Prasad Rajen: Social Assistance (New Work Tests Incentives and Obligations) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Prasad Rajen: Social Assistance (New Work Tests Incentives and Obligations) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:665;Page:13138] 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 It was amazing to hear the comments made by Chester Borrows a few minutes ago. He characterised the Labour Party as being interested in keeping all people “poor and pissed off”. It was a pathetic statement from that member. He ought to know full well that the work that has been done by this party over a long period of time has produced many of the leaders of New Zealand today and captains of industry who have done exceptionally well. They have no interest in doing what he says we are interested in; they still support the very principles that this party stands for. 
He is however right in the sense that people want to work and want to work hard. I wonder why Mr Borrows and members opposite lose sight of that fact. A very very short time ago—and many members will remember it very well—New Zealand had the lowest unemployment rate in the OECD. How did that happen? It happened because the climate was created for people to have jobs and people worked. In fact the unemployment numbers were so low that I do not think Work and Income could have done much better. It is still proven today that New Zealanders want to work. They want to get out there get a job and do well. In fact the figures that Mr Phil Goff quoted this morning—about 2700 people applying for 150 jobs—demonstrate that point. 
What has changed is that the Social Assistance (New Work Tests Incentives and Obligations) Amendment Bill requires people who are on the unemployment benefit to reapply for it every year. Why is that necessary? Is it not simply to be absolutely punitive and to demonstrate the Government’s right-wing ideology that punishes those who somehow for a short period are supported by the State? Work and Income has all of the tools already and it works exceptionally well in triaging people who are on the unemployment benefit by giving them plans to develop themselves by putting them into training programmes and by making sure they have all of the requirements to get into a job and to keep it. That is the approach to take rather than the punitive one that this bill takes. 
It is an observation that there is an amazing lack of appreciation of the life that many beneficiaries lead in New Zealand. This is despite the fact that the Minister in the chair herself the Hon Paula Bennett has been in that position in her early life. Oh how quickly they forget. When the Minister was in that position—I knew her then and I knew exactly the advantages that were available to her—she availed herself of all of those advantages and so she should. I believe Labour promoted those policies. The Minister had every right to get a tertiary education to have support to bring up her child and to move to where she is at today. Why then do members such as the Minister—and others who have passed through this Chamber—adopt a conservative punitive approach towards this group of mainly women and towards their children by putting them under the grill? 
Nothing in this bill can be said to be developmental for the life of a solo mother who is bringing up a child; there is nothing in it. Yet for some reason people of a conservative ilk—and the Minister is one—forget the advantages they took from the State and refuse to allow others to have them. It is all very clever. They disguise it in the frame that this will be good for beneficiaries and it will help them to improve themselves. 
Who supports this bill? The Minister ought to reflect on this also. Certainly Government members of the Social Services Committee did not reflect on it. I would like those members to take a call and tell us who they recall supported the major aspects of the bill. They were not there. 
The bill is branded as an exercise in fairness and as having an unrelenting focus on work. What is fair about this bill? It needs to be explained. Certainly the report from the Government’s own Attorney-General says that it is unfair. In terms of this unrelenting focus on work the Government ought to realise something. We go through a life cycle and at different points of the life cycle we have different needs and different experiences. We draw assistance differently and we contribute differently—that is how it is. From birth to death we go through those phases. 
It was amazing to see the people who did not support the bill. Maybe the Minister ought to take advice from the person who taught her social policy. Professor Michael O’Brien said that this bill has no redeeming features and ought to be withdrawn. That is excellent advice from the Minister’s own professor. If there is to be an unrelenting focus on work then with the growth in unemployment why is there no unrelenting focus on the creation of employment? If the Minister were serious about that it would produce the same results that the last Government produced and reduce unemployment to negligible levels. People who can work would be able to. But that is not what this Government is interested in. 
In the absence of all of that in many of the policies that this Government is following there is an underlying philosophy of being punitive of picking off one sector of our society and advantaging another. That is amazing. Eventually it destroys the very thing this society tries to create. Why cannot we all let down the ladder that we climbed up rather than when we get up to the top pulling it away from those who are trying to climb up the same ladder? That would be a generous gift. I know of women colleagues in the Labour Party and in the Green Party who have had this experience and they talk passionately about it and about the many cases they know about. They do not forget that. They have done well. They are here as members of Parliament but they remember the struggle. They have made a promise to themselves that they will do everything in this Chamber to ensure that others have the same advantages. 
The bill also demonstrates an amazing disregard for the life of a solo parent who is trying to bring up a child. I am a man and I have only observed others doing this. I have worked with many in my professional life and I have taught many as well. When one has worked with people who are in that particular situation one goes home and simply marvels at how some of those women particularly solo mothers can manage two or three children do a whole bunch of volunteer work keep the family connections growing and still do well on the smell of an oily rag. Members then come into this Chamber and are confronted with the policy that this bill reflects which is simply saying that beneficiaries ought to do better. They have to get back into work and the Government will command that that be so. It demonstrates an amazing disregard for what those women do. 
I have a 13-month-old granddaughter. I see the efforts my daughter makes to bring up her child and she has a husband and us as grandparents. Imagine what it is like for parents who are on their own and trying to do this. This bill says that after a parent’s youngest child goes to school at age 6 that parent will be free to work from the time his or her child starts school until he or she returns home. This assumes that parents have nothing else to do to prepare for the life of one two or three children and to do the amazing amount of voluntary work that these women in particular undertake. Labour has proposed an amendment to define voluntary work as work so that when women are doing voluntary work they will not be caught by the provisions of this bill. Many submitters submitted on that particular point and we will raise it again. Thank you.