1. Beneficiaries—ObligationsHon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime MinisterORAL QUESTIONSQUESTIONS TO MINISTERSBeneficiaries—Obligations1. Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his Government's policies and actions?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Acting Prime Minister): In their specific context particularly when I said that the women's and men's Rugby Sevens should be congratulated for their fantastic victory over the last weekend. In that context definitely yes.Hon Simon Bridges: Does he think there should continue to be mutual obligations on beneficiaries to be looking for work or working towards training for work?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The difference between this Government and the former Government is that we believe that people need to be assisted back into work and they shouldn't be forced to starve and freeze whilst they're getting the employment that should have been set up for them nine years ago.Hon Simon Bridges: So should there be obligations on beneficiaries to be looking for work?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Those obligations already exist. That's why we have the lowest unemployment since that member can remember.Hon Simon Bridges: Should people on the job seeker benefit be drug-free and continue to be drug-free while they're looking for or in employment? [Interruption] SPEAKER: Order! There were two Ministers then who interjected and it's no good looking behind you. I'll make a decision and communicate it.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: In an ideal world of course that member's right but our job is to take people who have fallen by the wayside pick them up again and put them back into the workforce.Hon Simon Bridges: Does that involve consequences for beneficiaries repeatedly failing to comply with obligations to work or not being drug-free while again looking for work?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: That member will know if he was familiar with our social welfare system that there are already consequences and that the Ministry of Social Development ensures that that happens all the time.Hon Members: The Government's taking them away.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No they have not taken it all away. If that member wasn't so dislocated from reality he'd know that.Hon Simon Bridges: How can he say they're not taking away—the Government that is—the sanctions when the jobseeker benefit's up some 4000 when the sanctions being applied are down 20-something percent when the Government Minister's making it incredibly clear that there'll need to be two opinions before sanctions are applied and formally telling Work and Income they shouldn't be applying sanctions and he's got a working group out that's mandated to get rid of the sanctions?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: It's very difficult to actually answer that diatribe because it had so many elements to it.Hon Simon Bridges: Let me be very simple for the Prime Minister: how does he—SPEAKER: Order! The member will start with a question.Hon Simon Bridges: How does the Prime Minister explain that the number of benefits are up relatively significantly and the sanctions are down pretty significantly?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Benefit numbers were up 3000 from the all-time high figure under the global financial crisis that that member had under his control and after nine years had gone up by 3000. Those are the facts.Hon Simon Bridges: Does he agree with Jan Logie that eight out of 277000 beneficiaries being suspended each day for breaches of obligation is too many?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: In an ideal world of course I'd agree with that member. The reality is we haven't given up. We haven't given up on the kind of economic and social utopia that we're organising at this point in time. We don't take that dismal puritanical view of the roadshow that went around the country filling up telephone booths and calling it a worldwide campaign.Hon Simon Bridges: Does he agree with Jan Logie who said that applying obligations to beneficiaries are not the actions of a decent and compassionate government" or does he actually believe that obligations are a compassionate tool to help people into work which will improve their life outcomes?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I could say that it's been a long time since I've heard the neoliberal experiment being described as a compassionate tool to help the poor. This is a new one for us.Hon Simon Bridges: So it's quite clear is it that he does not support sanctions that he thinks beneficiaries should be able to languish on the dole queue?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Which of the two questions would the member like me to answer?SPEAKER: Well I couldn't find one amongst that.Hon Simon Bridges: How can he stand here and defend the policies of Labour and the Greens to soften obligations remove sanctions and put more people on welfare when he clearly doesn't believe in it himself and his colleagues have actively advocated getting the "nephs" off the couch with sanctions?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Because the programme that we have advocated as a Government about getting the "nephs" off the couch is about providing the work for them in the first place. You can't get them off the couch if there's no place to go and work at—that's the difference. And I'm going to be concerned about Jacinda Ardern calling me shortly and saying I'd better stay here—this job looks too easy.Hon Simon Bridges: Will the Prime Minister give a straight question—Hon Member: Straight answer.Hon Simon Bridges: —a straight answer—to whether or not his Government is going soft on sanctions and allowing beneficiaries to languish on the dole queue?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Repeating a misnomer does not give it any validity. The reality is all of my colleagues and all of these members over here are dedicated to finding more real work and First World wages for New Zealand citizens. And the "First Citizen of the Provinces" has been all around the country opening up opportunities for that to happen. If you're going to get people off the couch and get them out of the pool room and every other place in town you have to have work for them and work we will have."