Prasad Rajen: Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumePrasad Rajen: Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:13124. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour):Namaste Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to take a call on the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Bill. As my colleague Jacinda Ardern has already said we will support this bill to the Social Services Committee but I personally will want to be convinced at the select committee that what is being proposed here will achieve the goals that the bill has set out and will not do more damage to our vulnerable families. The way this bill was presented the genesis of the bill and the way these ideas were announced were very cynical. It was at a time when National’s dodgySkycity deal was getting a rough time in the media. Right in the middle of that the Hon Chester Borrows announced this notion of major fraud amongst beneficiaries mainly former domestic purposes beneficiaries—so it was cynical. It was a cynical way of introducing that. This is not part of a programme to really address this issue; this was something that was whipped out of the air.The way in which the chairperson of the Social Services Committee Mr Sam Lotu-Iiga has articulated the provisions here really shows that he has become a poster boy for this Government’s punitive provisions around the most vulnerable. This is just another step in a long line of steps that this Government since 2009 has taken by heaping obligation after obligation on the most vulnerable. It is not really designed to achieve the best out of the most vulnerable although that is the language the Minister uses but it is designed to pander to the members of that particular party who are really hostile to benefits generally. All of the language is fine saying that welfare will always be there and we will always support those who are most vulnerable but the way that this Government has gone after the most vulnerable in reform after reform really demonstrates its true intent and this one is no different.Jacinda Ardern identified very very clearly that clearly this Government is not worried about the amount of money because if it was it would go after the $1 billion to $6 billion tax problems we have in this country. It would go after that or it would go harder after those who are tax dodgers at the present time but it does not do that. It does not do that. It goes for the most vulnerable. The rate of taxation fraud is 150 times more than the rate of welfare fraud so here it is not convincing that there is a major problem because the major problem here is actually a moralistic one. There is something about the morals. We question the morals of those who seemingly take advantage of thewelfare system and this side of the House has no sympathy for those who abuse the welfare system—we have no sympathy for those people—but the way in which it comes about also needs to be reflected on.The way in which Sam Lou-Iiga talked just then about welfare fraud amongst domestic purposes beneficiaries which is the former title really shows very little understanding of how this actually works. Anybody who has worked in this area or who knows this community well knows how quickly it is possible to give to a person—maybe a mother looking after two or three children who is dependent on a benefit—going about normal life and how quickly others can malign that as an abuse of the welfare system because that person might be wearing good clothes might be having a drink might have a colour television etc. Anything that person does that gives the impression there is a relationship that that person has creates this notion of setting family against family. We begin to attack those who are trying to get on with their lives as sole parents dependent on a benefit doing the best they can and doing those things that most people in this House would consider normal such as forming relationships.The Minister did say in his preliminary remarks that he was particularly worried about relationship fraud. That essentially means that if you a person who is dependent on a benefit and have children you virtually have no right to have relationships. That is what it comes down to and what is the morality of that? Would we not want our sole parents bringing up children to have the normal relationships that any adult would have? How does it work? We can just think our way through this. If a person is a sole parent who has children and who is doing their best forms a friendship with somebody they might see that person a few times a week and then that may develop over a 4 or 5-month period into something a little bit more than that—maybe visits to the home. In another 3 or 4 months’ time there may even be a night that that person might spend at the home of the person who is on a benefit.At what point does that become a relationship for which the other person—the person not on a benefit—is then responsible financially? At what point does that happen? This happens in the glare of public life. If you live in a neighbourhood that is hawkish about others and if you have people who are hawkish about a particular person then this creates an environment in which those bringing up our children in vulnerable environments vulnerable situations and who are dependent on limited State funding are really made more vulnerable by these kinds of provisions.It is not as if there are no other ways of doing this. Every person on a benefit has a case manager. There are many many opportunities for conversations there are many many opportunities for asking questions and yet the way in which these provisions have been brought to the House—the way in which the notion of relationship fraud is talked about in this particular bill—is something that I personally find objectionable. I personally find it divisive and I personally believe that it will set our families against each other. This happens Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. You know the environment in which people in your electorate survive where there are many more people in these kinds of situations. That being so we do know what happens. So I believe that the provisions are awful. I believe that they are not well-thought-through.What is more it has gone on to criminalise the activity so that the other person the person whom the beneficiary is having a friendship with or a growing relationship with is now accountable. If he or she carries on in that particular situation for any period of time and if the amount of payment grows that person is liable to a fine of $5000 or liable to imprisonment. When you compare that with the way in which tax dodgers are fined there are any number of cases that show that for similar crimes the vulnerable are sent to jail and the rich get home detention and that will be for defrauding amounts of money to the tune of three times more. A welfare beneficiary with a $70000 crime ifyou like will be sent to jail for a year or two—18 months I think is the case that I am thinking about—whereas somebody owing $200000 to $300000 gets sent home on home detention. Where is the fairness in that? When is this Government going to address those kinds of things as well?This is part of the Government’s programme of welfare bashing and in the select committee we will want to see what the evidence for this measure is. I would have expected some of the members of the select committee to be much more aware of this. I cannot imagine how Alfred Ngaro can support something like this because he knows from his own work in the community about many of these families and about how these processes develop. I hope to see robust discussion. I personally am not supporting this bill after the next stage unless I am convinced that the safeguards are in place because I personally find this absolutely abhorrent. Thank you.