Ngaro Alfred: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNgaro Alfred: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8184. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ALFRED NGARO (National): We are not disappointed in Darroch Ball. I think he is a wise young man who comes from Liston College out in the west. I actually visited Liston College not so long ago and saw the principal there who said that they are proud that one of their old boys has become a member of Parliament so I think they are very proud of Darroch Ball. We are proud that he is a member of the Social Services Committee and makes a great contribution to the committee as well.Just in regard to the second reading of the bill I think there has been a lot said about the bill. It is a technical piece of legislation that is correcting something that goes back to 1998. I will keep saying that again because it has been some time since then. So I do not want to go over that as I have sort of laid it out in my first speech but I just want to talk about the issue around financial cost.Before I do that there was a comment by the previous speaker Ms Carmel Sepuloni around the regulatory impact statement. It was a good point. She asked why it is that we do not have a regulatory impact statement. In actual fact what has happened is that this piece of legislation has come out of the current piece of legislation that is before the Social Services Committee called the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill. It is inside that bill that there is a regulatory impact statement which has the issues that have been detailed. So just to answer the question about a regulatory impact statement that is the purpose and that is the reason why it is in there.Hon Ruth Dyson: What does it say? What does it say Alfred?ALFRED NGARO: So it is in there—I do not have that in front of me right now OK but we can get that. I am sure that throughout the night there will be opportunities to talk about the points that I want to raise in regard to the regulatory impact statement on this current bill.I just want to touch on a couple of things that have been raised that I think are important in regard to the financial costs. Officials have estimated the total cost of backdated payments to be in the region of $3.5 million for clients whose benefits commenced on or after 20 May 2014 who lodge a review in the 6-week period after the legislative change. That may rise—we are not sure—but that is what is currently before us at the moment.Until the legislative change takes effect the ministry will begin paying benefits consistent with current legislation. This will increase benefit expenditure. The effect of this change to current operating practice has been estimated at around about $0.4 million. So I think there was a question that was asked in some of the speeches about understanding what those costs could be. On that last point around financial cost to put this in perspective we reduced the expected costs of supporting current beneficiaries over their lifetime by $7.5 billion last year. That has become part of the overall package that this Government has made to provide support to those who are on benefits as well.That is my sort of brief contribution at this stage. I look forward to the Committee stage and some of the other discussions and debates there may be but I do commend this bill in its second reading to the House.