we refer to in terms of understanding the scope and the intent of a bill is the third reading speech of the Minister in charge. It’s in fact one of the first things that we go to, to best understand the Government’s intent. The reason we go to the third reading speech is that the expectation of this House is that we look at legislation that’s introduced and then we better it. We listen to the critiques, and we make amendments. So the best reflection of what the final intent is is the final reading, the third reading speech of the Minister. My concern is that the brevity with which that was delivered is demonstrative of the Government’s lack of intent to genuinely listen on many of these bills.

The problem is not just a problem for us; it is a problem for the people of New Zealand. We must be able to trust that this Government is listening. We must be able to trust that the committee stage is respected and that amendments are legitimately considered. I just have a real concern that this is the state of things as they are, and are to come, that we’re not treating those third reading speeches with the respect that our democracy demands.

Other members have commented on the substantive issues in this bill, including its focus on punishment and compliance. The fact that over that period of 52 weeks, for many people, changes wouldn’t have occurred in their lives, and it would put them under needless stress and pressure, as well as the risk of automated systems in decision making, which I’ll speak further to in a moment.

The chief concern I had in relation to how this bill is considered I did want to speak to. It’s in relation to some legal advice that was given to the Attorney-General on 15 May in regard to whether the bill complies with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (BORA). So the advice concludes that the bill does appear to be consistent with the rights and the freedoms affirmed in the BORA. In reaching that conclusion, the justice officials looked at section 14, which concerns freedom of expression.

So the first point or question that I’d ask is whether within the BORA there is a right to privacy. So, interestingly here, while there isn’t a fulsome stand-alone right to privacy within the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, the interpretation of section 14, which affirms that “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.” is also interpreted as including the right not to be compelled to say certain things or to provide certain information.

Now, the legal advice to the Attorney-General acknowledges this point, that it’s quite broad in its scope. It also acknowledges clause 4, inserting new Subpart 3A of Part 6, of the bill in front of us, which requires a beneficiary to provide the Ministry of Social Development with information and answers to questions for the purpose of a mandatory review. Now, what’s interesting is the way in which this requirement is framed within the bill. It’s framed exactly as I’ve set it out—so very, very broadly and generally in inserted section 310C with reference to inserted section 310D.

What’s surprising in terms of the next part of the opinion is that the advice recognises that the bill doesn’t specify the limit on the information that could be sought or could be asked for. So there’s no statutory limit on what can be asked for. The other surprising thing is that in terms of the interpretation of whether something is consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act or not, as section 5 says, limits must be no more than is reasonably necessary for sufficient achievement of the objective.

Now, presumably the objective here is to make an assessment on particular facts. Therefore, my assumption would be a reasonable limitation of the right to privacy—that I’ve just referenced—would be written into the bill by specifying only the information that the person needed to provide. The advice from the Ministry of Justice is that the bill complies with that section 5 requirement because there would be “an expectation that when applying the law, the only questions that will be asked are regarding information related to the purpose of the review.”

I don’t believe that it’s sufficient for us simply to have an expectation that that’s how it will be interpreted. My firm sense is that where it’s possible to specify within legislation the limits of a right, that is the preferable option in a democracy that is being true to the rights that people hold. This was a question that was considered in the authority on this point, which is Hanson—it’s the interpretation of the key clauses in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. In that case, it was spelt out that limitations must be set out in an Act of Parliament or in subordinate legislation or the common law. It’s unclear in the advice that was provided by the Ministry of Justice to the Attorney-General where that guidance is set out. It’s actually simply not there. So the advice, in my view, appears to be flawed. That’s the first issue.

Now, I’m not saying that—you know, errors do happen. This is part and parcel of why we have the parliamentary process as it is. To enable us to have good legislation, we must open the door to questioning advice like this and asking questions like whether the Government should have specified a limit on the information that could be required—required—from these individuals who are being subjected to review. Right now, we have a bill that I hope will not pass. Again, I hope that members of the Government have followed the argument and will see that this is clearly a prima facie breach, yes, but potentially a complete breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I implore you to consider this because, again, we have a limited budget in terms of Crown Law’s capacity. Do not let bills pass through this House that create litigation risk for the Government.

My final point is in relation to the artificial intelligence, or the automated decision-making, that will be used to make a number of decisions in this space. In my view, there’s a connection between the inappropriate demand of information that appears, to me, to be in breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and inputting any and all of that information into an automated system that looks fairly questionable still, in my view.

The common response to concerns raised about automated systems are she’ll be right if there’s a person involved at some stage in that process. But many of us will recognise that there is a spectrum of when a human individual can be involved in a process and therefore a spectrum of risk. If the human is involved in the middle or toward the end of a process, that decision is made on a pile of bias. We’ve seen that play out in many systems errors or systems biases that exist through our current day systems, including where decisions are made in the justice space. We have to treat this with caution. We have to ensure that we’re doing this checking system and setting up an appropriate system where if we are using automated decision-making, human decision-making front loads that process rather than falls towards the end.

