Upston Louise; Sepuloni CarmelHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you Mr Chair. I didn't get a specific answer in terms of the long-term component of those going on to benefit while I accept that Treasury completely got it wrong in terms of the forecast of those who would go on to unemployment benefit—and it's just as well they have. The question then is: given the numbers were so much lower than anticipated why are there still so many people on jobseeker benefit with nearly 180000? While the number I accept comes down in March we are talking about the year to June 2021.For the employment initiatives I specifically ask again as I have done for the last couple of years: which three employment initiatives have been the most successful at supporting those who are long-term benefit recipients into work? That is one of the questions. I'm anticipating one of the answers will be around Mana in Mahi so I'm going to ask some questions about that. Why do 30 percent of Mana in Mahi participants exit early? Why when there are more people on benefit long term are only 5 percent of the Mana in Mahi participants those who've been on benefit for two years or more? And with the employment initiatives that are clearly not effective why are they still continuing as outlined in this report received recently? And with the large number of job seekers that we now have whether they are work-ready or whether they are health and disability why has the employee assistance declined every year in spending for the last four years?Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): A number of things are covered off there and I'll attempt to respond to each of them. With reference to the employment programmes that we have in place I refute what that member said about Mana in Mahi. With regards to Mana in Mahi what we need to look at are the actual facts that we have in front of us. So just under 5000 people have gone through Mana in Mahi; of those only 10 percent have left Mana in Mahi and ended up back on benefit. The rest—90 percent—have either completed are still engaged or have left and gone on to do something else but not ended up back on benefit. That happens sometimes: people take up opportunities it doesn't work for them and they go elsewhere. But overall with this particular targeted group of people the fact that only 10 percent out of the nearly 5000 people that have participated in this programme have ended up back on benefit is actually a success story. So I think that's important to keep in mind.With regards to the longer-term beneficiaries I mentioned a couple of the reasons for why it's harder to place them in work before but I'll extend my answer. One of the things that we found when we came into Government five years ago was that there had been a declining investment into front-facing case management with regards to work focus and that was actually having an impact on kind of those constructive conversations and the support for people to be able to get into work. There'd also been an under-investment in upskilling and training opportunities and the results of that were that we may have had jobs available—which is still the case now—in our labour market but there was a mismatch with regards to the skills and qualifications and the training that people may have undertook that were in the benefit system with the jobs that were available. So we have been investing heavily in this area.It's not just about the actual employment programmes though. I do want to mention the importance of doing things like reinstating the Training Incentive Allowance. We've seen over the course of the last year those numbers double reminding everyone in the Chamber that we're talking about sole parents and carers that are eligible for the Training Incentive Allowance. The fact that they may stay on benefit a little bit longer but they're getting a higher-level tertiary education to me is not a bad thing. We know that the research backs that up because it means that they will be able to go on get better paid and more sustainable employment for themselves and the fact that they attain that qualification will have a direct impact on the level of educational achievement that their children will experience.So we think much longer term than what the previous Government did. We don't see a successful outcome as just being the reduction in the numbers of people on benefit. We want to know that we are providing them with every opportunity to reach their potential and we want to know that their longer-term trajectory is positive. We want to do everything we can to support them with regards to when they actually exit benefit they are exiting into something better rather than just exiting because the system kicked them off or the system didn't work for them or the system was too hard to navigate.