Mahuta Nanaia: Social Assistance (New Work Tests Incentives and Obligations) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Mahuta Nanaia: Social Assistance (New Work Tests Incentives and Obligations) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato) 
: 
 I absolutely agree with the member who has just resumed his seat Su’a William Sio that the Social Assistance (New Work Tests Incentives and Obligations) Amendment Bill will make things worse. If there is anything that can be done to ensure that people are not on the welfare system it is getting them into work finding them fair-paying jobs and creating good employment conditions so that they can keep their jobs. The reality of the matter is that the Government does not have a plan to create jobs so there are no jobs. That is why unemployment has gone up why 68000 young people are currently unemployed and why Maori unemployment has gone up to 16 percent. The reality of the situation as colleagues speaking before me have pointed out is that the Government has done nothing to create employment where the people we are concerned about can be treated fairly in the workplace. That is not happening now. This bill will do nothing to give them a fair shot in the workplace. 
I am concerned about the punitive aspects of the bill. If people’s benefits can be cut by 50 percent if they do not turn up to a work test we have to ask ourselves whether they are being treated fairly. I went to the citizens advice bureau in Papakura and it told me that many of the beneficiaries cannot ring the 0800 number for Work and Income because they only have cell phones. Instead they come into the citizens advice bureau and use its phone to ring the 0800 number. We know that many of the people we are representing talking about and backing move homes and when they move homes they change addresses. Often when they change addresses they cannot update their address details because it is a temporary placement. 
What happens if a letter is sent to their old address they do not get the letter and they do not turn up to a work test? I ask whether those people will have 50 percent of their benefit cut off because they have not received that information. I suspect they are not being treated fairly. What if a mother with her children in wintertime who is saving the credit on her cell phone for emergency calls to the doctor has only $20 on her top-up card? People like her are not able to make a call to Work and Income to say that they need to update their details. 
I think there are aspects of this bill that are punitive and that do not take into account some of the real-life situations and challenges that many of those who are on the benefit face every day. Those people are struggling to pay rents. I will give members an example. In Ngaruawahia people are paying up to $360— 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: How much? 
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA 
: —$360 in Ngaruawahia—for a three-bedroom rental home because there are not enough Housing New Zealand homes available. 
Hon Mita Ririnui 
: Where is the Minister of Housing? 
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA 
: Well the situation is that many of the people who I represent have cell phones. When we talk about contacting beneficiaries about some of the challenges they face with paying rents or having to move homes because rentals are too high we are talking about needing to be able to contact those people all the time. Often that is not the case and certainly that is the feedback we get from some Work and Income offices. Those are some of the difficulties and challenges with working with those particular people. There are punitive aspects to this bill that I think should be reconsidered and members before me have pointed to that particular situation. 
I want to highlight what is happening in the Waikato region with the domestic purposes benefit the invalids benefit and the independent youth benefit. If we look at the July statistics from 2008 2009 and 2010 we see that they have all gone up. It concerns me that the work-testing aspects of this bill affecting those on the domestic purposes benefit do not take into account the fact that we have a very serious issue and challenge with those groups of beneficiaries who really want to make a go of it. What has the Minister for Social Development and Employment done? She has cut the training incentive allowance. She has let foundation courses be funded but not level 4 or above. The great reality that the Minister might want to be aware of certainly in my patch is that wananga are offering foundation courses for free because they do not have the tertiary incentive allowance but students would like it if they wanted to pursue a degree-based course in early childhood education social work and social services. 
That is what real opportunity looks like for women on the domestic purposes benefit in the Waikato area but this Minister has not recognised it. She will work test them. There are not any jobs out there but she will work test them. Well that is fine but I tell the Minister that I would much rather that she tell us in her capacity as the Minister for Social Development and Employment how those jobs will be created. Let us look at Community Max and Job Ops. The 90-day trial period does not apply. If it is good enough for Community Max and Job Ops— 
Hon Paula Bennett 
: It does for Job Ops. 
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA 
: The Minister says that the trial period applies for Job Ops. I am reading the last paragraph of information for Job Ops criteria. It says: “A Job Ops opportunity cannot be accepted if the employment agreement attached to the job contains the 90-day employment trial provision.” The Minister should understand her own policy. 
Hon Paula Bennett 
: It’s old. 
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA 
: Well it may be old but it is on the Minister’s website. If it is old it needs to be updated because it is on the Minister’s website. Fantastic—the Minister does not know how current her information is. The reality is that Community Max and Job Ops are short-term solutions to a long-term challenge of ensuring that people are in real jobs and get real wages. That is not happening. There are Community Max initiatives that have placed young people for a 6-month period. Yes about 40 percent of placements in my region have seen good outcomes but the great majority have not led to employment. They have not led to further training and jobs cannot be found. The Minister needs to look at that because it is a short-term fix to a long-term challenge. We need to ensure that the first opportunity for young people in the labour market has to be a positive one. 
The 90-day trial period legislation is but one example that has the potential to critically damage people’s employment prospects when they go into jobs. They are not given a reason if they are dismissed and I ask what that will do to their confidence and what they can say on their CV. The Community Max initiative and the Job Ops scheme is a short-term solution to a long-term challenge. We need young people employed in real jobs with real wages and for them to be treated fairly in the workplace. Those things all go together I tell the Minister. One cannot separate out issues to do with industrial relations and the 90-day trial period legislation from those schemes. The Minister is setting them up to fail. She does not want to recognise that but that is the situation she is putting young people into. 
The Minister can wrap up those initiatives in all the nice language that she wants but I tell her that when we look at the types of Community Max initiatives that are in the Waikato—I have visited some of them and I am yet to visit others—we see that some initiatives have been to beautify marae or help kohanga reo but many of them have not created jobs. I am sure that the Minister is well aware of that. In fact in rolling out the Community Max scheme in my particular electorate the Minister has picked some winners and has ensured that they have retained their funding because they are taking on a lot of young people. It will make them and their stats look good. It is a cosmetic solution to the real challenges out there. 
I am concerned about the bill and what it will not do. It will not ensure that people are treated fairly when they are on the benefit. Members before me have spoken about that very well. It is discriminatory and punitive. It will not take into account the real-life challenges that beneficiaries face and it is a retrograde step. But more fundamentally it does not partner the message that should be coming from the Government to plan for growth and jobs. That message is not being heard and you are trying to provide a cosmetic fix to that problem through your Community Max and Job Ops I tell the Minister. We can see right through it and what is worse we can hear the constituents in our communities say that they want to work. They want to get a job but the jobs are not there. Phil Goff highlighted the fact that 2500-odd people applied for 150 jobs at New World. We know that people want to work and we want to back them into work. We know that the solution should be around social development— 
Jo Goodhew 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I have hesitated but it has struck me the number of times that the Chairperson has been brought into this debate. It has happened repeatedly during the member’s speech. I am sure that she means the Minister. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Thank you. It has occurred over the course of this afternoon. I have not pulled people up for it but the member is right. Members cannot bring the Chair into the debate. 
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA 
: I am sure that if the honourable member checks the  
Hansard 
 she will see that I followed the references to “you” with “Minister”. We know that this bill will not make an iota of difference to those on the benefit.