Social Security Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister for Social Development and Employment: I present a legislative statement on the Social Security Amendment Bill.

Hon Member: Where’s the Minister?

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: This is disappointing.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I don’t think we’ll have that question, thank you. We’ll let this Minister carry on. Thank you.

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: I didn’t ask a question.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, no, there was a specific question there, asking where somebody was.

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS: I present a legislative statement on the Social Security Amendment Bill. [Interruption]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can we just have some quiet while the Minister gets started, please. That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS: I move, That the Social Security Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the bill. At an appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 22 April 2025.

Having over 200,000 New Zealanders on the jobseeker support benefit means too many people are dependent on the State for their primary source of income. The number of people on jobseeker support increased by about 70,000 under the previous Government as the use of sanctions significantly decreased and almost two-thirds of the people receiving this benefit have been for over a year.

This coalition Government believes those who can work should work, because having a job is the best way for people to lift themselves and their families out of hardship. The Social Security Amendment Bill amends the Social Security Act 2018 and the Social Security Regulations 2018 to ensure the settings of the welfare system are focused on supporting people off benefit and into employment. Our Government has greater aspirations for New Zealanders than a life spent on welfare, and these changes will contribute to our commitment to help more New Zealanders get ahead.

The bill I am introducing today has four key goals. It seeks to reduce the number of people receiving jobseeker support and increase exits into employment, reduce costs to taxpayers by reducing benefit numbers, enable welfare system settings that reinforce expectations to work where appropriate, and lift economic outcomes for people and their families through exit into work. The Minister has already begun work on these goals through launching phase 1 of the traffic light system on 12 August 2024, which saw Ministry of Social Development (MSD) clients being assigned a traffic light colour to give them a clear indication of their compliance with their obligations.

This bill introduces phase 2 of the traffic light system. Since June 2024, MSD has also been running work check-in seminars for people on jobseeker support who have full-time work obligations and are not in employment case management.

This bill introduces four key policy amendments to achieve the goals I mentioned earlier. I would like to take this opportunity to touch on each of the four proposed policy changes and their rationale. Firstly, under phase 2 of the traffic light system, I am introducing two non-financial sanctions, specifically money management and community work experience, to expand the toolkit available to MSD for responding to a first failure of a work-related or social obligation. These new sanctions will provide an alternative to financial penalties for first-time obligation failures by certain cohorts of beneficiaries to help them on to a more productive pathway towards employment. The money management sanction will see half a person’s benefit go on to a payment card that can only be used for a limited range of essential products and services, including for groceries, transport, health-related items, and education-related items.

The community work experience sanction will require beneficiaries to complete work experience with community organisations to build up their skills, confidence, and community connections to improve their chances of getting a job. These sanctions only apply at the red setting of the traffic light system and will not apply to those with youth activity obligations.

The second key policy amendment I am proposing through this bill is a mandatory requirement for applicants of certain benefit types and their partners to complete a jobseeker profile questionnaire before they come on to benefit. Applicants will have to record information related to their work experience, qualifications, driver’s licence attainment, and job preferences before their benefit application can be assessed and granted by MSD. Introducing this requirement as a mandatory pre-benefit activity will enable MSD to have work-related conversations with people very soon after a benefit is granted and connect them to any available jobs straight away. This will mean job seekers prepare for work sooner, resulting in better outcomes for them.

Thirdly, the bill proposes requiring jobseeker support recipients and any partner included in their benefit to reapply every six months, rather than annually, to continue receiving their benefit. This amendment will change the expiry date for jobseeker support benefit from 52 weeks to 26 weeks, with newly defined requirements for re-grant. It will enable MSD to check on jobseeker support recipients more often than the current 52 weeks and create more opportunities for proactive engagements with applicants. It will also enable MSD to provide a greater level of support to overcome someone’s barriers to work while ensuring they remain eligible for a benefit. This change will not apply to recipients of sole parent support.

The bill also proposes transitional arrangements to move jobseeker support recipients from a 52-week expiry and reapplication to the new 26-week expiry and reapplication process after these changes are implemented.

