Fairbrother Russell: Social Assistance (Debt Prevention and Minimisation) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Fairbrother Russell: Social Assistance (Debt Prevention and Minimisation) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:641;Page:10854] 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour) 
: 
 I was going to address the Social Assistance (Debt Prevention and Minimisation) Amendment Bill without referring to the previous speaker Judith Collins. I often find what she says to be so tempting to knock about the debating chamber but I thought I would not lower myself to the level of utterance we have just heard. 
But when she said she was surprised and shocked that it had taken this Government so many years to bring this legislation into place having spent hundreds of millions of dollars on computer systems she should have listened to herself and realised how even more idiotic than usual that comment was. Of course until we have the computer systems in place we cannot do the data matching. So until we spend the hundreds of millions of dollars—which of course is an exaggeration—and get the computer systems in place we cannot do data matching. And she did not dare mention that if we get around to the pruning of Government spending which those neo-liberals on the other side of the House are promising then there will not be the money to develop the infrastructure to enable this very bill to come before the House. That is the key to this piece of legislation. 
I would have expected the previous speaker to dwell upon the infringements of privacy of information aspects. As she has a legal background and is a neoclassical liberal one would think she would perhaps have considered the fishhooks that might be there. They are not there of course and the fact that she did not even mention them underscores the point that this bill is in terms of privacy very tight and accurate. 
One of the difficulties until now in achieving data matching has been the privacy law. It has been possible for a person to go to prison for example and for the Ministry of Social Development to know about that but not act upon it because of the privacy barriers that are created. Now with modern data-matching systems and the automated flagging systems that are contained in relational databases we are able as a Government to identify movements of beneficiaries from situations of benefit to situations where they are not entitled to any benefit and to act on that immediately. So no longer is the Privacy Act breached by endeavouring to trace individuals on such movements and as we now have the computer systems or are moving to have the computer systems which will enable the tracking this bill can come before the House. 
I agree with the previous speaker in the National Party that this bill has come not before time. But the delay if we can call it that has been because it has taken 7 whole years to develop the much-neglected infrastructure of the previous administration. This is the unseen expense which the National Party likes to bay about on the hustings. National members say: “We will cut taxes because the Government spends too much money on bureaucrats and committees.” Of course they are never specific and what they should say on the hustings is that they will cut the money and there will not be the infrastructure to develop a sound rounded system. 
 This bill is the product of a sound rounded system. This bill enables the computers to track beneficiaries so that when they move off the benefit payments stop and when they move on to a benefit the entitlement can then resume. It is important to the integrity of a benefit system that those who are entitled to benefits are paid that to which they are entitled but those who are not entitled to benefits should not receive a dollar more than they are entitled to. It is not a matter of taking a mean-spirited public purse approach because ultimately if there is an overpayment there has to be a repayment and individuals on benefits are living so close to the level of sustainability—as they should be on a benefit—that they do not have the leeway and the income to repay a debt not of their own making. 
In the past we have seen beneficiaries who try to maximise their level of income by removing the debt provisions and what they do is trot off to these third-level lenders who are commonly referred to as loan sharks. For the temporary relief that comes from increasing the cash flow beneficiaries create an even greater burden by borrowing money on the family car television or some other asset at exorbitant rental rates which only worsens their position. So this bill will move beneficiaries away from the claws of unscrupulous loan sharks because it will remove the pressure and tension that is created for beneficiaries when they unwittingly get into debt to the Ministry of Social Development. 
This is a good bill. It deals with people with the best of intentions who are sometimes in desperate situations and allows their situations not to become more desperate by official oversight or bureaucratic bungling. The system is so computerised now that individuals can be tracked with all the appropriate levels of anonymity but at all times their interests can be safeguarded so that at the right time they receive benefits at the right time the payments stop and at the right time the payments commence. No longer do we have the debtor-creditor situation that is so corrosive to an individual or family who is dependent upon a benefit from the State. The situation is not only corrosive to the individual but also to the State because people such as the previous speaker will stand in this House and lambaste the very good Ministers for Social Development and Employment that we have now and we have had in the past about the debt created by beneficiaries. That debt is usually created not through any ill will on the part of beneficiaries but through the bureaucratic inconvenience caused by beneficiaries moving off and on benefits. 
This is a very good bill. It is a timely bill. It could not have been introduced any earlier because this Government has spent careful years rebuilding a much-neglected infrastructure. That infrastructure is now tight and resilient. It can result in the bringing forward of legislation such as this bill which speaks more loudly than any words or any TV images of the argument for a prudent fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy. We must handle this issue of tax cuts with great caution because for every tax cut made there is a cost and that cost will sabotage initiatives such as the ones that lie behind this bill. 
This bill is short in ambition it is elegant in achieving that ambition and as it comes before the Social Services Committee which I have the privilege of chairing I look forward to receiving the submissions that hopefully will address the issues in the bill. It seems to me on a quick reading of the bill that there is not much work that needs to be done in tidying up its provisions. It is a very elegant bill it achieves a very worthwhile social purpose and it is indeed a reflection upon a Government that cares and thinks about people and that builds up an infrastructure carefully. This is a bill for the year 2007 forward.