Rich Katherine: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Rich Katherine: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:620;Page:15789] 
5.  
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: Why did the Government decide to disestablish the Community Employment Group? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 With unemployment at 4 percent a near 20-year low it was time to rethink the position of this particular organisation. The Ministry of Social Development is the ideal agency to move forward now to implement employment initiatives for disadvantaged communities because of its strong regional structure and because it deals with issues in local employment markets. Te PuniKokiri will manage the Maori women’s development activities because that is its area of expertise. The Department of Labour will supply labour information informing employment initiatives. It is also worth saying that it was clear from some of the controversy that this department was struggling. 
Katherine Rich 
: Why does this Minister put forward arguments about changing economic conditions when every member of this House knows that the decision to shut down the Community Employment Group is more about hiding that Minister’s failures with dodgy capacity-building schemes—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! 
Katherine Rich 
: —and getting the Community Employment Group off the front page? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: When I stand up the member sits down. There will be no interjections during question time. I ask the member to repeat her question. That is the only warning I am giving today. Please begin again. 
Katherine Rich 
: Why does the Minister put forward arguments about changing economic times when every member of this House knows that the real reason he has disestablished the Community Employment Group is to hide his failures in putting in place dodgy capacity-building schemes and to get the Community Employment Group off the front page of the paper? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The reason I put forward those arguments is that our unemployment rate is now the second lowest in the developed world. It hit 11 percent under the previous National Government the numbers on the unemployment benefit halved in the last 4 years and we now have a labour shortage and a skills shortage. The issues that threw up why we should have the Community Employment Group organisation have gone. That is why I keep putting forward those arguments and I would welcome another question from the member so that I can talk for longer on that matter. 
Moana Mackey 
: Did the changes to community employment assistance delivery reflect a move away from support for community enterprises? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: No quite the reverse. Moving the delivery function to the Ministry of Social Development will ensure support for community enterprise in disadvantaged communities through a strong regional structure that has a close relationship with local communities and local authorities. The Ministry of Social Development’s regional commissioners are highly respected senior public servants with a reputation for getting things done in their communities. Over the next few months the ministry will be working with local communities to ensure that these are positive changes. From my travelling around the country including within the electorate of the member who asked the previous question—I am sorry; she does not have an electorate; I mean her region of the country—I found that they were welcoming of these changes. 
Sue Bradford 
: Is the Minister therefore committed to retaining seed funding for innovative and potentially at times risky community economic development projects without which the World of Wearable Art Awards Whale Watch Kaikoura and many other such initiatives might never have succeeded? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: We will see how this money is to be allocated after a period of consultation with people around the country as I have suggested. But yes this Government is committed to assisting disadvantaged communities in ways that are innovative but we want to do so through this new form of delivery. 
Dr Muriel Newman 
: Would the Minister have disestablished the Community Employment Group if there had not been any adverse publicity? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: No I definitely would not have because this Government works through those kinds of debates in a very cool and calm fashion to decide what it will do. What we have found on numerous occasions as the member will know is that the accusations that were made about for example the Pink Kit home-birthing kit for women the Maori Women’s Welfare League and the Porangahau marae committee all proved to be utterly utterly baseless. We do not react to that sort of criticism; we base our changes on evidence. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am sorry to do this but there is a bit of confusion—certainly on this side of the House. As I heard the Minister he said that no he would not have disestablished the group if not for the adverse publicity. That answer contradicted his earlier answer when he said that the adverse publicity was just a small part of it. I wonder whether we have understood his answer correctly. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister gave an answer and he has to accept the results of it. 
Dr Don Brash 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It does seem odd that the Minister can give two directly contradictory answers to the same question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am not here to judge the quality of the answer. When the answer is given it has to stand. If it can be debated and if it can be disagreed with that is fine but I am not here to judge the answer. I heard the answer. It was a direct answer. I heard the first word— “No”—and it was a specific answer to a question. That is where really my interest in it ended in that the Minister had addressed the question. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not really want to go on with this Mr Hide. I think we have now dealt with this. This is only debating material. 
Rodney Hide 
: I think you would like to hear what I have to say. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: It had better be more than debating material or the member will not be heard. 
Rodney Hide 
: You will love it. The difficulty we have is that the Minister—and I choose my words carefully—is in danger of misleading the House. If one answers the question “What colour is it?” with “White” then one gives another answer “Black” then clearly both answers cannot stand. I suggest that you direct the Minister which you are quite capable of doing—we have heard you do it many times—just to clarify his answer. If he clarified his answer the problem would go away. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have never directed a Minister to clarify an answer. I have sometimes told a Minister that an answer was not an answer. But that was an answer. 
Tariana Turia 
: Is it not true that the Social Entrepreneur Fund was the initiative of the current Minister for Social Development and Employment that the Minister signed off on the policy against the advice of his own fieldworkers and that those same fieldworkers have now been hung out to dry to save his own skin? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I thank the member for the friendly question! The social entrepreneur scheme was something that I put forward specifically. It is an idea of course which is now common throughout the world. Australia the UK and the United States would use the same kind of concept. What it does is provide money to support people to do excellent things. And no the rest of the question is quite wrong. 
Katherine Rich 
: Which of the Minister’s answers is correct—that he canned the Community Employment Group as a result of adverse publicity or that he did not can the Community Employment Group as a result of adverse publicity? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The Community Employment Group has been disestablished because we are now living in very very different times from the times when the organisation was established. I made it clear that the organisation had faced a number of problems over the last little while but in answer to that question from the ACT party I said that we would not change it on that basis alone. As I pointed out many of the accusations made by Katherine Rich herself were as usual wrong. 
Simon Power 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My colleague Katherine Rich asked a very simple question: which of those aspects relating to the canning of the system was the reason that the Minister put forward? Which was it: was it because of the publicity or not? It was a direct question and I ask that you bring the Minister to order to answer the question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister does not have to choose an option. If the member reads 
 Speakers’ Rulings 
 under the section that relates to questions he will see that it is up to the Minister how he answers as long as he addresses the question and he most certainly did. 
Katherine Rich 
: Why is the Minister moving the Community Employment Group back to the Ministry of Social Development when it was he who decided to move it to the Department of Labour when he became the Minister in 2000 saying: “Without falling victim to the sin of self-congratulation let me say we have kept our word. We examined the role of Community Employment Group and having completed the examination we determined that the most appropriate location for community employment was as a service unit of the Department of Labour.”? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: It is good that once again we have evidence of the Government keeping its word. Can I say that the Department of Labour has changed completely in the last year and the Ministry of Social Development of course did not exist at the time those changes were made. 
Katherine Rich 
: Does the Minister believe that Labour’s capacity-building grant schemes imposed on the Community Employment Group by that Minister and announced as part of the closing the gaps package in the 2000 Budget have been a success; if so why have all his big funding ideas either been closed down or shifted from the Department of Labour? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: As someone who has oversight of a large number of budgets I could hardly say that any of them risk being closed down in the way in which that member has described. I think capacity building a programme across a wide range of departments is beginning to show some real fruit. I would simply point to the renaissance amongst Maori where we can point to the lowest unemployment rate for 20 years new businesses and arts and cultural activities that are booming. I know that the National Party does not support that but we do.