Bennett Paula: Budget Debate 
Bennett Paula: Budget Debate 
[Volume:673;Page:19247] 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call and to stand up and support this Budget. I thank the Hon Bill English for the work he has done—and might I say that it was not easy. It has been a hard process to go through this but there is no doubt that this National-led Government has presented a Budget that is about building our future as a country it is about building a stronger economy it is about a stronger workforce it is about a platform for growth and it will make a substantial difference to where we go as a country. It is a responsible approach in these times which are our times and which indeed are a bit tougher. In Vote Social Development I am proud to say we found savings but avoided wholesale cuts to services and to programmes. We have done so through a continued focus on finding efficiencies and getting smarter at what we do how we run it as a business and how we do our business. 
Vote Social Development has a total appropriation of $21.7 billion—one-third of all spend is under that responsibility. In this Budget fiscal constraints meant that we had no new funding. So we have focused that funding and that spending on who needs it most. I am going to talk to members about youth employment children in care parenting support employment assistance the Christchurch rebuild community organisations that have had our support and of course our wonderful superannuitants. On those wonderful superannuitants we are projecting to spend about $9.5 billion in the next financial year—$9.5 billion just on superannuation. On top of that we also project to spend about $288 million in supplementary support to them. That is through disability allowances accommodation supplements and also through special needs grants and special needs loans. 
In Budget 2011 we set aside or reprioritised $250 million for social initiatives. This included of course the $55.2 million that is going into youth employment and a $43.7 million package—and I will talk to members a bit more about those wonderful children in care who need every bit of help they can get. The $55.2 million that has gone into the youth employment package is to help those youth who make up about one-third of our current unemployment benefit numbers. Currently we have about 17100 young people on the unemployment benefit. We all know that they need better lives. We all know that getting them at that age and making sure they have a future and a way forward is one of the best investments we can make as a Government. That is why we have built on what works. So we have evaluated and looked at what has worked and then we have progressed that. 
We have the Skills for Growth programme in which we subsidise an employer who takes on a young person for a minimum of 12 months and attached to that is a whole training and skills growth programme. The young people are attached to an industry training organisation. They are attached to a target industry where the jobs are needed. The intention of that policy is to make sure that those people do not come back on a benefit in their lifetime. That gives them a skill for life real job experience and also that training alongside of it. We think that is pretty exciting and will make a difference. 
We took the very very successful Job Ops youth employment scheme which currently has seen over 11000 young people in work. Those 11000 young people are in work due to the $5000 subsidy for 6 months. The scheme takes those young people in gives them a job for 6 months and most of them stay on for a lot longer. We now have training attached to that scheme so it is now Job Ops with training. That means those young people also having training systems alongside them for those 6 months. It is $13 million but funding places for 3000 young people is certainly a worthwhile spend and one that we have come up with in this Budget. 
Of course we have the Limited Service Volunteers which occasionally gets mixed up with the military-style activity camps and I do not like that. They are very different schemes. The Limited Service Volunteers scheme is for those on the unemployment benefit. It is a 6-week course that is about motivation and self-responsibility and clicking into what young people can do. It gives them those sorts of skills gives them career advice and then follows their progress afterwards. However the military-style activity camps are very very different in that they deal with very serious youth offenders. I am really rapt that the Limited Service Volunteers scheme has come along that we are putting a lot more into it and providing a lot more places. There is ongoing funding for 1500 places a year. 
I turn to community responses. We knew the recession was hitting as we came into Government and we knew there would be an increase in demand for our services that are out there with people working on the ground. However there was a decrease in funding because the foundations and the various philanthropists were not able to give the same amount of money to those services. We wanted to fill that gap. We have spent more than $55 million over the last 2 years on 700 organisations. More than $55 million has been spent on more than 700 organisations. What we really notice though is that those organisations are still feeling that pressure. As we went around and spoke to them they said “It ain’t over yet. We need a bit more help.” I am absolutely delighted that this Budget has put $25 million more into those community organisations. There will be three rounds of funding. It will be available as it is and I know that the funding is much needed. We are getting a fantastic response from the people out there in the community. I love that it is community-led organisations as well. It is people in the community on that forum who are taking these funding applications and deciding who gets them and where they are needed most. 
But I have made no secret that what I am most proud of in this Budget is the assistance we are giving to children in care. These are the children who are removed from their homes because quite frankly an adult has treated them appallingly. At worst the children have been seriously abused or sexually assaulted and in this instance the best is that they have been hideously neglected. These are our children. They are broken they are hurt and we are not doing as well by them as we could. We take about 2200 of these children from their homes each year and we take about 90 babies at birth. Literally a social worker and a policeman or policewoman are waiting outside a delivery room and the baby is taken. What we do with the children is put them into great foster homes and try to work with them to get them the right counselling. In some cases we are doing it well and in others the truth is we are not. 
What we are doing after running a pilot scheme is increasing the Gateway assessments for health and education. It is as simple as asking how we can fix their very complex problems if we do not even know what they are. How can we do what needs to be done with these children when we do not even know what their history is what their needs are and what we can do? There is a full assessment usually led by a paediatrician with an administrator next to them who collects all of the children’s educational history which sometimes can go back quite far. The children are often transitional. They have moved from before-school programmes to after-school programmes to schools because they have been moved around. We are making sure that we are going back and getting as much information as we can. 
Our pilot schemes have told us that 88 percent of those children who come into care have health needs—40 percent or more have mental health needs. Those children are not being seen and they are not getting the services they need. Of the more than 40 percent of children who are seen to have either severe mental or behavioural issues only 7 percent are currently getting assistance through the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service and that is not good enough. We then had to make sure that we were getting them the services they needed so we put $14.5 million into mental health services. To be quite blunt we can spend so much time arguing about whether something is behavioural or psychological or what has caused the major problems that these children have that we are trying to squeeze them into a gateway that is not there or it is a mental health issue. The mental health people say it is not their problem and the psychologists are saying that the child fits more there and in the meantime this child has grown up and not received the support that he or she most desperately needs. 
So I will build them their own little flexible box and I will direct-purchase what they need without the need of having to slot into those arguments of where they fit. I reckon that is one of the most important things that we can do as a Government. Let us work out what those needs are. Let us make sure we then address them. 
We will also fund early childhood care for those children from the age of 18 months through to 3 years and then of course the 20 free hours’ care clicks in. I say that this is great for the kids because we know that quality early childhood care makes a difference but I equally say that this is about respite care for those wonderful foster parents or grandparents who are raising these children. They have stepped in to look after them. Yes we are funding $2.4 million into Parents Inc. to give support to foster parents and to those grandparents raising grandchildren in our communities up and down this country. They beg us almost on a daily basis for help. They take these children on all through their own means. They live in our very small communities and they live in our larger towns as well. They want help. I am really proud to be giving that help to them. I am proud of this Budget I am proud of what we are doing for those most vulnerable children and I think it will make a difference. Thank you.