Ardern JacindaJACINDA ARDERN (Labour): There were so many contradictions in what Minister Anne Tolley just presented to the Committee around this amendment bill. I want to go through some of them because if this is genuinely about offering a service to those young people who need it and if it is genuinely about reducing their future liability—I hate that term; I would rather see us focusing on the potential of these young people—why not offer the service to any young people who wish to access it? If it is genuinely going to have that positive turn-round in that young person's life if it is genuinely going to reduce the liability and the cost to the State in the long term why would we allow it to be only on the State's terms? If the State determines that the young person is a risk if the State decides the young person is going to cost the Crown money in the future why if this is as good a programme and an approach as the Minister has outlined would we not want to open it up? I have to hark back because I was one of the critics of the Youth Service approach. I am very open about that. When we first debated this in the House we had some real concerns. We had some concerns that we would change the relationship for youth workers who might predominantly offer this programme because they have some powers over the resources that young people would be able to access. That would usually be taken from a Work and Income perspective and it would be handed to someone who is actually meant to maintain a relationship day to day. That was one of our concerns. The other concern we had was that it took a deficit approach and everyone carte blanche was put on payment cards rather than the reverse approach of only those who need it most at a point when it is identified they need it. I continue to maintain that I see young people—particularly young mothers—budget like no one else. I would really rival anyone to demonstrate how they could do what some of these young people do. So we did have concerns—we did have concerns—but I went into conversations with Youth Service providers and Youth Service recipients of services with an open mind once it was implemented and asked them what their view of those services was. In some areas there were young people who relayed to me that they were having a positive experience. They had qualms with the way the payment card operated the limitations of it—all of those valid—but in terms of the one-on-one service they were receiving some of them said: Actually we'd like a bit more time." So on that front I acknowledge Minister that this actually was a debate worth having but what I wanted to hear was a really clear message on why we should default back to this risk-identifying model. I have fundamental issues with the fact the Government keeps leaning on it because we are excluding young people as a result. This started when we got rid of the Youth Transition Services. We used to have a service that said to any young person—roughly under the age of 24 actually—that if you needed support and if you were not in employment education or training regardless of your circumstances regardless of where you lived regardless of whether or you were on a benefit or not—you might have been being supported by friends couch surfing or whatever. We knew how difficult it was in those days—and it continues to be—to get the unsupported living benefit. It was terribly difficult. You could be in a violent situation and not be able to receive it. No matter where your resource was coming from you could access that service and instead we got rid of it and we narrowed the focus into these high-risk high-liability young people. Look at what the numbers have done since then. From that time we are now in a situation where the number of young people not in education training or employment—as much as the Government says we are through the global financial crisis and we have got rosy times ahead—is at 87200 young people. So actually it has not worked. We have got 26500 more "neets" now than when National took office and fundamentally changed the environment of support for those young people. Targeting in that manner has failed Minister. It has failed. So why would we entrench it further if you believe Minister in the findings that were presented in 2014—so the very early days—in the Youth Service evaluation report which found the Youth Service had a positive impact on assisting young people to increase their education levels and be independent of welfare and support? I am reading here from some of information provided to the select committee. It found that "Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of YP participants increased the number of NCEA credits they held in their first 12 months of participating …". At the end of March 2014 30 percent transitioned to a working-age benefit whereas it was 38 percent of the comparison group—so a difference of about 8 percent. If we were seeing outcomes in those other areas that were positive why not allow anyone who wanted to access the service to access it? Why would you not? I still have not seen compelling evidence as to why that might be. I can see the rationale. The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has set it out. Its argument has been that the extension includes only 18 and 19-year-old beneficiaries at significant risk of long-term welfare dependency because not all 18 and 19-year-old beneficiaries need the wraparound support that the Youth Service provides. Where is the evidence to demonstrate that? If you are an 18-year-old or a 19-year-old and you are not in employment education or training I would say that you deserve some support. I would say they deserve some support. So what is the difference here that we have identified that says they do not need that support and that actually they are just fine-transitioning back into the usual humdrum motions of Work and Income when they may choose to opt into a Youth Service approach? Then I think we come to the real reason. The report states "because the Youth Service is a costly and intensive service."—it is costly and intensive. So here we suddenly see the real reason why we are taking such a narrow focus. How many people are we actually talking about? Well according to what I have seen from MSD we are talking about a targeted approach which is roughly going to mean about 2000 young people—2000 young people—when we have 87000 who are not in employment education or training. Roughly 2000 in that 18 to 19-year-old cohort will be eligible under this risk criterion that the Government has created. Those are the only ones who will be eligible for the intensive wraparound support. Well actually there is a pile of contradictions—and the Minister even articulated them—around the cost of this programme versus the cost savings. Again here we see this really narrow view that says: "We're spending too much on this so we can offer it for only a narrow number of people. Yet on the other hand we'll justify it by saying how much money we'll save." so it cannot be both.I found in the regulatory impact statement that it looks like around 14000 young people are involved with the Youth Service and it costs $148 million over 4 years. There is not any discussion there about what element of that would have otherwise been offered by Work and Income so it is hard to know whether that on its own is its own line item or whether actually that is a cost we would otherwise just have had within a Work and Income context. So we know that is the cost of it but flip over to the other page of the regulatory impact statement and it states: "A very preliminary estimate is that for every dollar spent on the Youth Service the liability"—again the world "liability"—"reduces by $2.53." So for every dollar that we spend apparently—remembering that we are talking about humans—in regard to the liability of those humans and the cost of them to us we will save $2.53. Putting aside the language the argument therefore seems to be that if we spend $148 million we then end up saving $374 million based on that calculation. If that is true why would we not open this up to more young people? You cannot have both. Either it is too expensive and does not work very well and so we will only do it for 2000 people or it is great—it is "Boy Wonder" as it were—and we should actually be extending it to everyone. Well look we are going to test the mantel on this one by putting up an amendment that does just that. That is what I want to just finish on. Carmel Sepuloni has an amendment in her name that would allow services to be extended to a greater range of young people basically on an opt-in basis. We think that extension is right because it was what we had with the old Youth Transition Services model. It was what the Mayors Taskforce for Jobs recommended through its youth connections model—the provision of service for any young person who needs it. In fact I would say they should not have to be on a benefit because we know how difficult it is to reach eligibility. I want to finish on this reflection. When we did have the independent youth benefit there was a one-tick box that could exclude you from accessing that benefit and that was whether you answered the question in the positive. When asked "Could you live at home?" if you said "Yes" then you were out. Tick boxes exclude young people."