Bennett Paula: Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Bennett Paula: Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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PAULA BENNETT (National) 
: 
 I stand to support the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill and I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak a little more broadly on it than I have previously. I found it quite restrictive speaking within the parts so I am sure the Minister of Housing the Hon Chris Carter will agree that it is nice for me to have the opportunity to talk a little about the bigger picture and what it means for this information-matching amendment bill to go through. I would certainly like the Minister to take a call and address for us yet again the issue of the single core benefit and the fact that it has been going through the throes and bureaucracy of Parliament for many many years now and still we keep being told it is coming it is coming. I have questions as to how information matching—particularly when it comes to the entitlement part of the bill and ensuring that people are getting their dues—will work in relation to the benefit changes we are looking at with the single core benefit. 
The other thing I am very keen for the Minister to talk a little about is how 60000 letters were distributed via the Housing New Zealand Corporation’s database. There have been calls for the Minister to do that this evening and I back my colleague the knowledgable and incredibly talented when it comes to matters of housing Phil Heatley. It has to be a concern as far as the privacy of people’s information is concerned that a malicious letter was sent out before the election campaign. It informed people that if a National Government were elected they could expect to be thrown out of their State houses which of course was not true. It was a complete and utter lie. What that did was to fill people with fear. 
The question we need to ask when we are looking at the issue of information matching is where that information came from and how people gained access to it. We have asked those questions at the Social Services Committee and we asked the Privacy Commissioner about the matter but we have been stalled and dead-ended. Those are important questions. Leaving aside the fact that the letter was intended to work against the National Party and that sort of thing we need to look at the broader implications of that sort of knowledge being out there and what it means for the protection of a person’s right to privacy. 
The Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill also talks about transparency and openness which is something the National Party is delighted to be supporting. We like that level of transparency. We believe that information is power and that sharing it between the two departments makes sense. It makes so much sense that we tried to introduce something like this bill in 1999. Of course it was National that saw that this bill would give the opportunity to open that up and to have information going from one person in one department to the next. The ramifications are that this bill will benefit those people receiving welfare payments because it means they can look at whether they are getting their full entitlement and whether they are able to survive on that payment. 
When it comes to income-related rents it is always an interesting matter as to how much we help people with a hand up and not a handout. I know that the Minister addressed the matter earlier this evening but I ask him yet again about the implications of second and third-generation welfare dependants coming through in relation to State housing. I unashamedly say that National has greater aspirations for them than that. Living on welfare and being in a State house is OK and thank goodness such support is there for those who need that sort of assistance but it is not the end and it should not be the means for those New Zealanders. They can aspire to having more and we want to be able to take that idea to them and actually share it with them. Information sharing may actually help those people with that side of things. 
My colleagues have certainly touched on the issue of welfare fraud a bit and I agree that this bill will decrease the level of fraud—it will make it that little bit more difficult. Personally I do not think a huge epidemic of welfare fraud is going on throughout society; I think it concerns a smaller portion. The sad thing of course is that those few in the minority make things sound bad and give everyone a bad reputation. We certainly believe in the carrot and stick approach and this legislation gives an opportunity for us to come down hard on those who actually are rorting the system and taking money from those who really do need it and do deserve it. The facts are that when we spend a dollar on someone who is receiving it illegally and wrongly it is a dollar taken from someone else who possibly really does need it to get by and who deserves it.