Debates — Ministry of Social Development—Benefit Payment Losses

I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a case in which the Government needs to be upfront with the public over the extent and the impact that these suspensions have on people’s livelihoods.

The Minister for Social Development and Employment may wish to talk about this issue as if it was a matter of the front line being able to implement her wishes. But, at the end of the day, the suspensions occurred because the Minister chose to drive through a policy that would have seen automated decision-making, aka machines, spamming beneficiaries with requests to send information, not so that people could get access to their correct benefit entitlements but rather so that the Government could meet its arbitrary target of kicking people off income support.

What we now have seen is an unknown number of beneficiaries having lost their income support, their lifeline, leaving them without the means to survive. The Minister has not been upfront with the public over how many people were affected; nor has she been able to offer an apology in the same way that the Prime Minister was able to do so. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: Sorry, Mr Menéndez March—apologies. There is far too much talk going on in the House. If you’ve got business elsewhere, go and conduct it elsewhere, not in here.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just don’t think it’s credible to claim that everybody has been back-paid when the Minister cannot even tell us how many people were affected. Even just today, in the House, when pressed on this very same issue, it feels like the story just keeps shifting, because now it turns out that the people that the Minister was talking about, when she talked about back payments, were only in relationship to the winter energy payments. So now what? The people who had their main benefits being suspended have not had those back payments?

So there are questions that remain. What were the types of main benefits that were suspended? This is, I think, a critical question that we deserve answers on. If we look at the mandatory reviews legislation that went through in the House, under urgency, only two types of main benefits are included: the emergency benefit and the supported living payment. The supported living payment suspension, I think, is particularly concerning. For members of this House who may not know, in order to qualify for the supported living payment you have to be deemed by a medical professional to not be able to actually work for two years or more. That’s a really, really high bar. It is the case that you are not deemed to be able to work for two years or more due to injury, sickness, or a disability.

You have to be pretty sick or pretty injured to have a doctor write a letter for you and for that doctor to tell the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) that person cannot work for two years or more. We’re talking about people who have it pretty rough; who often will be struggling to cover their bills, their medical expenses; who often will be living below the poverty line.

We’re talking about people who do not have an additional property, who do not have taxpayer subsidies to cover properties that they do not have debt on. We’re talking about people who are often living pay cheque to pay cheque; people who cannot afford to fall behind on rent, because if they do, they could easily find themselves homeless.

And I am not making this statement to be alarmist. I say this having come from the front lines in organisations that were working with the very same families that are now being subjected to these mandatory reviews, that have led to the wrongful suspensions of main benefits; people who have to climb through such hurdles, including MSD potentially challenging those doctors’ certificates, to prevent them from going on to the supported living payment.

I think it’s just simply also not credible to pass the blame fully on the ministry for not being able to implement the Minister’s wishes. The ministry already had warned us that the front line was oversubscribed over the course of this term. There is documentation showing us that MSD was flagging concerns over their ability to implement the Government’s policies due to the front line being oversubscribed.

Even as recently in the passing of the legislation that would see 18- to 19-year-olds having their benefits cut, and the documents offered to us, one of the main risks identified by the ministry, of being able to implement this agenda, was that the ministry was struggling to keep up with the pace of legislative reform. So the Minister knew that MSD was struggling—and just simply saying that she expects things to happen won’t make them happen just through wishful thinking. It requires adequate resourcing. It requires a Minister making sure that the pace of her legislative agenda is done in a way that puts that agenda under adequate scrutiny, not through constant use of urgency in the House, skipping over a select committee process, that in the case of these mandatory reviews, we could have adequately unpacked whether the front line had the capacity to actually process all the Confirming your Circumstances documents that would have come through. It would have allowed MPs to actually hear from MSD over their ability to implement the Government’s agenda. And, we would have had access to community organisations and beneficiaries raising their views over whether this policy would have actually supported people to receive their rightful entitlements, as opposed to leaving them without their main benefits, an unknown quantity of those we still are not really any clearer about.

I think the key concern here is that all we’re asking for is answers, and a Minister to actually come forward and offer an apology to the people whose lives were turned upside down. We heard through the news, through advocates at Auckland Action Against Poverty, from a great person called Pip, who provided comment—someone I actually had the privilege of working directly with over the past month or so, to identify the steps that she had been taking on working with MSD to see a recourse for many beneficiaries who were affected by this. She spoke about the fact that people’s lives were being put on the line, and she talked about how she felt that the Government was playing with people’s livelihoods. She expressed it to me, and she expressed that directly to media, and when we have people at the front lines telling that to all of us, I think the least we should expect from a Minister is a fulsome apology and clarity over what she knew and when. For example, even today in question time, when the Minister referred to the statement provided to us—or to media—on 17 August, there was actually no proper statement on the fact that main benefits had been suspended because MSD couldn’t get to them. It actually only referred to supplementary assistance.

