Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you very much Mr Chair. I want to take a short call on the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill and just firstly respond to a couple of the comments made by Minister Sepuloni in relation to the very good amendment in the name of Louise Upston.Now this amendment relates to Part 5 clause 217 and is to insert prior to line 1 MSD must advise P of the hierarchy of sanctions and ensure P understands impacts of any breaches". Now the Minister did respond saying that that is already required elsewhere in the legislation. I think a question I've got for the Minister—and I would appreciate her commentary—is: does that require the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) to also inform the beneficiary each time they get a strike? I mean I wouldn't call them a strike. That's the second point I can make a bit later but if they were to—at stage one stage two stage three are they informed of the hierarchy? Are they informed of any further breaches at each step along the way? If not I think there needs to be an obligation on MSD. If a beneficiary is going to be sanctioned at one point shouldn't they then therefore be able to be given further information? If it happens again—what will be the consequences if it happens again? What will be the further consequences? Should MSD be making that clear and shouldn't there be an obligation on them to make that very clear at each step along the way?I'm happy to write up a new amendment to reflect that so as to slightly amend the one in the name of Louise Upston if that would assist the Minister. I know that the Minister is trying to say that if it's not policy-neutral—not wanting to listen. Well this is essentially policy-neutral. Essentially it's just trying to ensure that MSD's obligations are making sense. The committee stage is the place where we propose amendments which try to assist and try to ensure that the legislation is as good as possible.Kieran McAnulty: He's starting to panic and he's still got 2½ minutes left.SIMEON BROWN: Now I know Mr McAnulty is sitting there across the other side of the Chamber chirping away like he knows everything but he still hasn't taken a call on this bill which I find to be quite surprising. It's an important piece of legislation and he is trying to make a good impression in his time here but he should really take a call and actually talk about some of the legislation which is obviously quite impossible.So the second question I've got and this is I guess getting more towards a policy point—but we do have three stages to these sanctions. In some ways it does resemble "three strikes and you're out" because you end up having firstly one stage a cut and then a second and then you have your benefit cancelled at the end. I was wondering whether Cabinet's considered this and what support or not there was from the different coalition partners for that because it does resemble in many ways the three-strikes legislation which I see one part of this coalition does agree with and other parts don't.Anyway leaving that aside I would like to move to clause 240 which is regarding the evidential drug-test. It says here in clause 240 which is "Request for evidential drug test if sanction imposed for failing screening drug test (1) A person (P) who has failed a screening drug test and has been given a section 235 notice … of a sanction on the basis of failing that test may request that P's sample taken for the screening drug test be subjected to an evidential drug test." Then in clause 240(2): "P's request for an evidential drug test—(a) must be in writing in a form approved by MSD for the purpose". Now my question regarding the words "in writing" is in relation to whether that is physically written down or whether that is something which can be emailed to the MSD case officer.Kieran McAnulty: Oh come on. Don't forget the faxes mate.SIMEON BROWN: This is actually important. I know Mr McAnulty wants to chirp in again but actually we live in the 21st century where we use emails and what we're talking about here is language that says "writing". I want to know from the Minister—I've got a question for the Minister and I'd like to have an answer to this question around whether "in writing" should be physically in writing or online. So we need to have that clarified. I'm happy to have an amendment put up there to change that to clarify the legislation to make it clear because if MSD hasn't moved into the 21st century then they'd better and the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill is a great opportunity for us to get them into the 21st century. Thank you very much."