Benson-Pope David: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Benson-Pope David: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:632;Page:4344] 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 Earlier in this debate—I think it was on Thursday of last week—I noted the huge success the Labour-led Government had had in getting working-age people back to work and I want to elaborate on that a little on this occasion. 
The ministry has played a key role in getting people back to work. Since March 2000 the number of people employed has increased by 316000 to just over 2 million—to 2108000. That is an extraordinary achievement of 144 more people in work each day every day since 1999 giving a labour-force participation of 68.5 percent which I am pleased to tell members is the highest ever for this country. Overall since the Labour-led Government took office in 1999 combined working-age benefit numbers that is all working-age benefit numbers—unemployment sickness invalids and domestic purposes benefit numbers—have dropped by over 30 percent so it is good to have the opportunity to put to bed the grand lie that the deckchairs have been moved. Those numbers have dropped from 372000 to 280300. Unemployment has dropped from over 160000 people in 1999 to fewer than 39000 people today. That means of course that perhaps the most pleasing factor in all of this is that the number of children in benefit-dependent households is already down by around 20 percent. 
The Ministry of Social Development is continuing its push in 2006-07 to help reduce the number of people who are unemployed. This Government is continuing aggressive work to ensure that our social support system is increasingly active in supporting even more people into work. The new work-focused approach is about providing enhanced job opportunities for all clients and focusing on what clients can do rather than what they cannot do. Having trialled that approach across 12 sites and two contact centres since May last year with very strong results I can tell members that we have rolled it out to all new clients and indeed will do so to the whole community from September this year. For example up to 20 percent of clients who would previously have received a non-unemployment benefit are being identified as able to work now. I am talking about sickness and invalids beneficiaries potentially who do not even apply these days for such support because they would prefer to work and the ministry is able to assist them. As I say that approach will be rolled out to the whole client base from September. 
I take this opportunity to say thank you on behalf of members of Parliament and the wider New Zealand community for what is a remarkable achievement. These things do not happen just because of Government policy; they happen because of the dedication the professionalism and the sheer hard work of the front-line Work and Income staff who are doing a wonderful job for people in this country. 
One of the other really successful initiatives is the expansion of the Youth Transition Service. We have been increasing and will continue to increase our efforts in supporting young people in the critical and often quite vulnerable transition from school to working life. To date we have launched six Youth Transition Services and by the end of this year 14 will have been rolled out. It is widely acknowledged that good support systems are needed to ensure that young people make the best transition from school into training into further education or into the workforce. In the 2006 Budget we are committing $7.5 million to expand youth transition services to support young people into work training or further education when they leave school. 
As I am sure many members know the Youth Transition Service works with local providers in giving support to young people. Each Youth Transition Service provider has experience in working with young people and helping them make good choices for the future. Through this initiative we have already worked with 5200 young people to date. I am sure members would agree that this is a key initiative that contributes to the youth-focused goal of Government and it is certainly one that is shared by the Mayors Task Force for Jobs which has a goal jointly with Government to have all 15 to 19-year-olds in work education training or other activities by 2007. 
Recent events have highlighted the serious problem of violence that we face as a society. Sadly those events are not new; nor are they isolated. Family violence impacts on thousands of New Zealanders. In 2005 29 of the 61 murders were recorded as being family violence related. Child Youth and Family Services and groups such as Women’s Refuge deal every day with children who have been subject to abuse or sadly who have witnessed family violence. The Government is absolutely committed to addressing this critical problem but we cannot do that alone. That is why we are taking a collaborative approach with Government and non-governmental organisations. Work on this is being led by the Taskforce for Action on Violence within Families and we have engaged in good faith on a multiparty group on this serious issue. 
It is important at this point that I say to Ms Tolley who earlier spoke quite critically of Child Youth and Family Services that she has not applied a large amount of the facts to the comments she made. In terms of assessment and analysis what else were the baseline reviews about including the baseline review of that organisation? I find it sad that Ms Tolley chose to blame Child Youth and Family Services and its staff. The reality is that child abuse and family violence are problems we have in our community. We have to move past blaming a Government agency or claiming that it is responsible. It is not until we move past that sort of antiquated attitude that we will be able to address this problem together as a community. This is a societal problem and I find the sorts of attitudes we have from the National Party—the people who cut the benefits sold the State houses and constantly want to attack the vulnerable and marginalised—heavily ironic. It is exactly those people who blame Child Youth and Family Services because some sad person out there harms their children. 
Unlike the National Party the Government wants to reinforce the unacceptability of family violence and change attitudes towards violence and abusive behaviour. [ 
Interruption 
] I say to that person interjecting across the House that while I am talking about family violence and violent behaviour he might want to have a second thought about the tone of his comments to the whip across the Chamber. 