There was a paragraph which talked about suspensions that occurred because people didn’t provide the right information—aka blaming beneficiaries—but at no point in that statement, did MSD or the Minister take accountability over the fact that main benefits predominantly—likely—from people that are sick, injured, or disabled were cut. If it is true that MSD apologised on 17 August, two weeks ago, then the Minister could have potentially been giving us factually incorrect information in the Estimates debate that occurred last week.

I asked her directly whether main benefits had been cut, and she said, with a lot of confidence and assertion, no. It took multiple further questioning from the Opposition back then to even get a “possibly”. How can that stack up? Possibly is not even a yes; it’s a maybe. Then she’s telling us today that, apparently, she had been very clear since 17 August—something here is not adding up. This is not a political football. All that we’re asking for is for people’s lives to be safeguarded, for people to have adequate income, for disabled people to live well, and a guarantee and clarity not just that everyone has been back-paid but that the potential harm that people could have experienced while they had their benefits being suspended was accounted for.

Over that period that those main benefits were suspended, people could have entered into debt, people could have entered into homelessness, people could have entered into hardship, or their health outcomes could have worsened. A back payment is not enough. This Minister needs to explore even the option of compensation for any harm. We’re asking the Minister to apologise, to provide clarity, and to actually move at pace to offer the reassurances to beneficiaries that they rightfully deserve.

I have apologised for this. It is simply not good enough that people who were entitled to the winter energy payment didn’t get it and also that people who have had main benefits suspended when they shouldn’t have. I have apologised on multiple occasions, and the member might shake his head. I’m incredibly frustrated by what has happened there, and, again, I will reiterate for the House exactly what has happened.

I was briefed by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) on Thursday, 13 August about two separate issues relating to the confirming-your-circumstances process. This is a process that was part of the Social Security (Mandatory Reviews) Amendment Act 2026. They introduced annual mandatory reviews for a range of benefits and supplementary assistance payments that required clients to confirm their circumstances. The intent of the legislation was to add in an annual check-in point to ensure that clients are eligible for the assistance they are receiving. That is not an unusual expectation. We want New Zealanders to be receiving the support they are entitled to and not receiving support they are not entitled to. Two things have gone wrong with this, so let me be clear again. I have answered oral questions in the House, and I will reiterate, again, what I have already said on this matter.

There were two issues. The first issue was in the policy work that was undertaken. The issue of winter energy payments that relate to superannuitants was omitted in the policy process. That omission was carried through into legislation, which was then carried through into the way the IT system was set up for the automated decision-making. It was not an error in and of itself in the automated decision-making; it was an omission in the policy process. That meant that the winter energy payment—for which there is no eligibility test, and it, therefore, wasn’t required to be considered in the confirming of circumstances—was not paid. This matter was brought to my attention on Thursday, 13 August, and by Saturday morning, 15 August, every single person who had their winter energy payment stopped had it put back into their bank account. That is what I expect MSD to do when an issue is found—that their urgent attention goes on resolving the issue. That’s issue number one.

The second issue was delays in processing the confirming of circumstances. The expectation was that more people would confirm their circumstances online, rather than through a paper form. What happened then, as a result of this, was delays in processing the confirming circumstances responses. Again, I was notified of this on 13 August. MSD provided information on 17 August, laying out the issues that had occurred, and again apologised to those affected, and focused on ensuring those who had had payments stopped, whether it was a main benefit or whether it was a supplementary payment—resolving that issue to make sure those payments were made.

Do I have all of the details that members opposite are asking? No, I don’t. That detail will be available on 10 September, and I want the House to have confidence that the information that I provide is accurate. In terms of what happened, when, and the numbers, that will be in that review. MSD have told me that they have provided payments to those where supplementary payments or main benefits have been stopped. I want to be satisfied though, through the detail of a review, that there has been no further issues. That’s what I’m expecting on 10 September.

I say to the House again, it is incredibly frustrating that this has happened. It shouldn’t have, and for that, and for those who have been affected by this, I apologise.

