Social Security Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Social Security Amendment Bill.

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

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I move, That the Social Security Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Our Government believes that people are better off in work. Since 2023, unfortunately, the number of working-age individuals receiving a main benefit has steadily increased. It is critical that we have a welfare system that actively supports job seekers into work, rather than allowing them to get stuck on welfare.

This bill seeks to amend the Social Security Act and the Social Security Regulations to expand and enhance welfare settings to support people off benefit and into employment. The welfare system will always be available to support people when they need it, but they need to meet their obligations to look for a job and be held accountable when they don’t. That’s why, last year, I launched the traffic light system to communicate to clients what’s expected of them when they are on a benefit. Those changes reinforce the expectations for those on benefits, and, now, I’m ready to expand and strengthen the tools available to support people into work through this bill.

Currently, a financial sanction is the only option available to the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) when responding to an obligation failure. Clients who have a grade 1 financial sanction imposed have their main benefit reduced by half. This bill introduces non-financial sanctions—money management and community work experience—which will expand MSD’s toolbox. They provide an alternative option, for some clients’ first failure, that enables them to keep their full payment while reinforcing the message that failing to meet obligations is not acceptable. The bill also extends the period over which an obligation failure counts against clients from 12 to 24 months, increasing the likelihood that those who are repeatedly refusing to comply with their obligations will have their benefit cancelled if they remain on the benefit for more than a year.

I also propose two other changes that focus on assisting people into employment. The bill will require new applicants for certain benefits with work-related obligations to have completed a jobseeker profile before their benefit is granted. This change will encourage work-focused conversations from the earliest possible opportunity and help MSD to better match people to suitable job vacancies. The bill will also reduce the amount of time before someone on jobseeker support must reapply, from 52 weeks to 26 weeks. This means that clients will have more frequent engagements with MSD about employment.

I’d like to put on record my thanks to the Social Services and Community Committee for its careful consideration of the bill. I also want to thank members of the public and organisations who provided both written and oral submissions. I have heard and want to acknowledge the concerns associated with these changes, and I want to reassure members of this House and the public that the non-financial sanctions proposed in this bill will only affect those who are not complying with their obligations. Non-financial sanctions will ensure accountability while recognising that financial sanctions are not the answer for everyone. I accept that the Opposition would prefer to have financial deductions taken off people’s benefits. This side of the House doesn’t see that, necessarily, as the best first option.

Other changes in the bill reinforce the Government’s commitment to helping people transition off benefit and into employment. It is not acceptable that over 70 percent of people on jobseeker support who are not in employment case management will experience only one work-related engagement in a year in their 52-week reapplication. Having more frequent work-focused engagements through reapplications will reinforce the importance of looking for work.

After its consideration of the bill, the Social Services and Community Committee has recommended the introduction of two additional non-financial sanctions, as well as further minor amendments, to better support the effective administration of the proposals in this bill. The two additional non-financial sanctions are “report job search” and “upskilling”. These will sit alongside the other non-financial sanctions detailed in the bill as introduced. As they appear, clients will be required to report on their job search activities. If people are undertaking job search activities, it is more likely they will find a job. Also, the other one is to participate in employment-related training. As with money management and community work experience, these new non-financial sanctions will not impact clients’ entitlements and will reinforce the expectation that they are searching or preparing for work. I want to, again, thank the members of the Social Services and Community Committee for their careful consideration of the bill, and I look forward to seeing the amendments progress towards the initial changes proposed.

This bill represents another important step forward in refocusing our welfare system to better support individuals towards employment. By introducing these changes, we aim to create a more transparent, accountable, and work-focused environment for jobseekers. I look forward to seeing this bill progress through the remaining stages of the parliamentary process, and I commend the bill to the House.

The question is the motion be agreed to.

I rise, once again, in this Parliament to speak against this Government’s cruelty and spite—cruelty and spite—aimed at the poorest and most vulnerable with this appalling amendment to the Social Security Act. Following on from what happened yesterday, we should not be surprised—we should not be surprised—because this is all about saving money in the Budget. That’s what yesterday was about—saving money at the expense of women around the nation. I salute all the women who stood up, particularly our women in Labour, and the vote of no confidence they put in this Government yesterday.

