Social Security (Benefits Adjustment) and Income Tax (Minimum Family Tax Credit) Amendment Bill

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move, That the Social Security (Benefits Adjustment) and Income Tax (Minimum Family Tax Credit) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Madam Speaker and the House, I appreciate that sections of this bill were progressed under urgency last week, so I do want to put my thanks on record for the House’s consideration during this time. I would also like to put on record my thanks to the officials who have worked incredibly hard to ensure that we were able to deliver this legislation within time frames. The time frames are important because it means that the changes that we are legislating for today come into effect on 1 April 2024.

As I said, it is a simple bill that returns the indexation of main benefits to inflation, while making other required consequential amendments. This change prioritises fiscal sustainability, the real incomes of beneficiaries, and work incentives, reflecting this Government’s belief that a job is the best way for New Zealanders to get ahead. Employment enhances mental health, develops self-esteem, and strengthens communities. In turn, this bill will help to achieve these outcomes while also promoting the ongoing health of the income support system.

So, for those who have just been tuning in to this debate now, I wanted to go through what those changes are, to be clear, because, as a result of some of the debate in earlier stages, members of the public may have thought this was an isolated policy that had impacts that the Opposition would like you to propose. The reality is that this Government, the coalition Government, is very much focused on improving the lives of New Zealanders—those on welfare as well as those in work—and, more importantly, to reduce the number of children in benefit-dependent households.

So let me go through the changes. The bill amends the Social Security Act 2018 to ensure that income support responds to the increases in the cost of living by indexing main benefits to changes in the Consumers Price Index (CPI). This is the method that has been used for 31 of the last 35 years, so it is not a new change; it is returning to a method that Governments of both sides of the House have utilised in more years than not. This change will revert the amendment, made by the previous Government in 2019, to index main benefits to net average wage growth. In line with this change to the rate of indexation, the bill also amends the Income Tax Act 2007 to adjust the minimum family tax credit threshold to ensure that it remains aligned with changes to the rate of main benefit. This is done very deliberately to ensure that low-income working families remain better off financially in full-time work than they would on a main benefit.

The changes will protect the real incomes of benefit recipients and low-income working families in the years to come, while also ensuring the costs associated with the benefit system remain sustainable and manageable in the long term. As I’ve said in this House, it is important that we balance the needs of those who are working New Zealanders whose taxes are contributing to the welfare system, as well as those who are in receipt and supported by the benefit system. In the short term, New Zealanders who are enduring the cost of living crisis—and we do know that it is hardest hitting those on low incomes—can expect that their main benefit rates will remain broadly similar. Over the longer term, New Zealand will gain from savings in benefit expenditure, while benefit recipients retain a consistent level of real financial resources—a simple way to put this is that it protects their purchasing power.

Making this simple change forms part of our Government’s wider commitment to prudent financial management, and it’s been progressed, in part—not this part today—under urgency, to ensure that the rate of main benefits reflect inflation, as I said earlier, when the indexation occurs and takes effect from 1 April 2024.

Easing the cost of living crisis is also a priority for our Government, and we know, from many people that we speak to on a regular basis, that the cost of living is really hurting New Zealanders and that is why it is a number one priority of our Government. The lower than forecast CPI figure for the year ending December 2023 shows that inflation is slowing, but it still remains currently outside the Reserve Bank target range of 1 to 3 percent. It clearly shows that there is more work to do, and our Government is committed to returning within the target range and easing cost of living pressures for all New Zealanders.

Some of the measures our Government is committed to taking include providing income tax relief, increasing tax credits for working households, and introducing a new childcare tax credit, as well as reducing taxes on petrol. All of these measures will help to address the cost of living pressures. As I have said in previous contributions in this House and in this debate, it is not just one measure that we need to take, not just one policy, but a suite of many—many of which we are delivering in the first hundred days. That shows the New Zealand public that the coalition Government is delivering on its promises. We are delivering on the priority areas that they set and we campaigned on during the election period. So this simple bill that returns the indexation of main benefits to inflation is an important step in the suite of changes we are making as a Government, and, as such, I commend the Social Security (Benefits Adjustment) and Income Tax (Minimum Family Tax Credit) Amendment Bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

I was just reflecting on what the first hundred days of policy for any new Government should look like, and thinking back to our time when we first got in in 2017 and how aspirational and ambitious we were for New Zealand, and how our immediate priority was the lowest and middle income New Zealanders, compared to what we see now—and it is worth comparing. Back then, for our first hundred days, we had the Families Package introduced, we saw the winter energy payment and the Best Start payment introduced for the first time, we extended paid parental leave, we had the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill setting minimum standards for rentals. We did things like ban overseas speculators buying New Zealand houses, we stopped the sell-off of State housing, we lifted the minimum wage for our lowest-income workers. And what do we have here in the first hundred days? Sadly, we have a Government that is taking $670 million from the poorest New Zealanders to pay for their tax cuts. I said it a number of times in the House: they should be ashamed of themselves.

Over the course of our six years, we were very considered and deliberate when it came to welfare policy. We set up an expert welfare advisory group that traversed many of the sectors that should have an input into what a welfare system looks like. It had New Zealand businesses, it had unions, it had the social sector, it had beneficiary advocates, it had young people, it had Māori, it had Pacific. They gave the advice on what our welfare should look like, but the fundamental element of what the welfare system should look like is that anyone who accesses it should have their dignity upheld. Well, this bill does not uphold their dignity, and we’ve traversed all of the arguments for why that is the case. Any Government that can receive a supplementary analysis report on a bill where the report states very clearly that more children will be in poverty as a result of their actions should be ashamed of themselves.

It’s not just this bill. The Minister put on record that she believes the suite of measures that they are introducing are going to actually be conducive to reducing child poverty in this country. Well, where is the evidence to back that up? We’ve already seen the report on this bill. We already know that excessive sanctions drive families into poverty, not lift them out, and yet those are the two measures that we have heard from. But it is predictable. It’s predictable. It’s taken out of the playbook of every National Government that has come before this one. It’s déjà vu. It is the playbook of Jim Bolger. It is the playbook of John Key. It is the playbook of Robert Muldoon. It is the playbook of every National leader that has ever gone before.

