Sepuloni Carmel: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSepuloni Carmel: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8182. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I want to reiterate some of what I said in my first speech and then also just elaborate a little bit more on that. We have concerns about this bill because of the fact that it takes away the rights of those who would have been eligible for an additional day paid out of their benefit from 1998 to May 2014. The Government in terms of the Supplementary Order Paper that the Minister was just talking about is trying to make allowances so that those who would have been eligible between May 2014 and September 2015—so that there is a window of time for them to actually put in a claim but she is ignoring everyone from before 20 May 2014.I can understand the Government’s immediate concern with that group that it is accounting for in the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper. I guess there is a sense of urgency there for the Government and probably some legal obligations and possibly legal ramifications if it does not do it. That is pointed out in the departmental disclosure statement where it is made very clear in section 4.9 where any other unusual provisions or features are discussed and it states: “To acknowledge that the Ministry of Social Development’s operational practice should have been amended when the error was discovered on 20 May 2014 clients whose benefits were commenced on or after 20 May 2014 may apply for a review of decision of that commencement date in the 6 weeks after the legislative correction is made and the retrospective amendment will not apply to their decisions.”So legally the Government should have done something immediately but it did not. And today we have heard National Government members stand up and say that there is a sense of urgency in respect of introducing this bill when there actually should have been a sense of urgency on 20 May 2014 when this error was discovered.So many members across the House have said that this is really just correcting a technical error in that the intent of the bill is being corrected and that that was always there. But actually none of us were there at that select committee. None of us or very few of us in this House were in Government at the time that the bill was going through so I find it really interesting that so many new members of Parliament—as new as me or even newer—are saying that the intent of the bill was clear. It would be interesting during the Committee stage to hear from the two members who are still in the House who I believe were on the Social Services Committee at the time in 1998 when this bill was passed and they are Gerry Brownlee who was deputy chair then and Annette King. We are looking forward to her contribution at the Committee stage.Chris Bishop: We all are.CARMEL SEPULONI: She is holding herself back. She really wanted to speak in the second reading but we have allowed Poto and Iain Lees-Galloway to take the next two speeches and Annette will make a contribution in the Committee stage.Chris Bishop: What about Ruth?CARMEL SEPULONI: Ruth was not on the select committee at that time. So that is our concern that those people are being denied the right to make a claim but also there are issues with this particular bill. We are disappointed that there is no regulatory impact statement for this bill.The Government’s secrecy around the retrospective removal of natural justice for those who are owed arrears between 1998 and 2014 is highlighted in the lack of a regulatory impact statement to accompany the bill. I know that there are situations where a regulatory impact statement is not required but given that even from the outside even for a person who is not necessarily that actively involved in politics there is a huge impact to this bill you would think that the Government would do the responsible thing and provide us with a regulatory impact statement. The impact really is that this bill will ignore the thousands of people who had stand-down periods between 1998 and 2014 and were denied at least 1 day’s pay and for those who were in and out of work they were denied multiple days of pay. So it is disappointing that there is not a regulatory impact statement.We have heard from the Minister about the fact that there was some attempt to negotiate around this. I want to acknowledge if I have not done already in the House that this error—yes it may have occurred when the legislation was drafted back in 1998 but the technical error continued under both National and Labour Governments. So of course out of good faith we did contact the Government to see whether or not we could work on this together to come up with a solution. A couple of the things that the Government did do were good; I will not deny it that. It took this out of the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill and has done it separately. That needed to be done. The Government has also made sure that there is a window of opportunity for anyone who was affected by this during the time that the Government was aware of it so from May 2014 to September 2015. That is a good thing.The only thing that we are concerned about as I said earlier is the number of people particularly those people who would have been in and out of work who stand to lose something from not being able to make a claim. The only thing we are concerned about is that the Government is still not providing an opportunity to do that. The easy solution is Supplementary Order Paper 142 that I have put up which delays the commencement date of the bill. It provides an opportunity for those people to be informed to get their papers in and to make a claim. It is only a 6-week delay that that Supplementary Order Paper is asking for but 6 weeks is enough time for people like Kay Brereton who has been amazing throughout this whole process—beneficiary advocates like Kay—to get the word around so that anyone who wants to make a claim is able to do so. I just want to reiterate that the chances are most people will not be bothered doing it but it is about natural justice and it is about making sure that they are at least given the opportunity to do so.I just want to perhaps touch on another couple of things in here—actually no I think I have covered everything off. I know that the Greens have put up a Supplementary Order Paper to delay the commencement date as well. Theirs is for 6 months ours is for 6 weeks but the intention is the same. It is to provide that window of opportunity for people to make an application and put forward a claim. I think the Greens have also got a Supplementary Order Paper that requires that the Government actually promotes or advertises it so that people are made aware of their rights and their right to make a claim during a fair process.I am looking to see what the Government does. I am disappointed in New Zealand First but we will talk to some of the other members—apart from Darroch Ball—at a later stage today. Thank you very much.