Bradford Sue: Social Security Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Bradford Sue: Social Security Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:639;Page:9243] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 I am proposing to amend clause 23 which will insert purpose and principles sections into the Social Security Act by way of Supplementary Order Paper 113 that is on the Table in my name. The Green Party fully supports legislation having purpose and principles sections to aid in its interpretation. In that context given the plethora of amendments that this Parliament has made over the years since the 1964 Act was passed I find it strange that only now are we considering inserting purpose and principles sections into it. 
However many of the submissions to the Social Services Committee on this bill were highly critical of the particular purpose and principles sections that the bill proposes. I agree with most of the criticisms raised by those submitters. The first problem is that the purpose and principles sections proposed in this bill advocate a “work first” approach to welfare. There is no statement in the purpose and principles sections of any significant role for the welfare system that does not have an underlying focus on paid work. Work is seen as the ultimate goal no matter what the conditions or the pay are. No recognition is given to the value of the unpaid work that beneficiaries undertake in caring for children for the elderly or for people with impairments or to the valuable voluntary contribution many beneficiaries make to their communities. These purpose and principles sections treat people as nothing more than economic units thereby reinforcing the attitude that people on the benefit system are somehow less worthy of dignity and respect than anyone else and that they are not fully realised and recognised members of our community unless they are part of the paid workforce. 
The other substantial criticism raised by submitters is that the purpose and principles sections contained in this bill provide for an interpretation of the Act that promotes rigidity and parsimony. They provide for an Act that is regulated inflexible and mean-spirited and designed not to help eliminate poverty—which is what the Green Party believes should be the objective of the social security system—but to alleviate hardship and to do so only to the extent provided for by the Act. 
The Treaty of Waitangi is our country’s fundamental constitutional document and any legislation concerned with the welfare of this country’s citizens be they tangata whenua or tauiwi should be based upon it. My amendment also recognises this. The two royal commissions on social security provided the basis for a valuable vision for our society—one in which all people could participate and feel part of their local community promote and maintain the well-being of their families and be actively involved in meeting their potential and creating fulfilling lives for themselves and their families. My amendment also proposes to incorporate the vision of those two royal commissions into these purpose and principles sections. 
Our children are our taonga and our future and that vision is already acknowledged in the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989 principle that their interests should be paramount. I am also proposing that this principle should be a principle of the Social Security Act. It is no more acceptable for children to grow up in poverty and to be denied a healthy upbringing than it is for them to be beaten or sexually abused. 
I am also proposing to add a principle expounding the paramount nature of the provision of full and correct entitlements. That is already supposedly the policy of the Ministry of Social Development but the anecdotal evidence I hear on a weekly and almost daily basis indicates that it is a policy that is often not followed. I hope that to insert a principle around that as part of this legislation will go some way towards rectifying that. 
Finally I am proposing to amend the principles to provide that although seeking suitable and sustainable employment should be a priority activity for people who are unemployed the priority activities for people receiving financial assistance for reasons other than unemployment should be determined in consultation with them and in accordance with their individual circumstances. This reflects the reality that the personal and family circumstances of many people means that paid work is simply not the most important activity for them to be undertaking at that particular time.