Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSocial Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8173. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment BillFirst ReadingDebate resumed.JAN LOGIE (Green): As the bells rang I was speaking to the point of the importance of trust between the people of this country and the Government and indeed this Parliament. This bill in front of us going through this House under urgency I think creates the risk at the very least of giving New Zealanders the impression that the first rule is that the Government is never wrong and when the Government is wrong see rule No. 1: the Government is never wrong. And I want to say very clearly that I do not want to live in that society. I want to live in a society where as a Parliament we seek to strengthen—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I am sorry to the member. Those who are leaving the Chamber please do so quietly and as quickly as possible so that in fairness to the speaker we can all hear.JAN LOGIE: As I was saying I want to live in a society where as a Parliament our focus is on strengthening the people’s trust in the Government and public institutions and where we do our best to protect the rule of law and the human rights of everyone in this country. There are some very significant principles at stake with this piece of legislation. I have already spoken to the principle of trust and quite significantly connected with that is the principle of balance.Last year this Government in this Parliament passed a piece of legislation to strengthen Work and Income’s requirement to recover debt from beneficiaries. It did this in response to court rulings that suggested the human rights of beneficiaries to shelter and food may actually have primacy over Work and Income’s right to reclaim debt. I want this House to think about that—that when the court said the human rights of New Zealanders may take primacy over the Government’s fiscal agenda this Government came to this House with legislation that said: “No our fiscal priorities need to take priority.” This House passed legislation that undermined people’s human rights to shelter and food. And now here we are about a year later in this House when the Government has been told by the courts very clearly over year ago that it is misapplying the law and denying people money that they are entitled by law to access and the Government is saying: “Oh we made a mistake. I know the courts think we owe these people this money but actually we’re retrospectively going to rule out that right and deny people that money.” I think that raises some pretty major questions of trust and balance.I want to talk this House through the process as it has happened as I can work out—the time line. The law was introduced on 3 June 1998 and section 80BA(4) of the Social Security Act states that if a stand-down period applies under this section benefits commence on the day on which the stand-down period ends. The day on which the stand-down period ends is the day on which the benefit commences and yet somehow for 18 years the Ministry of Social Development has been commencing the benefits on the day after the stand-down period ends. That is a pretty clear piece of legislation—benefits commence on the day the stand-down period ends—yet for 18 years despite reviews of legislation that piece of legislation has been misinterpreted.We have been hearing from the Government that well that was a technical error and that there was always the intention that the stand-down period be a week and that benefits commence the day after despite the fact that the legislation says “the day on which”. I have asked the Parliamentary Library to go through the debates at that time in 1998 to consider where the debate was and whether there were some points raised in the debate that would back up what the Government is telling us. The library could not find one reference that backed up the Government’s perception that this was not the intent of the law. We have nothing on record that backs it up.Then in May 2014 we had the courts establish that Work and Income was incorrectly interpreting the law. That is well well over a year ago. That practice of misapplying the law has continued until 29 September denying people what they were by law legally entitled to. It seems to me very worrying that despite there having been two court cases reinforcing that law and—as we heard from a previous speaker Alfred Ngaro—Cabinet having considered the fact of those court rulings Work and Income still refused to implement the law. It chose to act illegally until about 2 weeks after this came to the media’s attention.So we have court rulings—two court rulings—we have a Cabinet consideration and nothing. There was a decision and there were choices not to apply the law to beneficiaries as it was written. I can assume it was only because Work and Income did not think that beneficiaries would have any public support to back them up on accessing their legal rights until the matter managed to come to the attention of the media—through advocates raising this in a select committee. The Minister for Social Development said to me that she was not aware and then we get to a very significant problem of a major breakdown between Minister and department.DARROCH BALL (NZ First): It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill. In its essence it is a rather simple bill in so far as it wants to change one section of the principal Act. I would just like to read out part of the general policy statement which is in the explanatory note of the bill: “This Bill amends the Social Security Act 1964 to correct with retrospective effect to 3 June 1998 an error in the legislation that does not give effect to the policy intent that a benefit commences on the day after a stand-down period ends as opposed to the day on which the stand-down period ends.” In other words as the Minister has said and as other members have said this bill corrects a technical error in law. It is not a change in policy. That is the basis on which and the reason why New Zealand First will be supporting this bill.There are a couple of issues however and firstly I want to talk about the process that we are going through at the moment under urgency. There are a couple of issues about that process and one of them is the actual lack of communication from the Minister for Social Development and from the Government as a whole with regard to the change in legislation what it is going to look like the intent and even with regard to when we were going to go through the legislation and go through urgency itself. With legislation like this which is an actual correction in law that spans successive Governments you would think that communication was key.Why are we going through urgency in the first place? That is the second issue. We see if we put together the time line as Jan Logie did that in fact this change in legislation was actually placed in another piece of legislation and months later—in fact 18 months later—we now find ourselves under urgency. What are the reasons for that? I think it boils down to the fact that the Government was found out and wants to rush it through to ensure that it is not fiscally disadvantaged in the end.There is one key point that has been brought up by Labour and that is that the Government knew of this issue back in May 2014. In the departmental disclosure statement in the last paragraph under the heading “Any other unusual provisions or features” it says: “the Ministry of Social Development’s operational practice should have been amended when the error was discovered on 20 May 2014”. So the question that obviously comes out of that is: why was the operational practice not amended in May? As we can see and as I stated right at the start it is actually a simple enough bill and it is a simple enough change so why was it not changed and why was the issue not communicated to the beneficiaries and to the public back in May?As far as communication to the beneficiaries is concerned it is all well and good to give them 6 or 7 weeks—I think it has been pushed out now to 8 January—but again the lack of communication from the Minister is disappointing. However that time period is only as a result of the process we are now in—urgency. If we were not under urgency to get this pushed through there would be no need for a time limit on when people who got a benefit from May 2014 can apply.The other question actually is: if out of a matter of principle and fairness there is a 6 or 7 or 8-week period when beneficiaries who received a benefit from May onwards can apply why is everyone not able to get the back-pay for that? Why do they have to make an application to do so? In this day and age with digital computer records and everything like that going back to May 2014 there will obviously be records of all those beneficiaries who will be eligible for this back-pay. So why are we going through the rigmarole of making beneficiaries apply when it can be automatically done? That is a question that hopefully the Minister can answer during the Committee stage.The two main reasons why New Zealand First is supporting this bill are the intent of the original legislation and the intent of the stand-down period itself. It is easy actually to get dragged down an emotive pathway where we are seeing the effects of beneficiaries’ poverty. There is bill called the Support for Children in Hardship Bill going through the House and we have heard stories about children who are homeless in Auckland. We have got issues with child poverty throughout New Zealand and obviously those are big problems for this country. But this is not the problem here and this is not the legislation that we need to change to fix that problem. Labour and the Greens are opposing this bill based on that emotive pathway. So in reference to that I would actually like to look at the departmental disclosure statement again. It highlights right at the start that this bill amends the Social Security Act to correct “an error in the legislation that does not give effect to the policy intent …”. So New Zealand First’s stance is that if you take those beneficiaries from day one from 1998 and if the legislation itself was written to the intent of the bill—we know that it was not—those beneficiaries would have received exactly the same amount that they have already received.So if the legislative error was not there the beneficiaries would be no better off today than when the mistake was made. So we are correcting that and we have heard from Labour and from the Greens that the beneficiaries are owed money and that they missed out on a day but the intent of that original legislation states that they did not. And of course if the situation was reversed and the intent was for them to have the extra day and they did not of course we would be holding the Government to account on that.Also some have said that there is an issue with the retrospective effect. The departmental disclosure statement says that in this case the retrospective provisions can be justified to ensure that the Government policy intent is upheld that the practice and understanding that has been previously applied by the Ministry of Social Development is validated and that financial costs to the Crown that were not anticipated are avoided. New Zealand First agrees with that.I would just like to finish off with a 3 News article about this urgent Government bill that is going through to fix a benefit error. TV3 states that beneficiaries are being underpaid by 1 day. It is disingenuous to report that because that is not the case. Beneficiaries have not been underpaid by 1 day. The intent of the bill was fulfilled and that is why New Zealand First is supporting this bill.It has always been Government policy—in fact the Minister has said it too—that the benefit will commence the day after a stand down and that the stand-down period is a 7-day period. So it is not just the case under the National Government; it has been so under successive Governments. And it is a little bit contradictory for the Labour Party to oppose this when the policy intent was being fulfilled under the Labour Government too.I have got a few more things to say and I will say them in the second reading and in the Committee of the whole House but at this stage we will be supporting the bill.JONO NAYLOR (National): I would just like to acknowledge the contribution made by Darroch Ball because he did highlight the fact that this is actually a very technical bill and not one that we need to get too carried away on in terms of the wider impacts on families who are dependent on benefits or otherwise. This is a technical bill. There is a technical error in some of the drafting that needs to be fixed and that is exactly what we are looking at.Some people have talked about the fact that there was nothing compelling in Hansard or in the debates when the initial legislation was put in in 1998. I think the issue here is that you have got to look at the intent. When you have a stand down people would normally acknowledge that actually after a period of a stand down then that kicks in and not necessarily on the day on which it ends or otherwise.But there have been some conflicting ideas about this and so today through this legislation we are going to put it right. When you are putting things right you have got to make sure that things are in essence fair and practical and I believe the balance we have arrived at with this legislation is both fair and practical. It is not practical for us to for ever and a day keep taking people’s challenge of things going back as far as 1998 and so what we are saying is actually from the point at which this legislation comes into practice you will not be able to go back to 1998.However I think it is fair and reasonable for us to acknowledge that actually since May of 2014 perhaps things should have been done differently. So there is an option through until January this year for people to apply for a refund for where they have been unreasonably treated perhaps and that is exactly what will happen. Thank you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. I call Marama Davidson—5 minutes.MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): Kia ora. This bill seeks to fix a mistake that recently came to light that found that the law was not being followed. The law was not being followed and people receiving a benefit were missing out on a day’s pay and that has been happening since 1998.What I would like to raise in this short call is that the law says that they are entitled to this—this is a legal entitlement. Retrospective legislation to deny people what is owed to them is I think an affront to the rule of law and when that affront to the rule of law harshly impacts on those already doing it tough then to me that is a stain on our moral society on a transparent society and on a society that has to be based on trust which my colleague Jan Logie has already referred to. The operational blunders have been raised often and rightly I believe.We go to intent again which I feel is a good point to raise. Firstly where does it say what the intent was? I think the onus should be on the Government to prove that. But secondly even though that was the intent the law was quite clear and so this is a legal entitlement that we should be upholding as per good lawmaking in this country. Some 10000 people have already applied to get what they are entitled to so this we know directly affects a huge number of New Zealanders and would help in numerous and meaningful ways.I know that the previous speaker Jono Naylor would prefer that we do not talk about them and that we try to ignore the stories of absolute hardship and also the stories where this would help and the stories where this would be an investment in our children—for example those who are homeless according to the report released today. Denying this payment is absolutely going to add to the hardship that too many are already feeling. For example the economy and the state of employment at the moment are up and down. They are tumultuous so people have needed to move in and out of employment for so many valid reasons.I know that in my own past as a mother of young children in full-time paid employment it was validly difficult trying to uphold that in light of huge costs. I had to keep trying to find a job that would enable me to work but would also properly cover my basic living costs. So that is a very real situation that many people face. You know that is the nature of our current employment market. It is precarious.Again I would like to support what Poto Williams has said. I also wanted to talk about our seasonal workers. Often the nature of their work is unstable. They are often in and out of these employment situations and this has undoubtedly hit them hard. Those stand-down periods have undoubtedly hit them hard.My last point is that I also stand—again despite what some members would like to ignore—to acknowledge the disproportional effect that this will have on Māori Pacific and migrant communities. I am asking for written responses to see whether we can also get a handle on how many children this payment would benefit. We are opposed to this bill. Thank you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The Hon Ruth Dyson—5 minutes.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I just want to commend Marama Davidson the member who has just resumed her seat for her contribution to this debate. I say to the member Darroch Ball from New Zealand First who spoke before her that I think he should have listened to her contribution and figured out that actually the law as written in 1998 did not make it clear that the way it was operationalised after that was in fact the intent of the law. Nothing in the Hansard records would lead one to assume that that was the case. But I do not think that there was a deliberate attempt either by the Minister at the time—who was the Minister in 1998?Carmel Sepuloni: I’m trying to find out.Hon RUTH DYSON: OK. I cannot recall who the social welfare Minister was in 1998 but I do not think the Minister at the time or the current Minister for Social Development or the department have made a deliberate decision to underpay beneficiaries—to start people getting their benefit a day later than they were intended to.This is an error. This is legislation interpreted 18 years later in a different way than it has been implemented. So that is not the challenge for this House to debate. In my view the challenge for us is to say: how should we fix what has been determined through the appeal process to be a misinterpretation of the law? So of course you have to say that either we are going to change our operation or we are going to change the law. The Minister has decided to have a bob each way and that is where I disagree with her.I think that it is fair enough for her to take a call as the Minister and say “Well we’ll start the payment the day after the stand down ends as we will do as we have been doing.” or “We will start it as the original law intended. We will leave the law as it is and start it on the last day of the stand down.”—that is the difference. That is where the 1 day comes from. But to then say “We’re going to change the law to the way it has been interpreted”—that is leaving all those beneficiaries with a day less of their payment than they would have had if it had been interpreted in the way that it was intended—“to retrospectively take that off them.” is unfair. It is saying “We interpreted the law wrongly for 18 years. We found out 15 months ago that we were doing it wrong but we are going to retrospectively take that entitlement off”—how many people? We do not know. It could be thousands. It could be hundreds.The Minister Anne Tolley sort of dismissed it in a radio interview that I heard. She said: “Oh it’s only a day so it won’t be very many.” Well actually over 18 years it could be quite a lot. If teacher-aides for example are employed term by term they may be on a stand down four times in 1 year and over 18 years that is quite a few days’ payment they would be entitled to. But the Minister has said: “Oh we’ve got to balance changing the law with financial responsibility.” Well I say actually our job is to comply with the law or to change it but not to change it retrospectively to suit—what? The Budget? Convenience?People were left out of their legal entitlement because of a misinterpretation and I do not think they should have that 1 day’s pay from their benefit taken off them by a retrospective law change. So that is where I strongly disagree with the determination that the Minister has come down on. Retrospectively taking away an entitlement is bad law. It is unfair it is wrong and I would not want my name to be marking alongside it. I do not understand if it is as few people as the Minister has said why she is happy to go along with it.So I think we should stick to the facts of this case. The idea that some have raised that there might be worthy beneficiaries and not-so-worthy beneficiaries—I do not agree with that at all. I think that is a disgraceful slide into value judgments which is not appropriate for this Parliament.The idea that Parliament should fix a misunderstanding only from the day that it discovered it is just plain nonsense. The courts would never do that. The courts would never say: “This is our determination and from now on you will interpret it.” The courts operate in a way of interpreting our law from the time that a law has passed. That is the standard that is set by our judicial system and I think it is a standard that this Parliament should follow.Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the first reading of the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill. The matter being dealt with in this bill under urgency is a very urgent matter because there are a number of people who go on benefit each day and it is dealing with that number of people. This bill is to clarify the Social Security Act about the commencement of benefits and to ensure that the Government’s policy intent is upheld.This Government is committed to our welfare reforms. We know hundreds of people are getting off benefit every day because they are getting into jobs. When people go on benefit there is a stand-down period. The current practice—when I say “current practice” the practice I am referring to is the one that started in June 1998 and ran until 29 September 2015 because from 29 September 2015 we have changed the practice to reflect what is in the legislation. The current practice has been what the intention of the legislation was which is to start the benefit after the stand-down period finishes—that is the next day after the stand-down period finishes.So the current practice is in line with the intention of the legislation but if I look at the legislation it says that Work and Income people should start benefits from the last day of the stand-down period. So there is a big discrepancy in the legislation and the intention of the policy and it is important that the legislation reflects the intention of the policy. It is a great bill. I support this bill and commend it to the House.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I enjoyed that speech from the member Parmjeet Parmar. The senior Government whip Tim Macindoe was staring at her throughout I think encouraging her to take her seat. I guess now that the member does not have taxpayers’ money available to her to promote herself as a possible candidate in an upcoming by-election she is having to do it the old-fashioned way by using her time in the House to try to raise her profile in the event that she should find herself the National Party candidate in any upcoming by-election.The member also said that this is an urgent matter for the Government I guess as some way of trying to convince the House that this bill actually belongs in the urgency motion. Well if it was such an urgent matter for the Government it would have dealt with it somewhere between May 2014 and today. More than a year and a half since the Government realised that it had been breaking the law it is finally getting around under urgency to dealing with it—a year and a half after it realised it was breaking the law.I have heard members opposite say: “Oh this is just technical. It’s not such a big deal.” The last time I checked being ignorant of the law was not a defence for breaking the law. But even when the Government became aware of the fact that it was breaking the law it continued to break the law until it became public. So the test for this Government was not “Are we doing the right thing? Are we adhering to the rule of law?”; the test was: “Will this look bad for us on the front page of the Dominion Post?” When it started to look bad for it on the front page of the newspaper and on the 6 o’clock news only then did this Government decide that it was probably about time to start doing something about it. I think that goes to the motivation of this Government. If it can get away with it it will break the law. Only when it becomes politically dodgy for it is it actually prepared to do something about it.I actually do not think this is just a trivial matter because it actually helps us to understand the standards to which the Government holds itself. We have heard about the housing Minister’s office encouraging Housing New Zealand officials to involve Parmjeet Parmar—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! This is not in the bill.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —in a roadshow because she wanted to raise her profile—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Come back to the bill.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —and we have heard about a range of other matters that actually question the standards of this Government. I think the fact that it has brought this legislation under urgency more than a year and a half after it discovered it was breaking the law is just another example of the shoddy standards of this John Key - led Government.The other thing I have heard about why this is just a trivial matter is that for the people involved it is not a lot of money—it is just 1 day on the benefit. There are probably not many people involved although the Government cannot tell us how many people are involved. It cannot tell us what the cost of compensating everybody who has been affected by this breach of the law by the Government would be. I do not even think the Government has told us what the cost of the opportunity to seek compensation that it is offering will be. There is very little information for the House from this Government.But I want to challengethe notion—and other members have done this as well—that this is a small matter for everybody affected by this because there are a number of people and it is a growing number of people who move in and out of work on a regular basis. They are people who are in temporary work like seasonal work like fixed-term contracts and like casual work and people who get their work through temping agencies or labour-hire companies. For a lot of people these days they are moving in and out of work. Every time the work that they have comes to an end—whether it be because it is a fixed-term contract whether it be because it is seasonal work whether it is casual work that has come to an end—they then have to go through this stand-down period.The example that has been used a number of times particularly is of classroom support people. They have a number of fixed terms every year because they are actually employed only during the school term. For those people they are having to go through this stand-down periodfour or maybe five times a year. That is 4 or 5 days every year for many of them. We are talking about an 18-year period here over which maybe four or five times a year an individual may have been denied a day of benefit that they were entitled to under the law. So for some people—and I appreciate that it is probably not an enormous number of people—this is more than just trivial. Just because it is a small number of people—possibly; we do not actually know because the Government cannot tell us any figures. Just because they are not people who are a priority to the National Government does not mean that it is not very real for those people and it does not mean that we as a Parliament should not address that for them and compensate them for it. I think it is more than just trivial.Actually I think it raises the issue of just how relevant and appropriate this stand-down period as it is applied today actually is in the 21st century because the number of people who are engaged in this type of temporary work is growing and growing at a dramatic pace. Overall in the New Zealand employment market around 10.5 percent of workers fall into one of those categories of temporary workers—around 10.5 percent. OK so that is a significant number of people but only one-tenth of the overall employment market. However for the jobs that were created between 2008 and 2012 a full 28 percent of those jobs—28600 people—are actually in that form of temporary work. In recent years the overall proportion of people in these temporary work situations has grown significantly and that is a trend that shows absolutely no sign of abating at all.This issue of the stand-down period is actually one of those issues that falls into that suite of issues that we on this side of the House are talking about as part of our Future of Work Commission because the nature of work is changing. This is maybe a 19th century but probably not—very much a 20th century policy when overall the vast majority of people were in stable work with a set number of hours a week had long-term prospects of staying in the same job and were not moving in and out of employment on a regular basis. That is sadly becoming a thing of the past. The fact that it is becoming a thing of the past is not something that we should resign ourselves to and we as parliamentarians should be looking at how we provide employment security and income security for people. But we have to acknowledge that the nature of work is changing and this policy of putting people through a stand-down period especially those people who are on fixed-term contracts and especially those people who by the very nature of their work are required to go through a stand-down period a number of times a year—I think it is a well-overdue time for us to reflect on that policy and actually ask ourselves as a Parliament whether that is an appropriate policy in the 21st century.In a lot of ways I think this change is perhaps not the change we should be debating. We should actually be debating the question of how the stand-down period actually operates and whether it is appropriate. On this side of the House we do not see this as a trivial matter and we will not trivialise it in the way that members opposite have. This is significant and for the people who have been affected by it it is significant. We actually need to acknowledge that and treat this as a serious issue and try to actually get it right because some people have been severely affected—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry the member’s time has expired.STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): We do not take this as a trivial matter at all on this side of the House. I think the reason we are debating this bill today is that the policy intent back in 1998 was very very clear and due to drafting errors or poor wording we have ended up with the legislation not matching that policy intent. That needs to be addressed for many reasons but not the least being a fiscal one. Although there has been a little bit of politics from the Labour Party in this particular debate I think the contributions from the Green members underline for those who were in any doubt that they certainly are not ready for the Treasury benches. It would be certainly a cruel and unusual punishment should they ever get the opportunity to be unleashed on us in that area.This is a very timely bill. It is very good to get it done at this point. It absolutely nails the problem that we have of getting the legislation lined up with the policy intent. I commend it to the House. Thank you.A party vote was called for on the question That the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.Ayes 75New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 46New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14.Bill read a first time.Second ReadingHon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): I move That the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I want to reiterate the Government’s consistent and longstanding position on benefits and stand-down periods. The current stand down provisions in section 80BA of the Social Security Act first came into force in 1997. These provisions were based on the policy agreed in 1996 that benefits commence on the day after a stand-down period ends. This policy has never changed. The legislative error created on 3 June 1998 is a technical mistake not a policy change. However the result is that it provides for people to have an additional day of benefit payment that they were never intended to have. So the legislation needs to be changed to avoid unintended Crown costs but in effect that is costs to the taxpayer.We need to avoid unintended costs to the taxpayer but we are attempting to do this in a fair way. There are three separate provisions protecting people who have been able to receive this additional day or who want to lodge a review to receive it. This is a very reasonable compromise that provides a balance between clients’ interests and the financial costs of the error.I would like to take the opportunity to outline to the House the process that clients can now expect if this legislation comes into effect. Clients who have already lodged a review request—and I understand there are between 8000 and 10000 of those to date—will continue to have it processed in the normal way. These reviews can relate to a benefit granted back to 1998 when the legislation was amended. Those who have been granted a benefit after a stand down since the operational practice changed on 29 September 2015 will also be protected by this bill. This bill will also enable people who have been granted a benefit since the Ministry for Social Development was made aware of the error to seek a review. These reviews if my Supplementary Order Paper—Supplementary Order Paper 141 tabled in the House today—is passed by the House must be lodged by 8 January giving people 7 weeks to do so. Review forms are currently available online and at all Work and Income sites. They can be posted they can be faxed or they can be emailed. In addition to this the Ministry for Social Development has created an online form that can be submitted electronically and this will be available once the legislation has passed.I want to make it clear that these protection provisions are a measure of the Government’s good faith. They do not negate the original policy intent that a benefit should commence on a day after a stand down finish period ends. As I said earlier those seeking a review will have 7 weeks to submit their request for review and I think that this strikes a balance between what is fair to them and what is fair to the taxpayer. I commend this bill to the House.