I bring this up because this is very, very similar to what’s happening in terms of this Social Security Amendment Bill. Yesterday, we traded away generations—generations—of great work by people, all to save Nicola Willis’ Budget. It was a disgraceful act from the Government yesterday, and particularly with our women lined up—some of them National Party women. I look at the Minister now, who’s been a former Minister for Women, and I ask her how yesterday could have happened. The whole nation is asking questions. The whole nation is asking questions about how a National Party, who previously supported equity in terms of equal pay, could walk away from that yesterday. It was a disgraceful act, and even the right-wing—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Mr Jackson, they’re probably waiting for you to get on to this bill, too.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: I had to make that comparison with yesterday, because it’s all very, very, very similar. Anyway, this is not about improving the welfare of our most disempowered Kiwis; this is about punishing them. That’s what this kaupapa is about today. Very similar to yesterday, it’s about punishing them for having the audacity to look to the New Zealand State for help. How sad it is that they’re being punished for asking the Government for help. They’re getting continually punished, damned with needless bureaucracy that will be managed by a faceless AI program—as if their disability has magically healed since you last asked them—and penalised with sanctions that remove their agency in spending money with a money management scheme that makes it impossible—makes it impossible—for beneficiaries to pay for rent, power, and school uniforms.

This is what this Government is doing. They’re doing it under the umbrella of urgency, and they’re forgetting about our vulnerable people at the coalface, who are not able to organise themselves at times, who need a bit of support, who need a bit of awhi, and who need a bit of community help. This is what this Minister is doing, a former Minister for Women. This isn’t welfare reform; it’s revenge against the poor for having the temerity to ask for help from the Government, who have purposely crashed the economy and pushed up unemployment. No doubt about that—

Joseph Mooney: Ha, ha, ha!

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Check the Māori unemployment rates out if you’re having a laugh over there, Mr Mooney—check the Māori unemployment rates out. You’ll see that the Māori unemployment rates are getting worse and worse.

Francisco Hernandez: And the regional unemployment rate as well.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Yes, there is no change there. How outrageous it is, though, for Joe Mooney and his crew to crash the economy. They’ve just spiked unemployment, and now they’re punishing those Kiwis needing help from their economic decisions. “We don’t have money for beneficiaries.” Oh, but we do have money. We do have money for military. We do have money for more military. We do have money for tax cuts. That’s the theme—it’s always the theme here. We have got money for the tax cuts, we’ve got money for the rich landlords, and we’ve got $200 million for New Zealand First’s mates in the tobacco industry. Let’s be clear: there is money, but there’s just no money for the poor, there’s no money for the vulnerable, and there’s no money for those who are struggling. There’s now no money.

They’re taking money away from everyday New Zealand women, and this Government will pay. They will pay for their decision yesterday. They know it. It’s one of the worst decisions they’ve ever made, and it’ll catch up with them. This kaupapa—these amendments—will result in more beneficiaries and their dependants being unable to buy food and to pay rent and other basic bills. The policy will generate more hardship, more poverty, and more homelessness. The community work experience—oh, that sounds nice! Joseph Mooney and his mates will go out and give you a boring speech in the community. That all sounds nice, but it amounts to forced labour, and if people don’t complete it—if they don’t complete it—they lose their welfare. They lose their welfare. That’s what this community experience is all about: making those on welfare poorer and more abused so that the poor will cower and ask for more help, “Please, Government, please, help us.”

This is the sort of bullying, of course, that Donald Trump does, and we know that the Government is a great fan of Donald Trump—

Francisco Hernandez: They love Trump.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: They love Trump; Winston says so. They replicate and duplicate him all the time, and that’s the strategy. It’s all about bashing the vulnerable. This terrible Government is in trouble when it starts bashing beneficiaries for nothing more than its reactionary, angry voters, because that’s all this is. It’s about bashing beneficiaries. I’ve just come on to the select committee, but I’ve seen the type of resistance given by the Greens, ourselves, and Te Pāti Māori. It’s been a good response in terms of this kaupapa. All of this is highly counterproductive and will only entrench poverty by spawning an underclass frightened to engage with the system. That’s the type of feedback I’m getting back from the experts out there.