Hon Member: Don’t forget Ruth Richardson.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Ruth Richardson—she wasn’t a leader, but she made some horrible changes that were detrimental. And I want to speak about Ruth Richardson’s changes, actually. We only just made moves in recent years, by significantly increasing benefits, to reverse the benefit cuts of the 1990s that the National Government and Ruth Richardson were responsible for then, and here we have a National Government that are taking us backwards again. And we will end up in the same situation. Ten years from now, if no change occurs to fix this indexation mistake, then what we’ll have are benefits falling further and further behind. We’ll have more children living in poverty. The scary thing is they were told that this was the case but they have made the decision, as a coalition Government, to go ahead with it anyway.

The rhetoric is predictable. We’ve heard, even just in the state of the nation speech, the priority given to focusing on being tougher on beneficiaries. Well, it’s not anything of use to New Zealand or anything that should be a priority to New Zealand. What it is is bullying. It is bullying from that side of the House and deliberate distraction tactics—move people’s attention away from what they should be focused on, put their attention on the poorest New Zealanders, as if they are to blame, they are the villain when it comes to any of the challenges that we are facing as a country, when, actually, in reality, we know that they are falling victim to the challenges more than anyone else in this country.

Over the course of the campaign and whilst this Government have been in office, we have heard them say, over and over again, it’s about the cost of living, focused on the cost of living for New Zealanders, but they seem to forget that our lowest-income New Zealanders, including, of course, our beneficiaries, are also New Zealanders. So, focused on the cost of living for their mates that are New Zealanders but not focused on the cost of living for the most vulnerable New Zealanders. For that, I say it again—and I can’t say it too many times—that side should be ashamed; ashamed, also, of the polarisation that we are seeing of people in our welfare system. Rather than putting the ladder out and assisting people with climbing up, rather than putting opportunities in place so that they can actually move up, get the skills that they need, they are taking the ladder away again and kicking people who are vulnerable while they’re down. Again, for that, they should be ashamed.

Beneficiaries, inevitably, because of this change, are going to end up with less money in their pockets. Initially when they did the analysis, they thought they might be marginally better off this year, but we’ve since heard the net average wage growth numbers and now we know that, actually, there’s not even any gain this year. Every year, over the forecast period, beneficiaries fall behind because of that Government’s decision to take $670 million off the poorest New Zealanders to pay for tax cuts. That is the reality of this particular change.

We’ve talked a lot in the House about child poverty and who will be impacted, but I also just want to touch on and dig a little bit deeper on who specifically lives in those houses. Disabled children and children with a disabled family member in their household are more likely to be living in benefit households. Women make up 55 percent of all beneficiaries; 80 percent of those on sole parent benefit are women. Māori and Pacific are going to be disproportionately impacted by this change, and yet the Government have no shame or no remorse about the fact that they have made this very conscious decision. We’ve stood here in the House and we have quoted all the experts, including former Children’s Commissioner Judge Andrew Becroft, who said, a few years back, before we’d even made this change, that indexing benefits to wage growth instead of inflation is one of the single most significant things we could do to address child poverty in this country. They have ignored that particular expert and every other expert that has come out in favour of wage growth being the measure for adjustments, not inflation.

So when that side of the House stands up in any room and says that they want to be an evidence-based Government, that they will make decisions based on evidence, then I just say “Baloney.”, actually. It is not true, and every decision that they have made to date is questionable, because the evidence runs contrary to the arguments, the ideology, and the policies that they are putting forward.

We will continue to fight these types of legislation in the House. We will continue to take the information that the public deserves to see out to the public so that they understand the detrimental impacts of the policy that that Government is introducing. We of course are not going to be supporting this bill in the House, nor will we be supporting the beneficiary-bashing narrative that that side continues to run. They do not have New Zealand’s best interests at heart, because if they did, they would be making sure that child poverty reduction was a priority, not putting it on the back seat and not agreeing to policies that are only going to increase the number of children living in poverty in this country.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. If we cut through the waffle of what we heard from the Minister, and see through the advice and the evidence, this is a bill that will increase poverty. Our communities are served better than a Minister who doesn’t actually understand the welfare system she’s been put in charge of running, because she is completely ignoring the fact that this is a bill that will see lower increases to benefits over the medium term, that will see disabled people disproportionately affected. The cumulative losses will result in disabled people being over $2,000 worse off than they would have been if we kept things as they are in four years.

So when the Minister stands up and talks about the short-term impacts, that’s incredibly indicative of a Government that doesn’t think of future generations and only thinks about the short-term gains at the expense of rising poverty, of rising inequality, and rising hardship in our communities. The Minister, at no point, has been able to be up front and clear about the impacts that this bill will have in the medium term. She talks about the other—on the one hand, she says she’s going to increase poverty, and she admits that this will increase poverty; then she says she’s going to have other interventions in place to mitigate that.

But what are those interventions? So far, she keeps talking about tax relief that will disproportionately benefit those on the highest incomes. She’s taking away from the people who are doing it the toughest to put in place tax relief that will benefit those that are already living comfortably. This is a Government that will therefore increase inequality. She missed opportunities to actually support families into work. We put in place amendments that would have better supported families entering employment. The Minister was not interested. During the debate, when we tried to unpack what actions she was actually going to take to support people transitioning from a benefit into employment, there was nothing. So, sure, she talks about the other interventions she wishes to make to mitigate the reality that this bill will increase poverty, and there are none that she can actually back up with evidence, that will actually alleviate hardship. And even if she had other interventions in place, you don’t actually end poverty in the country by making it worse for some people and less worse for another, because we have to remember that the people who she’s choosing to scapegoat, the people who she’s choosing to dehumanise, are going to suffer as a result of this piece of legislation.

All at the same time, the savings that she claims she will make by reducing benefit increases will be passed on to more people needing hardship grants just to make ends meet. All that she is doing, actually, is that she will be passing the buck to front-line Work and Income staff members, who will then have to deliver more hardship grants because people will be worse off. Then, when she says the quiet part out loud, about what this bill is supposed to do, which is to actually widen the gap between what people earn on a benefit and those in unemployment, she ignores the fact that affects people who may be losing a job, and may be needing support to get by, because when you actually have a wider gap between benefit levels and employment, you, effectively, scar the wages of people who are put in a situation where they’re living below the poverty line, and then they are put in a desperate situation where they have to accept jobs in the short term that may pay less, that may have nothing to do with their qualifications. So this bill, effectively, by widening the gap between working people and those who are out of paid employment, is punishing people who want to go into work. It is, effectively, going to increase the wage gap—both the gender and ethnic wage gap—and it is going to contribute to low wages.