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.ALFRED NGARO (National): We are not disappointed in Darroch Ball. I think he is a wise young man who comes from Liston College out in the west. I actually visited Liston College not so long ago and saw the principal there who said that they are proud that one of their old boys has become a member of Parliament so I think they are very proud of Darroch Ball. We are proud that he is a member of the Social Services Committee and makes a great contribution to the committee as well.Just in regard to the second reading of the bill I think there has been a lot said about the bill. It is a technical piece of legislation that is correcting something that goes back to 1998. I will keep saying that again because it has been some time since then. So I do not want to go over that as I have sort of laid it out in my first speech but I just want to talk about the issue around financial cost.Before I do that there was a comment by the previous speaker Ms Carmel Sepuloni around the regulatory impact statement. It was a good point. She asked why it is that we do not have a regulatory impact statement. In actual fact what has happened is that this piece of legislation has come out of the current piece of legislation that is before the Social Services Committee called the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill. It is inside that bill that there is a regulatory impact statement which has the issues that have been detailed. So just to answer the question about a regulatory impact statement that is the purpose and that is the reason why it is in there.Hon Ruth Dyson: What does it say? What does it say Alfred?ALFRED NGARO: So it is in there—I do not have that in front of me right now OK but we can get that. I am sure that throughout the night there will be opportunities to talk about the points that I want to raise in regard to the regulatory impact statement on this current bill.I just want to touch on a couple of things that have been raised that I think are important in regard to the financial costs. Officials have estimated the total cost of backdated payments to be in the region of $3.5 million for clients whose benefits commenced on or after 20 May 2014 who lodge a review in the 6-week period after the legislative change. That may rise—we are not sure—but that is what is currently before us at the moment.Until the legislative change takes effect the ministry will begin paying benefits consistent with current legislation. This will increase benefit expenditure. The effect of this change to current operating practice has been estimated at around about $0.4 million. So I think there was a question that was asked in some of the speeches about understanding what those costs could be. On that last point around financial cost to put this in perspective we reduced the expected costs of supporting current beneficiaries over their lifetime by $7.5 billion last year. That has become part of the overall package that this Government has made to provide support to those who are on benefits as well.That is my sort of brief contribution at this stage. I look forward to the Committee stage and some of the other discussions and debates there may be but I do commend this bill in its second reading to the House.POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): Firstly I just want to make a comment on something that the previous speaker Alfred Ngaro mentioned. They have included the technical correction of this error as a way of saying that the Government is actually doing things for beneficiaries. I find that totally bizarre actually. It should be doing this. This is an error that needs correcting. You should not be crowing Mr Ngaro that this is part of the Government’s programme to support beneficiaries; this should have been done in the first placeactually. They are completely owed what this bill intends to do.Hon Anne Tolley: Nine years of Labour didn’t pay it back either. Nine years of a Labour Government didn’t pay it back.POTO WILLIAMS: Minister must I remind you that 1998 was the date of the error. There have been many Governments since then.David Shearer: Seven long years.POTO WILLIAMS: Absolutely—absolutely. So let us not quibble about which Government is responsible. We know that the National Government likes to blame everything on Labour because it takes no responsibility itself—it takes no responsibility itself. Hey we have got broad shoulders. We are taking responsibility. When we come to the Committee stage I want the Government MPs to take responsibility and take some calls which they did not do on the other bill that went through today under urgency. So let us see. We will see what happens. We know that the Government has forced us into urgency on three bills but its members are not even prepared to stand up in the Committee stage and take calls to defend the Government’s position. It has gone quiet over there. Thank you—thank you for that. I will continue with my second reading speech thank you very much.We all know that this bill has come out of a need and a desire to correct a technical error but I want to ask a question and during the Committee stage I hope Minister that you will answer it. Why was this bill actually part of the Social—now what was the name of that bill Carmel?Hon Ruth Dyson: Extension of Young Persons Services.POTO WILLIAMS: The Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill—thank you. Why was this—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I will just remind the member to address other members properly.POTO WILLIAMS: Thank you. Ms Sepuloni—thank you very much. Why was this bill part of that piece of legislation? Why was that?I think it is amazing and it is great that that significant piece of work was actually taken out of the original bill so that we can actually discuss this properly. It should not have been part of that bill. Was it actually an attempt to cover up the fact that this error had come to light—and not come to light in recent times but actually a year and a half ago? It was a long time ago that this error came to light but the Government sat on it. It sat on it until November 2015 in order to actually force the bill through under urgency. Then we get to the point where people have got until 8 January to apply for a review—7 weeks. We all know that if people are looking to apply for a review we have got a couple of weeks of closure at our Government offices; so technically that is going to cut a couple of weeks from their ability to get their applications in for the review process.Why is this happening now? What is so urgent about doing this right now? According to Mr Ngaro the cost of this is $3.5 million. Is that going to change if we pass this piece of legislation today or if we pass it at the beginning of next year? I say: not significantly. So what is the hurry to get this bill through under urgency? Is this an excuse to hold us in the House to pass this piece of legislation—and the one before and the one following? No one has really justified this to us as yet. I would be really interested to hear your comments on that Minister when we come to the Committee stage—if you would take a call on that.I really recommend supporting the extension of the commencement date of this bill which will give people adequate time to find out whether they are able to apply and to then put in an application for review. The Greens are advertising the fact. I think that is a great idea. It shows real openness and transparency. It could do on the Government’s part to actually capture those people who need to look at whether they want to respond. Indeed Carmel Sepuloni did say that the people she has spoken to probably will not—that they will not be bothered by it. But at least it gives them the opportunity to do that. When we come to the Committee stage I will be really interested to get some answers from the Minister about why she will not be looking at an advertising programme and at an extension of the commencement date which actually makes a lot of sense and whether the ministry has done any work on how many people have actually been captured by this going back to 1998—and not just Labour Governments but National Governments as well. I know that we will have plenty of opportunity to traverse this through the Committee of the whole House and I look forward to doing so. Thank you.TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): I rise this afternoon to support the second reading of our bill the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill. I would like to start by making a few comments about responsibility. I found it very interesting listening to the previous member lecture us in respect of responsibility. I think it is the height of responsibility actually to put this bill in place as we have this afternoon.The bill corrects this technical error with full retrospective effect back to 3 June. It is the height of responsibility and fairness to have included in that bill an acknowledgment that those who have lodged a review of decisions relating to a benefit commencement on or after the 1998 amendment can still have their review processes seen to in the normal manner. It is an extremely responsible and fair bill and Government that acknowledges and puts in under Supplementary Order Paper 141 a 7-week review period where clients have benefits that commenced after the Social Security Appeal Authority decision of May last year. But in my view it is completely irresponsible to be holding the view that because of this technical error every benefit commencement going back to 1998 should be included. It is irresponsible from a logic perspective and it is irresponsible from a taxpayer perspective.Also I do go back to the core view that I have in this debate. It relates to the Government in 1998 successive Governments since and the Ministry of Social Development and its predecessors from 1998 through to today all holding the view that a stand-down period particularly when applied to a particular week—it was at the end of those 7 days that you were stood down and then on the eighth day it began. Everybody was under that assumption. Those who made the law those who were administering the law and every one of the Ministry of Social Development’s clients who came to the door were equally under that assumption. So everyone assumed that that was what the rules were until of course this particular Social Security Appeal Authority decision from last year.This is a responsible Government which has put together a comprehensive bill that reflects the policy intent ensures that it is retrospectively validated and then has in my view very fair and natural justice for those who are caught up in this process to have their interests looked at and protected. It is a good bill. I look forward to future debate and discussion. I commend the second reading to the House. Thank you.JAN LOGIE (Green): I would like to talk in some detail about the use of urgency for the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill but before I do I do need to address some of the points raised by the previous speaker Todd Muller. He said that this bill is the height of responsibility and fairness. This bill seeks to retrospectively remove the legal entitlement of some of the poorest New Zealanders all for the purpose of saving this Government money. That I think goes to the point that we are hearing consistently from that side of the House that financial responsibility means that the Government has to bring this bill to the House. Any money that would go to those people—it would obviously be irresponsible for the Government to hand out money to people. The intent of this bill is that it was always clear that it was supposed to be “the day after” even though section 80BA(4)(a)(i) of the Social Security Act reads “the day on which the stand down period ends;”. I do not know how that can lead people to think it is the day after. You read the words that benefits commence “on the day on which the stand down period ends;” and suddenly you interpret that as the day after which is what this Government has been doing. The Government does not seem to understand the rule of law. The Government is telling us despite how the courts have interpreted this based on the debates and from reading this legislation stating “the day on which” that actually the intent was always clear that it was the day after. That really does stretch the Government’s credibility; it really really does stretch credibility.I would like to speak a little bit more too specifically because this is the second reading and this is the time when we normally would have been through a select committee process. This Government through a previous speaker has told us that well we have been through a select committee process because there was a provision in another bill which related to the extension of youth services and was entitled the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill that sought to retrospectively deny those people their rights. It looked nothing like this piece of legislation might I say but there was a provision in that bill that covered this so therefore—we were told—we have been through the process. Well I do want to point out to people that there was one submission that picked up this point. I cannot even talk about what we were told from the departmental advisers because that is business that is still in front of the Social Services Committee so I would be breaching privilege if I spoke about the advice that we were given in relation to that point in this bill. This I think raises some significant process issues in that we are now debating a bill and the Government is telling us that that process applies to this and means we can go through this under urgency but I cannot talk about the detail of it because it is still under select committee privilege. That is worrying. That is not a good process at all.I would like to remind people to think about the appropriate use of urgency. There was a book published on this a few years ago called What’s the Hurry? which talked about the 10 guiding principles for the use of urgency for this House to consider. Point No. 1 is “Legislatures should allow time and opportunity for informed and open policy deliberation”. That has not happened. Point No. 2 is “The legislative process should allow sufficient time and opportunity for the adequate scrutiny of bills”. Days? No. That is not adequate time. That condition has not been met. Point No. 3 is “Citizens should be able to participate in the legislative process”. Again that has not happened. Point No. 4 is “Parliament should operate in a transparent manner”. Well putting a provision inside another bill on a very substantive point hidden as a remedial matter which the Government was hoping nobody would pick up? That is not transparency. Moving this bill through under urgency without the ability for public participation—that is not transparency. Refusing to implement the court’s decision and bringing this through under this process is not transparency and does not uphold the rule of law.The next point is point No. 5: “The House should strive to produce high quality legislation”. How can we produce high-quality legislation when we are rushing it through? Point No. 6 is “Legislation should not jeopardise fundamental constitutional rights and principles”. One of those is around the rule of law and non-retrospective legislation and here we are putting through under urgency retrospective legislation that undermines the rule of law. Point No. 7 is “Parliaments should follow stable procedural rules”.Point No. 8 is “Parliament should foster not erode respect for itself as an institution”—and that to me goes to the very very heart of what is wrong with this piece of legislation. When we have over a million people who did not vote where we have people not going to Work and Income because they find that experience so alienating that they are living in cars because they do not want to deal with it and here the people’s benefits get cut by 100 percent or 50 percent if they miss a bus and miss an appointment. Here the Government is making a very very fundamental misinterpretation of the law which reads to me so clearly. It is saying “Yes we made a mistake and we’re just going to fix that up and deny all of you your rights over the last 18 years.”; not “OK we made a mistake. We’re going to fix this for the future.” That would have been credible. We would have supported that if you had brought that case. But no you are doing it retrospectively and it is so out of balance with those people’s experience of how you—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!JAN LOGIE: Not you Mr Assistant Speaker—how the Government implements this system. It is so out of balance and such a misuse of power that it undermines the respect for Parliament as an institution. The ninth point is that “The Government has a right to govern so long as it commands a majority …” but the respect for this principle has to be balanced against all of the other points which we have clearly seen are not met by this legislation. Point No. 10 is “Parliament should be able to enact legislation quickly in”—it says—“(actual) emergency situations”. Well tell me where the emergency is beyond the fact that people are putting in claims to get back an average of $80 from the Government to be able to put some food on their table before Christmas to access a right that the courts have established very clearly and well over a year ago that they are entitled to—where is the emergency in that? This is a shameful use of the House and the process and a misuse of power by this Government.I would like in this very short period of time remaining to me to point out some of the issues that people have been raising that I have been able to see even though we have not had a select committee process sadly. One person’s comment was: “If only someone had told Greece that dealing with debt was as simple as passing a law saying they don’t have to pay.” People are seeing this. People who do not have much resource who have a fragile relationship with the State are watching this and their confidence is being eroded. People have talked about the fact—I have seen—that they would like to apply but actually their situation at the moment is that they would have to print out the forms sign them get down to a Work and Income office and they do not have a printer. They do not have access in terms of filling in the forms on email to be able to scan and sign them and they cannot get down there. Here are people who are being told or they have just found out that they have got this legal entitlement and they want to access it and they are going “I don’t know how to do this.” They basically will have too short a period of time because of where this cuts off unless of course it was after May 2014 and those people will have a few weeks until 8 January—over a holiday period over an incredibly stressful time of the year. People with other languages may not find out—the Government has made no commitment to notify anyone to let them know of their rights. We are also hearing from people that they are actually not in a position to be able to access the technology to be able to apply. Really we need to go back to the point that these are stand downs which is a debatable point and has been for a long time in this House because it impacts on people’s ability to provide shelter and feed themselves.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. During Jan Logie’s contribution she made the point that the advice to the Social Services Committee is obviously still with the select committee and cannot be part of the contribution of the House because the bill is before the select committee. This legislation that we are debating now has been removed at the select committee from that bill the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill. So the primary bill remains with the select committee. We have got a bit of it here but we are not able to access the officials’ advice. It is not a usual situation and I wonder whether you could give that consideration and some contribution on whether we would be able to get particularly in the Committee stage access to that officials’ advice—just on the part that is relevant to this bill because that bit is no longer before the select committee; the rest of the bill is.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I was listening to Jan Logie’s comments and she was I think accurate in her summation of the situation notwithstanding the fact that the chair of the Social Services Committee Alfred Ngaro has assured us that this bill is substantially the same in its effect as part of the bill currently being considered by the committee and in fact he referred to the regulatory impact statement and referred members to that which is available. I am advised that the advice because it is still with the committee is not available to this House for continued debate. I think that is a matter that at some stage it would be appropriate for the Standing Orders Committee to have a look at.The other point that I would make is that in the end the House is the master of its own destiny and if a member especially the chair of the select committee thought that there was useful advice available on the effect of this legislation from departmental officials then it would be within his right to seek the leave of the House notwithstanding the particular Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings for that material—just that material—to be made available and I would put it if he did so.Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I wonder having heard your ruling whether you could give some advice because we are told in the departmental disclosure statement that there is no regulatory impact statement available and then we have a regulatory impact statement called Extension of the Youth Service dated February 2015. Is it possible to direct us because we cannot find it in this regulatory impact statement. Either one there is not one or we are told this is something and we cannot find where this part of the bill is mentioned in here. So have we got a regulatory impact statement that relates to this part of the legislation or not?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am sorry. I did rely on the assurance from the chair of the committee that the regulatory impact statement did cover this particular clause and I apologise if I misinterpreted him. If the member is saying that it does not and the member said it did that is a debatable matter on which I am not going to rule.Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I draw your attention to the departmental disclosure statement. Where it says “Were any regulatory impact statements provided to inform the policy decisions that led to this Bill?” the answer says “NO”. So could I ask you to ask the Government to clarify whether we have a regulatory impact statement on this bill or not.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): The answer to the member’s question is no. I am not going to ask the Government to do anything. It is a matter for it to do something if it so wishes.DARROCH BALL (NZ First): I would like to just make a few points in my second reading speech and reiterate a couple. The first is the main reason why New Zealand First is supporting this bill is that it is a technical error in law and not a change in policy. I know that a couple of the parties in the House are arguing against that fact. In fact we have heard a few arguments from the Labour Party and the Greens about why they are opposing this bill. There was an argument that there was a trust issue or about the way that the process has been conducted.We have heard of emotive issues in regard to child poverty and poverty in general and of beneficiaries bearing the brunt of those issues of poverty and why they deserve to have that money back-paid. We also heard an argument that there was actually no intent at all or that the intent was not known for the original bill and that the beneficiaries are actually owed 1 day’s worth—on average $80—of back-pay and that the Government is in debt to them. But at best this is actually a loophole in the law because if you look at the intent of the original legislation—but not only the original legislation; if Labour wants to go through the Hansard and look for original comments on the original intent of the original legislation—we are talking about the way that the policy was implemented for the last 20-odd years.Like I mentioned in my first reading speech the intent was fulfilled by successive Governments. The 7 days of stand down was always the intent of the policy and like I said in the first reading if the legislative error that was written was written to the intent of the bill the beneficiaries would have received the exact same amount as they did receive. If the tables were turned and the intent of the bill was that they were supposed to get that extra day but the law was written differently that would mean that they were owed that extra day in pay and then New Zealand First would be stating that and holding the Government to account. But this is a legislative drafting error; this is not a change in policy. That is why New Zealand First is supporting this bill.The other reason too apart from the intent of the original bill is the actual intent of the stand-down period. I know that it has been brought up and there are some issues with the concept of a stand-down period but the fact is that the stand-down period is there it is in law and it is being implemented. I went to have a look at the Social Security Act 1964 to actually have a look at the stand-down period and why there was a stand-down period and the justification for the stand-down period. It says in section 80BA(2): “Every benefit to which this section applies shall be subject to a stand down period calculated in accordance with Schedule 28.” I went and had a look at schedule 28 and basically it takes into account and calculates and assesses the average wage or income for the individual. It takes into account the living conditions of the beneficiaries in regard to whether they have got children whether they are a solo parent—and all other issues like that: income marital status and children. So when the beneficiaries went in to apply for their benefit from 1998—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Excuse me. Can I get the member standing over there to crouch down. Thank you.DARROCH BALL: —until May their needs were assessed. So their needs for which benefit they needed and how much they were going to get which included their living status and included how long they needed to be on stand down were assessed.Like I said and like the Minister has said and other members have said the intent of the stand down was for it to last for a full working week so 7 days. It does not make sense that the benefit would start on the seventh day; it would occur on the eighth day. That was the intent and it has been happening through successive Governments. But New Zealand First does have an issue with the review period for the beneficiaries who applied for their benefit from May last year. If it is going through until January it has been extended to 7 weeks now. Obviously that includes the Christmas period—a busy period—and it would minimise the number of people who were actually able to go to apply in the first place. So I think that it is being a little bit disingenuous in extending it through the Christmas period.Like I said in the first reading there is the fact that we do not actually think there is a need for a review period because we believe if it is a matter of principle that when the Government actually knew that there was an issue with the legislation in May 2014 and it still did not implement that change then every single person who got the benefit from that point should automatically be getting the back-pay that they are eligible for. You know it was only May 2014. We have got the records. We have got the ability to do it digitally. We know exactly who is eligible for it and it can be done very quickly. We should not be expecting beneficiaries to have to go into their offices or go online and apply for this back-pay. We believe that it should be automatic from May onwards. That is where I will leave it at the moment. I will look forward to the Committee stage but at this stage New Zealand First will continue to support this bill.JONO NAYLOR (National): I just want to limit my contribution on this particular occasion to addressing a couple of things that were raised by the previous Green member. There were a couple of accusations in there levelled towards the Government that were pretty much unfounded and I think need to not go unchallenged.There was the way the bill was talked about in terms of the Government trying to save money. I think that is the role of the Government to a certain degree is it not? The only money that the Government actually has control of is in fact the money that it has received from the taxpayers of New Zealand. Sometimes they are not necessarily that willing to part with that money and so it is beholden on us to ensure that we look after it in the most prudent possible way. [Interruption]The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I will just ask the member to sit. Could I also ask the junior Opposition whip not to interject as she walks along. Thank you.JONO NAYLOR: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. As I was saying I think it is really important for us to actually act in a prudent way on behalf of the taxpayers of New Zealand.The other point that was made was that originally this legislation was somehow buried in another piece of legislation and was just being referred to as “remedial matters”. Well if there ever was anything that was a remedial matter this matter is absolutely it. What we are trying to do is remedy something that was done—as the previous speaker from New Zealand First Darroch Ball said—in a legislative drafting error. We are just wanting to remedy that get it tidied up and get it sorted out. It is really important for us to get this legislation through to get things back on track to the way that they were always intended to be and that is why I think it is important that we do this under urgency and get it through in the best possible time.MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): Again—again—all that we know about intent is what was written in the law and the law was very clear. I would like to pick up on the previous speaker’s reference to saving money being prudent and what is a fiscal risk to the taxpayer. I think we can just look at housing for example. If we want to look at managing money and managing investment for good economic outcomes we can look at how the Government has failed to invest in the needs of New Zealanders and families and in the long run we actually end up paying through the nose for it—all of us taxpayers. I just wanted to make that point.Again I absolutely know that this is poor process—that we are here under urgency debating this piece of legislation without any consultation. It is those voices that I would like to take a moment to uphold at this stage of this lawmaking and I would like to pick up most certainly on the point that my colleague Jan Logie referred to about the Work and Income regiment—about their clients’ responsibility often being cutting; nearly every time it is cutting. Just some months ago I sat in a room with a whole group of the Manukau community—job seekers who were talking about the barriers to finding suitable and meaningful employment including for example transport and about how in south Auckland the Work and Income regiment is made particularly hard with the lack of good accessible and affordable public transport. In those cases as we have heard missing any meetings has been cutting on those very people who are doing their darnedest to try to find work and to be contributing members of society—not just socially but also economically. This is absolutely the stage where we would have heard those stories from the people themselves who are going to be directly impacted by this very piece of legislation.I think at this stage I will talk about the fact that I have been in this job for 2 weeks and already I can see how easy it would be for MPs to be very removed and understandably so from the realities that many ordinary New Zealanders face. As an MP I am able to travel free of charge. I have an accommodation benefit so I can do my job. This has been 2 weeks of my life and I absolutely agree that we need the tools to do our job but the realities in contrast with the very people this is going to impact on are important particularly at this second reading. I salute all of those people who have struggled and have done amazing things with a small amount of money to do the best for their lives.I have a quote here. Jan Logie wrote a blog recently about this issue—this bill—and a person underneath wrote: “The New Zealand Government not matter who it is has tried to get as much money back from beneficiaries as they can. No sole parent on a benefit gets to see their child support paid by the other parent. All beneficiaries pay secondary tax at approximately $20 for every $100 earned yet they dock your pay based on your gross wages.” So it is those voices that I wanted to give my time and support to in this second reading. I reiterate that there is no urgency. There is no genuine case for urgency at this time. Thank you.