Maharey Steve: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Maharey Steve: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:618;Page:14342] 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I thank the members of the Opposition for the opportunity to talk about social development. It has been a debate shall we say and speakers have canvassed a number of issues. I want quickly to answer some of them. 
We began with Katherine Rich acknowledging that we find ourselves as she said in excellent economic conditions. I thank the Opposition for that acknowledgment—that the stewardship of this Government does indeed go alongside some quite extraordinary economic conditions as the Minister of Finance pointed out earlier today. I think one of the things that Katherine Rich often brings with the leadership of Dr Brash is a kind of honesty to these kinds of debates and it was refreshing today to have an Opposition spokesperson so openly acknowledge that we are working in good economic conditions—indeed in her own words “excellent economic conditions”. They are of course attributable to the leadership that has been provided by this Government for over 5 years now. Many people of course on the Opposition did predict— 
Dr Muriel Newman 
: Absolute luck. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
:—that a change of Government to a Labour-led Government would lead to things like falling levels of employment higher levels of unemployment and an underperforming economy. I know they began by saying we had had luck for a year then they said we had had luck for 2 years then it was luck for 3 years then it was luck for 4 years and now even they are beginning to say I think that after 5 years maybe we are doing some things right. 
Katherine Rich today had that kind of open honesty that is coming through from the National Party lately as they acknowledge just how well things are doing. But I must say that from there she went downhill. She then began saying that the number of people on welfare had gone up. Ms Rich knows that that is not true. She knows that. We in fact are looking at a much lower number of people on benefits now than when we became the Government in 1999. Indeed in just crude terms we are talking about a good 100000 fewer people. 
That is why for example when we look at the estimates we see we are returning so much money all the time to Treasury from the welfare budget because we are coming under the forecasts all the time. So we are able to say: “We don’t need to pull that money down that you budgeted for us to get because we’re seeing so many fewer people on a benefit and they’re passing through so much more quickly.” That is something I think that Katherine Rich needs to go back to and she needs to spend a bit of time getting in touch with those figures. I know that sometimes in politics it is a good idea to be unaware shall we say of the reality of the figures so one can make one’s argument but really after 5 years of watching the progress of this Government we do think it is probably time for her to have a look at them. She will understand that the numbers of beneficiaries across the whole board have dramatically declined in the last 5 years and that we are doing extraordinarily well. 
She called for vision from the Government and of course all one has to do is visit the website to find lots of papers on strategies and so on. But we are still waiting for one new idea from Katherine Rich. We have heard about times on benefits for people who do not work for the dole and we have heard about work-capacity testing—all the failed ideas of the 1990s have been brought out again. Sometimes I wonder whether what the National Party is doing—because it knows it does not really have any ideas—is kind of pushing these ideas out so that people have something to talk about while it hides the fact that it does not have a new idea about welfare at all. So we would invite National Party members to give us a bit of vision as Katherine Rich has asked for because it would be very interesting to debate with them. 
Then we went on to Judith Collins who talked about the issue of people going across from the sickness benefit to the unemployment benefit. I just want to reiterate to people in the Chamber that Work and Income does not have a policy to encourage people off the unemployment benefit on to the sickness benefit. In fact the Committee might like to share in some of the stats of the last little while—that is over the past 6 years. From 1999 to now we have seen 1.1 million placements so to speak off the unemployment benefit—people moving off to go to something else. Only 73000 of those went from the unemployment benefit to the sickness benefit during all of that time. Only 73000 of that 1.1 million migrated and 52000 went the other way—that is they went from the sickness benefit to the unemployment benefit. Because we want them to get a job of course. They get well as people who are on the sickness benefit do then they go back on to the unemployment benefit and go off hopefully into some kind of job. We have a good story to tell here and I do thank Opposition members for giving us an opportunity to tell them about the April strategy and how that is unrolling now and helping people who are on sickness or invalids benefits to begin looking at opportunities to get a job. 
We then went on to Mrs Newman who talked about the fact that I had asked her for cases that would tell us that doctors had been bullied into giving people forms that said they were sick. She went away this afternoon when I asked her after the Committee rose and she has given me a case. I will not read out the name because she told me she wants me to treat it with respect but I just want to point out how this debate is based on such difficult information. This email says: “I believe Work and Income New Zealand”—it is not ‘Work and Income New Zealand’ at all these days; it is just ‘Work and Income’; the words ‘New Zealand’ have been gone for a long time—“is being directed to push people on to the sickness benefit to make their job easier because it means they no longer have to try to find work for these people and also make the unemployment statistics look artificially good.” If we had a chance to talk to this doctor—because all I have here is “Hi I’m a GP”—I would say that it is not called Work and Income New Zealand; it is called Work and Income. There is no policy to push people from the sickness benefit— 
Hon Bill English 
: There is. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: No I tell Mr English that there is not. People who have a history in the organisation—and Mr English has because he was in Treasury—will know that one of the things that often triggers this debate is the reminder of what the criteria are for the sickness and invalids benefits. When doctors get that reminder they often reply and talk about it. They recently got a reminder and that is what probably triggered this person. 
I say to this person that going on to the sickness benefit does not get someone out of looking for a job. Throughout they will be work tested but I say to members on the other side that we will not work test the sickness benefit. Those people are sick. It might be the policy of ACT to do so but we are not going to do it. Unlike the National Party we have lower caseloads we have introduced enhanced case management we have provided more money we have provided more tools and we will even get operations for these people so they can return to work. In other words it would not serve case managers at all to be saying: “I would like you on a sickness benefit.” because then they would find themselves with an enhanced case-management process dealing with exactly the same people and trying to move them into part-time work. 
So this doctor simply needs to pick up the phone ring Work and Income and ask: “Do you have a policy?”. We will say “No.” “What’s your name?” We could tell the doctor it is Work and Income and not Work and Income New Zealand. We could also explain that it would do people no good at all to be back on the sickness benefit in terms of a job because those people would find themselves very actively managed there as well—since April—to try to get them into part-time work. Now I would say to Dr Newman that that is the problem with this debate. I do not have a doctor here or a person I can go and see. This doctor is clearly wrong and if we could get in touch with him we would tell him so. 
I say also to the member that on Thursday the national commissioner will be with the Medical Association. Its members have been invited because they asked to meet today. The association has been asked to bring together all the information from actual doctors with actual cases to give to us and we will deal with them. We do not want supposition misunderstanding rumour or unsubstantiated things from the newspaper; we want real stories from the Medical Association. If any doctor in this country feels that he or she is being browbeaten into giving people sickness benefit forms to say they are sick when they are not we want to get alongside that doctor and assist him or her to give good sound medical judgments so that we get the right information. 
The frontline of Work and Income is not staffed by general practitioners. We have to rely on what doctors say—and we will. We want to work with the Medical Association. Can we be more transparent or open than that? Can we try any harder than that? I will personally visit doctors if they want me to to tell them how they can work with us so they are not browbeaten by our clients or anybody else. How can we get more transparent and open than that? We cannot. That is the offer we are making that is the offer Work and Income is making; and we will deal with that issue. 
I thank members for the debate. It would have been good if it had been based on facts but I enjoyed it anyway. 
Vote agreed to.