So let’s make it really clear. This bill will affect people—in a negative way—who are trying to get into paid employment. When she talks, in her absolutely ableist language, about “if people can work, they should”, she forgets the fact that some of the people who she is punishing the most in this bill are people who are not in a position to enter employment, because they have really serious medical conditions; people who are disabled and are not able to work, who they themselves—because, actually, we shouldn’t need medical certificates for people’s lived experiences to be taken seriously. But the people who have told us that they’re not in a position, because of their disability, or because they may be experiencing severe health conditions, those are the people who are going to be punished the most by this bill.

So let’s cut the BS from the Minister and actually accept that this is a bill that will punish disabled people the hardest. The people who she thinks can simply go to Work and Income and get a job, despite, for example, having a cancer diagnosis, and not being in a position to do so, those are the people she is punishing the most. When it comes to families with children who are going to be affected by lower benefit increases, what does she think will happen to the children when you put a household into further hardship? You’re condemning the children in those households to poor health and education outcomes, effectively creating long-term and possibly intergenerational harm; the harm that lower benefit increases cause as a result of this bill is long term. The harm that we do in the weeks that people may be experiencing—or months that people may be experiencing on those benefits—has profound year- and generational-long impacts, because if a family is not able to actually meet the cost of rent as a result of poverty levels that are set below the poverty lines, they have to move from the area that they’re in to another area, that creates transience for those children. Children cannot afford medication as a result of poverty levels that have been set by this Government. That affects the long-term health of the children impacted by this bill. So the Minister talks about the so-called short-term gains but fails to see the long-term harm that she is causing.

She can’t conjure high wages and people finding secure work just by demonising beneficiaries and simply talking about it. That’s her focus, as a part of this piece of legislation. Earlier in the House, she could not even substantiate whether those so-called initiatives were to support people into employment. So the goals that the Minister continuously talks about are not backed up by the lived experience of beneficiaries, and will only cause more harm.

I just really wish that the legacy parties understood what is happening right now, which is to actually turn benefit indexation into a political football. The previous Government had a chance to accept my recommendations and amendments to index benefits to wages, or inflation, whichever was higher, to ensure that we guarantee the best and highest possible benefit increases, so that a rising tide supports everyone. We put a similar amendment in this legislation that was not supported by National. There is no interest from the legacy parties to stop the political football on how we increase benefits annually, to just, actually, take into account that we could all rally together to support people having enough to live on, and turn these annual increases into a conversation on what else we need to do, rather than, for example, as the National Party and their coalition partners are doing is: how can we take the most from people on the benefit to fund tax cuts that will disproportionately support wealthy people?

So it should not be the case that we put a stake in the ground and say, “We told you so”, because we have a duty of care for our communities, and right now, we have a duty of care to do everything in our power to fight back against a Government that will increase poverty. But I’ll tell you right now: in four years’ time, what we will see is more families queuing up at Work and Income, needing hardship grants to make ends meet. We will see more families taking up debt, whether it is from loan companies or from advances from the Government, just to survive, as a result of those benefit increases being lower than they would have been otherwise. What the Minister, once again, fails to understand and acknowledge, which will result in these things, is that we’re talking about benefit increases to benefit levels that have already been set below the poverty line by successive Governments. These are not benefits that are livable levels; these are benefits that both sides of the House have decided to set below the poverty line, and then, this Government has decided that we should increase below-the-poverty-line benefits even more slowly—effectively, condemning generations to living below the poverty line.

The harm that this will cause will be seen by multiple and subsequent reports over the medium term by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD). MSD will show it to the Minister, and the Minister, as she’s shown us through the debate, won’t care, because she didn’t show any consideration to the best available evidence during the bill going through Parliament, and she clearly doesn’t seem to care for the evidence going forward; meaning that the coalition papers around using best data and available evidence is nothing, nothing but lip service, because this is a Government that is running on how to make life hardest on those already struggling to get by. These are the politics of cruelness, and the Green Party won’t stand by them.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. On behalf of ACT, I’m taking this call to support this bill, the Social Security (Benefits Adjustment) and Income Tax (Minimum Family Tax Credit) Amendment Bill. We are supporting this bill because this bill is ultimately about affordability. I’ve listened to contributions from the Labour Party member and also the Green Party member, and I would say that they have been really interesting contributions.

Yes, we acknowledge that arguments can be made both ways. This is about the indexation of benefits to the Consumers Price Index (CPI) or net wage growth, and I want to acknowledge that, yes, it was the Labour Government that indexed benefits to net wage growth because it saw that the wage growth was actually historically growing faster than inflation. But very quickly they realised that inflation actually started growing faster than wages, so there is no silver bullet there. Things change, and inflation grew at a rate that was hurting people. And who was responsible for that kind of increase in inflation? It was the Labour Government. It was because of their irresponsible spending. It was because of the spend, spend, and spend policies.

Yes, I do acknowledge that there a lot of factors that we do need to take into consideration when we talk about inflation, but, definitely, the irresponsible spending of the previous Labour Government fuelled inflation. Today those members are standing up and talking as if they really care about people on benefits or on low incomes, but they need to realise that it was the increase in inflation that actually caused more suffering to people on benefits and low incomes. Why didn’t they control their spending at that point, to reduce inflation if they really cared about people—those on benefit and low incomes.

On this side of the House, we really care about bringing inflation down. If inflation comes down, that is a good thing, because in the last quarter, December 2023, we have seen that inflation has been 4.7 percent. Yes, it has slowed down; it’s not exactly where we want it to be. But we want to see that inflation come under control. And that is actually going to give that financial relief. It’s not about just putting more money in people’s pockets, which doesn’t have that real value that comes with having money in people’s pockets.

Now, coming to the Green Party member, it’s really interesting to see that the Green Party member thinks that somehow if people stay on benefit rather than going to a job that is a minimum wage job, it is actually a better thing. If people have not been in employment for a number of years, or if they don’t have the experience, if they start a job on minimum wage, what is wrong with that? I ask: what’s wrong with that? There is nothing wrong with that, because they are only going to grow from there. So that is the first step, and we really want people to take that first step—get into employment even if it is minimum wage, because they will only grow from there.

The other argument I heard from the Green member was that people will be worse off by $2,000-plus if they stay on benefit for four to five years. Why do we want to imagine that somebody will be sitting on benefit for four to five years? That is not the kind of ambition we bring to New Zealanders. We have better aspirations than the Green member, because we really want people to do well. We really want people to get into employment, and this bill is a very simple bill—it is about indexation of benefits to the CPI, which we support.