In my view, this bill creates litigation risk for the Government. This is your opportunity to look up and to stop that from happening. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Much has been said about the Social Security (Mandatory Reviews) Amendment Bill and what it is not. But what it is is a structured approach, an annual check-up, an opportunity for beneficiaries to be able to check and confirm their circumstances, and to update their entitlements. I commend this bill to the House.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: This call is a split call.

Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to take a contribution on this Social Security (Mandatory Reviews) Amendment Bill. As previously stated, we on this side of the House oppose this bill.

It’s often said that a true measure of society is how it treats its most vulnerable; this bill certainly looks to treat some of our most vulnerable people in the most callous and depersonalised way. The reason for that is that it introduces a framework of mandatory 52-week reviews that require the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) to look at a number of different benefits to see if there is still eligibility. Now, interestingly, the power of MSD to look into whether there is eligibility for a particular benefit already exists. So this is already power that is held by the Ministry of Social Development. The thing that is not currently in place, and what this bill intends to do, is to make that review mandatory.

I disagree with that for a few reasons, and I’ll outline why that is. It seems to me that if this power already exists, there is little value in introducing a mandatory one-year review when it is already within MSD’s power, in theory, to themselves decide on a discretionary basis to review any benefit within these categories of benefit that they want within that period of time. The thing that this bill introduces is a degree of anonymity and, also, a degree of, essentially, box-ticking, which I think is inappropriate for the type of support that this particular bill looks to target.

So one of the particular—and I don’t have a long call today, Madam Speaker; as you said, it’s a split call—injustices of this bill is the fact that it applies to the disability allowance. Now, I have worked—like my colleague Vanushi Walters, I was previously a lawyer. Disability is a permanent state. So why is the bill looking to review the fact that someone is entitled to a disability allowance every year? This seems cruel, it seems unfair, and it seems like a waste of time and money. Not only will this apply to the disability allowance every year but the reviews—and this bill empowers this—will be done on an automated basis: so not through thinking, feeling, understanding human beings, but through an AI-generated review which, I think, we know what the result of that will be. It will be that some people who should be entitled to a benefit—especially talking about those on disability benefits, but it does cover a number of other benefits—will be assessed by the automated decision-maker and they will be found to not be entitled to a benefit and they will lose entitlement to that benefit.

And that is actually the point of this bill: it is to take benefits away from people and make people have to prove their eligibility rather than assuming, in good faith, that they are entitled to it, like people who have a permanent disability and are unable to work, who deserve our support. I believe that all of us in the House would agree that those who can’t work due to a disability do deserve Government assistance when they’re unable to provide for themselves separately. This will, essentially, mean that there are a number of people in that particular category. And if you want to push back on this, it’s all on the beneficiary. It’s all on the beneficiary to prove a case and to say the automated system is wrong. That is a very—very—high threshold to put on people who are already, in many cases, marginalised by the society, not engaged with our society, and may find it more difficult to respond to a Government document in a timely manner. That is the reality of some of the people in this situation. The reality of this bill is they will lose their benefit.

Just briefly before I end, we heard some of the other speakers talking about what Jesus would do, as if they could speak to that. That is a separate issue. I think I would like to draw the attention of the House to the comments of the Salvation Army, who actually have a history of service within our communities and are respected across the House. They do not support this change. They say that this change is going to be bad for New Zealand.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Although I didn’t get to speak much on this bill previously, I do commend it to the House.

This is an outrageous bill that involves beneficiary bashing and is a really good illustration of the attitude of privilege that comes from the other side of the House. They are completely out of touch with the situations that many New Zealanders find themselves in. The reason I say that is because of the two crucial elements that this bill introduces, which are sanctions and automation, effectively making people just numbers in a machine. But also, and more disturbingly, is the insidious and sneaky way that this change has tried to be brought in. I say that because it wasn’t presented to the House as the first bill in a tranche of bills. In fact, the accommodation supplement bill was introduced first, and this bill was promoted as being an enabler of that legislation.

In fact, what it does is it very clearly puts sanctions on those who cannot prove their entitlement to a benefit after 52 weeks, even though they may have had that entitlement for years and, in fact, be permanently entitled and should be—such as, for example, people who have Down syndrome, disabled people, people with certain conditions in their senior years.

This bill has just been a sneaky, sneaky attempt to do that, and part of the reason is because of the way it was introduced to the House, the urgency, but also the fact that the benefits that are alluded to are really by exception. There are some benefits that are carved out and held out in the primary legislation; everything else is up for grabs in the secondary legislation. When we look at the urgency, clearly the Government just wanted to get this over and done with because they did not want to face the scrutiny and the wrath of the population groups that are most impacted.

Well, I’m proud to say that we dragged out the debate so long in the committee stage that they could not bring themselves to try to get to the third reading. They completely underestimated the level of feeling from the Labour Party on this bill and the other suite of bills that they introduced under urgency after the Budget, and that is why we are sitting in urgency again today—extended sitting—because they could not get through their timetable. They had just assumed that we would roll over, but no.

