Robertson Grant: Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robertson Grant: Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 17 July 2012. Volume:681;Page:3594. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 I want to refer back to the youth services model that is established in Part 1 of this bill the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill and in particular to talk about the concept of wraparound services. On this side of the Chamber that is a concept that we support. Once upon a time members on the other side of the Chamber would have called that nanny State and said that it should not be done but they have come around to the idea that wraparound services are the way to deliver best to the difficult needs of many of the people who are being dealt with within this bill. That is something we should all welcome. These are what some of the officials sitting here tonight would call messy problems—problems that do not have single situations. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Wicked. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: They are wicked problems that have to be dealt with by a number of different interventions a number of different programmes. That is a good thing. But the model that is actually developed and proposed here absolutely scraps what has been the delivery of that kind of wraparound service model through Youth Transition Services and through as has already been talked about today the fantastic work that Dale Williams has done in Otorohanga but also in other parts of the country. I met with the Mayor of Clutha District earlier this year when I was down there—a man named Bryan Cadogan. I do not know what Bryan’s politics are but I have a suspicion given where he is from and one or two other things what they might be. He is gutted by this bill. He is gutted by this legislation. 
Hon Member 
: How do you know? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Because he told me. He told me; that is how I know. It is because he told me that he is gutted by what the Government is doing to the Youth Transition Services which has meant that in his district he has gone from having numerous young people out of work with no hope wandering the streets down to as he says one person. There was one person they could not find work for one person they could not get into a training course using Youth Transition Services which are being scrapped as part of this bill. That is what I just do not understand about this. 
Hon Paula Bennett 
: That’s not true. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Well it is true Minister. Youth Transition Services which have delivered in these communities are now being told: “Yes you can still have funding. In fact you can have more funding but you can deliver it only to these 16 and 17-year-olds. You can deliver it only so that we the Government can tick it off and say that yes we’ve achieved that we’ve got that target and we’ve got that goal.” Never mind those who miss out. Never mind the hundreds of people whom the Gisborne branch of Youth Transition Services has said it no longer will be able to deliver services to because of the model that is in Part 1 of this bill. 
The examples we were given time and time again as I have travelled around the country and talked to these providers showed that young people do not live linear lives. I have a member of my family who left school at age 17 to go into an apprenticeship. That was the deal for leaving school. He had to have something to go to and he went into an apprenticeship. But that apprenticeship fell over after a period of time and he drifted out of the worksite system. He drifted out of the sight of people. We were able to find him support. Under this bill at 18 he is outside of the system and the people who work in Youth Transition Services say to us that that is a pattern they see. If we are going to wrap services around people let us wrap services around people in need. Let us not set up artificial distinctions that can make the Government look good if it fulfils them. Let us actually work with the young people to make sure that we deliver to them the things that will change and transform their lives. So I support a wraparound service model. I welcome that the Government now sees that this is how services can and should be delivered. But let us deliver them in a way that builds on what we have got which is having Youth Transition Services around the country. Sure we could do more and better with them but let us build on what we have got and actually make sure that we use the communities that have bought into those services and make sure that we use their skills and their expertise. 
But instead what we see here is fitting people into a box. The Minister said she wanted to give the power to the people who can think outside the box. These are the people who are thinking outside the box and they are the ones who are telling us to not do this and to not take away the ability for us to deliver to the full range of young people in our communities who need this support. But instead no it gets narrowed down. It gets narrowed down to this goal of National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 2. NCEA level 2 may be totally unattainable for some of these young people. It may be something that is completely outside their orbit yet we set that up as the goal and we set them up for failure. Students who have struggled at school and for whom NCEA has been part of the issue for them are the ones who are now being told that NCEA level 2 is where they should go. What is worse is that it is the providers who are now being given all the incentives to go for the kids who will get NCEA level 2. That is where the incentives now are. So it is a little bit like the whole national standards and national testing—teach to the test. Go for the thing that will deliver the extra funding the extra bonuses and the ongoing contracts for the providers. Do not deliver so much to the community. Do not deliver so much to the need. Deliver to the prescription of the contract. 
The problem here is that we have got a proposal however well intentioned it might be that is ignoring the good models of work that are already on the ground and that is putting in place provider provisions that will force those providers who want to do this work who are well motivated and have good records in most cases into an even narrower set of measures. That is not what we need. It is not about ticking boxes; it is actually about making sure we deliver to those communities. So it makes me very sad to see a situation where we do not build on what is good. Just because Youth Transition Services is something Labour came up with the National Government is not inclined to build on that build on the success of those services and actually bring young people through whether they are 16 17 or 18. 
Part 1 of this bill unfortunately is predicated on the view that it is about blame and it is about dependence and it is not actually about getting alongside the young people. But worse than that it does not add up either. We heard that in the Chamber today. The Minister has had to admit that Treasury advice said that it was $285 million spent and $100 million saved. It does not stack up economically. It does not stack up socially alongside what we know about our communities and what we know works. So I think Part 1 of this bill is wrong. It is flawed. We could be having a debate here tonight around how we build on the strength of initiatives in the community that are currently working. Instead what we are doing is debating how National can fulfil some goals and targets it has set for itself tick some boxes and say that it has done well for the young people of New Zealand instead of actually delivering the services the training and the community development that we need. More than that the Government will not deliver the hope for that. 
I just want to finish with a reference to the amendment in the name of Megan Woods to amend in new section 157 inserted in clause 20 the definition of “approved training”. What this speaks to is whether we are concerned about ticking the box of NCEA level 2 or about what people can actually do and contribute. Megan Woods’ amendment adds in on approved training: “or trades training course through the Skills for Canterbury package.” It is a simple amendment that says that we should actually enable people to work on the Canterbury recovery as part of doing approved training under this programme. It is a simple amendment but it speaks to the idea that we actually should be doing what works what is there to be done and what supports young people to develop their skills not fit them into the box that National wants to fit them into. We could be having the debate tonight about how to meet the skills needs of these young people and how to make sure we have got the people who can work in Canterbury. Instead what we are doing is debating an ideological solution in search of a problem and that is the wrong approach to take when it comes to getting our young people back into work.