Logie Jan: Social Assistance (Living Alone Payments) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Logie Jan: Social Assistance (Living Alone Payments) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 11 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7434. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JAN LOGIE (Green) 
: 
 I rise to speak to the Social Assistance (Living Alone Payments) Amendment Bill. This bill as has been stated by others already seeks to amend the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001 and the War Pensions Act 1954. Currently single superannuitants and veterans pensioners who are living alone are eligible to receive through the Work and Income process a supplementary benefit which has to be applied for separately. This is in recognition of the extra costs of maintaining a household. This bill streamlines the system so that people will not now have to go through a separate application to be able to receive their full entitlement. It was great to hear the Minister of Defence in introducing this bill on behalf of the Minister for Social Development talking about the importance of people being able to access their full entitlements and to have that support of the State in their time of need because that is a core principle of the Social Security Act. I would love to hear that kind of discourse more often in this House. 
 I would also like to reference the member Melissa Lee’s comments about grief and the importance of having a process that enables people to survive when they are not necessarily able to function in times of grief how completely overwhelming and destabilising that grief is how we want more for our old people or anyone in grief than to have to deal with bureaucracy to be able to feed themselves and care for their dependants in that time and the importance of us as a country being able to support people through that grieving process as well as we can. They are I think very important values for us to be able to focus on. A very positive wonderful thing for us to be able to end the year on is to think about how we can support others in our community in their times of need. So I am thankful to the Government for reintroducing this Social Assistance (Living Alone Payments) Amendment Bill on the last day of the House for this year and to be able to focus on those values at this time. 
I recognise that care for our elderly has been an important I think aspect of our society and that we have managed to avoid high levels of poverty within our older population in New Zealand because we have looked at having universal entitlements and streamlining access to income support. It is a very stark contrast sadly to the news we have had this week around the levels of child poverty because in this area we do not have those systems of universal entitlements or ease of access to the existing entitlements. I would love to see some of the thinking behind this bill extended to more of our population to ensure that we can actually address the levels of poverty where they are greatest in our country at the moment. 
I also note that some of the changes that happened with this bill within the Social Services Committee seem to be very sensible in terms of the transition periods recognising that in relation to the dates of this coming in people should not be unduly affected because of the commencement dates and also the change of the commencement dates. It has been 2 years. We had hoped to have as the select committee had suggested a commencement date of 6 July 2011 when it reported back. I like that we can talk about this on the last day before the holidays but really I think it would have been better to be able to get this through the House when we have so much support for it a bit earlier so we could have made these changes as they needed to happen. 
I would also like to acknowledge the Labour Party’s concerns that were referenced in the minority report and I look forward to seeing the Supplementary Order Papers that it brings forward because this bill provides that support for people when they have dependants up to the age of 18 but there does not seem to be a protection or provision for people who are caring particularly for dependants over the age of 18. There is a significant chance that people may be caring for children with intellectual disabilities who may be older than that. I would not like to see them miss out on the opportunity of the streamlining support that this bill offers so I look forward to that. 
 I do need to just say that although we really support this bill yesterday I was in Auckland at the Auckland Action Against Poverty rally and I saw the impact it is having at the Work and Income offices in Onehunga. It has advocates from all around the North Island who are on the streets outside the Work and Income office there at the moment where people going into Work and Income can sit down with them and talk to them about their case and find out what their entitlements are. I think 12 Work and Income officers have been designated to work on their cases. What they are finding is that most people have entitlements that they were not aware of—that they had not been informed of—until the intervention of these advocates and that is as a result of our law at the moment. 
Nothing that we have seen in terms of the welfare reforms this year has done anything to make our social security system more accessible. They have done nothing to help people get the entitlements that they need to be able to live and support themselves and their children and I think that is a tragedy. When I was in Onehunga there were queues of people waiting to see these advocates and we know that that could happen in any—any—Work and Income office around this country. People could turn up and queue to get advice about their entitlements and they would find out they were entitled to things they had never been told about previously and that is a shame on us at this time of year—at any time of year. 
I would also just like to mention in relation to this bill that on the Order Paper there are many bills relating to social security amendments. Indeed at the Social Services Committee at the moment we are considering another bill relating to social security and I would just like to reference the submission made in that process by the Legislation Advisory Committee—the committee of the Attorney-General. It noted that the base legislation of social security is not in very good shape because there have been just so many amendments to the Social Security Act without anyone taking it in hand and making it fit for purpose. We keep on picking up these small aspects of it and trying to fix them or going in with a piece of ideology and thinking and trying to reshape it to meet that. It has resulted in a huge amount of inconsistency and has made the Act really inaccessible. 
Since the Act was introduced it has been amended 131 times. This actually matters because it means it is really hard for people to know what they are entitled to and this is when it is about people surviving—people who are struggling to feed themselves—and it is important that they know what they are entitled to. So I am advocating for a complete overhaul of this Act. It would be lovely to see it more consistent with the thoughts behind this particular bill today about making sure everyone can get the entitlements they need and that they are supported in times of stress and able to look after themselves and their children as well as they possibly can. Thank you.