Bradford Sue: Social Security Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Bradford Sue: Social Security Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:640;Page:10121] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 Once again we have a social security amendment bill going through its third reading debate in the House and marking yet another attempt to patch up the incredibly fragmented jumble that constitutes the Social Security Act 1964 as amended many dozens of times. On 29 May this year in the Supreme Court Justice Blanchard made a statement in the Owens case. He said that Ministry of Social Development staff present in court should register his concern about the serious patchwork mess that the Social Security Act had grown into and he said that something needed to be done. He went on to say that the court had given similar advice to the Government previously around the Immigration Act and now the Social Security Act warranted the same sort of advice—that is that it needed to be totally reorganised. He expressed the hope that day that those Ministry of Social Development officials in court might relay that message onwards. 
I do not know whether the Minister is aware of Justice Blanchard’s recent comments but I urge him to heed these words. I realise he is probably utterly sick of the Green Party calling for a new Social Security Act but I sincerely hope that the justice’s statement made so recently might carry a little more weight. 
The Government should not continue amending in this ad hoc manner the original Act which is after all well over 40 years old. Instead all the manifest expertise available at the Ministry of Social Development should be called upon to put together new legislation that is fit for the 21st century. What we need is clear new law designed to make our welfare system fair accountable simple and responsive to the real needs of those dependent upon it in any way. Behind that of course we need a Work and Income department that is ready willing and able to administer the detail of the system in as equitable and respectful a way as possible. 
The particular bill in front of us this afternoon is a little classic of its type in terms of its piecemeal approach. Some of it contains beneficial changes including things like the reduction of the maximum stand-down period to 2 weeks the development of consistent residential qualifications across the benefit system and some constructive changes to details of the administration of the domestic purposes benefit. 
I also welcomed during the Committee deliberation the amendment put forward by the honourable Minister David Benson-Pope that gives the Ministry of Social Development the discretion to pay an invalids benefit to a person who is overseas for a period of not more than 2 years for the purpose of receiving vocational or guide-dog training providing he or she cannot receive the same training here. I had put forward my own more limited Supplementary Order Paper to this effect and I was delighted that the Government went further with its own amendment. 
I was also pleased that the Government saw fit to make it very clear during the process of dealing with this bill that the Scoble principle will continue to apply and that when someone applies for one type of benefit or is given one type of benefit when they first apply that will be taken as a valid application for any benefit should the department subsequently work out that another one is more appropriate. It is good too that during the select committee process the bill was amended to make it clear that beneficiaries on a sickness or invalids benefit will not be sanctioned if they do not take up “activity in the community” as part of their job-seeker agreements. Along with many submitters on the bill I had a real worry that this could have been a gentle but nevertheless very real way of reintroducing a form of required work for the dole through the back door. I am relieved that the Government has chosen to make it very clear that this is not the direction in which it wishes to go. 
However despite these changes made during the course of the bill’s passage through the House the Green Party continues to oppose this bill overall on several grounds. First of all there were several matters that we tried to amend in the House including issues around pre-benefit activity for people on the unemployment benefit and the definition of “income”. Although these are quite technical matters they are fundamental in terms of providing a fair and reasonable administration of the benefit system. It was really disappointing that only Maori Party members saw fit to support our amendments and I thank them very much for that support and for the understanding they bring to this Parliament of the realities that beneficiaries face in their daily lives. 
Secondly and more critically our fundamental opposition to this bill which I realise the Government does not quite understand is based around the changes it makes to the purposes and principles of the Social Security Act. The Minister himself in a presentation to the Social Services Committee last week said the changes represented by this bill were the biggest reform to welfare since the original 1938 Act. He is absolutely right; it was just that that was the first time I had seen the Government acknowledge it. Without the kind of consultative process one might expect for such a major change of direction and without the support of most of the submitters to the bill at the select committee the Government has put up a new principles and purposes section that basically alters our country’s whole approach to social security. 
What is being enshrined there is a “work first” approach. Work is seen as the ultimate goal for all working-age citizens and residents. This completely devalues the work of caring for children and/or the elderly the sick and the disabled or the other essential contributions that so many beneficiaries make on a daily basis to their local communities. Although I welcome the fact that all beneficiaries will have access to work and training assistance from the department should they want it this bill goes way too far in reinforcing the attitude that those on a benefit are intrinsically worth less than those in paid work in that the work they do—even that most essential task of caring for others—is not seen as something to be valued and respected in itself. I am also concerned that people who suffer or are recovering from mental illness injury sickness and physical or intellectual disability will come under increased pressure to go out into the workforce in a way that could at times make their personal situation even worse and more stressful than it is already. 
The purposes and principles section of the new bill also promotes a rigid interpretation and administration of our welfare system. It entrenches the moves begun most significantly with the shift from the special benefit to the temporary additional support with the whole system becoming more rigid less discretionary and less able to meet people’s actual needs. I continue to hear stories of beneficiaries being forced to rely on impossibly low amounts of money to survive because the discretion of the special benefit is no longer available. The objective of our social welfare system should be to enable people to participate fully in our society and clothe house and feed their children and themselves with dignity and adequacy not simply to alleviate hardship only to the extent provided by the Act. 
We should go back to the 1938 Act to the recommendations of the two royal commissions on social policy to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and to the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act in order to find purposes and principles that would do justice to a truly fair and progressive welfare system. I also have a fundamental fear that the nature of this bill will in fact possibly lay the groundwork for much more regressive reforms to welfare legislation should we end up with a National-led Government at some point. 
I am not surprised but I am sorry that the Government showed no interest in amending the purposes and principles sections of this bill as per my proposed amendments during the Committee stage. This debate on the nature and purpose of the welfare system will however continue and the Green Party will not shy away from continuing to put forward a very different vision than that proposed by either the Labour or the National Parties. 
A final matter I would briefly like to touch on before I finish today concerns the report done by the Rotorua People’s Advocacy Centre some conclusions of which were put forward as part of its submission on this bill. This research dealing with improved work-life balance for people on the domestic purposes benefit had been commissioned paid for and signed off by the Families Commission before the Rotorua People’s Advocacy Centre’s submission was made. The report was totally relevant to the bill before us. The implementation of the personal development and employment plan system which constitutes the major focus of the report is going to be widened out through this bill. However 2 days after the Rotorua People’s Advocacy Centre’s submission to the select committee on 28 March its final report was suddenly renamed by the Families Commission retrospectively becoming a “draft final report” and eight pages of new demands were submitted to the authors. Before 28 March everything had been on track to publication but after the submission was made suddenly the Families Commission withdrew its support. I find the political implications of this very disturbing. 
On top of that I have since discovered that the Ministry of Social Development had on 20 March made a report that said the publication of this research would make a risk to the social development portfolio. This risk was firstly because some of the matters contained in the report were relevant to the Child Poverty Action Group case against the in-work payment and secondly because the Ministry of Social Development believed that: “The report created a misleading impression about the provisions contained in the Social Security Amendment Bill affecting sole parents.” 
I find it incredible that publication of a report could be halted because of these so-called risk factors especially in the context of its relevance to a bill currently before the House. I hope we do not see the muzzling of this type of research commissioned by a Government body happening again.