Thank you. On behalf of New Zealand First, I’d like to rise and speak on this bill. I was listening last week to some of the contributions, and some of it painted us on this side as uncaring, saying, “I wonder if any of the people opposite have ever spoken to anyone who’s on a benefit or who has experienced hardship themselves.” Well, as we have heard from many of the maiden statements on this side, many of us have experienced poverty, have lived it, and we know what it tastes, smells, and feels like. So I would like to invite the members opposite to reflect on some of their words when accusing us of being uncaring.

One thing I know is that the coalition is a very caring coalition, and that is why we are going to support this bill. We are caring. We are mothers. We are fathers, sons, and daughters. There is no way that we would not want the people of New Zealand and our country to flourish, which is why we are rejecting many of the—

Chlöe Swarbrick: Evidence—the evidence; you’re rejecting the evidence.

TANYA UNKOVICH: —words spoken on the other side. Evidence, yes, evidence is great, and in many of the words spoken on the other side, I don’t hear evidence coming; I just hear accusations. Many of us on this side, we all want the same outcome as the members on the opposite side; however, we just have different paths to getting there. That is what we are committed to—we are committed to protecting the people.

Now, we are not slashing benefits; we’re protecting the benefits and we’re indexing them to inflation. It is about also addressing the culture of welfare dependency that we’ve got in this country, and it is something that seems to be increasing as the years go on and something that this coalition, this Government, is very concerned about. So we are not trying to slash the money coming in; we are protecting their purchasing power, which is why we are indexing to inflation—a policy that has been used for 31 of the previous 35 years, we note. It is, by no means, a polarisation of people. Where is that evidence saying that we are kicking people who are already down? Those are statements made with evidence.

So I have been in the helping profession, myself, and I have had many clients come to me, who really want help in getting out of poverty and being able to get back into the workforce. Not everyone wants to stay on a benefit; many want to get out of a repeating pattern and being in a family that is dependent on benefits all the time, which is why New Zealand First is very committed to helping this Government address other issues, such as the cost of living, reducing the tax on the petrol that is affecting the people who are on benefits, who have to get in their car, and who often drive cars which use significantly more amounts of petrol—they are being really hit at the pump there. We are addressing some of those issues, looking at the price of groceries—addressing some of those issues—so that they can, in fact, have more of their money in their pocket. We are not prepared to continue to encourage people to remain on benefit, but to help them with other areas. There are so many other things that people can be looking at. Self-esteem is a big issue here. It is about helping people to become more inclined to want to prosper and not continue to enable them to stay stuck, but helping them to get unstuck.

New Zealand First is very much a political party of common sense and taking a balanced approach. We would like to support this bill, and are very proud to be doing so. So thank you.

This is a split call.

If that previous New Zealand First member, Tanya Unkovich, would in fact have stopped reading her notes and instead read the evidence—and how about reading her own Prime Minister’s state of the nation speech right after she tried to say that we need to improve people’s self-esteem, and this very legislation that is going to deny those on the lowest incomes more income? This very legislation and the very state of the nation speech that we just heard over the weekend from her Prime Minister is doing the opposite of improving the self-esteem of people who are struggling the most, and is why we will not only be opposing, and are opposing, this legislation, which seeks to tag income support to inflation instead of wages because that ensures that they receive less money, we are opposing this legislation and the hateful rhetoric that comes with it.

We saw the Minister in charge of this legislation, the Hon Louise Upston, repeating again in the House today—we saw her talking and using the language of people “languishing” on a jobseeker benefit. Now, what is that supposed to say about people who are trying their very best; trying their very best to care for their children, their families, their community; who know that the best thing that they can do with very little is try their best? But this Government—including that speaker who just sat down from New Zealand First, the Prime Minister, and the Minister in charge of this legislation—are dehumanising and stigmatising all people who receive a benefit.

With all of their language, they continue to talk about welfare dependency. Guess who is dependent on the current economic status in this country! People like the 311 families who together mass $85 billion collectively without being fairly taxed. We want to talk about dependency and tough choices? How about making the tough choice to lift all families out of poverty instead of ensuring that those families with more than enough—more than enough; more than they could ever want or need—continue to be disproportionately impacted positively by this very legislation?

The Minister tried to say that, “Oh, yes, this legislation on its own will in fact create more children in poverty.” So even she admits that. Can I just direct that to that previous speaker? Even the Minister has said, “Yes, this legislation, on its own, will indeed cause more poverty.” And then she tries to say, “But with the tax cuts, that is what is going to help.” I would like to know exactly how many families who are struggling the most will be lifted out of poverty by those so-called tax cuts and how many families who are already dependent on the current unfair tax system are going to amass incredibly more wealth. That is the dependency that this House should be talking about.

In my previous speeches, I have highlighted that if this Government was serious about wanting to know how to ensure people can live decent lives, the aim alone isn’t just to remove people off a benefit—people who are receiving income support—the aim should be for people to live decent lives. There was a lot of work put into a report called the Welfare Expert Advisory Group. If that member who just sat down is concerned about evidence and research and work, the whole report for that member to read in her spare time, an entire report with the likes of—and I’ll repeat this again—Phil O’Reilly, previous chief executive of the Business New Zealand roundtable, who sat before people who are struggling, and who came to the conclusion that all of the research said they are not receiving enough; they are not receiving support to actually improve their lives.

So the Greens have always posed a way and a political decision that can and should be made to ensure all families are lifted out of poverty; that we can end poverty for all families by making sure they are receiving adequate income to live decent lives. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Tēnā tātou e te Whare. Te Pāti Māori oppose this bill. The reality is that this Government continues to push their kaupapa of poor policy on to our people—policy that will punish our whānau. No one wants to live on “Pōhara Street”. Māori have dreams and aspirations. Workers want fair pay. Whānau hauā want the right to live with dignity and respect. This Government continues to show they have no ngākau for our people. They are anti-Māori, anti - workers’ rights, anti-disability, and anti-beneficiaries. They are all our whānau. It’s a blitz on Māori. Māori will bear the brunt, and we know, though, that the impact will hit and hurt our mokopuna the most.

The state of our community is dire. The hustle is real for our whānau out on the streets, and I encourage, like I did in my last call, any members to come out into our communities to see firsthand what it is like and what it will continue to be like for front liners in our community.

