Tolley AnneHon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): I thought I would take just a short call and just correct a few things. I think it is important to remember that this bill is actually seeking to increase the youth services which currently are focused on 16 and 17-year-olds to be able to work with 18 and 19-year-olds. So we have not got a whole lot of people with families; these are mainly young 18 and 19-year-old New Zealanders without children who are deemed to be at significant risk of long-term welfare dependency. That is the purpose of this bill and how we got on to sleeping in cars and children etc. is another wonder of the Opposition but however. I think it is important when we are talking about numbers of young people to get our facts right. It is actually 82000 I think that the latest household labour force survey talked about in that range from 15 to 24 who are described as neets". Carmel Sepuloni: Does that make it better?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: That actually describes—and that has increased I admit that. I accept that. But that actually describes what people are not doing; it does not describe what they are doing. Of course we know that in that age group people are doing a whole lot of things—they might be on a gap year they could be travelling they could be living with their parents quite happily they could have a partner who is supporting them—and for whatever reason they are not in employment not in education and not in training. More importantly we should be focusing on the number of young people in that age group who are on a benefit. Those numbers are dropping and that is as a result of greater economic activity and the growth in jobs. In some part we are working with the Youth Service to enable young people to get the education and skills that they need by extending it through to 18 and 19-year-olds to help them to develop some of those employable skills and go on into employment. It is really important that we do not confuse this with the many many thousands of young people who are perfectly capable of looking after themselves—and are doing so but they just do not happen to be in education employment or training—and focus on those who are reliant on a benefit in order to survive. So that is the first point. In actual fact we are seeing the lowest number of what we describe from an education point of view as "neets"—that is those 15 and 16-year-olds. We are seeing the lowest number of those that we have seen in decades. It is really important that we understand what is going on. They are staying at school longer actually. They are staying in school longer and the youth services are picking up those who are falling out of the school system or who are at risk of falling out of the school system developing the relationship—it is all about relationships. So the conversation—the member talking about a telephone call laying all this out was just stupid because no one would form a relationship in that form with a young person who has very difficult life anyway. I am sure that none of our providers are doing that. The other thing that was mentioned was the consequences of sanctions. I ask you to think about what the consequences are of saying to a young person that if you are receiving support from the taxpayer at a time in your life when you need it then we want you if you are a young parent to have your child enrolled with a GP we want you to have your immunisation up to date and either we want your child in early childhood education of which we provide 20 hours—the taxpayer subsidises—or we want to be sure that your young child is attending school. They are not difficult obligations to ask of someone whom the taxpayer is supporting. You have to have a process of consequence if people are taking on the one hand but not keeping up with their obligations on the other. However I have to say the process that our providers go through have sanctions as a very last resort for the very reasons that the member who resumed her seat before me Sue Moroney outlined—that without the benefit they have no way to support themselves. So it has to be an absolutely last resort. In fact the providers that I have talked to do everything in their power to ensure that they keep those young people compliant. Finally I just want to make the point that when we announced this policy one of the supporters for it was Dr Lance O'Sullivan. I remember the comments that he had to make—he was New Zealander of the Year. One of the comments that he made was that the children of some of these young parents—because of their youth because of their inexperience their children are probably the ones who would benefit the most from time in early childhood centres. They are the ones who would benefit from the social development cognitive development and emotional development that high-quality early childhood services provide. The evidence is very clear to back this sort of policy. The other thing that I would say in closing is that I think that the Opposition is making a reasonable point that this is a fairly new policy and it is still in the process of being evaluated and it will be some time—I am as frustrated as anyone else that we do not have a better evaluation earlier. But this is a long process with these young people and we are constantly adjusting with the providers the ways of addressing and developing those relationships. But these young people are worth that investment over a long period of time. We know—the evidence tells us—that you cannot go in once do a job and then walk away. These are not the young people whom you can leave to try to support themselves. They are going to need a lot of support over a long period of time and the full evaluation could take 4 to 5 years before we get a really good picture—and I am probably even cutting it short from the research scientists who would like to see it out over a longer period of time. But we do know from the providers and from the young people that both in the young parents and for some of those 16 and 17-year-olds currently in the service to have an artificial line of age when they are receiving good support and they are starting to succeed is a stupid thing to do and we should not cut them off from that support when they need it."