Ardern Jacinda: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Ardern Jacinda: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Sitting date: 04 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7000. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
6. 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development 
: How many times if any has the Transition to Work Grant or similar funds been used by Work and Income New Zealand to purchase tickets to Australia for job seekers who have found work there? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development) 
: 
 I cannot answer the question. The grant has been in place since 2007. Because it is not the policy intent or acceptable practice there is not a place to put it in our system so I would have to manually go back through the last 5 years and in the last 3 hours I have not had time to do that. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Is there any way for her to know with certainty how the discretionary Transition to Work grant of up to $1500 has been used by Work and Income managers? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Since September this year any decisions around grants to move people or anything else have been escalated to head office. That has happened quite recently. There are in the system places obviously where you put what the grants are for. I can give the member some details on the average grant which is $363 a week. We have had more than 500000 of them in the last 5 years so there is a lot. Some are for clothing costs; we help dress people. Some are for childcare costs while someone goes for an interview. [ 
Interruption 
] I am trying to answer this question. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Is there anything in the Transition to Work policy that would rule out the fund being used to purchase tickets to Australia? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Well except that it is not the policy intent and that is very clear to staff. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Can she assure the House that the discretionary Transition to Work grant has never been used to purchase or contribute to one-way fares to Australia for job seekers who have an offer of employment there? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: As I have said no I cannot particularly because it has been around since 2007. So it was actually introduced under the previous Labour Government. The legislation is actually silent on that and I cannot give a guarantee that far back as to whether or not that has happened. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Does she know what is going on with her own front-line services given that I have been informed of a meeting where Work and Income managers confirmed that Work and Income had offered financial assistance to job seekers to travel to Australia to take up employment? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: If the member has evidence of that I would be very interested in seeing it. It is not my expectation. It is not the expectation of the policy intent. However it is case managers who distribute it. It has been made very clear to them that they should not be paying for any airfares overseas and as far as I have seen to date I do not have evidence of that. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Will she investigate whether or not and how often the Transition to Work grant has been used to purchase tickets to Australia for job seekers? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Absolutely because I would be very unhappy to see that as common practice.