Finally, the bill proposes to extend the period over which a work-related or social obligation failure counts against a beneficiary from 12 months to 24 months. Counting past failures for twice as long will increase accountability and ensure tougher consequences for those who repeatedly fail to comply with their benefit obligations. It will mean those who regularly breach their obligations are more likely to move through to benefit cancellation if they remain on benefit longer than a year. Introducing a longer count period will strengthen the message to people on benefits about the responsibility they have to comply with their obligations. This change will not apply to people who fail a youth activity obligation.

This bill also proposes technical amendments to support the enactment of these policies. It proposes changes to support more efficient administration of the 26-week reapplication process and processes within the traffic light system, as well as changes that give effect to several other minor policy matters that reflect the intent of the overall policy changes of these proposals. These changes streamline the Act’s operations and update language where needed.

It is critical that we have a welfare system that actively supports job seekers into work rather than allowing them to get stuck in the system. It reflects the expectations of most hard-working New Zealanders, whose taxes go towards benefit payments. These legislative changes are critical components of the Government’s efforts to increase exits into employment and have 50,000 fewer people on jobseeker support by 2030, which is forecast to save the country $2.3 billion in welfare payments.

This comprehensive package of reforms will ensure our welfare system continues to be a safety net for those who need it, while also shifting those who can work off benefit and into employment. We will continue to support those who cannot work permanently or temporarily, but our expectation will be that those who can work should be taking reasonable steps to become work-ready and find a job in return for receiving financial support from taxpayers. Those who do not will face consequences. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

When does the rhetoric change? Every time a National Government gets elected, it is the same story. Regardless of how responsible they are for the economic conditions or the job losses en masse, they deflect attention to the poorest people, to the beneficiaries; they install more punitive measures; they make out that it is the blame of the beneficiaries that they are on welfare in the first place; and they act like they can fix the situation by putting the boot in. When does the situation change? I’m 47 years old, and I’ve seen this cycle over and over again, and it continues.

There is so much to cover. When you just go through the regulatory impact statement, there is so much in here that contradicts everything the Minister stood up in the House and just spoke about. It would have been nice to hear from the primary Minister of this particular bill, and it is disappointing that we don’t get to and that instead she has sent Penny Simmonds to do her work. However, we will go through the regulatory impact statement—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think we’ll just dial it back. The first half of what you said was OK, but I don’t think there was any reason to attack the Minister that’s actually sitting here.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: The purpose of this bill is to assist the Government with achieving their reduction of jobseeker support beneficiaries by 50,000. Let’s put the facts on the table. Since that Government got into office, just over a year ago, there are now 30,000 or more people on benefit under their watch. Is that because people decided it would be a fun thing or a nice thing to do to go on welfare? No. It is because of the economic conditions. We have lost jobs in the construction industry. We have lost jobs in the public sector. We have hiring freezes in the health sector. New Zealanders are out of work, and right now they need welfare support.

Then, instead of setting a target for job-exits off benefit, they decided that they would just find ways of getting people off benefit whichever way works. What they’ve decided is that they will use sanctions and a higher level of administrative burden to beneficiaries to push people off benefit to help them achieve their target. The report is really clear that the use of sanctions, particularly to the extent that that Government is attempting to do, has massive repercussions for those on benefit. It is health and physical wellbeing repercussions. It is the likelihood of increased drug and alcohol addiction. It is the likelihood of increased poverty. Yet they ignore it. They go ahead anyway.

They haven’t had an increase of staff at the Ministry of Social Development (MSD). However, they’ve had a number of new compliance policies put on top of them—not just the ones that are announced here but the ones that have been announced over the course of the last year. The regulatory impact statement lays out very clearly that the risk now is that front-line MSD staff will not have the capability or capacity to focus on constructive employment support. Instead, all of their time is going to be taken up with compliance as a result of what that Government has decided that they want to do with this particular bill and with our welfare system.

The sanctions that they are looking to impose—I don’t know whether they’re farcical or whether or not they’re going to up the ante, but, as I said to the Minister already, they’re not even enforcing the social obligations. Yet she’s saying that as part of the traffic light system and what they’re going to do here, they’re going to up the ante and force more people or take them off benefit or sanction them if they don’t have their kids in school, if they don’t have them in early childhood education (ECE), or if they don’t have them in a primary health organisation. Now, some of those things are sometimes out of the hands of the parents, because, if you lived in the real world, you’d know that sometimes it’s not that easy to get your kids enrolled in ECE or even into a primary health organisation.