I want to address the accusation that Mr. Menéndez March has made about statements I made in the Estimates debate. I was asked if main benefits were wrongly suspended as a result of my policy. The answer is no—that is correct. The suspensions were not a result of my policy—

Ricardo Menéndez March: I said processing delay.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON:—they were a result of the processing delays—

Ricardo Menéndez March: I did say that word.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON:—which is an operational matter for MSD.

Ricardo Menéndez March: I said those words.

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Do you want to hear the answer or not? You’ve made an accusation for me, so I think in terms of an urgent debate being called, I should have the opportunity to put it on the record of the House.

I was then asked, “Did any of the delays result in the suspension of main benefits?” I said that there were delays, but that this was not a result of my policy changes. The third question: when specifically asked if any of the delays resulted in benefits being cut, I answered “possibly”—this is correct. As I say, it is not good enough, it is frustrating—MSD has apologised, I have apologised, and we have focused on fixing the issue and ensuring New Zealanders had the money put in their bank accounts as quickly as possible. A review is under way and I shall have more to say after 10 September.

Mr Speaker, New Zealanders cannot afford another three years of this National Government.

SPEAKER: Yeah, sorry. It’s not a good way to start a special debate on a particular issue, so concentrate on the issue.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: Sure. What is incredibly frustrating is that we have been trying to get answers and accountability from this Minister for Social Development and Employment, and it has been like pulling teeth. She is using semantics, dancing on the head of a pin about whether something is a policy, is a process, is IT, and so on, and time and time again, we’ve got her back in this House to address these issues, and they have had to apologise, they have had to give additional information, so I do want to pick up on a few things that the Minister has said about the timeline. The Minister said this issue was raised with her on 13 August. That is when I asked written parliamentary questions about whether any superannuitants had not received their Winter Energy Payment. From that question, the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), obviously, had a look at the number and scale, and it realised there was an issue and alerted the Minister to it, but a key point is that in June, Labour notified the Minister and MSD of potential issues with the winter energy payment—10 weeks before MSD raised the issue with the Minister. This is 15,000 senior citizens—superannuitants and veterans—who did not receive their winter energy payment in the coldest months of this year, which had some of the coldest temperatures on record.

The Minister’s response was to throw her officials under the bus and blame it on policy. The Prime Minister’s response was to claim that it was an IT issue. What they are not taking responsibility for is that it was their rushed lawmaking process that allowed this to occur in the first place.

Now, the second issue, which has required the second apology in just a week, was that we then learnt that because of the same piece of legislation, a number of beneficiaries—a number we cannot confirm, by the way—have now missed out on their main benefits. The questions we asked in the Estimates debate—and it’s interesting if we reflect on that. The Minister refused to answer questions and said that she had run out of time, and yet on such an important issue, the whips should have given her more time because there was more time available. She just did not want to answer the questions.

Now, we asked the questions “As a result of the mandatory reviews and the requirement to provide more documentation to confirm your circumstances, were any benefits cut?” and “Did anybody miss out on their payments?” Again, like pulling teeth, we finally got there, and the Minister said, “Possibly.”, but what I find really difficult to accept is that the Minister, today, has said that she was briefed by the Ministry of Social Development on two separate issues: the two issues we had been raising. So she was aware that some benefits had been suspended wrongly due to the mandatory reviews and the requirement to provide the information.

Now, when she was asked that question directly, and the Prime Minister—he said no, but the Minister was told about that issue on 13 August. Then the Minister, in Estimates, said “No.”, and then “Possibly.”, when, actually, the answer should have been “Yes, and I just don’t know how many.”, but that’s not the answer that we got. We got “Possibly.”, and then “That’s it. I refuse to answer any more questions.” It is not good enough—

SPEAKER: No, sorry, I need to just pull the member up there because she will be well aware that that Estimates process is something that is set out by the parties as to who they want to be talking to, and time is proportionately allocated. To start saying that towards the end of that, there was time for the whips on the other side of the House to make more time is incorrect, and so it is not reasonable to say that the Minister would not answer questions in that circumstance—she could not.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: Sure, although she did go on and answer some more questions after it, and so I think she was being too picky about which ones, actually, because she said that a number of times—

SPEAKER: I’m sorry, but that’s a direct challenge to the Chair, and I’ll take that up by looking at the—

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: OK. I don’t intend—sorry.

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

SPEAKER: Sorry, let me finish what I’m saying. I will look into that, and if I’m wrong, then I’ll make the appropriate apologies to the member. Point of order, the Hon Duncan Webb.

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Mr Speaker, I appreciate that there may be differing views on the accuracy of the member’s points that she’s making in the debate, but that’s hardly an issue for an intervention, and it just appeared very much like you were entering into the debate on the floor about the accuracy or otherwise of her assertions.

