Bennett Paula: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Bennett Paula: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:660;Page:8886] 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 We have a Prime Minister who knows what matters a Prime Minister who is about getting the incentives right recognising hard work and getting the best out of New Zealand and New Zealanders. What is Labour focusing on? Well the salaries of 16 chief executives. I tell my colleagues that I have here a written question addressed to me recently. It asks about how many Pakeha Work and Income employs. There was a written question about who pays my coffee account over the road. I mean is Chris Hipkins so ridiculous that he hears me ordering a cup of coffee and putting it on an account and then decides that that should be a written question? He wanted to know whether we had been throwing lavish parties. I am happy to inform him and anyone else who wants to know that “SingStar and bring your own casserole” night was quite a success at my apartment and my staff and I thoroughly enjoyed it. 
Let us get this straight: last year in a bid to freeze my office and stop us from getting on and doing the job that we wanted to do Labour addressed literally thousands of written questions to my office—thousands; more than to any other Minister. You would think that would make Labour members sound hard-working but I ask how many stories they actually got out of it. How much traction did they get from all of those thousands of questions? 
There were the questions about how much money my office spends on stationery. Did they hope that would be the great paper scandal of 2009? How many stories did they get out of that? They have to do the follow-up work. They have to actually read the answers. The Opposition has to read the reports to make a difference. What Labour members did not know and what they were not used to was that they did not have all those people to read them for them; they have to do the hard work and they have to do the grind to make a real difference. 
Take last week in the House for example. Annette King said that I snuck the January benefit figures through and she stood up in question time all indignant. No I say to Mrs King I released them in a press statement that went to everyone the week before. Yes I did release them early because I thought they were relevant to the discussion that was being had around the household labour force survey and I asked the department to fast track the analysis but they were released. Quite simply Mrs King had not done her homework or read the news about the department that she is Labour spokesperson for. 
Labour members have set off on their attacks again this year. Members have to ask themselves what it is with Labour women and their hatred of National women. Do they set the girls on because they think it might look a bit bullying— 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I take offence at that remark as I am sure other Labour women do. We have never expressed a hatred at all of National women. I do not want that on the record. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: I know that the member has taken offence but the question is whether an offence has been committed. I am trying just to work through the context in which that was said. It was a collective statement and not levelled at any individuals. I think the safest thing is if the member Paula Bennett ceases to make those inference in the future. Is that OK? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: My point was though that we get a real sense of bitterness. That was an example of it. Members know it—the venom is sort of crying out and they are getting themselves so worked up about it— 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I also as a man took offence at the earlier statement. I respect your ruling. I think the member is persisting with exactly the same message couched in different words and I suggest that you advise her to desist. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: I am not sure that I agree that the two terms that have been used rank in the same category. I have cautioned the member; I will be listening carefully to what she says. 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: My point is that what we get is a certain level of venom that is coming across from the Opposition and I just wondered whether it was sort of a gender thing that they did not want it to look like the boys were bullying or something. Well I say they should bring on the blokes man! First they are not going to be any better and second they might actually do some homework—they might actually read press statements and they might actually stick with the issues that matter to New Zealanders. 
Let us get to the real crux with a recent story that shows just how off the mark Labour can get. It is about Ivan from Nelson. Labour sees him as a victim; I see him as an awesome survivor. Ivan was working without pay at a brewery in Nelson after volunteering in the hope of getting a job there. He applied and he never heard back so he just marched on down there and offered to work for free to show what he could do. Well Phil Goff said it hurt poor Ivan’s confidence to get knocked back but I say good on Ivan. I say good on him for getting off his backside for taking some initiative and for not giving up at the first hurdle. Labour sees him as a victim—we can hear Labour members yelling it out as I speak—but I see him as one of life’s real heroes and a young man who will go far. 
When times were good we settled for below-average results for Maori and Pacific Islanders in our schools and now the Opposition wonders why they are hardest hit by a weak labour market. After 9 years of a Labour Government 49 percent of Maori children left school without level 2 of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement the minimum requirement for Modern Apprenticeships. There is a lot to turn round but where Labour gets it wrong is that our people have courage our people have aspirations. They do not sit around waiting for answers from the Government; they themselves get out and seek them and drive solutions that meet their own needs. This Government will support them in that. 
I ask why the whole Whanau Ora thing is so hard for Labour to understand. For years we have seen that Labour’s solution is “Let’s throw more money throw more programmes. Let us just chuck that at the problem and hope that it goes away—goodness help us if we actually stand up for accountability!”. Labour would micro-manage and get picky on ticking those boxes but not actually trust iwi or organisations to know what was best for them to see their own problem in all its totality and to get on with the job that really needed to be done. 
You know Whanau Ora has been developed by the Maori Party via the taskforce that went out and by all those other means—for example by going out and speaking at hui—but the concept is one that can apply to all New Zealanders. It is about seeing them in all of their individuality seeing them as they fit in with a family and seeing how that family fits in with a community in addressing all of those needs. It ain’t rocket science to know that it is about putting the strength back with the people—it is about putting that back with the people. It is a new innovative approach and one that this Government is very excited about. 
The welfare changes that the Prime Minister indicated as coming up are about fairness. The Prime Minister outlined some of the changes we are looking at and I cannot help but have a particular bias towards the work we will be doing with sole parents. We are backing them to back themselves knowing that a lifetime on welfare is one of dependency and limited income. But more than that I think that over time long periods on welfare erode one’s own spirit. If we ask what prevents beneficiaries from going back into work and what stops them from taking that step forward and finding out how they can get there they may not tell us directly. But they often will and if we take the time with them they will tell us that it is about fear—about putting themselves out there to employers and telling those employers that they are worth something. It is about trying to juggle kids and a household and the demands of running everything else around that and a job. It is no easy feat but it is one that these women are really capable of doing and one that I back them to do. I will not see them as victims and I will not see them as intergenerational welfare dependants; I will back them to back themselves every time and I believe that they can make a fundamental difference both to themselves and to their families and children. 
What will happen over a long period of time? We will see the changes coming incrementally as that work happens. We have heard concerns about how long it will take but by the time a bill is actually introduced goes through its select committee process and comes back to the House we will see some quite major changes in that and they are changes we absolutely believe in. 
In relation to the unemployment benefit after 1 year I think that it is often forgotten by the Opposition that that benefit is there for those who are temporarily unable to find work. There is the assistance there to help them back into work—seminars are going on access to training is there when they need it and there is assistance with CV writing interview skills and the right sorts of skills to get them back to employment. But the financial assistance is for those who are temporarily unable to find work; it is not for those who want to live a lifetime on welfare over long long periods of time and we will be addressing that. It is about getting tough on those who do not respect the fact that this is taxpayers’ money and that there is a whole bunch of people out there working really really hard to hand over their dollars to this Government in order for the Government to distribute them fairly. That is what these welfare changes are about—they are about getting it right. 
What the House heard the other day from the Prime Minister was a message about how we grow that pie not just about how we should divide it up. The argument for so many years has been about who should get which piece and how and how big that piece should be. We want to see New Zealand prosper we want to see it going ahead and that is what the Prime Minister’s statement tells us.