Sio William: Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSio William: Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 April 2014. Volume:698;Page:17454. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): Talofa lava Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity. I listened to the Associate Minister for Social Development the Hon Chester Borrows in his opening statements to this particular debate on the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill. I like the Associate Minister. I appreciate the fact that we did have an opportunity to sit down and listen to his views on why he is driving this particular bill. Sadly I think he is being deceived by his Government. He has made statements in this House that I do not believe and do not accept. You see when National first came into power New Zealanders will recollect some of the many promises that this Government made—promises that we now know many of which have not been kept. People may remember for example the promise not to raise GST and the promise to create 170000 jobs—not kept.But there are a couple of statements that refer to this bill that I want the House to ponder on. The two particular statements were made by the Prime Minister in his prime ministerial statement when he first came into Government in 2008. The first statement was the promise that he would behave in a mana-enhancing manner. The second statement was the promise to protect New Zealand’s most vulnerable communities. Both of those promises have not been kept. Evidence of that is in this bill here before the House. This is one bill amongst many many others that are contrary to and that contradict those very statements that the Prime Minister made when he first set foot in this House as the Prime Minister of New Zealand. In fact this bill along with manyother bills before it actually compounds the suffering and worsens the situation for the very vulnerable communities that the Prime Minister promised he would protect.In fact if we go back a ways and reflect on our welfare system our welfare system was to provide a safety net for the very vulnerable communities that the Prime Minister spoke about in 2008 and said that he was going to protect. Our welfare system was intended to provide a safety net for the majority of New Zealanders who were not born into wealth or who were not fortunate enough to have $50 million in their bank account because they were able to win that through betting on the international foreign exchange markets. Our welfare system was intended to protect people and to give effect to some of the very basic human rights enshrined in international covenants—rights such as a job; rights such as access to fair decent wages to support workers and their families; and the right to be protected from unemployment. That is what our welfare system is all about.This bill is deliberately aimed at driving fear into the hearts and minds of the most vulnerable in our communities. It is designed to drive fear into the hearts and minds of the most vulnerable people in our communities the people who rely on our welfare system because of unemployment because of sickness or because a spouse left another spouse with children. For various reasons that is what the welfare system was about and this Government since it has been in power—since 2008—has deliberately and determinedly tried to remove that welfare system and slowly step by step and a bit at a time that is what it has done.We heard earlier today in question time that the Minister for Social Development prided herself on the fact that fewer and fewer people are now in our welfare system. Sure it is a good thing but here is another fact: less than 50 percent of those people are in jobs—less than 50 percent of those people coming out of the welfare system are in jobs. What is their situation Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson? I can tell you. I know many of these families in our neck of the woods—and no doubt my colleagues and other MPs in this House will also know these families—who are doing it tough because they are not in jobs and they fear going into that welfare office to try to get some support from our State. What is happening? They are reliant on church and community organisations providing them with food parcels. They are reliant on young sons and daughters who have been forced to go to Australia earn a bit of money there through the jobs that are available there and send it back here. They are putting pressure on their own relatives by sharing homes. Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson you know what I am talking about when I ask whether any of our members have seen four or five families sharing a three-bedroom house. I doubt very much whether any of the MPs on that side of the House understand the plight that many ordinary New Zealanders are experiencing today.So this bill is not about fairness as the Minister attempted to try to persuade us earlier. This is not about fairness. As my colleague Sue Moroney rightly said if this was about fairness the Government would spend the same amount of energy and time trying to track down tax fraud—the $6 billion amount of money that the Inland Revenue Department has reported goes missing as a result of tax fraud. Here the Government is leaving that $6 billion ticket alone. It is owed by people no doubt who are close to this Government as we have seen in the last few weeks. But it is putting the full force of this Government on to a group of people—the Associate Minister himself even admitted that it was a small number of people whom we are talking about. Yet it is putting the full force the full weight of this Government to go after this small group of people whom we are talking about. That is not about fairness; that is about driving fear into the hearts and minds of the most vulnerable in our communities so that they stay away from the welfare system.The fundamental reason why the Government would do that is that this Government through and through does not believe in a welfare State. It does not believe in the role of the State—period. So I get quite upset when it talks about fairness because that does not translate in so far as the communities that I represent; that you represent Mr Assistant Speaker; and that many of our people here represent are wanting to hear from this Government. It does not translate to the many promises that this Government has made. Only in 2011 it promised a brighter future. This kind of legislation does not provide the brighter future that our communities want from the Government.This is a bad Government. This is the worst Government that I have ever seen or experienced. It makes promises like it is giving candy away to kids. In 2008 it promised my community using some of our sports icons that it would invest $6 million into one of our local schools. In 2008 it made that promise. Today we are still waiting for it to keep that promise. This is the worst Government and I know that working-class communities the length and breadth of New Zealand cannot wait to see the back end of this Government because it is taking New Zealand in a direction where only its friends benefit but the rest of New Zealand does not.Last night I was atMalaeola hall and we had a performance by theTa’imuaMalaeola Youth group—young people young Catholics from all over the Auckland region. About 600 were in attendance. They put on a performance and it was an Easter performance based on the story of Easter. They will contribute the earnings from that performance to the Auckland City Mission. Why? Because those young Catholics who vote know that this Government is making things worse for not just Pacific communities and not just Māori communities but the bulk of working-class communities throughout New Zealand. That is why our communities have looked upon this Government and the promises it made in 2008 and I can tell you that this bill is a terrible piece of legislation that is being added on to the many other pieces of legislation that are designed to drive fear and to worsen the struggles of ordinary working New Zealanders. I hope come 20 September that our communities turn out in full force and kick those members out of Government.