SPEAKER: No, I was making a point about a process that the member himself will know I was very keen on that would have meant that Ministers would always be able to answer questions and not be restricted by the time constraints that the Standing Orders currently put upon them.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: With the remaining 30 seconds that I have, I say that I have made my points. There have been numerous occasions in this House where we have asked the Minister directly for information relevant to these two issues and we have not received sufficient answers to that. We are asking questions about the number of people receiving disability support who have had their benefits wrongly cut. We are asking questions about those on supported living payments who have had their benefits wrongly cut due to this mandatory review process. The Minister would not concede. She doubled down and said that she does not take responsibility for what has happened, and she should.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to say this: if people are entitled to any benefit, they should receive that benefit on time and they should receive the correct amount of benefit as well. I want to acknowledge the Minister, the Hon Louise Upston. The Minister has already apologised. The Minister has been quite transparent about what happened. The Minister could fix this issue only when she became aware, and she has also put out the time line of when she became aware and what is happening next. So that is very, very clear to all of us.

Having said this, I want to also acknowledge that people, if they don’t receive their benefit on time, yes, they go through a lot of hardship. There will be people who go without food; without money for rent; and for the winter energy policy error that happened, obviously without money for power. There are two issues, as the Minister outlined. One was an error in the policy—in the legislation. The second was the operational issue of processing delays. I’m really glad to see that the Minister has taken full accountability and it looks like everything is under control. It is being looked at and now we know that 10 September is when we will find out exactly what has happened. I’m also glad that those who missed out on their payment—that is being fixed.

I say that we wait for 10 September. Yes, it’s not a good thing when mistakes happen, but when mistakes are identified, they are fixed, that is actually something that we should acknowledge and commend the Minister for taking full charge and trying to fix it. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to acknowledge that this is a very regrettable situation, and it is unacceptable. The non-payment of the winter energy payment and the wrongful suspension of some main benefits has been genuinely impactful for people and our most vulnerable New Zealanders—our lowest income New Zealanders. We’ve certainly had feedback to date of the real-world impacts of this mishap. I would say, though, that the Prime Minister has apologised for this on behalf of the Government. The Minister has apologised for this. The department has apologised for their operational inefficiency on this matter. The problem has been fixed in terms of the back payments that have been made.

Importantly, a review has been ordered. The Minister has acted quickly on that, and we will have an answer on 10 September. New Zealand First would expect that the lessons will be learned, and that this situation will not reoccur again in the future. Thank you.

I think it’s a real shame that we’ve had to be dragged into a debate like this when the Minister has struggled to come forth with information that we should have known not only in real time but we should know by now how many have been affected—how many of our whānau who are struggling, who are unable to buy kai, who are unable to pay their power bill, who are unable to pay their rents, and what compensation is happening to be able to address those for many of our whānau who are living off all sorts of horrific loans to be able to get by week by week.

It really feels like in the last three years this Government has done all it can do to dehumanise those that are reliant on benefits. I think it’s really important that we stop accepting that you apologise and it’s done—it’s done and dusted. The Minister apologised. The fact is known that the Ministry of Social Development warned of the state of play and warned that they were not going to be able to keep up with the urgency which had political agendas to it and has absolutely affected whānau that we know that cannot rely on advocates. They live out in regions where they don’t have any support, and they’ve had to go to bat for themselves and get through all of this. That’s the real heartbreak of this is that these are real people. They are our own whānau who, through no fault of their own, have had to end up in a situation where they are reliant on a benefit. That in itself has its own humility that you have to consider. I think there is this whole aspect here that cap and hand, they’ve been left out, when we’ve got an agenda here that has done nothing for the last three years but absolutely benefit bash.

Sanctions, treating them with this whole mistrust, and disciplining and making sure that, “Hey, you’ve got to play it my way or you won’t get paid. But, by goodness, if I make a mistake, it’s all OK.” I really challenge those in this House who’ve had to ever live that way, ever had to rely on a queue to get through and hope that someone’s going to answer it, and then you get to three or four other people and you don’t get the case manager. That is what we’re dealing with, at the same time trying to think, “How the heck am I going to be able to feed myself tomorrow?” So to sit here and listen to this weak excuse of accountability, to say, “I don’t have the numbers but, trust me, on 10 September in less than two weeks I’ll get it to you.” That’s unacceptable. We’re being asked to have confidence in this Minister. This isn’t once, this isn’t twice. I think that’s what we’re talking about here to this House.

