Sio William: Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSio William: Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 April 2014. Volume:697;Page:16951. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere):Thank you for the opportunity. When I look at the Minister for Social Development and her Associate Minister—very good-looking Ministers and I like them—I am reminded of what the people of Manukau say to Cam Calder when he is out and about. Cam Calder is of course retiring. He is one of 16 National MPs leaving the ship. When the people of Manukau see Cam they say: “Cam you are such a nice guy. You’re such a nice guy but we hate your party because you represent a party that is just heartless when it comes to dealing with people who are down and under.” I look at the regulatory impact statement here and I tell you as a responsible member of the Opposition that the intent of this Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill is an intent that most people would support. No one in their right mind agrees that fraud is a good thing—no one in their right mind agrees that fraud is a good thing. In fact anyone who commits fraud whether it be in the benefit system or whether it be in our tax system should be pursued and should face the law.But here is the difference from how we in the Labour Party would do things. Although the National Party is intent on politicising this—beating people into hardship beating people who are on the benefit beating people who do not have jobs beating people who are earning the unemployment benefit because they cannot get a job beating people who are single parents and beating people who are on the sickness benefit or the disability benefit—is content to do that sort of thing we are not. The Labour Party will not do that. There is a way of dealing with these things. You have got to implement a culture that recognises that these people have rights—rights that ought to be protected; international rights that are protected in the international arena—and this Government is taking New Zealand in a very very different direction.Let me just take you through a few things and make some responses as I go. The two most common ways people fraudulently claim a benefit according to the regulatory impact statement are firstly failing to declare employment and wages received often by continuing on a benefit after starting work. As much as we want people to be in jobs what is missing here is that when people who are down on their luck for one reason or another have been earning an income they actually need to be supported through the transition period. That is not what is happening here. If you want people to get into jobs we have got to pay them a decent living wage.Hon Maryan Street: That’d be a start.Su’a WILLIAM SIO: That is exactly right my colleague Maryan Street.Hon Tau Henare: What do you mean “we”? When did the Labour Party start paying?Su’a WILLIAM SIO: That is the Government. That is a very good start my colleague Maryan Street says. The second reason is failing to declare a relationship particularly if the relationship starts or resumes while at least one partner is receiving a single or sole parent rate of benefit. The direction that this Government is taking does not recognise the complexity of relationships. It would be interesting for the public to know just how many relationships are in and out of the doors of this building. Do you get my meaning?This Government does not recognise the complexity of relationships and the hardships that many solo parents go through particularly single mothers who have young children to fend for. You saw yesterday how the Duchess of Cambridge walked out of the plane clutching baby Prince George trying to fix her hair. She left everything else to the wind—do you know what I mean—because her priority was baby George. The priority of single parents is their children. They are not going to worry about trying to call up Work and Income to let it know about the circumstances they are facing. Many of those circumstances are private affairs that they do not want to convey to a Government department that is just plain heartless. That is the culture that has been injected by this Government into our system of support for those who are needy.Here is another statement in the regulatory impact statement: “Other ways people fraudulently claim a benefit include incorrectly claiming the wrong number or type of dependants claiming multiple benefits”. In the community that I live in we speak one hundred and—different languages. I cannot remember how many languages but there are 160 different ethnic groups in that community. Their first languages are not English. The Ministry of Social Development under this Government does not seem to recognise that in the Aotearoa New Zealand of 2014 first languages are not English. The ministry needs to recognise that miscommunication and language difficulties are a significant barrier when you are following a form that has big words in the English language. The ministry does not recognise that. The true extent of fraud that the Ministry of Social Development does not detect is impossible to quantify. I will give you some cases that the regulatory impact statement mentions: 10735 cases were investigated resulting in 2139 cases of overpayment. Out of those 2139 cases of overpayment 714 cases were prosecuted.Here is the picture. The Government is painting every person on a benefit as if they were criminals. Based on the 10700 cases investigated 2000 cases were found to have been overpaid and 714 cases were prosecuted. This is lousy politics here. This is a political stunt. I know why the community hates this National Government. It is because it is heartless and it continues to beat people down when all they are asking for is decent jobs higher salaries and to be respected and treated with dignity. Like I said I like the Minister for Social Development. She is young and she is beautiful but the community does not like her politics. She has become the face of this Government and most people thought that she was going to be a nice person who would recognise the hardships. But she has pulled up the ladder of the support that she once got. She is denying every other single parent that kind of support which our State has a responsibility to provide.So I want to say this to her and to the Associate Minister who is ushering this bill through. He said earlier that this is about fairness; it is not. Yes it should have been about fairness but this is really about beneficiary bashing. I say shame on this Government—shame on this Government—for consistently doing this. Every time the polls go down on National’s side—and it has been trending for quite some time—it whips up some emotion from their supporters by pointing the finger at the most vulnerable of our communities. All I can say is shame on the Minister—shame on the Minister—who is ushering this bill through and shame on that Government.I reckon Tau Henare is doing the right thing along with 16 other National Party MPs.They are abandoning this Government. As a westie he does not want to associate himself with a Government that is heartless and does not care about hardship and how hard it is for those who are unemployed those who are receiving a benefit—I see you shaking your head—those who are single parents those who are doing it tough to support their children and young people those who are sick those who are needing health care and requiring support through our social security system those who are disabled those of our young people who are unable to get jobs and educational training and those who are widows. Those are the people who have been lumped together in the way that this Government is treating beneficiaries. I say we will show this Government what we think of it come 20 September 2014.