Logie Jan: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLogie Jan: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8199. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to speak on the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill in this Committee stage. And there is despite it being a very very small bill quite a bit to say about this though it has been pointed out in this Committee that this is happening through urgency that the provisions in this bill are—we are being told that they are substantially the same as the provisions that were included in the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill. I sit on the Social Services Committee; I have been hearing evidence on that bill. These provisions—although some aspects of them are the same there is detail in this bill that is significantly different and in this process and consideration of this bill in this Committee stage we do not have all the information in front of us to be able to debate this properly.As has been pointed out the regulatory impact statement in the original bill made no reference to the provisions in this bill or indeed in the significant parts of the original bill. We are not able to put the departmental advice that was offered to the select committee on the original bill into discussion in this debate because it is still under the privilege of the select committee. I did want to bring that into the debate partly because I think it illuminates part of my concerns about this bill and partly because of the fact that I do not believe that the principles of transparency and good oversight from Parliament have been enabled through this process. I would wish for that to be properly debated and considered by this Committee because I think it goes potentially towards raising some pretty fundamental concerns about the relationship between the Minister and the department if nothing else.So what this bill does is it amends the Social Security Act to correct—we are being told—with retrospective effect to 3 June 1998 an error in the legislation that does not give effect to the policy intent that a benefit commences on the day after a stand-down period ends as opposed to the day on which the stand-down period ends. Already through the first and second reading debate we have had discussion on that particular point because we are being told that the intent was always for the stand down to end on the day after despite the fact that the legislation says very very clearly and unequivocally that the benefit should commence on the day on which the stand-down period ends. I do not believe there is any way of misinterpreting that but we are being told that the intent was for it to be the next day but somehow for 18 years this has gone unnoticed and that the policy has been operationalised in a way that does not match the law. That in effect has been a breach of the law.I do admit to there being a possibility—and I am aware that this has not come to the House’s attention or to a Minister’s attention because it has been pointed out to the Social Services Committee on numerous times in my short time in Parliament about the problems with the Social Security Act. It is legislation from the 1960s it has been amended so many times and there are so many regulations attached to this piece of legislation that it is one of the—if not the—most complicated pieces of legislation on our books. It is possible that although the language is absolutely clear—“a benefit commences on the day on which the stand down period ends”—people did not look at the legislation because it is so complex. We need to work on that because this is the legislation that enables the most vulnerable people in our country: people who through disability barriers in employment are unable to work people leaving violent relationships people who have been left responsible for the care of their children and people who have been made redundant. They are people who are trying to feed themselves and put a roof over their head when they are not able to be in the paid workforce.This is the piece of legislation that ensures those rights that we supposedly all uphold those fundamental human rights to food and shelter and the ability to participate in our society—although that last point has been so hopelessly eroded. So when the Government comes to this Committee and says that we need to fix a mistake that it has made we need to look at this very closely. That it had got it wrong was brought to the Government’s attention in May 2014 and it was not brought to its attention just once; it was through two rulings of the Social Security Appeal Authority that it had it wrong.If you were following the rule of law and the established relationships the process would have then been for the Ministry of Social Development to change its practice and to ensure that it was abiding by the law andfor Cabinet then to look at the fact that it thought there was a different intention to this and then bring in legislation to change that in the future so that the law matched what it wanted it to do. There is nothing in that good process that says retrospectively you deny people access to their rights as they were written in law and that is really at the heart of what this debate is.I do want to say that I really have such a struggle with the fact that the Government is saying that it will give people who have had the law misapplied post May 2014 a period until 8 January to be able to get in their review but that people who had the law misapplied before that date will have no chance of review. Once this legislation passes that is it. We have been letting people know about this so that they could get that review in because we believe that they should have that right of review as the law guaranteed them and somebody has just emailed me saying that Work and Income is not accepting the documents that have been previously accepted by other offices where people are being paid out up to this point. Several Work and Income offices I am being told are now saying that those emails do not belong to the Ministry of Social Development and that they are not accepting them.When you are going to cut off a deadline for people that gives people money and that gives people access to a fundamental right by law in this peremptory manner this kind of stress and confusion is more likely to happen. It goes back to my very very original point of the absolute importance of our seeking to ensure people’s trust in Government and that trust is being undermined significantly by this legislation and by this process. The people who are most affected have already had many of them very difficult experiences with the State and what they are now going to take away from this process is that they were entitled to something and the Government has decided that “Well yeah you were entitled to it but now we’re going to change the law so that you can’t get it.” That is what people understand from this.On average so far the people who have claimed have got $80. That is $80 that can go towards the rent that could go towards buying a Christmas present for their kid that could potentially let their kid go to a swimming pool—things we know that families on benefit at the moment are not able to afford. Those absolute basics that when I grew up I assumed everyone had access to of a holiday of a kid having their own bed of three meals on the table of the chance for a camping holiday—things like that are not going to be able to delivered by this bill and they would not have been able to be delivered by that 1 extra day’s payment but the principle is—