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Can I just commend the comments that Marama Davidson just concluded her contribution to this debate with particularly in relation to the fact that there is no urgency for this. We have heard that the Government found out about this misinterpretation between the way the legislation was written in 1998 and the way it was interpreted subsequently over 18 years. We heard that it discovered that disparity in May last year. How can it be possible that between May last year and November of this year there has not been an opportunity for this to be rectified? But wait—it has been. There is a bill before the select committee right at this very moment. This bill was included with that bill and suddenly for some reason—we have not had an explanation from the Minister or the Government members of the select committee—that part of the bill was taken out and put as a stand-alone bill.I think that is a good thing because it is an entirely separate issue from the ones that are dealt with under the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill. So it is good in terms of robust process that those bills are separated but it is not acceptable for this bill to get rammed through the House through all stages under urgency with lightweight contributions from members of the Government who are writing it off as a technical bill when clearly they do not understand it. The arrogance of first-year MPs is gobsmacking. It is just extraordinary—the number of MPs who have been here for 1 year and 5 minutes and who are so arrogant and born to rule—extraordinary.This is not an issue on which any party needs to blame another party. Both National-led and Labour-led Governments have taken the operationalising of this as the correct interpretation of the law. We were wrong. Both sides were wrong. Nobody is blaming Anne Tolley. In fact we have all commended Anne Tolley for engaging in the discussion with us about that. I do not know why the backbench of the National Party had to get up and throw rocks. It is not that sort of debate. Feel the vibe Todd feel the vibe. It is not that sort of debate.Todd Barclay: I’m not even speaking.Hon RUTH DYSON: I would say the surname if I could remember it but I cannot. What is it? Barclay—Mr Barclay; I apologise. I apologise even more because I was going to call you Todd McClay but I knew that was wrong. This bill is about a misinterpretation. The challenge for Parliament is: how should it be fixed?For 18 years we have been paying beneficiaries a day later to start their benefit than the law said. That has been determined now in a separate judicial process. Parliament needs to fix it. What the Minister has said is that the Government will accept that court determination but not right back to the beginning where it first started doing it incorrectly—just from the day it was told about it. That is an incorrect interpretation of the way the court has determined Parliament’s responsibility to not do anything but comply with the law. We either change it or we comply with it but changing it retrospectively is not a correct process particularly in this situation. So this is not a matter of blame. This is certainly not a matter of the current Minister or former Ministers wanting to cheat beneficiaries. It was just interpreted in a way that has now been determined as wrong.So in our view people right back to the very start of this from the day that it was first changed in 1998 right through until now should be able to apply if they choose. We should give them a fair period of time advertise it properly make sure that everybody knows about it as much as possible—that is fair—and say: “If you had a stand-down provision when you applied for a benefit you may have got your benefit a day later than you were legally entitled to. We—Parliament—have determined that you should get that day’s benefit paid to you.” How is that irresponsible? It is not. How is it anything but fair? It is not. It is the fair and proper thing to do as Parliament’s response to the determination that that Government received in May last year—that this issue has been misinterpreted.I would really recommend the Government to relook at its response. I think this is an opportunity for us to get it right. We have a chance now over the next 6 or 7 hours as we debate this further and I really urge the Government to just think again. We can get it right. It is a very small amount of money but I think it is worth it.Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker for the opportunity to speak on the second reading of the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill. I am taking a short call just to talk on one component of this bill and that is the retrospective component. I see that members opposite have very short memories and I am going to revive their memories. It was the previous Labour Government that amended the Immigration Act in 2003. That legislation was rushed through the House. That lapsed tens of thousands of applications that were in the queue for 2 to 3 years. The applications were in the queue for 2 to 3 years.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Sorry; I was temporarily distracted but I do want to remind the member that we are talking about the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill.Dr PARMJEET PARMAR: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I was just reminding the Opposition members that they have passed legislation that was retrospective. That legislation was surprise legislation and it was labelled monstrous legislation.If we look at this bill before the House we can see it provides a fair opportunity to those who want to seek a review of the decision about the commencement date of their benefit as long as they seek that review within the allowed time frame. Having this provision in the bill is not going to undermine the original intent of the policy. The intention is that the benefit should commence after the stand-down period finishes. It is great bill. I support this bill and I commend it to the House.Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): What is the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill all about? We are told it amends an error in the Social Security Act with retrospective effect to 3 June 1998. It was an error. It did not do what we thought it was going to do and we need to correct it. It has got a retrospective element to it no doubt. But we are not standing here saying that that is the problem. What we are saying is yes it does need to be fixed no doubt about it but the Minister of Social Development said it needed to be done in a fair way. So the argument I am going to put to the Government is: is it being done in a fair way and is natural justice being served in the way that it is being done? And I will get to that in a moment.I always go to what has been said about a bill before it comes to this House because none of us are necessarily experts and so we rely on the best of advice. I always go first of all to the regulatory impact statement. We have relied on regulatory impact statements on bills in this House for as long as I can remember. And we are told by the member Alfred Ngaro who was I think the chair of the Social Services Committee that there was a regulatory impact statement. I went and talked to him and said: “But your regulatory impact statement doesn’t address this bill at all. It’s all about the extension of the youth service.” So members opposite when you stand up to speak with such eloquence you do not know what you are talking about because your regulatory impact statement does not relate to the bill. So if the members are reading this as some sort of comfort you are not going to get much at all.So then members opposite go and read the department disclosure statement. Maybe it will tell you something about this bill that you did not know. Always look to see what it says. It says: “Are there any publicly available inquiry review or evaluation reports that have informed or are relevant to the policy to be given effect by this Bill?”. Answer: no. “Were any regulatory impact statements provided to inform the policy decisions that led to this Bill?” Answer: no. This is one that I thought was interesting: “For the policy to be given effect by this Bill is there an analysis available on: (a) the size of the potential costs and benefits?”. What is the answer to that? It is no. And then we are asked: “Has advice been provided to the Attorney-General on whether any provisions of this Bill appear to limit … the rights and freedoms affirmed in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990?”. No advice has been given. So I go back to the point I started with: this has to be fixed but is it being fixed in a fair way?You see the Minister for Social Development has put up a Supplementary Order Paper saying that there are going to be some people who will be able to claim. And as my colleagues said the Government has known since May last year. So why has it not done something earlier? What it is doing in this is allowing some to claim the day they should have been paid. Is that fair? [Interruption]The Government is only allowing some to claim Minister Bennett from when it found out there was a problem. If you went to court and said “I didn’t know I was committing a crime.” is that a defence? Is it a defence when you do not know something? I think the answer is no. You cannot use that as a defence; it is not a defence. Just because the Government did not know and no Government has known it is not a defence. So Supplementary Order Paper 142 which my colleague Carmel Sepuloni has put up—and if it is accepted by the Government we will vote for the bill—is fair and gives natural justice. It says: “Give everybody who could have been affected 6 weeks to put in an application.”How many I wonder would put in an application for their 1 day if they were given 6 weeks but they were given a fair go and natural justice? What is so hard about that members opposite? All their heads are down of course because the members opposite know that is not natural justice and that it is not fair. And surely this Parliament should be about passing fair law just law and law that is based on natural justice. Do we not go out and make speeches about that and how fair we are in this democratic country of New Zealand? And then the Minister brings in a bill and allows some people to be able to claim their day’s benefit based on the fact that her department found out at a certain time. So when it found out from that time those people can be included. Does that sound fair? I do not think so.We would like to support this bill. In fact in respect of Carmel Sepuloni’s Supplementary Order Paper if the Minister wherever she is is listening I would suggest that she looks at it and that she considers it. Would you not want to have the major support of the parties in this House to pass this retrospective legislation which we all hate? Retrospective legislation has been passed in this House on many occasions so the member who just sat down in her seat Parmjeet Parmar who was being all righteous about the fact that Labour had done some retrospective legislation has not looked at enough debates and Hansards of this place. Of course there are times when there is retrospective legislation. There are times when you have got to fix mistakes that have been made in legislation. That happens. But because it is retrospective and because we are doing it under urgency therefore denying a whole lot of comment and input on this particular piece of legislation then I would have thought a Government that really did care about justice—and I cannot believe that Chris Finlayson can think that this is fair. He is the Attorney-General. Actually he did not get to provide any advice. I cannot believe that he thinks this is fair or just when an arbitrary date can be set and that is used to give some people the right to claim money back but disregards everybody else.I do not believe there would be very many people at all who would even bother to apply because you would have to remember between 1998 and today when you left work and when the person did not get their pay at the right time. You would have to remember that. And that I would imagine would probably be beyond the ability of most people unless they are very good at bookkeeping and they have kept all their records and their payslips and so on. So I would not have thought it would be very difficult to allow anybody who was affected from 1998 in a 6-week period to put in a claim for their 1 day. So I am very sorry that the Government cannot see the strength of that argument and I look forward to the chair of the Social Services Committee Alfred Ngaro returning to this House with his comments on the regulatory impact statement that he mentioned in his speech. He said the comments we needed were in this one. They are not in this one. There is no regulatory impact statement on the department report there is no advice given to us and all I can assume is that there is a whole lot of bungling going on yet again. Surely this should have been done in a straightforward manner with the principles of fairness and natural justice at the centre of it. That is not what we are getting today.STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Well I do have to give credit where it is due. I think that was a masterful speech from a person who I think that the 150-odd people who were in Palmerston North the other weekend would prefer to see as their leader of the Labour Party Annette King. But that was a great speech.Hon Ruth Dyson: What an arrogant prat.Chris Bishop: A good speech from a good member.STUART SMITH: That is right.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): No I am going to require the member to withdraw that interjection. [Interruption] Carmel Sepuloni.Carmel Sepuloni: I didn’t say anything.Hon Ruth Dyson: I think it was me. Probably me.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Who used “arrogant” and then another word?Hon Ruth Dyson: Me.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I require Ruth Dyson to withdraw.Hon Ruth Dyson: I withdraw and apologise.STUART SMITH: Well I am going to take that as a compliment that I have had someone withdraw and apologise.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Now the member will resume his seat. I am going to remind the member as I probably should have reminded my old friend Annette King that when the Speaker has ruled members do not refer to that ruling; they just get on with business.STUART SMITH: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker—lesson learnt. This piece of legislation corrects a 1998 legislative error. It is quite clear. Everybody agrees there has been an error and that 7 days actually is a week to everybody except for the courts in this case and we are fixing that piece of legislation. Retrospective legislation has been discussed for quite a bit of time here this evening and there have been some holier than thou speeches given across from the other side. But as to the residency provisions that were referred to by my colleague earlier people have been in the queue for 2 to 3 years—they did not get 6 weeks. It was summarily dismissed overnight. Sometimes you have got to make decisions around what is responsible what is right and what is good governance. That is what the National Party stands for and it is with that in mind that I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I raise a point of order Mr Assistant Speaker. I was momentarily distracted by reading your earlier contribution in the 1998 debate actually Mr Assistant Speaker. Earlier I raised a point of order in relation to the advice from the officials at the select committee and you indicated then that Parliament was in its own hands—we are the masters of our destiny or words to that effect. You suggested that a member could move that we agree that the advice on this bill that is still stuck at the select committee and that we cannot access could be made available to us. You indicated it would be appropriate for the chair of the select committee to do that. He has not been able to do that so far. I am keen to have that advice if we are going to get it before Committee stage. Can another member move it is my question.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I do not think that I indicated that a member could move. I did indicate that with the appropriate caveats leave could be sought. To be absolutely clear the mere tabling of advice does not mean that members can refer to it. If it were to be tabled it would have to be with leave sought for it to be tabled for the purpose and for members to have permission to use that advice. I also indicated that it is not for me to recommend that any member do that.A party vote was called for on the question That the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill be read a second time.Ayes 75New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 46New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14.Bill read a second time.In CommitteeJAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I seek leave for all clauses in this bill to be debated as one question.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be none. The matters will be debated as one question.Clauses 1 to 6CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): In standing up to speak to this particular bill I just want to speak to the purpose of it and then talk about the Supplementary Order Paper that I have tabled—Supplementary Order Paper 142—and that I am hoping will be supported by the Committee. I think one really important point to make before I even get started—Ruth Dyson just found out this little fact—is that legislation came to the House in 1998 and that is when the technical error occurred. The interesting part of that is that the bill at that time went through the House in urgency as well. So here we are again in urgency correcting a technical error that was made under urgency back in 1998.I guess that is the danger of rushing things through—not having the advice we need not having all the checks and balances in place not having the Attorney-General look over it and not having a regulatory impact statement. Those are all concerns we have when we look at a piece of legislation like this and even more so because of the fact that the technical error was made in 1998 when a bill went through in urgency. I really do hope that in 17 years’ time we are not back here correcting a technical error that was made when there was an attempt to correct the technical error that had been made 17 years beforehand as a bill went through urgency.As I pointed out to the House during the first and second readings we support the fact that there needs to be some correction here. We support the fact that we need to correct a technical error that occurred. Our concern here is the commencement date which can be easily addressed by the Supplementary Order Paper that I have put up. We are concerned about the commencement date because of the fact that it closes out the opportunity for so many people to be able to have natural justice and make a claim. We saw in the media in the lead-up to this bill coming to the House today that the Minister for Social Development has allowed in this legislation a window of opportunity for those who missed out on that 1 day between May 2014 and September in 2015 to be able to make a claim. The Minister’s statement is that because the Government had knowingly acted illegally during that time period it is important that that particular group of people who may have been stood down and denied a day of pay be given natural justice.We have heard from members in the House who are supporting this bill that their belief is that because this is a technical error anyone prior to May 2014 should not be given the same opportunity or the same level of natural justice. We oppose that because it is not actually the fault of the beneficiaries over the last 17 years that there was a technical error in the legislation. An example I used of where the shoe is on the other foot is the fact that the Government is still relentlessly chasing money owed to it in respect of the Novopay debacle. What we have seen in the media in the last week in that case is that $1.8 million is still outstanding to the Government because people were overpaid during that whole fiasco. That was not the fault of the people who were overpaid and yet the Government because it is money that it is owed to it is relentlessly chasing that money.Here we have the Government needing to make changes to correct a technical error But the way it can be read which I am sure is the perception of many is—oops—the Government owes a whole lot of New Zealand citizens and it does not want to pay out. So it takes the easy option and retrospectively changes the legislation so it does not have to give people the money. How great it would be for all those citizens who owe money to the State if they could retrospectively change legislation so that they were no longer held accountable or liable for the money they owe. I am thinking of those poor teachers who now have to pay back the money that was overpaid to them because of a Government disaster that we call Novopay.The Supplementary Order Paper that I have in front of me will delay the commencement of this legislation by 6 weeks. That is the window of opportunity we asked for right from the beginning. As the Minister pointed out—and I have alluded to it as well—we have tried to negotiate with the Government over this and the reason we have tried to negotiate is that the technical error has been allowed to exist under both Labour and National Governments. So it is an issue that we should be working on together to find a solution to. The one area of disagreement is whether or not these people prior to May 2014 should be paid out. Our solution to this is actually just to put up an amendment that would delay the commencement of this bill by 6 weeks. And as I said that is all we said to Minister Tolley at the beginning and that is all we asked for really—that there be a 6-week period where those who are entitled to claim would be able to make or put forward a claim.The explanatory note of Supplementary Order Paper 142 says: “This Supplementary Order Paper amends clause 2 so as to delay the commencement of the Bill for 6 weeks. This would give people who have been penalised by the incorrect payment of benefits a window in which to lodge a claim for back payment in line with natural justice requirements.” Some arguments have been put as to why we should not do that. One of those arguments is fiscal. The unfortunate thing is that we have no real knowledge of what the numbers are that we are talking about here because of the fact that there is no regulatory impact statement. No one has really analysed it.We were told by Alfred Ngaro that because the elements of this particular bill were originally in the extension of the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill we might be able to find the detail in the regulatory impact statement there for these particular measures. Actually I have gone through that regulatory impact statement. I know that Ruth Dyson sitting here has gone through it. Annette King has gone through it and there is nothing in there about the commencement of benefit side of things despite the fact that actually the commencement of benefits part was originally in the extension of the youth services bill. I think Poto Williams has gone through the regulatory impact statement as well.So I need to point out to Alfred Ngaro the chair of the Social Services Committee who pointed us in the direction of that regulatory impact statement that there is nothing in there about the elements that we are talking about today. So it is a real issue that we do not have a regulatory impact statement in here. No one can comment on the fiscal implications because there is no evidence to say how many people have been affected and how much money is involved and to top it off we know that a large number of people who might be eligible to make a claim probably would not make a claim because of the efforts they would have to go to.There are many people who were briefly on a benefit but have been in work ever since that one period in their life when they may have found themselves unemployed and having to rely on a benefit—those are the vast majority of people who go on benefits—and they will not be wanting to put forward a claim. So we are concerned that so many people are being shut out in this process. We do know that many of them would probably not even want to make a claim but it is just the fact that natural justice is not being given the opportunity to prevail.I hope that Government members see the merits in having the majority of the House support them on a piece of legislation like this particularly when it goes through under urgency and is a retrospective piece of legislation and I hope as Annette King said not only that they see the merit of that but also that they see the merit of supporting Supplementary Order Paper 142. It is a small ask from us. We will support the bill if the Government or the majority of the House supports us on this Supplementary Order Paper to delay the commencement of this particular piece of legislation to allow that window of opportunity for all of those people who have the right to make a claim to make that claim rather than shutting them out completely from the process and honouring only the claims that have already been made—even though we are glad that the Government is doing this now—or honouring only the claims of those people who were affected post 20 May 2014 when the Government became aware of the fact that it was acting illegally.I do just want to say that a lot of the National Government MPs have stood up here today and said that there is a sense of urgency with getting this through—but unfortunately there was not a sense of urgency on 20 May 2014.JAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to speak on the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill in this Committee stage. And there is despite it being a very very small bill quite a bit to say about this though it has been pointed out in this Committee that this is happening through urgency that the provisions in this bill are—we are being told that they are substantially the same as the provisions that were included in the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill. I sit on the Social Services Committee; I have been hearing evidence on that bill. These provisions—although some aspects of them are the same there is detail in this bill that is significantly different and in this process and consideration of this bill in this Committee stage we do not have all the information in front of us to be able to debate this properly.As has been pointed out the regulatory impact statement in the original bill made no reference to the provisions in this bill or indeed in the significant parts of the original bill. We are not able to put the departmental advice that was offered to the select committee on the original bill into discussion in this debate because it is still under the privilege of the select committee. I did want to bring that into the debate partly because I think it illuminates part of my concerns about this bill and partly because of the fact that I do not believe that the principles of transparency and good oversight from Parliament have been enabled through this process. I would wish for that to be properly debated and considered by this Committee because I think it goes potentially towards raising some pretty fundamental concerns about the relationship between the Minister and the department if nothing else.So what this bill does is it amends the Social Security Act to correct—we are being told—with retrospective effect to 3 June 1998 an error in the legislation that does not give effect to the policy intent that a benefit commences on the day after a stand-down period ends as opposed to the day on which the stand-down period ends. Already through the first and second reading debate we have had discussion on that particular point because we are being told that the intent was always for the stand down to end on the day after despite the fact that the legislation says very very clearly and unequivocally that the benefit should commence on the day on which the stand-down period ends. I do not believe there is any way of misinterpreting that but we are being told that the intent was for it to be the next day but somehow for 18 years this has gone unnoticed and that the policy has been operationalised in a way that does not match the law. That in effect has been a breach of the law.I do admit to there being a possibility—and I am aware that this has not come to the House’s attention or to a Minister’s attention because it has been pointed out to the Social Services Committee on numerous times in my short time in Parliament about the problems with the Social Security Act. It is legislation from the 1960s it has been amended so many times and there are so many regulations attached to this piece of legislation that it is one of the—if not the—most complicated pieces of legislation on our books. It is possible that although the language is absolutely clear—“a benefit commences on the day on which the stand down period ends”—people did not look at the legislation because it is so complex. We need to work on that because this is the legislation that enables the most vulnerable people in our country: people who through disability barriers in employment are unable to work people leaving violent relationships people who have been left responsible for the care of their children and people who have been made redundant. They are people who are trying to feed themselves and put a roof over their head when they are not able to be in the paid workforce.This is the piece of legislation that ensures those rights that we supposedly all uphold those fundamental human rights to food and shelter and the ability to participate in our society—although that last point has been so hopelessly eroded. So when the Government comes to this Committee and says that we need to fix a mistake that it has made we need to look at this very closely. That it had got it wrong was brought to the Government’s attention in May 2014 and it was not brought to its attention just once; it was through two rulings of the Social Security Appeal Authority that it had it wrong.If you were following the rule of law and the established relationships the process would have then been for the Ministry of Social Development to change its practice and to ensure that it was abiding by the law andfor Cabinet then to look at the fact that it thought there was a different intention to this and then bring in legislation to change that in the future so that the law matched what it wanted it to do. There is nothing in that good process that says retrospectively you deny people access to their rights as they were written in law and that is really at the heart of what this debate is.I do want to say that I really have such a struggle with the fact that the Government is saying that it will give people who have had the law misapplied post May 2014 a period until 8 January to be able to get in their review but that people who had the law misapplied before that date will have no chance of review. Once this legislation passes that is it. We have been letting people know about this so that they could get that review in because we believe that they should have that right of review as the law guaranteed them and somebody has just emailed me saying that Work and Income is not accepting the documents that have been previously accepted by other offices where people are being paid out up to this point. Several Work and Income offices I am being told are now saying that those emails do not belong to the Ministry of Social Development and that they are not accepting them.When you are going to cut off a deadline for people that gives people money and that gives people access to a fundamental right by law in this peremptory manner this kind of stress and confusion is more likely to happen. It goes back to my very very original point of the absolute importance of our seeking to ensure people’s trust in Government and that trust is being undermined significantly by this legislation and by this process. The people who are most affected have already had many of them very difficult experiences with the State and what they are now going to take away from this process is that they were entitled to something and the Government has decided that “Well yeah you were entitled to it but now we’re going to change the law so that you can’t get it.” That is what people understand from this.On average so far the people who have claimed have got $80. That is $80 that can go towards the rent that could go towards buying a Christmas present for their kid that could potentially let their kid go to a swimming pool—things we know that families on benefit at the moment are not able to afford. Those absolute basics that when I grew up I assumed everyone had access to of a holiday of a kid having their own bed of three meals on the table of the chance for a camping holiday—things like that are not going to be able to delivered by this bill and they would not have been able to be delivered by that 1 extra day’s payment but the principle is—Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): This is the question and answer time when the Minister in the chair gets to answer the questions posed by the Opposition. So Minister Wagner I have a couple that I would really appreciate you answering. First of all was the Minister aware that the original legislation passed in 1998 was also passed under urgency and does she think maybe that accounts for the fact that perhaps we—all the parties in the House—made an error at the time? And hopefully can the Minister assure the Committee that we are not going to be making another mistake and that we have got this absolutely right?I would also like to know what the financial impact is of this change because I have read what the Minister has said. She said: “We’re talking a day … it’s not a huge amount.” So if it is only a day and it is not a huge amount what would be the costof that—taking it back to May 2014 for the people who are allowed to apply—to the Government? I thought that work would have been done because the Government has known about this problem since May 2014 and 4 or 5 months ago it introduced a bill the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill that had this particular part hidden in it. I thought it would have done this work for the Social Services Committee and perhaps the chair of the select committee might be aware of what the financial impact is. Was that provided to the select committee? Because if it was not it seems to be a strange way to go about making a change to the law.But I suspect there was no work done on what the financial impact was because the departmental disclosure statement actually asks “[Is] there analysis available on: … the size of the potential costs and benefits?” and the answer is “No.” So this has been put together on the word of the Minister—and Minister Bennett is mouthing to me. I am not quite sure what she is mouthing but maybe Minister Bennett knows as she is in Cabinet what the financial cost of this is. Was the Minister for Social Development correct when she said that “We’re talking a day … it’s not a huge amount.”? If we are talking a day and it is not a huge amount quantify the huge amount. If it is not a huge amount what is it? Could the Minister—either the Minister who is in the chair Minister Wagner or maybe Minister Bennett if she would like to take the chair because she is in Cabinet—tell us what the financial cost is.Carmel Sepuloni: She was the Minister.Hon ANNETTE KING: I think she was the Minister for Social Development in May last year. Was that correct Minister? So did the Minister at the time seek to find out what the financial costs would be? Did she seek to find out what the costs would be if you allowed a period of time to allow anybody who was affected back to 1998 to put in a claim?We have put up Supplementary Order Paper 142 which I support saying why not allow this very small window—this very small 6-week window—to allow those people who might be affected back to 1998 to put in a claim. Did the Government do any work on the financial cost if there was a period of time during which people could put in a claim? Were there any costings on that? Because maybe the Government would find that it was not very big at all if we go by the Minister saying that it is only a day and we are not talking about a huge amount. So if that work has not been done why was it not done? What we are getting here is a closing-off of natural justice. That is wrong and I would have thought that before the Government closed off natural justice to people who had been affected by an error it would quantify what that impact is. What is the financial impact of it?The other thing that I wonder whether the Minister could answer is why there has been no advice provided to the Attorney-General on any provisions of this bill that appear to limit any of the rights and freedoms affirmed in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. The Minister in the chair may or may not be able to answer this: was any advice sought by the Minister of the day on whether there would be any limits to the rights and freedoms of New Zealanders? I would have thought that was pretty fundamental when you are going to carry out retrospective legislation—that you would want to know whether there was any limitation on the rights and freedoms of New Zealanders. Could the Minister in the chair tell us whether any advice was provided to the Attorney-General to let him give some advice? Because I believe that Christopher Finlayson would have looked very carefully at this.Grant Robertson: As he does.Hon ANNETTE KING: As he does. He is a very meticulous man and very well related. He would have looked very carefully at this legislation to see whether it did limit their rights and freedoms. But he was not given the opportunity—because the departmental disclosure statement said he was not asked—so we do not know whether it does or not. So Minister in the chair I would like to know whether any advice was provided or sought from the Attorney-General. Would that or would that not have been an important issue for a Government that prides itself on human rights and democracy? Would that have been an important issue?I urge the Government to reconsider Supplementary Order Paper 142 provided in the name of Carmel Sepuloni who has said in this Chamber: “We will support this bill. We understand the problem. We know it has to be fixed.” But will the Government reconsider her Supplementary Order Paper to enable a window of time for anybody who is affected to put in an application? I would lay odds on that there would not be very many of them. I do not think a lot of us keep such good records that we can remember when we stopped and started work and went on a benefit and did not go on a benefit. “Was it 1999 or was it 2001? Was it on 29 March?”