Social Security (Mandatory Reviews) Amendment Bill

Members, the House is in committee on the Social Security (Mandatory Reviews) Amendment Bill, but before I take a call, I just want to plant a seed with members. We had a number of points of order about grouping and selection of amendments during consideration of the last bill, and we have a similar number of amendments for the current bill, so I just want to clarify the approach we are going to take for the committee.

Usually, all amendments that are in order are put to the committee to be voted on. The Standing Orders give the Chairperson the ability to put a single question to the committee on multiple related amendments—known as “grouping”—or to select the limited number of amendments from a group of amendments that are in the same substance to test the willingness of the committee to make amendments of that nature—known as “selecting”.

There is a high bar for use of either approach. Doing so deprives the committee of the opportunity to make a specific decision in respect of separate, in-order amendments. To meet this high bar, the Chairperson considers both the total number of related amendments and the extent to which they are related or the same in substance. The procedures were developed in the context of significantly large volumes of amendments. There is no magic number after which grouping or selecting is used, but we are some ways away from the high bar being met.

The intent of the grouping and selecting procedures was, in part, to incentivise the development of coherent alternative proposals by members and to support the effective consideration of bills in committee. The bar for grouping and selecting amendments on bills introduced and being passed through all stages under urgency is higher, given that urgency is generally less conducive to these aims.

I am not ruling that no amendments will be grouped or selected today, but I wish to remind the committee that, like relevance, the Chairperson is the sole judge of grouping or selecting amendments.

We come first to the debate on Part 1.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I thought it would be useful for the committee just to give a bit of an outline in terms of this particular bill and just remind the committee and those who are watching this debate that many New Zealanders would think that it is already the norm that there is a review on an annual basis of entitlements. It’s not.

One of the challenges that those who receive support often experience—and it’s an issue that’s been raised across the House—is the fact that entitlements might not be paid correctly. They might be underpaid, or they might be overpaid. If they’re underpaid, that’s clearly a problem that this bill will address. Equally, if they’re overpaid, that creates a problem as well, because it then generates a debt for the beneficiary, which leads to considerable stress. If that overpayment is a mistake by the Ministry of Social Development, it is written off, but if it is a circumstance that hasn’t been declared and should have been declared by the person on benefit, then it creates a debt.

This mandatory review process just, basically, makes sure that there’s an annual process where it is support that doesn’t expire—the person receiving the benefit is able to check in. It’s not an onerous process. It can be done online, it can be over the phone, it can be done in person, the person receiving the benefit can fill in a form and exchange it by post—you name it. So it’s very straightforward, but we want to ensure that people are being paid accurately. They have the opportunity to check in once a year, and it’s pretty straightforward.

This also enables the boarders’ contribution legislation that we passed earlier. So, again, we have accurate circumstances and accurate entitlement to support.

Just a reminder that this is Part 1: this is the debate on clauses 4 and 5, “Amendments to principal Act”. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m pleased to be speaking to this bill, in Part 1—particularly I’m looking at clause 4. It’s really lovely that we did actually get a regulatory impact statement (RIS), because this bill is being taken through all stages under urgency, which means we don’t get the regular opportunity to review this in select committee where we would be able to air out and question elements of this policy and listen to members of our communities who have concerns and feedback, which is often actually very productive. So I’m going to attempt, as best as possible in the incredibly rushed process that this urgency is demanding, to reflect on and bring those voices here for the Minister for Social Development and Employment to consider.

I want to speak specifically to the introduction of annual reviews over a 52-week period, which is mandatory. We see in the regulatory impact statement, on page 6 specifically, that point 15 raises concerns around how Māori will be disproportionately affected. This is, of course, because Māori are disproportionately represented in the welfare system, and we know that there are also intersectional and concurrent benefit needs in this community which see Māori people needing to gain assistance through multiple avenues.

So if we are introducing a 52-week review period, I’m concerned that Māori will be having multiple benefits reviewed simultaneously, which will increase distress, it will increase unnecessary administrative demands, and it will put extra pressure on communities who are seeking multiple forms of assistance. This seems like an avoidable issue, so I wonder and would like to understand how that will be mitigated. What can the Minister assure will be done to mitigate this kind of compounding pressure that will contribute to mental distress?

We see in the RIS that there is mention of the fact that these compounding and intersectional needs will also affect Pasifika peoples. So I want to understand if there has been any advice also to the Minister from relevant ministries or Ministers—say, for example, Whānau Ora or the Ministry for Pacific Peoples. Where are we seeing those considerations taken into account in this bill? We know that Māori and Pasifika people will be impacted. In fact, we see that the Treaty of Waitangi implications are of concern here.

So I want to just understand from the Minister, and I’ll repeat my two main points: how will the Minister mitigate the potential impact on Māori who are seeking multiple-benefit supports—as is their right—which may impact negatively on their mental wellbeing? The second question, to repeat, was: what advice has the Minister received from relevant ministries in regards to those communities and the intersectional pressures upon them? Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr Chair. This is a really complicated bill and, as has been said, we are in urgency and we have not had a select committee stage.

Carl Bates: It’s pretty simple, actually.

INGRID LEARY: Members opposite may laugh, but, actually, when we are looking at how to get around the amendments it involves going through multiple pieces of earlier legislation and also multiple subsections within this bill, as well, and into regulations. Now, these are all things that we will be asking a lot of questions about, but I would like, first, to invite the committee to consider a framework where we can just look sort of globally at what’s happened here and then come down as myself and my colleagues will go step by step through the legislation.

What we have seen—for those who are watching at home and picking up on this—is really quite sinister, in my view, because things have been done back to front. Yesterday, we were told there was going to be a bill that would change some accommodation allowances because of what was called “double-dipping”, even though it was both a person with a tenancy or another boarder in their house claiming, so it wasn’t anyone individually double-dipping. But we were told, then, that this bill today was going to be the enabling legislation for that, and all the notes and things, including even the regulatory impact statement (RIS), purport to be really looking at just that enabling power of the bill that went through yesterday.

But, as we have gone through this bill in great detail today, what we’ve seen is something far more sinister, which is amendments to the Social Security Act which, crucially, not only require mandated 52-week reviews on a series of benefits that have not been specified—in fact, only the exemptions are specified, and it’s very, very difficult to ascertain what they are and whether regulatory powers apply both to the making of benefits or the changing of those benefits, which has questions—but also, crucially, in new section 310C(4), inserted by clause 4, there is a new phrase that says, “If the beneficiary fails to comply with a requirement under this section, MSD must suspend,” and then it goes on to say their benefit.

It’s really difficult to find what day applies because that relates to subsection (1) and subsection (4) of new section 310C, which talk about the end of the day before the relevant deadline, and we will be having questions about that because we would like to know, actually, if the Minister herself can apply the legislation in a meaningful way so that she has clarity. One of the tests in jurisprudence is that law must be fair and clear, and it’s pretty difficult to find your way around this one.

We’ve heard in the first readings from the Government members—and certainly the Government’s statement—that this is a facilitator to try to make sure that there is clarity and certainty about what entitlements people are getting. But, actually, when you look at the legislation in here, it’s a very punitive bill. We’ve seen additional words—and we will interrogate this again—where it not only talks about, say, in a subsection A, that this is about ensuring people get their entitlements but, in a subsection B, making sure they don’t get their entitlements if they’re not entitled to them. Now, the fact that the Government has bothered to articulate the bill in this way, I think, shows a clear intent that this is, in our view, beneficiary bashing. There’s probably a better legal word for it.

We have not had submissions. We have had commentary over the last 24 hours, because this is all being very rushed, from the Salvation Army and also from the Law Society. I’ll just quote from the Salvation Army, which says, “The bill will make things a lot worse for those we support, it will push a lot more people into poverty. It will create a lot more barriers and difficulties for those we support to be able to access the help … they need.”, and the Law Society says it “raises significant concern about how the use of automated systems will apply where the sanctions provisions involve some form of evaluative judgement, for example those relating to money management and community work.”

So there’s two clear parts to this. As I say, we do not want to filibuster today, but I do want to point out that the RIS that relates to this was not really referenced yesterday. Yesterday, we looked at the supplementary regulatory impact statement because that pertained to the accommodation supplement. The RIS on this actually says in a footnote, and I can allude to it later, that the accommodation supplement does not apply—I think it’s on page 4—because that will come at a later stage. So we have not even had a chance to ventilate the concerns that are in the primary RIS, which are really not about the accommodation supplement at all but much more about these other benefits which are difficult to find out what they are, which have very strong punitive elements to them and also have an automated element to them which is really concerning.

So what we would like to do as we go through is ask questions, particularly when we see that there are redacted parts of the RIS as well. So, for example, I can refer the Minister to the fact that MSD actually says it already uses artificial intelligence (AI) for discretionary payments, but it does also say in the RIS, on page 3, it’s possible for the use of AI “to entrench existing inequalities in the welfare system as these can be built into the data collection.” Now, the previous speaker, Benjamin Doyle, has spoken about Māori communities, very briefly, and Pasifika, but there is a lot more to be said about that and a lot more questions. It would be good to get the specific wording from the RIS about what it says, because it’s pretty damning, and we will go into that.

I won’t take up too much time. I want to be really clear with you, Mr Chair, that as we go through, we will be offering new material. But we do want to make sure that every single bit of this bill that we hold ourselves to as parliamentarians and are accountable for, that we get to query it. We do not want to see truncated debate. So you have our word we won’t filibuster, but if we can have the opportunity, on behalf of New Zealanders, who have not had a select committee phase, to interrogate this properly, I think we can get through this afternoon in a productive way.

I’m not going to repeat things that I’ve said in my speeches earlier today, but there’s some clear misunderstanding about what this bill does and what it doesn’t do.

What it doesn’t do is touch eligibility for things like the jobseeker benefit, the sole parent support. It doesn’t require additional medical certificates around eligibility. It was very clear, and I’m really pleased, actually, to see that one of the Labour members that spoke in an earlier reading clearly understood that. Anybody who receives a benefit in supplementary assistance is required at all times to advise the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) of a change of circumstances. Not everybody does that, so this is really just a catch-all in terms of the 52 weeks, to ensure that the circumstances that MSD have on record are accurate. The example that I did give in an earlier speech was, for example, someone who’s receiving the disability allowance. As part of that review, at 52 weeks it may well come to light that they have additional needs that are not being factored into the disability allowance that they’re getting.

I’m really pleased to hear that the Opposition don’t want to filibuster, because, in many cases, there will be those who receive benefits who will get an increase of support as a result of this review. I want to make the point very clearly—given the exclusion of jobseeker, for example—that I’m not going to go into the ins and outs of different population groups. I know parties will have some fascination around that, but, as members will know, unfortunately, in areas like the jobseeker benefit, population groups are significantly, disproportionately affected and that is a matter of fact—it’s not a matter of debate.

Before I take the next call, just to help to clarify: it would be helpful for the committee if members did refer to the clauses and the sections that they’re referring to—that is incredibly helpful. It helps us to track and helps us to move through the bill in a methodical way.

Thank you so much, Mr Chair. I wanted to start off by referencing clause 4. This is quite a long clause. There’s quite a bit to unpack here. No matter how many times the Minister says that this is a simple bill—blah, blah, blah—the fact of the matter is if she thought it was so simple, she should have allowed for it to have scrutiny. So we’re here; we could have asked those questions in the select committee period.

I want to ask about new section 310C, “Information for mandatory reviews of specified benefits”, particularly subsection (3). This is on line 35 onwards of page 3. It talks about—and I quote—“If, in the case of a mandatory review of a specified benefit for the purpose set out in section 310B(2), the beneficiary contacts MSD before the specified deadline, MSD may extend the time allowed under subsection (1) by up to 20 working days if MSD”—and this is the part that I particularly want to scrutinise—“is satisfied with the beneficiary has”—and I quote—“good and sufficient reason for not being able to provide the information, or answer the questions,”.

I do have a few questions specifically to this provision as to whether the ministry has already started developing any guidelines as to what these so-called good and sufficient reasons would be. We do see that “good and sufficient reason” is used in other parts of the legislation for other types of obligations in relation to benefit sanctions, so I wonder whether they’re just going to be copy-pasting those into this for the purpose of staff being able to interpret what “good and sufficient reason” actually means.

