Hipkins Chris: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8204. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]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?