There are a number of things in here that concern me. The reapplication process, which was already flawed at 52 weeks—and I acknowledge that, having been the former Minister—they’re now going to make it every 26 weeks. Now, the report states that when you make people go through the reapplication process, it’s not because they’re no longer eligible that they go off benefit; it’s because of this thing called “procedural denials”. These people get biffed off benefit because they don’t have the correct paperwork or they don’t get it in on time, and then they end up coming back on benefit anyway. I’m not making that up; that is all in the report.

This Government’s approach to the welfare system is flawed, and you’re actually going to cause more harm for future generations of New Zealanders because you continue to ignore the evidence. When you talk about a social investment approach, I can’t listen to you, because this is an example of where you ignore that.

In my first speech in Parliament, I gave a shout-out to and honoured everyone who’s lied to Work and Income to make ends meet, and it would be a disservice if I didn’t do the same thing today—a shout-out to Metiria Turei, a shout-out to literally countless people on the benefit who did the right thing for their families when the rules were set against them. This legislation will result in countless people having to do things they shouldn’t have to do, to provide for their families.

I am sick and tired of listening to members across the House talking about people on the benefit as if they work with them, as if they organise with them, as if they engage with them, as if they serve them, and as if they care a damn about the people who this bill will be affecting and pushing deeper into poverty. They don’t care about them. We’ve got a Prime Minister calling people on the benefit “bottom trawlers”. We’ve got a Minister in charge of this bill who doesn’t care what happens to people on the benefit once they don’t receive income support that allows them to provide for their basic essentials—she just wants to get them off a benefit. It doesn’t matter where they go. It doesn’t matter if they end up in the streets.

They keep talking, to justify this bill, about how they need to get people into work, but let me tell you what: unemployment is baked into our economic system. There is simply no way in which this current economic system will provide a job for every single person on the benefit. It never has and it never will, unless we change the system for the many and not the few. There will simply not be a situation under this Government where there will be as many jobs as there are unemployed people. Every person on the benefit deserves to live with dignity and out of poverty. No one should have to queue at a line to receive their bare essentials. What this bill will do is double down on beneficiary bashing. As much as the Minister who spoke earlier called it non-financial sanctions, if compulsory money management, if community work experience prevents you from accessing hardship grants, that is literally stripping away from people their means to survive.

Clearly, people on the other side don’t understand the lived realities of people on the benefit. How many people on the benefit rely on hardship grants to make ends meet on a weekly basis? Many of them have to call Work and Income and queue at Work and Income on a weekly basis to access hardship grants, to survive. If you strip the ability of people to access those things because they’re on the so-called non-financial sanctions, you’re stripping them of the means to pay rent. You’re stripping them of the means to access transport, to look after their kids, and that is a pipeline to abuse in State care. That is a pipeline to the many things we’ve been warned about by survivors, by people on the benefit.

Again, this Government does not listen nor care about the realities. They would rather pander to beneficiary bashing than do the right thing: to lift benefit levels, finally, above the poverty line; to listen to the evidence and, actually, to the countless people on the benefit who have been so generous across the years in speaking to the media about what it is like to be on income support. The members of this Government would rather conjure an imaginary beneficiary they decided to create in their heads that apparently is ripping off the system, when actually most people are simply trying to survive. They’re simply trying to do what’s best for their communities.

I worked at the front lines with people on the benefit for many years, and the people that I’ve met were people who have been failed by successive Governments, people who’ve lived in motels. I’ll tell you what: no amount of compulsory money management will lift them out of poverty if the benefit levels we set continue pushing them below the poverty line. When people are pushed below the poverty line, you make it harder for them to enter into employment. You make it harder for them to be the people who they want to become, to meet their aspirations. Let’s not forget that, alongside those people on the jobseeker benefit, there are countless disabled people who have been prevented from accessing the support that they need, disabled people who will continue being failed by this Government and not have their needs—including their health needs—met. What this will do is it will trap many disabled people into further poverty.