This Government is continuing to give tax cuts to higher-income earners but taking income away from the lowest earners. It’s disgraceful, it’s shameful, and our people will continue to be hurt by this. So I want to mihi to all the iwi and Māori partners out in our communities, especially those in Tāmaki-makau-rau who are going to feel the brunt and face the frustration of our whānau all day, every day. There’s going to be increased whānau continuing to line up at our food banks, and increased whānau turning up at our marae requiring hardship grants. There is no way that they are not going to be turning up and wanting less support; it’s going to be the opposite. And it’s our whānau on the front line—those marae, those Māori partners, Whānau Ora providers—that are actually going to feel the brunt of this.

So to this Government, I encourage you to increase the funding to those providers and partners, because they have to deal with what you are taking away from our people. Kia ora.

The debate that we have this afternoon is not really a debate about people who have worked hard and done well, it’s not about people who may have had their forefathers work hard and do well; it is about people who are not doing too well right now. And what the Government wants to do is to make the main benefit more predictable, more transparent, more easily administered. It is to produce a long-term aim of a proper safety net for all New Zealanders, regardless of who you are or what your circumstances are—that the benefit will come at pace with the increase in cost of living and the cost of goods and services. So, with the increase in costs and services that we are experiencing at the moment, it is clearly a good idea to index the main benefit to inflation, which is what we are doing.

The bill has two objectives. It is really to provide Government with more control over its spending, which, unfortunately, we have seen over the past years that spending in a manner that is not sustainable over time—it’s not good for everybody. Secondly, we are also wanting to ensure that beneficiaries are able to see their way forward by understanding and counting on a predictable main benefit that they will be receiving.

We support the family tax credit also in such a way that low-income working families remain better off financially in full-time work than they would be if they were on the main benefit. It is a tried and tested, very known fact that when young people are trying to get ahead, instead of being provided everything that they might want at that point in time or might need at that point in time, it is good for them to be able to aspire and push themselves harder and get ahead. So that is what this side of the House wishes to do with this bill: to push people to achieve more and not have that balance of receiving a main benefit that is such that it disincentivises them from trying harder and getting up and putting their shoes on and getting out there and working harder.

Also, the members opposite raise that the benefits will eventually have the effect of dropping by 2028, four years later, and then the picture is painted about when that happens, but we would like for others to understand, especially the ones who watch this debate, that that would mean if the main benefit is indexed on cost of living, then the cost of living would have also gone down. I commend this bill to this House.

I wanted to start with a quote that’s often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi that the measure of a society is how it treats its weakest members—the measure of a society is how it treats its weakest members. Actually, as it turns out, although the great Mahatma Gandhi said that, it’s also attributed to Hubert Humphrey, who was Vice President of the United States from about 1965 to 1969; a Democratic Vice President and obviously with liberal—classic, small L liberal—thinking; lost a bit today. But coming out of the United States at around about the time when John Rawls was assembling and compiling his magnum opus, A Theory of Justice, published in 1971.

Dan Bidois: What does this have to do with the bill?

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: And it’s a remarkable book. You should read it—go ahead and read it, Dan. It’s a remarkable book, because what it does—it became one of the seminal works of political philosophy in the 20th century, and it had a great deal to say about the type of society we want to live in. Rawls went through a rigorous process of working out how we might set up such a society and came up with a series of propositions. Central to his thinking was the thinking that in terms of the way we set up our society, we would set it up in such a way that we would ensure that our decisions benefited the least well off. That as we were making decisions, that was the yardstick: how would it affect the least well off?

Now, that particular book really did become the work of political philosophy in the 20th century, and most of the other works in the later part of the 20th century responded to it. But no one really turned that over—that proposition that as we set up our societies, our concern is for everyone. But when we are making our decisions, we must measure them by the impact on the least well off.

I do want to refer to another great thinker of the 20th century as well, and of the 21st century: Amartya Sen, who won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1998 and is still working in this space. Now, Amartya Sen is famous for what he calls the capabilities approach—the approach that we try to ensure that each citizen, each person, is able to live according to their capabilities. And that, as Governments, our obligation is to ensure that people are able to live according to their capabilities. Unsurprisingly, he did think about all sorts of issues to do with distributive justice. One of the things that he said and that he argued is that being poor in a rich society in itself is a capability handicap. That the gap between the rich and the poor has a negative effect on people’s capabilities because, as the society becomes richer, people who have less are less able to participate in that society.

What I have given here is a whole series of thinking about what we ought to be doing in order to enhance the lives of everyone in our communities—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): And it’s going to relate to the bill in some way soon.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: —and I think it’s—indeed, it is relevant to the bill because it is about how we ensure that people in our society have enough to live on. It doesn’t come out of some sort of weird nowhere land; it comes out of some of the great thinking of the 20th and the 21st centuries that we must have an adequate welfare system.

Now, of course, in recent years, we have had a huge problem with inflation in New Zealand and worldwide—an inflation problem that has been caused by a global pandemic, that has been caused by the war in Ukraine, that is being affected now by the war in Gaza, that all these external events have affected inflation worldwide. In many respects, it doesn’t really matter what has caused the inflation; what matters is what Governments do to deal with it and to enable people to live through it. One of the decisions we took as a Government was to try to ensure that benefit levels were raised to a sufficient level to enable people to survive.

But there’s some really interesting wrinkles around inflation, because it impacts different groups in societies differently. And there’s some really clear economic research that shows that lower-income people are more affected by inflation. Now, this is absolutely standard research that the inflation that the members of this House experience is not as bad as the inflation that people on lower incomes experience. That while the average inflation rate in this country might be—I’m sorry, I can’t recall exactly what it is at the moment—

Dan Bidois: 4.7.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Thank you, Dan—4.7 percent. Lower-income households will be experiencing a higher rate of inflation because of the basket of goods and services that they actually purchase.

I’m going to quote here from MoneyHub, who’ve been assembling the research on this. Now, this is an organisation that sets out to enable people to learn how to deal with inflation. They say that inflation is particularly painful for low-income households where the percentage of post-tax disposable income spent on essentials like food and petrol continues to increase, while wages typically stay the same. As a result, higher essential costs mean less cash left over at the end of the month while continuing to try to buy the same groceries. Additionally, lower-income households have significantly fewer savings and investments than higher-income households, meaning that these households have less cushion against rising costs.