I also was interested to ask, if those guidelines are not developed yet for staff, what assurances the Minister will give us in terms of who the Minister will consult with to develop these guidelines, particularly because we have the language in this provision that says also “answer the question, in the specified way by the specified deadline.”

Now, in terms of being able to answer questions that could, basically, result in you losing your benefit if not done adequately, there are additional barriers that specific groups would see. I know that she, in her previous answer—I thought quite dismissively and, in fact, quite arrogantly—said we have a fascination with certain population groups. We’re not sorry for caring about some of the most disproportionately impacted groups in this bill. I know we’re interested about the impacts of this bill on disabled people, but I did want to ask specifically in this provision how she might take into account disabled people’s different needs when it comes to determining whether somebody has answered the questions in a way that is to the satisfaction of the Ministry of Social Development (MSD).

So that’s one group. The other group that I’m interested in, in terms of seeking assurance from the Minister around how this provision will work in practice, is people with English as a second language, in terms of their engagement. If the Minister and the ministry haven’t already engaged with, for example, the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, what engagement, if any, can she commit that she will have to make sure that people with English as a second language are not disadvantaged and more at risk of not being able to comply with this and meet the “good and sufficient reason” by MSD?

Specific to this provision, I am also interested—and, again, this is the kind of stuff that we could have unpacked at the select committee stage—in relation to any potential fiscal implications on the need for interpreters that are used by MSD clients in relation to MSD obligations and requirements that may be needed as a result of adding this additional requirement. So, for example, we know that, in theory, people can access an interpreter in order to engage with MSD, but that has fiscal implications, staffing implication, and resources implications. Has MSD modelled the potential additional needs of interpreters in relation to this provision; if not, why not?

So just to recap: I’m interested in whether she’s developed the guidelines; if not, who she’s going to commit to consulting. Further to that, how will she ensure that disabled people and people with English as a second language are adequately considered in this, and the fiscal and resource implications of potential increased need for interpreters as a result of this very, very specific provision found in clause 4, in new section 310C? Thank you very much.

Let me just talk through a few of those in Part 1, clause 4. I’ll also address clause 5, because it is relevant. The Ministry of Social Development’s (MSD’s) front-line staff interact with people with disabilities on a daily basis and with those who have English as a second language. As I outlined in my initial comments, in the way in which this annual review is undertaken, there are a raft of ways to be able to do this. That’s very much designed at being very client-centric, and so it is normal business and interaction for MSD staff to be flexible in the way that they work.

In terms of good and sufficient reasons, this is a well-traversed topic, again, that MSD are well used to, and I would point the member to new section 310E. The regulations will have very clear circumstances in which that is not a requirement. Some of those, for example, are if the client’s in residential disability care, if they’re in hospital for more than 13 weeks, and if they live in, or are present in, and cannot reasonably leave an area in respect of which there is an emergency in place. Those are some of the examples that will be set out in regulations, to make it clear.

The other thing I would say in terms of operationalising this policy through the use of automated decision-making, for example—and I was very clear about the three times in which that would be used. For example, it is the automated sending-out to clients or beneficiaries that their review is due. That actually removes staff time and it makes it more efficient, so it means that the front-line staff can actually have greater interactions where it counts. As I said before, whether it’s a disability allowance or other areas of support, it may well lead to an area where a client’s been underpaid, and I would have thought the Opposition would be celebrating the fact that we will have more accurate payments and people will get what they’re entitled to.

Well, I will be interested in clause 5. I note no questions have been asked about clause 5 yet, and we definitely want to get there, but we’re trying to do this in a methodical way where we go through clause 4 first. So I’m not going to ask the questions I’ve got about clause 5 yet, but I would like to take another call, because it is a very serious issue. So what I’d like the Minister for Social Development and Employment to focus on is clause 4 at the moment, and answering our questions with regard to that.

Now, if I have a look at the new subpart 3A, which is being put into clause 4, and go to the first section of that, we get an indication that the benefits that are being affected are benefits designated by regulation. If I go further through clause 4, I can see the kinds of benefits that are not—that’s at new section 310C(6) on page 4. I appreciate that things change and people want to give themselves flexibility, but what I don’t know from this is what benefits are within scope. It’s not like we’ve got a principle here we can follow. So I want to know: what’s different about the benefits that are excluded from everything else and what happens with the width of what is going on here?

So there is no attempt to give us a list of benefits that are within scope at the present time. I can see some commonality in some of the benefits that are excluded. Some of them are for children. So I presume that they don’t have boarders if they’re children. But some are not in that situation. As I’ve raised before, we have got people who have been on accommodation supplements in this situation, so they’re working people in our country who would normally do what they like with their property. And they have been included in this group, from what we can see. But where is the list and why did we not try and develop a principle that applied? The concern raised by my friend Ingrid Leary is that we’re really concerned there may be some other purposes to this bill and it might be a lot wider than just simply looking at the boarding situation. So the actual number of benefits that are included in this requirement seems to be at the whim of regulations. I’d like to know more about that.

I want to link that in with my concerns I’ve got over the redactions in the regulatory impact statement. The one that really most alarms me is a redaction that leads me to this kind of scrutiny and worry. That is the one at page 4 and it is paragraph 6, where the heading is: “What is the policy problem or opportunity?” We’ve been given two paragraphs, and then we have a redaction. I, for the life of me, can’t think what it would be that would need to be redacted, unless there was some other opportunity that wasn’t being laid out, and I don’t see that as being appropriately redacted. So I would like the assurance of the Minister that there isn’t some wider or other purpose that is disclosed in that redaction, because the same thing happens at page 1 of the regulatory impact statement in the problem definition.

I expressed my concern in my speech that to actually redact the purpose is a little bit unusual, and it’s a bit of a concern. I think one of the things that any reasonable Opposition needs to know is what is the purpose—the full purpose, not part of the purpose; the whole purpose. Otherwise we really are going to worry, and so should the public. Because, if there is an extreme purpose or there is a different purpose, I think that’s part of our job to know, and it certainly doesn’t fit with any kind of privilege that I understand would allow redaction. So can I understand that—particularly because I’m concerned about the width of the amount of benefits that might be subject to this process in the future. Thank you.

I would direct the member Helen White to the bill and the explanatory note, which clearly states the objectives of the bill, and on page 2 the list that is included in the mandatory reviews.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I am going to be speaking to Part 1, clause 4, which is where the introductions to the mandatory reviews are. I am the spokesperson for disabled people for the Greens, and I take that role really seriously. I know that it is my job to uplift the voices of those people who were not able to participate in a select committee process because we are rushing this through under urgency. This morning, I have had emails from people in that disabled community, and they have asked me to ask specific questions, because they are really worried about this bill and what it means for them, and they really want to have clarity. Because they didn’t get to have a chance to have their say, to ask these questions, in the select committee process—I know the Minister for Social Development and Employment knows that one of the biggest things that they say is “Nothing about us without us.”

In the regulatory impact statement, there is a section here on page 7, which is about the population groups that it impacts, and there’s a whole section here for disabled people. One of the questions that we got emailed today was asking what advice the Minister sought about the effects this legislation will have on disabled people. In this page 7 of the regulatory impact statement, and paragraph 23, I’m really curious to know, here where it says, “To mitigate this, we are proposing the ability for MSD to allow appropriate exceptions, extensions and exemptions to clients who are not able to respond to these mandatory reviews due to their circumstances. This ability will ensure that clients are not negatively impacted due to no fault of their own.”—I would like to ask the Minister: what work has been done, what advice has been sought to ensure that those appropriate exceptions and extensions and exemptions to disabled clients have been taken into account in this piece of legislation?

When I’m looking at clause 4 here, new section 310D, “MSD must notify or advise beneficiaries”—if we move down to new subsection (2)(a)(iii), it is concerning here that it says “unless an exception, exemption, or extension applies, the beneficiary’s benefit will be suspended if the beneficiary fails to provide the information by the deadline specified in section 310C(1) or (2) or the date specified in an extension”.

So, just to recap there, I really would love the Minister to engage with these questions that are coming from the disabled community, because they didn’t get a chance to have their time in select committee, about what advice the Minister has sought and what has been put into this legislation that protects disabled people from being impacted negatively due to no fault of their own. Thank you.

I went through that—quite at length—in my answer to a previous question, and I don’t want members opposite me to misrepresent what I’ve said. I was very careful about explaining that the Ministry of Social Development are well used to working with people with disabilities, and the way the mandatory review has been set up with a range of ways that they can engage in that process. I’ve also already said about how the exemptions will be stated in regulations, so I am not going to repeat myself.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I just wanted to add to some of the kōrero that I’ve been putting through on this bill, particularly in terms of the punitive strategy that this Government has deployed, which has really upset many of our people out there.

So, given that position, I’ve put in an amendment that I think will help the Minister for Social Development and Employment in terms of giving people time to comply, which we think wouldn’t add too much of a problem. I’m looking at clause 4, inserting new subpart 3A, section 310C(4): “If the beneficiary fails to comply with a requirement under this section, MSD must suspend,”. What we’re wanting to do here is insert a 30-day time frame for the Minister to consider. Why wouldn’t she consider that? As per some of my previous contributions on the bill, it’s about providing a reasonable time frame, for clients to comply, and it ensures that we don’t have whānau on the streets. I mean, it’s pretty simple, really. Why wouldn’t you just give them a bit of space, given all the complexities that whānau are going through, particularly in our disabled community? And it’s already been mentioned—Māori communities and the disparities, and I will get onto that a little bit later on.

But I’d like the Minister to explain how not having a reasonable time frame will not lead to more families, solo mums, and job seekers on the streets. Also to the Minister: what assessment has she considered on the potential of a spike in homelessness, particularly in Auckland, and the impact on young people, on rangatahi?

I would have thought that this type of amendment would be something that the Government would look at. Because, again, it just gives the people at ground level the space and the time that is needed—so it’s a serious amendment—rather than just come in with a big hammer and take people out, and all of a sudden, we have whānau in stress. We don’t want to keep seeing families or people out on the street. So why would you not consider a time frame, a more comfortable time frame, so people can manage their lives, get their whānau together, and get the right paperwork in? It’s an amendment I’d like the Minister and Government to consider. Thank you, Mr Chair.

I think it would be useful just to remind the committee that in these areas of assistance, there is already a requirement for someone who’s receiving support to advise the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) of a change of circumstances. So as soon as there’s a change of circumstances, there is a requirement—and I’m sure the member knows that—to advise MSD of a change of circumstances.

I accept that not everybody does that when the circumstances change. So the mandatory review, if you like, is a fall-back, because what we don’t want to do is see people who haven’t advised a change of circumstances that affects their eligibility that then leads to an overpayment—an overpayment over many, many, many months is what currently occurs and leads people into significant levels of debt to MSD. When we talk about the things that cause stress to clients of MSD, that is one of the highest. So part of what this review process will do is catch those problems early and ensure that there are not difficulties.

Going back to the question of disabled people, I can quite proudly say that I’ve consulted extensively with the Minister for Disability Issues around this policy.

Thank you, Mr Chair. The Minister for Social Development and Employment, the Hon Louise Upston, has said repeatedly that this is a simple bill, and I’m assuming that’s why it’s being rushed through all stages under urgency, but it does have the ability to impact a number of people—I think, off the top of my head, from the regulatory impact statement (RIS), over 300,000 people—in a very punitive way, as well. I appreciate that the Minister wants to focus on the fact that people might be overpaid or they might have a change in their circumstances that mean that they get extra support—I take the Minister’s point there—but the flip side is equally true. In 20 working days, someone who doesn’t respond to this now compulsory review could have their benefit completely cut. That is the point that we would like to, I guess, scrutinise, because that is a massive impact on a large number of people, potentially.

Who are we talking about? If you just look at the supported living payment alone, these are people who are either permanently and severely restricted in their ability to work because of a health condition, injury, or disability, or totally blind. This means that they could have a condition that affects their capacity to work for more than two years, or a life expectancy of less than two years. And people who are on these benefits—on this and the disability allowance, for example—are dependent on this money to be able to meet their needs and their cost of living. So this is important, and that’s why we’re taking the time to scrutinise the impacts of this bill.