In this year’s Budget we have put $9 million into strengthening expanding and improving access to family violence prevention and support services. That will help to start to address the funding concerns of service providers that work with victims of family violence. We have also set aside funding of $11.5 million for a community prevention programme which will be led by the Taskforce for Action on Violence within Families. Most important we have funded the continuation of Strategies with Kids—Information for Parents (SKIP) which has been so successful in providing parents with practical information for effective non-physical discipline to set limits and boundaries for their young people. SKIP supports parents in developing and having loving and healthy relationships with their children. It is aimed at parents and caregivers of children from birth to 5 years and resources have been developed to promote SKIP. They include information on practical ways to manage children’s behaviour child development and the management of parental stress. 
As the chairwoman Ann Hartley knows from her own personal experience this is an extraordinarily successful programme. It is only one of the programmes that the Ministry of Social Development is funding to improve outcomes for children. It is part of our early intervention approach that focuses not just on preventing family violence but on giving our children the best start in life they deserve. Through that early years approach we are looking to provide better support early on in the life of the child and earlier intervention in the life of a problem. 
In 2006-07 the Budget will see us building on the successes of our Family Start programme. Family Start provides assistance to families with children aged up to 5 whose family and social circumstances place their health education and well-being at risk. The service helps families to set goals for the future assists them in developing a plan to meet those goals and provides parent education and in-home assistance to get them on the right track. Family Start will be available in 32 locations by the end of this financial year. That includes the one Early Start programme in Christchurch and also five that are funded from Vote Education. The 32 locations are an increase from 17 in 2004. 
Family Start sits alongside other early intervention programmes that are funded out of other votes such as Vote Health’s Well Child programme which is very topical after the initiatives of the Children’s Commissioner yesterday and the Social Workers in Schools programme funded from Vote Child Youth and Family. Although the programmes sit in different votes and are administered in a different number of departments they all share the aims and objectives of the early years approach—namely to give our children and young people the start in life they deserve. 
Before I conclude I would like to return to the matters raised by the member from the Maori Party Hone Harawira who spoke earlier. I think it is sad that that member and some of his colleagues seemed to focus on what was by even a charitable assessment a litany of Maori failure. What I see in the history of the last 10 years is quite the contrary. Maori in this community with the support of this Government have achieved considerable success and a great deal of social change. So I would like to ask that member to be a little more responsible and to acquaint himself with the reality of what has happened in this country since 1999. I will begin by talking about the unemployment figures for that sector. In 1999 there were 41500 Maori unemployed in this country. Year on year that has reduced with only a minor increase in 2002 to the current figures. I will just run through them. From 41550 on the Maori unemployment register in 1999 I tell Mr Power that number dropped to 39000 in 2000 and to 35000 in 2001. In 2002 there was a slight increase to just over 36000. In 2003 there was a major drop to 32104. In 2004 it was 22000—from 32000 to 22900-odd. In 2005 it was 17659. I remind members we are moving at a downward progression from 41550 in 1999. Maori unemployment currently in this country is 13482. In addition to quite an extraordinary movement of Maori into the workforce and extraordinary achievements in employment for Maori—it is still not satisfactory and is still a focus for us of course—there has also been a significant improvement for Maori in housing affordability with a fall in the share of households with housing costs that exceed 30 percent of their income. 
There has been a huge improvement in Maori participation in tertiary education with around 24 percent of Maori aged 18 to 24 enrolled in tertiary education in 2005 compared with fewer than 20 percent in 1996. There has been a great increase in the share of Maori school-leavers with higher qualifications by 10 percentage points for school-leavers having greater than level 1 National Certificate of Educational Achievement in 2004 when the last figures were available. There has also been a pleasing increase in participation by Maori in early childhood education from 85 percent in the year 2000 to over 90 percent in 2005. 
Contrary to the sad tale that the member speaking earlier invented Maori have also had improvements in life expectancy they have had a reduction in Maori road deaths they now suffer from less household overcrowding they have higher median earnings and there is a reduction in suicide in the Maori community—a most significant social change for the better indeed. It is true that there has been no improvement around the area of obesity; nor in terms of Maori cigarette smoking. But indeed that is very much the focus of those health improvement programmes that my colleague the Minister of Health has also announced as part of this Budget. 
In conclusion I am delighted at the success of the ministry through Vote Social Development in making such strong progress in supporting our whole community into employment in supporting young people into training or further education and in making sure that as much as we can all New Zealanders grow up in safe and secure families particularly the focus of recent work which is building on what has been in the last three or four Budgets to ensure that every New Zealand child where possible has the very best start in life. It is vital that all families young and old enjoy such opportunities and share the security and progress that our fine country is making.