Turner Judy: Social Security Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Turner Judy: Social Security Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:639;Page:9113] 
JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I want to take a brief call on Part 1 of the Social Security Amendment Bill because I really am extremely puzzled. Normally at the Committee stage of a bill I would be calling on the Government to address concerns I have about some aspect of the bill but in this case I am calling on National to explain why it is not supporting it. I have to say that when I first read this bill when it first turned up in my office I was quite surprised that it was coming from a centre-left Government. I was not at all surprised during the submission process to see groups who normally would be considered Labour supporters coming in and throwing some real questions and doubts over whether this was a centre-left bill from a centre-left Government. 
I personally welcome some of the provisions. I think it is extremely positive that we are starting to see a work focus underpin the way we approach beneficiaries; it is a good thing. I am pleased that there is not a one-size-fits-all approach that we recognise that some people are on benefits because they genuinely are unable to work and are unlikely to be able to work in the future and therefore their income needs to be secured and also their ability to participate in the wider community needs to be assisted. 
Those discretions are easily catered for. But I really do feel that National members in terms of supporting their voting base need to come up with some better reasons than I have heard so far as to why they cannot support this bill. They admit there are provisions in the bill that they like. They use glib terms like “there is quite a bit that we don’t like” and it is very hard to get specifics from them. I really do think that they owe their voters some clear reasons why they cannot vote for this bill. I believe that the bill is in many ways a closer reflection of the ideological position that National is known to represent than that of the Government that is putting it up. In that case I think National members do need to come up with some seriously good reasons why they would oppose a bill that shifts the focus so that when beneficiaries have lost a good job or have given up a good job or are out of work—and are not entitled to a sickness or invalids benefit or are not on the domestic purposes benefit—they are immediately required to do some pre-benefit activities before they can even get an unemployment benefit. 
There is a new edge that this bill introduces into the way Work and Income will handle people on the unemployment benefit taking advantage of our current record-low figures which I think is a good thing. This means we can now focus really clearly on those who are currently unemployed and who represent long-term unemployed people who genuinely have skill sets that are missing. Now there will be increasing pressure put on them to start to take advantage of all that is on offer so that they can gain the skills they need and become work-ready. 
United Future is very pleased with most of the provisions in the bill. There are one or two things that if we were writing the bill we would have written differently. I agree with National in that we were disappointed that involvement in community activities is removed from the sanctions provision. As I mentioned last night in my second reading speech I fully intended to put up a Supplementary Order Paper to try to correct that. However I have had numerous discussions with officials because I kept hitting some very big walls in my efforts and I discovered that what I was likely to do was to put sanctions on beneficiaries for whom I did not think they were appropriate—for instance people on the invalids benefit. I also hit a snag when I realised that if one is going to use community agencies to provide activities for which there can be sanctions then imposed one does actually require some real buy-in from the community agencies themselves. They need to feel comfortable about whom they are having working for them and what the implications are should these people not follow through on their commitments. 
As I said last night I believe there is a real opportunity for community agencies to be better utilised and I think some ongoing work needs to be done but I am very happy at this stage for us to continue to support the bill even with these reservations. I call on National to think really really seriously about how it will look to its voters if it continues not to support this bill.