Logie Jan; Sepuloni CarmelJAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you Madam Chair. So I'm interested in following up on the point in the Budget materials where the Treasury papers indicated that a $50 upfront increase in benefits would and I'll quote help significantly with objectives to improve income adequacy improve child wellbeing and reduce child poverty." Yet the Government decided to split that increase across years with just $20 coming in this year in the last Budget and up to $30 in the next Budget at a time where costs are significantly increasing.We know that a significant number of beneficiaries aren't getting the full amount of the increase and some in fact are worse off I understand because of multiple payments interacting in a complex system which Welfare Expert Advisory Group (WEAG) was pushing for us to simplify. So I'm also noting that the number of hardship grants continues to grow year on year most of which are for emergency housing or food—keeping a roof over the head and food on the table for our kids.So I've got five questions for the Minister and in saving my precious time I'll lay them out now and if the Minister could go through them. Does Ministry of Social Development have any projections on how much hardship grants will increase in the next year? How much do incomes need to increase so people do not need hardship grants to survive? How many of the WEAG recommendations will the Government fully meet through this Budget? Is the Government concerned about growing debt and if so what are they going to do about it? And considering that children with at least one parent—one member of the family—having a disability are most likely to be experiencing poverty why has there not been an increase in the child disability allowance or the disability allowance? That's my first list.Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): That's a lot covered off by the member from the Green Party and I appreciate the questions and I'll do my best. If I don't cover them off then she might want to repeat the questions because that was a lot to take in.With regards to our considerations with pre-Budget and what we were going to do with benefit increases I do want to note that we did lift benefits last year $25 that we did index them to wages which will see them go up every year. And then we did commit to benefit increases that will be through 2021 Budget between $33 and $55 per week that I think people will be better off when they're fully implemented in April next year. In most situations that would be when they are implemented on 1 April of the following year after a Budget is announced. We brought some of that forward because we recognised the hardship. We haven't been able to bring all of it forward but we recognise that we needed to do that. The rest will come into effect next year.In terms of child poverty I think with the measures that we have already implemented as a Government we've seen around 43000 children lifted out of poverty and I believe that's with the after - housing cost measure. With the benefit increases that will see up to 33000 more children lifted out of poverty. And then of course recently we made announcements to change some of the settings around Working for Families which will see another additional 6000 children lifted out of poverty.All of these things are incremental steps that assist us with the overhaul of the welfare system that we committed to when we had our confidence and supply agreement with the Green Party. We haven't been able to get to everything. With the $50 increase that was proposed that is always the case: you float options and then there's a negotiation process that goes on pre-Budget which is where we landed.I don't want to understate that because we do know that they are the most significant increases to benefit payments that we have seen over decades and do help to restore the dignity I think to a certain extent that was lost with the 1991 cuts that were introduced under that National Government.We haven't had the opportunity to make changes to the disability allowance or child disability allowance at this point in time and nor have we signalled that we will over the course of the next year. However those are things on our work programme with regards to our welfare overhaul and our Cabinet paper sets out the order in which we will look at things what is in our short-term programme what is in our medium-term programme and what is in our longer-term programme.It's not all about fiscals. Actually some of it—a lot of it—is about operational capacity. Making these changes actually takes up a lot of operational capacity. I am the Minister I do get to see what I'm asking of the Government agency and I do know what they're capable of being able to deliver. They have been working incredibly hard. So I do want to recognise my Ministry of Social Development officials—and they've been working at pace as well as trying to do business as usual also addressing the COVID demands that have come our way during this time.With respect to the actual Welfare Expert Advisory Group recommendations can I just say that I think all too often it's looked at over-simplistically. I think the member knows as well that many of those recommendations are not tick box exercises; they are ongoing. So even when we talk about benefit increases or addressing income adequacy it is not one action that will effectively address that recommendation and we as a Government can say "Done". Many of them require ongoing work including things like increasing public housing and range of other things. And so I will leave it at that because I feel like I've been talking far too long."