Roy Heather: Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Roy Heather: Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:628;Page:1041] 
HEATHER ROY (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party to support this bill going to a select committee. I guess I should make the comment that it is better late than never from this Labour Government. As we heard from Mr Carter just before National wanted to put this bill forward at the end of 1999. ACT certainly would have supported the bill at that stage and we support it now because we are talking about very sensible provisions. 
The bill will allow the Ministry of Social Development to match information from the Housing New Zealand Corporation against its files. The information would be used to reduce fraud and the overpayment of benefits by providing accurate details of how many people live at the recipients’ Housing New Zealand Corporation addresses and what their tenancy details are. I think it is useful to look at what information can be disclosed particularly in light of the discussion we have had about the changes made necessary to the Privacy Act as a result of this legislation. 
Information that may be disclosed includes the names and dates of birth of tenants in Housing New Zealand Corporation housing those of their spouses or partners and dependent children and those of the dependent children of those spouses or partners; the location of the houses; details of the tenancies including the start and end dates; income details of those living at the address; and the address details. The information disclosed will be used by the Ministry of Social Development to help it to verify a person’s entitlement or eligibility to a benefit verify the amount of any benefit to which a person is or was entitled and recover debts due to the Crown. 
Sixty percent of Housing New Zealand Corporation tenants have their rent paid directly out of their benefit by Work and Income. That system is not available to beneficiaries renting privately. That is one area where I think the bill is perhaps deficient and I look forward to the discussion at the select committee about that particular issue. 
The bill will make it harder for people to defraud the welfare agencies by misrepresenting their income rent or the number of dependent people living at an address. There has been some discussion of late particularly in the media about people living in Housing New Zealand Corporation houses and renting out rooms. There has been some discussion about that today and I think most people would agree that that income certainly should be disclosed where it is occurring. 
That information will be made available to the Ministry of Social Development which will also make it easier for the ministry to recover outstanding debt. We should not forget that 49 percent of beneficiaries owe a debt to Work and Income. That matter was discussed recently at the financial review of the Ministry of Social Development at the Social Services Committee and every member of the committee was very concerned about it. That rate is far too high and measures need to be put in place so that people who are dependent on a benefit are not being put in the terrible state of having to pay money back. Measures such as not overpaying benefits in the first place would go a long way to help and this bill should go some way to addressing that problem. 
This bill will not do much about welfare abuse by people who rent privately as I mentioned before but it is a positive step in the right direction especially because Housing New Zealand Corporation properties are Government-owned. Welfare abuse is a major problem in this country. We spend more on welfare than we do on health and education. 
ACT certainly campaigned very hard at election time on tackling welfare abuse. It prevents this country from moving forward. It prevents those people who are genuinely dependent on the State for their income—people who really are vulnerable as opposed to those who could be supporting themselves but choose not to do so—from moving forward. Welfare abuse needs to be attended to. ACT would like those people in our society who really are vulnerable to be treated much more generously than they are. In fact those who prevent that from happening are those who wilfully abuse the welfare system and something should be done about that. 
Our burgeoning welfare rolls stand in the way of a great number of things. They stand in the way of tax cuts. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Our shrinking welfare roll is down by 90000. 
HEATHER ROY 
: If Dr Cullen were to listen carefully he might learn something. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Our shrinking welfare roll is down by 90000 under this Government. 
HEATHER ROY 
: I am not sure which one Dr Cullen is talking about but our burgeoning welfare rolls stand in the way of a great many things. Just because they may be shrinking does not mean they are at the level they should be—and they certainly are not. 
Our burgeoning welfare rolls do in fact stand in the way of tax cuts. They stand in the way of infrastructure development and the improvement of core Government services—something that I thought Dr Cullen might be interested in improving but it seems he is not. When I talk about improving core Government services I do not mean giving money to the America’s Cup campaign or to any number of things that the Government should not have an interest in at all. 
Welfare makes people dependent on the Government. At the start of this urgency period we had the Taxation (Annual Rates and Urgent Measures) Bill. That legislation needed to be put in place to enhance the Working for Families package which makes even more families dependent on the State for their income. As Dr Cullen well knows that money could have been used to provide all the workers of this country with a tax cut meaning that they would have had more money in their pocket to provide for themselves. That is too good an idea; the Labour Government is not interested in the sort of good idea that would make people stand on their own two feet. Labour is much more interested in making people dependent on the State so that when the next election rolls around it will be a bit like a turkey voting for a new Christmas. 
Welfare makes people dependent on the State as we on this side of the House certainly know although Government members seem to struggle with that concept. It takes away people’s choices and erodes their skills it robs people of work routines—which are important as we know—and it undermines their self-esteem. 
This bill will I hope reduce the potential for fraud and be an encouragement for people to lift themselves back into work. I think it is extraordinarily important legislation and I am proud to support it—which is also something the Government seems to have ignored. ACT will support this bill going to the select committee and I suspect further beyond. We will certainly look out for fish-hooks as other members have said they will do during the select committee process. We would like to see one or two things addressed but by and large this is a very good bill and we support it.