Williams Poto: Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Poto: Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 April 2014. Volume:698;Page:17462. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): It is my pleasure to stand and speak on this bill the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill. I have had the opportunity to speak previously and I thank you for that. I would like to wish you a joyous and happy Easter celebration too Mr Assistant Speaker.Firstly I want to say that Labour supports this bill. I just want to refer to what my colleague Dr Prasad has said. We support it. We have huge reservations but we support it because we believe—and we have reiterated this many times—that people who commit fraud and commit crime should actually receive the full weight of the law andbe punished for it. So we expect people who commit crimes to also do the time as appropriate and that is why we support it.However beneficiaries it seems are easy targets. There is a populist belief that by virtue of being a beneficiary you must actually be without merit. When there are people who are down on their luck and who no matter how hard they try cannot get paid work we actually tend to kick them in the guts. I do not think that that is particularly fair. All the effort and work that go in to chasing welfare fraud when there are billions of dollars—yes billions—not collected via the tax system that could be put back in to support those most vulnerable by building our economy increasing jobs and paying people what they are worth. Because let us face it if you have enough money and resources to support your family that is what you do. But no this Government chooses to distract the New Zealand public with bills like this to convince them that it is actually doing some work so that hopefully the stories about the ineptitude of its Ministers slide under the carpet. I bet that this Government is happy that we are coming into an adjournment period.Relationship fraud costs us $20 million—criminalising people acting under duress or under the direction of others. Victoria University a very credible university says that tax evasion is 150 times more likely than benefit fraud—150 times more likely than benefit fraud. That is because in this country we have a really lax attitude to paying our fair share. When we are earning the big bucks we would rather keep that money than pay our fair share. We want to hang on to it all. For some people it is a game it is a joke. I say that that is disgraceful.This Government wants to squeeze money from already disadvantaged people. There is a part of this bill that talks about collecting from partners who have benefited or may reasonably have known they have benefited from the proceeds of benefit fraud. I have spoken at length about the impact of family violence on our communities. Here I say that there is a very real danger that we will try to extract money from people who are already in extraordinarily unsafe situations by the very nature of their relationships and that they will find themselves experiencing the full weight of the law.I also just want to refer back to the member from across the House who talked about the 60000 people who have come off benefits. Well I want to give you another figure: 285000 children living in poverty—285000 children living in poverty. It is shameful that we cannot do more to address that problem while chasing $20 million and while there are billions of dollars in tax fraud waiting to be collected.I just want to summarise by saying that my views on this bill have always been clear. It is not a great piece of legislation. Rather than providing fairness it is basically unfair and overextends the Government’s reach into the complex lives of our families. Thank you.