. I mean what are we talking about? Let us get real. How many—[Interruption]Chris Hipkins: Pre-pubescent; doesn’t have that problem.Hon ANNETTE KING: Oh well I do not believe the member from Clutha would have a clue when he stopped and started work! Give us the dates that he stopped and started work.I think they have made a mistake here and I am saying: correct the mistake now by accepting Carmel Sepuloni’s Supplementary Order Paper. You would get the broad support of the parties in this House Minister. Perhaps the Minister in the chair does not have the authority. I know she is not the Minister in charge of the bill—she is in the chair; good on her for being in the chair. But maybe she has not got the authority to make this decision. I suggest a little whisper to Minister Bennett—Minister Bennett is a very powerful Minister. She may be able because she was there when this mistake was discovered to persuade the Government to accept the Supplementary Order Paper. It would not be the end of the world for the Government if you did. I can promise you that we would not crow very much if this Supplementary Order Paper was accepted because you know what? We would be providing natural justice and fairness to New Zealanders.I wonder whether we would do this if it was something that affected a business. I wonder whether we would have the same approach. But this is about people who are on a benefit and I just hope Minister that the Government has not been blinded by the words “benefit” and “beneficiaries”—that this is not just some sort of approach where because they are beneficiaries it is easy to deny them natural justice and fairness. I hope that is not the case. Give them the benefit of the doubt in this House. So I say Minister Bennett do your best: see whether you can accept the Supplementary Order Paper. Give a 6-week period and we would support the bill.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I want to pick up a couple of points from Annette King but I want to talk about two things: I want to talk about the issue of principle and the issue of practicalities. Up to now I have not spoken on this bill and as somebody who has observed this I fundamentally do not understand what the National Government is doing here in terms of the point of principle—the idea that a mistake was made an error occurred and people did not get what they were entitled to and the National Government chooses the date on which it discovered the error as the point at which compensation kicks in rather than going back to when the error was made. There is not a point of principle in that. That is the problem because if we were taking a principled approach it would be that an error was made.To quote the Attorney-General in this House recently—and he was quoting L V Martin—“It’s the putting right that counts.” The mistake has been made. The Government can now do what it needs to do in order to allow those affected by the error to make a claim. This legislation goes against the principles of natural justice which get talked about constantly in this House—the very thing that we are all charged with doing when we are elected as members of Parliament to uphold the rule of law and to represent the concerns of New Zealanders. It just seems to me that actually the National Government has taken a call for some reason to limit this on a financial basis and to trash the principle. That is what it looks like.That brings me to the second of my points—and I will come back to the issue of principle in a moment—which is as a member of Parliament and with this bill not having been through a select committee process I would want now to be reading a report from the Government that gave an estimation of costs. That is what would enable us to start making some good and sensible decisions. There is a factor that I know will make this difficult and that is the point that the Hon Annette King has just been discussing which is: just how many people would take this up? I have got an alternative idea about the information that we could get that would help us to decide the practicalities of this piece of legislation and that would be to get some information about the amounts of money that individuals who have already claimed have asked for. Was it $80? Was it $100? Was it $1000? How much money are we talking about at an individual level where we know who the people are?I accept the point that we are not necessarily going to know how many people will apply but I think the Minister in the chair or another the Minister might be able to stand up and talk to us about the amounts that individuals are getting because in total they will not be that much but they will be meaningful to those people who get them. We are talking here about teacher-aides people on short-term contracts students coming in and out of being a student and in and out of work and study requirements—people for whom $80 or $100 will make a difference. But you know what? That is not the point. The point is not the $80 or $100 even though it will make a big difference to those people. The point is the principle: that an error was made—an error that continued through different Governments; for nobody here can wash their hands of it. Perhaps some party members who have not been part of the Government might feel they can but nobody in here can really wash their hands of it because we have all been in Parliament. We have all got a shared responsibility in doing the right thing in actually saying “You know what? This was a mistake. We’re going to give a decent period of time”—and here I want to also support Carmel Sepuloni’s Supplementary Order Paper 142—“for everybody to have a look work out whether or not it’s worth their while applying and go ahead and do that.”I simply cannot understand why a Government that tells us it believes in natural justice that tells us it believes in the rule of law that says that it upholds the rights of the citizens of this country would not come here to this Chamber and say: “We get it. The mistake’s been made since the law was passed in 1998.” Now is the time to make sure that we can do that. Perhaps the Minister may well be able to do that now.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I am happy to take the first of what I hope will be several contributions—Hon Members: Many many.CHRIS HIPKINS: —many many contributions during this Committee stage on this bill particularly as the whole bill is now being debated as one question. There are many many aspects of it that I hope to dig into but first of all I want to start at a higher level and call this bill for what it is.This is a symbol of the National Government’s approach to governing the country which is that it is quite happy to break the law—and let us be clear that that is what has been happening for many many years now. The Government has been breaking its own law and then when it gets caught out it comes to the Parliament to legislate to make legal what was previously illegal.When Government members were in Opposition which we can remember that farback they railed against that kind of approach—how horrific it was that the Government of the day might legislate to make legal something that was previously illegal. Yet here we are under urgency legislating to make legal something that was previously illegal—with no public scrutiny no select committee process and a very truncated debate in the sense that we are now debating it all as one question. That of course is symbolic of the approach of this National Government. And yet no one from the Government side has spoken during this Committee stage debate to answer the many legitimate questions that are already being asked and I am sure that there are more to come.Why is it that the Government is in such a hurry to remove this right this monetary entitlement from people who are on benefits? Yes the Government may say that this is 1 day but what happens if somebody has been on and off benefits over that period of time? Seasonal workers teacher-aides many many people who could be affected by this are going to retrospectively have their legal entitlement taken away. Let us be really clear about that—they are legally entitled to this money. If a business was legally entitled by the letter of the law to a sum of money from the Government would we be here under urgency legislating to take that entitlement away from them? I do not think we would be. I do not think the National Government would do that.So why does the Government feel that it is acceptable to do that to someone who has been living on and off a benefit? They are the people who are most likely to be affected. They are the people who are making an effort to get out there and work. They may not be able to find full-time long-term sustainable work so they might be doing seasonal work or work that comes and goes which means that they have an on-again off-again relationship with Work and Income. They are the ones who are most likely to be affected by this.So why is the Government doing this if the Minister says that it is only a relatively small sum of money that we are talking about? That is what the Minister has said. Here is an open challenge. Question No. 1—how much? How much is “a small amount” of money? That is the first question—how much is “a small amount” of money? What is the total amount? I am not talking about per person. I am talking about what is the total liability that the Government is legislating to remove here. That is question No. 1 for the Minister and I am looking forward to hearing the answer to that.Question No. 2 is: how many people does the Government estimate are likely to be affected by this legislation? That is question No. 2. Question No. 3 related to question No. 2 is: within that group of people who are likely to be affected how many of them are likely to be affected more than once? If it is just simply that they applied once and they missed out on a day then that is one issue. But if it is that they have been on and off a benefit—and the seasonal workers whom I mentioned would definitely fall into this category—how many of them are there likely to be?Those are the first three questions that I have for the Minister and I am very much looking forward to those answers because my contribution as the debate progresses will in part at least depend on what the answers to those questions are—bearing in mind that the Government has known about this for some time. It has known about this for some time. The Government moved to close the loophole only when the public found out that this loophole existed and that this problem existed so it sat on this information for a significant period of time.The problem of course has been in existence since 1998—a significant period of time and only now are we addressing it. So why has it taken so long for the Government to bring this legislation to the House and why the rush? Why the hurry? If this problem has been around since 1998 and the Government has known about it for quite a long period of time now—a year and a half it has known about it—why the rush to suddenly do this?This brings me of course to a few other questions. Why is it that the Government is not giving people due notice so that if they have an entitlement they could actually gain that entitlement? Why is it that the Government is suddenly taking it away? Why is it that the Government is preserving the entitlement for only a very small subset?Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): I am pleased to take a call in this debate. First can I start by apologising both to the House and to the chairman of the Social Services Committee whom I particularly misinformed about something to do with this part of the bill being in the regulatory impact statement that was before the select committee. My understanding and the advice that I have received is that because the proposed amendments are technical revisions that re-enact the current law to improve legislative clarity they are therefore exempt from the regulatory impact analysis requirement. So that is the first thing. I apologise to my colleague whom I misinformed about something in the regulatory impact statement.With regard to the questions that have been asked about a number of issues can I start by saying that in my first reading speech introducing this bill to the House I did actually quantify the number of benefits that we believe at this early stage have been paid since 1998 and that is 2.7 million benefits. It is impossible without doing a manual check to know how many of those are eligible first of all for the stand downs because not all benefits—movements between benefits sanctions etc.—are necessarily accorded a stand down. Without going through every single one of those and we have not done that work I cannot give the member any further details but 2.7 million benefits paid is a large amount.Secondly what I know is that as at this morning 8500 people have lodged reviews many of which will go back to 1998 and all of those are protected under this piece of legislation. That is because of the publicity and I have to say the very earnest work on behalf of a number of beneficiary advocates in particular Kay Brereton who I understand because of her personal circumstances and the remote place she has lived has done an outstanding job and gone without power in order to make sure that the power she had was made available to help people get their reviews in. So 8500 people as at this morning have taken advantage of that and I understand that the average payment is around $105.I have said both in the first reading speech and in the second reading speech that the Government has tried to strike a balance remembering that this is not a change of policy. The policy was clear back to 1996. A 7-day stand down means 7 days standing down. That is basic English. What we had was when an amendment was made to the law in 1998 it was worded badly. Nobody knew about that—neither a National-led Government nor a Labour-led Government. Neither did the beneficiaries. Everyone processed that stand down as though it was 7 days meaning 7 days without State assistance. So there has been no change of policy.The Government has tried to strike a balance between being fair to those who when that error in law was pointed out to the Government should have been entitled to that extra payment and we have made that available to them. I have got a Supplementary Order Paper to extend that through to that New Year break—so right through until 8 January. That is plenty of time and I have made every effort to make sure that it is as easy as possible to get that review in for those going back to May of last year. Anyone who currently has a review in the system will be treated as business as usual and they will go through that review process.CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I have got a few questions for the Minister the Hon Anne Tolley and a few responses to some of the stuff that she has just said as well. Firstly I just want to raise the issue around the fact again because the Minister may not have heard this earlier argument that actually this technical error was committed in 1998 when this bill went through under urgency in a similar way to what we are seeing now. So is the Minister concerned that when we rush through legislation like this as was done in 1998 these errors do occur because of the fact that we do not have anyone looking over it we do not have any of our officials giving us advice and the Auditor-General has not had an opportunity to look at it? Is she concerned that that may happen again? Really we do not want to be back here in 17 years’ time correcting a technical error that happened 17 years beforehand to correct a technical error that had happened 17 years beforehand whilst the bill went through under urgency.The Minister has brought up the number of people whom they think may have been impacted by this. She said it was 2.7 million. She has not mentioned any fiscal cost but we know that this was highlighted in the departmental disclosure statement. It says basically that provisions in the bill have retrospective effect and that the retrospective provisions can be justified because of three different things including apparently financial costs to the Crown but we have no figures. Actually even in this departmental disclosure statement it points out the fact that there are no numbers or no figures around what this could potentially cost.The Minister has said that 8500 people have made claims so far. I guess with that in mind what is the rate of application that has gone on here? I know that really the applications started to be made after the Government started to pay out. I know that there was an increase in the number of claims that were being put forward once people knew that they could actually get paid out. So I just want to know from the Minister what that rate of claim has been. Have they been getting a thousand a day since then? Then we could maybe anticipate 6 weeks down the track if they were to delay the commencement date as I have asked for in my Supplementary Order Paper potentially what the cost to the Crown would be. But at the moment we are going blind because there is nothing here that we can see with regard to costings or anticipated costs for the Crown if they were to open it up so that all of those people could make a claim or as we suggested have that small window of opportunity for people to make a claim.The Minister talked about the reason why there is no regulatory impact statement and has cited the fact that these are technical changes as a reason for not having a regulatory impact statement. I just want to point out that I did look this up because I was interested to see where there would be a rationale for not having a regulatory impact statement. What I have found is—3.1 “Exemptions” says: “The value of completing even a modest Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) is likely to be limited in some circumstances such as those where the potential proposals would result in little or no change to the status quo legislative position or would have no or very small impacts outside of government.”That makes me question the Minister on what she was saying. Actually this does not have no or very small impacts outside of Government. This has huge impacts outside of Government because of the number of people—2.7 million people—whom the Minister cited as having gone on or gone through a stand-down period to go on a benefit over the last 17 years. So I think it is not fair to say that the Government is justified in not producing a regulatory impact statement because I do not think any person in this room would think that the potential to affect 2.7 million people outside of here is something that would not have an impact.So I really would like the Minister to speak to that. Again I would like her to answer the question around the rate at which the claims have been coming in so we can get some idea of potentially what that 6-week window of opportunity would mean for those people in terms of cost. I would like to know at this stage what the average amount is that people have been claiming for or what they have been eligible to receive. So the Minister would know in terms of those who have already been paid out what the average amount is that is being paid out there. How many days have they been claiming for? Has it just been the one day that the Minister mentioned?DARROCH BALL (NZ First): I would just like to speak on the Supplementary Order Papers that have been put forward. I can understand the rationale behind why Labour and the Greens have put the Supplementary Order Papers forward based on their perspective on their argument that beneficiaries are owed a day’s stand down. That is obviously not what New Zealand First believes.The theory of the Supplementary Order Papers I can understand just not the execution of them or the justification for them. So a couple of the justifications for Labour’s Supplementary Order Papers are that it will not cost much because there will not be many people who will apply—the majority will not apply. If it is a matter of principle like we have been hearing about the Supplementary Order Papers and it being a matter of natural justice if it is a matter of a fundamental right by law if it is about trusting the Government then based on the principles in the Supplementary Order Papers from Labour and the Greens should not everybody be getting that day’s stand down extra? They should not have to apply for it. Should they not be getting it automatically?The Minister says that on average at the moment it is $105 per payout and we are talking about 2.7 million benefits that have been paid. Of course not all beneficiaries will be eligible but if we take even half of that even a good chunk of that where would that money be better spent than retrospectively thinking that a beneficiary should be owed that extra day’s payment when in fact the intent of the bill was fulfilled in the first instance?Like I said previously if the mistake was not made in the writing of the law beneficiaries would still have received the same amount of benefit as they did. That is because the intent was fulfilled. The Supplementary Order Papers from both Labour and the Greens—New Zealand First cannot support them because fundamentally that would be going against and contrary to what we are agreeing to with this bill and why we are standing and supporting the bill. We believe that the intent of the bill was fulfilled and that there is no money owing to the beneficiaries.I have just put a typescript amendment on the Table. If we are talking about natural justice then the point from where the Government knew that there was an issue—which was May last year—is the point where people should be eligible. They are and the Government is giving 7 weeks for them to apply. We actually believe that everybody who received a benefit who is eligible and who was not given that 1-day stand down should be automatically paid that amount. That is the point in time—from when the Government knew—that every beneficiary should be paid from. That is the natural justice aspect and the perspective that New Zealand First stands by.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): We find ourselves in an interesting situation this evening. What we are doing is we are under urgency rectifying a mistake that was made under urgency 17 years ago. It demonstrates the danger of using urgency for these matters. We do not have a regulatory impact statement. We have not had the select committee process to scrutinise the legislation.I want to look at the departmental disclosure statement but to say it is scant is a bit of an understatement. There is very very little advice for those of us who are being asked to vote on this legislation to actually give us confidence that we are getting this right. I have been a member of this House for only 7 years and in that time I have seen a number of errors made—a number of errors made—when we have been in a rush.My concern is that again quite unnecessarily in this case we are rushing this legislation and we are in danger of mucking it up again. To the best of our knowledge this legislation will meet the Government’s purpose and intent but it thought back in 1998 that it was going to do that and it was wrong then. There is every likelihood the Government is going to be wrong again tonight.There is another thing that I find slightly unusual. It is not that we are retrospectively making something that was previously illegal legal because as Chris Hipkins pointed out that has happened before. Parties in Opposition tend to rail against that type of thing and then when they find themselves in Government they suddenly discover that it is actually perfectly acceptable so I am not going to rail against that as such. But what I do find odd is that the Government was prepared to carry on acting illegally once it discovered that it was doing so.This is not something that the Government has realised in the last few days or weeks or even months. The Government realised this was happening in May 2015 a full year and a half ago. So the Government has carried on quite happily acting illegally until it realised it was a political issue for it. Now all of a sudden we are in a rush.The Government could have brought this legislation—I feel like it is sort of Groundhog Day because I was saying the same thing yesterday with the last piece of legislation under this urgency motion. The Government could have acted more swiftly and brought legislation—the legislation is only two or three pages long.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): It is tragic to interrupt the member.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: It is is it not?Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Immediately before the dinner break I was lamenting the fact that it had taken the Government a year and a half to bring this legislation before the Parliament all four pages of it. It really does baffle me why it took so long to bring this legislation to the Parliament and now after waiting for such a long period why the Government is passing it through all stages under urgency without any opportunity for scrutiny. There is no regulatory impact statement and no select committee process.What we do have is the departmental disclosure statement which I think raises some issues and questions. Is there any publicly available inquiry review or evaluation reports that have informed or are relevant to the policy to be given effect by this bill? No. Were there any regulatory impact statements provided to inform the policy decisions that led to this bill? No. For the policy to be given effect by this bill is there analysis available on the size of potential costs and benefits? No. Is there analysis available on the potential for any group of persons to suffer a substantial unavoidable loss of income or wealth? No even though we in fact know that the impact of this legislation is to limit the opportunity people have to seek redress for having lost a portion of income that they were entitled to under law.Essentially for just about every question that is asked—the standard questions asked by the departmental disclosure statement—the answer is no. I think it actually demonstrates just how little work has been done to prepare this legislation and to make sure that what we do tonight rectifies a situation that was caused by legislation being passed under urgency back in 1998 and the errors that came with that.I would like to turn my attention though to the Supplementary Order Papers. There are three Supplementary Order Papers: one in the name of Carmel Sepuloni one in the name of Jan Logie and one in the Minister’s name. I would like to start with my colleague Carmel Sepuloni. The effect of her Supplementary Order Paper would be to delay the commencement of this legislation by 6 weeks and that is simply to give people an opportunity to actually seek some redress.I think we are particularly thinking here of the people who have been affected by the incorrect application of the law numerous times. We have spoken about the fact that for a lot of people this will not have affected them just once. There are many people particularly those on fixed-term contracts those who are in casual work and those who are in seasonal work in particular who will have moved in and out of work many many many times over the 18 years that this policy has been implemented inappropriately.For some of those people we could be talking significant sums of money. For most people if it has occurred only once or twice then probably the hassle of applying to retrospectively gain that 1 day’s worth of income is probably not worth it for them. But for some people there may well be some value in making that application.What Carmel Sepuloni’s proposed amendment would do is give people a very short window—and I think the Government could easily work with us on this—to allow people that opportunity to apply to receive the income that they ought to have had the legislation as it was originally drafted been applied appropriately. I have heard a couple of members dismiss this approach. I think when they do that they assume that everybody falls into that category of people for whom this has happened only once or twice. There will definitely be people—not that we know for sure because the Government has not been able to provide us with figures—for whom there would be value in exploring exactly how much they are owed by the Government and taking the time to do that.Jan Logie’s amendment is similar only it gives a 6-month window. Really what we are debating here is how long is an appropriate length of time for people to be able to make that application. Certainly on this side of the Chamber we have got no problem with the 6-month window—6 weeks or 6 months; either of those would be acceptable to us.Then we come to the Minister’s amendment. This is a really interesting one. This amendment allows people who have been denied what they were legally owed under the law during the period in which the Government knew it was acting illegally to be able to apply for that and to pick up retrospectively the money that they were entitled to. I find this interesting. I think it is good in a way that the Government is trying to rectify the fact that it was acting illegally but nevertheless it is a fact that the Government for a year and a half nearly knowingly denied people income that they were owed under the law even though the Government knew that the legislation as it was drafted said they were entitled to something different.We can support that as well but we do not think it goes far enough. We actually think that the amendments in one of those other Supplementary Order Papers—either Carmel Sepuloni’s or Jan Logie’s—need to be passed if we are to take a principled approach to this which is that people were entitled to some income it has been denied them and they should be given the opportunity to apply to receive what they were owed.My suspicion is that most people will not apply. It will not be worth their while to make that application but for a handful of people it will be worth their while making that application. I think there is value in supporting those two Supplementary Order Papers on that basis. I think I will end this particular contribution at that point.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am not doing this to trifle with your earlier considerations. I am doing it because the Minister for Social Development who is responsible for the bill is now in the chair. The point of order that I raised earlier which I now wish to repeat and seek further guidance on from you was that because this bill was introduced as part of another bill that is still at the Social Services Committee—this part of the bill has been taken out of the select committee process and is now before the Committee of the whole House under urgency going through all stages—we do not have the benefit of the officials’ advice. [Interruption]The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The first thing is that Ruth Dyson will resume her chair. The member who interjected while I was on my feet will stand up withdraw and apologise.David Bennett: Withdraw and apologise.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Withdraw and apologise?David Bennett: I do withdraw and apologise yes.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Thank you Mr Bennett. I am ready to rule on this. I have previously ruled. I think the first time the matter was raised the Minister was in fact in the Chamber. It was raised by Jan Logie. What I ruled at the time was that I suggested that the chair of the select committee—and it would have to be a committee member I think to have the material—excise that material from a report and seek leave of the Committee in particular terms so that members are able to debate it. Then it would be up to the Committee. It would have to be a unanimous decision of the Committee and members would be able to do that. No one has done that and therefore I am going to rule that I have got nothing further to rule on.