Ngaro Alfred: Social Security (Pathway to Work) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNgaro Alfred: Social Security (Pathway to Work) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 11 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:7918. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ALFRED NGARO (National): It is a surprise that that member Carmel Sepuloni would actually go back to the 2014 election especially when the Labour Party had the worst result at 25 percent of the party vote—the worst result in 92 years. So for that member to turn round and talk about this Government and its policy—Hon Annette King: Remember 2002 Alfred? Worst result in your whole history.ALFRED NGARO: That is right. Look. Hey as Annette King said 2002—we will own that.Hon Annette King: We owned ours.ALFRED NGARO: We will own our history but at the same time too you might want to talk to that member so that she owns her history as well—25 percent 92 years how about you own that as well? All right? I do not hear them saying that there.So let us talk about this brighter future but let us put the member out of her misery. The truth is the Government will not support the Social Security (Pathway to Work) Amendment Bill—all right? That is the truth of it. The Government will not support this bill and here are the reasons why we will not support this—Carmel Sepuloni: No courage.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No you cannot say that.ALFRED NGARO: —bill. This bill is attempting to increase obviously the income threshold for those who are seeking to earn before their benefit rate is reduced by abatement rates and this is the attempt by the member to so-called solve the issues and the problems of those in our communities—the poverty issues. For those who are struggling this is not the silver bullet. This will not solve things and here are the reasons why. This is what this Government is doing. Under the welfare reforms we have reduced the future expected time on main benefits by an average of 1.2 years for sole parents and 2.8 years for youth beneficiaries. If we talk about the results of what this Government is doing to be able to decrease those who are benefit dependent these are the things that we are doing. We are reducing the expected costs of supporting current beneficiaries over their lifetime by $7.5 billion a year. There are 42500 fewer kids living in benefit dependent homes compared with 2012. That is right. Miss Annette King is on record as saying that when the children were in poverty in the 9 years of their time as a Labour Government it was a job unfinished.Iain Lees-Galloway: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is fascinating to hear the member talking about the previous Labour Government again but I would like to hear about the bill.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Well there was a bit of latitude with the mover of the bill so I am listening carefully. [Interruption] Order! I am on my feet and I am listening very carefully.ALFRED NGARO: Well you know that the truth hurts and that is what is coming forward here. Why? Because we know when we are talking about this bill a pathway to work; we know when the member was talking about 305000 children in poverty; we know that Miss Annette King when talking about poverty in regard to a pathway to work and opportunity—her words were “a job unfinished”. But that is not the goal of this Government. The goal of this Government is to finish the job to increase the opportunities that are there for our families who are dependent. There are 7.2 percent fewer single parent families dependent on welfare since this time last year—19000 fewer compared with 3 years ago. That is right.Here are the facts—I am just going to say them. They are hard to accept I know. We are moving closer to the tougher what you would call Better Public Services target of a 25 percent reduction of people receiving a benefit—that is 295000 people at June 2014 to 220000 people at June 2018. These are the efforts. These are the reasons why when we look at this bill this bill will not support we believe those who are on benefits those who are sole parents who are wanting to transit into part-time work and into full-time work—by increasing this threshold. We believe that we already have that provision there. If you are a job seeker there is $80 that you can earn before the abatements actually come into place. If you are on sole parent support or supported living payment it is $100. We know that is making a difference. I am going to summarise with just one example. If you are a 25-year-old and if you work 31 years on the minimum wage you will still be eligible for a benefit and that is the reason why we believe that the threshold rates that we have are sufficient. They are balanced. We know that they make the difference. This bill even by increasing the threshold to $150 does not meet what we believe are the targets for reform for our families who are in need. We do not support this bill in the House.