Robertson H V Ross: Social Assistance (New Work Tests Incentives and Obligations) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Robertson H V Ross: Social Assistance (New Work Tests Incentives and Obligations) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:665;Page:13165] 
H V ROSS ROBERTSON (Labour—Manukau East) 
: 
 I stand here and look at the Social Assistance (New Work Tests Incentives and Obligations) Amendment Bill on behalf of the senior citizens of this country. I am concerned more than anything else about the impact that this bill will have on senior citizens. 
In the course of my role in Parliament I frequently visit Grey Power groups around the country. One of the things that they are concerned about in terms of the provisions of this bill is the impact on young families. If members talk to them they will see that many of them because of the state of the economy and because there is huge high unemployment find that their own families are out of work. This is not about providing a safety net. This is not about providing a pathway. There is no plan from this Government to look after the most vulnerable in our society. 
Although we support some provisions of this bill such as increasing benefit abatement income thresholds and the annual CPI adjustment of certain benefits we are fundamentally opposed to the provisions on work testing and the discriminatory nature of this bill. This bill is nothing more than an attack on beneficiaries. Where are the jobs? Where are the jobs? If we talk to anybody over the age of 55 who does not have a job they will tell us just how difficult it is to get one. If one gets laid off at 55 one is on the dole—an unemployment benefit—for the rest of one’s life because it is just so difficult. Here we have a Government that is playing pure politics with the most vulnerable in our society: those who have families and those who do not have work. It tries to pander to the electoral vote of the populace and that is not good enough—it is not good enough at all. 
One of the things that concerned me greatly in reading the submissions to the Social Services Committee on the Social Assistance (Future Focus) Bill was something I saw from Presbyterian Support New Zealand. I will quote this because it goes right to the heart of the matter: “we find it unconscionable that any government in New Zealand would propose measures that will inevitably increase poverty and hardship for some of the poorest children in this country and further penalise those in the most unfortunate of life circumstances.” 
Our senior citizens struggle now with accident compensation cuts and increases in GST and many of them today bring up their grandchildren. They bring up their grandchildren and at the— 
Michael Woodhouse 
: What’s “GS Tree”? 
H V ROSS ROBERTSON 
: I am not dreaming. I am not dreaming about the many grandparents bringing up their grandchildren. Many families out there suffer and in those cases it is often the grandparents who end up looking after the children. Here we have a bill that is so discriminatory that it will penalise grandparents as well. Minister Bennett says that it will not. Well I would like the Minister to take a call to tell us on this side of the Chamber how it will not actually penalise them. 
Grandparents have come to see me in my office. They are concerned about some of the provisions of this bill. Some of them are over the age of 55 and they may well be work tested. Where is someone over the age of 55 or even 60 to get a job? There seems to be a preoccupation with youth in this country without looking at the concerns of older New Zealanders. That is an unfair way to look at senior citizens and the contribution that they have made to this country. In fact it is discrimination. The way that older people are treated is an insidious form of discrimination. 
I ask the Minister to take a call to give me and this side of the Chamber an indication that a senior person over the age of 55 who is asked to bring up his or her grandchildren will not be penalised and that he or she will be able to continue to care for those children. All of us in here know that a family is an important unit of society and one of the greatest jobs that a mother can do is to bring up her children. What does the Catholic Church say? “Give me the child to the age of 7 and I will give you the person for life.”