Moroney Sue: Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 23 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5292. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour): It is a pleasure to rise and speak to the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill at its first reading. This is a bill that Labour is prepared to support through to the select committee and one that we will be very interested in hearing submissions on because we do have reservations about supporting this bill. As with many of the bills that this Government brings in it has some good aspects and it has some very dubious aspects. This is another one of those bills that has both things going on with it. For us we will be weighing up where the benefits come in and what is best for our society and our communities in total.The part of the bill that we can readily support is the extension to 19-year-olds of the Youth Service and the wraparound benefits and supports the additional educational opportunities and maybe the additional $10 that is tagged with that although sometimes that seems a little laughable. But none the less I guess we prefer the incentive type of approach to the punitive sort of approach that this Government is wont to take with regard to people who have fallen on hard times and have very difficult issues that they are grappling with. The mode of operation of this Government is to blame the victims and to blame people who have the least opportunities in their lives. I guess from that perspective we are pleased to see that there is more of an incentive-based approach with this bill.However the part that we are very concerned about and that we will want to explore through the select committee process is the idea that young people—and most of these young people will be parents of young children. I guess the reason why I am keen to speak in this debate is that many of those people will in fact be young women. They will be young women. The vast majority of people being subjected to these mechanisms will be young women with young children. So the idea that they are going to be put through some kind of risk-rating process fills me with dread.The reason it fills me with dread is that I also happen to be Labour’s ACC spokesperson. Have we not seen the shambles of risk rating under this Government when it comes to motor vehicle ACC registration levies? That is the sort of mentality that is going to be applied potentially again but this time to people. I just want to rehearse because this is a significant part of this bill—I just want to remind the public what transpired when the Government recently applied this risk-rating approach to motor vehicles. It has been an utter shambles. It has turned out to be utter chaos. The Government has got the risk rating wrong of at least 24 makes and models of cars and that has been discovered in just the first 3 weeks of the scheme being implemented.The reason I raise this is that if the Government can get it so wrong with something that is relatively straightforward actually and that is the safety of vehicles then when it comes to assessing and doing risk rating on people’s lives how on earth is that going to go? Will it turn out to be the slow-motion car wreck that that Government has proven to have brought about in the area of ACC?Hon Anne Tolley: How embarrassing.SUE MORONEY: Yes it would be embarrassing Minister. I agree that the shambles that has happened in ACC has been absolutely embarrassing for the Government. What I am saying to the Minister is please do not visit that embarrassment on our young people. It is actually the same model. It is that idea that there is an actuarial kind of assessment that can be made and that it is going to be a perfect science. In this instance it is not going to be applied just to motor vehicles. You know that is bad enough actually because that affects people’s payments for car registrations. But in this instance this is going to affect young people’s lives and the tags that they carry with them throughout their lives due to that Government’s idea that you can just apply an insurance model an actuarial kind of assessment and deem someone to be at high risk or low risk of being a beneficiary.It gave me great cause for concern when I heard the previous speaker Alfred Ngaro use that model to tell us that apparently 18 to 19-year-olds who are on a benefit today on average under the Government’s assessment process will be on a benefit for 30 years. On average?Carmel Sepuloni: What? He said that?SUE MORONEY: That is what he said. That is what he said.Jono Naylor: 18 years—you’re not listening.SUE MORONEY: No he said 30 years.Jono Naylor: No he didn’t.SUE MORONEY: Well go and have a look at the Hansard.Did he get it wrong? He said 30 years. But again this fills me with dread because if members opposite are going to make those mistakes in first reading speeches about using this risk-assessment tool how wrong are they going to get it when they actually roll it out and apply it to people’s lives? And what evidence are they using to make these decisions? I think all of us hearing that figure know that this cannot possibly be true. For an 18 to 19-year-old today on average if all of them are going to end up being on a benefit for 30 years it means that some of them must be on a benefit for 60 years in order to balance out the ones who are going to be on a benefit for 1 year. That is just an extraordinary claim to make. It is an extraordinary claim to make.So I think that these are the reasons why we will be putting a lot of scrutiny on this bill at the select committee stage. This is the tool that the Government is going to use to make an assessment of how low risk or high risk people are at the tender age of 18 or 19 and therefore what their future is going to look like—how bleak it is going to be or not. Given the Government’s record in using risk-rating models in other settings it is something that we will take a lot of notice of.Jono Naylor: I can’t believe you’d compare our young people to motor vehicles.SUE MORONEY: Well the member says you cannot compare. I think that is a really hopeful statement from him. He is hoping this will not turn into the slow-motion car wreck that the ACC levies has. I understand that because if I was in his position I would be deeply embarrassed about that as well.Hon Todd McClay: But you’d be in Government if you were in his position so carry on with your speech.SUE MORONEY: Well what I am pointing out here is that they might think it is funny that it has happened to people paying their ACC levies on their motor vehicle registrations but when it comes to putting labels on young people about what their future looks like then the Government needs to be very very careful. We know it is already prepared to label a lot of our primary school children as failures when they are just 5 or 6 years of age. This is another extrapolation perhaps of that whole idea that you give people these labels based on goodness knows what data and what information. We know that that can harm them for the rest of their lives so we will be looking into this very very carefully.I also want to raise the issue that my colleague Carmel Sepuloni raised. That is the issue about the people who come off benefits. Where do they go? The Government does not seem to want to know. I have not seen these figures myself recently but Carmel Sepuloni talked about roughly 12000 people coming off a benefit but only—was it 2600—Carmel Sepuloni: 2410.SUE MORONEY: Only 2 410 people found their way into a job. So what has happened to the rest of them? What is that—about only 28 percent?Carmel Sepuloni: 20 percent.SUE MORONEY: About 20 percent of them are finding their way into a job. What is happening to the other 80 percent? Is this the reason—Hon Anne Tolley: Your figures are wrong.SUE MORONEY: Well these are the figures of the Minister herself. These are the figures. She is getting very agitated. I think it is because we have hit a really important point here. What is happening to the rest of them? Is this the reason why the food banks in every town and every city in New Zealand have got more clients? Is it that they are coming off the benefit all right and the Government is saying: “Well isn’t that great?”. Well if they are ending up at the food bank no it is not. If they are ending up sleeping on the street no it is not. If they are ending up being in the endless stream of people who are coming into MPs’ offices saying they cannot afford their housing any more—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the member but her time has expired.