We’re talking about our communities who are the most vulnerable. When you have a community that is pushed aside and expected to have politicians drag out the answers from the Minister, drag them out in the House, drag them out in the media, have half a dozen press releases to try and get to the bottom of it, and then have to push for an urgent debate. There’s something really wrong in this nation when we’ve got a Government that doesn’t pride itself in looking after our most vulnerable community members: our kids, your kids, your elderly, your neighbour down the road, all reliant on something that they never ever planned on being on. I think that’s the real heartbreaker of this, that we’re sitting here debating, trying to find out why we haven’t got all the answers we should have.

How many of our whānau were affected? How many of those reliant on benefits were affected? How many? Quiet. What are we doing to look after those who’ve had to endure extra interest, extra costs because they were late? Do not think that the community out there looking after them is not going to charge them extra because they were late—they will. Many who have to live off all sorts of horrific shark financing, all sorts of horrific ways of being able to get through week by week to pay their costs of living. That’s what’s even worse is that every party in this Government has talked about the cost of living crisis, and here we have our most vulnerable suffering because of this, and we’re expected to just accept the notice that “I don’t know how many. I will get back to you by 10 September. I have apologised. It’s finished for me now. I want to move on to other stuff that can involve campaigning. We don’t know what compensation.”

I want to ask this House why the heck Aotearoa should have confidence in this Minister, because Te Pāti Māori doesn’t. We do not have confidence in this Minister. We do not have confidence in the Government that so cruelly lets its community down—its most vulnerable community down—without any answers, any transparency, without providing any advocacy, without dealing with the trauma of what it’s like to go hungry, and I feel real aroha for our communities that have had to endure this. That’s the real shame of what this House has got before it. Kia ora.

I have to tautoko that kōrero from my friend Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Willow-Jean Prime too, because missing out on winter energy payments, the reality is it’s just so dangerous. We’re actually talking about peoples’ lives that are actually at stake, because people have to choose between being warm and maybe their grocery bill, their kai bill, their whānau bill.

That’s what I think gets lost in so much of this kōrero but also in some of the kōrero that’s gone down. It again points to the big hammer being used on communities. It’s symptomatic of what’s happening sometimes within the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), who have taken very much a philosophical line that this Government is rolling out: “You don’t make a phone call back in time, you get your benefit cut off.” Young people lose their support, parents are given the whole responsibility now of looking after big families, all because of this hard-edge approach from MSD.

The Minister has apologised. I accept that. The Prime Minister’s apologised a couple of times. But apologies are not going to sustain whānau who are struggling very much in Te Tai Tokerau, who are struggling very much in terms of West Auckland, in terms of South Auckland. The reality is that vulnerable whānau should not have to choose between being warm and buying a kai. That’s what we’re talking about here. This is how bad it has got, and that’s just the reality. The other reality is, as Willow-Jean Prime has said, the Government was given plenty of notice—10 weeks’ notice—and the response from this Government has been poor. It has been pathetic, actually. It’s OK to roll through all our urgency and roll through everything else, but good Kiwis, vulnerable Kiwis, are missing out. This was first raised in June. Why has the issue been totally forgotten? It’s just unbelievable.

Of course, it’s not clear how many people have lost this winter energy payment. We talking about between maybe 4,000 and 15,000 people—15,000 people in terms of unpaid bills, hunger, and illness—but it raises the questions that have been raised today: what priority is there, from this Government, for vulnerable people? Where do they stand? I know we may trot out this type of rhetoric about gas lobbyists and tobacco companies and these sorts of people who have been funded—landlords being funded and resourced. People see that—they see that—and then you see this group of Kiwis; these people are on struggle street. They need help; they need a Government. Some of them don’t care who the Government is; they just think a Government should do its job and support them at the coalface—look after them; look after their payments. Some of these people just live from week to week. They’re in our communities, and the Government has badly mucked up in this area.

At the time of the winter energy payment, both Minister Upston and the Prime Minister said it had been resolved and it would not happen again. However, it turns out that it did happen again to other beneficiaries due to Ministry of Social Development (MSD) staff not being able to keep up with the amount of “Confirming Your Circumstances” paperwork that came through all at once. While MSD and the Minister claim the issue was resolved and back payments have been made, we still don’t know. How many people did this impact? Again, we still don’t know. We’re talking about perhaps up to 15,000. What did they have to miss out on? Do we want to know that? Do we want to know about what these people have missed out on? And here’s another question: will these people be properly compensated? It’s OK to say, “Your benefits are back on”, but what compensation has been thought about, to look after the stress, the strain, the struggle in terms of looking after themselves and their whānau.

