Bradford Sue: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Bradford Sue: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:656;Page:5816] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 It is incontrovertible that the unemployment rate is going up more rapidly now than it has for decades. At the time of the estimates hearings 2 months ago over 45000 people were on the unemployment benefit but the number has gone up substantially since then. Just over 300000 New Zealanders were on some kind of benefit at that time and the net number of people going on to the benefit each week was 1100. The Social Services Committee politely reported to the House in something of an understatement that the decrease in vacancies was becoming an issue. Having heard the various forecasts made by Treasury at the time of this year’s Budget about the possible unemployment rates in the next few years it was interesting to hear the Minister for Social Development and Employment Paula Bennett say that the number of people on the unemployment benefit was expected to reach 80000 in 2010 with a peak of around 90000 in 2011. The chief executive of the Ministry for Social Development Peter Hughes then said that in fact those forecasts were already too low and that the Ministry for Social Development expected the figures to be higher than that. 
I welcome the chief executive’s honesty but would also welcome more ongoing transparency and information from the Ministry of Social Development and the Department of Labour about both their forecasts and about the information on which they have based their forecasts including regular reporting of weekly net figures in regard to those going on and off the unemployment benefit. I would also like to know from the Ministry of Social Development the Department of Labour and Treasury—all of which engage in different forms of employment forecasting—on what basis they all think that unemployment will plateau in 2011 and then start falling after that. I am most curious as to what economic financial social or other basis there is for that sanguine prophecy repeatedly propagated by different ministries and Ministers but bearing no relation to reality—that I can find—other than a genesis in the “hope and pray” school of economics. Of course we are talking here not about numbers but about actual people whose lives and whose families’ lives are impacted on a daily basis by the fact that they cannot get paid work. 
Talking about people’s lives I am also most curious at present to discover what the Government has in store in the way of reforms for our benefit system. Not much was said during the estimates hearing about main benefits apart from a passing reference to National’s decision to postpone for at least a year its election policy of requiring domestic purposes benefit recipients to take up work or training when their youngest children turn 6. There was not a word or whisper about other possible reforms yet some of those have started emerging into public view in the last few weeks. Mr Key has raised the possibility of reforming the independent youth benefit in an unspecified way despite the fact that it is a benefit of last resort available to only 16 and 17-year-olds who have no other means of support and who have to meet very tough departmental criteria. I welcome the Minister’s answer on that issue that she gave late last week however. 
The Minister it appears is also carrying out several audits and reviews of so-called high-income beneficiaries and emergency special-needs grants of which she thinks there are too many. The Green Party is concerned that all that may be part of a softening-up process preparatory to actually cutting some entitlements and to reducing access to emergency assistance which is often the only thing standing between a family and total destitution. I call on Ms Bennett to look at the situation a bit more closely. One of the main reasons why so many people are having to apply for emergency special-needs grants is that benefits were never restored to levels equivalent to what they were before the 1991 cuts and also the discretionary special benefit was removed under the previous Labour Government. Those two factors have resulted in a situation in which many beneficiaries simply do not have enough income to meet their most basic costs much less deal with debt or other commitments undertaken while they were still receiving income as employed workers. 
The response of Government should not be further cuts to either benefit amounts or entitlements. Instead the Minister should be looking at how to increase core benefit levels and how to restore discretion to the benefit system and at ensuring that the discriminatory in-work payment is changed into a means-tested but universal entitlement regardless of a parent’s employment status. To focus as the Minister seems to have been doing lately on a very small number of beneficiaries who have comparatively high entitlements for very specific and unusual reasons is to deliberately distract from the fact that for most people benefits are too low for survival.