Logie Jan: Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Logie Jan: Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 18 July 2012. Volume:681;Page:3661. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JAN LOGIE (Green) 
: 
 I would like to follow on a little bit from that last speech from Megan Woods looking at that commitment to getting people into work and what we consider work. I would like to remind the Committee of an ex - National Party member of Parliament Marilyn Waring and a book she wrote in 1999 called  
Counting for Nothing 
 which looks at how we value work and also how we look at setting up our Government accounts. I would like to read a quote from an interview with Marilyn: “Purchasing domestic services for a household is productive; doing them yourself is not. ‘It’s so ironic—no it’s not it’s sick’ she said. If a man marries his housekeeper the GDP goes down.”  
I think it is worth noting in the context of parenting and in the context of running a home that parents on the DPB are working—they are working. I had this feedback directly from some young people who were in relationships and had children who were very conscious that they were being disincentivised from co-parenting by our current system. The way our system is set up they are better off being on the DPB than they are on the unemployment benefit and co-parenting. That is pretty bizarre and that is a factor in this reform. I think we should as a country really think about going back to some of those basics about the things we value. I think parenting is something that we should value and we should put the money behind it. To say that paid work is everything—I think really we need to review that a little bit.  
I would also like to add my voice to the critique of the idea about how many jobs are available and the idea that anyone can get a job if they want. To give an example from Christchurch earlier this year the Canterbury District Health Board had 345 jobs going that they advertised and they had 6500 applications for those jobs. When I asked how many of the people who got those jobs had come off benefits I was told that one person had been referred to those jobs by Work and Income and was not suitable. They did not have the qualifications.  
I think that is a pretty clear example of how those figures that have been thrown out that there are jobs available actually hide the complexity of the situation. For some people there are not jobs available and particularly not jobs that support them to be good parents as well as be in employment. I think for us as a country and for the future welfare of our entire country the priority should be looking after your children rather than getting paid work. I think if you can do both fantastic. That is a really really good thing. You do not need obligations to do that. People who are able to do that and who choose to do that do that of their own volition. Most people want to work either in an unpaid capacity that has meaning and is valued or in paid work. 
Mike Sabin 
: We want to support them to work. 
JAN LOGIE 
: Well obligations are not necessary to support that. We see people transition into paid work when they are ready. We have also been told by the Ministry of Social Development when we look at childcare that having standards around childcare would be patronising because parents should be able to choose. Yet if they are choosing to stay at home and be around their children that choice does not count. Where is the irony in that? It does not make sense; it is inconsistent.  
I would like to also speak to the financial veto on my Supplementary Order Paper 78 to reinstate the training incentive allowance—$5 million to $15 million we are being told it will cost.