Bennett Paula: Address in Reply — Presentation to Governor-General 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Bennett Paula: Address in Reply — Presentation to Governor-General 
[Sitting date: 28 February 2012. Volume:677;Page:581. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development) 
: 
 I support the motion put forward by the Prime Minister and I reject of course the amendment from David Shearer. This amendment of course was from the party that thought that throwing money at beneficiaries would win it the latest election. Labour members thought that more money was the answer and they are now having to look at themselves and travel up and down this country to find out what an absolutely poor idea it was. But they underestimated beneficiaries and those beneficiaries did not vote for Labour because they could see the nonsense in the proposal that had been put through.  
Labour members accuse me of beneficiary bashing on a regular basis and I would say to them quite simply that I think that to belittle people and believe that all they are worth is a lifetime of welfare with no support or opportunities is in itself the true definition of beneficiary bashing. Keeping people down and believing that they should be on intergenerational welfare—like we currently see—without the policies and the actual attention that need to be put in place to make a fundamental difference to their lives I think is negligent at its best. That is where it is. 
Sue Moroney 
: Nobody has said that or believes it so that’s just ridiculous. 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Well it is. We hear the yells from the other side. I understand that they do not particularly like me but let us be honest: they do not particularly like any woman who gets ahead and who actually stands up for herself and makes a difference. Those members will give you lip service that they do but actually once those women start getting ahead and getting up there it turns personal it turns nasty and it is about how they can knock them down as quickly as possible.  
This side of the House is going to build them up. We will fundamentally believe in people’s ability to have a lifetime and be worth more than what they get on welfare and what they get on benefit. We will make the hard decisions to actually help them and help them move ahead. We will believe that they are worth something. That means putting policies in place that are quite clear about expectations and obligations while also wrapping the right support round them.  
We hear a lot about youth. We hear a lot of lip service about what could be and should be done and that they are disengaged and are lost. Well here you have the most substantial policy in that area that this country has seen for the longest time: taking 14000 young people and actually getting service providers that are in the communities and that know them making sure we give them the information that they need so that they can work with these young people in their totality. We are making sure that we actually change the law so that schools report in real time where that young person is how they have been lost what their track record is and what their family history is.  
Mix that with what the Ministry of Social Development already knows—and we know a lot; the reality is as much as we do not like to admit it that we know a lot—about whether they have been in Housing New Zealand Corporation 
houses and whether or not there has been intergenerational welfare dependency and you will have a much clearer picture of who is at high risk of that train wreck of going straight on to a benefit at 18. If you go on to a benefit at 18 your likelihood of still being there in 10 years is higher than for any other group in this country.  
Once we know more about them what do we do with them? That is the key question. We give them more support. We wrap that service provider in the community round them. We do not give them just the access to the training—which without being rude is actually the easy part—we wrap round them that support that gets them there every day. We look at drug and alcohol issues. We look at family history. We help with the housing needs. We look at their budgeting. Yes we then reward them. I looked at the difference it could make for young people to have the budgeting skills to go forward in life and to actually be in education and training. How do you sort of create those good choices? Most times you look at it you are punitive. What do we sanction? What do we take away? We have actually turned that round for the first time in years and asked how we can reward and where the incentives are. An extra $10 a week for each of those makes a huge difference.  
At the moment we have girls as young as 16 turning up at Work and Income going on a benefit and getting literally $500 or $600 a week. Do you know what we do with them?  
Chris Auchinvole 
: What do we do? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Absolutely nothing—absolutely nothing. It should be a disgrace to us that we turn them round put that level of money in their pockets and do not then give them the support that they so desperately need and deserve. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Who cut the TIA? A guilty woman. 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: These girls are not even in school. You may not recognise them Trevor Mallard but they have not even completed school. They are most likely to have more children while they are on benefit.  
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Guilty woman. Ripped off Housing New Zealand took the benefit cut it for everyone else—that’s Bennett.  
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Do the hard stuff Trevor Mallard. Stand up for these beneficiaries who actually deserve a life of opportunity in this country. Stand up and make a difference instead of adding to sickness beneficiaries adding to those on the invalids benefit and turning a blind eye to the hard decisions that need to be made in this country to move us ahead and see opportunity in front of those people for real. Instead just give your little yells out! Make it personal—make it personal! That is just not the way that will make a difference to these people who need us the most.  
We currently have 16-year-olds who are on benefit and getting absolutely no support. They have not been supported by family and they are most certainly not being supported by Government and that is going to change. We are going to wrap the right kind of support round them and see them have opportunities and have a future that is equal to anybody in this House. They deserve nothing less—nothing less—from us. So they will see a service provider that takes them and works out their budget with them works with them over time and recognises that their own education is so important.  
Do you know what the actual difference is when you look at the future attainment of a child? Well you might like to learn this. Actually do you know what the real key indicators are of how well a child will do in the future? It is how well the mother is doing. So if you base it on her educational achievement her work experience and the age at which she has that baby and future babies then you are fundamentally making a difference to those children. You know I had Dame Lesley Max say to me that if you are serious about working with vulnerable children look at the pipeline of the production of vulnerable children. That is a bit controversial. That is not always comfortable for people to go into. But I personally desperately worry about those young women who are having multiple children while on benefit. I do not for one moment underestimate how hard it is to live on the benefit. It is jolly hard and at times it can feel pretty much impossible. To continue to have children—to continue to see that in an intergenerational and systemic way is simply not something that we will sit back and say is OK in New Zealand. We will stand up. Where is the evidence that a working parent is doing bad by their young children which is what we constantly hear from the Opposition? Actually we see literally thousands of women and men with young children in this country who go to work and have a better life for themselves and those children. 
We need to make some differences. We need to look differently at how we do it. What we have also announced in this first tranche is bringing in widows and women alone. I have been looking at that for the last 3 years because if you are modernising a system—if you are a modernising a whole system—you do that. In 1911 the widows benefit was introduced and for all the right reasons—for all the right reasons. I really acknowledge its introduction. I acknowledge the actual introduction in the 1930s of the welfare system. I certainly look at the 1960s and recognise the Act as it was then. But we are in 2012. The system simply needs to be modernised for a modern New Zealand. We have technology; we have social norms that are no longer the same as those of times that are well gone. We need to look quite seriously at what it looks like now and what it will look like into the future.  
So yes we can do better for women who are on welfare long term. We can support them better; we can put more money in. We hear the bleats from the other side but I will tell you that a minimum of $130 million a year will be spent on these changes—$130 million. This is not about cost cutting. This is not about short cuts. This is actually putting the support and the services up front when they are needed most and making the hard decisions. I am proud to be a Minister in this John Key - led Government and I believe that the motion that he has put forward the difference we will make and the announcements that we have made this week in welfare will fundamentally change people’s lives for the better.