Fenton Darien: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Fenton Darien: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 26 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8945. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 “Dah-rien”. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Darien. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to round off the debate on clauses 1 to 3 the title and commencement and so on of the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. I thought what I would do is just drill down a little bit into that title starting with “Benefit Categories” and just remind listeners exactly what this bill does. What it is doing is re-badging a range of current benefits that we have. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Clauses 1 to 3. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Yes the title. I am talking about the title and I am certainly talking about the new benefit categories which is part of the title. What the bill does is re-badge a number of existing benefit categories and squash them into a range of three. It squashes them up. It will take away the benefit categories that we have had for many years. Jobseeker support for example is one that a lot of people have talked about. It is not only a misnomer but also quite an insulting kind of category because it suggests that job seekers can actually find a job as does the title indeed when it talks about “Work Focus”. 
Jobseeker support just to remind the listeners will cover people who currently receive the unemployment benefit the sickness benefit the DPB the women alone benefit and the widows benefit and DPB sole parents whose children are older than 14 years of age. So all of those people who currently have different conditions and different titles for their benefits are going to be squashed into this jobseeker support by this apparent work focus amendment bill to try to pretend that all of them are going to be able to get jobs that there are many many jobs out there for them to apply for. Of course we all know that what happens is that if they do not take a job that is offered under clauses 1 to 3 of this bill their benefit could be cancelled and a 13-week stand-down could apply to any beneficiary who fails to accept an offer of suitable employment and beneficiaries with children will lose up to 50 percent of their benefit. How can that be? How can the title of this bill be “Benefit Categories”—well I think “Benefit Categories” works OK. But how can it be “Work Focus” when actually you are talking about sanctions and punishment for people who cannot find jobs? As my colleagues have suggested there are much better titles for this bill particularly around the area of sanctioning and punishing people. 
Also I suppose you could call this bill the “Social Security (Punishing the Children) Bill” because what is going to happen if beneficiaries with children lose up to 50 percent of their benefit? Who is going to suffer? Who are going to be the people who pay the price for that? Children are going to pay the price for that and that is extremely concerning. The Minister for Social Development goes on and on about how she cares about children. Well I think this is most uncaring and we should all in this Chamber be deeply concerned about that particular measure. 
But apparently this is all about a focus on work which is in the title of the bill—“Work Focus” is in the title of the bill. It is also extended to those on the sickness benefit. So people on the sickness benefit will also be considered job seekers. They may well have a long-term illness but they are going to be job seekers too. We are pretending that people in those categories can also find a job. 
Then as we heard last week of course we have had a new bill before Parliament which was passed last week covering 18 and 19-year-olds on the benefit who if they turn down a job paid at the youth rate after they have been on the dole for 6 months will be punished as well. 
 So this bill definitely has nothing to do with work focus everything to do with punishment everything to do with sanctioning and everything to do with blaming the people who are unable to find the jobs because this Government has completely failed in its plan and failed to have any plan in terms of getting a job. 
So I think that the title of the bill is fitting when it comes to “Benefit Categories”. It is completely ridiculous when it comes to talking about “Work Focus” because as I have said it does nothing to address the issues of work it does nothing to address the availability of work it does nothing to address the other barriers such as childcare costs and it does nothing to address whether an individual has the necessary skills. All it does is put people through hoops.