The Government wants to make the process of obtaining welfare as difficult and Draconian as possible so that it intimidates and frustrates those attempting to use it, in the hope that they will simply go away. That’s the strategy. That’s what this Government is really doing with this amendment. They want all the poor people to go away. It’s like the emergency housing kaupapa. You hear them waffling on about the numbers. They are carrying on, “We’ve reduced the emergency housing numbers.” No one knows where these people have gone. If you ask Minister Potaka, he’ll say, “I don’t know where they are.”, but Minister Bishop will come out with, “Well, we’ve reduced it from so many.” It’s just a disgrace. They’re putting them out on the road. They’re putting them out on the road. People are dying out on the streets.

The most appalling part of this is that the Government are making these types of cruel decisions because, as we all know, they refused point blank to tax their rich mates. That’s just a reality. They want to look after their rich mates. That’s what this is all about. New Zealand knows it. Who are you going to boot? “We’ll boot the women, we’ll boot the vulnerable, we’ll boot the beneficiaries, and we’ll boot the Māoris.” They are a disgrace.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Well, Mr Jackson, if you can just tell us what it is that the Government are doing and what came out of the select committee.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Lots came out. I thought I’d been doing that, Mr Speaker. Well, let’s talk about community work experience—thank you for that reminder. The community work experience and the money management scheme are the key to the Minister’s success. They won’t be able to access emergency housing or special needs grants. That’s the problem here. The Government is saying, “We’ve got the panacea. We’ve got the recipe here. We’ll look after you. We’ll look after you by going from 52 weeks to 26 weeks.” Come on. We can’t keep bashing beneficiaries and think that’s the solution. They’re setting every poor person up for failure by punishing them with sanctions. They’re making it impossible. That’s the key here. They punish them with sanctions, and then they make it impossible for them to access grants or their housing special needs grants.

It’s not about the welfare of the people. Mr Mooney, you should know that. In fact, you should hang your head in shame, being the chairman of the select committee. You were driving this for your rotten Government. This isn’t about the welfare of the people; it’s about punishing the poor with ever-increasing thresholds—that’s the key—purposely designed to confuse, frustrate, and demean individuals. They make it so difficult—they make it so tricky—to traverse these areas that some of the beneficiaries just give up. They just give up. They’ve got to pick this call up. They’ve got to ring Joseph Mooney. It’s just an impossible strategy. No, they’ve got to comply with this National Party.

There’s no aroha from this Government and no compassion and no kindness in their welfare. It’s a bleak diet of animosity and hostility. The National Party and this coalition Government should be ashamed of themselves. It’s all going to come home to roost, mark my words. Kia ora.

This Government should hang their heads in shame for trying to push a bill that will literally increase poverty and deprive people of the means of survival. No matter how much spin we get from the Minister for Social Development and Employment that these are so-called non-financial sanctions, if anyone reads this bill, they’ll understand that if you’re subjected to these non-financial sanctions, you can’t access hardship assistance. What that means is—they would understand if any of them actually talked to people on the benefit—that many people on the benefit rely on hardship assistance on a regular basis to put food on the table. If you’re subjected to non-financial sanctions, you have a financial impact on you, which is that you can’t put food on the table. I find it appalling and actually ignorant for the Minister to say that we prefer financial sanctions.

If it was up to the Greens, we would have a welfare system that actually adequately supports people into employment. This is not what the Government is doing. The Government is not actually supporting people into employment. They have created so much bureaucracy for Work and Income that they now have to stop other programmes because—and the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) said it themselves—their front line is oversubscribed thanks to the Government’s own cuts, own actions, and ineffective policies that do nothing but create more hardship. The sanctions in this bill will simply push people deeper into poverty, make no mistake.

I can’t accuse anyone on the other side of the House of lying, but, at the very least, what I can do is point out the facts that they just seem to ignore. The facts in this bill—for anyone who reads the report, because members seem to be either unable to read or unwilling to see the truth—are that this bill will literally push people into potential homelessness.

