Ball Darroch: Social Security Amendment Bill (No 3) — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBall Darroch: Social Security Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee[Sitting date: 25 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2627. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DARROCH BALL (NZ First):It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak in the Committee stage of the Social Security Amendment Bill (No 3). May I say first that we will not be supporting this bill not because of what is in the entire bill but because of one specific clause. We understand that the intent of the bill in so far as what the Minister Anne Tolley has explained is that it is the tightening up of loopholes. But what we are concerned with is the ramifications of tightening up those loopholes—what effects they have on certain members of the public. At this stage what we see from the Government is that those ramifications have not been taken into account.The specific clause that I am talking about is in Part 1 clauses 4(1) and 4(2) which have to do with accommodation supplement issues and student allowances. In the explanatory note of the bill it tries to explain what the purpose of clause 4 is: “The Bill also amends the Social Security Act 1964 to clarify the provisions that exclude students who are eligible for assistance under the Student Allowances Regulations 1998 from receiving the accommodation supplement. The amendment makes it clear that students are not eligible for the accommodation supplement if they could receive assistance under the Student Allowances Regulations 1998 but choose not to apply for it or if they could receive this assistance but for their own income or the income of their parents spouse or partner.”So at the moment what is happening and the loophole that the Government is trying to fix is that students get a certain amount when they get the student allowance but if they choose not to get the student allowance they will receive more if they went for the accommodation supplement. So what the Government is trying to do is close that loophole so that even if the student was not taking the student allowance but was eligible they could not take the accommodation supplement. To be able to put that into some sort of context I would like to refer to the departmental report and look at the specific submissions.The first thing I would like to say is that there were only two written submissions for this bill and that begs the question. Looking at the submission period when those submissions were allowed it was only approximately 2 weeks. That seems like a very fast turn-round for submissions to be heard. The two submissions were from the Dunedin Community Law Centre and the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations. Both of those submissions funnily enough were on that clause itself and they were against the changes. Their reasoning behind that was because of the ramifications down the track for the students and the concerns that they had for that and that is the exact same position that New Zealand First is taking with this clause.With the submissions and reading from the departmental report both the centre and the union expressed concern about the adequacy of accommodation assistance provided to students through the student support system. That is the issue that they are facing and the closing of this loophole has consequences. The centre actually suggests that “thought should be given as to why students seek to access Accommodation Supplement and whether or not the accommodation component of the Student Allowance meets the basic needs of students.” What is interesting is the Ministry of Social Development comment over the page. It states that “The level or adequacy of assistance provided within the student support system is outside the scope of the bill.” What it looks like from New Zealand First’s perspective is that that is being used as an excuse to ignore that issue.So what we have here in the Chamber are the lawmakers and this legislation but outside where we hear these submissions in the select committee stage are the people who are affected by this legislation and by the law that we change in here. What is concerning for New Zealand First is that—