I don’t want to believe nor buy any of the narrative that this is about getting people into work. The Government simply does not care for all the advice and evidence that they’ve been presented. The fact is that they’re literally copy-pasting failed policies from Australia into this country, where in Australia there is a mountain of evidence about how policies like compulsory money management have failed—they have failed. They have pushed people into poverty, they have created more stigma. I actually think they do know the evidence, but they don’t care, because cruelty is the point. Beneficiary bashing is the point. None of their rhetoric is the point; cruelty has always been the point. The point has always been to entrench inequality, to scapegoat beneficiaries, to scapegoat the people who need our support so they can continue pushing a political narrative while they continue environmental destruction.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The ACT Party is very proud to support the Social Security Amendment Bill. There were very interesting contributions from the Labour member and the Green member. I wish that they had understood the importance of people being in employment. What we have seen from them is that they actually encourage people to be on a benefit, and that is not the goal of this Government. That was the goal of the previous Government. They didn’t care about people getting into employment, but we on this side do care about people getting into employment because that is how people reach their potential.

The ACT Party really wants to see that we empower people so that they can do well for themselves, they can do well for their family, they can do well for the community and also contribute to the economy, because every individual, at whatever level they work, makes a contribution that makes our community a functioning community. We want to see all these people also becoming part of that functioning community.

I also want to say that, yes, for some people, sometimes in their lives, they will have to depend on a benefit, because maybe they’re going through that phase when they’re looking for employment and they’ll be on a jobseeker benefit or people have been trying for it for a while after they have finished their studies. That’s totally fine. That is the purpose of the welfare system—to support people when they really need it—and most of these people, those who go on the benefit, we know work really hard to get back into employment. Then there are some who go on a benefit, and then they just sit on the benefit, and they lose that motivation to get back into employment.

Also, it’s not just that one individual in the family, but there is evidence that it can go from one generation to the next generation, because when the younger generation sees the older generation just being on the benefit, they wonder what the reason is for them to go out and look for unemployment, so they follow the older people in their family, and that is what we want to stop. We want to see that these people are communicated with very clearly as to what their obligations are, and these obligations will be communicated very clearly, and if they fail these obligations, then there will be sanctions.

The ACT Party, before the election, campaigned on money management, and we have seen that this bill will implement money management of people—those who fail their obligations. Half of their benefit will go on a card which can be used for essential items. Also, this bill is going to introduce a community-work component for people, only a few hours every week for four weeks, which is going to be helpful for these people to gain some experience. They will be able to gain this community-work experience in not-for-profit organisations, but then that will add value to their CV, that will add value to their life in terms of having that experience to go out and explain to an employer that they do have experience of working for different organisations.

It’s also important that when people fail, there are some consequences. If there are no sanctions, then people just feel that they can stay on the benefit for as long as they want. On this side, we want to see that those people really feel that there are going to be consequences, because this is about mutual respect, respect between the State and people who receive the benefit. Yes, the Government’s role is to provide benefit to people who really need it, but for people who are on the benefit, it’s their responsibility as well to ensure that they are doing everything to get off the jobseeker benefit.

It is also important for us to note that Governments are accountable to taxpayers, and these individuals who get off the benefit and get into employment will be making a contribution, as well, as a taxpayer. That is not just a success story of that individual; that is a success story of that whole community and the whole country. What we want to see is more and more people who are on jobseeker benefit able to get into employment so that they can be contributing as well to make us a more functioning and a stronger and healthier country.

There are a number of changes that this bill brings, in line with what we want to achieve, which is to see more and more people getting into employment. With that, I support and commend this bill. Thank you.

Madam Speaker, thank you. I’ll take a short call on behalf of New Zealand First in favour of the Social Security Amendment Bill. Now, this bill, it has several objectives, but, really, in general, it is about ensuring that our welfare system is focused on enhancing and extending our welfare settings in order to support people into employment and out of dependency.