For example, compulsory money management: what it will do is put 50 percent of someone’s income into a green card. What it will mean is that people who spend around 50 percent of their income weekly on rent will literally be unable to put food on the table. Again, here are some more facts: we just need to look at the ministry’s own figures to show that, on average, people on jobseeker support spend more than 50 percent of their income on rent. That means that people subjected to compulsory money management won’t be able to afford their rent and they won’t be able to access emergency housing, actually, if they’re subjected to that benefit sanction. According to the non-financial sanction, they won’t actually be able to obtain that level of support.

I see members of the ACT Party yelling at me, but I dare them and challenge them to actually talk to anyone who they’ve punished, anyone who they’ve sanctioned, and talk to them about whether it’s easier to find employment when you’re struggling financially, when you can’t even access financial support that allows you, for example, to get a uniform for an interview, and when Work and Income’s wait times on the phone to access support when you need financial help for transport are so, so long that you may be missing appointments to actually help you get a job.

Aotearoa actually invests less than other comparative countries on initiatives that help people get into employment. It’s all smoke and mirrors from the Government when they tell us that their goal is to get people into employment. Their goal is to simply strip people of the income support. We know this because of, again, facts: the Government has a target to get people off the benefit. This target does not include getting people into jobs; it simply includes stripping people of the means to survive.

We’ve got other benefit sanctions in this bill, including the community work experience, which is—as others have talked about—forced labour. Did the Government take into account the feedback from community organisations? No, they didn’t. Community organisations who submitted to the Social Services and Community Committee told us very explicitly that they were not adequately consulted, that, actually, most of them did not have the means to accommodate people on benefits subjected to this kind of sanction, and that it actually destroys the purpose. This is what we heard from submitters. No matter how much those members want to cover their ears, if people are forced to attend volunteer organisations, it destroys the very purpose of volunteering and the spirit of community that is built by those very organisations, many of whom are filling the gaps thanks to the cuts that this Government has made.

The Government, on top of that, decided to introduce two additional benefit sanctions with absolutely zero scrutiny. I look forward to scrutinising the Government for this terrible lawmaking that they’ve decided to pursue by actually adding further benefit sanctions without public consultation and without the ability for members of the public to give their feedback. Actually, public feedback is critical here. We had over 3,500 submissions sent to this bill. Over 97 percent of people did not support this bill. Less than 3 percent of people actually supported this bill. If this Government was so confident that the reforms were so popular, why didn’t their supporters actually swarm the select committee to tell us how much they love punishing beneficiaries? I know that, actually, everyday people want all of us to do well. When we have people who are stripped of the means to survive and who end up is in the streets with poor health, there are costs to livelihoods attached to that. Even within their fiscal conservatism, it makes absolutely no sense.

Economists across the world have told us that, actually, it makes sense to invest in a welfare system that adequately supports people. Yet this Government does not care. They don’t care about the evidence that sanctions do not support people into employment. We literally just had media reports that quoted MSD saying that there’s no actual correlation they can find between sanctioning someone and someone then finding employment, which means that all these sanctions end up doing is pushing people into hardship. It’s intellectually dishonest for the Government to call these non-financial. There are literal financial consequences attached to this bill.

We also know—again, facts—that the Government is simply trying to make it harder for people to stay on the benefit by making them reapply for a benefit twice as often. When we have the Ministry of Social Development already telling us that the front line is oversubscribed, I can’t see how this will actually help anyone in any meaningful way. All it will do is add busybodies to the front line who are trying—many of them—to simply support people to have the bare minimum. Once you have a front line that is doing all this additional admin work this year and applying all these nonsense sanctions, they actually don’t end up giving the tools and the means to support people to be their best selves to enter employment that meets their skills and aspirations.

The Government has also sneaked through other changes that will make it harder for people who are in part-time employment to remain on the benefit by changing the definition of a “work gap”. Again, all this shows is that this Government does not care about our poorest. If they did, they wouldn’t be pursuing this bill. If they care about people in precarious employment—the kind of employment that many people likely will go to from being on the benefit—they would not be cancelling all the pay equity deals that were being worked through.

The Government can’t have it both ways. They can’t say that work is the pathway out of poverty and then undermine those very same low-income workers that most likely will be people who were on the benefit shortly before this Government came into power. They can’t have it both ways. Where they’re investing the most is on tax cuts for landlords and on military spending but not on the things that people need to be well.