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I want to deal with a number of issues in this contribution the first of which is that I note that this bill at clause 3 refers to the principal Act. It states that this Act amends the Social Security Act of 1964. I am going to refer in many of the comments that I make to the actual original Act in the part that we are amending. But I do want to note at the outset that the Ministry of Social Development website notes that there is actually a full rewrite of that legislation under way and that it is due in the House by the end of 2015. I wonder in fact whether that has highlighted other areas that might need to be addressed which the Minister may want to alert the Committee to.The reason that I am referring to the principal Act is that I wanted to check with the Minister on what basis the Government is claiming that the wording in the Act was inconsistent with the policy intent at the time the original amendments in 1998 were passed. The reason that I ask that is that we are amending clause 80BA(4) and if you look at 80BA(3) the clause immediately prior to that—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The section.CHRIS HIPKINS: What was that?The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The section.CHRIS HIPKINS: The section—sorry—immediately prior to that that defines when a stand-down period begins. The sections that we are amending amend when a stand-down period ends but if you look at when a stand-down period begins it is actually very clear: “… if the person’s employment terminated or the person is given notice of termination of employment before he or she applied for the benefit the day after the date the person’s employment ceased.” So in that section it is very clear that it is the day after that that the stand-down period begins. But then the very next subsection which was in exactly the same amendment—the same legislation that amended the Act which is what we are now amending—it goes on to say that benefits commence on the day on which the stand-down period ends. It seems to me that if the policy intent in the original drafting was to make that differentiation or it was to make no differentiation why was a different form of words used in the drafting of the Act?So really the question that I have for the Minister is on what basis is the Government claiming that the legislation was incorrect not that the application of the legislation was incorrect? If the application had been incorrect then I do not think that there is any justification for the Government to retrospectively go back and try to change the law to make right an incorrect interpretation of the Act as intended by the agency that was implementing it. On the other hand there may be some justification if it was a genuine drafting error in the legislation but I struggle to accept that when the subsection immediately prior makes a clear differentiation between the “day on which” and the “day after”.For anyone following along at home they will probably think “What on earth is he talking about?” but actually it is quite important because it comes down to the issue of fairness and whether in fact this was a mistake by the agency implementing the law in that it interpreted the law incorrectly or whether it was a mistake made in the passage of the law in the first place. I think given very careful scrutiny of the original Act I am actually falling in the category that it is the former which is that it is actually a mistake in the way the law has been interpreted by the ministry in its implementation. Therefore I do not think that there are good grounds to retrospectively change.If the Government is saying it is now changing the policy intent to bring those two things into line that is a legitimate call for the Government to make. It can pass that legislation going forward into the future which would make the two clauses consistent but what is the rationale other than it being a fiscal cost to the Government because the agency implementing this has made a mistake in incorrectly interpreting the law? There cannot actually be a justification for amending the law retrospectively in the way that the Government is seeking to do through this bill because the mistake is in the interpretation of the law not in the law as passed. The law as passed it seems to me made a clear differentiation in its intent and in the way it was drafted between the stand-down period beginning and the stand-down period commencing. That is specified very clearly that the stand-down period commenced the day after somebody’s employment ceased but that the stand-down period ended on the day the stand-down period ended.Therefore I do not think that there is a case to be made to say that it was a drafting error because the sections are inconsistent. That must have been picked up at the time. This went through a full scrutiny process I presume at the time and therefore trying now to say that the policy was not incorrectly implemented by the drafting of the law I do not think stands. I think it is perfectly legitimate for the Minister to say that the law was incorrectly applied by the agency responsible for paying out the benefits but frankly I think who should wear that liability? It was not the mistake of the beneficiaries receiving the money. It was the mistake of the agency. So who should bear the liability for that? Should that liability be with the Crown the Government or the agency responsible or should that liability be with the recipients? If it was the incorrect application of the law I do not think it should be the recipients who bear the liability. I think it should be the Crown the Government and the people who made the mistake who bear the liability for that. I would be interested in hearing further comments from the Minister on that.Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): Thank you to the member Chris Hipkins who has just resumed his seat. Thank you for that nice try. But in fact it is very clear that the Government policy that was developed in 1996 was in the legislation enacted in 1998. It has been Government policy since 1998 that the stand-down period would cover a full week. So a 7-day stand down meant 7 days without State support. That is what was intended.I do not know how the legislative error was made—none of us were here at that time—but the policy intent is clear. The operational intent has been clear and has been carried out. What the Government has said and we are talking about liability is that once the agency knew—so from that first appeal—that the legislation did not support the operational policy those people are entitled then to a review and that is what is protected in this bill.I do have to say to clarify a statement I made earlier that as at this morning just over 8500 people have asked for a review. That is not just from May of last year. They are perfectly entitled and protected under this legislation to that review going right back to 1998.JAN LOGIE (Green): Following on from that I really have had some of my concerns echoed in those raised by the Labour member Chris Hipkins around the interpretation of the law and whether that is the problem or whether it was a drafting problem. I am grateful that the Minister is here in the Chamber and is speaking and engaging on this bill. However we have heard from the Minister as we have heard from other members on this side of the Chamber that the policy intent was clear that it was for a 7-day stand down.But I believe if you are bringing retrospective legislation to this House to say what the intent of the law was when it is so clearly different from what was written in the law and from what the courts have decided is the meaning of the law then the onus really I believe should be on the Government to provide us with some evidence of that assertion. We have had no evidence of that assertion. We have not had anything in the Hansard debates. We have had nothing on paper from the Minister. We have just had the oft-repeated assertion that that was the intent. We have nothing to back that up whatsoever.I would now like to speak in my contribution to our Supplementary Order Papers which we have been hearing about that we have put forward on this bill. We have been hearing from Government members again that the Greens are being irresponsible for asserting people’s legal rights to access their legal entitlements. Somehow that is fiscally irresponsible and a certain definition of fiscal responsibility obviously overrides the rule of law and people’s access to their legal entitlements.I do want to just point out that actually our Supplementary Order Papers clearly demonstrate that we are willing to work with the Government to ensure the certainty that they seem to be seeking with this legislation and that we believe that that certainty can be balanced with what I believe is the primary responsibility of Government which is to seek to build trust in this Parliament and in our public institutions. So what we have proposed in our Supplementary Order Papers is to allow a 6-month period for everyone to be able to lodge applications for a review and to require the Government to advertise this opportunity. So if it was a genuine mistake it is OK to fix that in the future. If the Government has a particular policy intent that it would like to see implemented then we will debate that policy intent on its points. But if you are going to introduce retrospective legislation to deny people their legally established entitlements then I think a bit more should be required than what is in front of us with this piece of legislation.I really think that the proportionality—the Government needs to offer more particularly when we look at the balance of this and at somebody who is accessing the entitlements of Work and Income who may have missed a bus whose bus may have been late or who may have been at a tangi or in hospital for a psychotic episode and who misses an appointment at Work and Income and gets their entire benefit—or if they have children half of their benefit—cut. The severity of that penalty for what is in most people’s minds I would suggest a completely reasonable situation or mistake—for it to be penalised so harshly and then for the Government to come to this House and say “Well OK a mistake has been made. We’ll take that and we will give some of you 6 weeks to be able to put in an application and we are not going to mention it.” is completely unnecessary. And we have to point out that this will be reported in the media tomorrow and there will be people who would be entitled to money now if they had heard about it today who will hear about it tomorrow potentially after the Royal assent who will not be entitled to money.That is setting up a situation of grievance that is completely unnecessary when we could actively seek to build people’s trust and confidence and see the Government as recognising its wrongs and seeking to right them and give people access to an entitlement. That is possible in this debate and members can choose to support our Supplementary Order Papers to be able to deliver that.What we are going to get at the moment—and I do need to speak to that kind of process around those who have missed out on money because of the misapplication of the law from 1998 until May 2014. When they hear this in the news potentially tomorrow they could think: “Oh I’m an educational support worker. Actually the way the Government funds our schools means that I need to rely on a benefit outside term time. Gosh I might be eligible over each year for three lots of quite a lot of money coming up to this Christmas while I am really struggling to feed my family and doing a fantastic job in schools in helping schools run and our children being able to learn. Gosh I’d be entitled to this—but oh I’m a day too late. It’s all over the media today and I didn’t hear this in time and I’ve missed out.”I do not see how anyone in this Committee can think that is fair when we have educational support workers and we have seasonal workers in some of the lowest-income areas in this country who we know—you know there are not many job choices in particular areas in this country. There is seasonal work particularly in the area the Minister is from I think where we know that a lot of people are stuck into seasonal contract forestry work. They will have been on and off benefit and their legal entitlement as of today would be for quite a significant amount of money. But when this bill goes through and gets the Royal assent—probably tomorrow; I cannot be sure—they will not be entitled to anything.That is setting up quite a significant impact. We do not have a regulatory impact statement because we are being told there is no significant impact from this legislation. Well I would like to hear the Minister or anyone else tell me how it is not a significant impact for somebody in the community to have heard about this and then find out from their auntie tomorrow that they were able to claim some money and then they are not able to. That—in real terms in real life—is a major impact and I am at a complete loss to understand how that is not considered a significant impact.I would also like to speak about the fact that the law was interpreted by the courts in May 2014 and the Ministry of Social Development did not change its interpretation of the law or the way it enacted it knowing—and it was given two court rulings telling it this—that what it was doing was in effect illegal. The ministry continued that practice. The Minister has told me that she was shocked to find that out. Despite this law change apparently having gone to Cabinet at around the same time—so knowing that there was a problem there and there had been a court ruling—she had not checked whether the ministry had changed its policy. That to me raises some pretty significant issues relating to either the Minister’s oversight or the ministry’s responsibility in informing the Minister. That does seem to me a very worrying breakdown of relationships. I am particularly worried that it may not be isolated to this point.There was a report put out by the Child Poverty Action Group last year looking at the interpretation of relationships there is a very famous case Ruka v Department of Social Welfare and then the report by Frances Joychild which was instituted by the then Minister Ruth Dyson I understand looking at whether the Ministry of Social Development had implemented the changes that were signalled by the court at that time and it found out that it had not. So I am very worried and the Child Poverty Action Group report indicates that it still may not have implemented the changes. I would quote if I had the report right in front of me some of the strength of language of the report. It is deeply worrying for me when the courts have the role of interpreting law and the ministries and the Government have the role and the responsibility to implement it as it has been interpreted. If that fundamental relationship is being broken on a consistent basis by this Government or any Government then we have an absolutely fundamental problem that should worry many people.CARMEL SEPULONI (Junior Whip—Labour): I seek the leave of the Committee of the whole House to have the officials’ advice provided under the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill that is related solely to the matters under consideration in the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill excised from the select committee and provided to the Committee of the whole House.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The member might want to add a little bit more: “so that members can use it for debate purposes.”CARMEL SEPULONI (Junior Whip—Labour): So that members can use it for debate purposes.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Because otherwise I would have to stop you. I think that is relatively clear. Is there any objection to that material being provided? There is objection. It cannot be.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I would like to thank the Minister who was in the chair a moment ago Anne Tolley for her contribution with regard to the concerns that I was raising about what the original intent in the passage of the legislation was. I have some further comments to make on that in response to the Minister because she raised the issue first of all of what the Government policy of the day was not what the legislation was. Ultimately the question therefore from a legal standpoint becomes: which takes precedence—Government policy or legislation? Actually the law is pretty clear: legislation trumps Government policy. Government policy informs legislation in the way the Government presents it to the House but the word of the law is what ultimately takes precedence. So regardless of what the Government’s policy intention was at the time the question was what the legislative intent was at the time and the legislation it seems to me from a very clear reading of the principal Act was actually quite clear.Then the question becomes: what remedy is there if there was an error in the Act? So we turn to McGee the authority on these issues in the New Zealand House of Representatives and it makes it very clear that if there is an error in the drafting of legislation the law that takes precedence the law that applies is in fact the law as assented to. Even if there are mistakes between the House’s passing legislation and it being signed by the sovereign—being given the Royal assent—it is the legislation that receives the assent that ultimately becomes the law. Even if the Government’s intention was not enacted by the law the fact is that that was the law that was signed by the Governor-General and therefore that was the law that applied. Therefore is there good cause for retrospectivity?I then turn to the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee’s advice on these matters. The Legislation Design and Advisory Committee guidelines are very clear. It is in the very beginning of the committee’s principles of legislative design—Chapter 3 Part 1.7—that it specifies “Legislation should not affect existing rights and should not criminalise or punish conduct that was not punishable at the time it was committed.” It goes on to say: “The presumption against retrospectivity: The general rule is that legislation should have prospective not retrospective effect.” Therefore the question that the Committee needs to turn itself to is whether there is good justification for effectively taking away someone’s rights—for making right something that was wrong or wrong something that was right previously.I think that the Parliament needs to be very very careful in doing that particularly when it comes to issues of individual rights and entitlements. This is not an authority that we are dealing with. It is not a legislative body. It is not so much a Government department. This is something that affects individual citizens. I think the Parliament needs to tread very carefully when we are trying to change the law retrospectively in that regard particularly as these retrospective changes go all the way back to 1998. It is the better part of two decades’ worth of previous application of the law that is being retrospectively changed by this legislation and I think we need to be very careful about that. I think that the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee is quite right in its guidance to the House and to those drafting legislation that prospectivity should be the main principle behind legislative drafting not retrospectivity.To recap those three points I just made—regardless of the Government’s policy intention at the time it is the legislation as given the Royal assent that takes precedence and that triumphs. Secondly if there were mistakes in the legislation that was given the Royal assent it is the version of the legislation given the Royal assent that ultimately is the law. Regardless of whether the mistakes were in Government policy or in the drafting of the law once it was passed and once it was assented to that was the law and that has been the law since 1998. The third point is about whether there is a case for retrospectivity and really I think the Parliament will be going against itself against its own advice and against its own better principles if we allow this legislation to go through with the retrospective clauses that exist within it. I think we enter dangerous territory when we pass the legislation in the way we are going to be passing it if this bill is passed now.There are further points I am going to make about the substance of clause 5 but I will do that in a further contribution. Thank you.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): No the member will not because he has had four calls.POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): I want to expand upon the arguments that have already been made in the Committee this evening about the potential conflict. Are we talking about the issue of drafting errors or are we talking about the application and the implementation of policy? I think it is very clear from what my esteemed colleague has already provided that when we talk in clause 4 of the bill about section 80BA(4) of the Social Security Act which talks about the end of the stand-down period we have not included the previous subsection which talks about the commencement of the stand-down period and has the fullness of that period where the language in one talks about ‘the day after” and the language in the other talks about “the day on which” the period ends. We obviously have an issue here. The issue has been around the original drafting of the legislation which was rushed through the House under urgency and as another of my colleagues has noted we are again in a process of urgency to correct what may have been either a drafting error or a policy implementation error.I just want to pick up on the policy implementation part of this. We are in a truncated process and we have not had the ability either to have the input from officials or the input from people who will see the fullness of the application of this bill when it becomes law and is implemented in the workplace. There is obviously a problem a concern with that. If we had had the opportunity to have that if we were not in a truncated process and if we were not in urgency we would not be heaping in my view a problem on top of a problem on top of a problem. We could be doing this correctly. We could be crafting the legislation appropriately and doing what we should do which is to ensure that we either amend what happened in 1998 or amend the application of this policy this legislation in its application on the ground.We have heard very clearly that there have been calls from this side of the Chamber after the issue was raised initially by Jan Logie and then by my colleague the Hon Ruth Dyson for an opportunity for us to have the information from officials as part of this process which would certainly add an opportunity to debate this more fully. The previous Minister in the chair Anne Tolley has been saying that the intent of the policy is clear. Well we are not sure of that because we have not been given the evidence of that. It would be in the best interests of ensuring that we get the legislation right to have that information. Clearly it is needed. Clearly the members on this side of the Chamber would like that information but unfortunately it appears that we have not been able to get access to that.But there is a real issue with what happens with bills over time when they become enacted and when the legislation is then interpreted by the courts and then we have the opportunity to implement that at the coalface. This legislation actually has a significant component within it that may provide opportunities to people to gain back what they are owed. It might come as a surprise to members but there are people who are watching this debate at home who actually contacted me during the dinner break asking about their ability to become part of this process. Would they be able to apply? The Minister spoke earlier of 8500 people who have applied for this process. What will happen this evening is that by virtue of the fact that this legislation will pass we are putting a stop to a whole lot of people being able to apply for what is owed to them. That is hugely unfair when the Government has not as it should do made every effort to contact people and to advertise the fact that this is a process—CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koutou Te Whare nui. I have been in this House for nearly 7 years and I thought I was pretty cynical. I look at legislation and I think it might be misguided but usually it has got some understandable merit. Then we get to this bill. This is extraordinarily mean-spirited it is extraordinarily bizarre and it is so arcane that the people who have actually suffered from being underpaid by the system—Darroch Ball: It’s not underpaid.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: “Not underpaid.” my colleague says—quite right. Well they are not receiving their full entitlement. [Interruption] No? It sounds to me like they are not receiving their full entitlement when they do not get a day’s pay that they were entitled to. They are going to have enough trouble understanding it let alone applying for it. So I think that we need to look very hard at ourselves tonight and ask “What are we doing in this House? Urgency to fix urgency.”First of all I would like to talk about why we do not support urgency for this kind of thing because look at the mess. There was a drafting error supposedly and the courts have ruled clearly that the spirit of this is not just a spirit; it is actually in the law already—that when you are going back after a stand down you get the money the day that the stand down finishes. This is not rocket science—thank goodness because I am not a rocket scientist. It is pretty clear but what about the people at the receiving end? It is fantastic for people to spend time having arcane debates on the clauses but what about the 70 people who contacted Jan Logie today—let alone any other person in this Committee—about whether they are going to be able to get their just entitlement?The reason that I am fired up about this as someone who has been a beneficiary advocate on the East Coast is that if a beneficiary dared to miss an appointment or if a beneficiary supposedly dared to do something wrong with their paperwork let us watch the benefit fraud unit descend on them. I have sat in meetings with the benefit fraud unit; I have seen what they do. If anyone who is on a benefit makes a mistake it is a ton of bricks time. And then in the last couple of years there have been sanctions—cutting money from people. Today on Lambton Quay I talked to a beggar. She gets $13 a week from Work and Income. She is a mental health survivor who cannot get the invalids benefit. And this is the kind of system that creates this kind of mess and then when we make a mess the willingness is not there to clean it up so that people can get what is fair.How can we hold our heads up in this House and do this kind of stuff to people who are at the bottom of the heap many through no fault of their own? And then when the Government makes a mistake it will not fix it fairly. It is pretty basic: fix it fairly Mr Chair. Do not be mean—do what is right. Actually it is pretty basic.Iain Lees-Galloway: Be fair Mr Chairman.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: Yeah be fair and do not be mean. It is not very sophisticated language. After all this is about natural justice. Is it not about natural justice? If we make mistakes we have to own them. At the moment this bill does not own what it is creating. So people are going to be knocked out of being able to apply for what is fair. They are going to be knocked out because they were on the benefit before May. If you are after May you are in but if you are before you are out.If anybody here knows anything about what it is like to live at the tough end of society the person is on the benefit and then they get some work. The person gets some work and then they lose their job. The person gets stood down and the person then applies for a number of jobs. The person may get some part-time contract work. The person loses that work and then the person tries to get back on the benefit—the person is constantly on and off. This is not new. This has not happened just since May 2014. This has been happening to people for—well I would like to say since 1984 actually but that is going back rather a long way. The benefit system is not treating people the way it expects beneficiaries to behave.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I want to begin this contribution by taking us all back to 1998. This may or may not be a pleasant memory for everybody in the Committee—1998 was an interesting year. But during that year—in fact on 14 May 1998—this House was debating the second reading of the Social Security Amendment Bill which as best I can tell is the piece of legislation that is at the root of the problem we have got today.There is a large number of things I could raise about the debate that night. One of them involves an honourable member by the name of Trevor Mallard who raised a number of points of order during that particular debate including an exchange with Joy McLauchlan that involved a number of withdrawals and apologies some of which I could refer to. If I used some of the language—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): No. I am now going to ask the member to come to the bill’s Committee stage. Thank you.GRANT ROBERTSON: But should at a later date in the evening you wish to hear that Mr Chairperson do let me know.I want to refer to a speech that was given during the debate by a Labour Party member Steve Maharey. I want to highlight three things that he said that are relevant to the reason that we are here tonight. The first of those is that early on in his contribution he made the point that the Minister of Social Welfare had that morning given to the Opposition the legislation that was being debated. That was the amount of notice it got. Is this ringing any bells for anybody? The reason we are here tonight with a National Government deciding to retrospectively take away the rights of a group of New Zealanders has its roots in the same rushed hopeless pace of legislation which this Government once again puts us through.Mr Maharey was very prescient as he occasionally was. He said: “Yet again we have an example of this Government running along behind itself trying to get legislation together and trying to get a programme together. When we look through the Bill we see that yet again there are many issues to be cleared up and cleaned up leaving hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries wondering exactly what it means for them.” That was in 1998. Fast forward to 2015 and the same thing is being done all over again. That is the problem members on this side of the Chamber have. Mr Maharey then went on to say “The Bill is being dealt with under urgency. It will not go to a select committee.” and he went on to tell us the problems with that.Once again we are in this Chamber tonight debating a bill that has not been to a select committee. As parliamentarians we have had our right to actually see the evidence that has gone already to a select committee about this matter denied to us tonight by the National Government. But again the problems are—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! No the member will resume his seat. I want to make absolutely clear that no member has been denied the right to see that evidence. There is a right to table it that was not allowed. Members can share evidence with other members. There is no restriction on that.GRANT ROBERTSON: Thank you Mr Chair and I will take up that offer in due course. So we have the problem here just to repeat how we have got to this point. A piece of legislation has not been thought through properly. A piece of legislation was pushed through under urgency in 1998 and here we are again. The Government is attempting to retrospectively correct that with another piece of legislation that has not been adequately looked at that has no regulatory impact statement and that is again being pushed through under urgency.Then there is this line from Mr Maharey: “This Government wants to see beneficiaries be the fall guys for its faults.” Well you could not get a better example of history repeating itself from 1998. What I want to know from the Government and I still have not heard a satisfactory answer since an earlier call when I asked this question. We have now been given an idea of the number of people who put in an application—$8500. What I want to know from the Government—Carmel Sepuloni: 8500 people.GRANT ROBERTSON: Sorry 8500 people—thank you. What I want to know from the Government is what amounts of money we are talking about here. Are we talking about $80 each for those people? Are we talking $1000 each? Can we actually get some information into this Committee about what it is that the Government is so concerned about here? Is it the cost? Just be up front with New Zealanders. Just be up front with New Zealanders and tell us tonight the sums of money that are at play here.I would actually be extremely surprised if we were talking about individuals with $5000 or $10000. We do not know. I do not know the answer to that question right now. The Government must have some idea. The Government must be able to do this otherwise what we will be sitting with here are members of the Government who are simply not prepared to get up and justify this legislation.I am really struggling here. You heard Chris Hipkins earlier talking about what this Parliament has effectively decided is the way in which retrospective legislation can work in this House. There will be from time to time occasions where retrospective legislation makes some sense. But how can a piece of legislation be retrospective for people after an error is discovered but not before the error was discovered? The error exists. The error has been there according to the Government since 1998.It is not a matter of finding a dividing line of when a Government official told a Minister and that happened to be in 2014 which means there is a limited scope to the number of people who can be involved. If it is an error it was an error made in 1998 and the Government should simply front up to that. But what we learn is that history repeats itself. History repeats itself because the Government tries to ram through legislation and makes mistakes and creates further errors and further inequities.What I want to hear from a Government member or from the Minister in the chair is some indication of the individual amounts of money that are being discussed here. This would normally have emerged during the select committee process. It is a dead-set guarantee that somehow someone in the select committee process would have said: “This is how much it is. This is the estimation. This is how many who have come forward to us today and asked for an amount of money.” Otherwise we are flying blind here and all we are left with is the impression of a Government that is determined to take away from a group of New Zealanders the rights that they should have. There is nothing that has been put forward in this Parliament that would give justification for that.The intention of Cabinet the intention of an individual Minister—we have got the names of them here. Shall we go upstairs and find Peter McCardle and ask him what his intention was when he moved this? It is irrelevant—it is absolutely irrelevant. It is irrelevant what Cabinet decided. What matters is what ended up in the law in 1998. That is the only thing that should matter to this Parliament. If we spend all of our time trying to work out what the intent of Ministers like Peter McCardle and Roger Sowry who were the Ministers who moved it was we could have any old thing come up. We have not seen Cabinet papers to justify that. All that we have got is the law. It is our job in this Parliament to make the law and then when there are mistakes to deal with them in a way that is fair and is equitable for New Zealanders and not to deal with them in a way that is convenient for the Government. That is the impression that I have got from this debate—that what we are doing here in the House is what is convenient for this Government.Let us all own this as parliamentarians. A mistake has been made. A group of people individuals in our community have been denied something that they should have got. Let us give them the time—all of them—to make an application to get their funding back. They will not all do it—lots of people will decide it is not worth their while—but that should not be the criteria either. The criteria should simply be that when Parliament gets something wrong it corrects it and it allows those people who have been aggrieved and who feel that they have lost their rights or their entitlements to be able to take the course of action that should be available to them.There is nothing that has been put forward in this Committee tonight that should justify overriding Parliament’s doing the right thing. I want to hear a National member get on their feet and give us a reason for this breach of the rights and entitlements of New Zealanders because without that and unless they are prepared to support our Supplementary Order Paper we cannot support the bill.