What this bill does is it means that people in benefit-dependant households will have less than they would overwise have had in order to deal with the cost of living. Now, when we were in Government, we worked hard to increase the level of benefits to ensure that people living in benefit-dependant households could participate in our society, could enhance their capabilities, could be part of our society. This bill works against that. This bill means that less money ends up in the pockets of the poorest New Zealanders. This bill positively goes against all the thinking behind why we have a welfare State in the first place, which is to ensure that every citizen—that every citizen—can participate in our society.

It gets even worse than that because, as is sitting in the impact analysis that was prepared by social welfare that was brought to the House by this Minister, the impact is going to be greater on disabled households where people are on benefit because they have disabilities. Now, these are not people who can go out and find a job. These are not people who can put on their shoes in the morning and go out and find a job. Now, of course, many people with disabilities can and do work, but part of the reason that many people are on benefit is because they have chronic illnesses or disabilities that mean they cannot work, and this bill will mean that they have less money in their pockets for reasons beyond their control. So there’s a really significant impact there on households with disabilities.

We have listened to many fine speeches in this House over the last few weeks as our new members have talked about their values, their beliefs, and why they have come to this House. Many of them have expressed values coming from the Christian faith they profess. I would like to see that faith expressed in action, not just words. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak this afternoon on the Social Security (Benefits Adjustment) and Income Tax (Minimum Family Tax Credit) Amendment Bill for its third reading, and it will soon become law. I’m going to make a short contribution because this is really fairly short in terms of the important points that are made here.

Part 1 of this bill reverses changes made by Labour to index benefits to wage growth and replace it with a standard practice—a standard practice—followed by successive Governments. In fact, for 31 of the last 35 years, this practice has been used to index benefits to CPI inflation changes. This is at a time of high inflation.

I have been hearing some interesting speeches from the opposite side of the House this afternoon, accusing the coalition Government of all sorts of things; ignoring the fact that past left-wing Governments have done exactly the same thing over the last 31 years. So if they are to say this is a reflection on the coalition Government, it’s a reflection on their own practice of the last 31 years.

Look, the reality is that we’re at a time of high inflation. This is to index benefits to CPI—so that is, to inflation. This is a fairer mechanism, we think, for those lower-income people. I heard the speech before that said lower-income people are more affected by inflation—absolutely—based on the vast amount of goods and services that they purchase. So that’s absolutely correct. We’re at a time of higher inflation, therefore those goods and services—particularly food, electricity, etc.—that people need, this inflation affects lower-income people more. So this is indexing these benefits to the CPI—to inflation. So this is going to assist, rather than what the Opposition is claiming.

The other part of this bill that I need to speak to is that it’s a relatively minor change but it increases the prescribed amount from $34,216 to $35,204. So that’s an increase and that is used in the formula that determines the minimum family tax credit that a person is entitled to. So the minimum family tax credit provides a financial incentive to ensure low-income working families remain better off financially in full-time work than they would be on a main benefit, and that’s important. We want to ensure that families who are working hard, trying to get ahead to provide for their families—and provide, I think, the mana that comes from work as well, for those who are able to do that. It does increase that sense of personal mana for those who are able to do it, and that’s something we want to encourage and also it’s something they can show to their children, who follow after them, a pathway forward, rather than being stuck on benefit dependency.

Look, benefits are there for those who need it. We totally support that, but we also want to make sure that people who can work are able to work, and we incentivise them to do that. So that is the ultimate way they could provide best for themselves and their families. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

The Hon Barbara Edmonds—this is a split call.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on what is a very sad day for this House, with a bill that is going to be taking from the poorest New Zealanders to pay for tax cuts. That is morally reprehensible. Let me try and rephrase that: taking from the poorest New Zealanders to pay for tax cuts is morally reprehensible.

I’ve heard members on the other side of the House try to justify why they believe that changing this back means that people will be better off. I’ve just heard it with the other side saying, “They’ll get money.” The problem is that with this bill, they’re actually going to get less money in the long run. When the Children’s Commissioner says that this is the one thing that we could do to help child poverty, it is time for our Parliament to listen to it.

I have been brought up in a benefit-dependent household. It wasn’t my father’s fault that my mother got cancer at the age of 35 and that he was a widower at the age of 40 with four children under the age of 11. We were brought up on the unemployment benefit because of reasons totally outside of our control. Children brought up in poverty need support. Children brought up in poverty need to know that they are going to have food in their tummies. Children brought up in poverty need to be able to have a safe home.

These are the poorest New Zealanders—the poorest. And yet that side of the House absolutely finds it, I believe, heartless, and applauds this. Find some other way to pay for those large tax cuts and those promises that you’ve made. Find some other way. Find them through other mechanisms of revenue raising, but instead you want to take the money which may help our poorest New Zealanders. Listen to yourselves. This is what our country is coming to, where money is going to be taken from children who are already living in poverty in a cost of living crisis in order to pay for tax cuts. Find another way. Because you know what? These children that are going to bed tonight—the child that I was at four who lost her mother to cancer—deserve better. We deserve support. We deserve a chance to make it better in our lives, not for a Government to come and take away the crumbs, the absolute smallest things that can make a difference to our lives. So I implore that Government: find another way; if not, absolutely heartless. I do not commend this bill to the House.

It’s a pleasure to rise and take a call on a bill that allows the benefits to increase by the Consumers Price Index (CPI) as opposed to wage growth. I have some comments for Barbara Edmonds, the new Opposition spokesperson on finance, around finance. The first is that it’s not beneficiaries’ tax money; it’s actually hard-working New Zealanders’ tax money and it is being given to beneficiaries.

The second thing that I’d like to say to the member is that there were 70,000 extra people on a jobseeker benefit under the last six years of that Government, and any person who is taking on the finance portfolio for Labour needs to know how much that costs the State: $1 billion extra a year. That is how much damage that that Government did in office, and that’s what we’ve got to turn around today.

I want to also pick up on another comment from the Green Party around the impact of this bill, which was that it will make the gap between beneficiaries and those in work even worse. I say to the member Ricardo Menéndez March that, in fact, the best way to reduce that gap is to get people who are on a benefit into work, and that is our challenge and that’s our opportunity.

But we have traversed this topic a lot in the House in the last few weeks. We’ve traversed this topic a lot in the last year, in the election campaign, which that side of the House lost overwhelmingly. They lost their seats to large majorities from this side of the House.

