Tolley Anne: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTolley Anne: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8149. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): I move That the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. The Government has a long-established policy position on benefit stand downs as a way to encourage people to make provision for a short period without income before relying on State assistance. The policy intent has always been that stand-down periods are full calendar weeks without State income. To be very clear this means that a 1-week stand down is 7 days and a benefit would commence on day 8. Operational practice has always reflected the policy intent.Work and Income commences benefits on the day after the stand-down period ends. However there is a technical error in the Social Security Act that allows a benefit to commence on the day that a stand-down period ends instead of the day after. The error occurred as a result of an incorrect amendment on 3 June 1998 but unfortunately it was not discovered until May 2014. This bill corrects that error so that a benefit will commence on the day after a stand-down period ends. The change has retrospective effect to 3 June 1998.The error needs to be corrected quickly to firstly uphold the Government’s policy intent; secondly to ensure that previous ministry practice is validated; and thirdly to avoid any unintended financial cost to the Crown. The bill does however protect people from the effect of the retrospective validation if they have had a benefit commence on the day that a stand-down period ended before the amendment is enacted whether through a new grant or a review or an appeal process that commenced before the bill comes into force.The bill also provides an opportunity for people to seek a review of a decision about their commencement date if their benefit was commenced incorrectly since the error was detected on 20 May 2014 onwards. They can do this before or in the case of a benefit that commenced on or after 20 May 2014 after the bill comes into force up until what I am proposing 8 January 2016 if the Supplementary Order Paper I have tabled in this House is accepted by the House.This is a fair and balanced approach that allows beneficiaries to claim what they were entitled to under the law while mitigating the financial risk to the taxpayer. Initial data suggests that since June 1998 when the error occurred 2.7 million benefits have commenced after a stand down. We also know that if this is not corrected the ongoing additional cost is likely to be around $6 million a year for a technical error in law not a change in policy. The fiscal risk to the taxpayer cannot remain unchecked which is why we have separated out this change from the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill.I believe this bill takes a fair and balanced approach to correcting an error in the legislation. Beneficiaries will have until 8 January to lodge an appeal for any benefits granted from when the Ministry of Social Development became aware of the issue in May 2014.I also want to take this time to acknowledge Labour’s Carmel Sepuloni who came to me when the issue was raised at the select committee with a constructive proposal for such a review process. We always want to be able to work across party lines on issues such as this. This error went undetected for 17 years across a number of Governments so it is fitting that we are able to work together on a balanced and fair solution. I commend this bill to the House.