Logie Jan: Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLogie Jan: Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 18 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16780. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAN LOGIE (Green):I am proud to rise and speak on behalf of the Green Party on this second reading of the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill and to express our opposition to this bill which is an unqualified opposition to the moral redundancy that we see in this bill. We are working for a social security system that provides everyone with enough income to fully participate in their community and to live safe healthy lives. This would be what a real investment approach would look like and it would save us money in the long run. We support policies that are sufficient to ensure that vision simple to understand and access universal in their application and equitable within a wider social context. We oppose this bill because it is not consistent with these values or this vision. This bill will we believe further stigmatise the most marginalised people in this country and put more barriers in the way of people trying to get out of poverty. We currently have a system that identifies fraud and debt and has options for redress. You can believe that you want to maintain the integrity of this system and fight against fraud and oppose this bill—we do.Part of the motivation for this bill has been to remove the uncertainty around debt recovery that has been raised by court rulings that have highlighted human rights concerns. This bill removes some of the leniency that exists within the system in relation to debt recovery which will result in less money in the hands of the poorest New Zealanders. It will treat debtors to the Ministry of Social Development more harshly than debtors in other parts of our system despite many people being in debt because the basic benefit levels are too low to enable them to provide the very basics of life.This bill imposes a new obligation on the ministry to take all reasonable practical steps to recover debt. Over two-thirds of the debt that the ministry recovers is not a result of fraud. Let me say that again. Over two-thirds is not a result of fraud. Much of it is a result of administratively created overpayment. It is the interface between beneficiaries who are working part-time and reporting that work and the systems through the Inland Revenue Department. A significant amount of debt is actually created by a mismatch of those systems rather than by any doing of the beneficiaries.Even more worryingly for me much of the debt is created because benefit payments are too low to enable people to live a normal life and to weather those normal shocks that many of us manage in our daily lives—like an appliance breaking down or a family crisis—and the basic benefit levels are not enough to provide some very basic things. Often advances are given to people to pay for some of the absolute essentials in life including things like washing machines fridges school uniforms sanitary items attending a family funeral or even food and the list goes on. This is what we are talking about when we are talking about debt.I just want to give one example to try to make this real for the House. A woman with her two primary school - aged children ended up on the sole parent payment because when she left her violent partner her children were so unsettled that she needed to leave her job because she did not have enough leave available to be able to be there for them when they needed her. She had lost most of her furniture and most of her personal possessions when she had left that relationship. So she was starting again without a job trying to ease her children through this transition. She got an advance to get some of the most essential items that she needed to set up her house. That money the repayment of those costs in setting up her house came off her benefit each week which in turn meant that she was struggling even more to keep the heating on and to put food on the table. When the children got holes in their shoes she had to tell them that those holes might just make them run faster to help them cope with the new reality of their lives on a benefit in this country.Although she was really struggling because this was defined as debt and it was being recovered even if there was a discretion she would not have challenged it because she saw that as valid in the system. We do not. We believe that those children deserve better and taking away the ability of the department to have discretion around the recovery of that debt is I believe morally bankrupt. Our children deserve better. We have enough in this country to make sure that our children have shoes. We have enough in this country that we do not have to take money out of a tiny budget for those families who are struggling enough already. If we put more money into the system those families would have a chance to survive. They would have a chance to recover and rebuild themselves and we would all be better off in the long run.The rhetoric around this bill seems to have compelled most people to start their comments with the moral acceptance of the need for beneficiaries to repay such debt. The Green Party questions the legitimacy of this when discrimination is built into the system as it is at the moment and so many of our children are living in poverty as a result. We do not support law change to strengthen the ability of the Government to reclaim money from the poorest families who are just trying to provide the very basics for themselves and their children.We have been advised that there have been some amendments from when the bill first came into this House and we are grateful for those. I do need to acknowledge that when the bill first came into the House there was no ability for the chief executive to consider factors outside of ministerial discretion in determining the rate and method of debt recovery. It is pleasing to see that that has been built in but it does not change the fundamental principle. We have been advised that these amendments will protect against breaches of international human rights obligations specifically those of economic social and cultural rights. But we are still concerned about this and do not have confidence. Part of the reason for that is noting the Human Rights Commission submission to the Universal Periodic Review which noted “at present economic social and cultural rights are not recognised as fundamental justiciable rights.” and therefore we would argue that explicit protection in this bill is required. The refusal to consider the insertion of a clause to guarantee these rights is of considerable concern to us. Being told that the legislation will enable future Ministers to insert such a clause in the directions is not a comfort.On another point this bill also allows the ministry to recover a debt from the partner of a beneficiary when that debt has arisen from fraud where the person knew there was a risk that they were benefiting from that fraud. On this point we are ambivalent. We believe that the current system of reclaiming the entire debt from the beneficiary usually the woman even when the partner has benefited from the money directly or indirectly is unjust.We are also concerned that currently violent partners regularly use the threat of informing on a woman as a tool of abuse. This is easy for them because currently the consequences fall entirely on the woman holding the benefit. However a significant number of submissions raised concerns around domestic violence in relation to this bill. Although we have had previous Government members assure us that the system is well protected to protect victims of domestic violence that is not the experience we have had conveyed to us. We oppose this bill with pride.