Faafoi Kris: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFaafoi Kris: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8231. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): It is my pleasure to take a call in this Committee stage of the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill. I would like the theme of my contribution to be mistakes. We are correcting a mistake that happened here in this Chamber back in 1998 as the previous National Government was in its last throes and its members were preparing to take the Opposition benches.Hon Ruth Dyson: A bit like now.KRIS FAAFOI: A lot like now—ready to come back over here. A mistake was made that has taken some time to fix. But the worst thing about making a mistake is when you try to fix that mistake and you make things worse by making more mistakes. It is for a mistake that we are here under urgency—again without the transparency that should be afforded the public and this Parliament—rushing this piece of legislation through.Looking to clause 2 it is a mistake that the Government may not—and is probably likely not to—support a couple of Supplementary Order Papers one from my colleague Carmel Sepuloni and another from Jan Logie to look at making things fair for those people who are affected by pushing out the commencement date by either 6 weeks or 6 months. That is a mistake. Those people who are affected have not had the opportunity to go to a select committee because we are here under urgency pushing this piece of legislation through.The Government could right the mistake that it is about to make and seriously consider supporting Supplementary Order Paper 142 from my colleague Carmel Sepuloni. It is a very simple Supplementary Order Paper. It would change clause 2 the commencement clause. It reads: “In clause 2 after ‘on the day’ … insert ‘that is 6 weeks’.” That is to give those people time to be able to mount a case to say: “It is the right thing and the fair thing for us to be able to ask for a review and if this money is rightly owed to us we should get it.”Can I just use an example where we think the Government would potentially add some time on to the commencement date. Let us say big corporates found out that they were entitled to money because there was a slight discrepancy within taxation law. I can bet your bottom dollar—and probably millions of them—that corporates would find a way to make sure that they could get what they thought was properly owed to them. But in this case this Government is not willing to amend clause 2 probably because of the people who may benefit from it. It is not willing to help those who are on a benefit to rightfully claim what is theirs to give them an opportunity to say: “Hey the right thing and the fair thing is that you should consider paying me what I think is rightly owed to me and giving us more time to be able to do that.” That is why I think the Government should seriously consider supporting Supplementary Order Paper 142 in the name of my colleague Carmel Sepuloni.It should also seriously consider righting its mistake of not consulting people by rushing through this piece of legislation under urgency. Supplementary Order Paper 144 in the name of Jan Logie from the Green Party looks to add a new clause 7 after the final clause in this bill to ask the department to have a period of prescribed time to undertake an advertising campaign to let those people who are affected by this change in legislation know that they should have the ability to ask for an appeal ask for a review and ask for what is rightly theirs.If you look at this process at the moment this piece of legislation is being rushed through with little or no fanfare. In the time that I have been watching this debate there has been very little contribution from members across the Chamber. They want to sweep this under the carpet in a late-night session of Parliament so that nobody knows about it. The less that people know about this the better in terms of the Government. That is why there is no select committee process that is why we seem to have no regulatory impact statement and the departmental report that we have got does not really add too much to what is going on here. So that paints a picture of a Government that would rather not have this out there in the headlines and that would rather not pay back or give the opportunity for those people who are affected to have their say and I think that is a shame. That is why I think the Government should seriously consider the amendment to insert new clause 7 as proposed by Jan Logie to give those people some time—