Tolley Anne: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTolley Anne: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8205. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): I am pleased to take a call in this debate. First can I start by apologising both to the House and to the chairman of the Social Services Committee whom I particularly misinformed about something to do with this part of the bill being in the regulatory impact statement that was before the select committee. My understanding and the advice that I have received is that because the proposed amendments are technical revisions that re-enact the current law to improve legislative clarity they are therefore exempt from the regulatory impact analysis requirement. So that is the first thing. I apologise to my colleague whom I misinformed about something in the regulatory impact statement.With regard to the questions that have been asked about a number of issues can I start by saying that in my first reading speech introducing this bill to the House I did actually quantify the number of benefits that we believe at this early stage have been paid since 1998 and that is 2.7 million benefits. It is impossible without doing a manual check to know how many of those are eligible first of all for the stand downs because not all benefits—movements between benefits sanctions etc.—are necessarily accorded a stand down. Without going through every single one of those and we have not done that work I cannot give the member any further details but 2.7 million benefits paid is a large amount.Secondly what I know is that as at this morning 8500 people have lodged reviews many of which will go back to 1998 and all of those are protected under this piece of legislation. That is because of the publicity and I have to say the very earnest work on behalf of a number of beneficiary advocates in particular Kay Brereton who I understand because of her personal circumstances and the remote place she has lived has done an outstanding job and gone without power in order to make sure that the power she had was made available to help people get their reviews in. So 8500 people as at this morning have taken advantage of that and I understand that the average payment is around $105.I have said both in the first reading speech and in the second reading speech that the Government has tried to strike a balance remembering that this is not a change of policy. The policy was clear back to 1996. A 7-day stand down means 7 days standing down. That is basic English. What we had was when an amendment was made to the law in 1998 it was worded badly. Nobody knew about that—neither a National-led Government nor a Labour-led Government. Neither did the beneficiaries. Everyone processed that stand down as though it was 7 days meaning 7 days without State assistance. So there has been no change of policy.The Government has tried to strike a balance between being fair to those who when that error in law was pointed out to the Government should have been entitled to that extra payment and we have made that available to them. I have got a Supplementary Order Paper to extend that through to that New Year break—so right through until 8 January. That is plenty of time and I have made every effort to make sure that it is as easy as possible to get that review in for those going back to May of last year. Anyone who currently has a review in the system will be treated as business as usual and they will go through that review process.