King Annette: Social Assistance (New Work Tests Incentives and Obligations) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
King Annette: Social Assistance (New Work Tests Incentives and Obligations) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:665;Page:13169] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 In the mail yesterday I received the latest copy of the Presbyterian Support magazine  
People Helping People 
. There will be many members in this House who have had dealings with Presbyterian Support and I doubt there would be any hard-working member who has not called on Presbyterian Support at some time. There is a very good editorial in the magazine written by Vaughan Milner the chief executive that I recommend the Minister in the chair the Minister for Social Development and Employment read. He said that he has had 36 years’ involvement in social services. He said: “What I have learnt is that living without adequate income and being blamed in the process is debilitating demoralising and degrading—particularly when combined with some of the many challenges that life throws us like poor mental or physical health relationship problems grief or trauma. I have seen that the overwhelming majority of parents who subsist on a benefit are capable budgeters and caring parents. They are contributing to the community through doing their best to raise their children to be functional adults. They and their children do not deserve to be pushed to the margins of the community”. But I say to the Minister in the chair that that is exactly what the Social Assistance (New Work Tests Incentives and Obligations) Amendment Bill is doing to those beneficiaries. 
I will go through three main submissions that we heard at the Social Services Committee as I think they are pertinent to this debate. One of the submissions was from Presbyterian Support which had real concerns about the signals that this bill sends to beneficiaries saying that sole parents having to go out to work is more important than caring for children. I think that is quite a powerful message from this organisation. It is asking where the concern is for the children alongside the need to go out to work. Is caring for children a job or not? Is it a worthwhile job or not? It said there is a conflict in what is being said in other policies about the importance of children. Presbyterian Support went on to say that children will be disadvantaged by this bill. 
The next submission I would like to mention came from the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services. Many of the people who work in these organisations have dedicated a lot of their lives to working with the most disadvantaged in our community. When we have a Government that says it listens to the community I want to know why it is not listening to these voices. Are they not important? Does it not believe them? Do all the years of experience of working with people who are at the bottom of the heap not count for anything? The New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services said that the Government should focus on what works not on what does not work. No research has been provided to show that this approach will do what the Minister said and I have to say that the council was not alone in this view. 
As members know when a bill is provided to this House a regulatory impact statement is also provided. What did that regulatory impact statement state? It stated “There is no research currently available which accurately quantifies the size of the behavioural response from these changes in policies”. In other words we do not know whether it will change a single thing. That was from the regulatory impact statement which was tabled in this House. So this bill has resulted very much from the Government’s approach of licking its finger and holding it up in the wind to see which way the wind is blowing—oh the wind is blowing against beneficiaries so let us bring in a bill that gives them a bit more of a bashing! 
The New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services went on to say that it does not see the appropriate aspects in this bill. It cannot see any appropriate aspects in this bill particularly for children and it urged us not to proceed with the bill. The council said that there is a wealth of evidence that the bill will not result in the outcomes wanted—a wealth of evidence. It provided us with research from 1998 on the widows benefit. 
The next submission I would like to mention to the Minister is the one from the Salvation Army. Who in this House does not have admiration for the work of the Salvation Army? It works with people involved in drug addiction right through to people who are homeless. If there is a group in New Zealand society that most of us have had contact with as members of Parliament it is the Salvation Army. It said that this bill will mean the care of children will suffer when the pressure comes on sole parents to go out to work. If the Minister it said was to use the flexibility that already exists in policy then this bill would not be needed. Have members opposite heard that? If the Government used the flexibility that exists in the current policy then it would not need to have this legislation. 
The Salvation Army went on to say that sanctions were not appropriate because what the bill was doing was making moral judgments particularly moral judgments about widows versus sole parents. Widows equal good; sole parents equal bad. The sanctions apply to sole parents but there are no sanctions for widows. Most sole parents are women. So one group of women are good and one group of women are bad. The Salvation Army went on to say that populism is not an appropriate basis for making policy. It is populism that has led this policy to be brought in through legislation. The Salvation Army also asked what is needed. Better education is needed to help people get off those benefits and in time when they have had the education and the training they can move into a job and take primary responsibility for their families. The Salvation Army said that early childhood education will not be available for many of these parents who are being forced back to work. 
The last submission I want to mention came from the Child Advocacy Group. It said the benefit of parents staying at home with children should not be undermined. This is absolutely at the centre of what we ought to be advocating for in New Zealand—the importance of saying that caring for children is one of the most if not the most fundamental tasks we want parents to undertake. There should not be an unrelenting focus on work; there should be an unrelenting focus on being good parents and bringing up their children with the assistance that can be provided. That is what it ought to be about. It is the children who are being marginalised by this policy. 
Michael Woodhouse 
: Who are at school! Be at home when they’re at home. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Yes Mr Woodhouse can get agitated but he is voting for this bill and that member opposite will be responsible for marginalising a whole group of children in New Zealand because they are not as good as his children. They are not as good as other member’s children because they belong to beneficiaries. The Child Advocacy Group went on to say that research and analysis are needed before starting because children will be hit the hardest. That group does a lot of work with children I say to Mr Woodhouse. That is what it said to the Social Services Committee. Research and analysis are needed before we start because the children will be hit the hardest by this bill. 
The Child Advocacy Group went on to say that 10 years ago the United States brought in this approach to welfare. It said there were 8 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 when a sanction regime like this was brought in in the United States who had inadequate supervision because their parents had to go out to work. Those single parents were often late and they worked night shifts that were not suitable. The unrelenting focus on work will impact on the children in New Zealand. This has come from the submissions I have read out which are just some that we heard at the select committee. They were much longer in length and there were many many more of them. 
There were something like three submissions in favour of this bill. Even Lindsay Mitchell who used to be a member of the ACT Party and who is said to be a social welfare commentator on the far right did not agree with this bill. She did not agree with it because it does not go far enough but everybody else did not agree with it because it does not do what the Government sets out to do. It is a piece of political puffery. It is a piece of populism. It does not provide for the most vulnerable in our society—for children. The children of beneficiaries will be the losers. The Government can attack their parents. It can say that their parents are losers and shirkers who do not want to work that they are lazy and they ought to get a job but having said that it should stop and think who the bill will affect. It will be the children of those beneficiaries.