Looking at the RIS and the bill itself, I’m also speaking to clause 4, which inserts new subpart 3A of Part 6 into the principal Act, because there is quite a bit in this one particular clause. I would like the Minister to, I guess, give us a little bit more insight into that review process, because, while I take the Minister’s point that there is already a requirement for someone whose circumstances has changed to inform the Ministry of Social Development—I get that—presumably, the Minister has some information that this is not happening, and, therefore, it’s become a mandatory requirement. What is the information that’s being sought? The Minister was quite clear that, for example, for disabled people, they would not have to go through the onerous process of justifying that their disability hasn’t gone away. And that is good. That would have made this a lot worse had that requirement, or that bit, not been in there. But what information is MSD going to be proactively asking for through the process of this review? That’s my first question around the review.

I also want a little bit of clarification because between the bill and the RIS, my understanding is that the automated system sends out an email or whatever, informing the client there is a review. The client then has 20 working days to respond. According to the RIS, if the client doesn’t respond to their review, their assistance can be stopped on the review date. So within 20 working days, someone who perhaps hasn’t seen this automated requirement could actually have their benefit cut completely. Is that correct, Minister? I’d like some clarification around that. What information will be required as well?

I would like some clarification around the wording, between the RIS and the bill, around the 52-week provision or the mandatory review in 52 weeks. It is different because, in the RIS, it says, “at least once every 52 weeks.” Are there then circumstances that the Minister thinks might warrant a review conducted twice within a 52-week period? Is there a possibility that there will be more than one review within this 52-week period? I would like to know that because while the Minister has consulted extensively with herself on this bill as the Minister for Disability Issues, I’d like to know whether she’s actually consulted with those who will be impacted, potentially, by this, the disability communities. I’m sure she’s heard the motto, “nothing about us without us”. For quite a long time, that was not put in practice with disability communities. There’s a huge amount of anxiety from the community about that.

I’ve got a few more points that I’d like to get to, and I’d like to finish this as well. So I would like to know: what consultation, if any, has happened with disabled people, with people on the disability allowance and receiving the supported living payment, on the potential impact to them as a result of this legislative change?

I do also want to point out—I’ve made quick mention of it, but: has the Minister heard, from disabled people, the anxiety around even the current provision of a 52-week review? Now, I’ll draw the Minister’s attention to some of the submissions. I know CCS Disability Action, for example, put a submission in. It is to a different bill, the Social Security Amendment Bill, but that was when jobseeker reviews were going from 52 weeks to 26 weeks, and, overwhelmingly, the response or the submissions to that was that it was unfair but that even 52 weeks caused a huge amount of anxiety. So while we don’t have a select committee process to tease out the detail of this bill, that is a transferable submission. Has the Minister considered the submissions to that bill that are relevant to this provision, and how then does she justify increasing the anxiety for people who are already feeling a significant amount of stress at the status quo?

The other question that I have around the particular review is of the specified benefits. So it says, in this clause in the bill, that it only relates to specific benefits, and I would like some clarification from the Minister as to why these benefits are in and others aren’t. Is that because this is also related to the previous bill and the requirement is for those receiving these specified benefits to share information around their boarding situations? I see that that’s a significant part of this bill as well. Is there a correlation between that and the specified benefits that are captured in this legislation?

I do also want to get some clarity around the exceptions regime that is in this bill. I note that they are quite specific. It is good that a client in a residential disability care facility or a rest home is in the exceptions part of this bill and will not be subjected to a mandatory review, but it looks to me, from this list, that the bar is incredibly high. So only those in the residential disability care facilities or rest homes, only when there’s a state of local or national emergency where MSD then can’t do what they need to do to carry out this—but who decides the exemptions list? There is also a bit in the bill that says, “exemptions where MSD can exempt an individual”—so that’s proactive if someone contacts them proactively. Is there any flexibility in this, or does the automation remove that flexibility as well? What flexibility does MSD have to create an exception for someone from this mandatory review? I take it that these are examples in the bill, but are there any other circumstances where an exception can be considered by MSD?

Finally, and I’ll just end on this, the Minister mentioned that there are—I think she said—“a raft of ways to undertake the review and for MSD staff to be flexible when they’re dealing with, for example, disabled people or people for whom English may be a second language.” I would like the Minister to share what some of those ways are in terms of flexibility. Again, given the huge amount of correspondence that I’ve been getting—and I know she’s been getting, too, because we’re often copied into the same emails—around that anxiety that disabled people specifically have with MSD already—this compounds that, and I’d like to know what flexibility MSD staff have.

It might be helpful to go through, again, some of what that mandatory review covers. But just a reminder: every client of the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has a responsibility upon receipt of financial support from the taxpayers to advise MSD of any change of circumstances.

The first thing is that the automated decision-making step or process at the start is purely to notify a client by MyMSD or by post. It’s not a separate system; it’s using their existing systems. So MSD will send notification to the client asking them to confirm the information they hold on them. That information will be totally dependent on their circumstances, but will include things like their income, including their partner’s income, their relationship status, if they have dependent children in their care, boarder or renter information, disability-related costs, and accommodation costs. I’ve gone through the process on ways that they can provide that information so I’m not going to go over that again.

If a client says to MSD that they need more time to correct that information or provide that information, an extension may be granted. If the client doesn’t respond within the time frame, then MSD will suspend the benefit until they get the information they require, and of course then they’d restart the benefit based on those circumstances.

Thank you, Mr Chair, for allowing me to take a call on this bill. I just wanted to ask questions about the regulatory impact statement, and I’m happy to relate it to a specific part of the legislation, which is new section 310A, in clause 4, which is sort of in the 52 weeks section. The regulatory impact statement, on page 11, says that “This cost could potentially be offset by an estimated $238.302 million in BoRE”—that is, benefits or related expenses—“savings over the next five years due to approximately an extra 225,000 clients being reviewed.”

Can the Minister for Social Development and Employment please provide a specific breakdown of that $238 million, because it just seems quite perverse that we’re looking to balance the Budget on the backs of some of the most vulnerable people in the country. This is almost a quarter of a billion dollars. So is that $238 million an upper range? Is that a middle range, or is that the lower range of the situation? We’d really like to see the modelling, including if there are specific breakdowns on the benefit group, and whether that’s the main benefit, the disability benefit, the accommodation supplement, or New Zealand Superannuation.

We have a right to this information because we would have been getting this information at the select committee. It is necessary for the process of good lawmaking for us to be getting this information. I’ll also give a second reason why the Minister should give this information. This information is out here. We can request it under the Official Information Act. The consequence of us doing that is that we will receive this information in 20, or 40, or however many working days. That will generate its own media story. It will probably be quite a bad one. If the Minister tries to redact the information we may have to go to the Ombudsman, so, in the end, it’s a story about hiding information—so it’s doubly compounded—whereas if the Minister released the information right here, tabled the information and included it in the list of information, that would probably not get that much coverage.

There’s been a lot of Budget legislation and if we’re lucky that will get two or three lines maybe in Newsroom or maybe on The Spinoff, whereas if the Minister tries to hide this information, this is going to lead to bigger and more damaging media stories for the Government. So it’s in the Minister’s political interests to actually release this information but it’s also in the public interest for us to have this information.

I also want to ask a specific question around that paragraph, paragraph 43 on page 11, in the regulatory impact statement. It mentions there that there are an extra 225,000 clients being reviewed. How does that relate to paragraph 40, which says that staff will be able to manually process approximately 332,000 reviews each year? Is that 225,000 additional to that 332,000, or is that a subset of those 332,000 reviews each year?

The next part of the questioning that I want to get into is: what is the current capacity for the department to be able to do this? I note that there’s been additional investment in the systems to do that, but what is the baseline that the Minister’s working from? How many reviews currently, not related to this, are they doing each year, and how much additional work will it create for the staff? Have there been any time and motion studies that measure the amount of time it takes for employees to actually process and review these applications? Are there different bespoke processes depending on which category of benefit group that they are reviewing?

There has been a lot of mention of the automated decision-making process. What is the ratio of decision making towards artificial intelligence (AI) and towards staff? What additional roles will be created in the Ministry of Social Development and Employment that actually relate to having AI expertise and being able to design and build and actually work with these models? I will have some more questioning when we get to that part. I’m really interested in exactly what sort of models the Minister will be using, but I’ll save those questions for when we get to that section. Thank you, Mr Chair.

Thank you, Mr Chair. This is not an area of my expertise around social security, but I think there are some obvious questions to be asked around new section 310B, inserted by clause 4, and this period of 52 weeks. It’s specified that the review has to be carried out within 52 weeks. What flexibility is available? There doesn’t seem to be any available, given that 52-week deadline, but what flexibility is available around holiday periods?

The obvious one for us is the Christmas and new year shutdown. New Zealand goes on holiday over Christmas and new year, and those of us who can go to the beach. Even if you’re not going to the beach, it is the Christmas break. There are a number of public holidays in that time. That’s typically the time when families are taking time off as well. It is the annual celebration.

Now, if I can just liken it to some stuff that comes through from the tax law, at that stage, tax returns are typically due by the 7th of the month, but in January the date is extended out to the 15th of the month. I’d have to go and look that up exactly, but I’m sure the Minister for Social Development and Employment gets the principle there that there is extra time allowed over holiday periods in order to just give people a little bit more time to comply with their obligations simply because of the way that holidays concatenate and build up. It’s not just the public holidays that are available at that time; it’s also our social practices that Christmas and new year is a time that people actually turn their mind to other obligations.

Now, it’s not just the people who are receiving benefits, of course, who are taking a break at that time of the year but it’s actually the people working in the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), so there are typically fewer staff available. I just want to know: is there a possibility to have some flexibility built in around, in particular, that Christmas and new year period, or is that 52 weeks an absolutely hard deadline? Is there some capacity within MSD to have policy that would enable there to be a little bit more time available over the Christmas and new year period? I can’t think of other particular holiday periods during the year—possibly around Easter, but of course Easter is a movable feast, and other public holidays don’t tend to build up in quite the same way that the Christmas and new year holidays do when there are four public holidays within a very short space of time.

So if the Minister could just give some assurance around flexibility, if there is any, or what might be done with internal MSD policy, even if it’s not quite exactly specified that way in the law, that would be very helpful.

I do want to just remind the committee that this was related to legislation that we passed earlier and is accounted for in the savings in Budget 2024. As I mentioned yesterday, some of the forecasts of the saving are difficult to estimate, and particularly in this one, because what we do recognise is that, actually, that prevention of people going into debt—how do you actually assess that? I think that’s a really important one.

In terms of information, that will be coming out as it usually does under normal release processes. I want to just come back to a comment, though, that Helen White raised about redactions. It is standard practice that when there is any legal advice, that is provided as redacted—and that is the same.

A former member asked about staff time, and I have said earlier—so I will repeat for his information, although I don’t like repeating—automated decision-making actually frees up staff time to have those important conversations with clients.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Still looking at clause 4 here, inserting new subpart 3A of Part 6. Ingrid Leary, my colleague to my right, rightly said that we touched very briefly on the reference to Māori communities and the impact on Māori, in an earlier call. Thank you to the Minister for Social Development and Employment for mentioning Māori in her response—she did say she didn’t want to talk about it, so I want to expand a little bit further to a slightly different point that is about Te Tiriti o Waitangi in regards to that particular clause.

In the regulatory impact statement (RIS) released by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD)—which is fantastic because they turned that around incredibly fast, and it is actually the only thing that we can utilise in reference to this bill, given we don’t have a select committee opportunity to hear from the members of the communities who will be affected most by this bill. Māori, of course, are particularly affected, they are disproportionately affected.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi implications on page 7 of the regulatory impact statement—it is brief, unfortunately; it would be good if it was in more detail. But it describes in paragraph 24, “MSD’s Privacy, Human Rights and Ethics (PHRaE) framework incorporates guidance on aligning MSD’s processes to Te Tiriti o Waitangi / The Treaty of Waitangi. As part of [that] process, MSD will assess mandatory reviews against the ADM standard”—automated decision-making. My question for the Minister is how—we would really like to understand with some detail—this will happen. We would usually be able to tease out and understand these mechanisms in select committee and go through the details. Unfortunately, due to the nature of urgency, we need to do that here so that there is transparency and we can have fair and public debate about this issue. So how will the Minister ensure an alignment with this process to Te Tiriti o Waitangi?

