Benson-Pope David: Social Security Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Benson-Pope David: Social Security Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:639;Page:9106] 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I am delighted to have the opportunity to take a call so early in this discussion. I look forward to it being a useful and prolonged discussion because I think it is very important for the community that some of the fantasy and myth that we have heard from individuals including from the previous speaker is well and truly put to rest. 
I thank Ms Collins for the clear articulation she made of National Party policy. It is not often that we hear National Party policy. The previous speaker is National’s spokesperson on welfare—and is there not a message in that in itself? The Government does not have a Minister in charge of welfare. The Government has a Minister for Social Development and Employment. The National Party is concerned about welfare and that language speaks volumes about its attitude to New Zealanders and the sort of support that New Zealanders are entitled to and deserve. But I am very grateful to the member who spoke previously and who continues to warble so inelegantly when it comes to articulating what very little policy the National Party has. 
What Ms Collins just told the Committee and the people of New Zealand is that people who are work-ready—ready for work and able to work—should be paid less than the minimum wage. That is exactly the implication of what the National Party spokesperson on welfare has just put into the  
Hansard 
. I say to the Committee and to New Zealanders listening that that is not the attitude of this Government. This Government believes that New Zealanders need to be supported to whatever degree we are able to support them as a community. 
Much as I disagree with many of the policies that Ms Collins and her friends advocate for this community I will be pleased to support their eligibility should they ever be unfortunate enough to need a sickness benefit an unemployment benefit or an invalids benefit. When Labour remains in Government those supports will be available for them irrespective of their politics. But to stand up in this Chamber and say it is acceptable as Ms Collins just did for people who are work-ready work-keen and able to work to be paid less than the minimum wage for doing a real job illustrates the true poverty of that party in Opposition and why it will stay there. 
Thanks to the buoyant economy we have presided over for nearly 8 years now we are able to see the fruits of these advantages for New Zealanders. This Government is focused on helping New Zealanders where they need support—and many do not—and on helping them into real work for real wages. That is the difference and that is why the sorts of initiatives that have been up until now followed and supported by Work and Income on a voluntary basis have been so extraordinarily successful. Obviously Ms Collins and her colleagues do not agree with that—but perhaps I should leave her colleagues out of this because we have seen rather a number of decisions made unilaterally by National Party members lately without having any discussion with their caucus. 
I am sure that most members of the National caucus do not agree with the extraordinary suggestion we have just heard from Ms Collins. But if they do and it is really their policy they have to support her and we will see that as tonight tomorrow and the rest of the week goes on. But otherwise they need to say to Ms Collins that they do not want to be part of a party the National Party that encourages work-able and work-ready able-bodied New Zealanders to work for less than the minimum wage because that is the policy it has announced tonight. 
Perhaps the National Party has not caught up with the extraordinary change that has happened in the community since it was relegated by New Zealanders to the Opposition benches. For those who do not know about that change—and obviously many members of the National Party themselves do not—let me just give members some detail. In December 1999 the total beneficiary roll—and for the benefit of Ms Collins and her colleagues who have difficulty with large numbers I point out that that means all benefits including sickness and invalids beneficiaries—comprised 401415 New Zealanders. That number is now almost half that at 261000 and it has actually become less than that in the last month. There has been a 35 percent reduction overall in the number of all benefit recipients since 1999 when National was last on the Treasury benches. That is not a bad change. 
The benefit that really affects most people is the unemployment benefit and to contextualise the importance of this change let us not forget that in April this year the full effect of the Working for Families package started to strike home and $1.6 billion per year—actually not per year because it is indexed unlike anything the National Party ever did so it will be more next year more in 2009 and so on—will go into the pockets of low and middle income New Zealanders with children. In addition to that the simultaneous change that relates to the initiatives directly advocated and mandated in this bill is quite extraordinary. 
The number of New Zealanders on the unemployment benefit was 161128 when National was last on the Treasury benches. The number on the unemployment benefit in March which was the last time that the figures were publicly announced was around 28000. I am pleased to announce to the Committee for the first time tonight that the April figure shows a further reduction of nearly 2000. The current unemployment figure in this country is 26678. That is a move from 161000 to 26678. That reduction comes as a direct result of the initiatives being mandated by the legislation that is in the Chamber tonight and that is the legislation that those members are not supporting despite the fact that they voted for it unanimously at the Social Services Committee. 
Am I surprised that their spokesperson on “welfare”—their word not mine—has left the Chamber? I know she does not want to hear these numbers. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: No no. The member cannot say that. Would the member please withdraw that remark. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I withdraw. Am I surprised that members of the National Party find it so hard to swallow the fact that this extraordinary shift has happened under their eyes? As we heard over the last couple of days they are not even prepared to acknowledge that the numbers are a reality. We can forget the issues about the myth they have developed about Government agencies manipulating numbers illegally. We can forget that myth. That myth is now well and truly dead. What I am saying is that as a result of the initiatives introduced by the hard-working visionary diligent professional people on the front line at Work and Income huge numbers—over 132000 New Zealanders who were on the scrap heap when National members were sitting on the wrong side of the House—are now in productive work earning heaps more money for their families having a much better lifestyle and most important making a really valued contribution to our New Zealand community. 
One of the other subsets of the information is also extremely pleasing and that is the movement in the number on the domestic purposes benefit. That figure has also consistently trended down since National was consigned to its correct place in Opposition and that trend will obviously prevail for a long time. Those numbers have decelerated further since the introduction of the in-work payment which as we know was a key part of the Working for Families package. 
Later on during this debate I will share with the National Party some extraordinary figures about the reductions in youth unemployment. For me and I am sure for most parents and young people in this country the most important break we can make to the cycle that National supported—and indeed accelerated because of its attitude to using working people as pawns for economic growth or business growth to the advantage of its mates—and the most important change we have seen in this community is the huge reduction in youth unemployment. I am confident that as a result of the changes that this bill mandates which are currently operating so successfully because they operate on a voluntary basis at Work and Income—with our front-line case workers who are doing such fantastic work—those numbers will continue to decline even more strongly.