Sepuloni CarmelHon CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): That was a very difficult speech to listen to because the Minister for Social Development and Employment stood up and spoke as if she was doing a favour to beneficiaries by making this change. It is not a favour. It is an absolute disservice to all of the beneficiaries that are accessing welfare now and to all of those New Zealanders moving forward who may need to access the welfare system at some point in time—and let's face it that is actually most New Zealanders.I'm going to start with a narrative for this change that concerns me. I want to then move on to the implications that the Minister failed to actually discuss and I want to speak about the groups that will be disproportionately impacted by this change. The narrative behind this and that that Minister has pushed out there during her interviews and when talking about this bill has been mean-spirited and actually has gaslit beneficiaries. There is an assumption that there is a class of undeserving poor that that Minister continues to perpetuate and we on this side of the House will not put up with it.When we made the change the change was an evidence-based change. We had been told by a number of key stakeholders experts—people like the Children's Commissioner—that this is one of the most important things that we could do to actually address child poverty and reduce child poverty in the medium to long term. And here we have a Government who are now reversing that change and putting us at risk for having increased numbers of children living in poverty moving forward. That Minister and those members on that side of the House should be ashamed of themselves.One of the things that I was most relieved about when I was Minister for Social Development over those six years is that we had a shift in the public perception around beneficiaries in the welfare system. The polarisation of some of our poorest people seemed to reduce over that time. Some of it was because of the way we spoke about welfare and beneficiaries. Some of it was because of the circumstances we were faced with—things like COVID where all of a sudden more New Zealanders were faced with the reality that they may actually lose their jobs and end up in the welfare system. That created a natural empathy and understanding of how difficult it actually is to be on the benefit and in the welfare system. We focused not only on the welfare system but we had an absolute priority set on reducing child poverty in this country and New Zealanders care about that. Whether you're in a family that experiences poverty or you live in a community where you see that poverty or whether you just exist in Aotearoa and don't want that to be something that is the reality for New Zealand or New Zealanders it matters to New Zealanders.Point of order Madam Chair. How long do I have for this speech? Is it not 10 minutes? It's five minutes.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): [Nods] It's the first reading.Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: OK thank you very much. Returning to my speech we will be opposing this bill. I do want to point out that the supplementary analysis of this bill makes very clear that the people who will be most disproportionately impacted are actually going to be women disabled people Māori and Pacific. This analysis points out that this will result in more children in Aotearoa living in poverty.Let's be clear about why the Government is doing this. They are doing this to make fiscal savings so they can pay for their tax cuts. Over the forecast period by doing this they will save $670 million or thereabouts. That will go to the tax cuts but they are taking from the poorest New Zealanders to pay for those tax cuts and as far as I'm concerned that is morally reprehensible.We have instigated whilst we were in Government a number of measures that came about from the recommendations of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group on what our welfare system should look like what is fair and how people can be treated with dignity in the welfare system. This move runs completely in opposition to that approach and what we're seeing is the same old same old" approach of the right wing of National Governments where they put the boot in to some of the poorest and most vulnerable New Zealanders to pay for things like tax cuts to actually serve their mates that have voted them in. That is the reality of what we're seeing here."