I want to request that we are told in detail, not just that it will happen. The reason for this is because the public may start to question the assurances that are given, if they are not provided with detail as to how it is happening. Public perception of the Ministry of Social Development is crucial to the effectiveness of its purpose. The RIS directly speaks about the fact that there is a risk to public perception if there is a lack of transparency. I am requesting detail and clarity from the Minister around how the Ministry for Social Development will meet this requirement as it states in the regulatory impact statement. It states it as a fact, so I would like details and assurance from the Minister, please. Thank you, Mr Chair.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to take a call, and this is my first call on this bill. I do want to just reiterate what my colleague Benjamin Doyle from the Green Party has said, which is that we don’t have a select committee process and there is a lot of detail in here, which is why we are getting into detailed scrutiny of the bill. Because it’s important, for the Hansard as well—for example, if there are challenges through benefit reviews, those types of things—it’s important, actually, that the Hansard captures the intent of the Government, because that’s the kind of thing that you would rely on in that type of situation. So this is one of the reasons why we are digging in in terms of the questions.

So I want to come also to clause 4. I have some further questions related to this in clause 5, but I’ll wait till we get to clause 5 to ask specific questions around the automated process. I want to come back to some of the questions colleagues have asked about the disability community, but extend that out further, because there’s a specific piece in the regulatory impact statement, and I’ll try to keep my contribution short, because this is a question I just want to get to the heart of. If you look at page 7 of the regulatory impact statement, bullet point 23 under the heading, “Disabled people”, it says here in the regulatory impact statement, “We note that some disabled people (as well as people from other client cohorts) may find it hard to engage with MSD within the required review timeframes. To mitigate this, we are proposing the ability for MSD to allow appropriate exceptions, extensions and exemptions to clients who are not able to respond to these mandatory reviews due to their circumstances. This ability will ensure that clients are not negatively impacted due to no fault of their own.”

So I note in the regulatory impact statement crafted for the Government that it actually makes that point quite specifically about the extra challenges placed on disabled people. The Minister for Social Development and Employment has responded by saying she’s consulted with herself, the Minister, but, actually, that doesn’t get to the heart of what this item, bullet point number 23, says. If I note, looking at clause 4, new subpart 3A of Part 6, new section 310C(6) “The kinds of benefits referred to in subsection (4)(b)”, which are the ones that have an exemption is my reading of the bill. So, again, we don’t have the time in select committee to dig in with advisers, so I’d like some clarification if I’ve got this wrong. But it lists out the kinds of benefits that are referred to in subsection (4)(b), which is where there would be an exemption is my reading of the bill, and correct me if I’m wrong. It lists some benefits there, but what it doesn’t list is probably the one we’re most concerned around, which is the supported living payment.

So it appears that the regulatory impact statement has specifically noted the needs of the disabled community, that there do need to be appropriate exceptions, extensions, and exemptions, but then the bill itself doesn’t actually reflect what is in the regulatory impact statement (RIS). So my question to the Minister—it’s a specific question—is: if it’s not in the bill, will she consider amendments to include it in the bill, and, if not, what other operational mechanisms will she consider and include on the Hansard today so that if people are taking benefit reviews through the benefit review process, they have some clarification as to the Government’s intent? It’s unclear when you have a RIS and a bill that are not acting in accordance with each other. What other mechanisms will there be for exemptions for this particular community, who are most likely to have challenges engaging with the Ministry of Social Development?

Again, we’ve only just got this bill this week. One of the reasons why we have select committee is so we can ask detailed questions and if we’ve got some of how the clauses relate with each other wrong, that’s a type of clarification we need from the Minister. So thank you and I appreciate a response from the Minister.

I’m not going to traverse ground that I have covered before around disabled people and exemptions, other than to say that, actually, one of the Labour members who spoke in one of the earlier readings was quite clear about the supported living payment and the fact that it doesn’t include the medical reviews, which is an issue that comes up from disabled people on a regular basis.

In terms of the questions around automated decision-making, some of which I have already answered, it is publicly available. The standard was actually introduced by the previous Government in 2023, so I suggest, if you’ve got any problems with it, you should take it up with them.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Now, I want to speak to new section 310B(1) in clause 4, and I want to talk to paragraphs (a) and (b). I want to talk about some new questions which haven’t been covered yet, and that is, did the Minister for Social Development and Employment consider, when deciding on the objective of this bill—and in the regulatory impact statement, at page 2, it says that “The objectives of this proposal are to: confirm that a client is still eligible and receiving the correct rate of assistance at least once every 52 weeks”.

My question to the Minister, on which I’m seeking engagement with, is: did she consider the advice and the recommendations from the Welfare Expert Advisory Group, which was established under the previous Government? It was chaired by Professor Cindy Kiro, who we in this House know has an amazing reputation. They had thousands of submissions from people with lived experience and years of robust analysis, and the recommendation told us clearly—and I quote here from section 11 of that report—“to remove the requirement to reapply for the benefit every 52 weeks”. The reasoning was simple for why they did this: this requirement adds unnecessary stress, and disproportionately harms disabled people, and creates more work for no good reason.

Did the Minister consider this advice from the Welfare Expert Advisory Group, because it might help us to understand the objective of this bill in a context of the people that it will affect the most, who are going to be the people who are already doing it tough: disabled people, older people, Māori, and Pacific people. So I’m really seeking engagement with the Minister about whether she considered the Welfare Expert Advisory Group’s advice when deciding on the objective of this bill, because if we do look at new section 310B(1)(a) and (b), it is clearly going directly against the advice that was given by that welfare advisory group.

This is a new question. It is asking about the objective of this bill. In this clause 4, I’m asking: has the Minister taken into consideration that Welfare Expert Advisory Group, particularly because they are representing the voices of people who would have wanted to have their say and to scrutinise this bill during a select committee process that the Government has decided to lock those people out of, and, actually, we, as Opposition members, would have been able to scrutinise and ask officials these questions. So, just to recap, could the Minister please explain to us how she came to the decision to put in that review every 52 weeks, which goes against the advice of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group?

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Tēnā koe e te Minita. I want to go to clause 4, as it seems quite a few of us are, and I’ve got one, two, three, four, five, six questions that stem from new section 310A through to new section 310C. I register that the Minister for Social Development and Employment’s response is that “I’m repeating myself and it’s not the first time I’ve said it.” I am taking this process as a trust and verify process: I don’t accept it just because it’s said, and we are entitled in this particular process—because we don’t have another, it seems—to require the verification of the things that are said.

So, in that vein, can the Minister assure the committee that this list of specified benefits—and do you know that when I read the benefits, ka aroha ki ō tātou whānau [I feel sorry for our families] when it has words like “emergency” and “supplementary”, and all of those types of words which tell us—because they’re English words, right?—that things are not good, things are hard, and things are difficult for families. OK, in this Budget, let’s just have a good crack and see whether they are as hard and as difficult as you think they are, because if we’re OK, we just don’t see it.

So question: if this list of specified benefits will not be quietly expanded in future to include benefits that are primarily accessed by Māori, thereby disproportionately targeting Māori—new section 310B—how will the Minister ensure that these mandatory reviews do not add stress or instability for people in precarious or seasonal work arrangements? This is based on, obviously, my work in and around the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), particularly in the family harm situation and in suicide prevention. Rolling into an MSD office, even with some of my mates working there—it’s horrible. It’s hard. The expectations on you are—well, they roll in as if to say, “Look, we don’t expect you to tell the truth, so we’re going to test you and push you until you do.” That kind of environment, even with some well-intentioned people—it’s hard, it’s difficult, and does this help towards that? No. The assurance that there will not be further instability—because we know who’s under that boot, and they are Māori.

In new section 310C, what protections are in place to prevent benefit suspensions for those who face legitimate barriers to compliance? If you lived in Hokianga, in Te Kao, in Tairāwhiti, and in those areas, your phone and your connection is so off there, they just don’t work. If you think they’re going to go “Oh, yes.” on their phone, as if it’s that easy, it is not that easy. Some are—some of the digital natives, they’re great. But for some of the digital immigrants—which are those my age, by the way—and others, it ain’t going to happen. It is not that easy; so to assume that it is, is foolish and harmful.

What oversight exists? What oversight exists—I’ll repeat that, in case I was reading the face right—to ensure that MSD does not arbitrarily use the power? Agencies often use power because they like it and because it works for them, and they do it just quite naturally, unfortunately—power to demand information in a specified manner and time frame. I get the words—you know, it’s all very clinical and technical, and so there is the type of training and expertise that you’re going to need to run this kind of line, Minister. I have no confidence that it’s going to go well for many of our families, and I seek that you look closer, really, to what’s being imposed on our people, unfortunately. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I wanted to raise a new point on a new section being inserted into the Social Security Act. This is new section 310D, on page 5, just after line 5 to about—well, basically, it’s the whole page. This is in subparagraph (i), and this is around “MSD must notify or advise beneficiaries”.

Now, I wanted to ask, because there’s nothing here in the legislation—and we are thinking of potentially looking at amending this so that—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Which page is that, sorry?

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: This is in clause 4, new section 310D, on page 5. This is new section 310D, “MSD must notify or advise beneficiaries”. Thanks for seeking clarification.

I wanted to understand if the Minister for Social Development and Employment had produced a list, or what level of accountability exists for the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), around the means that that communication needs to happen. For example, does MSD need to exhaust all types of communication before they potentially trigger the suspension of someone for not being able to comply? What are MSD’s responsibilities and obligations, because she talks a lot about the responsibilities of people on the benefit, but it seems like there doesn’t seem to be—the other side—anything around whether MSD must, for example, first attempt to communicate with someone via the phone, via mail, via text, or via message on the MyMSD portal, and whether all of those avenues need to be first exhausted.

I ask this, and this is really important, because, having worked as a welfare advocate prior to coming to Parliament, I did see a lot of people had really old phone models with cracked screens—second-hand phones, for example—because that’s all that they could get, and that means that accessing MyMSD can be difficult. People who have literacy issues could be missing out, and, as my colleague Mariameno Kapa-Kingi talked about, it can be people who are just not digital natives. So if, for example, some of these forms of communication are primarily happening through online correspondence, I can see that people could easily miss those.

I’m keen to get an assurance from the Minister around new section 310D around the safeguards around the means that MSD must use to communicate with people before, basically, taking someone’s benefit away, before we consider putting an amendment to add to these safeguards and ensure that MSD tries, basically, every possible option.

Tamatha Paul: And renters, as well.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: That’s right, yeah, and when it comes to correspondence, my colleague Tamatha Paul just made a great point that when it comes to physical correspondence, which is that the issue that we have with renters but also, actually, people in emergency housing, and people who may be boarding—which is one of the groups that she seems to want to target—people may have old addresses in the system. They may be living through toxic stress, which means they may not be able to access MyMSD to update their information. But, anyway, that’s my main question on new section 310D.

Then I wanted to talk about some of the unintended fiscal implications that, particularly, the provisions in clause 4 have but also, actually, throughout all of Part 1. This is because, as my colleague Francisco Hernandez has talked about, the Minister has refused to proactively—for the debate, so that we can scrutinise—release the breakdown of those savings. But I do wonder whether MSD considered the unintended fiscal consequences of having some of the people lose their benefit who then require other forms of assistance with other parts of the system. That’s a cost. It seems like the analysis in the regulatory impact statement (RIS) didn’t account for how, for example, people may end up requiring to access assistance from other parts of the system. I am worried that, therefore, the analysis—and the Minister, not intentionally but perhaps maybe just through a lack of information, is mischaracterising the savings that she is making as part of this bill.

