Ardern Jacinda: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 09 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9175. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): This year is the 75th anniversary of social security in this country and it is an occasion that I believe we should under any other circumstances be celebrating. Seventy-five years ago as a nation we drew a line in the sand. We determined as any decent society should that the measure of our country would not be marked solely by the achievements of individuals but by how we served and cared for one another and especially our most vulnerable. As a nation we also decided that this line in the sand was not a line of judgment where we lined up on one side the deserving and on the other side the undeserving poor. Social security was for everyone who found themselves in need.But it is time that we all admit the obvious and that is that politics has muddied the waters of social security. There is no better example of that than this bill the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill which we are debating today. If you listen to the rhetoric of the National Party as we have continually you could be forgiven for thinking that at some point along the way the responsibilities that come with a social security system have somehow disappeared. Only a party intent on dividing a nation over welfare issues would perpetuate such a myth.No universally available safety net could survive without an understanding and agreement from the people it serves that it is there for genuine need and that when it is no longer needed you must do all you can to move off it and begin to contribute back to the system that once supported you. It is that simple. This principle has not changed. It is a principle that Labour has always supported and has always defended. What is not simple is the reason why a very small proportion of New Zealanders access our system for a longer period of time. But we will never address this issue as long as some political actors for their own gain pretend that this is the case for the majority and vilify everyone who uses social security along the way.The Minister for Social Development may deny that. She may stand there and claim because she was on a benefit once that her changes are designed to empower and to support. But I have one question for the Minister and that is “How?”. How does labelling everyone as needing to be drug tested empower a job seeker? How does increasing the range of circumstances that sanctions can be used empower a sole parent? How does implying that beneficiaries are getting paid by the State while they have outstanding arrest warrants empower a sickness beneficiary? How does restricting their ability to study empower someone on an unemployment benefit?This bill tells me one thing and that is that that Minister underestimates the power of her rhetoric and the damage that can be done through it. No one is going to argue that we have the perfect social security system as it stands. I agree with the Minister on that much. Change is needed. But if we want to rebuild an active system one that acts as a dignified transition for those who need it for a short time and a dignified support system for those who for reasons of terminal illness or significant disability will need it for a longer period in their lives we no longer need to have the political gains that occur around welfare.It is Labour’s vision that we rebuild the foundations of what we built 75 years ago. We first must start by remembering the social contract and that is that the State has a responsibility too. The Minister may groan. I can hear her from that side of the House dismissing this notion. But it is one thing to tell someone that they will have extra work-testing obligations and another to abandon the idea that the State no longer has any rolein seeing whether you are able to fulfil your side of the bargain and on that score the Government is failing.In 2011 despite talk of 170000 jobs miraculously being produced there were just 20000 produced under the Government in that time. In the face of high unemployment and massive job losses that is the time this Government produced these punitive welfare reforms and ramped up expectations on job seekers who were already looking for work.Let us be clear. It is not like our system has gone from expecting absolutely nothing of job seekers to suddenly one day turning round and asking them to find work. In fact our system goes a little more like this. An individual—any one of us—might be made redundant and go to a Work and Income office to seek help. That Work and Income office will send them away and tell them that they need to demonstrate that they have looked for work before they can get help—fair enough. Then they would also be required potentially to come back and do a course around work readiness. They will have several appointments through this process. It may take several weeks. Some of those appointments will be fulfilled by Work and Income; some of them will not. Increasingly appointments are becoming a guide not a target.Eventually once you have fulfilled these pre-benefit activities which can take up to several weeks you may be granted access to support. You will then be required on an ongoing basis to demonstrate that you are continuing to seek work through applications or in some cases getting signatures from employers showing that you have asked them for employment. In amongst all of that at any point you could be asked to do a short course on anything that Work and Income may deem appropriate for you.This might sound like you are getting some kind of individual one-on-one treatment. Let us be clear—you are not. You are one of up to at least 155 cases that a Work and Income case manager may have on their books. If you have no work-testing obligations you—the job seeker—might be one of more than 350 cases that a Work and Income case manager has.You may know that you need to retrain to get a job but under this bill you cannot. You may know that you need to invest a bit to try to get well from say a back injury or an impairment that is getting in the way of you getting employment. Under this bill you will not get that. And let us be honest—you may have been on a benefit for some time and not have basic literacy. Under this bill you might go on to a 12-week course and then we magically assume work readiness. And everyone—everyone—is battling it out for a handful of jobs. This is the investment approach that this Minister speaks of.This bill tears up the idea of a social contract. The message it sends is that the job seeker’s role is to look for work and the Government’s role is no longer to ensure that there are jobs to train to educate and to help you move into work. No the Government’s role is simply to sanction you when you fail. That is what this Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill does and it does not have to be that way. Labour’s vision is that in the 76th year of social security—Hon Hekia Parata: Let’s hear more of the Labour Party’s approach consigning intergenerational dependency on the State while we wring our hands and—JACINDA ARDERN: If that Minister wants to listen—[Interruption]Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!JACINDA ARDERN: —I will share with this House what a proactive system would look like. [Interruption]Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!JACINDA ARDERN: In the 76th year of social security we have the ability to turn round—[Interruption]Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! We are not going to have an incessant barrage. [Interruption] Order! I am on my feet. We are not going to have an incessant barrage. Members may interject if it is rare and reasonable but this is just ridiculous.JACINDA ARDERN: We will begin first with the simple notion that Work and Income case managers have a big and a tough job and there is absolutely no denying that. They must be supported. But equally they are the key to returning the dignity to our system and so is the leadership that comes at the fore.Secondly we must take a long-term view. Why do we treat a school-leaver who for instance might not have National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 or may have literacy problems so differently from someone who searched for a job but failed and is on an unemployment benefit? One might get free access to further training and education perhaps through a Youth Guarantee a notion that we support. The other may at best get 12 weeks of training through a course like the Salvation Army and then we expect them to suddenly be work-ready.It is time to invest to save but that means genuine investment. That means decent training and education opportunities. There are some who have been on welfare for longer periods of time and whose parents may have been too. No one in this House wants that to be the sum of any child’s life but it would be naive to say that simply imposing sanctions changes everything. It may not be glamorous or something the Minister for Social Development can stick a ribbon on and sell to the media but these are families that need long-term intervention and not just by a work broker—Mike Sabin: That member’s never going to rise to the dizzy heights she aspires to if—JACINDA ARDERN: If we want to make a real difference we need Mr Sabin to get a little more real. We can restore a social security system we can all be proud of. We just need to wait for the architects of that system to come back and we will.