This is a shameful, shameful bill that does nothing but increase poverty. We are already seeing the evidence and other reports about the impacts of this Government’s policies. We have seen how material hardship for children is increasing. We are seeing how food insecurity for children under this Government’s watch is increasing. This Government’s decisions are literally making it harder for children to have what they need to be well. We’re going to create a generation growing up in poverty without the opportunities to do well. No one is buying the trickle-down economics that were well debunked 40-plus years ago and that equate the idea that if we give more money to the rich, it will suddenly trickle down to people on the benefit and low-income workers.

It’s straight up factually incorrect. The Greens will keep campaigning to abolish all of the sanctions in this bill and more—all the financial sanctions that the Government claims that we like. There is no place for benefit sanctions in a welfare system that is designed to support people into employment. I challenge members of the Government to get out in the streets more and talk to people on the benefit and to actually engage with the people who submitted to the select committee and told us that they didn’t like it. All I can see is the Government members conjuring a beneficiary, in their head, that they never met, they never engaged with, they never talked to, and they don’t care about to punish those who are in some of the toughest situations.

I look forward to these members of the House finding themselves on a benefit after the election and being subjected to the very same policies that they’re putting through. They will hopefully, one day, realise the damage that they have caused to generations across the country. The Greens will continue standing for taxing the wealthy few so that we can have a healthcare system that works for all and an income support system that lifts people out of poverty, and we’ll continue fighting back against the policies of austerity and cruelty.

I look forward to scrutinising the Government in the committee of the whole House as well about, for example, how their policies in relation to obligation failure will simply just kick people off the benefit. I also look forward to scrutinising the Government about how they even think that case managers will be making the correct decisions when we know, right now, almost 50 percent of people can’t even have their benefit entitlements accurately assessed, because most of the safeguards in this bill rely on discretionary decision-making that is not correctly happening right now. We condemn this absolute nonsense of a cruel bill, and we will keep fighting to ensure that this Government doesn’t get a second term.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise in support of this bill. This is, actually, one of the ACT-National coalition agreements. Firstly, I just want to thank the select committee for your diligent work. We had to split up into a couple of subcommittees to hear from all those that were submitting on this bill. I think it’d be quite appropriate to acknowledge what the previous speaker, Ricardo Menéndez March, was saying around those that submitted and those who support or don’t support the bill. Well, guess what? Who pays beneficiaries in New Zealand? The taxpayer. What are the taxpayers often doing? They’re out there working hard. They’re out there making money for their families. I think that a lot of taxpayers that are propping and playing—

Ricardo Menéndez March: Beneficiaries are taxpayers too.

LAURA McCLURE: Beneficiaries pay tax, but do you know what? At some point in time when you accept money from the State, that comes with obligations. Having a job comes with obligations. We can’t just not show up for work—although some of us in this House seem to think that’s OK. We can’t just not show up for work. Every day, people need to get up and get ready and get out the house and do the grind. How is it unreasonable to expect those that are receiving money to have to adhere to some kind of obligations? I think it’s absolutely outrageous. Attending a work seminar, having a jobseeker profile—this is the bare minimum that you should be doing if you are on a benefit.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Are you going to talk about the bill?

LAURA McCLURE: I 100 percent want to talk about the bill, because I think it’s important. The aim is to reduce those that are on the jobseeker to support people into employment. It is to reduce costs to Government by decreasing benefit numbers. It’s going to reinforce expectations on beneficiaries to work, where appropriate. Those who can work should be working.

This in no way diminishes those very real people that are unable to work. Those with disabilities, those with chronic health conditions, and those people that are genuinely unable to work should be taken care of. I think there is a place and a role for the State, and I think a lot of people can agree that we should be taking care of those people. If you can work and you are not working, you, at the moment, only have to apply once in a 52-week period to stay at home, potentially. It’s absolutely outrageous. A 26-week period to have to renew, getting on the phone, and filling in forms are very minor, little things that you need to do in order to actually go ahead and take this money from the taxpayer—the rightful taxpayer, should I say.