I can see that if someone is left without a benefit, even if they get back on the benefit later down the line, they could end up requiring access to hardship grants, access to advances, and access to emergency accommodation, and those have costs for the Government. Those do not seem to be accounted for in the RIS. This is something we could have asked for from officials at the select committee stage, and not have to wait until the Minister chooses to proactively, maybe, perhaps release that information somewhere on her website.

Again, I do think it would be useful for the Minister to at least tell us if there was an analysis of potential unintended fiscal consequences as a result of these costs being passed on to other parts of the system, and—to recap on my previous point—would the Minister like to outline what means MSD must try to use to notify or advise beneficiaries before, potentially, taking someone’s benefit away? Is there a list, and, if not, would she be open to an amendment to expand that?

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d like to start this contribution just by challenging the Minister for Social Development and Employment on her assumption that people are repeating themselves, because if she’s listened to the debate—which I have been, very carefully—there hasn’t been a repeat of the questions or the points. There have been themes, but very few of our questions are being answered adequately, and so I would just say that, from the Opposition’s perspective, we do not believe there has been any repetition. I would like to see more of an exchange—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Just to clarify for the member, I will judge whether there’s been repetition or irrelevancy.

INGRID LEARY: Thank you, Mr Chair. To pick up on Ricardo Menéndez March’s previous comment, I too had concerns about the means of communication, and so I would suggest, if the Minister is able to consider it, that in new section 310C(1)(a), she could amend that paragraph to add the words “by email or letter”. It’s a very simple amendment. Most people these days are able to get email or a letter, and she could maybe even add “text”, if she would like to. But I think those two are easy to track and to evidence. Then, in paragraph (b), after the words “has notified”, the amendment would add “by email or letter” or, again, “text”, if she was minded to.

In subsection (2), my question is: when it says “information or answers in response to a notification described in subsection (1),” could the legislation be clarified? “MSD”—is that a person or is that AI? If it’s a person, maybe it should be “an MSD employee”, and if it’s AI, maybe it should be “an MSD algorithm determines”, and this will relate to some other points I’d like to make in another contribution around how the reviews are done. Still on that subsection, if we go down to paragraph (a) and amend it to in a way “that MSD and the person receiving the benefit agree on;”, rather than just in a way “that MSD specifies;”, that would fix up the issue that Ricardo Menéndez March has made comment on, and it’s the same in paragraph (b).

I’d also just like to make the point that the word “beneficiary” is actually very stigmatising. One of the things that would be possible—and I wonder if the Minister would consider it—is to just make an amendment that would actually amend this legislation and the primary legislation to change all references to “beneficiary” to “the person receiving the benefit”. It wouldn’t be difficult to do. We’ve seen that in select committee, where we’ve done it with mental health legislation. This would be an opportunity to sharpen up the bill.

But I want to turn now to this. We really still haven’t interrogated how this bill is supposed to work when it doesn’t specify which benefits are caught by it, and I’ll just talk the Minister through it because she says that it’s in the explanatory note. Well, if it’s in the explanatory note, why isn’t it in the legislation?

If we have a look at new section 310A, “Meaning of specified benefit”, in clause 4, it states, “under section 438A to be a specified benefit for the purposes of this subpart”, and then it’s got a whole sort of rabbit warren of places where you go in to the primary legislation and other things. You can get the exemptions if you go to the regulations, and you find out it’s the ACC and, I think, some emergency situations. But then it’s got three different definitions in the primary legislation for the “specified benefit”. There’s one in section 198(3), one in section 207(4), and one in section 330(1), and then the actual section—the specific empowering section—just refers to the exemptions, which the Māori Party speaker has referred to, but it doesn’t talk about which ones are caught.

So it’s really, really clunky. Is that just because it’s bad writing, or is it because there is a desire to extend that list, and, if so, is that list going to be extended by regulation? Because it does talk about regulations earlier in the Act. If that’s the case, then it does bring up the question of whether that should be happening, and, certainly, whether limiting people’s entitlements should be happening, given that that shouldn’t happen in secondary legislation, according to the legislative guidelines.

Those are the questions around that, and then also we had a copy of this bill sent to us yesterday and this part was written quite differently. It’s interesting, because the bill was not given a different name and it was not given a different version, but I had it sitting in front of me with both the screens of my computer, and it was written really differently and it had much more simple language.

So I’d like to know, and I can tell the Minister that previously it said under the old version of new section 310B that “MSD must review all specified benefits when undertaking a mandatory review … (a) if the client receives a main benefit that is a specified benefit,—(i) the date on which its main benefit commenced; or (ii) the date on which its main benefit was last reviewed.” Now, that is actually not bad writing, and I can follow that. Now, we have to go to subsection (1) to find the timing, and after lots of work and digging around, it seems to be that we come up with the 20 days that would happen once the review is due. Why was it not kept this simple? We haven’t had any time to understand this. If we’d been in select committee, that would have been a question, to be able to look at those two pages together.

The same is under new section 310B(3)(b). Again, it’s got “a specified benefit,—(i) the date on which the beneficiary’s last specified benefit … or … that [the] benefit was last reviewed.” Why make us have to go up and down through the legislation? It’s just so difficult.

Furthermore, we have talked about the 52 weeks, and I’m not going to repeat that. I’d just like to draw the committee’s attention to the amendment that has been tabled by my colleague Vanushi Walters to replace “52 weeks” with “78 weeks”, although, actually, there could be some debate about that, because I’ve heard from my colleague the Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan that even longer periods of time can be really stressful.

I’d also just like to signal that my other colleague Dr Tracey McLellan will have a corresponding tabled amendment to Schedule 1, and that is to make sure that Schedule 1 aligns with the amendment that we would like to see around that. I’m not going to dwell on that any further, but I do want to, in my remaining time, still look at the exceptions—well, at some of the wording under new section 310B. The first one I referenced very obliquely and have just touched on, and I indicated I would speak to this. Under subsection (2)(b), why are there the words “or (b) was not entitled to receive the benefit, or the rate of benefit, that was paid to the beneficiary.”? Those words are absolutely redundant. What they do is signal, in my view, beneficiary bashing. They don’t add anything to paragraph (a). Paragraph (a) already captures what the provision is trying to do and, therefore, I would just ask the Minister if she could please strike that out. It’s not necessary, and it actually doesn’t send a very good message.

Secondly, if I look at the exceptions, one of the things we have heard about—and this is something that’s very dear to my heart—is that, currently, under emergency housing rules, the rules are being changed so that women and children who are escaping domestic violence situations are being deemed to have contributed to their own homelessness. I have seen that in my electorate, I’ve been talking in the media about it, and I was lucky to also help one constituent get into a home just before those rules changed. I’m pretty familiar with them, and we have had concerns yesterday from the Hon Carmel Sepuloni about this particular cohort. So is it possible, please, to change that and include another exemption that purely captures “people”—it doesn’t have to be women; often it can be men escaping domestic violence as well—who would be escaping from those situations?

Under new section 310B in clause 4, we’ve got some wording in subsection (5) which talks about a benefit a beneficiary has received “if the review determines”. Now, “if the review determines” is passive writing and it doesn’t say who’s doing the review. Is it going to be an MSD employee or is it going to be an algorithm, and if it is an algorithm, then why not state it in there—and if I have got that incorrect, then be clear so that we can understand what part of this legislation and implementation is being automated, and where somebody can expect to have a person doing the review. One of the amendments I would suggest is that we change “the review determines” either to “an MSD employee determines” or to “an artificial intelligence algorithm determines”, and I think that would be really important.

I have some more questions, going through from new section 310 and onwards. So, Madam Chair, when I get another chance I would like to keep going through these technical areas, which, I can assure you, will offer no repetition.

I’m not going to repeat things that I have put in the first reading and second reading speeches. I was very deliberate in terms of what I included in those speeches to make it clear around what automated decision-making would be used and when it wasn’t. I’m referring back to the notes of what I’ve already said in the committee of the whole House, and it was clear that notification for the review will be done by post or by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD). I can add for the committee’s clarification that if a client has been interacting with staff directly, a face-to-face interaction would also count.

I’m not sure how many more ways I can talk about that it’s by post or by MSD, which means it’s removing the technology barriers that may exist for some. I went through the process in a lot of detail, including the questions that were asked and the ways in which a client could participate by providing the information that they are required to provide anyway, all of the time, when there is a change of circumstances. It’s a very short bill and a simple bill, and I’m really hoping that members opposite now understand, because I’ve said it on multiple occasions and I’m not hearing anything new.

I’m not going to take a closure motion just yet. I just want to see how much more new information is going to be forthcoming.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate it that the Minister for Social Development and Employment doesn’t want to repeat herself, but if she could just give us one answer with regards to the Māori obligations, we would probably be pleased about that. So just continuing in terms of clause 4, and off the back of Mariameno Kapa-Kingi and Benjamin Doyle’s kōrero, we do need to get some response from the Minister in terms of Māori and Treaty obligations. That hasn’t been traversed at all over last night or today, and I think the questions are more than reasonable. The regulatory impact statement (RIS) is very, very clear in terms of these regulatory reviews that they have greater impact on Māori, given Māori are overrepresented in the benefit population.

So I would like some answers from the Minister on this: was there a specific cost-benefit analysis on Māori, and is there something that she can present in that regard? Further to the number of other questions I’ve asked in this area: who are the consultation groups that the Minister met with? If the Minister could list some of the groups in this area, particularly given the huge concern from iwi who actively have engaged with—I know they engaged with us when we were in Government, and I presume they are engaging with this Government. They have a vested interest in this, given the disparities in terms of Māori at the moment, so can the Minister list what type of pre-work or work or continuing work is happening in that area?

It is an area of major concern for us, given we’ve had a Budget that has transferred over $1 billion of targeted Māori funding into the general funds. So if the funding has been transferred, as it—well, has been transferred, and there’s absolutely no doubt about that. But what does that mean in terms of priorities going forward, and is the Minister able to give us a kōrero with regards to the plan going forward? Has there been any work on the impact of pay equity—which has been right at the forefront of our debates over the last week—as it relates to the family income in those groups and whether the reviews can be justified, or thresholds should be changed for the—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Can the member come back to this bill. You’ve strayed away from this bill.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: I’m talking about clause 4, Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): You started by mentioning—

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Yes, I’m talking about clause 4.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Yes, you started by mentioning clause 4. This is not a Budget debate.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: No, I know it’s not a Budget debate, and thanks for that reminder, Madam Chair. But it is particularly pertinent and relevant to clause 4 because the Ministry of Social Development has made it very clear, if you have a look at the RIS, that Māori are going to be, probably—along with Pasifika—the most impacted group here, and Māori women, too. We’ve already got the gender gap, but Māori women, as many in the committee would know today, are probably the most impacted group of all. So, given those facts, I don’t think it’s unfair to ask the Minister—as I have continually done since yesterday—what sort of work she has done. Does she think a Treaty strategy should be in place, is there any consultation going on with iwi, is there any consultation going on with NGOs, and how can she make Māori feel comfortable?

I talk about the Budget, Madam Chair, because $1 billion has been transferred out of Māori funding and into the general funds, and so that would make some sense that you’d talk about it. So how are Māori meant to be feeling comfortable when so much of the targeted funding—which the Minister will be aware of—has now been transferred out? Going forward, is she able to provide us with any—any—information in terms of Māori, or are Māori being seen as just another population group?

I’m going back over my notes of what I’ve already said in answer to the question about Māori, and the automated decision-making standard, which was written and publicly available since 2023, when it was introduced through legislation by the last Government.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

I think we’re very close. This is a very small, tight bill, and so the contributions need to be relevant and not stray from the intent of the bill.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to talk about clause 5, which hasn’t had a lot of pick-up, and I really want to challenge the Minister for Social Development and Employment around how this is narrow. It affects more than 100,000 people in this country and the impact is deep, so I think it’s not being in good faith to then start talking about how this is a narrow bill where it’s a huge group of the population who are affected.

