Davidson Marama: Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDavidson Marama: Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 10 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:10912. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): This is a rewrite of social security law. Māori are 35 percent of benefit recipients. Māori saw the biggest rise in unemployment across the whole country—a 2.2 percent increase in Māori unemployment from 10.6 percent to 12.8 percent. I am standing as the spokesperson for Māori development in light of what this legislation means and how this impacts directly on Māori.There is clear agreement from all of us in this House I think that the current law is an unwieldy mess and needs to be tightened up. It needs to be straightforward and clear—we absolutely agree. That should not at all be the excuse therefore to put through sneaky reforms especially when it is going to impact mostly and disproportionately on Māori families and Māori babies. That is why I stand for the Green Party today very gladly and thankfully to say we are outright opposing this bill from the get-go.I want to again highlight agency and the loss of it in this rewrite with the redirection of benefits without consent. Immediately I remember actually from 6 months ago when I was not on an MP’s salary what redirection does to a family. I know that personally. My redirection was not of a benefit but it was because when you are struggling and making trade-offs between buying food paying for the heaters to be able to be put on and for your hot water to stay on and paying the rent there is not a whole lot of choice there. If you do not have a say in trying to manage something in a really difficult situation gosh the stress is incredible. It happened to me. I know firsthand that this is not a good and sustainable way to manage and care for our people.When that happens when we are causing those most vulnerable to face even harsher situations it has a cumulative impact. It makes things worse and worse and worse and as a country that ends up falling upon all of us and particularly on our children. This law is far too important to sneak anything through that is driven by an agenda. Why should we not be clear that there is honesty in what the agendas are in rewriting this bill? That has not been proven to us by the National Government so far.So again I have some really clear concerns especially about the investment approach. It absolutely is narrow. The investment approach will unfairly profile those whom the Government thinks are liable and a risk. Why have none of the Government members bothered to mention the word “risk” when they are trying to celebrate the investment approach? Who is it going to impact on?Sixty percent of children in care are Māori. Even just the fact that you have been in contact with Child Youth and Family automatically gives you a bad mark against your name and assigns risk to you. This is going to unfairly impact on young Māori people and of course I oppose that. This is actually profiling in action. This is totally profiling and it does not take into account any of the wider indicators that need to be considered at all. So I absolutely agree with my colleague Darroch Ball in raising clear concerns not mindless opposition about these very damaging approaches.Again we say the punitive approach—Māori unemployment has risen 2.2 percent—is not what we need here. We need a whole-of-system review that addresses the real problems with the law but also this is a distraction. We do need good clear law but I do not want it to be used as a distraction from the underlying issues. It would be better to aim to not have to use this law at all in the future. I do not want this work programme to be taken as the work programme to address the wider social issues. That is what I am also concerned about in this rewrite.Māori children—have I gone over time? Oh I did not get a bell. Sorry Mr Assistant Speaker.