Ball Darroch: Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBall Darroch: Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 23 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5298. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DARROCH BALL (NZ First): It is my pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First—[Interruption] It is my pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First in support of this bill but we do have—[Interruption]The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Look I would like to hear Darroch Ball.DARROCH BALL: Thank you. It is my pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill. We will be supporting this bill through to the select committee because there are a few questions that we would like to flesh out and some concerns that we would like to hear some explanations for. But fundamentally the bill itself—and the purpose and the intent of the bill—is a good one. At the moment we have got youth who are on young parent payments eligible from 16 to 18 and on the youth payment from 16 to 17. The provision of the wraparound services for the youth is obviously a good one. The extension of that on the face of it and the intent and purpose of that is very good. So that is why we are supporting it but I will get to the issues and questions shortly.With those youth who are on those payments I have worked with some of them throughout my previous career. I was in the military in the army and I worked with Limited Service Volunteers and a few of them were on those payments. I also worked with the youth in the community and most if not all of them were on some sort of youth payment. Also to some extent when I was a secondary school teacher I could see those youth who would be moving on to those payments. So I have got a little bit of context about what those struggles are for those youth and the need for the wraparound services that this Youth Service does provide them and the benefit of being able to extend the ability to be on the young parent payment or the youth payment itself.I would just like to mention first what the intent is and why New Zealand First agrees with it. Going to the departmental disclosure statement it is extending the existing Youth Service to “all 19 year old beneficiaries with children and 18 and 19-year-old beneficiaries without children who are considered at significant risk of long-term welfare dependency.” New Zealand First agrees with that. The Youth Service provides wraparound support to young people with the aim of reducing long-term welfare dependency. That is obviously a good thing and New Zealand First supports that intent of the bill. As a result of this extension 19-year-old parents will have obligations for full-time education leading towards National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 budgeting courses youth coaching and going on parenting courses. If they meet all the obligations they will get a $10 incentive every week and they will be money-managed.But the position we are coming from is that this is just another form of an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. So if we are looking at the Youth Service those youth who need the Youth Service youth payments and youth benefits needed to get to that stage to begin with. If we are looking at extending that is that solving a problem or is that just making the ambulance a little bit bigger at the bottom of the cliff? So one of the questions that needs to be answered by the Minister—and hopefully that will be fleshed out during the select committee process—is what are the reasons behind why those youth are getting to that stage in the first place? One of them is obvious. We have got very high youth unemployment. We have had consistently high youth unemployment for some years and especially in the regions. We have got high youth unemployment in the regions and that lends itself to higher beneficiary numbers in the regions and especially with our youth.But obviously it is a complex situation. We have got problems with the ability for these youth to have a proper education or fit in within the formal education system. We have got the job creation. Where are the jobs that these youth will be going into if they are not in any formal education? And where are the training opportunities? So the Government can talk about the “neets”—the youth not in education employment or training—but where is the solution? The solution is not another ambulance at the bottom of the cliff extending an existing service that catches those who are in need. The answer definitely is not to make it mandatory with mandatory provisions put on those youth who do take up the benefit. By making it mandatory it is an indirect admission that there are failures elsewhere in the system that is failing these youth. Not only do the youth not have the opportunity to make those proper decisions—so that they would not need to be on the benefit—but those options are not out there and readily available for them to choose in the first place. So that is one of the concerns for New Zealand First.Another of the concerns also has already been brought up by the Labour members which is the risk-predicting tools. One of the main reasons is that it has the potential to discriminate against some youth and it has the potential to pigeon-hole some youth when there is no need for that to happen or to occur in the first place—unjustly and unjustifiably. A lot of the time throughout the debates in this House we have Government members standing up and saying that one of their principles one of the aims in all of their policies is to ensure the maintenance of equitability and fairness. But with the predictor models and predictor tools and risk-predictor tools there is a leaning towards going away from equitability and away from fairness. We have got to remember also that by extending this out—we have got 18-year-olds and 19-year-olds. They are not children. They are not minors. These are adults who are being pigeon-holed and cubby-holed and they have the potential to be stigmatised and they have the potential to have labels placed on them.What I would like to go on to is actually going into the regulatory impact statement which talks about the risk modelling. It says that “Through risk modelling MSD can determine which young beneficiaries have the highest risk and would benefit the most from the Youth Service.” and that risk modelling is “used to target services to those most in need. Risk factors for long-term benefit dependency include but are not limited to: low education levels; benefit history; previous contact with Child Youth and Family; and parents or siblings with a benefit history.” So firstly it is including but not limited to. So who decides what those criteria are and how those criteria or boxes are going to be ticked? What we will have is the potential to have for example two 19-year-olds who are receiving two levels of different types of service and that will be dependent on only those criteria and those outcomes are dependent obviously on the use of the risk-predictor tool. So for example one would be getting a $10 extra bonus a week if they maintain the obligations and the other will not. Where is the equitability and where is the fairness in that and who decides?We have also got a couple of issues with the investment approach in itself. The regulatory impact statement indicates that it is actually too early to accurately measure the reduction of average years on the benefit and that it is not possible to isolate effects of the Youth Service interventions from other influences to date. So on the one hand we have got the regulatory impact statement saying that there is not enough data there is not proof but then we have got the Minister for Social Development and the National backbenchers standing up and saying that this is all working fine and that the Youth Service is doing a great job. But where is the data and where is the evidence that they are going to use for the investment approach?We have also got some advice and some opinions on the bill from the teen parent units. At the moment the teen parent units—there is no comparison between this Youth Service payment and the teen parent units. In order to be consistent with the intention of the bill the Government must look at the existing eligibility-age range for young parents attending teen parent units because this bill currently excludes the 19-year-old parents to whom the bill extends the Youth Service and identifies as likely to spend an average of 18 years on the benefit in a lifetime. Currently young parents need to be enrolled before they turn 19 in order to be eligible. This is in conflict with the extension bill.So there are a few questions that come out and there are a few concerns that New Zealand First has that we would like to have answered and robustly discussed at the select committee. At this stage we will be supporting the bill through to the select committee and I look forward to discussing it there. Thank you.