Tolley Anne: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTolley Anne: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 11 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5634. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): It gives me great pleasure to take a call tonight to talk about Budget 2015 because as we heard from the chair of the Social Services Committee my colleague Alfred Ngaro of course this is a huge year for those who are the less well-off in our communities. In Budget 2015 a $790 million package was announced by this Government focused on reducing hardship for children in some of our poorest families.It was a 43-year watershed when this Government announced a $25 a week increase in the benefits. No other Government in 43 years has actually focused on those receiving a benefit and lifted that benefit. This Government did it. They hate it on the Opposition because in the very best of economic times that Labour Government did not lift the benefit. It ignored the people who are on a benefit. This Government has announced that as from 1 April next year people will get a $25 increase in the benefit.Brett Hudson: The first increase in real benefits in 43 years.Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Yes 43 years. Not only that we also looked at those who are working hard. We know there are many families in New Zealand that are working hard but are still on very low incomes and their children are still experiencing hardship. We have lifted the minimum family tax credit and the in-work tax credit so that the families that are eligible for those also receive an increase of anything between $12 extra a week and $25 extra a week.And we have increased the subsidy for childcare. We have done that because contrary to the previous speaker we know from experience what is working well particularly for parents reliant on the sole-parent benefit. We know what support is needed to help those people out into work and independence. Independence of the State is extremely important. We know from experience what is working what support is working and we know the determination of many of those people to be independent. From 1 April next year it is interesting that a sole parent now working 20 hours a week on the minimum wage and receiving the minimum family tax credit and the in-work tax credit could be $190 a week better off. That is the difference that it makes—helping people and supporting them into work and supporting their families. They could be $190 a week better off and independent of the State. That is the ambition that this National Party has for those people.We know that the outlook for those children in families that are reliant on the State for a benefit is not great. Their lifetime expectations are not great. The statistics tell us that those children who are born into homes that are included in the main benefit within the first 2 weeks of their life 48 percent of them will have a Department of Child Youth and Family Services notification. Almost half of those kids will have a referral to the Department of Child Youth and Family Services and 48 percent of them will not attain NCEA level 2. We know that that is the minimum qualification that a young person needs to go on to get a good job to go on to further tertiary education or to go into an apprenticeship. Almost half of those kids—we know that if nothing changes in their lives they will not have that and then 45 percent of them will go on to receive a youth benefit. Again the outlook for youngsters going on to a youth benefit is that they are most likely to still be on that youth benefit in 20 years’ time.So the absolute imperative is to help people become independent of the State able to stand on their own two feet able to support themselves and their families and therefore we have put into play these benefits.