Lee Melissa: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLee Melissa: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 31 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:12135. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MELISSA LEE (National):Ahnnyung ha seyo. I would like to start my contribution by saying that the National Party campaigned on these welfare reforms. We actually made a promise to the New Zealand people that we were going to make welfare reforms. We are making sure we keep to the promise we made to the people of New Zealand. The new benefit categories and welfare changes in our reforms that came into effect on July 15 now apply to all beneficiaries. This includes rules around drug testing and outstanding arrest warrants and new social obligations for parents. These are important issues. The obligations are clear and they place a greater focus on moving people off welfare and into work.I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Minister for Social Development the Hon Paula Bennett on the changes that have been made already. We are now seeing the results of these changes with 309782 people currently on benefitsin New Zealand. This is a reduction from some number over 310000 in the previous quarter and down from 320000 in the year prior to that. That is a reduction of more than 10000 people on welfare over the last 12 months and that has to be a great result. Work and Income will be actively working with around 41 percent of beneficiaries and it expects the number of people on benefits to fall between 28000 and 44000 by 2017 resulting in estimated savings of between $992 million and $1.6 billion. When we as a nation are recovering from a global economic crisis that has to be a great thing.The domestic purposes benefit the unemployment benefit and the sickness benefit are now gone and three main benefits have replaced the seven categories that formed the previous benefit types. The three new main benefit categories are jobseeker support sole parent support and supported living payment. This is in addition to the young parent payment and youth payment we implemented last year in 2012. These changes are part of our efforts to simplify benefit categories and put a greater focus on work and new work preparation activities along with reinforcing social obligations. Job seekers will have work expectations set depending on their capacity whether it is full time part time or to be temporarily exempt in certain cases. For example when they have short-term illnesses they may be exempt from these work obligations.I would like to now move on to the Children’s Action Plan which comes from the Government’s white paper and includes more than 40 initiatives to better protect vulnerable children. I think everyone around this House actually agrees that children need to be protected from those who abuse and hurt them. This action plan is a key priority for this Government over the next year. We are driving extensive programme reforms to reduce abuse and neglect and we are already making progress with Children’s Teams active in Whangarei and Rotorua. These Children’s Teams support communities to better protect their children and this Government has set aside $13.7 million in operating funding over 4 years towards the cost of implementing this plan.In this country about 12000 Kiwi children are being cared for by wider family members because of either the death of a parent or family breakdown. Without these carers more children would be under State care so an extra $35 million has been set aside in the Budget this year to support these extended family members. This initiative is also part of the Children’s Action Plan in response to theWhite Paper for Vulnerable Children  and that has to be celebrated.The welfare system will always be there to help people in need. We have always said that. We will ensure that those people who genuinely need help will get the help. But we also believe that long-term welfare dependency can become a trap and we know that the dependency trap leads to limited choices and limited outcomes. We also believe that anyone who can work should be in employment or in training or at least looking for a job. Our changes have fundamentally altered the welfare system.