Money management: what is money management? This is a type of sanction that will only apply to about 3 percent of those people that are receiving the benefit that aren’t actually meeting their obligations. I do want to thank those beneficiaries that are meeting their obligations. Quite a few of them are. If we think about this, is it fair that if we do not meet some of those obligations? We say, “Hey, look. I think there are better ways of doing this. Maybe we should be paying your rent for you. Maybe we should be making sure the bills are paid.” I 100 percent think that this is a good policy. I think that those hard-working Kiwis out there want to support people, they want to give people a hand up, and they want to support people that do find themselves in a really unfortunate position. At the same time, they want to make sure that their money is being well respected. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First in support of the Social Security Amendment Bill. Also, being on the Social Services and Community Committee, I would like to say that it was a very, at times, emotional and passionate time listening to the submitters. I want to acknowledge all of my colleagues in the House who were on the committee with me. Even though there was passion at times, it was still done in a very respectful manner, which is the way it should be done. To the submitters who submitted, I know that many of you struggled to submit. It was a very emotional submission, and it takes a lot of bravery to stand and do that, so I just want to acknowledge you.

Just very briefly, this bill is in alignment with New Zealand First’s policy of believing in a hand up rather than a handout. Whilst we really believe that people need to be helped in our community, we also know that we need to look at long-term rewards for individuals and encourage personal responsibility for people to find it in themselves to get out there and make their lives better if they can, and we also need to keep the country in mind when we do that. We feel that this is a balanced approach, and whilst it does create passion and emotion in the discussion, it needs to be said at times that we do want to encourage personal responsibility with individuals. I know that some may find that hard to hear, but it is something that we really do, as a party, believe in. We feel that that encourages not only fairness but also responsibility, and it will hopefully break this long-term cycle of dependency, which does sometimes stick. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Five-minute split call—Mariameno Kapa-Kingi.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā tātou e te Whare. It’s less of a pleasure and mostly more of a duty to stand and have a crack at this ridiculous nonsense called the Social Security Amendment Bill. One would think that when it’s called “Social Security”, those things are actually present in the mind and what you come up with, but, frankly, it is completely the opposite to that; there’s nothing “social” nor “secure” about this. This bill erodes basic human rights. Why do I talk about it in this way? I’ve worked in this sector, and I know this sector from the ground up. I’ve worked in the social sector and health sector for long enough to recognise that this will work against us and create far more harm than need be the case.

In the actual select committee process, I’d like to say things were passionate, but it was more than that. It was depressing, and it was confronting. It’s hard to show respect to a process when the ideas and the ideology that were running through it were loaded with bigotry, ignorance, and absolutely no sense of reality. I recognise some of the discussion before. As painful as it is to listen to, I want to share these thoughts. During the submission process for this bill, we received a particularly confronting piece of testimony from one organisation. Through their submission, the voice of a young person experiencing homelessness in Tāmaki was shared, someone who had tried to engage with the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) for support. He rangatahi ia, koinei wana kōrero.

[This is a young person; here are their comments.]

“I was asking MSD for help. It made me always feel like [s-h-i-t]. They don’t help me. Half the time, it feels like they aren’t listening. I hate it. It makes me feel alone.” These words should have stopped that committee and asked them to change their minds, and they should stop every person in the House right now in their tracks—in their “fast track” and getting something “back on track”—because, while we were hearing this submission, this young person, whose experience was shared with us, was lying-in-state. To their whānau and to the community still holding the pain of that loss, I want to acknowledge that grief. It is likely still to be very raw and still unanswered and still unmet by any action from this House and by those on the left of this House sitting next to me.

This is not just a bill. It is about the real-life cost of systems that fail our people tremendously—daily and minute by minute. This House failed that young person, and this bill will deepen that failure. These are not just administrative tweaks as they suggest it is. These are policies that continue to cause harm. Whether it touches you—it’s likely that it doesn’t, because when I was listening to the nonsense earlier, I was like, “Well, just because it doesn’t touch you and you don’t get it, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t harm the rest of our whānau in our communities.”