I do want to come to what I believe is the core matter for this bill, which is the type of country that we want to live in in the future. Now, we want a country where there is a social safety net—yes—and, actually, I think all sides of this House can agree on our having a social safety net. But I believe that the future we want for our country is a future where people live independently, live happy, healthy, productive lives, and they understand the value and the dignity of work.

That is the main way that people can get ahead for themselves for their families—and, actually, don’t trust me; trust the evidence, as Chlöe Swarbrick used to say. The evidence is that those in work have better mental health—

Chlöe Swarbrick: Yep.

DAN BIDOIS: —yes?—

Chlöe Swarbrick: Yep.

DAN BIDOIS: —have more productive capacity, and have better wellbeing, and so that’s exactly what we have in this bill. We want to have a case of actually improving benefits modestly by the inflation rate—which, by the way, I have to remind the other side of the House that it’s 4.7 percent. Maybe if they had known how much inflation was, they might have done better in the last election.

Our 100-day plan is to, in fact, start a journey to reverse the terrible trend that we’ve been on for the past six years, to restore the dignity of work, and to make sure we get those 70,000 extra people on a jobseeker benefit into work so that they can get ahead for themselves and their families. That is what I think we all want in this House, and that is the challenge before us as a Government.

Now, I do want to just touch on what a member said, which was that we were taking us back to Ruth Richardson’s cuts. Now, I’m no person of history, but Ruth Richardson actually cut the benefits, and we are not cutting. For those that are watching at home, we are increasing benefits by the CPI. That actually keeps the purchasing power for those who are on a benefit—it protects that, OK? So if you’re watching from home and you’re on a benefit, we are not cutting your benefit. It is a pleasure to commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Today is a shameful day, and I’m reminded of the reasons why I came to this House in the first place and why I’ve been a supporter of the Labour Party since the 1990s, and that “mother of all Budgets” that the previous member, Dan Bidois, referred to. I want to begin by telling a couple of stories that I think get to the heart of this matter.

Around 20 years ago, a friend of mine living in Auckland—his marriage ended. He was around 60 years of age. It was his second relationship. He had three young children; some of whom were primary school age. His wife left him for someone else. He worked in IT, and he lived out in West Auckland and had to travel long distances into Auckland City in order to get to his job. Now, he had young children, including one who was not at school. He had to leave his job and go on the benefit. It was under the fifth Labour Government. I remember him telling me what happened when he went into Work and Income. The Work and Income officer said, “Your job is to raise your children.”

The previous member talked about work. Childcare—raising children—is work. Changing nappies, doing washing, all of those things are work. And it’s particularly women and solo mums who do this kind of work. For those women to be discriminated against through some of these changes—and it’s their children who will suffer and it’s their families who will suffer—and I think for us to say that that isn’t work really undermines the contribution that single parents make to society.

The other story I want to talk about is my best friend in Nelson, who is a single parent. She left a violent relationship to, basically, save the lives of her small children. The police said to me that this particular person was number one on their watch-list for family violence offenders in Nelson—I have no doubt that her children’s lives were at risk. I remember—this was under the National Government when sanctions were introduced and it became tougher for people to access the benefit—she said to me that it was like leaving a violent relationship with her husband and entering a violent relationship with the State. There was a time when she took her smallest child into a Work and Income office and was told that the child wasn’t allowed to use the toilet, and the child wet her pants in the Work and Income office. Where is the dignity in that?

So I ask those on the other side of the House—some of whom have been smirking and laughing and interrupting my colleagues talking about when their parents passed away from cancer—those who profess to be Christian, as I am, who go to church services each week and, I hope, would pray for the poorest of our nation, to actually think about what they’re doing to our most vulnerable people.

Now, we’ve heard very, very confused arguments from the other side. Some have said this is just an administrative matter; others have actually admitted it is to reduce cost. We know, looking back over the last 20 years or so, that in most years—around nine out of 10 years—wage increases have been higher than inflation. That is why we made this change: because the Welfare Expert Advisory Group said that this was the most significant change that could be made to benefits to ensure that people had enough to live with dignity.

We’re talking about people who literally are spending their entire day raising three-year-olds and maybe a four-year-old as well; changing their nappies, feeding them, getting them to early childhood education, cooking for them. In some cases, those same people are also having to go to Family Court every week because they’ve got a vexatious ex-partner taking them to Family Court. So I just ask those of us who have lived these lives or who haven’t lived these lives to actually just for once walk in the shoes of other people.

I am the daughter of a solo mother. We were temporarily a solo parent household—again, through no fault of our own; my father left our household—and there were five of us under the age of 10, some of whom were still at primary school and at early childhood. My mother was able to go back to work. We were able to manage without a benefit. But if my mother hadn’t—and I see smirking again—been a registered teacher, she wouldn’t have been able to do that and actually get a job that worked around the hours of children. Even then, she was only part time. Even then, because my father was very well paid and was able to pay quite high child support—again, if we hadn’t had high child support payments, we would have had to go on a benefit. So think about the lives of these people for once, rather than posturing to people’s misunderstandings around what lives are like for those on benefit.

Just recently, I’ve had a lovely couple come into my office. It’s a heartbreaking case and I think it tells the picture about how much New Zealanders just don’t understand what life on a low income and on the benefit is really like. This couple—their children are grown up, they have a mortgage, and they’re both in full-time work. One of them has recently had a really serious set of injuries. He’s unable to work now, and at this stage—we are challenging it—has been denied ACC. So the working partner thought, “Well, we’ve paid our taxes all our lives. I’ll go to Work and Income. They’ll be able to help.” Of course, they were told—and I had to tell them that this was correct—that they earned too much to receive any support from Work and Income. Now, they’d always thought that if they came upon hardship, they could just turn up to Work and Income and get help. They’re possibly now going to have to sell their house and have to take out KiwiSaver.

So the reminder, I think, to people on the other side—and I see all their heads are down now, which is interesting—a reminder that tough times can fall on any of us. I think many people think that when we fall on those tough times that the State will be there for us. The reality is there are many, many times when we do fall on tough times and the State isn’t there.

Now, the view of the Labour Party is that when people are under tough times, when they don’t have—and come on, try living on the benefit and paying rent each week for goodness sake; it pretty much doesn’t leave much to live on after that. What we’re going to see now is that overall weekly benefit eroded over time. And as the Welfare Expert Advisory Group said, this was the single most important change that a Government could make to actually lift benefits over time, and that is what is now being wound down. As I say, it’s a shameful day—it’s a shameful day.