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I just seek some clarification around the official advice on the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill that Carmel Sepuloni earlier on sought leave to table and to be debatable. As you have correctly pointed out to members we do have the ability as members to share that advice with other members of Parliament. What we are unclear about on this side of the Chamber is whether we are able to use that official advice as the substance for debate in the Committee given that it is still part of a select committee process.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I can answer that relatively easily for the member. The member cannot refer to the advice but the member can use the advice to inform himself or herself—all right. Is that clear?IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): Yes that is clear.STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): I would like to talk on clause 4(2) of this bill which refers to section 80BA(4)(b) of the Social Security Act 1964. But just before I do I would like to read just one statement from the departmental disclosure statement. What the departmental disclosure statement says is a rationale of why we are putting in retrospective legislation. It says that this: “could be seen as contentious as generally legislation should operate prospectively not retrospectively. However in this case the retrospective provisions can be justified to ensure: … financial costs to the Crown that were not anticipated are avoided.” And that is important.So what the Crown is seeking to do is to avoid costs that were not anticipated. Let us look at section 80BA(4)(b) of the Social Security Act 1964. Let us look at the sort of people that this piece of legislation is potentially going to disadvantage. We are not talking about middle-class New Zealanders who can afford things and we are not talking about the wealthy for whom $20 means nothing; we are talking about these people.The Act actually outlines the people whom this is going to disadvantage: people who are on the benefit for “(i) sole parent support; or (ii) a supported living payment; or (iii) jobseeker support granted on the ground of sickness injury or disability; …”. We get the picture. These are the most disadvantaged people in our society. These are the people whom Parliament has decided need support from the Government. Therefore what Parliament has mandated is that we give these people a level of support that allows them to live a life of at least dignity or certainly allows them to stand on their own two feet while they get out of their circumstances.Section 80BA(4)(b)talks about “(iv) jobseeker support granted to a sole parent; or (v) jobseeker support granted to a person who has recently lost the financial support of his or spouse or partner by reason of death the spouses or partners commencing to live apart or the ending of a de facto relationship; or (vi) a youth payment; or (vii) a young parent payment.” Again I would like to emphasise that the people who we are looking at really screwing in a way or certainly denying natural justice to are those who are the most disadvantaged in our society. We have heard that that is about 8500 New Zealanders. In the scheme of things that is actually quite a lot of disadvantaged people in our society who could well do with this payment if they decide to take it up.The term “natural justice” has been used. Let us have a look at what that means. It is actually a legal term andwhat it actually means is the rule against bias and the right to a fair hearing. That is what natural justice means. That is why we are in this Parliament standing up for those who have an inability to stand up for themselves. We are the voice of these people who are disadvantaged and who look to us to do what is right. And when the honourable member Catherine Delahunty said that she was becoming cynical I disagreed. I am not cynical. I am hopeful that we are here for the right reasons and I am hopeful that we can actually do the right thing for those who are the most disadvantaged in our society and who need us to stand up for them and to do what is right.I listed a group of quite specific people under the legislation that is being amended by clause 4(2) of this bill. We can see that these are people who yet again are possibly—let us make an assumption here—some of the most disenfranchised. I would wage a bet that the vast majority—well a good number of them—will not know that this debate is going on.Some of them will have advocates in the community who when this law is passed—if we do the right thing and Carmel Sepuloni’s Supplementary Order Paper goes through—will contact their networks and who will go out to these people as defined in section 80BA(4)(b). They will say to them: “Let me help you. Let me help you get that money back because it’s coming up to Christmas.” This bill is going to receive its Royal assent before Christmas of that there is no doubt. And they will say: “So let me help you and it might make a bit of difference.”Again I suspect what will happen is that the word will slowly spread out. When I see here that one of the three reasons for this retrospective legislation is that—Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): This is my first call and I am surprised that given the importance of the legislation that we are debating at the moment the only two pieces of information that are available to me are the Act itself and the departmental disclosure statement which does not provide a lot of information.I want to follow through on something that I do not believe that this Committee has really considered in depth in debating this particular piece of legislation and that is that we are amending the Social Security Act 1964 and this bill—the Government’s bill—does not really provide a lot of information in terms of the principles and purpose of the Act of 1964. I just want the Committee to cast its sight on that particular Act because that is what we are talking about. That is what we are amending tonight.The purpose of the 1964 Act is “(a) to enable the provision of financial and other support as appropriate—(i) to help people to support themselves and their dependants while not in paid employment; and (ii) to help people to find or retain paid employment; and (iii) to help people for whom work may not currently be appropriate because of sickness injury disability or caring responsibilities to support themselves and their dependants:”. That really underlines what we are missing in all of this.This is about vulnerable people and given that we do not have the select committee process and we do not have the benefit of advice from the general public I am asking the first question. How many of these people whom the vulnerable that this 1964 Act was set up for are affected by this retrospective legislation?How many sickness beneficiaries are affected by this retrospective legislation? How many disabled or people with injuries are affected by this retrospective legislation? Some people have caring responsibilities are unable to support themselves and their dependants and are dependent on the State to provide support. How many of them are affected by this? If the Minister is able to provide that information that can give us some clarity in terms of how much money is involved in this because I understand that Minister Tolley made a comment in an interview she conducted on Radio New Zealand National. She said on 16 September 2015 that we are talking about only a day so it is not a huge amount. So if it is not a huge amount what is the Government doing? What is it doing to the most vulnerable group of people in our community?All the Government has to do is ensure that those people who missed out on that 1 day of a payment are given it. At the community level the people on the ground would see that for the past 18 years a Government department has broken the law because it has not paid them something that they should have been paid. So it has broken the law. If a business breaks the law we take it to court. But in this case the harm or the damage was done by a particular Government department and now the Government wants to act on it by refusing to pay out 1 day to the most vulnerable people.As my colleague Stuart Nash said $20 is a lot of money to people who are in need. In the last 7 years the group of people in need has grown and continues to grow. So I am asking the Minister in the chair Nathan Guy to give us a total of the number of people in the various beneficiary brackets. How many are affected by this? Can the Minister also provide the amount of money that we are talking about because that has not been given to us.Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): I am very happy to take a call on the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill and to put some further questions to the Minister in the chair the Hon Nathan Guy because we have been putting these questions but still do not have any answers. In the course of my contribution on this bill I want to share some of the questions that I have been asked by my constituents in Wigram and share some of the stories from there.I would like to echo the questions that my colleague Su’a William Sio just asked around what the numbers are that we are talking about here. We were told by the Minister for Social Development who was previously in the chair that we have so far had 8500 claims made since this has gone public but how much are they for what brackets do they fit into and what kind of quantum are we talking about here? That is a question that is really important to us here on the Opposition benches in order for us to understand the impact of this legislation. The Minister is dismissing it and saying that it is only 1 day but as my colleague quite rightly pointed out if it is only 1 day and it is such a small thing what is the problem? Why are Government members not looking to support Carmel Sepuloni’s Supplementary Order Paper 142 which would allow for natural justice to occur?We also have a very big question around why we are doing this under urgency. The fact is that this was found out in May 2014—there was a High Court ruling—so why is it that we are here in November 2015 pushing this through under urgency and in real danger of making the same kinds of mistakes that got us into this place in the first place? My colleague Grant Robertson read very well from the Hansard of the debates of 1998 which showed just how we got into this predicament—sloppy lawmaking under urgency when we do not use all the tools at our disposal as legislators to examine legislation and ask the kinds of questions that we need to ask.Given that we do not have that opportunity for the select committee process and we do not have that opportunity for people to come and make submissions I would like to share some of the feedback I have been getting from constituents in Wigram. A group of constituents—I have had a lot of traffic into my office in Hoon Hay—are actually a group of teacher-aides. This is a group of workers many of whom stand down each term. So when the Minister says that this is 1 day only that is many days multiplied by the end of term. So for her to dismiss it as being just 1 day shows the Minister does not understand the problem.This is a group of workers—teacher-aides—who are reasonably low-paid. They work incredibly hard and make an incredible difference in our schools but these are largely women who when they stand down need to reapply for the benefit to support their families. This is a group of mothers who often struggle who have been denied assistance with raising their children—because let us be clear this is what they were entitled to. This is not people here seeking something that was not theirs; this is about asking that people be paid what they were rightfully entitled to.Something I have noted is that a number of the people who have come into my office to talk about this and who are employed as teacher-aides are actually people whom I have had to help with Novopay issues. This is a group of workers who have already had to deal with the Ministry of Education not being able to get their pay right in the Novopay debacle and now they are having to deal with another Government agency denying them what was rightfully theirs.I think this is a very unfairly treated group of workers and I would like to know from the Minister in the chair Nathan Guy how many of the 8500 are teacher-aides—another question. We would like to see you get on your feet Minister and answer some of these questions that we are putting to you. This is being done under urgency and there are real questions that the Opposition is putting to the Minister and we believe that they deserve to be answered. So for the Minister to just sit there and do his paperwork and not take a call and answer these questions it really is not giving the dignity to this legislation that it deserves. I would like to know how many of the 8500 who have already made a claim under this provision are from this group whom I have described—teacher-aides. How many days were these workers affected for? When the Minister says that it is just 1 day I know that many of the women whom I have spoken to have had a stand down every term. If you put that back—they have been doing this since 1998—that is many terms. That is many days of entitlement that they have been denied.So I look forward to the Minister taking a calling on that. I look forward to the Minister explaining to us why this is being done in urgency. I look forward to the Minister describing to us how many of the 8500 fall into what brackets and what the actual liability on the Crown is.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): It is customary when rising to take a call especially one’s first call as this is in this debate on the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill—and what a lovely benign positive rosy title that is—to state whether one supports or opposes the legislation. Unfortunately my colleagues and I are not in a position to be able to do that because our support for the legislation is contingent upon the excellent Supplementary Order Paper 142 being put forward by Carmel Sepuloni MP—the gist of which is to delay the commencement of the bill in order to allow all those who have received a benefit between 3 June 1998 when the mistake first arose and 19 May 2014 which in the current bill is when the Government is prepared to restore their rights—to fill in that gap.If the Government assents to doing that Labour will certainly be supporting the bill but Labour cannot support it without that assent because to do so would be to deny people their legitimate rights after the courts found that the Government of New Zealand is in an unlawful position and thus to trammel the dearly and long-held principle that although Parliament is sovereign no New Zealand Government can operate outside the law. A retrospective law change to fix a 17-year-old blunder being passed through Parliament in urgency without so much as a select committee meeting is a travesty unless it retrospectively restores the rights that in error the Government and Parliament unlawfully took. So either we fix it—in which case we can live with the truncated process—or we have to remind the current Government that this principle is worth fighting for and vote against it. The Government is not helping anybody. It is not helping the public of New Zealand; it is not helping the Opposition parties which are showing willingness to cooperate under certain circumstances. That is because the legislation is being rushed through all stages under urgency and we are going to be here until midnighttonight and possibly thereafter debating this bill.There is no regulatory impact statement attached to the bill. That means there has been no set of alternative policy options put forward and analysed in the normal way. Therefore there has been no argumentation advanced by the Government as to what the best optionis and therefore the public has been denied the usual rigour and thoroughness of policy advice. There is no regulatory impact statement. To make matters worse no Cabinet papers have been released to the public or to Parliament to show the logic that Cabinet followed in making its decision. The Minister in the chair may wish to take a call to explain what the fiscal risk is that the Government is concerned about. Surely that can be the only reason for not restoring as the court has indicated the full legal rights of New Zealanders since they were inappropriately and mistakenly taken away in 1998 and thereafter.If it is a fiscal risk issue and if there is a fiscal veto of Carmel Sepuloni’s amendment then at the very least Minister take a call. Be up front with New Zealanders. You pride yourself Minister on being a rural chap who does not mess around with words. Well just stand up and take it on the chin. Tell us how it is; we are big enough to take it. If you think it is going to cost $200 million to fulfil the High Court’s orders tell us.Hon Nathan Guy: Mmm.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Was that a “Yes” Minister? Because there are those who think that Yes Minister apparently is a training video for the current Government and the Sir Humphreys are alive and well—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Come on—back to the bill.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: —but we will not go there with your guidance Mr Chair.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No you will not.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: So there are no fiscal estimates contained in the bill. We do not know what the fiscal risk is. We do not know what the difference is between the 2014 fix and the 1998 proper fix and that matters actually because we want to know what the Government’s price is for sacrificing principle here. As I said there has been no options analysis so the public cannot tell. Why has the Government not—and the Minister may wish to answer this—considered an interest component in the payback because the time value of money wrongfully expropriated since 1998 would not be inconsiderable. If I can turn now to several of the clauses of the bill—CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I have got several questions to raise and points to make. I just want to start out by saying that because this is going through an urgent process we really have been denied the opportunity to access the information that would inform us better in respect of considering this bill. Because it has been such short notice and it is going through under urgency we do not have the opportunity to put in an Official Information Act request to find out why the Government has delayed and did not make this change on 20 May 2014 when it was informed of the technical error in the legislation. Because we have not been given the opportunity to go through a select committee process and have not had the time we also cannot put an Official Information Act request in for the Cabinet papers—the original Cabinet papers—that would have discussed this issue back in 1998 when the original legislation was going through the House. So it is really difficult for us to take the word of the Government in terms of the intent of this bill being something when clearly the legislation does not paint that picture.The Chair has made it clear to us that we cannot talk about the official advice that we have got through the Social Services Committee on the bill that this bill previously sat in which is the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill. However I am assuming that we can talk about the submissions that were made publicly at that select committee where there was relevant information that was made there during submissions that applies to this particular bill. I want to talk about that because this is the only information that we have to inform us really given that this particular bill has not gone through a select committee on its own. So I do want to point out the fact that submitters on the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill raised the point that they had concerns that the appeal rights provisions in that bill—which applied to this bill—would limit the ability to review and appeal decisions and they had concerns that the provisions may not be consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.I now want to just reflect on the departmental disclosure statement on the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill that we are looking at now and just point out the fact that this bill did not go to the Attorney-General. So when we look at the section on “Consistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990” we are told here that this bill did not go to the Attorney-General and yet the advice is that the bill does not impact on the rights and freedoms affirmed in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Well actually the submitters did not feel that that was the case. They had genuine concerns that actually what the Government is trying to do which is retrospectively change the legislation is not consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. So I think that we should be really concerned as a Parliament that the Government is looking to put something through tonight that potentially runs a high risk of not being consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.I really want to point out some of the points that were made during that particular select committee consideration where we had the opportunity to discuss the elements of the bill that we are talking about tonight. A submission that was made by the very effective beneficiary advocate Kay Brereton raised the concerns that I have talked about. She raised concerns that “The bill reduces the right to review for affected beneficiaries in this way people already experiencing significant barriers in accessing their review rights and we see this step in reducing their rights as a move away from the principle of natural justice where a person has a right to understand and review a decision which affects them.”I want to take that point and then I want to go back to the bill and I want to look at clause 5 “Retrospective effect of amendments to section 80BA” where we see that “subsection (1) does not apply in the case of any decision or determination made before the commencement of this Act—”. Those people who are quick enough to get in are not going to have the decision on them overturned. That is because the Government recognises that their claim was valid and I think we need to acknowledge that. The Government recognises that the claim was valid. That is why in clause 5 of this bill they are not—IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I would also like to take the opportunity to have a closer reading of clause 5 of this bill principally because of a comment that was made by Minister Tolley when she was in the chair in response to a point raised by a number of us on this side that this legislation acts retrospectively and that people will not be able to seek compensation for having been denied some of their benefit income. The Minister seemed to be saying in her comment that that was not correct and that people would be able to apply retrospectively. However I do not believe that that is what clause 5—Hon Ruth Dyson: They can apply but they’ll be turned down.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: My colleague says that they can apply but they will be turned down. That may be an accurate reading of what the Minister meant.But I just want to explore the Minister’s statement looking through clause 5. Clause 5(1) says that “The principal Act must be read as if the amendments to section 80BA(4)(a)(i) and (b) made by section 4 of this Act had come into force on 3 June 1998.” In other words this legislation acts retrospectively and we are to imagine that the changes made by this legislation came into force back in 1998 when the National Government rushed its amendment through under urgency and stuffed this up in the first place.That to me appears on the face of it to mean that people cannot seek retrospective compensation. However we have clause 5(2) which reads: “However subsection (1) does not apply in the case of any decision or determination made before the commencement of this Act—”. Then we have a series of paragraphs: “(a) that affects the appellant in Social Security Appeal No. SSA 001/14 and SSA 002/14 ([2014] NZSSAA 39);”. I have no idea what that means and that is the issue with doing these things under urgency. Here we are debating this legislation and I have absolutely no idea at all what that clause means. I would be grateful if the Minister or any member opposite could get up and explain that because I have zero understanding of that clause.Then there is “(b) that affects the appellant in Social Security Appeal No. SSA 115/14 and SSA 134/14 ([2014] NZSSAA 106);”—ditto paragraph (a)—“(c) that is a decision to commence a benefit on the day on which the stand down period ends;”—again I am not sure how that will be implemented—“(d) that relates to the commencement of a benefit on or after 20 May 2014 and is the subject of an application for a review under section 10A of the principal Act made at any time within 6 weeks after the commencement of this Act;”—that bit I kind of do get. The Government accepts that it was acting illegally for a year and a half and it will accept applications from people who were treated in a fashion that was illegal during the period in which the Government knew that it was acting in a fashion that was illegal. I get that one.Finally there is “(e) that relates to the commencement of a benefit at any time on or after 3 June 1998 and is the subject of an application for a review under section 10A of the principal Act made at any time before the commencement of this Act;”. I understand that one as well. I get that. It means you have to get your application in before this legislation receives the Royal assent which is probably why the Government is pushing this through under urgency—so as to reduce the opportunity for people to actually get their applications in.So I challenge what the Minister said which was that people will be able to apply although maybe Ruth Dyson is right. They can apply—apply away to your heart’s content—but the law will say that you cannot actually get compensation. I understand paragraphs (d) and (e) and I do not think they operate in the fashion that the Minister led the Committee to believe they would operate. I have no idea what clause 5(2)(a) through to (c) actually means and I would really appreciate a member opposite rising to their feet and actually explaining that. We are here in the Chamber debating legislation attempting—Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): I wish to spend a few minutes going through the departmental disclosure statement. This is a very unusual disclosure statement for people watching—unusual because of its thoroughness or lack thereof. Here is the first page and here is the second page—they are mainly blank. There is a very pro forma series of tables thereafter in which there are only two substantive paragraphs. So the departmental disclosure statement which is really the only piece of analysis attached to the draft bill is only two paragraphs long. It replaces the normal release of Cabinet documents and the normal regulatory impact statement from Treasury.Let me then turn to the two paragraphs concerned. The first one attempts to answer the question “Does this Bill affect rights freedoms or impose obligations retrospectively?”. It answers truthfully that yes of course it does because these rights to the extra day’s benefit have been deprived since 1998.The bill attempts to retrospectively squash what is legitimately owed under the current law to beneficiaries. It might be that the current Government thinks beneficiaries are subhuman or that they do not deserve normal legal rights. It is here extinguishing 17 years’ worth of rights minus a 1-year exemption literally with a stroke of a pen under urgency and denying people the opportunity for the normal select committee process and with barely a fig leaf to hide its modesty. This departmental disclosure statement is the fig leaf and it is a pretty small one. It is pretty thin. It goes on—I think this is really interesting. Retrospective provisions are not normally allowed of course because that takes away people’s rights if Parliament is coming over the top and squashing rights that existed in the past. It says however that exceptions are “justified to ensure: the Government policy intent is upheld”. Well how on earth would we know what the Government’s policy intent is because there is no evidence of it from either 1998 or 2014 provided to the House or the public.My colleague Grant Robertson has gone to the extent of pulling out the old Hansard from 1998 and that made the point that it was a jolly rushed process and the mistake was made because the Government of the day another National Government acted with undue haste. But surely it cannot be sufficient justification simply that an undescribed and unvalidated policy intent—call that what you will—is upheld? If you accept that argument then the Government could intend anything and upholding any intention could by that argument be validation for retrospective law.Second dot-point—“practice and understanding that has been previously applied …”. Well you know that is simply saying that if you made the mistake consistently it is OK to keep making it. That cannot be a sufficient justification.Third dot-point—and this I think is the most telling of the lot—“financial costs to the Crown that were not anticipated are avoided.” Well there we are. That is what this all comes down to: financial costs that were not anticipated are avoided. But if the Government is going to override legal and constitutional rights on the basis of avoiding un-forecast financial costs then the least—the very least—that it can do is to make clear what those costs are. This arrogant out-of-touch Government does not even deign to tell the public of New Zealand what the costs are that it is overriding people’s legal rights for 17 years to fix. It does not care. The Government members do not even bother to take to their feet. I challenge the Minister in the chair Nicky Wagner: show us you care by taking a call and telling people what the cost is and telling them why it is justified to override a court-ordered right.The justification such that it is says that certain decisions of the Ministry of Social Development’s Social Security Appeal Authority are protected from retrospective validation. Well you can say that again. They are protected by a Government that is arrogant.POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): I look across the other side of the Chamber and I see several members of the Social Services Committee—Government members who were part of the discussion for the substantive part of this—where we were discussing the wider bill from which was extracted the component of the bill that we are now discussing. Not a single member has stood to give their view on this bill—not a single member. They have been in the Chamber for hours probably looking at Facebook and not actually taking this seriously. I challenge them—[Interruption] Oh you are actually reading some other things. Have any of you got the legislation in front of you so that you can actually track what the Opposition members are saying with regard to this bill? I suggest you have not.Let us talk about the people who are impacted on by this who could be positively impacted on by this: the beneficiaries of New Zealand who were denied a day’s payment because of an inaccuracy an error that was made 17 years ago in a piece of legislation that was rushed through under urgency. We cannot stress enough that here we are back to the future doing it all over again 17 years later.What kind of information has the Government provided for us to make and pass and debate this piece of legislation? A flimsy departmental disclosure statement but no regulatory impact statement no idea of the cost—there is nothing on which we can base the assertions of the Minister for Social Development that the policy intent of this legislation is clear. There is no clarity. There is very little information. There is no evidence. There is no select committee process. There is no ability for anyone to feed into this process. It is only for the members of the Opposition to stand and take calls to review old Hansards and actually to do the work the Government should have done before this piece of legislation hit the Table. It has not been done. Where have you been? Why are we debating this under urgency when the Government clearly has not done the work?When I was taking my last call I was starting to refer to a beneficiary advocate Kay Brereton who according to Minister Tolley has run out of electricity in her attempt to ensure that beneficiaries are made aware that they actually have a process that they can apply to. Surely it is the job of the Government and the Ministry of Social Development to do that work and not to rely on someone—at their own cost at their own expense—to find people who may benefit from this bill. It is extraordinary that the Minister actually congratulated Miss Brereton for her work but has done nothing to support her in doing it. The Government has got the resources with which to advertise for people to come forward.I want to just quote something that Kay Brereton has said: “Beneficiaries are not able to fix a mistake they made which created an overpayment in any way but by repayment of the debt. If a person’s benefit ceases a day later than it should have under law that person must repay the overpayment in full. There is no clemency shown to people who owe Work and Income money. This is a debt to the Crown and will be collected from the person their estate or any other party that can be held liable. This money currently owed to beneficiaries by the Crown would make a significant difference in the lives of many and would be a windfall albeit small and only a day or two’s payment for families and individuals struggling with bureaucracy that gives them no leeway.”However when the Government underpays them what is the response from the Government? It is to actually change the legislation so that it actually does not have to meet its obligations. Clearly what is happening here is that when the Government found it had made its mistake it put the line in the sand. It put the line in the sand and said that from this point forward until the legislation is passed—JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I move That the question be now put.JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): Thank you for the call on the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill which is proposed to amend the Social Security Act of 1964 with retrospective effect.I feel compelled to speak to and to address clauses 4 and 5 of this bill. Clause 4 of the bill would amend the principal Act to entrench in law the so-called day after principle so that the benefit starts to run a day after the benefit stand-down period ends. Clause 5(1) provides that the “day after” amendment will have retrospective effect up to and including 3 June 1998. Retrospective effect is not something that Parliament should be taking lightly particularly in passing legislation. We are here today discussing a fix and this is something that my colleagues Carmel Sepuloni and Grant Robertson as well as others have spoken about previously. We are trying to fix legislation that was actually passed under urgency by yet again passing a bill under urgency without going through the full process of this House.The Legislation Design Committee and Legislation Advisory Committee was established to provide advice to departments and agencies on the design and content of Government bills. In its guidelines in 2014 it notes that legislation should not affect existing rights and that New Zealand law operates on a presumption against retrospectivity. The general rule is that legislation should have prospective not retrospective effect. Clause 5(2) carves out expectations to the “day after” amendment in certain cases but the retrospective effect of this bill would deprive many vulnerable New Zealanders of their right to a payment. Retrospective effect in this instance is designed to take away a full day’s benefit from many Kiwis who over the last 18 years have been owed money by this Government.Just today the Salvation Army came out with a report that basically said that particularly in Auckland we have so many vulnerable families. I know that many members in this House—I am not talking about members on this side of the House—prefer to walk around with their eyes closed to the fact that there are so many vulnerable families in New Zealand. What the Salvation Army report found was that 50 percent of these families are children—those who are homeless and living in cars today in Aotearoa New Zealand in the biggest city that we have the city of Auckland. This Government is trying to change the law that would wipe the rest of the arrears so that those who are not in the know will miss out.The current unsightly scramble under urgency to change the law is clearly ruled more by economics rather than by concern for people or for the welfare of some of our most vulnerable citizens. Beneficiaries advocate Kay Brereton told Radio New Zealand National recently that this legislation would apply to almost every benefit that has been granted in the last 18 years. For some people they might have gone on and off the benefit a number of times. Every time that they have gone on again they have been short-paid by a day. These are clearly underpayments under the law. The Minister has admitted that for nearly two decades this has been the standard practice. The Minister has been quoted as saying: “We are talking a day so it’s not a huge amount.” I can tell this Committee that although it might not be a huge amount to someone on a Minister’s salary rectifying these underpayments could make a real difference to people’s lives—the type of good people who live in South Auckland in my electorate of Manukau East those who are struggling every day just to feed their kids clothe them and to pay their rent.It is appalling that the Government is acting in this way to take away the need to pay money owed to people on the lowest incomes who need every cent to make ends meet. This situation has been known since last year yet here we are today watching this Government scrambling under urgency without the benefit of proper scrutiny to manufacture a patch simply to save money. This is yet another instance where money comes before people. Thank you.JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I move That the question be now put.