Collins Judith: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Collins Judith: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:632;Page:4313] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 Mr Chairman— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: The cover girl! 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Thank you very much. At least I am not part of a “plug and grow” outfit like the member is. The other point if the member opposite wishes to talk about my cover-girl day is at least they did not have to airbrush me like they did a certain person from his party. 
One of the points I want to make here today is that we have been waiting for the single core benefit from Labour since 1989—that is 17 years. After 17 years Labour which has been so good at promoting a single core benefit says it wants to introduce it. Who wants it? Anybody who wants to hide what is happening with the invalids and sickness benefits. 
One of the problems of the single core benefit is that a couple of different MPs are on the record speaking about it. The Prime Minister Helen Clark has said there will be no losers under the single core benefit. She said that—she said there will be no losers. Then David Benson-Pope said earlier this year that he could not actually confirm whether anyone would be worse off that some people might be but that was still to be decided. David Benson-Pope said further again earlier this year that the Government would have the legislation in by the end of the year—that is the year 2006 for those who are interested. And just recently we have heard that maybe it will be introduced in another 18 months. 
The fact is the Government is all in a pickle and Steve Maharey has left David Benson-Pope trying to deal with the single core benefit. I would like to put on record that Steve Maharey is not all bad. Actually he can be a bit of fun when it comes to stuff like this—putting in place a massive bureaucratic change for no particular reason other than that it is a better way to hide the facts. And we know that this Government has been very good at hiding the facts. One of the facts the Government does not like coming out is that we now have about 123000 working-age adults who are too sick to work. The Ministry of Social Development and its Minister David Benson-Pope make interesting statements like “The number has always been going up and has never come down.” Well it actually did. In the last couple of years of the National Government in the 1990s the figures for sickness and invalids beneficiaries started to decrease because a little bit of rigour was put around getting people on to those benefits. 
One of the problems that Labour created when it came into Government in 1999 was that it instantly took off restrictions on the sickness and invalids benefit designations which meant that numbers on those benefits suddenly went through the roof. Strangely—lo and behold—the unemployment numbers came down and the number of sickness and invalids beneficiaries went up. Today someone is three times more likely to be on a sickness or invalids benefit than on an unemployment benefit. So after all the money that as we have heard this afternoon has been poured into the so-called health budget—the one that now has one bed per bureaucrat in the health system in this country—people are now about three times more likely to be on a sickness or invalids benefit than on an unemployment benefit and that is something the Minister has been a total failure at dealing with. 
We have been told by the Minister that the growth percentage is not as high as it was last year. Well what does that mean? Does it mean it has gone up slightly less? No it does not mean that. It actually means that the core figure is now so high that only a couple of percent means a huge increase—and every year it keeps going up under this Government. 
Labour has yet another new scheme to deal with it and of course like its other schemes it is voluntary. So it will not be much use. We are told by the Minister that it is a new scheme that has never been used anywhere else in the world—oh except for the United Kingdom; oh except for most countries which have had something similar but some of them have had a little bit of courage and done something and made the schemes compulsory. The Government was able to put the Working for Families project through the Ministry of Social Development and it is quite right that the package should be in the area of social development or in other words social welfare. The reason for that is it is welfare; it is middle-class welfare. There are now families in this country earning $130000 $140000 or $150000 a year who are beneficiaries of the taxpayers. 
Hon Member 
: What? 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Yes they are. Those people are supposed to line up with their little hands out asking for a teeny-weeny little bit of their money back for being good people and voting Labour. Well that is not going to work. One of the interesting facts we do not hear too much crowing about is the number of people taking up that brilliant opportunity to go and stand in line and ask for a little bit of their money back. The reason we do not hear about that is basically people who are earning reasonably good money want to get ahead. They do not want to be classed as beneficiaries because being a beneficiary is a pretty tough time for many people. They do not want it said that they are part of the 300000 working-age adults in this country who are on full-time benefits which is the number we have at the moment. 
Over the last few years some good things have happened in New Zealand. One of those things has been that we have had very good export prices for our exports. There has been a commodity shortage of the things we sell and that has been fabulous but it is not something we can simply rely on year in year out. We are now seeing oil prices going up and petrol prices getting higher. Those of us who do our own grocery shopping for our own families—and I am very proud to say I am one of those people—know that the price of fruit and vegetables has gone up hugely. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: What a humanitarian contribution! You go to the grocer’s yourself—what a saint! 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I know that that is something the member for Waimakariri may not know much about. He knows about “plug and grow” but he does not know much about fruit and vegies. We know the price has gone up very high and that has made it very difficult for families to cope. Those families who have trouble coping do not want to have to turn up to the Working for Families people of the Inland Revenue Department and say: “Give me some money back.” because it is actually tough out there. It is all very well for a party like Labour which does not have a family-friendly focus as we do in the National Party—we understand what it takes to look after children— 
Georgina Beyer 
: Get up the families! 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: It is no good Georgina Beyer calling out about this matter. It is just no good at all because frankly it does not help families to be told to go and line up like everyone else and ask for money back. This country needs more people working better but at the same time it also needs to have people earning decent wages and keeping enough of their money so that they do not have to go cap in hand asking for a benefit. That is what this country needs. Why has that side of the Chamber suddenly gone so quiet? Well those members have gone so quiet because they know that that is a bit of common sense which is something they are not very good at connecting with. 
We are told by the Minister that we will have some new approaches. Well we will have some new approaches all right—once National gets into power which hopefully will not be too far away. We will certainly have some new approaches. The Minister has told us for instance that Pacific people have been doing really well. We have been told that there is a strong focus on reducing the number of Maori and Pacific people who are unemployed. That is just great! They happen to be on the sickness benefit instead. We also happen to know that real poverty in this country has increased under the Labour Government particularly amongst Pacific New Zealanders and Maori New Zealanders. We know that because the ministry’s own hardship survey showed exactly that. The Labour Government’s answer to that problem was the Working for Families package. Well I am sorry but the Working for Families package does nothing to get people into work it does nothing to help the poorest people cope it does nothing to help them learn to budget and it does nothing to help the children of those people. 
Shane Jones 
: The member is looking backwards. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I know that it is all very well for those millionaire types over in the Labour Party who are brought in to try to show that the party has a business background. Oh Shane Jones is very keen on doing that and of course so are the other millionaires in the Labour Party. They may not know about this but unfortunately it is— 
Shane Jones 
: There’ll be two sides to that sort of story. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I thought people were not supposed to be able to move from the back bench up to the front as Mr Jones has so they can shout out better. Is that not against the Standing Orders? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: No. I am certain he has not moved for that purpose at all. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Has he not? All right. Thank you Mr Chairperson.