Hutchison Paul: Social Security Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hutchison Paul: Social Security Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:639;Page:9112] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 I rise to speak to the Social Security Amendment Bill. It was a revelation to me to hear my colleague say that the Minister said that this legislation is the biggest reform to welfare in 50 years. Also we have just heard Mr Fairbrother say that this will take us through this century. What an extraordinary clanger! And what an underwhelming bill it is because it promises only bureaucracy and complexity. 
Although the bill contains some positive things—and I think we have recognised this—there are very few. The bill contains very few substantial differences that will help people into work. That is absolutely obvious when we look at clause 15 which relates to executive control over rules determining income and income deprivation. IHC New Zealand says that this is something it absolutely opposes. Here we have the Labour Government in its usual form bringing in little exceptions to the basic principles and saying: “Oh no the chief executive can make exemptions and we can decide when we feel it is right.” 
Clause 15 raises serious constitutional issues around giving the executive branch of Government the power to override statutory provisions—and that is what the Minister is happy to do. It goes on to say that income is central to determining benefit entitlement and that therefore control of the definition must stay with Parliament and the suggestion itself of regulations that specify rules for determining income highlights an intention to override the provisions contained in the principal Act. It goes on to say that an existing principle underpinning social welfare is that assistance goes only to those who need it and that efficiency of administration and putting the least pressure on the public purse are concepts already implicit in how income support is delivered. 
So here we have the Labour Government again coming into direct conflict with one of its largest providers. I would be interested to hear the Minister explain to the Committee why it is so important that the chief executive officer of the Ministry of Social Development has those powers that are laid out in Part 1. 
 We also know as my colleague Judith Collins said that clause 4 inserts a definition of “activity in the community” and that now it has been taken away. I think it would be very useful to get the Minister to tell us why it has been taken away. Why did the Government put it there in the first place? What was it dreaming about? It looks as though what it was dreaming about in the first place was that it did not like the idea of people working for the dole. 
I might say to the Minister that when I went down to Raglan one afternoon a few years ago I met a group of young Maori guys at one of the streams that goes into the Whaingaroa harbour. They were planting out native trees along the banks of this particular stream. I asked them what they were up to and they said with a quiver of pride in their voices that this was the first job they had ever had. They said they had enjoyed watching those trees grow watching the clarity of the stream and watching the whitebait come up—and receiving money for doing so. This was the first time they had got up regularly in the morning and had actually done something constructive and positive. It was indeed a work-for-the-dole scheme. They had had no work at all prior to that and they said it was one of the best things that had ever happened to them. 
This Labour-led Government always wants to bring in some artificial mechanism to get someone who cannot get a meaningful job to do something pretty silly and that is exactly what it has done. We have had this Minister go on and on about how unemployment has gone down. Of course it has come down despite him not because of him—and we have seen a 50 percent increase in invalids and sickness benefits in New Zealand over the last 7 years.