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I know that it is not appropriate to bring the Chair into the debate but could I invite the Chair to join in my little quiz?The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No.Hon RUTH DYSON: I have a little quiz that I want to start my contribution with tonight. The answer is a day of the week. That is my clue for you. Consider this statement: “If a stand down period applies under this section benefits commence as follows: (a) benefits except those described in paragraph (b) commence on the later of—(i) the day on which the stand down period ends;”—let us say that Thursday is the day the stand-down period ends—“or (ii) the day on which the application for the benefit is received:”—whichever is the later. Here is my question: if the stand-down period ends on a Thursday what day does the benefit start?Iain Lees-Galloway: Thursday.Hon RUTH DYSON: Right. I heard the buzzer from my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway. He said “Thursday” but for 18½ years Work and Income has said “Friday”. In May last year through a series of events Work and Income was told that it has had it wrong all this time. It has been paying people their benefits starting on a Friday and it should have been a Thursday. That is the problem that we are seeking to address in this question. I want to particularly urge New Zealand First members Māori Party members and the Hon Peter Dunne to think about that.The words that I read out are the actual words in section 80BA—as only social security legislation can be numbered—(4)(a)(i) and (ii) of the Social Security Act 1964. That is what it says. If the stand-down period finishes on the Thursday the benefit starts on the Thursday. Work and Income started it on the Friday for 18½ years and we are fixing that problem tonight. So we have two choices. We can say: “Oh well we’ll just fess up. We got it wrong.” It was not deliberate of course. Nobody in Work and Income read that and decided to short-change anybody by a day I am sure and I am certain no Minister has over any of that period regardless of which party they are from.So we could just say: “Let’s fix it. We got it wrong.” We could say to everyone going back to 1998 since that legislation was passed: “Put in a claim and we will look at it and if you got short-changed by a day because we misinterpreted the law we will pay it to you.” Or we could have a nasty mean-spirited response and say we are not going to do that—we are not going to fix a wrong that was clearly created. We could say we are going to pay only the lawful amount to a very small percentage of people. That is what this Minister has decided.This Minister has decided that instead of paying what the law required she is going to pay only from the day her department heard about it to the day it was determined that it had been paying it wrong. That is outrageous. It is outside the law. What the little National Party people across the Chamber are going to do is vote to retrospectively make an illegal action legal and take away a day’s entitlement from a beneficiary.Well I hope they sleep well because frankly I would not feel too good about that being my contribution under urgency in the New Zealand Parliament. I would be thinking: “Truly? I worked so hard to get in here so I could cause the law to be changed retrospectively because it does not suit us to comply with the law?”. That is what they are doing. I would be ashamed actually. I would be worse than feeling not good about it. I would be ashamed to be a New Zealand member of Parliament saying we got it wrong and we are not going to fix it—well we are going to fix it for a very small number of people but not for all those who were legally entitled to get their benefit on the day their stand-down period finished.That has really frustrated me and puzzled me. Why would members of Parliament do that? All MPs have worked hard to get here. Whether they are list MPs or electorate MPs they all worked hard to get here. Is that the goal? Is the goal to change law retrospectively to take money off people who currently are legally entitled to it? Those members are lacking ambition I would say to them if that is their goal.I want to also comment on the process. I think the process has been outrageous. We have been denied the tabling of documents and advice from the officials. We have got no regulatory impact statement. The question for the Minister to answer is—KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): It is my pleasure to take a call in this Committee stage of the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill. I would like the theme of my contribution to be mistakes. We are correcting a mistake that happened here in this Chamber back in 1998 as the previous National Government was in its last throes and its members were preparing to take the Opposition benches.Hon Ruth Dyson: A bit like now.KRIS FAAFOI: A lot like now—ready to come back over here. A mistake was made that has taken some time to fix. But the worst thing about making a mistake is when you try to fix that mistake and you make things worse by making more mistakes. It is for a mistake that we are here under urgency—again without the transparency that should be afforded the public and this Parliament—rushing this piece of legislation through.Looking to clause 2 it is a mistake that the Government may not—and is probably likely not to—support a couple of Supplementary Order Papers one from my colleague Carmel Sepuloni and another from Jan Logie to look at making things fair for those people who are affected by pushing out the commencement date by either 6 weeks or 6 months. That is a mistake. Those people who are affected have not had the opportunity to go to a select committee because we are here under urgency pushing this piece of legislation through.The Government could right the mistake that it is about to make and seriously consider supporting Supplementary Order Paper 142 from my colleague Carmel Sepuloni. It is a very simple Supplementary Order Paper. It would change clause 2 the commencement clause. It reads: “In clause 2 after ‘on the day’ … insert ‘that is 6 weeks’.” That is to give those people time to be able to mount a case to say: “It is the right thing and the fair thing for us to be able to ask for a review and if this money is rightly owed to us we should get it.”Can I just use an example where we think the Government would potentially add some time on to the commencement date. Let us say big corporates found out that they were entitled to money because there was a slight discrepancy within taxation law. I can bet your bottom dollar—and probably millions of them—that corporates would find a way to make sure that they could get what they thought was properly owed to them. But in this case this Government is not willing to amend clause 2 probably because of the people who may benefit from it. It is not willing to help those who are on a benefit to rightfully claim what is theirs to give them an opportunity to say: “Hey the right thing and the fair thing is that you should consider paying me what I think is rightly owed to me and giving us more time to be able to do that.” That is why I think the Government should seriously consider supporting Supplementary Order Paper 142 in the name of my colleague Carmel Sepuloni.It should also seriously consider righting its mistake of not consulting people by rushing through this piece of legislation under urgency. Supplementary Order Paper 144 in the name of Jan Logie from the Green Party looks to add a new clause 7 after the final clause in this bill to ask the department to have a period of prescribed time to undertake an advertising campaign to let those people who are affected by this change in legislation know that they should have the ability to ask for an appeal ask for a review and ask for what is rightly theirs.If you look at this process at the moment this piece of legislation is being rushed through with little or no fanfare. In the time that I have been watching this debate there has been very little contribution from members across the Chamber. They want to sweep this under the carpet in a late-night session of Parliament so that nobody knows about it. The less that people know about this the better in terms of the Government. That is why there is no select committee process that is why we seem to have no regulatory impact statement and the departmental report that we have got does not really add too much to what is going on here. So that paints a picture of a Government that would rather not have this out there in the headlines and that would rather not pay back or give the opportunity for those people who are affected to have their say and I think that is a shame. That is why I think the Government should seriously consider the amendment to insert new clause 7 as proposed by Jan Logie to give those people some time—JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I move That the question be now put.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Yes I am going to accept the closure motion. We have had 2 hours 50 minutes. We have heard 34 calls. It has been well canvassed over that period of time.A party vote was called for on the question that the question be now put.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. At the beginning of the debate the member who has actually moved the closure motion sought leave for this debate to be taken as one question or at least to have a single debate. That then elicits a wide-ranging debate and it also restricts the number of calls that members can take. A number of members have reached their—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I have heard the member yes. I look very closely at relevancy; I look very closely at repetition. In that period of time the Labour Party has taken 26 calls of the 34 that were taken. It has been well canvassed. I have listened to all the points that have been raised in the last hour that I have been here and that is why I am prepared to accept the closure. The Committee will decide whether that is accepted or not. So I intend to put it.CARMEL SEPULONI (Junior Whip—Labour): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Is this a new point of order?CARMEL SEPULONI: It is a different point of order. I am just seeking your advice because you have been privy to the debate that has gone on here tonight. I just want to get clarification from you. Given that the point was made that the technical error that we are here debating tonight was made because the same sort of legislation went through under urgency 17 years ago I just wonder—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No you are canvassing a point that could well have come up and did come up during the course of the debate. That is a debating point. It has got nothing to do with my putting the closure. The Committee will decide whether we accept the closure or not. I intend to put it.A party vote was called for on the question That the question be now put.Ayes 63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 58New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.Motion agreed to.CARMEL SEPULONI (Junior Whip—Labour): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. There are particular clauses that we want to support and then at least one clause that we want to oppose. So can I just clarify with you that we can vote clause by clause rather than as a whole.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Yes I will be putting the six clauses separately so you will have the chance to exercise your preference at that point.Clause 1 agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 142 in the name of Carmel Sepuloni to clause 2 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the question That the amendment be agreed to.Ayes 48New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2.Noes 73New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 143 in the name of Jan Logie to clause 2 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the question That the amendment be agreed to.Ayes 48New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2.Noes 73New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.A party vote was called for on the question That clause 2 be agreed to.Ayes 75New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 46New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14.Clause 2 agreed to.Clause 3 agreed to.A party vote was called for on the question That clause 4 be agreed to.Ayes 107New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 32; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 14Green Party 14.Clause 4 agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 141 in the name of the Hon Anne Tolley to clause 5 be agreed to.Amendment agreed to.The question was put that the following amendments in the name of Darroch Ball to clause 5 be agreed to:delete subclause (2)(d); andafter subclause (2) add the following new subclauses:(3)Subsection (1) does not apply to any person that receives or has received a benefit that commenced on or after 20 May 2014.(4)Any person to which subsection (3) applies is entitled to and must be paid any additional benefit owed as if the amendments made by section 4 had not been made.A party vote was called for on the question That the amendments be agreed to.Ayes 12New Zealand First 12.Noes 109New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendments not agreed to.A party vote was called for on the question That clause 5 as amended be agreed to.Ayes 107New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 32; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 14Green Party 14.Clause 5 as amended agreed to.Clause 6 agreed to.New clause 7 Department must advertise review processThe question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 144 in the name of Jan Logie to add new clause 7 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the question That the amendment be agreed to.Ayes 48New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2.Noes 73New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.New clause 7 not agreed to.Bill reported with amendment.Report adopted.Third ReadingHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs) on behalf of theMinister for Social Development: I move That the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. The welfare system delivers assistance to more than 1 million New Zealanders each year and it is important that people are treated consistently and as intended by the Government.The Government’s policy that benefits commence on the day after a stand down has always been clear. This technical error discovered in the legislation last year is providing people with an additional day of benefit that they were not intended to have. This is not right. The legislation needs to be changed to avoid unintended costs to the Crown and to the taxpayer.The bill validates previous ministries’ practice but also provides as a measure of the Government’s good faith a reasonable opportunity for clients who feel their interests have been compromised to seek recompense. The bill corrects the technical error and ensures that legislation reflects the Government’s consistent and longstanding policy. I commend this bill to the House.CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): We are really disappointed on this side of the House. We engaged with the Government in good faith over this matter recognising that actually this was an error that occurred under both National and Labour Governments. What has come to light during this process is actually that that technical error occurred during a very similar process that we have gone through today. It occurred under urgency. It occurred because of the fact that due diligence was not given to that bill a select committee was not called to look over it and submissions were not made. Clearly when we rush things through in urgency like this then we increase the chances of technical errors like that being made. So it seems ridiculous that we are here 17 years after that bill passed going through the same process that saw that bill fail in the first place.All we had asked with this bill all we had put to the Minister for Social Development and all we had put to the National Government MPs was that they support our Supplementary Order Paper 142 to delay the commencement so that natural justice could prevail. Unfortunately the Government could not even do that. We have seen very little argument put up during the Committee stage against what we were saying. We have seen in the departmental disclosure statement that there were fiscal considerations here and yet we still never got an answer from the Minister or from the National Government in the House today about what exactly those fiscal considerations were what the dollar amount was that the Government was so concerned about in respect of the claims that could come forward.We heard from the Minister that there have been 8500 claims made by people who think they may be eligible to claim back that day and I say to those people and to the beneficiary advocates out there who have pushed them to put their claims in well done good on them. I am glad that at least those 8500 people will have their claims honoured. Who I am very disappointed for are the other thousands of New Zealanders who are now going to be denied the opportunity to put a claim forward because it does not suit the Government’s agenda. What the Government is doing here tonight is legislating retrospectively to deny them the opportunity to claim what they will be entitled to up until the point that this bill passes and commences.We had so many concerns raised at the Social Services Committee when the elements of this particular bill were still in the other social security bill. Those concerns should have been taken into consideration here because clearly there was no select committee opportunity to hear submissions on this particular bill. But we have discussed the intent of this particular bill during a select committee for another bill and we should have taken seriously the concerns that were raised.There have been numerous reports about the numbers of people who may have been affected. One number we heard come from the Minister was something like 2.5 million people who have gone on and then off benefits over the last 17 years. I guess that acts as a reminder to the whole House that actually a large number of New Zealanders at some point in time are going to need to rely on that welfare safety net. I think that that is something that we need to be reminded of. It is not about people wanting to be long-term dependent on the State necessarily. It is about the fact that we have a lot of New Zealanders who at some point in time are going to find themselves out of employment and needing to rely on the State during that period.So many other elements of this bill are concerning such as the fact that it never went to the Attorney-General and the fact that there are concerns that it may not be consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act as pointed out by so many of the submissions made to the other bill in relation to this subject. We have made it really clear that our concern too is for the people who work in jobs that are more likely to have been in and out of work over a period of time. We referred to teacher assistants teacher aides seasonal workers and those who go in and out of temporary work. Those people are the ones who stand to lose now because of the decision that the Government has made.Actually for many of them they have gone in and out of work over a long period of time. Some teacher aides are employed term by term. Some at the end of each term go on that stand-down period as they wait for their benefit to come in during the 2 weeks or whatever it is during the school holidays that they are no longer getting paid from the school. Those workers deserved the opportunity to make a claim. The Government has now denied them of that.I say that they deserve it because of the level of insecurity in the work that they do the expectations on them in terms of the service they provide the children—our children—whom they are looking after on a daily basis the fact that they are so poorly paid and yet this Government was so mean-spirited that it could not take into consideration workforces like those teacher aides like the seasonal workers like the temporary workers. It could not take into consideration that actually those workers had something to gain here. It was not just a matter of 1 day—and the Minister has pointed out in press releases that it is only 1 day and that it is not much money. Well to these people it actually would have been a lot of money and actually to many of these people it would have been more than just 1 day.Here we are in November heading into Christmas and that Government is so mean-spirited that now it has denied them the opportunity to make that claim and what a difference it could have made to their families. I have spoken to so many people out and about. There are lots of people who may have gone on a benefit once over the last 17 years maybe even twice who actually have said to me: “I wouldn’t have made a claim.” But it is not about whether or not they would have made it; it is about ensuring that natural justice does prevail and that they were given the opportunity to actually do it.That is why we put the Supplementary Order Paper up. We understand the Government’s need to correct this technical error in the legislation. We support that. But what we could not support is the fact that it was going to deny the groups of New Zealanders whom I talked about in this speech the natural justice that they deserve. All we asked was for a 6-week window for those people to be able to put in a claim. All we asked was that the Government provide that 6-week window by delaying the commencement date of the bill by 6 weeks and it is so mean-spirited that it could not even agree to that one small ask from us. We have nothing to gain in doing this. We did it because it is the right thing to do and all we hoped was that the Government would acknowledge that it was the right thing to do as well.We have had several speeches tonight from my colleagues and from colleagues in the Opposition parties talking about this idea: what if this was retrospective legislation that applied to businesses? Would the Government be so quick to enact such retrospective legislation if that was the case? Of course it would not. And do you know what? The unfortunate thing is that if it was retrospective legislation that might apply to businesses they would have the means by which to take out a case against the Government they would have the influence to change the Government’s mind or to force it not to do it. But unfortunately we are talking about New Zealanders here who do not necessarily have the means they do not necessarily know what is happening in Parliament and they do not necessarily know how the decisions we make affect their everyday lives. The Government knows that. The Government knows that the beneficiaries we are talking about who stand to lose here are often unfortunately the people with the quietest voices.I want to finish this final speech by just again expressing my disappointment in the Government. We really did want to work with the Government on this. I also want to just thank people out there who have been pushing this as quickly and as hard as they can to anyone who might be eligible—all of the beneficiary advocates. Particularly I want to acknowledge Kay Brereton who brought this to my attention who brought this to the media’s attention who brought this to the attention of the House. She has done a fantastic job advocating for beneficiaries. There are 8500 beneficiaries who now have their claims in. The only reason they really started to come in in numbers is because the Ministry of Social Development did start to pay out and people realised that actually this is not a hoax and they may actually be eligible for some money and Kay Brereton is responsible for getting the word out.I also want to acknowledge the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions. It put the word around to the unions as well. The meatworkers union I know put the word out because it has a lot of workers who are on work and then off work and then forced to have to go on benefit and so may have a number of stand-down periods as well. To all those who have tried to get the word out there I want to acknowledge them. And finally I just want to say “No thanks.” to the National Government for being so mean-spirited and I am very disappointed—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the member. Her time has expired.ALFRED NGARO (National): I rise to take a call in the third reading of the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill. I do so because one of the things I want to make a point about which has been made is that we know and we have talked about the date of 1998. So like a previous member of the House who actually went to the Hansard I too decided it would be of some interest to look at the Hansard of 1998—and it was on 14 May.It was the Hon Roger Sowry who was the Minister of Social Welfare who put this legislation through. I want to just take a couple of lines out of that and this is what he says: “The bill also extends work obligations to some groups of beneficiaries with expectations about their capacity to take up part-time work.” So that was the intent of the bill. There was a sense that there was going to be welfare change. He also concludes his speech and contribution saying: “In conclusion the changes to welfare benefits contained in this bill herald a radical change in the direction of welfare in New Zealand.” So that has not changed—the intent of that bill. Obviously it is the technical aspect of that bill that is of some concern.As I was reading through the Hansard with some interest not looking on Facebook and so forth I actually came up to the Rev. Ann Batten from New Zealand First. I thought that New Zealand First and Mr Darroch Ball may have some interest there. This is what she said: “One thing I’ve learnt in my time here is just how shallow and simplistic the howls of outrage that emanate from Opposition parties often are whenever the Government attempts to make any improvements whatsoever.” So I think that there is some precedent there that Mr Darroch Ball is taking—that the Rev. Ann Batten a member of New Zealand First also too was in support of this bill and that is what she was saying there.Barbara Stewart: Years ago. Years ago.ALFRED NGARO: That is just here in Hansard Barbara so I think that is important. One of the things that I think is important that also has been raised and also came through in some of the 26 speeches in the Committee stage by the Labour Party members was the need for urgency. Again how wonderful history is. I know that Mr Faafoi is a great historian. He loves reading history though—Kris Faafoi: Someone’s going to be history.ALFRED NGARO: OK—and here is what it says. The attack from the Opposition was around the fact that here we are in urgency not going through the select committee process. Well in 2003 there was the Electoral (Vacancies) Amendment Bill. I know that the Hon Ruth Dyson will remember this and in the first reading the Hon Rick Barker said this: “I move That the Electoral (Vacancies) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. Because of the urgency accorded to this bill it is the Government’s intention that the bill be passed through all stages without referral to a select committee.” Throughout this afternoon and into the evening we have heard from the Opposition about the fact that there was no robust process and about heading to select committee.But it gets even better—and here are the little Ginsu knives—because here is the next one in 2006. That is right. They may not want to hear this. This is from the Hon Michael Cullen and this is the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill—in other words that was the pledge card. Mr Cullen said: “I move That the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill be now read for the first time.” There was a point of order around the fact that the National Government asked for the bill because there was no bill at that time. The Hon Dr Cullen said this: “Speaking to the point of order I say that a copy of this was made available to the National Party … this morning …”. There has been a lot of criticism about the process. I think that the honourable Minister Anne Tolley has actually been working alongside as well as possible with Carmel Sepuloni to try to come to some compromise and agreement about the intent of this bill.I want to just finalise my comments by saying that this bill has been under urgency. We know the importance of the bill for that: 8500 applications so far for review and on average involving around $105. So there is not a point that is there. The Supplementary Order Paper by Jan Logie talked about the ability to advertise this. We know that there has been a promotional campaign by those departments which has already begun—a few weeks—encouraging clients to seek reviews about their entitlements. The Government has made every step possible. It takes responsibility and knowing the fact that this is a technical area that it needs to correct we have ensured that as well as possible we can not only meet the needs of the requirements of the vision of this Government but also too meet the needs of those clients. I commend this bill in its third reading to the House.POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): All that last speaker Alfred Ngaro proves by his contribution is that he can read. That is all he proves. He makes no valid points. I want to say that one of the points that we made on this side of the House was that the Government MPs did not take a call throughout that whole Committee stage—Alfred Ngaro: I might need to talk to Ruth about that.POTO WILLIAMS: You might not need to. However you should be defending your bill. After all the points that we raised I was sure that the member Alfred Ngaro as the chairman of the select committee that saw the original bill would have wanted to make a contribution. But no Government MPs sit there and they throw the occasional lob but they do nothing constructive when they have required us to sit in urgency to pass a bill that obviously does not require urgency. There has been no justification given to this House as to why urgency is required—none whatsoever.We started the day debating the reason we were here for this particular bill and it is really about a couple of phrases. The two phrases in contention are “on the day which” or “on the day after”. That is all this argument has been about for the whole of this debate. We know that when we go back to the original section 80BA of the Social Security Act—the principal Act—it says “on the day which”. So we have been having an argument for the last—how many hours has it been Ruth Dyson? Several hours—to say that 17 years ago it was right and it was implemented incorrectly for the last 17 or 18½ years.It is a simple argument—let us fix it. Let us go back to 1998 and say: “You know what? All those people who missed out on that day because of those two clauses ‘on the day which’ or ‘on the day after’ the people who were actually paid on the day after you know what we are going to restore that. We are not going to say: ‘Hey we found this out in 2014 and that is the day from which we are going to actually fix this.’ No we are going to go back and have a look at the whole shebang and correct it from the beginning.” What has happened because we have put that line in the sand and said that we are going to go from May 2014 is that there are a whole lot of people who have missed out on this and there has been a lot of discussion about the principles of natural justice. They have been excluded from this process because of it.The Minister said that to date they have received 8500 claims. The previous speaker seemed to intimate that that is because of the work that the Government and the ministry have done. Well actually that is not correct. It is because of the work that beneficiary advocates have done and the word of mouth that has gotten out there as beneficiaries have been able to claim and receive what they are entitled to that people have started to claim this process. But from tomorrow that stops for most of those people who should be included in this process. That is frankly unfair and not good enough. The Government takes responsibility just from the date that the mistake came to light and not actually from the date of the original error which was when the bill was passed under urgency in 1998.We could have actually provided a little bit more fairness in this process if we had looked at Supplementary Order Paper 142 submitted by Carmel Sepuloni and Supplementary Order Papers 143 and 144 submitted by Jan Logie to actually extend the period and give people an opportunity to review where they had been and what they had been doing and potentially make a claim. We know that there are sections of the working population who are going to be impacted more than others and those are the seasonal workers those are workers who participate in school and education activities where their contracts cease at the end of term and they are clearly not able to engage in this process.This piece of legislation came to the House with no regulatory impact statement with no clarity that the policy intent was actually met through any evidence there were no Cabinet papers to support it and we have had to rely on the word of the Minister that the intent of the policy of the bill is actually that. This side of the House has been working all evening to look through Hansard for evidence. We have had nothing from the other side of the House nothing at all. This has been a really truncated process when it did not need to be. We have had no external examination and we have had no official input whatsoever. It is a flimsy bill and it has been poorly drafted. We will be coming back to the House probably in time to fix it.We have no idea how much this is going to cost us. There has been no financial examination of this bill whatsoever. There has been no financial examination of the cost of this whatsoever. If there has been it has not been presented to the House nor has it been provided to members to debate. That surely is not good enough. When we are spending the precious time of the House to debate this bill surely we should know and the people of New Zealand—the taxpayers of New Zealand particularly—should know what the fiscal implications of this bill are going to be. We have not had the opportunity to examine that. The resources of the Government are vast. They should have been used to ensure that members of the public were well informed about the implications for them and the opportunities for them to actually make claims and not leave it up to our beneficiary advocates.The Minister herself said that Kay Brereton had exhausted her electricity source trying to contact beneficiaries and she applauded Kay Brereton for it. I was absolutely astonished. Surely that is the job of the Government to do that work when it has clearly made a mistake and it needs to advise those who could benefit from that error being corrected. Surely it was the job of the Government to do that.This is the second of three bills that we will be passing through this House under urgency. Frankly this one did not need to come to the House under urgency; it could have gone through the normal process. There are bills languishing on the Order Paper that are far more important and far more urgent. There has not been sufficient justification from this Government about why it needed to happen now. Clearly the bill has been rushed. Clearly there is a lack of evidence and a lack of a regulatory impact statement and the other information that should have come to the House for a full and thorough examination has not occurred. There is not much more to say. We have well traversed this bill in the House. Unfortunately we will not be supporting it.TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): What a great privilege it is to be able to stand up here and make a couple of comments with regard to the third and final reading of the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill. Was it not great to follow Alfred Ngaro who put into context some of the interesting comments that we have heard in the last hour or so when he talked about a bit of history in regard to parties that have put historical retrospective validating legislation into the House. For those who have been totally opposed to this suddenly hearing some of their history repeated back to them you could tell it was not particularly comfortable. It was a shame that he stopped. It was a shame he did not carry on for another 2 or 3 minutes.We are retrospectively validating 17 years of policy intent. Of course some of that covered our party but interestingly it also covered the time when the Labour Government was in power with the Minister for Social Development and Employment Steve Maharey and of course towards the end of that terrible Government the Hon Ruth Dyson no doubt had officials come up and talk about the stand-down period being 7 days and the commencement of the benefit being on the 8th day. As the Minister she would have nodded and said: “Of course that is the policy intent. I’m glad the legislation reflects that.” Alas though a legislative error was subsequently identified and ultimately we had to find the balance between fairness for those who have been caught up in that process and ensuring that what we come up with has appropriate fiscal prudence. We have done that. It is a great bill and I commend the bill to the House.JAN LOGIE (Green): It is with a certain amount of dismay that I stand and speak in the third reading of the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill which has been rushed through in urgency with a very shady process that preceded that. But before I start my final contribution on this bill I would also like to join the Minister for Social Development and the members on this side of the House who have acknowledged the beneficiary advocate Kay Brereton for her work in bringing this to the attention of the House.The truth is that if she had not noticed this hidden in the bill the advice that we had would not have alerted us to the significance of this bill and we would not have connected this to the decisions of the court and been able to understand the true impact of this bill. Kay Brereton as the Minister for Social Development acknowledged is a woman who is doing a lot of work for people who are really struggling and she is struggling herself. She has had we have been informed by the Minister her power cut off due to the financial consequences of her trying to inform New Zealanders of their right to have their entitlement reviewed. There is something just so deeply perverse about that situation where a member of our community who is trying to look out for other people is living without power from the consequences of that when this Government has refused to take action. That to me is not something to honour without acknowledging the Government’s responsibility in creating that situation.What we are doing—it needs to be said again—in the House today is passing legislation that retrospectively removes the legally established rights of New Zealanders for the primary purpose of saving this Government some money. We have heard on that side of the House: “Well other parties have passed retrospective legislation; nothing to see here.” Well yes this House does pass retrospective legislation at times. I think that every time that happens it needs very close scrutiny and when that legislation is being passed retrospectively and removing rights for the most vulnerable New Zealanders it deserves additional scrutiny. And I would say two wrongs never make a right but that is the argument and pretty much the depth of the argument that we have heard from the other side of the House. I really think we need to review how this has happened and the process in my final contribution.There was legislation introduced under urgency on 3 June 1998. That legislation under what is now section 80BA of the Social Security Act said that the stand-down period applies in this way: for benefits to commence on the day on which the stand-down period ends not the day after. For 18 years since that law was passed the Ministry of Social Development has been starting benefits on the day after that stand-down period despite the fact that there is no room to misinterpret “the day on which the stand-down period ends”. I would ask anyone in this House to misinterpret that—to think that that meant “the next day”. Nobody could interpret it that way. But the Government has been paying as if it had said “the next day” for the last 18 years. I asked the Parliamentary Library to search the Hansard of the debates for discussion to clarify that that was the intent because we have been told again and again and again from this side of the House that the intent despite the clarity of that piece of legislation was always for it to be the next day. There was not one mention in those Hansard debates that that referred to that clause—not one. We have not been provided any evidence of Cabinet decisions or discussions that would have illuminated that intent either. We have just been told that was the intent.I think that if you are going to pass something under urgency that retrospectively removes people’s legally established rights you need to provide some evidence at the very least. I personally think the rule of law is pretty important. I think that actually for everything to work well in this country we need our courts to be able to establish the law and interpret our legislation and to have primacy of that and for any Government to follow that law as it is written. Well the courts established in May of last year—in 2014—that in fact the Government was misinterpreting the law. And here we are about to remove and change that law and remove up to that point all of the people’s rights to their legally established entitlements. After that one of the very significant parts was that the Government continued denying people’s legal rights despite the court having established it was misapplying the laws. And again that was established and went to court twice—not just once twice—and the Government continued to deny people their legal entitlements.Then over a year later on 29 July this year this Government introduced a bill called the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill a title that you know would obviously—not—provoke discussion of this issue that we have had in the House tonight which brought in this retrospective law change. Submissions closed on 9 September. There were only 10 submissions and only one of them from Kay Brereton actually recognised the significance of this clause and made a submission on it. So we are being told by the Government that there is no need for a select committee process in relation to this piece of legislation because that process has already been gone through and people had the chance to submit on it even though what we have been given today is significantly different to the clause presented in the original bill. But even then it was so hidden that nobody knew. Nobody had the opportunity to submit and offer their views and their interpretation of the legislation. So then what we had was departmental advice that did not even alert us to the significance of it. Then the first media attention on this issue was on 16 September prompted by Kay Brereton in relation to her submission. You know we saw an operational change on 29 September 13 days after this came to the media—what is that 18 months after the court ruled that there needed to be a change in the policy enactment of the law.We do not even have a regulatory impact statement relating to this. There has been very little opportunity for submissions no opportunities for submissions on this actual bill and no regulatory impact statement. Technically the only ability for there not to be a regulatory impact statement is if this legislation makes no significant change to the law—well of course it makes a significant change to the law because that is what the Government said the intent of it is: to significantly change the law because it thinks the law is wrong—or for it to have little or no impact outside of the Government on real life’s people. Well what this does is very very significant. As soon as this passes—probably—and gets Royal assent in a day or so there will be a group of people who will find out that they were entitled today to money from Work and Income. Some of the poorest people in New Zealand who could really really do with some extra money will find out that today they were entitled to that money but oh sorry the day has passed the Royal assent has happened and they are not entitled to it. That is what this legislation does. That impact is real. That impact is harsh. I think it has been said already that this is mean.We put forward Supplementary Order Papers 143 and 144 to give the Government certainty by allowing people to have 6 months to get their application in and to require the Government to advertise that it was doing this. That would have given the Government certainty some fiscal limitations and ensured people’s trust in the public institutions and in this House. This piece of legislation fundamentally erodes people’s trust and confidence in our fundamentally important social security system and it is with deep deep disappointment we will be opposing this.RIA BOND (NZ First): I am pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First and take this call on the third reading of the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill. New Zealand First supports this bill and I will endeavour to outline why. My colleague’s contribution earlier in the first and second reading and throughout the Committee stage of this simple bill is quite correct. This bill is merely seeking to amend a technical glitch and put in place a simple fair and clear process to fix this glitch.New Zealand First has an amendment that basically asks the Government to automatically include those beneficiaries who clearly can be easily identified by the records of Work and Income New Zealand and will qualify for a payment under this bill we are debating tonight.The purpose of this bill is relatively straightforward as set out in the general policy statement which is outlined in the departmental disclosure statement. The general policy statement reads: “This Bill amends the Social Security Act 1964 to correct with retrospective effect to 3 June 1998 an error in the legislation that does not give effect to the policy intent that a benefit commences on the day after a stand down period ends as opposed to the day on which the stand down period ends. It also provides that certain people are protected from the effect of the retrospective amendment including those who apply for a review of a decision of their commencement date before or in the case of benefit that commenced on or after 20 May 2014 within 6 weeks after the Bill comes into force.”I have gone over this bill to get a clear understanding of the impact of the technical glitch this Government finds itself dealing with tonight. I noted the departmental disclosure statement asks valid key questions especially in “Part Four: Significant Legislative Features”. Point 4.3 asks: “Does this Bill affect rights freedoms or impose obligations retrospectively?”. Clearly the answer is yes it does. Point 4.3 goes on: “Provisions in the Bill have [a] retrospective effect which could be seen as contentious as generally legislation should operate prospectively [and] not retrospectively. However in this case the retrospective provisions can be justified to ensure: [that] the Government policy intent is upheld [that] practice and understanding that has been previously applied by the Ministry of Social Development is validated [and that] financial costs to the Crown that were not anticipated are avoided. The amendment to section 80BA”—of the Social Security Act—“to correct the commencement date of a benefit so that a benefit commences on the day after a stand down period ends will be retrospective to 3 June 1998 in order to validate the Ministry of Social Development’s previous practice and decisions.”It is the general understanding of New Zealanders that the Government has the legal and moral duty to pay beneficiaries what it says they are entitled to. Once this assessment is processed at Work and Income people go into a stand-down period. Therein lies the problem: the stand-down period itself. From listening to previous members speaking it seems to be the sinking ship. Clearly members do not agree with this mandatory stand-down period which in many cases can sadly force people into the early stages of poverty.This is one of the consequences and barriers that people in New Zealand face when they are standing in line to ask for assistance to keep a roof over their heads meals on their tables and shoes on their feet. I am referring to casual workers teacher-aides seasonal workers freezing workers people who have been made redundant or people whose current job and current employer are just not a good fit. They go into Work and Income New Zealand to apply for a benefit and get hit with that mandatory stand-down period and they hope like hell that the last 50 60 or even 100 bucks will see them through the stand-down time.I find it amazing that legislative muck-ups have occurred over many years under both National and Labour Governments such as this bill we are debating tonight under urgency. To recap for those viewers watching the Social Security Amendment Act (No 2) in 1998 amended section 80BA of the Social Security Act and it incorrectly changed the wording to mean the day the stand-down ends. The wording change was not picked up until it was identified in a Social Security Appeal Authority’s decision in May 2014—and thank goodness too. Now 18 months later here we are under urgency debating this amendment and fixing a retrospective law to simply close this loophole up for good.The legislative error was unfortunate and operational practice was changed from 29 September 2015 so that payments were technically in line with the wording of the law until legislative change is passed. This will now add clarity to Work and Income stand-down periods. I understand that it has always been Government policy that a benefit will commence the day after a stand-down period ends. For example that means if you have a stand-down period of 5 days then your benefit will kick in on the sixth day. This I know—I am not doubting it—was how this legislation was intended to work and of course the operational practices of Work and Income support should match up.The Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill corrects the error with full retrospective effect to 3 June 1998. This New Zealand First believes addresses the unintended consequences to beneficiaries and the cost to taxpayers. It means that any beneficiary who has lodged a review of a decision related to a benefit commencement on or after the 1998 amendment and before the passing of corrective legislation will still have their review process in the usual way.Just quickly before I finish I do empathise with beneficiaries because no matter which way this bill that is being debated under urgency tonight is covered or how members in this House choose to debate this bill comments on social media sites are already slamming them for expecting to benefit from the Government’s “honest mistake”. This has been an embarrassing oversight and I am sure a regrettable moment on both the National Government’s and Labour Government’s books. New Zealand First supports this bill.JONO NAYLOR (National): I rise to take a short call on this because as was said by Poto Williams earlier on this is a very simple bill. It does not need a lot of explanation. It has certainly been well canvassed for the 2 hours and 50 minutes that it took through the Committee stage—although there was not a lot said from this side of the House; the bill speaks for itself you see. It does not need a lot of extra input because it has actually been well drafted and well put together by a good Minister who is dealing with what is actually essentially a very simple remedial matter.On that there is not a lot more to be said other than the fact that this will actually put something right that needed putting right. It is good that we are getting it done quickly and getting it sorted so that there is no more ambiguity going on for a long period of time. I commend this bill to the House.MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I would stand by a bill that would legislate to clarify current practice but this is not that bill. As I said at the beginning of the first reading retrospective legislation to deny people what is owed them is an affront to the rule of law. When that affront to the rule of law harshly impacts on those already doing it tough then that is a stain on a civil society on a transparent society and a stain on good governance. This is bad governance because the Government cannot budget to meet its legal obligations.I have applied for this legal entitlement and will be paying forward all funds received to the Auckland Action Against Poverty group. The Auckland Action Against Poverty group is an advocate for those people with the least power and those people who have their power cut off and without them supporting people like Kay Brereton this blunder would have stayed secret. Let us role model good governance put right a wrong and for people to receive their legal entitlement.I have listened to the hours of this debate and the non-debate as well and the silence and I am disappointed that the standard being put forward by the Government is that: “Oh well they did it too.” Really? Is that our standard? I do not think it should be at all. It is disappointing to know that this process of making decisions relies on people to stay disconnected and to feel that the legislation being proposed does not have relevance to the realities of their ordinary lives and I am dismayed by that.I do not want to forget—I do not want to forget—what it is like when $20 or when $10 will make a big difference. I remember scraping that together to feed a family of five. Actually that is luxurious for many people—$20 is a luxurious family dinner for many people. I do not want to forget that. I hope this House does not just remember it but reaches back to that connection and understands those realities and that we are relying on those people to feel disconnected from what we are doing here.So this is another slap in the face for the tens of thousands of those not holding the balance of power who have been consistently getting bad outcomes from this Parliament during the tenure of the current Government. It is time they received some help from this place which is why I am proud to oppose this bill. Kia ora.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: A 5-minute call—I call David Seymour.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of this bill. We have had a couple of contributions from the Green members characterised by melodrama and an exhibition of empathy. The reality is that there are always transaction costs for any kind of system. Whether it is a company or an insurance programme there is actually a cost of administering it and making the connections between the different parts of the machinery that need to be made. And that is one of the reasons that in most systems people design we have a statute of limitations. We say that things that happened a long time ago are going to be very very costly to relitigate now and so we are going to draw a line at some point in the past and not litigate prior to that.If you would like a practical example what we are dealing with here is a kind of insurance scheme where if you fall on hard times you get a benefit from the Government. If for example my car insurance company was to tell me that it was going to put up my premiums and add excessive costs to me and everybody else who contributed to the company so that it could relitigate a very large number of low-value claims stretching back 17 years then the common-sense empathic response from someone who really cares about the long-term overall welfare of the people of Aotearoa New Zealand would be to say: “That is not a good use of resources.” They would not come into this House and give us melodrama and exhibit their flow of empathy; they would actually say that is not a good use of resources.What we are doing here in this House tonight is saying that rather than paying excessive transaction costs to relitigate long-lost transactions that happened a long time ago we are actually going to set a statute of limitations and move on and deal with the real business of empathically serving New Zealanders with an efficient welfare State. That is what this bill is about. Hopefully one day the Green Party members will pull their heads out and support similar sensible measures. Thank you.Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): I am taking this short call to support this bill in its third reading. The 1996 tax reduction and social policy legislation technically provided for the benefit stand-down period to finish a day earlier than it is intended to but the explanatory note clearly states that the stand-down period should be a full calendar week. That means it should be for 7 days; that means the benefit should start after the 7 days of the stand-down period finish. So we see that the practice has been in line with the intention of the bill but the legislation has not been in line with the bill. It is important that people are treated equally under the law and that the legislation reflects the treatment that people receive.It is unfortunate that since 1998—since we had this practice—this was not picked up by any Government until last year when it was picked up by the court. We know that the promotional campaign is already on to inform people inform clients of Work and Income that they have the opportunity to seek a review of their entitlement regarding the stand-down period.Finally I want to thank all the people those who have put in the effort to bring this bill before the House under urgency. I support this bill and I commend it to the House.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): The explanatory note of this legislation says that this bill gives effect to the policy intent of the original legislation passed—well the debate occurred on 14 May 1998 but it came into effect on 3 June 1998. This whole debate and this whole legislation has been predicated by the premise that there was a clear policy statement from the 1990s National Government that it was its intention that the stand-down period should last a full 7 days. I do not think a single member of this House has been able to find any evidence that that was in fact the policy intent. The only reference that we have to turn to to try to find out what the policy intent of the Government at the time was is the Hansard. I have spent a fair amount of time this evening as I have been listening to the debate thumbing through the relevant Hansard and there is no reference at all to the stand-down period or to what the length of the stand-down period should be—certainly not in the Minister’s speeches and it is the Minister’s speeches to the House that we often go to to find out what the policy intent actually is and there is no reference in there at all.At the outset the purpose of this legislation stood on very very shaky ground indeed. Then we have a variety of other issues that have been raised throughout the debate this evening. Principal of those is that if it was the policy intent of the then National Government for the stand-down period to be a full 7 days and if this was a genuine mistake then it was a mistake born of rushed legislation. The original legislation was passed under urgency—actually during Budget urgency which appears to me to be a gross abuse of Budget urgency because this was not a Budget measure at all. It was passed under urgency and it was not shown to the Opposition until a few hours before the debate took place. This is the kind of error that occurs when you push things through under urgency. In a way it is deeply ironic that the current National Government is seeking to fix a mistake made by a previous National Government—a mistake that was made under urgency—by passing legislation under urgency; legislation that the Opposition has not had an opportunity to scrutinise properly which we have been given no regulatory impact statement for which we have been given no background documents for and which we have a very very scant departmental disclosure statement for. We are at risk once again of making bad law that is not fit for purpose and that does not actually achieve the policy intent that is being stated by the Government.I wonder what would have been the harm of taking this legislation to a select committee because it has been more than a year and a half since the Government actually realised that it was acting illegally—and let us be clear about that. I have heard from members opposite that this is just a technical amendment to tidy up a technical mistake. That is not quite the truth. The truth is that the Government has been acting illegally the Government has been acting illegally for some 17 years and Governments of both hues have been acting illegally. But the interesting thing is that when this Government discovered that it was acting illegally it made a conscious decision to continue acting illegally and it was only after that illegal action became publicly apparent that this Government decided to take action. So I think that speaks to the values of this Government. It is one thing to make a mistake; it is another to know that you are acting illegally and to continue to do so and hope that you can hide it from the public for as long as possible and act only when that information becomes publicly available. That is what the Government has done.This is more than a technical amendment; this is actually retrospectively making legal what was illegal and through that process denying people who have been adversely affected by the improper implementation of the legislation as it was enacted back in 1998 the opportunity to seek compensation for the illegal activities of the Government. So when members opposite get up and make very brief speeches about how this is nothing more than a technical amendment I say that there is nothing that could be further from the truth. Nothing could be further from the truth because that Government knowingly acted illegally and in a way that detrimentally affected the incomes of potentially thousands of New Zealanders. We know from the one bit of information that the Minister was able to give us that over 8000 people have made claims within the narrow opportunity that is available for people to make claims. That is 8000 people. That will be a tiny subset of the total number of people who have been affected by this legislation.There is another thing that I also want to challenge which members opposite have been saying throughout the debate and it is that this legislation is about a large number of very small claims. I think that was the thrust of the ACT Party leader’s contribution: that these are small claims that are of no real significance and that Parliament and the Ministry of Social Development should not waste resources on dealing with them. In fact what we suspect—and what we really know; again we do not have details—is that there will be a group of people who are severely and adversely affected by this.I know this is a source of great amusement for National Party members but there are a number of vulnerable working people who are severely and adversely affected by this and those are people who are on temporary work people who move in and out of fixed-term contracts people who are on temporary contracts people who get work through labour hire companies and people who move in and out of work on a regular basis because every time they move out of work and have to apply for a benefit the stand-down period applies to them. We have had the example of teacher-aides but there will be numerous other examples of people who by the nature of their work move in and out of work and they will have had a number of these days where they have been illegally denied income through the benefit system and that will total up. Over 17 years—moving in and out of workmaybe 5 times a year—there could very well be some people who have been significantly impacted by this. Again I say it is a source of amusement for the National Party; that is not so for those of us on this side of the House. We are actually concerned that there are people out there who have been severely and adversely affected by the failure of this Government to appropriately address this illegal activity that the Government has been engaging in.As I said I have been looking through the Hansard looking for any indication that it was the Government’s original intention for the stand down to be 7 days not 6 days. I could not find any but I did find this and I think it is an appropriate way to finish this debate. It is a quote from my predecessor and friend the Hon Steve Maharey who said at the time during this debate: “This Government wants to see beneficiaries be the fall guys for its faults. This Government wants the victims of this Government to pay for what it is not able to achieve. There is no opportunity in this Bill. There is no chance for a person to get a decent job with a living wage. There is nothing about families in this Bill. There is nothing about getting ahead in this Bill. It is all about the Government saying: ‘We can’t get the economy to grow we can’t give you a chance to get a job we can’t get wages to go up and beneficiaries are going to wear it.’ ” Those words are as true today as they were in 1998 and that I think is a very appropriate way to finish this debate on what is an appalling bill which has been a shambolic process to tidy up a classic National Party shambles.STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): This has clearly been a long night. I think one of the members over there is almost asleep and dreaming given those last few words. It is actually my pleasure to have the last words in this debate and it has been a wide-ranging debate. I think there has been agreement across the House that there is an error in the legislation and the issue is now how far back the decision goes as far as the applications for review. Being a good Minister and a good Government is about balance and we have an excellent Minister for Social Development who has struck the right balance. With that it is my pleasure to commend this bill to the House. Thank you.A party votewas called for on the question That the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.Ayes 75New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 46New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14.Bill read a third time.