Maharey Steve: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Maharey Steve: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:618;Page:14334] 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I rise to say that I agree with almost everything that the member who has just sat down said. In fact I cannot think of anything she has said today that I did not agree with. 
Katherine Rich 
: The Social Entrepreneur Fund is crap? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: No I think the Social Entrepreneur Fund is a very sound idea and I will come back to that. The member did not actually use the bovine excreta phrase when she was on her feet but we will come back to that in a moment. 
I should say that the member is attracting a great deal of interest from me. I have a vast collection of music and I am very impressed with the fact that the member has just purchased the Guns N’ Roses compilation and has identified “Sweet Child O’ Mine” as her favourite song. I think that is a real sign that she is a little bit more colourful than we had thought up until now. It was interesting to hear. “Welcome to the Jungle” happens to be my favourite Guns N’ Roses song and I welcome the member to this particular jungle. 
I go back to my earlier point that I agree with what the member has said. The community and voluntary sector is an area of Government spending that I know the member has a strong personal interest in. She has been able through very close connections to people close to her to follow its development over the last decade and a half. As a result she is well aware that the Community Employment Group has done a great number of things that members right around this Chamber would applaud. They have things going on in their electorates right now that they want to hang on to. They have mayors who are very keen for this kind of funding to carry on and people throughout the networks in their communities who want to see that work carry on. In the region I come from and the region of Horowhenua which the excellent member for Otaki comes from there has been Community Employment Group work around floods for example over the last little while. So this is a group that has its finger on the pulse of the community. For a long time it has been close to the community and has done a lot of things that we want to see it do. 
However the member raised a very important point—that groups like this of course are born out of very high levels of unemployment. They deal with people who are individually disadvantaged in communities that are disadvantaged. They have been working to try to ensure that they provide a platform for those individuals and communities to expand their possibilities in enterprise so that they can create more opportunities for employment. We happen to be in an environment as the member intimated that is very different from the way it was when this group began. In other words we have an unemployment rate of 4.3 percent. It is the fourth lowest in the OECD. We have more people employed than ever before in the history of this country. We have rising wages. I recently drove through the community of the excellent member for Wairarapa Ms Beyer who has led development in the Wairarapa over the last little while. I looked at one small town after the other where there were local coffee bars and other small businesses starting up. It was very colourful. There were flowers along the street in places like Carterton making the place look extremely attractive. It has been very much the vision of Georgina Beyer over the years to have a thriving community building on its wood tourism trying to get small businesses together and all those kinds of things. There is also the wine industry and horticulture. She has been tireless in promoting that kind of vision and we can see it happening. 
As a result of this outstanding change in fortune we are looking at the Community Employment Group through a different lens. We are asking what the role is of a group dealing with disadvantaged communities and individuals in the 21st century against this very optimistic backdrop brought about by the Labour-led Government and its outstanding MPs. I know that the member opposite was reflecting on that. As an Opposition member she is well aware that she is looking at a Government that is doing incredibly well. The country is on a roll and she is reflecting to herself on whether this organisation which has been very successful in the past should carry on in its present form. 
In my view the answer is probably not which is why last year in November I asked it to look at its grant system why I asked it to review itself and why in the near future we will be talking about the future of the Community Employment Group. We need to be talking about what it does as a core function being perhaps done in a different kind of form. That is where I think we are going. 
In raising those points today the member demonstrates as usual the fact that she is a very able Opposition member and that she has been doing some very good work in thinking about something that her and her family have been close to for some time. She is affirming the group’s core function of working with disadvantaged communities. She is acknowledging that under Labour there are fewer of them because we are doing so well. She is acknowledging that individuals who might be served by the Community Employment Group are fewer in number because they are now gainfully employed and living exciting lives throughout the country. She is saying that given the success of the Government we are now in a situation where we need to rethink the form of that organisation. I am saying I agree with her. I think we are as one on this and can work together to have the function provided in a way that does serve New Zealanders in the 21st century rather than have the group carry on exactly as it is. I agree with her entirely and we will do that. 
Vote agreed to.