Moroney SueSUE MORONEY (Labour): Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill at the Committee stage. What a lot of bluff and bluster we have just heard from that previous speaker Alfred Ngaro.On this side of the Chamber particularly the Labour Party members we like to base our decisions on the research and the evidence. We are not like the Government—not like that party opposite—which is now going to extend a programme that demonstrably does not work. It demonstrably does not work because the number of young people not in education employment or training has risen under that Government. So its plans demonstrably have not worked. Furthermore this programme is so new that it has not been evaluated. Mr Ngaro—he has gone quiet now has he not? What he knows is that what I have just said is absolutely true.Alfred Ngaro: What research have you got?SUE MORONEY: I am talking about the research and the evidence Mr Ngaro. Can you please table—I invite the member to table the analysis and the evaluation of the Youth Service and that programme. I invite him to table it right now—the research and the evaluation that shows us that it works. Well there is silence. There is silence. The programme has not been evaluated it has not been researched and yet there is Alfred Ngaro having the cheek to get up in this Chamber and say that it is all based on research and evidence. Well that is demonstrably untrue. The outcome for our young people under this Government is that the numbers not in employment education or training keep growing. That is the outcome of the Government's lack of ability to actually connect with young people to work with them and to make them feel like a really valued part of our community so that they can engage and participate and be educated and be employed and be involved in training. Under that Government they just get told that they are pretty damned hopeless. That is what they get told. The Minister of Finance has told every single young person in this country that they are pretty damned hopeless. It is no wonder—Jono Naylor: The member is making it up.SUE MORONEY: The member is not making it up.Alfred Ngaro: Yes she is.SUE MORONEY: The member is not making it up because I can table if the Chair would indulge me the evidence of Bill English saying that about young people. [Interruption] They have got noisy again have they not? The truth is that the Government's programmes are not working because if they were working we would see a reduction in the number of young people not in employment education or training. The opposite in fact is happening. The member opposite brought into this debate the issue of paid parental leave. I need to respond on that issue because in fact Labour introduced—increased paid parental leave by 14 weeks while it was in Government and in fact extended the coverage of paid parental leave on three occasions while it was in Government. The latest extension to paid parental leave was in 2007. In 2008 we were no longer the Government—and I say that as if we left voluntarily; we of course did not—but the truth is that since 2007 that Government has done nothing about extending paid parental leave that it was not put under pressure to from this side of this House. If that member is genuine about early intervention then he will be voting for extending paid parental leave to 26 weeks when it comes before the House in a few weeks' time. Back to the bill. I want to talk about the sanctions part of this bill. I want to address the issue about what sort of a callous Government it would be that would introduce a tough measure like sanctions and not evaluate or do any research into what happens to the young people who have those sanctions taken out against them. As the member Jan Logie said before it might sound like they are getting a little bit of a telling off with this idea of sanctions. In fact what a sanction is doing is taking away their livelihood. A sanction takes away their incomes. Is it any wonder that we have increasing numbers of families sleeping in cars? Is it any wonder that we have increasing numbers of families and their children sleeping in garages? Is it any wonder that we have more than one family living in two- and three-bedroom homes when this Government has prided itself on taking sanctions out against some of the most vulnerable people in our community? Not only has the Government undertaken that measure to put in these sanctions against these people to take their livelihoods away from them for sometimes quite minor misdemeanours but it does not care enough to even find out what is happening to those people whom sanctions have been taken out against. Under this bill that Minister in the chair Anne Tolley will not be able to tell us what happens to people after they have had sanctions taken out against them. She will refuse to tell the House and refuse to tell the country what happens to these young people if they have these sanctions taken out against them. Why do I raise this? It is because it is important to know when that Government makes these substantial policy changes what the impact is on our community. What is the impact on children? I want to say to the Minister that for the Labour Party the key question here in this bill is what the impact is on children. What is the impact on children of these sanctions? We know that far too many of them are ending up in inadequate housing and accommodation partially due to the impact of this bill but also partially due to the inability of that Government to actually address the housing crisis or even admit that one exists. What is the impact on the child when the teen parent is required to go into full-time work or full-time education when that child is just 6 months old? What is the impact on children when their teen parent is required to go to a teen parent unit when they do not really want to be there? What is the impact on those children when at the age of 6 months they are required to be in early childhood education rather than being at home developing that close bond and development with their parent? That is the key question—the key policy question that needs to be asked here. The previous speaker talked about sanctimony. Well I just want to put that one right back in the Government's court because the sanctimony of putting these measures in without any desire to find out what the impact of those measures is is the ultimate sanctimony. That is the ultimate sanctimony. It is creating social problems for our country—the sorts of social problems that I hoped never to see in Aotearoa New Zealand. It is these types of measures these types of bills that are unmeasured that are not researched and that have no evidence base that sits behind them that create the sort of social problem that we should not see here in the land of plenty. But we are seeing it. The final point that I want to raise here in this debate is about the teen parent units. Yes they were created and put in place by a Labour Government and yes they are a wonderful way of empowering young parents. Rather than being punitive they are empowering them. They are not sanctions but they offer the opportunity of education. Under this bill that offer of the opportunity for education becomes an obligation. It becomes something that is a requirement. It becomes something that the State is going to come and do to you if you do something not right in your life—the State is going to require you to undertake education. One of the reasons why these teen parent units work so well—having visited a number of them and as the teachers in those teen parent units tell me—is that the young parents who are in those units are motivated. They want to be there. They have chosen—because of this new little person in their life; it has motivated them—to improve themselves and to seek more education. So I want to urge the Government to adopt and vote for the proposed amendment that has been put forward by Carmel Sepuloni which asks to please not limit them and their ambitions to just level 2 National Certificate of Educational Achievement. Please allow them to dream. Please allow them to see education as an opportunity and as something that is going to improve their lives. For many of these young people having a child at a young age is the very motivation that turns their lives round and makes them understand that they are now responsible for another life and they want to improve themselves.