Tolley AnneHon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): I would like to take this opportunity to talk about Budget 2016 in part of the appropriations debate because in social development we have made two significant changes that are reflected in this Budget. The first one of course is that this Government is committed to making a significant change to the way that we look after children and young people in care. And just to remind the Committee we spent last year with an expert advisory panel (EAP) really lifting up every stone and having a look at the way the system works as we look after young people and children in care. I set up a group of young people who had actually been in care some of whom were still in care to advise that process and of course myriad people throughout the country—practitioners social workers health workers and a wide range of NGOs—were consulted. During that process we found that we have a system that is actually broken; a system that despite the best efforts of some highly motivated highly professional staff is not delivering to the children in our communities who probably need help the most. What we found was that—they took a particular cohort of young people who were born in the 12 months between June 1990 and 1991 to look at what had happened to them in their lives as they had gone through this State care system. At age 21 almost 90 percent of them were reliant on a benefit—90 percent of those young people were reliant on a benefit. About 25 percent of them ended up on a benefit with a child. Almost 80 percent of them did not have that minimum qualification of National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 so they did not get a good educational start to give them the opportunities to live good lives. More than 30 percent of them had a youth justice referral by the time they were 18 almost 20 percent had had a custodial sentence and almost 40 percent had had a community sentence. These are the most vulnerable children who through no fault of their own have ended up not in families that love support and care for them. They have relied on the State then to step in keep them safe and make their lives better. What the EAP report showed and what those statistics show is that the State failed those children. So this Government is determined to make a difference to that. Governments of different colours have to take responsibility but this Government has stepped up. The first thing we did in this Budget was to actually make sure that we were giving financial stability to the existing Child Youth and Family (CYF). Over the past few years it has had some one-off funding. As we have been reviewing we have had the process around the green paper and the white paper and there was one-off funding given to CYF whilst that process was happening. That could not continue because actually we had more children in care who were staying in care for longer and that costs more. So the first thing that we had to do was stabilise that funding for CYF and we did that with $145 million going in to stabilise CYF over the next few years. The risk is of course while you are redesigning a system that the existing system flounders a little gaps open up and children fall through it. We were absolutely determined to make sure that that existing CYF was well supported financially whilst we designed that new system and so $145 million has gone in to meet those cost pressures and that increased demand and also the changes that came into force on 1 July this year as a result of the Vulnerable Children Act. Then because we are designing a new system and that has costs and we need to make provision for the design of the system and we want the new operating system up and running from 1 April next year there is almost $200 million in this Budget to make that happen and to support that new entity. I have to say that I am absolutely indebted to my Cabinet colleagues and caucus colleagues for their huge support for this change because this Government is determined. I know that there is support right around the Committee for us to get this right. It is absolutely critical for these children and young people that we get this system right. We have had 14 different restructures over the years but this time if we all work together we are determined to make that happen. This Budget set the scene. It is not the endgame—there will be more costs and I will be back in Budget 2017; I have made that very clear—but this was a good start. I think the second-most important part of this Budget for 2016 was the way that we have then focused in on supporting more and more New Zealanders into work. In the latest valuation—remember we have an actuarial valuation that is done every year. It is reported publicly and anyone can access it on the ministry website. Some of the Opposition members seem to not be able to find it or they cannot be bothered digging into it to find out. It is all there all the assumptions that are made and how it is all worked so that people can understand what it is that this Government is doing using the investment approach—that is we use that information to determine where to best put the priority for our resources who the group of people are who most need support to get into work and how we go about doing that. What we have seen as a result of that is a reduction in that long-term liability which is not our liability; it is the liability of New Zealanders whose dreams and hopes and lives are crushed by living in endless poverty and relying on a benefit. We know that the best thing for them and their families not only financially but emotionally and socially is getting into work. So Budget 2016—we have seen in that a reduction of $12 billion of that liability over 4 years. As a consequence of that we saw the number of people reliant on a benefit fall below 280000 for the first time since 2008—the global financial crisis. I see my colleague Nicky Wagner sitting here in the Chamber and I want to pay tribute to her because she led a project in Christchurch that was focused on helping those people with a disability who we know are reliant on a benefit. They are put on a supported living benefit because they have a disability that means that they are not expected to work but we know that so many of them want to work. They want to work because they know that it is better for them and it is better for their families. So my colleague Nicky Wagner led that project which saw 600 people—we set a goal of 300 and we thought that that was ambitious but it was 600 people—who went into employment as a result of that. That was a result of working with employers and talking to them about how they could support people with a disability into work. I think that is a glowing example for the rest of New Zealand and I know that that project is now going out further. We are going to try it in the Bay of Plenty with a different group of employers. It is about showing employers that these are people who can actually be some of their best workers. The research is very clear: they take fewer sick days they are much more loyal and they can be much more productive. So it is really important. We have got $61.2 million in Budget 2016 to extend Youth Service to include 18- and 19-year-olds and $26 million to maintain and increase that intensive case management that we know is so successful in helping people and supporting them into work and then keeping them in work. We are now starting to do quite a lot more work on how we can support them for longer in their jobs to make sure that they have got all the childcare support that is necessary and that the employers are comfortable to ask for help with people who have a disability or who might have mental health issues before they are disengaged from work. So it is about how we keep people in work through those difficult times some of those being the first 4 or 5 months of work. Then we have two very small projects that are very exciting: one working with prisoners getting out of prison and one working hand in hand with the health sector on addressing the issue of mental health which is such a growing problem. It is a terrific Budget I think for changing the lives of thousands of New Zealanders.