Clause 5 is about the expansion of the use of automated electronic systems to make decisions, to exercise powers and comply with legislative obligations, and take related actions. One of the reasons why I’m interested in the Minister engaging in good faith around this—and this goes back to her lack of transparency in providing adequate information, because I don’t think it’s good enough that she says she’ll release that information later when we are debating the bill right now. The regulatory impact statement in relation to the provisions of clause 5, and I’m quoting from page 3 of the regulatory impact statement (RIS)—if I look at the paragraph that starts with “Assumptions around improved accuracy”, the RIS talks about how “it is possible for the use of [automated decision-making] to entrench existing inequities in the welfare system as these can be built into the data collection.”, and this is specifically around the design of the algorithms.

Clause 5 talks about the broadening of the use of automated decision-making. Has the Ministry of Social Development already designed the algorithm that it will use for the purposes of clause 5 in the expansion of automated decision-making? That’s a pretty simple question. So if we’re going to get patronised by the Minister about how this is simple bill, I expect engagement with a simple question: did she already receive information on the algorithm that is going to be used in the provisions in clause 5, and, if not, why not? And, if not, as well, I want to understand what steps are being taken to mitigate what the RIS identifies about the design of the algorithm could be entrenching existing inequities.

This is extremely important because we know that the design of algorithms in other parts of the system can indeed entrench, for example, the biases that exist. We see this in how biometric information is used and then how people are identified, and people could end up being racially profiled, etc. This is identified in the RIS, around the inequities that exist. For example, one of the inequities that other members have tried to raise in this debate is how Māori are disproportionately impacted by the welfare system. So is she concerned that the algorithm could entrench that?

I really want to understand whether the algorithm is out there. Would she be willing to table it right now for us to be able to analyse it and give it the scrutiny that it deserves? She also hasn’t engaged at all on any unintended fiscal implications in the provisions of clause 4 around the so-called savings being passed to other parts of the system—no engagement whatsoever there.

I think we deserve far better than this. We are trying to do our part to ask simple, straight-up questions relevant to the clauses, and then we are getting patronising, unrelated answers. I know we can’t force her to give us the answers that we want to hear, but I think that, at the very least, she could give us a straight-up answer around whether the algorithm is there and whether she’s done any analysis on unintended fiscal consequences on the costs being passed on to the other parts of the system.

To the last answer she gave in relation to a question I made around the forms of communication, she said, “Oh well, it’ll be the post or MSD.”, and that’s exactly what I was asking about. If it’s MSD, is it the phone or a text, or is it a face-to-face appointment, and if it is one of those three, can she please name the number of fulltime-equivalents (FTEs) that she thinks will be used by MSD to then be able to notify people? No information has been given around that. I mean, I think she’s insulting the voters and the listeners by saying, “Oh, MyMSD will do it.”—yeah, we know that. We’re asking about the level of resourcing, fiscal and FTE-wise—if it has been modelled—that will go into notifying people.

This is specifically in new section 310D, which is being added in clause 4, so we haven’t really unpacked anything in clause 5, at all. I’m keen to start off by going back to my initial question on clause 5, which was: is the algorithm out there, will she provide it to us, and, if not, what measures are being taken to not entrench inequities? I see that the officials have given her some notes. I hope that she can provide us a non-patronising, simple answer.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, I know that my colleague Rachel Boyack had some short, sharp questions to respond and seek further clarification about some of the entitlements and answers that she raised previously, which will be really important, but to pick up on where we now seem to be heading, which is around automation—and I’d like to say that this is only the second call on automation. We’ve been very deliberately trying to keep our comments to the previous clause.

So when I look at the regulatory impact statement (RIS) on automation, I do have some specific questions, and I’m really happy for the Minister to jump up and answer them and do a back and forth. But if she’s not interested, then I’ll carry on with my questions.

The first one is that in the RIS, it does say that there were three options: there was the status quo, then there was the ability to review the entitlements for benefits using automation and also without automation—so two was without; three was with—and then there was a redacted one, which we’ve heard was redacted for legal reasons. I want to ask the Minister if—I understand that legal advice is able to be redacted under the Official Information Act, but it would be really good if she could give us just a hint about what that was about. Was it to do with the human rights implications, and, if it wasn’t, even a no would be great, so I’ll wait for her answer, and then—OK, if she’s not going to answer, the second one would be: in terms of the 332,000 reviews, did she consider for the status quo just supplementing the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) staff so that instead of having front-line job cuts and not investing in the technology—the technology in the RIS was $5.33 million and fulltime-equivalent costs are $7.5 million. Did she consider just using human resource?

My third question, since she won’t answer that one, is around the safety and reliability, actually: what will happen if they get things wrong, can the system be gamed or hacked, and will she consider a review more than every three years? Currently, the legislation says that it is every three years. Could she perhaps, at least for the first year, do every three months, and then maybe do them yearly, because it would be terrible to find out in three years that mistakes had been made, and how are people going to know that? I’m wondering what the appeal process is, and I will leave my questions there so that colleagues can ask theirs.

I went through the three conditions that the automatic decision-making will be used in my earlier speech, so I’m not going to go through those conditions again. But I do want to assure the committee that, as I have said before, any decisions about entitlement are made by a front-line staffer.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to note that I have tabled an amendment in the committee just now that I do wish to speak to. It’s specifically related to some of the questions that I’ve been asking the Minister for Social Development and Employment, and I have had an opportunity to review the Minister’s response to my earlier question in the Hansard and this is specifically related to the supported living payment. I’m not entirely satisfied with the Minister’s answer, and I do want to dig in a little bit further.

I understand my colleague Priyanca Radhakrishnan, who has some more expertise in this area, may have a further question specifically related to when benefit ends and the review there. It’s not an area of the law that I have specific expertise in, so I just want to note that my colleague Priyanca Radhakrishnan will have a question on that. So I hope that we can continue this committee stage because we do have live questions that haven’t been answered.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): What clause or what part are you—

RACHEL BOYACK: I’m looking at clause 4, and I’ve already spoken to it a couple of times. It is clause 4, and it is new section 310C(4), (5), and (6). It’s in relation to the supported living payment, where the Minister’s response to me was that it didn’t include medical reviews, but my understanding is that it does include the disability-related costs, so I’d like some clarification on whether it does or does not include the disability-related costs. [Interruption] It does? I can’t hear the response, so I’ll just continue with the questions because it’s particular issues related to things like equipment, medical support, and transportation is a big one. I’d just like a response from the Minister on that.

The second part, which is related to my tabled amendment, which I’d like the Minister to consider, is that in respect of supported living benefits, in all provisions where “52 weeks” is specified it is deemed to be “2 years”. Now, the reason I have made that specifically around “2 years” is that if you look at the criteria for the supported living payment, it is specifically when somebody has a condition affecting their capacity to work for more than two years, or has a life expectancy of less than two years. It doesn’t look at it on an annual basis; it looks at it on a two-year basis.

There’s a specific reason why I have put that in, because if someone is deemed to be unwell and unable to work for two years, I’m uncertain as to why they would be having any kind of review within that two-year period. It doesn’t make sense to me, so I’d really like the Minister—quite genuinely—to consider that amendment because it’s actually consistent with the criteria for this particular benefit.

But I do just note that my colleague Priyanca Radhakrishnan has some more detailed questions related to the reviews at the end of a benefit and whether the medical reviews the Minister has said don’t apply are actually only in relation to the end of that point, and I would like the Minister to answer my question specifically about disability-related costs.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to pick up on the particular point that Rachel Boyack made around the health and disability condition, in the regulatory impact statement (RIS), it says quite clearly that “All mandatory reviews for all clients will not include a review of their health condition or disability.” Having checked the Hansard as well, I note that the Minister for Social Development and Employment has said both that medical reviews will not be included but that disability-related costs will be. So I just want clarification on that point, given that it appears to be contrary to what is in the RIS. Specifically, I want to know whether specialised equipment, services like counselling and other therapies, transportation, and glasses and hearing aids, for example—will all of those need to be justified within a mandatory review every year? That’s my first question.

The other point that I’d like to get some clarity around specifically is on new section 310F, “Exemption from mandatory review”, in clause 4. The section reads that “MSD is not required to undertake or complete a review that MSD would, but for section 310E, be required to undertake and complete under section 310B(1) if, MSD is satisfied that, owing to the beneficiary’s circumstances,”—and it’s that word “circumstances” that I want some clarity around—“a mandatory review should not be undertaken or completed (for example, the circumstances specified in sections 326 to 330).”

So I went to sections 326 to 330 of the Social Security Act, and those sections all relate to the ending of a benefit. Section 326, for example, is: “After death of beneficiary receiving specified benefit”—I mean, it’s pretty clear that you wouldn’t need a review if the beneficiary has died. Section 327 is related to “Benefits payable to sole parent who stops caring for dependent child due to sudden and uncontrollable circumstances”, like—oh, it doesn’t go on to say like what, but, basically, if the benefit ends because of that. Section 328, “Supported living payment payable to beneficiary who stops caring for another person”—I mean, it’s fair that you wouldn’t get the benefit if you’ve stopped caring for the person that the benefit is related to. Section 329, “If child ceases to be entitled to orphan’s benefit or unsupported child’s benefit” for various reasons, and section 330, “Supported living payment on ground of restricted work capacity or total blindness and cancelled on medical grounds”.

So all of those exemptions that are specified in new section 310F, basically, say that the Ministry of Social Development doesn’t need to undertake this mandatory review if the benefit has ended. That seems, to me, to be pretty obvious. However, with regard to the words “for example” in new section 310F, I would like to know from the Minister what other exemptions are there and in what other cases can an exemption be made, and I ask that specifically because of the section in the RIS that relates to disabled people. It says that “We note that some disabled people (as well as [others]) may find it hard to engage with MSD within the required review timeframes.” Noting that the bill states that the time frame is just 20 working days, “To mitigate this, we are proposing the ability for MSD to allow appropriate exceptions, extensions and exemptions to clients who are not able to respond to these mandatory reviews due to their circumstances.”

Now, if the circumstances listed in the bill are only circumstances where a benefit has ended, you wouldn’t need a review anyway. So I’d like to know from the Minister: what mitigations are in place in the legislation to cater to the fact that MSD has pointed out, quite rightly, that there will be a number of people—particularly disabled people—who will not be able to respond within the 20 working days? Where is that?

I do have another question about the use of automated decision-making, but I’ll try and take another call for that.

We are going back and forward in this debate. I have answered a question about extensions and the ability for someone to have a conversation with the Ministry of Social Development if they require an extension to the time frame that is required.

In my second reading speech, I talked clearly about the disability allowance and how that is an example where it may well be that somebody’s circumstances have changed, and they have additional needs and additional costs, which can lead to an increase in their disability allowance. The member who asked me that question in her reading of it specified that she was pleased that in the inclusion of the eligibility, there is no requirement to prove their medical condition again. She answered her own question when she did her reading, so I’m really hopeful that that has now registered because this is a very simple point and I have answered multiple questions. I’m losing track of how many, but I’m confident that members should get this by now.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is to clause 5, which is amending section 363A—just very quickly—and I want to just start this by saying that despite the size of the bill, and it might be small, it does not mean, in my view, that the question responses should be flippant, and, in fact, I can’t even see the Minister’s face, because she’s not addressing us directly.

The English literacy component of this new mechanism, or new-ish mechanism—and I say that in this context. Many of our young Māori people, they are kōhanga reo children, they are kura kaupapa children, and they are whare wānanga children, and, therefore, they have the gift and the benefit of two languages. They are fully literate in both those languages. Can the Minister assure Māori speakers, Māori people—in fact, ensure the committee of the whole House—that that is understood in the design? I’ll just wait. [The Hon James Meager replaces the Hon Louise Upston as Minister in the chair]

I’m sorry. I’m—can I continue? Sorry, I wasn’t sure whether James Meager—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): It’s your call.

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI: —was able to hear my interest in the questions.

So, just to come back to kōhanga reo, kura kaupapa children, and whare wānanga people, all of those awesome young ones that are coming through—they are literate in both languages, which is a missing piece in the House, and, therefore, there is a concern there for me whether that capacity has been understood in the design of this new-ish tool. I suspect that it won’t be, and that is something that I expect the Minister to have a response to and to give us any level of confidence that that is appreciated in design. If you’ve got an algorithm going on, in what language are we talking, because you can only say, “Well, it’s the English literacy, Meno; it can’t be Māori.” So can anybody—the current Minister in the chair or the Minister for Social Development and Employment—give us any confidence that the algorithm understands Māori?

