Logie Jan: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLogie Jan: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 22 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18274. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAN LOGIE (Green): This Budget delivered a small fiscal surplus but today I would like to share with this House some stories from the community on the human cost of this Government’s decision to prioritise tax cuts for the wealthy. This Government has offered crumbs to some of the poor and has told the newborn babies of beneficiaries that they are not even allowed up to the table let alone allowed their fair share of the pie.Disabled people are amongst the poorest people in New Zealand. Last year the Government changed the law to deny equal human rights to family members caring for them thereby compounding their family poverty. This year within the income support budget we have seen further cuts specifically targeting people with disabilities. In 2012 the Government slashed the disability allowance by $37 million—9.2 percent—by removing funding for some medicines and alternative treatments cutting funded services for beneficiaries and reducing numbers getting the allowance. Last year we saw the disability assistance budget underspent by $2 million and now the Government is cutting that budget line again by a bit more than $5 million. This is despite risingcosts. It costs more to achieve a normal standard of living if you have a disability. In fact research shows that it can cost over $2500 a week more just to have a normal standard of living if you have a significant disability. There are obviously other funding sources for people but not for everyone and there are widely acknowledged gaps between health ACC and Work and Income.Many people whom I have spoken to who have disabilities say they have lost considerable amounts of money per week from their benefits over the last couple of years. There is a general consensus that what they receive from Work and Income does not cover anything like the real costs of living with a disability. To get the disability allowance you need to provide receipts. But if you cannot afford to cover the cost of the item in the first place you cannot claim for it. Further some things have now been deemed standard costs and not disability costs and they will not be paid for. Disabled people are now having to regularly visit their doctor to verify their disability which they then have to pay for and their doctor’s diagnosis is not uncommonly overridden by Work and Income staff “employed experts” who may have no expertise at all in that health area.I have heard from one person who told me about getting a urinary tract infection because he is supplied with only four leg bags per annum when the recommended minimum is eight. There are other people I have heard from who have developed infections and pneumonia because they do not have internal temperature regulation and they cannot afford to heat their homes properly. I have heard from people who have disabilities who are significantly underweight because they can afford only one meal a day. I have been told by a health practitioner that they had a patient with mental health problems who was so stressed by the Work and Income system that it had induced a psychotic episode that put them into hospital. I have been told by more than one person that they have been told against the policy that they can claim up to only two incontinence pads a day. Where is the dignity? It is clear from the stories that I am hearing that although problems are not universal they are common enough that to be sure real harm is occurring. These are stories of some Dickensian nightmare.The Government is reducing budgets in the face of hardship. Although some Work and Income staff are doing their best the reduced funding lack of expertise and an entire goal to reduce the Government’s welfare liability instead of supporting people in need means people are suffering severe indignities. The Government’s line in response to these challenges is usually that the Greens would just leave people to rot on the benefit. This is not true. We would ensure that people can live in dignity and we would implement a proactive equal employment opportunities policy an agenda to remove the barriers to employment. We believe that most New Zealanders would be happy to pay for that.