This bill is a stain on the voices of rangatahi, on single māmā and pāpā, on whānau with disability, on Māori, and on minority communities—you might not recognise any of those words, but you need to read more, koutou mā [all of you]—all who came forward in the submissions and told you to change your mind: “Think about this—think about this.” If this place is about the test of good ideas, frankly, there are too many that are poor ideas that are not tested, that are not understood in reality, and that cause more harm. That’s what privilege does. Privilege, particularly white privilege, blinds you to the reality of people, of many, many families and whānau. I want to make this point: passing this bill won’t just ignore those voices, it will reinforce the very experiences that drove some to lose hope entirely.

This Government has shown and, I’ve no doubt, will show in the upcoming Budget that they are business orientated and money focused and the suffering of people is just better for the economy and it’s better for business but not for whānau—not for whānau in Tai Tokerau, not for whānau in Tairāwhiti, not for whānau Māori, not for whānau e hauare ana [families that are missing the mark]. To these nonsense voices to the left to me, you don’t know what you don’t know, and you remain in your seat of ignorance and privilege. Shame on you. It’ll come back to haunt you. This bill must be condemned. I despise it with all my might, as does Te Pāti Māori. Kia ora tātou. [Interruption] Thank you—stop nattering.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just want to bring it to your attention that the member who’s just resumed her seat was bringing you into the debate.

Well, I’d just—thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa to oppose, in the strongest terms, the Social Security Amendment Bill. This bill is not about dignity, it’s not about evidence, and it’s certainly not about supporting people into meaningful employment. This bill is about punishment, punishment dressed up as reform and designed to make life harder for people who are already struggling under the weight of systemic inequality.

During the select committee process, we sat and listened to hundreds of voices—submitters who took their time, many of them with lived experience, to share their truths, people living on the benefit, disability advocates, and child wellbeing organisations. Over 97 percent of submissions oppose this bill—3,413 out of 3,499 submitters—and only 19 submitters submitted in support. Yet here we are again, debating legislation that ignores the overwhelming weight of public feedback.

CCS Disability Action warned us that “The sanctions that are being proposed will cause direct harm to disabled people and their families, it will result in those receiving Government assistance being unable to buy food, pay for housing, afford medical treatment, and other basic necessities in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis.” How can any Government with integrity ignore that?

We heard from Save the Children, who raised a deeply concerning impact on disabled people who are forced to rely on jobseeker support because barriers prevent them from accessing the supported living payment. They said, “With the proposed changes forcing disabled people to re-apply for the benefit every six months, this group will be further detrimentally impacted by the additional doctors’ fees required to prove the person is still eligible.”—because maybe they don’t have their disability any more? This is cruelty by design. This is bureaucracy wielded as a weapon.

Let’s be clear: the measures in this bill—compulsory money management, increase reapplication burdens, and so-called community work experience—are not about employment. The Minister was asked repeatedly to provide evidence that these sanctions led to better outcomes. She could not, because that evidence does not exist. What does exist is the Welfare Expert Advisory Group’s advice. Their report told us that sanctions do not work. In fact, they increase material hardship, reduce trust in the system, and worsen outcomes for children.

Instead of listening to the experts, the Government has chosen ideology. Instead of working with communities, you are punishing them. Let’s talk about these so-called non-financial sanctions. When a person is placed under compulsory money management or community work sanctions, they lose access to hardship assistance. That’s not non-financial; that’s people being unable to pay for food for their children, pay rent, or get to a job interview. That’s a financial punishment with real-life consequences. This bill will hurt disabled people the most, people who are already navigating barriers across health, housing, and employment. We heard from submitters that many are on the wrong benefit already, facing job-seeking obligations that they should never have been subjected to. Instead of addressing those systemic failures, which the Government could have chosen to do, this bill piles on more obligations, more sanctions, and more barriers.

The Green Party has long called for a welfare system rooted in trust, not suspicion. I’m proud to be able to help people in need, and I think that most New Zealanders would take the shirt off their backs to help their neighbours. Why don’t we as a Government actually act with that integrity and support people who are vulnerable, children who aren’t getting fed, and disabled people? We want to see the recommendations of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group implemented. We want to see sanctions abolished. We want income support to lift people out of poverty. The select committee heard these voices. The Government just chose not to listen. The Green Party recommends this bill be discharged immediately.

The time has come for me to leave the Chair. The House will resume at 2 p.m.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2.00 p.m.