In New Zealand First, we believe in helping everyone. We also believe in empowering people and reducing benefit dependency. Now, I will be on the Social Services Committee, so I look forward to be going through the process and speaking more on this bill when it comes back into the House. On behalf of New Zealand First, I commend the bill.

Just listening to the impassioned kōrero—certainly from this side of the House—and then the responses from the other side, they carry a typical attitude, I think, which is often what I’d describe as “Let them eat cake.” This lot on my left say, “Let them eat cake.”, because that’s all they get—that’s how they perceive the world—and I had this very same feeling when we were talking about a couple of bills earlier.

It’s discussed from this left side of the House as if they truly, actually get the context for families, mums, dads, and their children on benefit who are struggling, trying to do their best, and can’t quite get there—can’t quite get there—and suddenly this next lot of legislation comes along and says, “Well, look, you might be doing good, but we know what’s best for you. We do know what’s better for you; in fact, so much so that we’re going to put a bill in place that tells you how to live”—how to live in poverty—“without any real understanding of what the reality is on a daily basis.” I heard a little bit earlier from the left of me, and I was thinking, “OK, that speech might get there. I might feel like this person understands the lived experience.”, and, right now, the picture that comes to mind is the whānau that Peeni Henare and Willow-Jean Prime and I know and love in Te Tai Tokerau.

It’s the intergenerational argument, I think—and that’s what I want to say—that was raised here. It is as if a whānau, their parents, or their grandparents—“That’s how they were and that’s what they’re used to and that’s just how Māoris are. They’re lazy.” All of that deep racist kōrero exists in the narrative. It exists in the narrative, and it’s bloody—oh, sorry. It’s shameful.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Apology accepted.

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI: Excuse me—sorry, Madam Speaker. There are other words I’d probably want to use, but I guess what I am saying is that with regard to the intergenerational argument, it’s similar to the point that I wanted to raise when our children and our young people are caught up in a system such as Oranga Tamariki, and there are the generations of our kids that are in State care, right? They have grandparents that have been in State care, and they have grandparents and great-grandparents that have been caught up in prisons, in incarceration, and in that poverty churn—in that poverty pathway—but not because they want to be there, not because they were born to be in that place, but because, systemically, that’s where it pathways for many, many of our families. The benefit system is no different.

The pretence in that speech that “Look, we do want you to get a job, and we really think that you can contribute.” It’s such a patronising, unbelievable, fake conversation—

Mark Cameron: How so?

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI: —and to anybody that dares to ask me—

Carl Bates: How?

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI: —particularly Pākehā that try and ask me that question, I’d say just don’t bother. You couldn’t possibly know.

There are the numbers of young people that suffer mental health issues, and particularly our young people that suffer from deep mental health issues that lead down to very serious, serious, devastating results. I worked in the suicide prevention space. I get what these results can be, and the most serious and terrible points and ends. If you think that all of this isn’t connected to one another, you are completely mistaken. You live a false reality, and you just simply couldn’t understand.

What can I say? Moumou te wā [Waste of time], Madam Speaker. Engari pai ki te kōrero ki a koe. Moumou ki te kōrero ki ngā hunga e mea kūare ana ki tēnei taha, tōku taha. Engari ka mihi ki a koe. [But it is good to speak to you. It is a waste of time to speak to this lot on my side, who are ignorant. But I acknowledge you.] This simply cannot be supported. Please knock it off. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The object of the Social Security Amendment Bill is to support people—help people, enable people off the benefit by getting them, helping them, into employment. We need to reduce the dependence on welfare by helping New Zealanders, more New Zealanders, become more aspirational and to develop the mana that hard work and achievement brings. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Another difficult bill to sit here and listen to: the speech from the Minister and the speeches from the Government members on what they say this will do, and then the speeches from this side, which are about what it will actually do, what it will mean, what the impact of this will be.

I want to start by saying that under this Government, we have already seen the numbers on main benefits rise by 29,000, and 22,000 for jobseeker support.

Carl Bates: Thanks, Labour!

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: Here we go again, blaming Labour. One year in, taking no responsibility—no responsibility—for their actions that have led—[Interruption]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Too loud.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: —to increases in the numbers requiring benefits. No responsibility. They just blame, and then they put in place more punitive measures, saying that it is going to help these people.