I put that on the table today. Yes, it’s OK to reconnect the payments, but what about some compensation for the huge level of stress that so many of these families and so many of our communities have gone through? I put that to you, and I also want to add that we can’t afford another three years of this Government. Kia ora, Mr Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak in this urgent debate. This is an error that should not have happened, and the Prime Minister and the Minister for Social Development and Employment have both apologised for this. I note that as soon as this issue was raised with the Minister, it was acted on very rapidly to fix it, which has been done.

For superannuation payments, the Minister had advised the House that she was advised on 13 August and the back payments were organised by 15 August. The Minister has identified the two issues that were created and have been fixed, and she has ordered a review into this, with a rapid turnaround, reporting back to this House by 10 September. I look forward to that report.

This is something that, clearly, should not have happened, but the Government is taking it very seriously and has acted very quickly on it.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is an example of the Government reaping what it sowed, and I want to focus on an aspect of this debate that I don’t think has had enough attention today. That is the fact that the reason for what are now acknowledged to be errors that were made—that resulted in some of the poorest people in New Zealand not receiving payments that they were entitled to, that they relied on, that they were using for things like food, petrol, and power—the reason that that occurred was because of the choices that this Government has made.

The first choice that led to that was this Government’s choice to use urgency in this Parliament more than any other Government in the last 20 years. Now, urgency is a political choice. There is nothing to do with political mandates that requires urgency; it is a decision to bypass the usual scrutiny that Parliament has, in order to get a law into place quickly, and there are risks. One of these risks is that you get it wrong, and what happened in this case is that the Government did get it wrong and the people who paid for that decision and those series of choices are the people who can least afford to pay. That is something that is important.

Another aspect of this Government’s processes that needs to be looked at is the fact that the Minister for Social Development and Employment has said that she has tried to address this and she has been accountable. Well, there is evidence to suggest that there could have been more accountability if different choices had been made. That’s not only about urgency; that’s about the way the Minister accounted for herself in her role as the Minister in the chair during the appropriations debate. Now, there is an issue here with the appropriations debate, and we’ve got the rest of the appropriations debate this afternoon, and undoubtedly there are going to be issues to do with the amount of time that Ministers have to answer questions and the time that the Opposition has to scrutinise them.

Let me be clear: that is the job of the Opposition—to scrutinise Ministers—and the job of Ministers is to be accountable for their actions. In this particular case, we saw, during the Estimates, and we know that it works in a time when parties have a block of time and they have to allocate it. I remember, when I was a Government whip, being extremely strict with backbenchers and Ministers about the time they used. In this case, we have seen an example where Government MPs—I’ve noticed several from the National Party—asking questions of the Minister during a time when Ministers should have been held accountable for their actions. I have read the transcript when this particular bill was discussed with the Minister during the appropriations debate, and she refuses to answer questions. She refuses to provide clarity, and she refuses to be accountable to Opposition members.

The reason, she says, is that she doesn’t want to use her other colleagues’ time. Well, her backbenchers used her time to ask Ministers questions that didn’t necessarily require an answer—that wasn’t sought by the Opposition—and it shows an overall mismanagement of this House. There is a bill here that has taken away money from those who need it the most. It hasn’t happened once; it has happened twice. The reasons that there was an issue, the Minister stated, was because of the policy work involved. When the issue is policy work, that is usually always picked up during a select committee process, which wasn’t present here. But, luckily, our New Zealand Parliament has further checks and balances in place to allow accountability. In this case, it was the Estimates of Appropriations that was used to attempt to get some accountability from the Minister, and again we faced a brick wall of accountability. We got the Minister stating that she would not be held to account for this, because of the way her party had managed her time. The way that this bill has been handled and the way that the Minister has been held accountable to this does not hold this Government or this Parliament in good light for the way that it can try to make sure that errors don’t occur and the way that it shows that it allows Opposition members to hold the Government to account.

As I have said, the people who are affected here had to make choices about whether to feed their families, whether to eat, whether to heat their house, whether they’d be able to travel to work. These are choices that New Zealanders shouldn’t have to make, and these New Zealanders cannot afford another three years of this National Government making these kinds of mistakes and leading them to be hit in the back pocket.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The situation that has occurred has been an error and has been explained in as much as it has been understood up to this point. Further explanations will be coming after a review. Although apologies have been made, we can all acknowledge that the impact on those people has been massive, and it isn’t acceptable.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.