Sabin Mike: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sabin Mike: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 20 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8739. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
MIKE SABIN (National—Northland) 
: 
 Well that was a hail of words from Rajen Prasad that did not seem to make much sense to many people in the House— 
Le’aufa’amulia 
 Asenati Lole-Taylor 
: Don’t sound like a saint now. Not every saint’s got a past. 
MIKE SABIN 
: —not that we had much more sense from that member either I have to say. Choice and rights—choice and rights—are two words we heard a lot from that side of the House but not much about the responsibility that should accompany them. 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: Oh! 
MIKE SABIN 
: Well that is what life is about. It is about rights and responsibilities. It is about getting that balance right. Arguably over the 9 years of that member’s Government that balance was right out of whack. We saw those numbers go through the roof. We saw people migrate off the unemployment benefit on to the sickness benefit and invalids benefit. I do not see the member talking too much about that. Perhaps it is about keeping them beholden because when they are beholden they are more inclined to vote for that particular party to get it back in Government. I do not know. A cynic might say that. A cynic might say that; I do not know. The member Jacinda Ardern made a comment about ghost chips— 
Darien Fenton 
: Ghost jobs. 
MIKE SABIN 
: —or rather ghost jobs. That is right. Well I can tell you I am one person who is internalising a very complicated situation in my head. All we hear from that side of the House—and I can summarise the Labour Party approach by saying this—is those members saying that there are no jobs out there and yet they vote against every single effort of this National-led Government to grow the economy. There are no jobs but they do not want to support economic policies that will help grow the economy. It is a tough time with the global financial crisis and the Canterbury earthquakes. They will have convenient memory lapses when it suits them and they will pull that one out of the back pocket when it does. 
They also say that there are too many people on welfare and yet they will vote against every measure that this Government is putting in place to support people into work. They say that people want work but they vote against every initiative that is about getting them into it. Do not let me hear from that side of the House that what they were doing was getting it all right because it was not. This Government has been brave enough to make the sorts of changes that make sure that people are work-ready that make sure that people have the appropriate childcare so that young mothers can get out into work. We are making sure that we support the most vulnerable young people who are on a collision course to an adult benefit and ensuring that they have got the wraparound support the knowledge and the mentoring that they require to get them into work. We will hear again that there are ghost jobs that there are no jobs. Well I say to you that there are plenty of jobs. Listen to what the IMF has to say about the economic policies of this Government getting us back on track to an economy that ultimately creates the jobs that people need. 
The Labour Party approach—and I would have to throw its friends in the watermelon patch into the mix—is very much about its own ambition to be in Government in my view. It wants the economy to fail and it is quite happy to see those numbers go up because then it can say: “Oh no vote for us because we’ve got all the answers.” Well actually the New Zealand public have woken up to that and they wholeheartedly embrace the changes that this Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill involves. 
I just want to touch very briefly if I can on one aspect of the social obligations that I think will make a lot of difference and that is the drug-testing provision. There are a number of people in New Zealand on welfare who have problems with drugs. Drug use should not be a barrier to work. I say if it is good enough for those out there working in the New Zealand workforce to be drug-free it is good enough for those who are on welfare supported by the State to also meet that obligation to be drug-free. 
Let us not forget in this equation the value of work. There is value in work and no matter what that work is I say that people are better off being in that work than being reliant on the State. There is no dignity in that. This bill is about providing all the mechanisms they need to be in work. I commend it to the House.