Woods Megan: Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Woods Megan: Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Advance Copy - Subject to minor change before inclusion in Bound Volume.] 
Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) 
: 
 I am happy to take a call on this bill the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill and continue the arguments that Labour is putting forward on why we are opposing this bill. This bill does nothing to address the barriers to work for people who are seeking work. It does nothing to address the availability of work it does nothing to address the childcare costs and it does nothing to address whether the person has the skills required to move into the paid workforce. 
What we have heard from members opposite today is a whole lot of conjecture about whether if Mickey Savage were here today he would be supporting the bill. We have been told by those members opposite is that if Mickey Savage the architect of the welfare state in New Zealand were here today he would be supporting these reforms. I am here today to remind those members opposite that if Mickey Savage were here today he certainly would not be supporting this bill. When Mickey Savage put in place our welfare State he recognised several things. He saw that we needed a safety net welfare State to be there for people in the time of need. He recognised that there were obligations on those receiving welfare but what Mickey Savage realised and what this Government fails to realise is that there is an obligation on the Government and the State and that obligation is job creation. That is where this Government is failing the young people whom it claims to be seeking to help with this piece of legislation. 
We are told by the Minister and by this Government that large numbers of people on benefits are a sign that the welfare system is not working. The issue is the number of people on welfare we are told and the system needs reforming because of this and the system is failing those on it. The Government says that the welfare system and those using it are the problem not its own failings in job creation and that is what we want to draw attention to today. There are now 40000 fewer jobs since National took office. Despite the numbers game that we have heard trying to talk about “the 0.8 percent over several months” the very simple fact of the matter is that today there are far fewer jobs available for people than when National took office. What is more there is no plan from the National Government to address this. 
In the last year’s Budget we were told that 170000 jobs were going to eventuate over the next 5 years and 36000 of those jobs would be created by March of this year. Well as at the end of last year we had seen 10000 with a deficit of 26000. This is no surprise because these jobs were to materialise as if by magic. There was no plan to create them. In fact John Key said that he did not see his Government as being able to have a great deal to do in this and that he was not responsible for the global economic conditions. Labour firmly believes that it is the Government’s job it is the Government’s role to create jobs for people not to resort to the kinds of things that this package we are seeing here before us today will do. This is a classic clamping down on domestic purposes benefit mums in an effort to show action and mask inaction in the vital area of employment and creating jobs. 
We have seen projections in the regulatory impact statement that these reforms will result in 84000 people having work obligations. This will be another 84000 people joining the 60000 who are already out there looking for work. This will be 84000 people looking for jobs that are not there. To tell us how many jobs are on SEEK and how many jobs there are on websites—the reality for so many individuals is that there are thousands of applications for jobs in supermarkets when there are only hundreds of jobs available. It is not good enough to say that if you look hard enough the jobs are there but that is what this Government and the Prime Minister are telling people all the time burying their heads in the sand and turning a blind eye to the fact that there are tens of thousands of people in this country who want to work but cannot work because the jobs simply are not there. 
We also have nothing in this package or this bill to address the issue of childcare and how it is that we are going to ask women on the domestic purposes benefit who are responsible for the parenting of children to be back in the workforce when there is no comprehensive childcare plan to go alongside this. In fact so little thought has been given to this that there have been musings in Cabinet papers about child-minding clubs where we have unqualified people coming together and looking after those who we are being told are the children of some of the most vulnerable people in our society. The thinking that needs to go alongside this to allow these women to enter the workforce simply has not been there. Instead what we are seeing is the Government playing the blame game in terms of getting these people back into the workforce without having the adequate support and planning around how we are going to do that. As for the magical notion of there suddenly being all this part-time work that fits perfectly with the school day for these women to be able to go back into the workforce we have seen no plan that this is going to be there. There needs to be thought and that thought needs to go a little bit deeper than floating ideas of babysitting clubs for the children who are so crucial to our future. 
 The other vital piece of the puzzle that is missing in this bill and one of the many reasons why Labour cannot support this legislation is the issue of skills training. If we are going to talk about people being prepared for work well first of all they need to be prepared for there to be jobs to go into. But in terms of the skills training that is in here it is not adequate. What we have seen and what my colleagues have talked about is that 48 percent of women—and they largely are women—on the domestic purposes benefit have no formal educational qualification. We are seeing the route that so many women who have been in this circumstance have used in terms of the training incentive allowance is being closed down and this opportunity is not available to them. We have seen changes for sole parents that saw those studying at the higher-level courses such as nursing miss out and these opportunities not being there for them. This is a package that does absolutely nothing to address these issues. 
We see the disappearance of the youth transition funding with this bill. This is going to be a huge problem because we do have a disconnect between getting young people into work into education and into training. What we are seeing in terms of the solution proposed in this bill will do nothing to help the 83000 young people who are in that position. What this legislation will do is actually remove some of the empowerment of these people. We are told that somehow we are teaching people better budgeting for the future by the State taking control of their spending. We are told that these people can earn the right to manage their own payments if they continually meet their obligation and show themselves to be financially competent. Well I would like to ask how people get the chance to do this because the State is going to be paying their rent and the State is going to be paying their power bill. Why do we not put the resources into equipping these people with skills for life into budgeting and into learning to do this rather than leaving it? 
It is not good enough for us to stand here in this House and listen to members opposite use the rhetoric of hope and of aspiration and of the great reforms to help some of the most vulnerable in society and claim that if Mickey Savage were here he would support it. This legislation fails on the Government’s obligation to create jobs and it fails on the Government’s obligations to put in place the childcare the skills and the training needed for people to move into areas where they can have hope where they can have aspiration and where they can see a better life for themselves. This Government is doing nothing to achieve that. Thank you.