Bennett Paula: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBennett Paula: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 30 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:12074. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development):I am reluctant to interrupt the member Chris Auchinvole because he was doing such a great job. He was making what I think is a really valuable point which is that for all of the rhetoric it is businesses that will create jobs for people for families. We are seeing an economic recovery that is gaining momentum and making a real difference. If we think about where we are at we have got the lowest interest rates we have got investment and we have got strong export prices and that is making a difference to the businesses that are out there doing the hard work and they are the only ones. In west Auckland I say that the only way that a young person is going to get a job tomorrow is if a business actually decides that it can take them on. It is not about the Government creating jobs; it is about creating the environment that means that businesses are successful and actually saying that businesses are successful and we will celebrate that success and stand next to them and put it in place as we do. Economic growth is at the highest it has been in 5 years. It is almost the same as in Australia and certainly better than in most of the other countries that we like to compare ourselves with.Sue Moroney: A tsunami of redundancies.Hon PAULA BENNETT: I do want to pick that up because I can hear the Opposition members saying that we have been losing all these jobs and everything. What we do not talk about in the media and which we should be is celebrating our businesses and what they do and those jobs that have been created. So 65000 jobs have been created if you go by the household labour force survey in just the last 3 years. We have seen 1000 new jobs on theWaterview Connection. We see nearly 2000 jobs in the ultra-fast broadband roll-out. We have seen 1000 jobs in building Wiri Prison. Wesee 350 jobs at Marsden Point and 400 jobs through IBM at Unitec and 1500 jobs atFonterra’s new Darfield operation. These are not the jobs that the Opposition wants to talk about but they are real jobs for real people who are raising families in this country and it is making a difference for them.Let us go back to 2008. Certainly when I first became the Minister for Social Development what I saw was the number on the unemployment benefit going up in three quarters in a row under the Labour Government and 30000 more people actually out of work. I think that that was a tragedy. We had to step in and we had to step in fast. We heard projections of the unemployment benefit going to 100000 people or more. We heard all of the horror stories and we heard all of the frightening in going out there for those businesses for those individuals and their families but the truth is that the highest unemployment we got to was 68000 and that was in January 2010. At that point and now when we look at it we have actually got around 47000 to 48000 people who are on the equivalent of the unemployment benefit. In the last year alone we have seen 7600 net come off the DPB to make a difference and go into work and I think that that is making a major difference in their lives—the lives of them and the lives of their children.I see it every day and I have people coming up to me and saying: “I didn’t think I would get a job in this kind of environment and I have.” They tell me very personal stories of them and their families. One story is about a woman who had been on welfare for 28 years. She had been on welfare for 28 years. She went in last year to actually change her benefit because her children had got older and they said to her: “How about we talk about what you can do? How about we put you into some training?”. She got a job. She actually got a job in a customer service role in an engineering firm. She started there in October last year. She is still in that job today and she said that it made a difference for her adult children. All three of them had been on a benefit. Two of them are actually now off the benefit and actually in work as well because of the difference it made for not just her but her entire family and that is making a difference. It makes a difference to people’s income.You want to talk about how you get out of poverty? You are not going to do that sitting on a benefit. So it is about actually supporting those businesses giving them the right economic environment spending taxpayers’ money well so that it actually generates that sort of employment. It is actually giving them assurances that there will be stability and that the right kinds of policies will constantly be put in place. Members opposite can rubbish it all they like but the reality is that there have been significant changes which have really meant that young people in particular are going into work and staying there.Vote agreed to.