I go to the regulatory impact statement (RIS). Once again, thank you to the officials who prepare these documents. I just want to point out, on page 6, once again, the “Limitations and Constraints on Analysis”. That includes “Narrow scope: The proposals developed in this package were largely informed by, and limited to, a series of commitments made by the Government in its pre-election materials and two coalition agreements.” It’s not evidence; just their own political promises.

“Lack of broader public consultation”: the time frames for the development of this policy once again “did not allow for public consultation”. They don’t care what anybody has to say. They are simply here to deliver on their election promises, their manifesto commitments—not interested. [Interruption]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Too loud.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: They are not interested in a regulatory impact statement, any advice from any officials, any evidence, because they know best. They also have not thought about the funding and operational capacity of the Ministry of Social Development (MSD). The RIS says, if anybody’s bothered to read it, which it doesn’t appear that they have, that they have received strong indications from MSD “that options will need to be funded within existing baselines and therefore existing”—wait for it—“frontline resources.” No—no concern from the other side of the House. Why am I not surprised?

I want to talk—and this will rark them up, I’m sure—about the impacts that this will have on Māori. Oh, a little bit of silence. Paragraph 57, on page 23—[Interruption]—oh, here we go; didn’t take you long—“Māori are disproportionately represented in the welfare system and are more likely to be affected by the proposals recommended in this suite of changes.” Anybody over that side care about that? No, no, I didn’t hear a single care. “Proposals, such as the reapplication process … non-financial sanctions, may disproportionately negatively impact Māori”. You will fail to align with the active protection and equity promises of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. “Māori are more likely to have their benefit cancelled through the reapplication process”—you have the statistics here in the regulatory impact statement: 3.5 percent compared to 2.7 percent. “Māori are … sanctioned at greater rates than non-Māori”, and they are also likely to be “overrepresented in the cohort [who are] available for non-financial sanctions and will be disproportionately impacted by the negative consequences associated with [these] interventions”.

I only have five minutes in this first contribution. I wasn’t able to get to the impact on Pacific people, on women, on people with disabilities, on children and young people, or on older people, but those members on that side of the House might like to read page 25 so they can see what the officials are saying will be the actual impact of these proposals on some of our most vulnerable people.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, I rise to take a call on this bill. I have been to the Ministry of Social Development to see how this works, and I have spoken to them. I know full well the demographic in my electorate of people who are on the jobseeker benefit, and I also know the help and support that is available to them if they’re prepared to give it a go.

This Government has said so many times already that people sometimes need to go on a benefit—we understand that—but if they can work, they should try to work, and while the taxpayers of this country are paying, people need to take steps to find a job if they can. All we ask is that some effort is made. This bill is directly pointed at making that effort. I don’t know, but money doesn’t grow on trees. We need to actually make a difference in this country, and by helping people to get a job, to get some training, to get some support, then if that’s what it takes, I commend the bill to the House.

It’s Christmas, Madam Speaker. It’s Christmas-time—

Hon Members: Oh no. Oh, gee.

GLEN BENNETT: Yeah, and I think the grinch—I think Ebenezer Scrooge is in the House this evening and trying to wrangle every cent and every penny they can. It grieves me to hear the mockery and the barrage of—it almost seems like it’s fun to talk about beneficiaries—

Mark Cameron: We’re just thinking of the interest you accumulated on the debt, Glen. Keep going.

GLEN BENNETT: We are a welfare State and we pride ourselves—so we talk about the debt, yes, but it’s how we administer that, Mr Cameron; it’s how we administer that. For me standing in this position, I’m sure many people in this House have walked alongside beneficiaries. I’m sure many people in this House have been into the Work and Income office and experienced the treatment that they’ve received. If you have not, it is not easy.

Mark Cameron: If you hadn’t wasted it, we could give more of it away, mate—I’m sorry. You just burnt all the cash.

GLEN BENNETT: You might think—and as Mr Cameron there is saying, money doesn’t grow on trees. It’s like the beneficiaries are just trying to pluck it out from here, there, and everywhere. That is not true. If you want to think it’s funny, if you want to think that beneficiary-bashing is fun, then enjoy—enjoy your Christmas with your family, enjoy your Christmas with your Christmas turkey, enjoy your Christmas with your beautiful champagne—but know the fact is that there are people out there in my own home who are struggling, and there are reasons for that struggle.

