Borrows Chester: Third Readings — 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Borrows Chester: Third Readings — 
[Sitting date: 18 August 2010. Volume:665;Page:13257. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 It is a great thing when a political party maintains its promises. The Social Security (New Work Tests Incentives and Obligations) Amendment Bill which this legislation started out as is an example of National bringing to fruition those things that it campaigned on. National campaigned for instance on beneficiaries being able to earn $100 a week before the benefit abated which is in the legislation moving through the House tonight. Members on the other side of the House never did that. They had the opportunity to do that they had a long and substantial opportunity to do that they had 9 years to do that and they did not bother. Yet tonight they try to castigate National for bringing to fruition exactly what its members campaigned on and what Labour did not bother to do. 
Labour members did not bother because I believe they did not care enough to do that one little thing. It would not have been much. They passed a number of other pieces of legislation they brought a number of bills before the House to enact things that they had campaigned on during the course of their campaigns in 1999 2002 and 2005 but they did not bother to do this one little thing and we have to ask why. They have never ever provided an answer. I look forward to the next calls from Labour members but they have never ever provided an answer as to why they did not bother to do that one little thing. 
We campaigned that solo parents who received the domestic purposes benefit—and so they should; I do not see that as magnanimous; I see that as sensible and practical—and who are the parents of children over 6 would need to present for work. If there were jobs available and if it was within their capability to work they would have to for some of the time. 
It was very interesting to listen to submissions on the bill during its select committee hearing and to note that many of the submitters who came forward in opposition to this bill and many members on the other side of the House said that it was very mean because it deprived children over 6 of their parents. They were saying that the bill was an incredibly harsh thing and an incredibly punitive thing to do. They did not realise that the vast majority of solo parents whose youngest child is over 6 work voluntarily. So members on the other side of the House were effectively saying that any parent and any solo parent particularly whose youngest child is over the age of 6 and who works must be a bad parent. That is an absolutely stupid position to be in and it is absolutely stupid to suggest that. Everybody knows that work is a good thing. Parents should work to the maximum of their potential as long as that does not detract from their ability to parent or to care love and nurture those who are closest to them and who rely on them. Work is essentially a good thing. 
For a number of years I worked as a small-town policeman in Patea. After the Patea Freezing Works had closed I watched families grow up under a regime where the children did not see mum and dad tipping out of bed in the morning and going somewhere to work. The single thing that made me give up my support of the Labour Party and join the National Party was in 1987 when the Labour Minister of Labour Richard Prebble decided that unemployment had grown so big that it was easier to just pay people the benefit and not bother making them turn up for work under the Project Employment Programme scheme. A large number of the members opposite were senior members of the Labour Party at that time and some of them campaigned in 1990 in support of all those policies from 1984 through to 1990 that did that. Labour did exactly what my colleague David Garrett said; it relegated those people to the unemployment system. It said what we have heard many many times over the course of this debate: there are no jobs so we should not try. Well what a load of rubbish! All that approach does is relegate people who want to work and who have aspirations for a better future and to get on and work for themselves and their families. The other side of the House says that that is not good enough and that we should not try to help them; those families are just collateral of a system that those members support and so they will vote against this legislation. Absolutely ridiculous! 
Well our party believes and those who support this legislation believe that these people are people whom we were elected to this House to represent. We were elected with a very strong mandate to fulfil the manifesto that we campaigned on and I am very very proud to be part of a Government that is doing what it promised. I stand in support of this legislation and I commend it to the House.