Sabin Mike: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSabin Mike: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 31 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:12138. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MIKE SABIN (National—Northland):I am happy to pick up from where my colleague Alfred Ngaro has left off in the social development area. I want to talk about three important areas of significant change—in fact the biggest change in a generation by far. Those are the work around vulnerable children the focus on youth and the change in the benefit categories and the introduction of social obligations which should one would assume be a mainstay of the welfare system but we have had a welfare system that has got out of control over the years. Arguably although it will always be needed it does not serve the interests of those who need it most when it gets out of control. The bill is around $22 million per week for the taxpayer for some 320000 New Zealanders but the lost potential in those individuals is capital that we can never really put a price on.The changes around youth which we dealt with as a Social Services Committee last year deal with the 14000-odd teenagers who are in that gap between education and training and employment. They have fallen into that gap. What we know for those individuals is that if we do not do something about them the chance of them finding their way on to an adult benefit and staying there for a significant period of time is very very high. It is an unacceptable situation. The wraparound supports the payment card system the mentoring system the interventions that have been put in place there are about upfront investment in those young people who have often had a very challenging upbringing and ensuring that we do as much as possible to make sure that they are in employment in education or in training and that they are ready willing and able to take up the opportunities when they appear—and of course they do.One of the things that we cannot legislate for is attitude. One of the difficulties that we see with young people today is that a lot of them unfortunately do not share the attitude that their parents and grandparents have in that there is some expectation that society the community owes them something. I just want to share a little anecdote concerning my own family. My partner’s daughter left school late last year and is now doing a level 3 course in the sports and recreation area with the hope to go on and do a diploma and degree in that area. She was a 16-year-old girl at the time she left school. She has made her way. She found some accommodation she was boarding and within months had a part-time job to help cover the costs of her new life. She has now found her way into a promotion in that job as a waitress because her front-of-shop attitude her willingness to want to excel and do well needed rewarding. The employer is rewarding her. I can assure members that she is earning well above the minimum wage—considerably above what many others would expect.There is one reason for that and one reason alone. It is because she has got off her backside and has shown the attitude and the determination that says: “If I want something out of life I have got to go and grab it.” When they do employers jump up and say: “Yes I welcome you.” This is particularly relevant in my electorate of Northland where unfortunately we are dogged with a lot of people who think that the world owes them something and they do not have to meet it in the middle.We are doing a lot of work on that focus on youth. The benefit category changes introduce social obligations. Well there are social obligations in every walk of life—in sports clubs in the workplace and in the family. There is no reason why those social obligations should not exist for those who are dependent on the State for welfare because they are not in work. That is why they should be receiving welfare—because they are not in work not because they cannot find a job necessarily. They are not in work. What we need to do is to ensure that the settings are right for them to be in work and often drug use is a barrier to that so introducing drug testing is a positive in that. Ensuring that children are enrolled in early childhood education enrolled with a primary health organisation and of course getting their well child checks is a socialobligation that means everything to those children. Of course we will not be letting those who are on a warrant run around at the taxpayers’ expense to evade justice and to evade the police.But finally in terms of the Children’s Action Plan here is a Government that is doing something. Since 1999 and the inquiry into JamesWhakaruru the Labour Party has sat there and done nothing for year upon year. The Children’s Action Plan is a demonstration of doing not talking.Vote agreed to.