Ardern Jacinda: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Ardern Jacinda: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 26 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8937. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to take another call on this bill. I believe this is the final stage of debate for the Committee stage— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Already? 
JACINDA ARDERN 
: —so I will take this opportunity to—yes I agree with the member Ruth Dyson that it seems like it has been a rather swift debate. There was certainly eagerness on this side of the Chamber to continue discussing not least some of the excellent amendments put forward by the Labour Party. We might have a chance to at least just reference them again because not all of them were spoken to and there is some relevancy to them around commencement dates in particular. 
But at this stage of the debate tradition has it that we often use this opportunity to talk about how we might alternatively refer to this piece of legislation. For those watching they will see the little ticker tape at the bottom of the screen. They will know that this is formally known as the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. But some of our contention on this side of the Chamber has been that the historical architects of the Social Security Act probably meant for the system to be something quite different than it is today. It is almost ironic that we are debating this bill in the 75th year or anniversary of the Social Security Act in New Zealand. It was brought in at a time when not unlike today there were hard economic times. The Labour Government at that time wanted to move away from this notion of the deserving and the undeserving poor. It wanted to create an egalitarian society where no matter what circumstances you encountered you were able to find some kind of support; you were able to live with a certain degree of dignity until such time as you were able to support yourself once more. 
Although the Minister for Social Development has entrenched in here these things called social obligations—which by their very nature imply that people who are on social security are not fulfilling some of these obligations which speak to the basic needs of their own children—in many ways social security has always had a sense of obligation attached to it because it is a social contract. It says that as a citizen of New Zealand you have a certain expectation that you can be supported—that there is no such notion as the deserving and undeserving poor—but in return as soon as you are able you too contribute back into the common good as it were into the net the pool that contributes to the social security system. 
Are we still fulfilling that notion and that ideal in this bill today? Does it deserve to be called the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill? We would contend no. We would contend also that the notion of putting “Work Focus” into the title implies that work has not always been the focus of our social security system. Indeed it has. In fact if the Government was truly dedicated to the notion of a dignified system that enabled people to transition back into the workplace its first port of call would be that workplace. It would be ensuring that those jobs are available as we have always contended it should. It would be ensuring for instance that for those who find themselves with a disability our employers are better placed to employ some of those individuals who do have some barriers to work. As CCS Disability Action and IHC pointed out so many of the groups they work with desperately want to get into the workforce but the work focus from the employers’ end from their perspective is what needs to be addressed. So we would contend that this is a mistitled bill. 
However “Benefit Categories” probably is the one notion that in its simplest form is quite correct. This bill does merge together the categories of the Social Security Act. We have already traversed the different outcomes of that. 
I would though like to refer to whether or not in its more simplistic form this bill would be better titled as the “Drug Testing Warrants for Arrest and Bad Parenting Bill”— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Again? 
JACINDA ARDERN 
: —that was the “Drug Testing Warrants for Arrest and Bad Parenting Bill”—because those are the notions within this bill that probably the public are most familiar with. If you asked them whether they had heard of the Government’s welfare reforms those are the bits that would be most well known. In fact the drug testing in particular would be well known because that was actually announced on three occasions—I went back just to check—first by Bill English to be fair to the Minister. 
But if this was genuinely a bill that was about addressing issues of drug dependency perhaps we might have paid more attention to what the Drug Foundation expert in its field had to say on this bill. For the purposes of further exploring whether that would be a more accurate title for this bill let us go back to its submission. I think it really summed it up quite well. It said: “The Drug Foundation supports measures to prevent drug use or dependence from being a barrier to employment.” We absolutely agree with the foundation of course. No one in this Chamber is ever going to stand up and say that if drug dependence is a barrier to work or indeed if drug dependence exists we should ignore that. The foundation said: “Paid employment can reduce recreational alcohol and drug use and make a significant contribution to successful recovery from substance dependence.” It goes on to say though that its “concern is that if the details of the drug testing and sanctions regime are not well thought through they may ultimately do more harm than good.” It goes on to note the Ministry of Health’s strong advice that that may indeed be the outcome of the drug testing regime included in this bill. 
It goes further. It says: “Drug tests are a blunt instrument. They fail to differentiate between recreational substance use and problematic substance use. As such an occasional cannabis user could test positive despite their drug use having taken place more than one week ago outside of work hours and having no bearing on current workplace safety or productivity.” That point is an interesting one because what it was trying to point out was that a blanket regime says that if you are a recreational user then we will apply a sanction; if you are dependent though we might let you go on to a different benefit category. We will not sanction you; you can go on to some other form of benefit which does not then penalise you. Well that naturally creates the incentive to shift on to a different category. The flow-on is that you are then treated in the system for a dependency you may not in fact have and you are treated in a system that is already choked. We have up to 6 weeks’ worth of waiting lists in some of our areas around genuine drug and alcohol dependence issues. So are we creating a perverse incentive to declare dependence where dependence does not exist? I think it is a fair question and it was not one that was adequately answered through this process. 
Coming back to the other options for what this bill could be titled I heard from that side of the Chamber the line: “Jobs are the best route out of poverty.” We are not going to argue with that on this side of the Chamber but that requires there to be a couple of jobs around for someone to move into. Just on the other side of that argument jobs are in fact important for that sentence to actually be able to become a reality plus we need to acknowledge that for sole parents in particular there will be a period of time in which work is simply not the best option for them or their child—when their child is first born when they are in their infancy. Then what? Then what is the best route out of poverty? So we have got to take into account the many and varied situations that this bill will be covering. Perhaps then given the job argument we should just call it the “Ghost Jobs Bill” because we do not seem to have at any point really discussed the context in which this bill is operating other than on this side of the Chamber. 
If this bill had had a greater focus on children we may have been able to imply in the title that it had their interests at heart. But as the Children’s Commissioner pointed out in his really useful submission one simple little amendment to this bill could have got around some of the concerns we have about the way that sanctions would be used and the impact that would have on child poverty further exacerbating it. That was the suggestion where he said: “I am firmly of the view that all decisions made through the social security system that directly or indirectly impact upon a child or children should be required to formally consider their welfare and best interests as a primary consideration”. Who could be against that? And yet that suggestion was not picked up. 
I want to come to the commencement of this bill. It will come into force on 15 July 2013. One of the recommendations however from the Labour Party has been that given we do not know the details—and the Minister claims that these are being worked through with the sector and I am pleased that the sector is involved—surely we should have a little more transparency than that. One of our suggestions is that before that commencement date kicks in we as a Parliament have the opportunity to debate the final provisions of that policy. I accept that it is not a policy that requires legislative change but I think that it is only a fair suggestion given the amount of public interest there is in that element of the wider policy that we have the ability to discuss it as parliamentarians. That is a relatively simple suggestion. It does not change the substance of the bill—