Turei Metiria: Social Assistance (New Work Tests Incentives and Obligations) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Turei Metiria: Social Assistance (New Work Tests Incentives and Obligations) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:665;Page:13149] 
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I fully support what the Hon Annette King has been talking about in terms of children in that children regardless of the source of their parents’ income deserve the same support. They deserve a warm dry home they deserve a good high-quality public education they deserve childcare and health care and no children should be separated from their entitlements as citizens simply because of the source of their parents’ income. I have to say that even under the last Government the separation around treating children differently because of the income source of the family was a fact. One of the options mentioned earlier was that if work testing requires 20 hours instead of 15 hours then it would be in line with a capacity to get access to the in-work tax credit. 
The poorest families are the beneficiary families. Since the 1991 benefit cuts by the National Government came into force benefits have not been restored to anything like a liveable provision for families. As a result the in-work tax credit has worked for some families but it has not been extended to beneficiary families and the Poverty Action Coalition estimates some billion dollars has been taken out of those families because the in-work tax credit was not available to the beneficiary families who most desperately need it. So there has been a continuous series of treating the children of beneficiaries differently from other children and now we see it with Peter Dunne’s ridiculous idea in relation to income splitting which will simply exacerbate the gap in that somehow it is OK for the children of wealthy families to have access to a full-time parent but beneficiary children will not. Because of the work-testing regime in this legislation the children of beneficiaries are being discriminated against by this Government. 
Part of the theory around the future focus bill and work testing has been supported unsurprisingly by the right-wing Welfare Working Group which released its report early last week. One of the quotes from that report stated that the introduction of work testing in the late 1990s by at the time National alongside the introduction of more generous childcare assistance saw a reduction in numbers of people on the domestic purposes benefit. It said that the reduction had flattened out when the work test was replaced by a planning requirement. But actually if we look at the information provided in the report—at the facts—we can see something quite different. The graph that accompanied this report showed a very small reduction in domestic purposes benefit numbers from the introduction of the domestic purposes benefit work-test but that reduction flattened out very quickly. The numbers remained flat through to the replacement of the work test by the planning requirement in 2003 and through to the introduction of the enhanced Working for Families and the childcare assistance packages from October 2004. 
Then numbers on the domestic purposes benefit plummeted because there was access to support for sole parents who were able to go into longer periods of part-time work that could provide them with a decent income with support through childcare and Working for Families. We saw a dropping off in the gap between rich and poor as a result of Working for Families too which helped to provide that buffer. Because there has not been an extension and efforts put into those who are right at the very bottom further from that we have seen the gap between rich and poor stagnate now so it is not decreasing. In fact I suggest that it will get worse once we see the impact of this year’s Budget. 
The Welfare Working Group has been spinning the idea that work testing will reduce benefit numbers but in fact the evidence shows that that is just not true. Numbers on the domestic purposes benefit will drop when there is greater employment—that is when people can move into jobs because jobs are available and pay well enough such that they can care for their families and when there are financial incentives like an enhanced tax credit and childcare assistance. But this bill does not do any of that. This bill simply threatens sole parents with the loss of a meagre and desperately needed income. 
We are often talking here about people who do not have savings and do not have huge amounts of assets—people for whom losing a benefit for a week is enough to drive them into extreme poverty. These are people who already have to scrimp and save. We have seen in the newspaper today a story about a woman who is not eating because she cannot afford to if she wants to train— 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: A west Auckland woman as well! 
METIRIA TUREI 
: She is a west Auckland woman. My colleague Carmel Sepuloni is holding up a photograph in the newspaper report of a woman who is not eating sufficiently because she is trying to use the very scarce resources she has to care for her child and to train herself so that she will then be able to get a better-paid job so she can care for her family. That is the kind of life that beneficiaries are living right now. They are going without. All that this legislation does is make what I think is a very clear statement to the community that beneficiaries are just bludgers and they are not making an effort. 
Women like the woman pictured in the newspaper today are an indication of sole parents across the board. Parents who need help right now to care for their kids and who are working very hard to get themselves into a better situation on very meagre resources have not been dealt with at all by this Government. They are suffering as a result but are still persevering to do what is best for their families. They are the sole parents in this country and they deserve our support not our denigration. 
Part of the problem with this legislation of course is that even the regulatory impact statement shows that there is no evidence that work testing the domestic purposes benefit like this will increase beneficiaries’ income encourage them off the benefit or be good for their children. In fact what we will see and what we saw from last time are child welfare issues as a result of work testing. Some sole parents because the fear of losing their benefit were forced into taking risks with some of their children. There were serious welfare concerns that no Government then further investigated including the National Government of today. It has imposed a work test on domestic purposes beneficiaries and sole parents again knowing that serious child welfare issues arose last time this happened but it has failed to investigate and check that out. That means that in this legislation which I described as structural abuse before and I will do so again the Government is knowingly putting in place a programme that is likely to result in serious child welfare issues but it does not care. It does not care and it will not do anything about it. 
What the Government does do is provide strange incentives. For example last week there was an announcement that foster parents will get extra support to enable them to care full-time for foster children and that is fantastic but why is it that foster children are entitled to have someone take care of them full-time but a child of a beneficiary is not? What is it about this Government’s judgment about the children of beneficiaries that it can say that the children of beneficiaries are not entitled to a full-time parent but every other child is? Peter Dunne says that the children of rich families are entitled to a full-time parent. Paula Bennett says that foster children are entitled to full-time care but what about the children of beneficiaries? Under this legislation this Government says that those children are not entitled to a full-time parent to care for them so they can be productive healthy members of our community. 
So what is the Government doing? In my view it is a form of structural abuse. It is disappointing for us to have to see that and be in this Chamber while this legislation is being discussed but it is worse for those families. It is entrenching poverty it is entrenching poor welfare issues it is entrenching structural systems of abuse and it is being dictated by a National Government that believes at heart that beneficiary children are not entitled to the same support and the same entitlements as citizens as other children are. That is what this legislation does and that is what it says to the community: the children of beneficiaries are not entitled to the same level of support the same entitlements the same good health the same good education the same good food and the same good housing as other children are. 
Where does that kind of attitude come from? Why would a National Government or any Government take an attitude like that? Why are these children so different from other people’s children? What have they done to deserve a Government that will force their families on the threat of losing desperately needed income into unsuitable inappropriate work? Paula Bennett argued before that there are all these exemptions. That is not the case.