Logie Jan: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLogie Jan: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8241. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAN LOGIE (Green): It is with a certain amount of dismay that I stand and speak in the third reading of the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill which has been rushed through in urgency with a very shady process that preceded that. But before I start my final contribution on this bill I would also like to join the Minister for Social Development and the members on this side of the House who have acknowledged the beneficiary advocate Kay Brereton for her work in bringing this to the attention of the House.The truth is that if she had not noticed this hidden in the bill the advice that we had would not have alerted us to the significance of this bill and we would not have connected this to the decisions of the court and been able to understand the true impact of this bill. Kay Brereton as the Minister for Social Development acknowledged is a woman who is doing a lot of work for people who are really struggling and she is struggling herself. She has had we have been informed by the Minister her power cut off due to the financial consequences of her trying to inform New Zealanders of their right to have their entitlement reviewed. There is something just so deeply perverse about that situation where a member of our community who is trying to look out for other people is living without power from the consequences of that when this Government has refused to take action. That to me is not something to honour without acknowledging the Government’s responsibility in creating that situation.What we are doing—it needs to be said again—in the House today is passing legislation that retrospectively removes the legally established rights of New Zealanders for the primary purpose of saving this Government some money. We have heard on that side of the House: “Well other parties have passed retrospective legislation; nothing to see here.” Well yes this House does pass retrospective legislation at times. I think that every time that happens it needs very close scrutiny and when that legislation is being passed retrospectively and removing rights for the most vulnerable New Zealanders it deserves additional scrutiny. And I would say two wrongs never make a right but that is the argument and pretty much the depth of the argument that we have heard from the other side of the House. I really think we need to review how this has happened and the process in my final contribution.There was legislation introduced under urgency on 3 June 1998. That legislation under what is now section 80BA of the Social Security Act said that the stand-down period applies in this way: for benefits to commence on the day on which the stand-down period ends not the day after. For 18 years since that law was passed the Ministry of Social Development has been starting benefits on the day after that stand-down period despite the fact that there is no room to misinterpret “the day on which the stand-down period ends”. I would ask anyone in this House to misinterpret that—to think that that meant “the next day”. Nobody could interpret it that way. But the Government has been paying as if it had said “the next day” for the last 18 years. I asked the Parliamentary Library to search the Hansard of the debates for discussion to clarify that that was the intent because we have been told again and again and again from this side of the House that the intent despite the clarity of that piece of legislation was always for it to be the next day. There was not one mention in those Hansard debates that that referred to that clause—not one. We have not been provided any evidence of Cabinet decisions or discussions that would have illuminated that intent either. We have just been told that was the intent.I think that if you are going to pass something under urgency that retrospectively removes people’s legally established rights you need to provide some evidence at the very least. I personally think the rule of law is pretty important. I think that actually for everything to work well in this country we need our courts to be able to establish the law and interpret our legislation and to have primacy of that and for any Government to follow that law as it is written. Well the courts established in May of last year—in 2014—that in fact the Government was misinterpreting the law. And here we are about to remove and change that law and remove up to that point all of the people’s rights to their legally established entitlements. After that one of the very significant parts was that the Government continued denying people’s legal rights despite the court having established it was misapplying the laws. And again that was established and went to court twice—not just once twice—and the Government continued to deny people their legal entitlements.Then over a year later on 29 July this year this Government introduced a bill called the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill a title that you know would obviously—not—provoke discussion of this issue that we have had in the House tonight which brought in this retrospective law change. Submissions closed on 9 September. There were only 10 submissions and only one of them from Kay Brereton actually recognised the significance of this clause and made a submission on it. So we are being told by the Government that there is no need for a select committee process in relation to this piece of legislation because that process has already been gone through and people had the chance to submit on it even though what we have been given today is significantly different to the clause presented in the original bill. But even then it was so hidden that nobody knew. Nobody had the opportunity to submit and offer their views and their interpretation of the legislation. So then what we had was departmental advice that did not even alert us to the significance of it. Then the first media attention on this issue was on 16 September prompted by Kay Brereton in relation to her submission. You know we saw an operational change on 29 September 13 days after this came to the media—what is that 18 months after the court ruled that there needed to be a change in the policy enactment of the law.We do not even have a regulatory impact statement relating to this. There has been very little opportunity for submissions no opportunities for submissions on this actual bill and no regulatory impact statement. Technically the only ability for there not to be a regulatory impact statement is if this legislation makes no significant change to the law—well of course it makes a significant change to the law because that is what the Government said the intent of it is: to significantly change the law because it thinks the law is wrong—or for it to have little or no impact outside of the Government on real life’s people. Well what this does is very very significant. As soon as this passes—probably—and gets Royal assent in a day or so there will be a group of people who will find out that they were entitled today to money from Work and Income. Some of the poorest people in New Zealand who could really really do with some extra money will find out that today they were entitled to that money but oh sorry the day has passed the Royal assent has happened and they are not entitled to it. That is what this legislation does. That impact is real. That impact is harsh. I think it has been said already that this is mean.We put forward Supplementary Order Papers 143 and 144 to give the Government certainty by allowing people to have 6 months to get their application in and to require the Government to advertise that it was doing this. That would have given the Government certainty some fiscal limitations and ensured people’s trust in the public institutions and in this House. This piece of legislation fundamentally erodes people’s trust and confidence in our fundamentally important social security system and it is with deep deep disappointment we will be opposing this.