If this Government does manage to magic up some tax cuts—I’ve got no idea how they’re going to do that, but if they do—every single one of us in this room, those of us who are parliamentarians, will get a tax cut. Why the heck do I need a tax cut? I find it immoral. In fact, I’m so angry—I’m so angry—that I would receive a tax cut. Utterly immoral.

Laura Trask: Then donate your tax cut.

RACHEL BOYACK: Oh, I will be. I will be donating it to the NGOs that are closing in Nelson because there’s no funding from this Government—I will be donating it, I can assure you of that.

Hon Member: The tax cuts aren’t about funding NGOs.

RACHEL BOYACK: Because I don’t want it. I don’t want it. Why would we possibly give ourselves tax cuts? Oh, now they’re all heckling again. OK, so I think it’s a thing in the Bible we call “greed”. Yeah, that one. Just remember that one. Those of us earning over $160,000 a year, let’s just be fair, New Zealanders—all of us in this room earn over $160,000 a year—

Hon Member: Are we still on the bill?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes, we are still on the bill. The member’s making her comparison.

RACHEL BOYACK: Yep. Well, you know what? Madam Speaker, some people have said this is to reduce cost to pay for tax cuts. So I’m just responding to previous—I know you weren’t in the Chair, but there were quite a few members making those types of references around reducing cost burden to the State, so I’m just discussing what that cost burden to the State—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah, no, I’ve agreed with that. So keep going.

RACHEL BOYACK: So I don’t want a tax cut when I know that people, like my friend, who are raising children and are doing it on their own because they left a violent relationship, over the next few years will not have as much money in their pocket to pay rent. I haven’t come to this House for me; I’ve come to this House for them. This is a shameful day and I do not commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak in support of this bill. Just for the benefit of people listening outside of Parliament, at home or around the world—I used to love it when different MPs would explain what we’re doing, because someone outside of here just might lose track—we’re speaking to the Social Security (Benefits Adjustment) and Income Tax (Minimum Family Tax Credit) Amendment Bill.

Now, for people listening from home or anywhere else, they’d think—if they were listening to the last few speakers from the other side of the House—that this bill only does one thing, and that this bill only adjusts the way we’re indexing benefits. We’re saying we want to adjust that to index it on Consumers Price Index, which is inflation. So if you were listening in the last half an hour, I apologise if you think that this bill only does that one thing, because it doesn’t.

Now, I know that our members on the other side of the House—and I say this respectfully because I know that many of you are very lovely, beautiful people—seem to have ignored the fact that this bill also proposes another change. It’s a change where we adjust the minimum family tax credit bracket in a way that we ensure more lower-income families are better off if they remain in full-time work. I think it’s very important that we emphasise this. Yes, there’s one part of this bill that talks about adjusting benefits to inflation, taking it back to what it was for 31 out of 35 years under successive Governments, including Helen Clark’s Government—so we’re going back to that true and tried form where we’re adjusting benefits to inflation. But the second part that we’re doing with this bill, here, today, is we’re adjusting the minimum family tax credit. As I just mentioned, the result of this will be that more families will be better off if they choose to remain in full-time work.

Now, I know—like many of us in the House—we have a lot of friends, we have a lot of families that have spoken to us about the different circumstances they find themselves in. I remember doorknocking—because I love to go out doorknocking, you’ll hear this a lot throughout my years in Parliament. Throughout doorknocking, many times I came across people that are clearly very hard-working people and they say to me, this simple thing, that “We don’t apply. We don’t reach that minimum. We don’t fit under that bracket.” They say that about a number of different situations, including the family tax credit. So I’m very proud of the fact that we’re adjusting it with this bill, and I’m glad that we’ve got support across the Government parties, because it will ensure that many families are better off. There’s a lot of people that are juggling that beautiful juggle of having a family, having children, having mokopuna, wanting to work, and wanting to also spend time with them but also contribute to society—for society, for themselves—and this is one way that we’re ensuring people can go out and work and they will be better off with the family tax credit. We’re also adjusting the childcare credit.

Now, I’d like to also speak about a number of points that were raised today, and just some thoughts as a result. A member earlier spoke about déjà vu. The member earlier referred to their former—and this is the former Labour Government’s—Budgets and the aspiration behind these Budgets and the aspiration behind their 100 days, and then referred to what’s happening now, under this Government—our Government—as déjà vu. Well, what I’d like to respond is that it’s not déjà vu; it’s actually déjà true. It’s déjà true that under Labour Governments, as we’ve seen just recently, the number of young people under the age of 25 on the jobseeker benefit has risen by 66 percent. Déjà true. In the last six years, it’s now 40,000—déjà true. This is what happens under a Labour Government. Déjà true: under a Labour Government since 2017, New Zealanders on the jobseeker benefit have increased by 70,000. Déjà true. This is what happens when we’ve got a Labour-led Government. The latest forecast is that teenagers who become beneficiaries—so under the age of 20—can spend up to 24 years of their working life on welfare. Déjà true. This is what happens as a result of a Labour-led Government. Here, on this side of the House, the National Party, with our coalition partners, will not sit around and let the déjà true Labour legacy of dependency go unchecked. That’s why—that’s another reason why—this bill is before the House.

A mere few months ago, I was having some kai with a very lovely woman—she’s a woman that’s quite established now—and she spoke about how she used to be on the benefit, and she shared what that did to her soul. She spoke about how one’s life is not their own when they’re on the benefit. She spoke about how their calendar is not their own when one is on the benefit. She spoke about how you are literally dependent on someone else when you are on the benefit. And so when she found herself on the benefit, and was surviving with a benefit, but she ached—she ached to get back out into the workforce. And she’s a woman that has children and found herself in difficult times. The beauty of what we have here is that we acknowledge people do find themselves in difficult times, but we also acknowledge that if we allow ourselves to go too far, we’ll have a poverty of aspiration. We need to fight against the poverty of aspiration. This woman that I spoke about is the Hon Louise Upston. They’re the things that she said to me and they really resonated with me—what being on the benefit can do.

Our Government wants to support people out of the benefit. Our Government wants to support families that want to work—with the family tax credit, with the childcare credit. Our Government is not going to allow the poverty of aspiration to permeate any longer, and that’s the kaupapa behind what we’re doing here today. I commend this bill to the House.