Hayes JoJO HAYES (National): Tēnā koe Madam Assistant Speaker. I stand to take a call on this important legislation. It should be very important legislation for this country but unfortunately I find it very difficult to actually support the third reading of the legislation.Before I get into my speech I just want to acknowledge the Hon Anne Tolley for the work that she did in getting the bill through to its first reading—the hard work around the rewrite. It was the 1964 Social Security Act and it needed some changes. The previous Governments did not do anything with it and as our National Party and everybody knows—the hard-working MPs in the National Party—the Hon Anne Tolley rolled her sleeves up and got going with it.I also want to acknowledge another key figure in our party that has left and that is the Hon Bill English. Why I mention the Hon Bill English is because it was Bill's dream around social investment.Hon Members: Ha ha!JO HAYES: The Government can sit there and they can chuckle away about this but he saw the need he got the information he researched the information and he put together what would best be a good approach to the identification of some of the issues that he found and hereto bore the social investment policy and the Social Investment Agency. It was the first time in the history of Governments throughout the ages that social investment was brought to the fore in a way to be ahead of the issues to support the people that need it and this is what the Hon Sir Bill English did. So I just want to make a call out a shout out to the Hon Bill English.Now everyone thinks that the Labour Government is a Government for the people. Well it's not and I will say why it is not. Number one the biggest thing people tend to forget is that when National was in Government it was the National-led Government that actually gave the beneficiaries of this country their first pay increase—the first time in over 30 years. They say that National is not a party for the people. Well it is; Labour is not. Labour cannot get there. It cannot get there without their other two coalition partners whereas National didn't need to do that.We gave also under the National-led Government tax breaks—not just for business but for all workers. Every single worker that earned money that was taxed got a break. They got a break so that they could be part and parcel of the growing economy.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I just encourage the member to stay closer to the legislation at hand rather than to other policy. Thank you.JO HAYES: I'm just getting there. Yes yes thank you. Thank you for that. The hard work that parents put into raising their children especially sole parents—I was a sole parent—and to eliminate one of those parents out of the raising of their children that's not working for the people. That is not working for the people. That's why this side of the House argued for that particular area of Supplementary Order Paper 25: that both parents would be acknowledged equally with payments from a benefit over the sole parent support benefit. And they did not. They are not acknowledged in this legislation.Foster parents were also penalised in this particular legislation. We've heard it through the Hon Alfred Ngaro the Hon Louise Upston and my colleagues that have spoken. The Government decided to put the orphans benefit and the unsupported child's benefit together—i.e. penalising foster parents and making it harder for foster parents. We need foster parents. They're part and parcel of our society they make up our society but when we go and penalise them then who wants to do that?The name change from the emergency benefit to the exceptional circumstances benefit—that just opens up a whole area that people will be eliminated from or it will be against them actually getting that emergency benefit.It wasn't policy-neutral legislation. The winter energy payment is a policy. It is a Government policy. It should never have been in the sections and it is not policy-neutral. My mother said to me Hey girl guess what? I've got some money for winter payment." I said "That's right dear. And you'll only get it for a certain time and then it goes." She said "Well I didn't know that." She said "I didn't know that so how did I get it and when does it end and will I know?" All of these questions over these winter payment issues were never told to her.So these are some of the things that have actually come out the explanations. It is supposed to be policy-neutral legislation and it is not. Open and transparent Government—it was a bad start for the Government wasn't it? It was a very bad start.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member. Your time has expired."