Moroney Sue: Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 April 2014. Volume:698;Page:17451. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour): If the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill were all about fairness then we would be talking about addressing tax fraud at the same level that this Government is prepared to deal with some of the most vulnerable people in our society by taking these measures against benefit fraud. But I want to say at the outset that the Labour Party is supporting this bill because there is one small element of fairness. I am going to come to that in a minute.In the context of this Government’s relentless beating up on people who do not have paid employment at the moment at the very time that this Government is doing nothingto ensure there are jobs for people to have here we are sitting in a period of time when in New Zealand we have hit high levels of unemployment—high levels of unemployment. The Government has sat on its hands and done nothing. We heard at question time today that Christchurch has been rebuilt primarily by immigrant labour by people from overseas while New Zealanders sit in the dole queue because that Government did nothing in the 3 years that it had to plan to train New Zealanders to be the people who rebuilt Christchurch. That is an indictment on this Government.What has it been doing? Instead of actually doing sensible things as Labour asked it to do within months of the earthquakes striking Christchurch—like training people as builders training people in the construction industry and putting its energy where a good Government would if it were thinking about the plight of the people—it has been tinkering around with bills like this. It has been tinkering around with trying to get the New Zealand public to think that every beneficiary is committing welfare fraud. This is what it has been spending its time and energy on: whipping the people who have actually lost jobs. That Government has done nothing to help them to get other jobs. The Government has done nothing. It thinks the market is just going to deliver. It is a hands-off Government that says “Too bad.” Yes we have struck hard economic times. People are losing their jobs and this is the Government’s answer to that: working on bills like this that are designed to have fair-minded New Zealanders think that beneficiaries deliberately lose their jobs in order to rip the system off somehow.I want to make it absolutely clear that in the minority of situations where people do set out to rip off the New Zealand taxpayer and commit welfare fraud deliberately the Labour Party has no truck with that—absolutely no truck with that. We will stand and vote for bills like this where they actually address those issues. But we would much rather—and a Labour Government would—put energy into ensuring that people were trained to do the jobs that are available. That is the crime that this Government has committed because it has completely washed its hands of that. We are going to be facing the remarkable situation in New Zealand of actually having skills shortages—skills shortages in quite a number of areas—along with high unemployment. That is an absolute indictment on this Government not doing its job. It has failed those thousands of New Zealanders who have ended up on the scrap heap while this Government has been in place.It is not all its fault. I am going to recognise that there has been a global financial crisis but the job of a Government during a global financial crisis is to do everything it can to help the people who are going to be most hurt in our country by that global financial crisis. So what did Government members do? They said “Let’s deal to them about welfare fraud.” That is their big answer and it works for them. Did you notice that the Minister for Social Development Paula Bennett decided last week or 2 weeks ago that she would try to get New Zealanders to think that beneficiaries by and large spend their time living the Club Med life overseas—Hon Chester Borrows: No only 21000 of them.SUE MORONEY: Well Chester Borrows says “Only 21000 of them.” Mr Borrows how many of those 21000 travelled internationally because they had given up hope of finding a job in New Zealand? How many of them Minister?Hon Paula Bennett: 4800.SUE MORONEY: No no that is not right. Can the Minister tell the House how many people of those 21000 left these shores and have not returned?Hon Paula Bennett: 4880.SUE MORONEY: No that is not the figure. I have seen the Minister use that figure and it is not correct. It is not correct. Why is the Government trying to whip up this idea of people committing benefit fraud or if they are not doing that living the Club Medlife—living the Club Med life overseas? It is completely irrelevant and it shows how out of touch the Government is with the situation that many New Zealanders find themselves in through no fault of their own—through no fault of their own. No thanks to that Government’s members either because they have sat on their hands. They have sat on their hands and said “Well look the market’s going to deliver so the Government doesn’t need to do anything.” Well guess what. That is not working.In the region I come from the Waikato region unemployment is going up. In the last quarter unemployment in the Waikato went up from 6.1 percent to 6.8 percent. It is heading in the wrong direction Ministers. It is heading in the wrong direction and that is supposed to be the rock star economy. That is the Government’s rock star economy. Well I can tell you that ordinary New Zealanders will tell you how rock star it feels—and it don’t feel too rock star at all for many of them. The people who are subject to this bill are the people at the bottom of the heap. They are at the bottom of the heap and often through no fault of their own.I will though just say for context that the reason the Labour members became convinced during the Social Services Committee hearing to support this bill is that we did have representations from many women’s organisations when they came before the select committee. They told us they had witnessed and were concerned about situations in which women—mainly—who were sole parents were put in a position by their partners of committing welfare fraud. They felt that it was unfair that it was the woman alone when the partner was complicit in it as well who actually suffered the consequences of being discovered to be fraudulent in that way.Relationship fraud actually accounts for about $20 million a year—$20 million a year. It is not great and it pales in comparison with Inland Revenue Department estimates that tax discrepancies amount to over $1.2 billion a year. It is $1.2 billion versus $20 million but this is where the Government is spending its time. However we have said in the Labour Party that in this situation we do not want to see the women bearing the brunt of something that actually two people have been complicit in. We do accept that this sliver of a bill may help to address that issue. We sincerely hope it does so we are prepared to support it.We want to see the Government be fair and deal with the big fraud issues in this country and they are clearly to do with tax discrepancies and tax fraud. This bill is small fish. It is small fish but the Government has put its emphasis here because it wants to distract from its appalling record of not creating jobs not creating training opportunities and not doing the things that a good Government would do to ensure that we did not end up as we have now in the ridiculous situation of having a skills gap in New Zealand while thousands sit on the scrap heap in the dole queue because that Government has not seen fit to help them seek the right training for the right skills.The Government has not even had a training and skills strategy in place. Christchurch is the absolute epitome of that. It absolutely shows a Government that has been looking the other way trying to create all sorts of smokescreens and distractions to distract from its very poor performance in this area. I think that New Zealanders are appalled when they learn that Christchurch is largely being rebuilt by overseas labour. It is not because they are higher-skilled technicians whom we could not possibly train here in New Zealand; they are labourers they are truckies and they are people who are doing jobs that New Zealanders could be doing if the Government had got off its collective butt and trained people in the construction industry.The construction industry the building industry tells us that right now while thousands sit on the scrap heap in the dole queue it is short of 5000 apprentices. That is right now. That is 5000 people who if that Government had been doing its job could have been in apprenticeships right now. I tell you that under a Labour Government theywould have been in those apprenticeships. Labour was prepared to invest money in actually increasing opportunities for apprentices to be taken on. Labour supports this bill but it is a sad indictment on the performance of that Government when it comes to dealing with unemployment.