Upston LouiseHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): I am really delighted that the Labour Government have chosen today to speak about the National Party policy that we launched on Sunday: Welfare that Works. It tells the House that they're taking it seriously when they want to have questions in the House and their oral debates about Welfare that Works because that's what it's all about. This is about a very blatant commitment to young New Zealanders across New Zealand: if you have been on a jobseeker benefit for more than a year for whatever reason National wants to provide the individual targeted support to support you off welfare and into work.We're taking this seriously for several reasons and one of them is we know—and the Labour Government knows—if a young person goes on to a benefit under the age of 20 on average they spend 12 years on welfare. So this is a policy that is absolutely about breaking the cycle of welfare dependency and that's why we've targeted it at the under-25s. We've looked at what works best and what works best is community organisations leading the charge. One of the examples that the Labour Government always talks about is He Poutama Rangatahi. Willie Jackson always crows about it. Guess what! National introduced it in July 2017. I proudly launched it in Northland at a time that it was desperate to support young people into employment. It's targeted it's community orientated and with the policy that we announced on Sunday I just want to put some of the information on the record because Labour can't figure out if it won't work if it can't work if they're already doing it or it's not needed. So clearly they're a bit confused about what our policy is. It is comprehensive and deliberately so because this is a real problem that we in New Zealand we in the National Party under Christopher Luxon's leadership want to solve.So if you think about the number of people who are on the jobseeker benefit that number has nearly doubled for the number that have been on benefit for 12 months or more—jobseeker benefit— under their watch. At the same time DairyNZ is doing advertising campaigns to say We want young people; we will train them up from scratch." It's the same in horticulture same in retail same in hospitality same in manufacturing. Just about any street there are signs advertising for jobs that young people would be welcomed into with open arms. And so what we see has to happen is individual job coaching for those young people to connect them to the opportunities that exist today. They are there today.The second part of it is the piece that I think Labour's conveniently forgotten about or ignored and that is a comprehensive needs assessment that actually looks at what are the barriers for each young job seeker that's on the benefit. I do not discriminate between a young person who has a health condition or disability that temporarily means they are unable to work in this two-year period—because that is what the jobseeker criteria is. I refuse to accept that those young people don't deserve the assistance support and targeted effort to support them on a pathway into work. For some of them—and a gentleman that I spoke to three weeks ago who had mental health and anxiety issues for him it was about working part-time to begin with. It was about working part-time it was getting up every day going to a workplace that actually built his confidence and helped his mental health. Now I think that's worth it.But you can't do that in a Government agency where someone rang me today and said they waited for an hour and a half on the phone to get someone to assist them and no one would. National will take a targeted approach allow community organisations to deliver this through job coaches needs assessment individual jobs plan. And yes there are incentives available and obligations when that jobs plan isn't followed. It's the young person's plan—it is the young person's plan—and we want to give them every single opportunity where there are jobs everywhere to make sure we have welfare that works."