Hutchison Paul: Social Assistance (Debt Prevention and Minimisation) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hutchison Paul: Social Assistance (Debt Prevention and Minimisation) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:646;Page:15096] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 I must say that the Social Services Committee worked very well over the Social Assistance (Debt Prevention and Minimisation) Amendment Bill and I would like to mention particularly my colleague Judith Collins who made a strong representation on the issue of minimising hardship. I would also point out that my excellent colleague Katrina Shanks mentioned the great work done by the Department of Corrections. I think that the general spirit that the select committee worked with on this bill was excellent and it shows how well Parliament can work when it sees that there is common sense to be followed. 
But of course the big worry about this bill is what the Labour Government has been doing over the 8 years prior to bringing in this bill. I think that the statistics are fairly clear and they show that Labour has dawdled over a very very serious problem. It is a problem for which National is happy to be able to support a solution but the facts of the matter are that when the Labour Government took office in 1999 this debt was $320 million and by last year it was $760 million. That is a huge debt. In the words of I think Peter Hughes a few years ago 49 percent of beneficiaries were in debt to Work and Income and now the figure is around 70 percent. That is a horrendously high number of Work and Income clients—beneficiaries who are in debt and who are particularly vulnerable to all sorts of challenges that may cause them to compromise their position and their families. To have a bill like this is over timely and we are very happy to support it. 
As the Minister pointed out this bill will enable data sharing between the Ministry of Social Development which administers the social security system and the student allowance system and the Accident Compensation Corporation. These agencies are critical parts of the factor. The purpose in Part 1 which we are addressing is to amend the Corrections Act which is the principal Act in this part. It will make the appropriate amendments through the Social Security Act the Education Act the Student Allowances Regulations etc. 
We certainly know as well that during these last 4 or 5 years particularly student debt has mounted enormously. Once again that is a major problem. Under this Labour Government we have seen not only beneficiary debt mount to an extraordinary level but also student debt mount. I would have thought that the Labour Government would be much more interested in being assiduous to ensure that this sort of corrective legislation was put into place much earlier. 
Clause 5 substitutes section 180 of the Corrections Act with a new section 180 “Purpose of section 180A”. The new section provides: “(1) The purpose of section 180A is to facilitate the disclosure of information by the chief executive to the requesting department for the purposes of the operation of all or any of” a variety of provisions. I think those provisions are pretty well covered. Previous speakers have made the point about minimising hardship because there is no doubt that if prisoner suddenly find themselves in that position and their families are not catered for and are penalised then it can reflect pretty badly on them. We would want to be sure that the Labour Government is able to respond through this legislative mechanism to ensure that it does come about for families that are very dependent on a rapid response to this sort of legislation. 
I remember that in the second reading of this bill we had Russell Fairbrother the excellent chairman of the select committee saying how efficient this Government is. Well everything about this bill and this Government is in actual fact inefficient.