Yes, we agree on this side of the House—of course we do—that there are people who take things for granted. We agree, of course, that there are people who play the game and play the rules. But you know what? There’s people in business, people who play the tax system, who make mega dollars, and you don’t comment when that happens, but when it comes to a few beneficiaries—

Hon Member: They pay the taxes.

GLEN BENNETT: Not the ones who play the game, if you are listening. Please don’t make fun of this, because this is serious, and this makes me angry. You might giggle and laugh and think that I’m just overreacting, but when it’s people in your own family, when it’s people who have suffered excessive trauma before their teenage years, then of course we want to get them into work. Of course we want them to have a life where they actually stand up for themselves. Of course we do.

Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: They don’t get there.

GLEN BENNETT: They don’t get there because the system is stacked against them. This system should be about empowerment, this system should be about lifting people up, but this legislation is about disempowerment; it’s about control. If you are a social worker, if you have studied anything in the humanities—for those who have been able to—you’ll know that it’s about empowerment and lifting people up. It’s not about putting these heavy-handed approaches on people and saying to them, “We know best. We know it’s right for you because we’re OK.”

Mark Cameron: A rising tide lifts all boats, Glen Bennett. The whole country, not just some.

GLEN BENNETT: I can’t even—I can’t even respond to that, and I won’t. I’ve heard words from the Government side this afternoon on this bill, saying this is about supporting people, this is about helping people, this is about enabling people. This is about disenabling people, this piece of legislation. You know what we should be considering tonight? Have you ever thought about maybe looking at amendments to this bill around—what about mentoring? What about coaching? What about looking for solutions within your own community? Oh, no, it’s OK for you. Oh, you’ve probably got a coach. You probably pay for that yourself or get the party to pay for it. But no, for you—sorry, Madam Chair—for the Government—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: It’s OK. It’s an emotional topic, and I’ve let a few people get away with it tonight—I don’t take it personally.

GLEN BENNETT: For Government MPs, it beggars belief to me that—I believe there’s a lack of understanding of what it’s like to negotiate the welfare system. I don’t understand what it’s like to actually come from a life where you weren’t born into the right family, you weren’t born into the right community. Yes, you’ll say, “Oh, it’s just Glen’s making excuses. Glen’s just saying, ‘Oh, yeah, we can all lift ourselves up from our bootstrings!’ ” But you know what? There are many of us that struggle and we want to look at how we can empower our communities. We want to look at our welfare State as—yeah, it is, it’s a backstop. It should be a backstop, but it should be something that is enabling, and lifts people as opposed to something that puts the thumb down on them, something that controls them, something that walks over them. This is tough to hear at Christmas. We cannot support this legislation.

Madam Speaker, can you believe what we’re hearing today—can you believe what we’re hearing? Can you remember those sky-rocketing jobseeker numbers during the COVID days when we had acute labour shortages and cafes could not open on certain days, yet the jobseeker numbers just keep going up and no one could find labour. That was under that previous administration.

We heard that they say this Government is only interested in delivering on its election promises. Oh, holy smoke! Wow! Delivering for the public—delivering for the public. And guess what? This is a Government that’s about action plans. This is a Government that’s about delivery, accountability. Guess what—guess what! Go on to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet website and find Government target No. 5, out of nine Government targets. Guess what that is? Fifty-thousand fewer people on jobseeker support benefit. That is a Government target. That is what we committed to. This legislation will help us get there. I commend the bill.

Point of order, Madam Speaker. The member from the Greens voted 14, not 15.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: There may be a valid reason for that. Is that correct?

DANA KIRKPATRICK: Yes, Madam Speaker, but that wouldn’t make it 55.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Very good counting. Just a moment. We’ll get the number checked. Good spotting. The Ayes are 68, the Noes are 54.

Bill read a first time.

The question is, That theSocial Services and Community Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Social Services and Community Committee.

Instruction to Social Services and Community Committee