Delahunty Catherine: Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Delahunty Catherine: Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:678;Page:1313] 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
 Tena koutou e te Whare. I am delighted to have this opportunity. Is it not interesting how those of us who have direct experience of working or experience of being on a benefit have such different conclusions about that experience. I do not believe that legislation should be based on the personal experiences of people who have thrived for a variety of reasons who then consider that they should cut the ladder out from underneath them. Beneficiaries—we are all beneficiaries. What is a beneficiary? Beneficiaries pay taxes spend in local communities care for families contribute to communities have human rights and deserve respect. 
Simon Bridges 
: But taxpayers pay for them. 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY 
: And they pay taxes. So what is a beneficiary? We are all beneficiaries of the State at some time in our lives. Some of us who do this very job here are being paid for right now by the State. Some of us when we are parents some of us when we experience disablement from society because we experience impairment some of us who are made unwell or made redundant need at some time in our lives to receive support. One day believe it or not any one of us in this room could wake up and need a benefit and when we do the stigma judgment and job testing proposed in the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill will fall upon our heads.  
In the region where I helped to set up a beneficiary advocacy service in Te Tai Rawhiti the Future Focus legislation—the past one and this current one—is known as “Future Unfocused”. Why? Because beneficiaries and beneficiary support services know exactly how many jobs are available in their region and how many meaningless seminars run by brokers shortly to be called youth support providers will tell them to look at TradeMe jobs they have already looked at. Ask the advocates for disabled youth who is actually looking after their interests and who is the last cab off the rank before you pass the judgments that we have heard in this House. 
The welfare system in a decent society would be part of a broad belief system that values unpaid work. Hello? At least 50 percent of the work in the world is not paid and we do not value it. In fact we judge people who are not in paid work. We treat them as if they have no value. We believe a decent society would have benefits you can live on while you need them and would invest in youth and real training and education not punishment.  
What about sole parents especially women? Perhaps if you are really concerned about women how is this bill for women experiencing domestic violence? Every 7 minutes the police deal with a domestic violence incident and one in three women will experience physical and/or sexual violence at the hands of her partner. In acknowledgment this Future Focus has an exemption on work testing for people escaping violent relationships yet in 2010-11 Work and Income New Zealand recorded only 54 women going on the benefit for that reason because of domestic violence. When asked why the number was so low it responded that it does not ask and so some women are understandably reluctant to disclose this. It is critically important that we have a welfare system that makes leaving a violent relationship as easy as possible and this bill will not make it easier because women are not safe to disclose and women are now going to be work tested if they do not disclose.  
If we are going to talk about youth—and we have heard a lot just recently about young people and the thousands of jobs out there just waiting for them not to mention the ones that work for sole parents—perhaps the Minister should talk to the Mayor of Otorohanga about the nil youth unemployment rate. That did not happen because of welfare punishment or privatisation of the welfare system as is proposed in this bill. That happened with real support and real engagement by the community which refused to abandon its young people did not use the law as a stick to beat them with and did not disempower them by giving them a plastic card and telling them where to eat or what to eat. What that community did instead was to say that these children are part of us these children will always be part of us let us work in the community and broker something real. That is not going to happen with Work and Income. Believe me I have spent a lot of time in that office advocating for people and I have never heard anyone offer them the creation of a job let alone the kind of mentoring that has happened in Otorohanga.  
Another rather heinous aspect of this bill is the aspect of “encouraging” contraception—somewhat controversial contraception—for women because of course women are responsible for children. Women create children all by themselves! We are all immaculate conceivers! There is no role for men in this apparently. So we will be punished. We are responsible. To incentivise contraception and effectively disincentivise women from having children—because criminal women from the lower classes should not breed while receiving a benefit—ignores the complex nature of sex and contraceptive use and reinforces negative gender roles. To highlight this issue we will ask the House to consider whether incentivising vasectomies for men who have relationships with women receiving a benefit or on a benefit is perhaps appropriate. Contracting out services is not opening up anything except profit for those companies.  
We need to support our young people who are increasingly disconnected from their employment in the community. We need to build trust; we do not need to build punishment. So the Green Party is very happy to be opposing this bill delighted to stand up for women delighted to stand up for beneficiaries and young people and to support positive models instead of the punishment model and the failure of imagination that is inherent in this bill. Kia ora tatou.