Moroney Sue: Corrections (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill Customs and Excise (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
Moroney Sue: Corrections (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill Customs and Excise (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Volume:646;Page:15386] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker for the opportunity to rise and speak to the last stage the third readings of these three bills. This legislation deals with an issue that many members have already outlined so I will take just a short call. A few issues were raised in the course of the debate that I feel need some response. Although the National Party and the Greens are taking quite different perspectives on this legislation—National is supporting these three bills and the Greens have informed the House that they are voting against them—they both raised the issue of the priorities of this Government. The National Party raised that issue by asking why it took so long for these three bills to be brought forward. I remind listeners and members opposite that the technical changes made in these bills to overcome this issue were never attempted during the course of the 9 years that National was the administration. So it is a little bit rich for the Opposition side of the House to ask why this has taken so long. 
The legislation has taken so long because the Government has had other priorities. Members should not forget that when this Government took office it had to undo an unholy mess that had been left behind by the previous regime. The National administration had left so many things for this Government to try to unravel and to turn around— 
Eric Roy 
: Like what? 
SUE MORONEY 
: —like getting rid of the dreadful Employment Contracts Act like getting some roads built in this country like driving up a savings culture in this country by bringing in KiwiSaver like targeting tax relief for families and like trying to do something about the 13000 State houses that National sold to its property developer mates over the course of the 1990s. Do members opposite want the whole list? I can keep going. This Government needed to do so much work and those were the priorities that we have been focusing on to date. They are wonderful priorities because they are about taking this country forward. The country was in such a mess and needed so many things done to it that I recall—and members might like to listen to this because this is part of the history of what occurred in this country—that the councils in towns like Cambridge and Morrinsville did not know how to plan for growth because they were so used to the politics of decline during the 1990s. 
David Bennett 
: Yeah yeah! 
SUE MORONEY 
: Members opposite do not seem to remember that; they have conveniently forgotten it. We had councils that did not even know how to go about planning new subdivisions because they were so used to the population declining in their areas. They were so used to the politics of decline to just trying to hold on to what they had that they did not have those processes in place. 
The members opposite have caused me to move away from this bill. I am simply trying to remind those members that yes we have taken some time to fix up that big mess and some of it still exists and we still have to do that. However the work of a good Government is never done and it continues on with these particular bills. 
I also make reference to the speech of Metiria Turei from the Green Party because she also raised the issue of priorities and asked whether this legislation should be the priority of this particular Government. Well yes we are getting to the point where we are fixing up this issue. It is largely a technicality about data matching that we are resolving to fix here. These three bills amend the provisions relating to the use of the data supplied by the Department of Corrections the Customs Service and the Accident Compensation Corporation. They will allow the Ministry of Social Development to use that data to prevent unnecessary debt by allowing benefit payments to be stopped in a timely way when a recipient enters jail and to be more effective in the recovery of Crown debts. They will assist in identifying claims for student allowances and for the cost of living component of student loans in relation to people who are in prison and so are not entitled to this assistance. 
I think those are very fine principles; those are very fine things to be achieving. I thank the vast majority of the parties in this House for recognising how timely this legislation is and for recognising how proper these bills are. I certainly commend the amendments in these three bills to the House and I also thank the select committee for their work on these bills. Thank you.