Lee Melissa: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Lee Melissa: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 20 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5519. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
MELISSA LEE (National) 
: 
 It is a great pleasure to rise to make a contribution on this first reading of the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. I would like to first of all start off by commending the Minister for Social Development Minister Paula Bennett who has done a tremendous amount of work to bring together this comprehensive reform of the welfare system. 
I am a little surprised at the speaker who just took her seat Jacinda Ardern talking about this being a passive—passive—reform. If we are talking about a passive social welfare system we could go back to the 9 years under the Labour Government when it did nothing to stop fraud and abuse of the welfare system allowing it to go largely unchecked. It fudged welfare fraud data to hide the problem of welfare abuse. Beneficiaries were shifted between different types of benefit rather than being supported back to work. Welfare is about readying people for work so that they can actually get back to work and provide for their families and for themselves so that they can feel better about themselves instead of feeling like they do not deserve whatever it is that people throw at them. 
Under the former Labour Government the number in receipt of the sickness benefit went from 33000 in 1999 to 46000 in 2008 and the number receiving the invalids benefit went from 53000 to 85000. Miss Ardern did not like the fact that this Government is in fact going to stop payments to criminals on the run from the police. That is probably because Labour did that: it continued the payments for criminals who were on the run from the police. This Government is making sure that that is not going to happen. 
I am going to make only a little contribution on this bill in terms of the changes to the three benefit category types that are being established rather than the seven current types: jobseeker support sole parent support and supported living payment. Previously when we talked to ethnic communities about the unemployment benefit and the invalids benefit we found that they had a major stigma in those communities especially when translated into their languages. Often people who are in dire need who desperately need to be on the benefit actually do not go and get the help they require. It is because “unemployment benefit” and “invalids benefit” often translate to meaning that they do not deserve it or they do not want to work. So the changes in the language are something I support. 
I look forward to the submissions in the select committee process in regard to the changes to the Social Security Act 1964. This bill which is having its first reading does a lot for people who are on benefit. Currently we are paying $20 million for benefits each day which equates to $7 billion a year. We need to get people who are ready to work willing to work and able to work back into work. I commend this bill.