Delahunty Catherine: Social Assistance (Living Alone Payments) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Delahunty Catherine: Social Assistance (Living Alone Payments) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 11 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7442. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
Tena koe Mr Speaker. Tena koutou e te Whare. I am going to take a very brief call on this bill the Social Assistance (Living Alone Payments) Amendment Bill which originally came before the House more than 2 years ago. We are supporting it because this anomaly amongst the many anomalies in the Social Security Act needed to be amended for the benefit of the people being affected as described by other speakers very clearly. We support all beneficiaries including seniors being treated with respect and dignity with full disclosure of their rights and with a recognition of their particular circumstances no matter what their age or circumstances. We believe that social assistance should be fair and transparent to all citizens. Consequently this bill addresses some of those citizens in a fair and transparent way during times of difficulty and complexity for them. For that reason we are very pleased to support it. 
However we would like to see a recognition that not just our seniors but particularly our children are entitled to the best possible life and the least possible stress in their access to the basic material needs. Unfortunately as other speakers have said we are struggling in this country to meet our fundamental obligations to our children and they will one day be seniors and their lives will be affected by what we are prepared to provide them with now in terms of their well-being as they go into older age. So it is very important that social security is for everybody. That was what it was designed for. However under the Victorian ideology that has affected a lot of the Social Security Act there is a concept called the deserving poor: the goodies—the good people—who deserve to get social assistance and the bad people who do not. It is interesting when Parliament sets up a moral framework based on Victorian values and we are having to fight that framework with monotonous regularity in 2013—a long time since Queen Victoria was on the throne—arbitrating between the good people and the bad people. 
Of course people’s lives are very complex: widows veterans grandparents caring for children people with disabilities people caring for people with disabilities. As someone who has worked as a beneficiary advocate I have seen that complexity and I have seen how easy it is for the system with its confused and complex legislation to judge and to judge wrongly and to make mistakes and to refuse to give clear information about entitlements. So we are very pleased that this bill clears up for some of those people the matter around entitlement which needed to be cleared up. It will not put them under additional stress. We would wish that all bills related to the amending of the Social Security Act were this coherent. Indeed I support my colleague Jan Logie in her call for a review of the Social Security Act. However it is very important that at the end of the year we note that welfare has had a terrible year. Welfare has been made more complicated more punitive and more difficult. While we see 15000 children going to school without food and while we see people suffering degrees of poverty and inequality we have not seen before it cannot be a happy moment. 
However I want to end on a positive note and say that particularly for people caring for young adults over 18 with learning disabilities this bill will be useful. I have been perhaps the sole champion of families caring for people with disabilities in this Parliament who is prepared to say that those carers should receive a proper living wage for their work. We had to go to the court system and we had to fight the Ministry of Health for 10 years to get that decision and this bill does not cover that decision. Well I am ashamed that it has taken so long and I am ashamed that when I held a forum on caring for families with disabilities no one except the Green Party would support that. I am proud of those families and those carers who stood up in the High Court and managed to get that decision after 10 years and they are still waiting for the payment. 
However alongside that cause for which I have been a champion I would also like to acknowledge that the welfare system and this bill will be useful and wherever it is useful we need to stand up and be positive. That is what MMP is. MMP is about everybody recognising that no matter who puts up an idea if it is a good idea we should support it and if it is not we should challenge it. That is what an MMP Parliament does and it is great to see that the New Zealand public have supported MMP and affirmed it so that we can do that. 
I would like to end by saying well done on getting this bill through at this time. We needed it done. It has been a long time coming. It will benefit some people. I would like to see next year that welfare legislation reflects the right of all people who need social assistance to get it. My best wishes to everyone in this House for their hard work. No matter whether we agree with the outcomes or not we all work hard here and we need to have a good break. Kia ora Mr Speaker.