Upston Louise; Sepuloni CarmelHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you Madam Chair. I want to go back to one of the questions I asked previously that I didn't get an answer to and that was the 50000 additional people on job seeker who have been there for more than 12 months. As we know the evidence tell us that the longer you're out of work the harder it is to reconnect. So I do want an answer on that.I'm also interested in why the Minister thinks with the number that exited into work this quarter that's good news when 50 percent more than that—so 46000 instead of 32000—actually were new benefit grants. So it's actually not going in the right direction.In terms of comments that she made around the work-focused case management I'd like to know from the Minister how much time is being spent by front-line staff on managing hardship requests versus active employment support; how many employment engagements each job seeker is now receiving; and with initiatives like the shovel-ready jobs where the Government has a focus on creating jobs—they come in at about $220000 per job—what the Minister believes is the best value for money spending on employment initiatives and why?Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I think there were about six questions in there so if the member can forgive me if I didn't capture all of them I will attempt to answer them and then if I've missed anything she's absolutely able to stand and re-ask the question.People on benefit for more than 12 months: I guess again reflecting on the past year—and it has been over a year now since we were first hit with the pandemic—we have been in a period where the labour market has been tighter than what we would have anticipated although I think that the size to date in terms of vacancies that are being advertised for jobs is very heartening. I think at Seek they've had a 22 percent increase last month and TradeMe was a 50 percent increase—or it could be the other way round. But regardless it shows that there is business confidence and that businesses are actually doing much better than anticipated. I will reflect back and just say that I think the wage subsidy had a lot to do with that given that it supported around 1.8 million jobs and meant that so many businesses were able to continue with that support. So many New Zealanders were able to continue to get paid despite the fact that they couldn't work and didn't end up coming back on benefit. So I think the pandemic may have a role to play given that the labour market over the course of the last year hasn't necessarily been as strong as what we would have hoped pre-pandemic.Also in terms of shovel-ready projects I will say that there is no doubt that they have had a role to play with respect to the number of jobs that are available to New Zealanders. We've seen a large number of New Zealanders pivot away from areas where there was a reduction in employment opportunities—whether that be tourism retail hospitality—towards other industries particularly in construction. And I think just looking at the Apprenticeship Boost scheme that we started already 21000 apprentice accounts have been created which stands us in good stead moving forward in an area where we had workforce shortages prior to COVID and in an area actually that when we were going through the global financial crisis there was a lack of investment. Hence why we ended up with the workforce shortages that we did. We are focused on trying to support New Zealanders into sustainable employment and so when we talk about New Zealanders who find themselves on benefit it is about supporting them into employment but also supporting them into upskilling and training if that is the better option for them and they do need to pivot into areas where there are more jobs available. So I don't resile from the fact that that's a good idea and actually I think that's paying off.The member also mentioned numbers around those who have come off benefit and gone into work versus those that have gone on benefit. We need to keep in mind that I'm only talking about the numbers of New Zealanders who have gone off benefit into employment. A large number of New Zealanders actually exit benefit for other reasons whether it's that their relationship status changes or some other life context changes for them where they no longer need a benefit or are no longer eligible for a benefit. So on top of the 30000-plus exits that we saw in the last quarter there were also thousands of New Zealanders who would have exited benefit for other reasons. So we need to keep that in mind.To just respond to the point that the member is trying to make though which is that she's trying to say that the number of people exiting benefit is less than those that have come on well that doesn't ring true when you look at the overall numbers which were in January 390000 and now sit at 360000. So we have seen an actual reduction of New Zealanders on benefit and the majority of those have exited off benefit because of employment.