Robertson Grant: Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Robertson Grant: Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:678;Page:1296] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 Is it not interesting that the Minister for Social Development began her speech by telling us that the welfare system is failing New Zealanders. Well I would suggest to the Minister that what is failing New Zealanders is a Government that has not even got an economic plan to grow jobs in this country. That is what is failing New Zealanders. The culture of blame that underlies everything that the Minister is doing in this area means the Government is failing to take responsibility for actually creating the jobs for actually being part of growing the economy. Instead it is much much easier for this Minister and this Government to find small groups of people in society to blame. That is the best this Government can do when it comes to a welfare policy—find people to blame. 
Ms Bennett said she wants to make welfare less attractive. I will tell you what will make welfare less attractive: jobs. That is what will make welfare less attractive—that people actually have jobs they can go into. The whole premise of this piece of legislation the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill is to find people to blame—to couch it in a culture of dependency rather than couching it in a culture of a Government prepared to invest in New Zealanders and invest in their future. 
New Zealanders want to work. There will always be one or two people in our society who will shirk their responsibilities. That is wrong that is unacceptable and the Ministry of Social Development needs to work with those people to make sure they do not shirk their responsibilities. But let us not kid ourselves that that is the majority of people. Let us not kid ourselves that New Zealanders do not want to work. People want to work. The job opportunities are simply not there and it gets harder and harder every day. When university graduates are taking between 6 months and a year to get a job no wonder it is hard for people who have been on benefits and who have not got qualifications to get a job. But this piece of legislation just says blame. It does not say invest it does not say support it does not say train and it does not say create work opportunities. It says blame and that is simply not good enough. 
The biggest problem we have in New Zealand is that we are not creating enough jobs for our young people and we are not creating enough training opportunities for people to develop their skills. One consequence of this bill is effectively the end of Youth Transition Services. Youth Transition Services has been extremely successful in supporting young New Zealanders who are struggling to find work into work opportunities. Many members of this House will have visited Youth Transition Services’ offices. There is a very successful one in Gisborne. It helped 500 people last year. Under this bill only 38 of those people will qualify for assistance. Five hundred people were assisted under Youth Transition Services. Ms Bennett comes along with her proposal and only 38 of those 500 people will still be supported. This bill is letting down young New Zealanders. It is not supporting young New Zealanders into work and work should be the first focus. The availability of work should be the first focus not a political dog-whistle not an exercise in blame towards our young New Zealanders. 
It is interesting that in the justification for this legislation we hear that the Government believes that there will be savings in the order of $1 billion over 4 years—savings of $1 billion. Well it came out in the select committee process that that is in fact a guess. The Government is quite fond of guessing when it comes to its economic proposals. We had that with the sale of State assets where Bill English decided to guess. But that is simply a guess. 
There is an extraordinary statement in the regulatory impact statement on this bill. Once upon a time regulatory impact statements were attached to legislation. In this one after the Government suggests that there will be savings of around $1 billion it goes on to say that Treasury and the Ministry of Social Development have isolated the impact of the policy changes that are in this particular piece of legislation. As it goes on to describe what the impact of the changes in this legislation will be there is a sentence withheld. I think that is possibly the first time I have ever seen a regulatory impact statement—the statement provided to this House to allow us to debate a piece of legislation properly—with a sentence withheld in it. That is extraordinary. It means that the Minister and the Government do not want us to know what the actual projections of the impacts of this bill are. I regard that as a major issue for this House. The fact is that the regulatory impact statement which we as Opposition members rely upon to tell us about the impact of the Government’s legislative programme has a sentence withheld in it about how much money the Government thinks it is going to save. No wonder the officials at the select committee did not want to talk about it. They did not want to confirm what the so-called savings would be because now the Government is withholding the information. I think that is unacceptable. It means that we go into debating this legislation unaware of what the Government actually thinks the impacts of these changes will be and I do not think it should be proceeding with them with that kind of situation taking place. 
When we look at the issue of the changes around those on the domestic purposes benefit we need to be absolutely clear about whether the Government is focusing on the correct problem here. Between January 2009 and January 2012 the number of people on the DPB rose by 13 percent but between January 2009 and January 2012 the number of people on the unemployment benefit rose by 82 percent. So are we really addressing the biggest problem in terms of people who are relying on welfare today by doing what the Government is doing? If we were focusing on jobs if we were focusing on legislation that was providing training opportunities for people who were on benefits then perhaps we would be addressing that 82 percent increase in the number of people on the unemployment benefit. But instead what we have from the Minister is more of the culture of blame the culture of so-called long-term welfare dependency when many of those people would just like to find a job. They would just like to find a job. 
The other element that always confuses me about these kinds of proposals—particularly the changes around the age someone’s children are when that person is asked to go out and work—is what are the costs involved in finding some of these mythical jobs that happily exist in the middle of the day between 9 and 3. How much do we actually know about those sorts of jobs out there and how much do we know about the cost and accessibility of childcare? We know that in many cases getting to and from these jobs and the cost of childcare will actually make it worthless to be in those jobs. What is the point of that? What is the point of putting that much pressure and stress upon young families by doing that by putting on those obligations? Yes let us make sure that where people can work they will. But let us not put obligations on them that are impossible to deliver and that actually end up putting them in a worse economic situation. 
The Labour Party is opposing this bill. We are opposing this bill because it does nothing to actually create job opportunities. It focuses on the wrong issues. It in fact does not support childcare costs and it does not support the kinds of training opportunities that we want New Zealanders to have. 
Hon Paula Bennett 
: Read the bill. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Well the Minister chips in but once again we have the issue that this Government cut the training incentive allowance for people to get qualifications that are beyond the basic qualifications. It cut that allowance and therefore said to those people: “We don’t want you to go on and succeed. We don’t want you to actually go and be part of the workforce in the future. We’re going to limit your opportunities.” 
There needs to be far greater investment in training for people on benefits—far greater. There needs to be far greater investment in training generally because at the moment we know that over 48 percent of people on the DPB have no formal educational qualifications. Every member of this House knows that if we invest in people in their training in their skills they will make a greater contribution to New Zealand. We know that if we invest in helping to create jobs we will provide the economic environment in which all New Zealanders will flourish. 
This piece of legislation is nothing more than a political dog-whistle. It is not going to help New Zealanders get into work. It is not going to ensure that the future of New Zealand is offering itself up to be the future of New Zealand to have the potential of New Zealanders realised. This bill is not addressing the issues that New Zealanders want addressed. It needs to focus on jobs it needs to focus on training it needs to focus on skills and it needs to support New Zealanders not blame them.