Sepuloni Carmel: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSepuloni Carmel: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8197. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): In standing up to speak to this particular bill I just want to speak to the purpose of it and then talk about the Supplementary Order Paper that I have tabled—Supplementary Order Paper 142—and that I am hoping will be supported by the Committee. I think one really important point to make before I even get started—Ruth Dyson just found out this little fact—is that legislation came to the House in 1998 and that is when the technical error occurred. The interesting part of that is that the bill at that time went through the House in urgency as well. So here we are again in urgency correcting a technical error that was made under urgency back in 1998.I guess that is the danger of rushing things through—not having the advice we need not having all the checks and balances in place not having the Attorney-General look over it and not having a regulatory impact statement. Those are all concerns we have when we look at a piece of legislation like this and even more so because of the fact that the technical error was made in 1998 when a bill went through in urgency. I really do hope that in 17 years’ time we are not back here correcting a technical error that was made when there was an attempt to correct the technical error that had been made 17 years beforehand as a bill went through urgency.As I pointed out to the House during the first and second readings we support the fact that there needs to be some correction here. We support the fact that we need to correct a technical error that occurred. Our concern here is the commencement date which can be easily addressed by the Supplementary Order Paper that I have put up. We are concerned about the commencement date because of the fact that it closes out the opportunity for so many people to be able to have natural justice and make a claim. We saw in the media in the lead-up to this bill coming to the House today that the Minister for Social Development has allowed in this legislation a window of opportunity for those who missed out on that 1 day between May 2014 and September in 2015 to be able to make a claim. The Minister’s statement is that because the Government had knowingly acted illegally during that time period it is important that that particular group of people who may have been stood down and denied a day of pay be given natural justice.We have heard from members in the House who are supporting this bill that their belief is that because this is a technical error anyone prior to May 2014 should not be given the same opportunity or the same level of natural justice. We oppose that because it is not actually the fault of the beneficiaries over the last 17 years that there was a technical error in the legislation. An example I used of where the shoe is on the other foot is the fact that the Government is still relentlessly chasing money owed to it in respect of the Novopay debacle. What we have seen in the media in the last week in that case is that $1.8 million is still outstanding to the Government because people were overpaid during that whole fiasco. That was not the fault of the people who were overpaid and yet the Government because it is money that it is owed to it is relentlessly chasing that money.Here we have the Government needing to make changes to correct a technical error But the way it can be read which I am sure is the perception of many is—oops—the Government owes a whole lot of New Zealand citizens and it does not want to pay out. So it takes the easy option and retrospectively changes the legislation so it does not have to give people the money. How great it would be for all those citizens who owe money to the State if they could retrospectively change legislation so that they were no longer held accountable or liable for the money they owe. I am thinking of those poor teachers who now have to pay back the money that was overpaid to them because of a Government disaster that we call Novopay.The Supplementary Order Paper that I have in front of me will delay the commencement of this legislation by 6 weeks. That is the window of opportunity we asked for right from the beginning. As the Minister pointed out—and I have alluded to it as well—we have tried to negotiate with the Government over this and the reason we have tried to negotiate is that the technical error has been allowed to exist under both Labour and National Governments. So it is an issue that we should be working on together to find a solution to. The one area of disagreement is whether or not these people prior to May 2014 should be paid out. Our solution to this is actually just to put up an amendment that would delay the commencement of this bill by 6 weeks. And as I said that is all we said to Minister Tolley at the beginning and that is all we asked for really—that there be a 6-week period where those who are entitled to claim would be able to make or put forward a claim.The explanatory note of Supplementary Order Paper 142 says: “This Supplementary Order Paper amends clause 2 so as to delay the commencement of the Bill for 6 weeks. This would give people who have been penalised by the incorrect payment of benefits a window in which to lodge a claim for back payment in line with natural justice requirements.” Some arguments have been put as to why we should not do that. One of those arguments is fiscal. The unfortunate thing is that we have no real knowledge of what the numbers are that we are talking about here because of the fact that there is no regulatory impact statement. No one has really analysed it.We were told by Alfred Ngaro that because the elements of this particular bill were originally in the extension of the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill we might be able to find the detail in the regulatory impact statement there for these particular measures. Actually I have gone through that regulatory impact statement. I know that Ruth Dyson sitting here has gone through it. Annette King has gone through it and there is nothing in there about the commencement of benefit side of things despite the fact that actually the commencement of benefits part was originally in the extension of the youth services bill. I think Poto Williams has gone through the regulatory impact statement as well.So I need to point out to Alfred Ngaro the chair of the Social Services Committee who pointed us in the direction of that regulatory impact statement that there is nothing in there about the elements that we are talking about today. So it is a real issue that we do not have a regulatory impact statement in here. No one can comment on the fiscal implications because there is no evidence to say how many people have been affected and how much money is involved and to top it off we know that a large number of people who might be eligible to make a claim probably would not make a claim because of the efforts they would have to go to.There are many people who were briefly on a benefit but have been in work ever since that one period in their life when they may have found themselves unemployed and having to rely on a benefit—those are the vast majority of people who go on benefits—and they will not be wanting to put forward a claim. So we are concerned that so many people are being shut out in this process. We do know that many of them would probably not even want to make a claim but it is just the fact that natural justice is not being given the opportunity to prevail.I hope that Government members see the merits in having the majority of the House support them on a piece of legislation like this particularly when it goes through under urgency and is a retrospective piece of legislation and I hope as Annette King said not only that they see the merit of that but also that they see the merit of supporting Supplementary Order Paper 142. It is a small ask from us. We will support the bill if the Government or the majority of the House supports us on this Supplementary Order Paper to delay the commencement of this particular piece of legislation to allow that window of opportunity for all of those people who have the right to make a claim to make that claim rather than shutting them out completely from the process and honouring only the claims that have already been made—even though we are glad that the Government is doing this now—or honouring only the claims of those people who were affected post 20 May 2014 when the Government became aware of the fact that it was acting illegally.I do just want to say that a lot of the National Government MPs have stood up here today and said that there is a sense of urgency with getting this through—but unfortunately there was not a sense of urgency on 20 May 2014.