Bradford Sue: General Debate 
Bradford Sue: General Debate 
[Volume:649;Page:17774] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 This afternoon I asked the Government some questions about the way in which at least some officers and some individuals within Work and Income continue to abuse and harass people who come to them for assistance. Although I had been aware of ongoing issues over the years I had hoped perhaps naively that after so many years of a Labour-led Government with a relatively benign approach to welfare things would be improving in comparison with the attitudes and culture so rampant in the Department of Work and Income in the late 1990s. 
However I felt impelled to take action after I received reports last week from two different districts. The reports highlighted the fact that for some Work and Income case officers the idea of treating the people who come to them for help as customers worthy of anything approaching the kind of respect a retailer would show a real customer is a total nonsense. For example a beneficiary from the Rotorua district whom I spoke of earlier Ms Tara Marks was told by a smirking and laughing male case officer to “fuck off”. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No no. The member should know that one cannot get around the Standing Orders by quoting from other documents. The member will stand withdraw and apologise for using that profanity in the House. 
SUE BRADFORD 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Earlier this afternoon the Speaker said she would come back with a ruling on this matter. I had not realised—she seemed to take a different approach from you. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Well I am in the Chair at the moment and I have taken this approach. The member will withdraw and apologise. 
SUE BRADFORD 
: I withdraw and apologise. [ 
Interruption 
] I would comment that if the House finds this language so offensive— 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I understand from the point of order the member raised that the Speaker had been asked to rule on this matter. That is a bit puzzling. You have just given a ruling Mr Assistant Speaker that I think all of the House would agree with but do we take it from the member’s comments that before the member started her speech she gave the Speaker a copy of her speech notes with the quote including the profanity and was somehow led to believe there would be a ruling on whether the profanity could be used? Is that actually the case? If it is the case we need to know whether that is a new procedure—that members can have their profanities pre-approved just in case they are able to use them. If it was the case that a profanity had been pre-approved then the Speaker in the Chair would need to know about that. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the member. I am not aware of that but I have made a ruling. At this stage that ruling stands unless it is changed. Thank you. 
SUE BRADFORD 
: I just make the point in relation to this matter that this is an offensive phrase and the House—justifiably—finds it offensive. I ask the House to consider how offensive that phrase is when it is addressed by a Work and Income case officer to someone who is at his mercy and in a very difficult situation in her life. 
Although the facts of the situation in Rotorua are in dispute it seems that the local Ministry of Social Development accepts that the case officer did make this remark. I hope the strongest possible message is sent to that office and to all case officers around the country that such language and the underlying attitude it represents has no place in today’s Work and Income offices any more than it has its place here in this Parliament. 
The second case of this nature involved the Gisborne office where a woman reported a very high level of harassment and bullying from staff to the point where she is now too frightened to go to the office. Of course that is something she has to do on a regular basis if she is to continue to receive the benefit upon which she is dependent for survival. From Murupara comes a further report of a case manager screaming right into the face of a beneficiary whom she is supposed to be there to help. That manager is evidently still employed. 
Beneficiary advocacy groups and other local people advise that cases like these are far from isolated. Not only front-line case officers but also security guards are being used to intimidate people who are already totally at the mercy of the State. The Minister for Social Development and Employment advised earlier that beneficiaries have the right to complain to the department about how they are being treated and that she sees the number of complaints as being very low. Well I would ask her to consider how hard it is for people who often have language and literacy problems and who are often living in poverty and in ill health to take complaints against what seems to them to be an all-powerful Government department. It is really worrying that in a period of low unemployment and with fewer people on benefits overall we are seeing a continuation of this kind of harassment. I hate to think what will happen when unemployment goes up again as it is bound to do and I hope the department will do everything it can to continue to work to change the culture of the 1990s which still seems to exist among some staff. 
Yes people who are on benefits or trying to get on to them can be difficult to work with. Anyone who is struggling to survive from one end of the week to the other who may be suffering from health problems and who lives at the mercy of the State tends to be stressed and finds it hard sometimes to negotiate calmly with the case officer. However this is all the more reason that staff should be trained and competent. Work and Income should have an ethos of public service that understands and acknowledges the realities of the lives of the people with whom it works. 
I call on the Government to do three things. First the Ministry of Social Development should do everything it can to end this culture of abuse wherever and whenever it occurs. Second skilled beneficiary advocates should be involved as a matter of course in training front-line case workers. Third Work and Income should apologise to all those people who have been humiliated intimidated and harassed in some of the ways I have outlined and others and start again with a new ethos of respect and empowerment rather than of intimidation and humiliation. The ministry has talked at length recently about dealing with the problems of doctors being bullied into writing forms for sickness benefits. Well I think in all fairness the ministry should also do everything it can to train and support its staff members to cease their own bullying tactics.