Menéndez March Ricardo; Pugh MaureenRICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you Madam Chair. Sorry I just had to get up quickly because I didn't see anyone. I was worried we were going to pass Part 1. But just picking up on the comment around no child impact assessment being done the Minister never really touched on why. So I'm keen to actually get an understanding on why there was a feeling that there was no need to have a child impact assessment being done or more analysis or robust analysis on the impact of lower increases to benefits on children.Because while we just have the figures around whether this could or wouldn't increase child poverty as I mentioned earlier there's other impacts just beyond the material like in terms of health housing outcomes etc. How can she be confident that those outcomes won't be worsened? I know that she talked about employment outcomes but this is not what the bill is actually doing right? What this bill is doing is simply reducing increases to benefits. So I'm keen to get a sense of why she didn't feel it was needed to do more robust analysis on the impact this policy would have on children beyond just a simple figure on child poverty levels and actually just other outcomes such as health housing etc.I'd really like to get a comment on the passing costs and whether she had done any analysis and if so what that is and how she's going to ensure that people are not just receiving more hardship grants.Then the other thing that I wanted to get an evaluation for was has she done any thinking of the fact that the way we provide hardship assistance hasn't been reviewed in quite some time and if this bill was to lead to a direct increase over time of the need for hardship assistance whether she thinks that this bill has flow-on effects on for example the need to review how hardship assistance is provided to ensure that for example we don't put undue pressure on front-line staff because people have to continuously show exceptional circumstances because the hardship assistance hasn't been reviewed in quite some time?So again just seeking that in-depth—beyond the surface level conversation we're having—analysis on the impacts and the ramifications of this bill because I do dispute the comments from this Minister as I've said that it is a simple bill. The flow-on effects on any changes to baseline benefits are deep and it touches on a lot of other supplementary assistance.The other thing that I wanted to address is: she talked about the gap between wages and benefits and I know that I talked about and tried to unpack any evidence around and research in relationship to whether she thinks keeping that gap as wide as it is is contributing to employment outcomes. But the other thing that I wanted to unpack from her is whether she thinks that the gap which she will make worse in terms of wages and benefits could contribute to the ethnic and gender pay gap. Because actually when that gap is wider all that we're doing is actually contributing to wage scarring and therefore that gap contributes to people then because of the severe poverty they enter when they lose employment—and we have to remember that people on the benefit are also people who have lost employment who were previously in work—and if they have such a steep jump between wages and benefits that poverty that is created as a result of that puts people in a situation where they may feel compelled to take employment that would have paid less than they previously were in out of sheer survival. That in and of itself because of the profile of people who are currently on the benefit can contribute actually to the wage gap and ethnic gap. So I'm interested to know if there was any analysis being done about whether the widening gap between wages and benefits would have an impact on the ethnic and gender wage gap as well as the issue of wage scarring altogether.Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Madam Chair?CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): The Hon Carmel Sepuloni. Can I just say I'm looking for new material in this debate.