Tirikatene Rino: Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Tirikatene Rino: Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Advance Copy - Subject to minor change before inclusion in Bound Volume.] 
RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 We have heard a lot of scaremongering from the Government in this debate so far. In particular the last speaker Mike Sabin was demonstrating his mathematical or statistical— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: This is a split call. 
RINO TIRIKATENE 
: Kia ora Mr Deputy Speaker. The last speaker was wanting us to drill down a little bit into the detail. We have heard the talk that there is a tsunami of welfare dependence that is actually going to swamp our country. Well let us drill into those numbers a little bit. The previous speaker mentioned that there are 328000 people receiving a benefit which is around 12 percent of the entire working-age population. That is appalling—absolutely. But the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill targets only young DPB recipients and of those 328000 beneficiaries only 4 percent are DPB recipients. Four percent of those 328000 are actually directly addressed by this bill. But wait for it; we can go further if you want to go deeper into the detail. Only 3 percent of those DPB recipients are under 20 years of age. So much for all the talk about this great tsunami! 
What that statistic does demonstrate is that this Government is absolutely failing in its social contract duty of creating an economy with jobs that can employ our people. It is the 96 percent of the people represented in that statistic of 328000 whom it should be focusing on not targeting the most vulnerable DPB recipients: young mothers and young people. The figures show for themselves that this bill does not actually address the problem; it is just picking on the most vulnerable: young mothers and young people. Those young people as the member would be aware—if you go up into the far north you can see them in places like Moerewa and if you go to Te Tai Rawhiti you will see them in Wairoa—are right throughout the country. They are the ones who are going be adversely prejudiced by this bill. 
We have demonstrated that the numbers that the Government is bandying about really just show its own incompetence and its own economic mismanagement. All of that is just a diversion. The diversion is to cover the fact that this Government has no plans for jobs it has no plans for growth the economy is stagnant it wants to sell the assets off it is putting austerity cuts through the public sector and now we are seeing poor standards of ministerial conduct—poor standards of ministerial conduct—and cronyism and deals for its rich mates. That is what it is all about. 
What are Government members saying? They are describing it as a tsunami—a tsunami. We have a lot of scaremongering going on here—a lot of scaremongering—but it does not address the real issue. The real issue is that there are too many people out of work in this country and now the Government is going to implement punitive measures for young mothers and their children. 
I will conclude my speech right now. I just want to say that we are opposing this bill. Labour will be opposing this bill and I join with my colleagues here in opposing this bill. Kia ora tatou.