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Can I just check that the member is referring to clause 5?

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI: Absolutely, and the earlier response was that “Well, there is an algorithm.”—except algorithms come from language, so whose language? It’s English, not Māori, and how, then, will it even be able to understand and appreciate, in the algorithm, te reo Māori, tikanga Māori—

Benjamin Doyle: Ingoa Māori.

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI: —or ingoa Māori? It simply cannot.

So, again, right at the outset, it fails, and what it does is it forces the likes of the Hon James Meager and me to actually just, down the one way, say, “Look, it’s English, and that’s all that matters, Mariameno, so just stop having feelings about that.” But it is serious. Despite those good things, it is a serious and valid question, and not at all am I seeing it. Despite that it is said to be small, it is not a flippant answer that I’m looking for. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for allowing me to take my second call. I have some specific questions around clause 5 that I’ll lead with, and then I’ll go into the departmental report, which has had no discussion or context yet.

I’ll start with my specific questions around clause 5—in particular, around the use of artificial intelligence (AI)—and the previous speaker, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, articulated some actually really thoughtful ideas about artificial intelligence. With a lot of the so-called AI, or language-learning, models, there’s a huge body of academic research that proves that they do have Western-centric biases in them, so it’s really important that we bring those perspectives into this committee because this would have been the select committee and submitters would have brought that point in.

I’ll go into my specific questions now. We’re using automated decision-making (ADM), and that decision making is currently being used by the Ministry of Social Development, I believe, in processing child support payments. I want to ask—and this is something that would have come up in the select committee—what has been the current experience with the ADM that’s being used for the child support payments? Have there been any reports on the efficacy of the ADMs as it’s currently being used, have there been any biases that have been detected, how has the ADM evolved, and how is the ADM going to evolve and change in response to the additional scope of requirements that it’s being made to undertake, because, currently, it’s quite a very narrow scope. Will the MSD be using a more sophisticated ADM to process the increased responsibilities that it’s being asked to deliver?

I do have specific questions around the ADM, like: what exactly is it? Is it simply a spreadsheet with some weightings? Is it a language-learning model? If it’s a language-learning model, what exactly is it: is it ChatGPT, is it Deepseek, or is it one of those European ones, like Mistral? I’m really interested as someone who is, I guess, the Green Party’s resident crypto bro on what technologies are actually being used and what future AI is actually being used by the department.

I’ll go now into my questions about the departmental report because, as I’ve mentioned, there’s been no discussion about it, and I also note that my colleague Benjamin Doyle also has some questions about Māori data sovereignty—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): As it relates to a clause.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ: —as it relates to clause 5.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Good.

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ: Yes, absolutely—as it relates to clause 5. Māori data sovereignty is absolutely about algorithms, and so it relates to clause 5 and they’ll be wanting to take a call. But on to the departmental report. On page 5 of the departmental report, at paragraph 2.3.1, it says that the regulatory impact statement was assessed as only partially meeting the quality assurance criteria. So how far short was it of actually meeting the full criteria—it’s concerning that it’s not meeting the full criteria, to my mind—and how much more work needs to have been done?

I’ve noticed another discrepancy in the numbers that have been provided in the regulatory impact statement and the departmental report. The departmental report mentions $158 million of savings under page 6, whereas the regulatory impact statement mentions $238 million of savings. That is quite a substantial gap between them, so I really would like the Minister to actually just show us the money, because that would be the best way for us to actually tease out why there are discrepancies between the departmental report and the regulatory impact statement.

I have some questions around paragraph 3.3, which is the consistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (BORA). This departmental report, as its written, says that it’s TBC, but I’ve taken the liberty to check the website and there is a BORA report that’s now there, and in that BORA report it says that it’s for an earlier version and not the final copy. So how early was the version that was supplied for the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act report, and what is the difference between the report that was supplied to the Attorney-General for the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act report as it is? Because, even though in the previous version that was supplied to the Attorney-General’s Office, they expressed that they were satisfied it did meet the BORA test and they also expressed some concerns that there was some prima facie limitation around freedom of expression, but that was an earlier version, and so I’m interested to see how it’s evolved. I’ll take my seat now so that my other colleagues can take a call. But I’m keen to get answers.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I should feel slightly insulted—I have been following this debate from my office, like most MPs, but I’ve been kind of rolled in to speak on an area on behalf of older people, and I don’t know why that’s the case.

It’s in regard to clause 4 and it is around the mandatory reviews, and I’m just wanting to ask a few questions of the Minister for Social Development and Employment on the basis that for elderly people, a mandatory annual review of their disability allowance or their accommodation supplement is going to be an incredibly stressful threat to them. Most of us would understand, if we’re dealing with older people when they have to go and get their driver’s licence renewed, that to have a review of core income for them every year would be quite horrific for them. So the question to the Minister—there are a number of questions, actually. But one of them might be that given, potentially, there are 100,000 people on supported living payments and there are 125,000 who get the disability allowance, if many of them are going to be reviewed, or a large number of them, firstly, it’s the resource required for that to occur in a fair way and in a way that’s processed quite quickly so that older people don’t have this cloud hanging over them, basically, from year to year.

If we just think of ourselves here in this Parliament, we have a review every three years, and that sometimes seems quite stressful every three years. It’s somewhat hypocritical, if not unfair and unjust, to then turn around, particularly to older people. This is not, for the most part, a dynamic community. Their circumstances don’t change like that of, say, an 18-year-old or a 25-year-old. For the most part, they’re probably locked in, many of them, unfortunately, due to disabilities, or are relying on accommodation supplement, and to have that reviewed every year—the question to the Minister: do the agencies have the resources to do that in a fair and timely way, and what’s the cost-benefit analysis of that, or the cost of going through that, on the assumption that these older people have had their circumstances changed in some way that warrants the removal of a disability?

Many will have had to go through a process to get the disability allowance. To then think that, well, they’re going to get better or they’ve got a major change of circumstances—indeed, some might. But a review every year—that is something that we struggle with. So it is a question to the Minister of what is the cost-benefit analysis of doing that.

The other question is: who was consulted in this process? Was it Grey Power, or were the disability groups consulted? What was the feedback from those groups as to what the effect will be on their mental health of the pressure and the stress on those groups, and, indeed, is it a net benefit? There might be a saving to the Crown, but if we end up paying more through mental health support or other areas of hospital care because people have got stressed or haven’t been able to stay in their accommodation, then the question is: are we making progress?

So the question to the Minister: what’s the cost-benefit analysis, who was consulted, and, indeed, does the Minister in the chair, on behalf of the Minister for Social Development and Employment, think that threatening elderly people with a review of their benefit every 12 months—does he think that’s fair for New Zealand society?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to speak to my tabled amendment, which will amend clause 4, “New subpart 3A of Part 6 inserted”. I think that this would really help the Minister for Social Development and Employment, because we have heard from the Minister, and we can see in the regulatory impact statement that there were limitations on consultation. Though the Minister did say that she had consulted with the Minister of disabled people, we can see that Whaikaha, or the Ministry of Disabled People, was not consulted on when the Government was drafting this legislation. That’s where my amendment can come in and help here, because what we want to do is make sure that any notification is going to be reasonable in terms of the person receiving it being able to actually read it and have access to the information, and it is just to limit the barriers to disabled people.

So I would like to ask the question that the Minister consider my amendment, and also a further question to that is: what advice has the Minister sought about the effects that this legislation will have on Braille readers and whether any notifications are going to be in that easy-to-read format? What I’ve done here is some work to help the Minister make this legislation more accessible in order to break down those barriers for disabled people who were not able to participate in the select committee process. This is about democracy and this is about all New Zealanders—all of us—being able to participate in the democratic process, and part of that is actually access.

You will see that in my tabled amendment, it’s looking at that clause 4, and so after clause 4, what I am asking the Minister to consider is that we put in a new paragraph under Subpart 3A in Part 6. After new section 310D(1)(b), it would insert new subsection 310D(1)(c), which would say that “MSD must first take all reasonable steps to ensure that the manner that MSD informs a beneficiary must be accessible, including but not limited to te reo Māori, Braille, and easy-to-read formats.” We know that when we say “reasonable steps” in the law, there is precedent there, and, actually, these are really reasonable steps.

So I do hope that the Minister will consider my amendment, because as we’ve said, in the regulatory impact statement, on page 3, it does say who was consulted. Firstly, there was no public consultation. However, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, Kāinga Ora, and Treasury were consulted, but, unfortunately, the ministry of Whaikaha was not, and we can see on page 5 of that regulatory impact statement, at point 8, specified benefits will be included. I’m not going to read them all out, but I will talk about the supported living payment and the disability allowance. We know that this bill impacts a massive proportion of disabled people, and we want to just help the Minister make sure that this bill breaks down barriers for disabled people. I think that this is a really reasonable amendment, and I really hope that the Minister considers accepting it. Thank you.

I’m very close to taking a closure motion. I’m just going to give members another opportunity to come up with very new questions. The last few have been very repetitive of topics that have been covered even in the time that I’ve been in the House—so I’m just alerting people.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to ask about the privacy consultation. What I’ve picked up from the debate over time, when there have actually been many Chairs, is that my initial question about how many different kinds of benefits were included in the new sweep of who would be under review is—I’ve had it confirmed, not by the Minister, actually, but just simply by what the Minister hasn’t said that that’s an expansive list. So it can be added to under the regulations, and while it’s in the explanatory note of the bill, you can have more things in there. The Minister is pointing to the explanatory note, but that says that it includes that, but it doesn’t say that it stops at that, and then, later on, it talks about the regulations.

Now, the point of this is new, because there is a discussion in the regulatory impact statement (RIS) about the Privacy Act having been looked at and talked to and consulted on. But I don’t know from looking at the RIS what they were told or what the parameters of what they looked at were. I’m particularly interested in the gathering of information that’s going on, and whether they were aware that the gathering is as wide as it is and for the purpose that it is. Usually, if you’re collecting information, the person who you collect it from knows what the purpose is, and since there are issues around what is included in that list, I ask what the Privacy Commissioner was told about the scope of its advice. We haven’t seen that advice, so we’re in a particularly blind situation there. I’d like to know what it is that the Privacy Commissioner told the Minister and what was the scope of what was put to the Privacy Commissioner. That is my first question.

Another question is about the parts of the legislation that talk about this. The explanatory note of the bill states that “We propose to introduce legislative amendments to allow MSD to implement”—and then it bullet-points matters, and I don’t know. That’s actually in the explanatory note of the bill, so are there extra amendments coming, because that’s a strange thing to see in a bill. “We propose to introduce legislative amendments”—is that coming later? Are we looking at further things, or have they been incorporated? Is that perhaps a mistake in it? It’s a very genuine question.

I also wanted to ask about the social licence issue, which I have raised in one of my speeches, and it’s about the system of automated decision-making. Given that there is this issue raised in the RIS about people’s genuine concern about the technology that’s being used, what are the steps that the Minister intends to take to make people feel comfortable with the automated decision-making process?

I know that there’s a really good standard that’s been adopted and there’s some work in the background, but I don’t think that the general public would know that and there’s been no engagement with them over this. So what does the Minister propose to do, given that we’ve gone from having a very narrow setting of this type of use of technology to a much broader setting? Could I know about that? It does interface with the issue about the Privacy Act, I think, so I am very keen to hear an answer to those questions. Thank you very much.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Rachel Boyack’s tabled amendment providing that where 52 weeks is specified in the bill, it is deemed to be two years, is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

The Hon Willie Jackson’s tabled amendment to clause 4 deleting new Subpart 3A is out of order as being contrary to the objects and principles of the bill.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 replacing every instance of the word “reviews” with an “automated AI-dystopian review” is out of order as not being a serious amendment.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 replacing every instance of the word “reviews” with “automated AI-dystopian review that may be inconsistent with concern about entrenching inequality” is out of order as not being a serious amendment.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 replacing every instance of “mandatory” with “automated” is out of order as being contrary to the objects and principles of the bill.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new Subpart 3A of Part 6, to replace every instance of the word “specified” with “particularised”, be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new Subpart 3A of Part 6, to replace every instance of the word “mandatory” with “compulsory”, be agreed to.

