Collins Judith: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Collins Judith: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:618;Page:14336] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 It has been very interesting listening to the speeches this afternoon in this estimates debate. I welcome back the Hon Steve Maharey the Minister in the chair. I hope everything is fine. We have missed him. Certainly we have missed his sense of humour which I think was so aptly displayed in that last speech. What a comedian! It is certainly good to have him back again for the time that he will be a Minister which will not be long. 
Today I shall talk about employment. I certainly noted that the Minister referred several times to employment rates in New Zealand. He forgot to mention all the people who shift off the employment benefit and go on to the sickness benefit or the invalids benefit. At the end of last week and just this week doctors have been saying that they are sick of Work and Income people sending unemployment beneficiaries to them having told them to tell the doctors to give them a sickness form. I note that the Minister has previously been quoted as saying that sometimes unemployed people get sick. Well we know that. Lots of people get sick. That does not mean to say that they end up on a sickness benefit. Many of us would know of people who we would think could be on a sickness benefit but they are not. Many of us know people who are on an invalids benefit yet can commit criminal activities can have children can do things like pick kiwifruit and all sorts of jobs that they get paid for under the table. Many of us know of such people in our electorates and just generally. 
Not too many people are fooled by the contention of the Minister that the number of people on the sickness benefit is suddenly increasing—35 percent under Labour in the last 4 years—because we have an ageing population. Does the Minister think we all came down in the last rain shower? When people are past the age of 65 they get superannuation. That is what we call being aged. Being aged is not being 50 55 or 60; being those ages does not necessarily mean that suddenly all those people cannot work. We know that it is a “have” the doctors know that it is a “have” and the people of New Zealand know that it is a “have” and they have had enough of it. They are saying constantly in the polls that they have had enough. They have had enough of that politically correct rubbish. They have had enough of burglars and sexual predators who happen to have been on a sickness benefit an invalids benefit or an unemployment benefit because they are supposedly too sick or too ill to work or are unable to get work. 
Many of us see in our electorates and around the country that a number of people in small businesses are really really hurting under this Government. Small businesses are finding it difficult to find staff who are stable to compete with bigger firms to pay all the extra holiday pay and to do everything else that this Government is imposing on them. That will have a detrimental effect on employment. 
I know that the previous Minister in the chair talked a lot about how the Budget is helping families and all of that. Has he taken a couple of kids to the movies lately? Does he actually realise what the cost of living is under this Government and that there have been substantial increases in the cost of living? The more that we tell people that it is OK to be on a benefit and that they can survive on it and earn some money under the table the worse it gets. In fact the cost of taking kids to the movies now is pretty horrendous. Just the other day I took a couple of kids to the movies and at the end of the day after I had got all the things they thought were a requirement in going to the movies there was not an awful lot of change out of about $70 or $80—after parking and everything else. Many many families in this country could not afford to do that. Certainly I felt it was not something I would do again in a hurry. 
Costs are constantly being imposed. They do not just go on to businesses; they go straight back through the system to the very people who can least afford it. We are talking here about the families. They are the ones who can least afford it. Our just doling out a few dollars here and a few dollars there does not help them. Those people want some relief. They want some relief in taxes and they want it now.