Hutchison Paul: Social Security Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hutchison Paul: Social Security Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:639;Page:9239] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 Thank you Madam Chairperson for the opportunity to speak on the Social Security Amendment Bill. It seems that there is a bit of an irony when we have the Minister David Benson-Pope going through a long long list of figures—a very very long list I might say—then bringing in such complicated bureaucratic legislation. 
One of the things he has just accused the previous Government of doing—and he finds it in his words “despicable”—is the use of economic tools to get people off work. Well I think it is important to look at the explanatory note of this Government bill when it was brought into the House. Mr Benson-Pope was quite happy to talk about sanctions then. The explanatory note states: “When people fail to meet their requirements without good and sufficient reason a sanction will be imposed.” That is what Mr Benson-Pope’s bill stated and the explanatory note actually goes into the details of it: “The sanction regime for people on domestic purposes or widow’s benefits is unchanged. Failure to meet their PDEP requirements”—that is the personal development plan and of course it is one of Labour’s pieces of bureaucracy which one does not actually have to keep to any more—“results in a 20% reduction in the benefit for the first 4 weeks and a further 30% reduction after that …”—to a maximum of 50 percent—“until they comply.” 
That is the true Mr Benson-Pope who was using economic tools. It was not until he finally went out and was browbeaten by fellow members of the union he belonged to and by others who supported him—and those numbers are crumbling after all—that he relented and said he would not have the sanction regimes any more. So Mr Benson-Pope had better take a call and explain to the Committee why in the explanatory note there are details of sanctions and economic tools and comments about how successful they would be in moving people into work from the unemployment benefit. 
Mr Benson-Pope has also gone through a very wearying list of centres where there are offices with very little to do because of the low number of unemployed youth. We are happy about that. It follows a trend that started from 1990 when the last National Government came into office and gradually inflation came down interest rates came down employment came up and unemployment came down. That is all that is happening. It has occurred despite the Labour Government not because of it. I was interested that Mr Benson-Pope said only five youths were still on the unemployment register in Waiuku but he has not talked about all the problems in that town. It is the same in Turangi—he said no one was unemployed in Turangi. I wonder whether he has been to those towns and had a real look at the youth crime that is going on—the youth crime that this Labour Government has failed to do anything whatsoever about. In fact it has become much much worse during Labour’s tenure. 
Of course the major problem is the absolute way that this Labour Government has reconfigured the figures regarding sickness and invalids benefits—the 50 percent increase over the last 7 years. That is a contortionist act of the same magnitude as Mr Benson-Pope saying that this Government does not want to use economic tools. Of course it does but he has been browbeaten by his supporters into not doing so. When it comes to sickness and invalids benefits Mr Benson-Pope cannot hide. He has been protecting large numbers of New Zealanders without making any changes at all to the eligibility criteria in terms of getting on to those benefits. As my colleague Judith Collins said doctors want a better system of criteria for eligibility and the Labour Government has time and time again failed to address that very important question. We have had no major epidemics in New Zealand over the last 7 years. A 50 percent increase in invalids and sickness benefits during that time is just a figment of the reality of what is happening. The reality is that Labour has not adjusted the criteria so that they are realistic and it has shifted people from the unemployment benefit on to an invalids or a sickness benefit.