The question is that Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new Subpart 6A and Part 6 of the principal Act, to replace every instance of the word “review” with “review by a natural person which must not use automated AI systems of any kind unless specifically authorised by the Minister”, be agreed to.

The question is that Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310A, to require the Minister to consult with sector representative groups, including Mā te Huruhuru, be agreed to.

The question is that Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310A, to require the Minister to consult with other sector representative groups, be agreed to.

The question is that Vanushi Walters’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310A, to add the words “except for an unsupported child’s benefit which will not constitute a specified benefit”, be agreed to.

The question is that Vanushi Walters’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310A, to add the words “except for a child disability allowance which will not constitute a specified benefit”, be agreed to.

Members, I’m just correcting the previous vote. I should have said that the Ayes were 53; the Noes 68. Thank you.

The question is that Vanushi Walters’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310A, to add the words “except for an orphan’s benefit which will not constitute a specified benefit”, be agreed to.

The question is that Vanushi Walters’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310A, to add the words “except for New Zealand superannuation”, be agreed to.

The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310A, to add the words “except for a veterans’ pension”, be agreed to.

The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310A, to add the words “except for assistance paid under the Guaranteed Childcare Assistance Programme”, be agreed to.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 replacing the words “set out in subsection (2)” with “of the alleviation of child poverty” is out of order as being inconsistent with the objects and principles of the bill.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 replacing the words “set out in subsection (2)” with “of the alleviation of child poverty and social inequity” is out of order as being inconsistent with the objects and principles of the bill.

Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310B(1) to replace “must” with “may” is out of order as being contrary to the objects and principles of the bill.

Benjamin Doyle’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310B(1) and the heading above it to replace “must” with “may” is out of order as being contrary to the objects and principles of the bill.

The question is that Camilla Belich’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310B(1), to replace “must” with “may”, be agreed to.

The question is that Vanushi Walters’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310A, to add the words “except for a youth payment which will not constitute a specified benefit”, be agreed to.

The question is that Vanushi Walters’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310A, to add the words “except for a young parent payment which will not constitute a specified benefit”, be agreed to.

The question is that Vanushi Walters’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310A, to add the words “except for childcare assistance which will not constitute a specified benefit”, be agreed to.

Camilla Belich’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310B(1)(a) to add the words “52” is out of order as being not in the correct form of legislation.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendments to clause 4 amending new section 310B(1)(a) and (b), to replace “52 weeks” with “2 years”, be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendments to clause 4 amending new section 310B(1)(a) and (b), to replace “within” with “at”, be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendments to clause 4 amending new section 310B(1)(a) and (b), to insert the word “specified”, be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendments to clause 4, amending new section 310B(1)(a) and (b), to replace “52 weeks” with “a period determined by the chief executive after consultation”, be agreed to.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310B(2) to replace “ascertain” with “determine” is out of order as not offering any significant change in the meaning of the provision.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310B(2) to replace “purpose” with “intended purpose” is out of order as not offering any significant change in the meaning of the provision.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310B(2)(a) and (b) to replace “entitled” with “eligible” is out of order as not offering any significant change in the meaning of the provision.

Kahurangi Carter’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310B(3)(a)(i) to replace “commenced” with “started” is out of order as not offering any significant change in the meaning of the provision.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310B(3) to replace “no later than” with “within” is out of order as not offering any significant change in the meaning of the provision.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310C(1) to replace “must” with “should” is out of order as not offering any significant change in the meaning of the provision.

Camilla Belich’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310B(1)(b) to add the words “52” is out of order as being not in the correct form of legislation.

The question is that Ingrid Leary’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310B(3) to replace “must” with “may” be agreed to.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310B(3) to replace “must” with “may” is out of order as being the same in substance as a previous amendment.

Camilla Belich’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310B(3) to add the words “52” is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310B(5) is out of order as being outside of the scope of the bill.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310C(3) to replace “not being able” with “unable” is out of order as not offering any significant change in the meaning of the provision.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 replacing the words after “circumstances have changed” in new section 310C with “materially, having regard to the overall fairness of the circumstances” is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 replacing the words after “circumstances have changed” in new section 310C with “materially, having regard to the overall fairness of the circumstances of the beneficiary and their household” is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 replacing the words after “time allowed” in new section 310C with “with absolute discretion in the interests of fairness to the beneficiary” is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 replacing the words after “time allowed” in new section 310C with “with absolute discretion in the interests of fairness to the beneficiary, their whānau and community” is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 4, inserting new section 310C(1A) into the bill, relating to processes for completing a review, be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 4, inserting new section 310D(2A) into the bill, relating to MSD taking reasonable steps, be agreed to.

Benjamin Doyle’s tabled amendment to clause 4, amending new section 310C(2) to replace “determines” with “ascertains” is out of order as not offering any significant change in the meaning of the provision.

The question is that Camilla Belich’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310C(2)(a), to include the words “with feedback from the affected beneficiary”, be agreed to.

The question is that Camilla Belich’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310C(3), to replace “20 working days” with “25 working days”, be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310C(3), to replace “20 working days” with “a date specified by the beneficiary”, be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310C(3), to replace “20 working days” with “30 working days”, be agreed to.

The question is that Camilla Belich’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310C(4), to replace “must” with “may”, be agreed to.

Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310C(4) to replace “must” with “may” is out of order as being the same in substance as a previous amendment.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310C(4), to replace “the end of the day before” with “the day after”, be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Willie Jackson’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310C(4), to include a 30 - working-day delay to a suspension under that section, be agreed to.

Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310C(5)(a) to insert “or” after “subsection (1)” is out of order as not offering any significant change in the meaning of the provision.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 4, inserting “emergency benefit” into the benefits listed in new section 310C(6), be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 4, inserting “student allowance” into the benefits listed in new section 310C(6), be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Willie Jackson’s tabled amendment to the benefits listed in new section 310C(6), be agreed to.

The question is that

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 4 inserting new subsection (7A) into new section 310C be agreed to.

Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310C(7) to replace “MSD must” with “MSD may” is out of order as being the same in substance as a previous amendment.

The question is that Kahurangi Carter’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310C(8)(a), to replace “8 weeks” with “12 weeks”, be agreed to.

The question is that Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310C(8)(a), to replace “starting immediately” with “starting 4 weeks after”, be agreed to.

I’m just getting some clarity on some questions that needed to be put but that were not put, and then we will continue.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 4, inserting “jobseeker support” into the benefits listed in new section 310C(6), be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 4, inserting “working for families” into the benefits listed in new section 310C(6), be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 4, inserting “sole parent support” into the benefits listed in new section 310C(6), be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 4, inserting “emergency housing” into the benefits listed in new section 310C(6), be agreed to.

We’re just doing a check to make sure that we’ve got all the questions that need to be put.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 4, inserting “disability allowance” into the benefits listed in new section 310C(6), be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 4, inserting “special disability allowance” into the benefits listed in new section 310C(6), be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 4, inserting “winter energy payment” into the benefits listed in new section 310C(6), be agreed to.

The question is that Rachel Boyack’s tabled amendment to clause 4, inserting “supported living payment” into the benefits listed in new section 310C(6), be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310C(8)(b), to replace “2 years” with “3 years”, be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310C(9), to delete “113” and “290”, be agreed to.

The question is that Camilla Belich’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310D(1), to replace “20” with “30”, be agreed to.

The question is that Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310D(1), to replace the words after “MSD must” with “either in a reasonable timeframe or”, be agreed to.

The question is that Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310D(1), to replace the words after “MSD must” with “either in a reasonable timeframe or a period of 90 days or”, be agreed to.

The question is that Kahurangi Carter’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310D(1), to replace “at least 20 working days” with “at least 8 weeks”, be agreed to.

Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310D(1)(a) to add “and” after “for the review” is out of order as not offering any significant change in the meaning of the provision.

The question is that Kahurangi Carter’s tabled amendment to clause 4 inserting new paragraph (c) into section 310D(1) be agreed to.

The question is that Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310D(2), to insert the words “the benefit of compassionate consideration and” before the words “a notice”, be agreed to.

The question is that Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310D(2), to insert the words “the benefit of compassionate consideration, and justice, and” before the words “a notice”, be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310D(2)(a)(iii), to replace “will be” with “might be”, be agreed to.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310D(2)(a)(iii) replacing “fails to” with “unable to” is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

The question is that Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310D(3), to replace the words after “not apply” with “to this Part 3A - mandatory reviews”, be agreed to.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310D(3) to replace the words after “not apply” with “to this Part 3A—mandatory reviews and all subsequent clauses in this Act” is out of order as being contrary to the objects and principles of the bill.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310D(b)(ii) and (iii) to replace “way” with “manner” is out of order as not offering any significant change in the meaning of the provision.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310D(4), to replace the words “as soon as practicable” with “on the day before the suspension ends”, be agreed to.

The question is that Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310E, to replace every instance of the word “MSD” with “the Minister”, be agreed to.

The question is that Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310E, to replace every instance of the word “MSD” with “the relevant agency”, be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310E(1)(b), to delete “or times, or at all times”, be agreed to.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310F to replace the words “complete a review” with “at all” is out of order as being contrary to the objects and principles of the bill.

Camilla Belich’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310F to add the words “particularly if the consequences of the review would cause hardship, homelessness or poverty” is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310F to replace the words after “complete a review” with a full stop is out of order as being contrary to the objects and principles of the bill.

Kahurangi Carter’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310F to insert “and Subparts 12 to 14” after “sections 326 to 330” is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310F to insert “and Subparts 9 to 11” after “sections 326 to 330” is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310F to insert “and Subparts 7 and 8” after “sections 326 to 330” is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310F to insert “and Subparts 2 to 4” after “sections 326 to 330” is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

Benjamin Doyle’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310F to insert “and Subparts 5 and 6” after “sections 326 to 330” is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310G(2) to insert “reasonably” after “as soon as” is out of order as not offering any significant change in the meaning of the provision.

The question is that Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310G, to replace the word “practicable” with “fair”, be agreed to.

The question is that Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310G, to replace the word “practicable” with “reasonable and just”, be agreed to.

The question is that Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310G(2), to replace the word “review” with “consider the fairness of”, be agreed to.

The question is that Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310G(2), to replace the word “review” with “consider the fairness and appropriateness of”, be agreed to.

The question is that Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310H, to replace the words after “apply” with “if in the view of MSD that would result in a fair outcome”, be agreed to.

The question is that Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310H, to replace the words after “apply” with “if in the view of MSD that would result in a fair outcome under the assessment of a natural person and not AI”, be agreed to.

The question is that Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310H, to replace the words “all necessary” with “all suitable”, be agreed to.

The question is that Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310H, to replace the words “all necessary” with “fair and reasonable”, be agreed to.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310H(b) by replacing the number “306” with “311” is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310H(b) by replacing the number “306” with “310” is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310H(c) to replace the words as written with “the purposes of social security” is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310H(c), to replace the words as written with “the purposes of social security net availability for all New Zealanders”, is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310H(d), to replace the number “8” with the number “4(2)”, is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310H(d), to replace the number “8” with the number “4(3)”, is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310H, to replace every instance of the word “certain” with “specified”, is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310H, to replace every instance of the word “certain” with “every”, is out of order as being not in the correct form of legislation.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310H, to replace every instance of the word “section” with the words “for the avoidance of doubt, there is no application to this part of section”, is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310H, to replace every instance of the word “section” with the words “for the avoidance of doubt, there is no application to this part of sections or clauses”, is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

The question is that Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310H, to replace the word “all” with “no”, be agreed to.

The question is that Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 4 amending new section 310H, to replace the word “all” with “none of”, be agreed to.

Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to clause 5 amending new section 363A(3), to include “the fair and reasonable use of electronic systems to make decisions”, is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 5, deleting new subsection (3)(b)(i) and (ii) of section 363A, be agreed to.

The question is that Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 5, deleting new subsection (3)(c) of section 363A, be agreed to.

The question is, That Ricardo Menéndez March’s tabled amendment to clause 5, deleting new subsection (3)(d) of section 363A, be agreed to.