This is, as has been stated, probably a fundamental breach of human rights. It is an outrage, and it is beneficiary bashing, and it makes them look nasty. When we think about the population groups that are involved, we’ve heard about disabled people, but what about seniors? What about those many seniors who are on benefits or accommodation supplements who need to now re-establish their entitlement every 52 weeks? I know from the many, many conversations I’ve had around the country with seniors that some of the smallest things are really difficult for them: getting transport, going down, finding somebody to speak to, using a computer. This is just more anxiety and headache for them, and they have not been considered, and they will not be considered because there was never a committee stage. They did not get the chance to raise their voices. Neither did the disabled community. Neither did people on the accommodation supplement. Let’s not forget that the accommodation supplement also goes to people who are working, so why it is being dressed up as a benefit is beyond me and, again, it shows the paternalistic and arrogant attitude of this Government.

When we look at automation, the discretion that has gone in the bill—and I will come to that soon, in terms of some of those key clauses. The discretion that a human being could apply when it is clearly obvious that somebody needs to be able to maintain a benefit is completely gone. All the words “may” in the bill have gone to “must”, and now, to add insult to injury, we have automation as the first line in which our beneficiaries will interact with the system.

We had a really patronising speech, I have to say, from Tanya Unkovich from New Zealand First, who talked about what Jesus would do, and assumed that everybody is in a situation where, with a little bit of help, they can help themselves to earn a living. I don’t know what reality she is living in, but we have a huge number of people who will never meet that threshold, and to suggest that they can is utterly patronising and out of touch.

Let’s think again about the benefits that this impacts: the disability benefit, New Zealand Super, the supported living benefit, the accommodation supplement. Let’s look at the crucial clauses that bring in these very vindictive sanctions. New section 310C(4): “If the beneficiary fails to comply with a requirement under this section, MSD must suspend”. There is no “may”. There is no discretion. How long do they have? How long before the deadline, how many days? The Minister, in the committee stage, would not answer our question.

The automation is stigmatising, and it poses risks that could increase hardship. We did not hear any mitigation about those risks and, as Vanushi Walters and Camilla Belich said, everything depends on the beneficiary being able to prove that mistakes were made.

We’ve heard about the Salvation Army, who said that “automated decision making cannot account for the complexities we often see in the individuals we support, such as financial hardship, addictions, mental health issues, or unstable living conditions”. What about the Law Society? “This raises significant concern about how the use of automated systems will apply where the sanction provisions involve some form of evaluative judgment, for example, those relating to money management and community work”. The Welfare Expert Advisory Group (WEAG) 2019 made the recommendation, on page 95: “The requirement to reapply for a benefit every 52 weeks should be removed”.

Let me talk about some of the particularly problematic provisions in this bill. For a start, to even understand or read the bill, one has to go from the primary amendment bill on a bit of a rabbit chase through to the principal Act, the Social Security Act 2018. Then we’ve got to go to benefits which are defined in the principal Act, then we come to exemptions, and then, finally, when you can piece all that together—if somebody can piece it all together—it becomes clear that there is a big, fat, wide open door for further changes to be made, for further benefits that are not specified in the primary legislation.

When we queried the Minister about the Legislative Design and Advisory Committee (LDAC), she said categorically, “Oh, no, no, I’m assured that it passes it.” Well, my colleague Vanushi Walters has raised significant issues regarding fundamental human rights. In Part 1 of the LDAC, it says that matters of significant policy, matters significantly affecting fundamental human rights, and the granting or changing of appeal rights should normally be in primary legislation. We did not get adequate answers to the queries that have been raised in the very rushed committee stage that could have gone for weeks had we been able to have a select committee hearing.

When we look at new section 310C(4), why is the accommodation allowance even listed as a benefit when it is a subsidy? We did not get adequate answers to that. We had wording on the printed copy of the bill that we received within 24 hours of reading that had changed significantly on some of the crucial clauses, and we were not given an explanation as to why the wording had changed. When we look at some of the provisions about “must” and “may”, there are previous provisions where the words “may” have been amended into “must”, and there was no entertainment by the Minister that perhaps just changing a single word would enable a humanising of this bill.

Finally, I think the attitude of the Government and the clear signal of beneficiary bashing is summed up in new section 310B: “The purpose … is to ascertain whether the beneficiary—(a) is, or remains, entitled to receive the benefit, or the rate of benefit, that is being paid to the beneficiary;”. That clause should have stopped there, but, no, they insisted—even when we asked them to remove it—to add these words: “or (b) was not entitled to receive the benefit, or the rate of benefit, that was paid to the beneficiary.” This is a clear signal that the intention of this bill is to beneficiary bash, to save money, and to kick the most vulnerable to the kerb.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The only people who are out of touch with New Zealanders in this House are the Opposition. Most New Zealanders—most reasonable New Zealanders—appreciate that this bill does three things: it ensures that people are receiving the benefits that they should be receiving, it gives them more if they should be receiving more, and it says, “Actually, now your circumstances have changed, now you should be receiving less.” Most reasonable New Zealanders appreciate that. Therefore, I commend it to the House.