Prasad Rajen: Social Assistance (Future Focus) Bill — Second Reading 
Prasad Rajen: Social Assistance (Future Focus) Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:665;Page:13078] 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 For me this Social Assistance (Future Focus) Bill epitomises a contest between two futures for New Zealand. One view for New Zealand which is advanced by this Government is a future in which we are urged to suspect that our less wealthy citizens are lazy and to be insistent that they would not be in that position if they had just worked harder and had not utilised the social benefits of a collective society like ours. Those adopting this view like the members opposite give to themselves the right to insist on their particular moral code to which they expect every other citizen to subscribe. When others do not adopt that particular code they see that as being eventually damaging and as keeping the poor in their particular place—a place from which they cannot move. 
That is the view that the Government holds as the support for everything else it is proposing. But that has always been the view of National Governments and subsequent Labour Governments have always had to come along and fix up the huge gaps and problems that National Governments have left behind. No doubt the next Labour Government will have to correct the effects of this National Government’s policies and redress the particularly punitive residual approach of its particular type of conservatism. 
Hon Member 
: Don’t be holding your breath for that. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: The member who speaks realises that that is absolutely true. 
A second view of the future is based on an intimate understanding of the independent nature of our society the society in which we live. In this society all citizens are valued their input into developing the human and social capital of our nation is understood and appreciated and no citizen is valued above any other. This maturity and compassion has been brought to policies that Labour has proposed for a long time and Labour has been following that view along with like-minded members of this House. However this debate has already begun to testify to the existence of these two views. Members on the Government side have been couching their view in the language of expectation and belief in using taxpayers’ money effectively but underneath all of that lies a firm belief a punitive belief in residual social welfare. 
The New Zealand welfare State which is what we have in this society was born out of the realisation that no matter how desperately a person wanted to work and earn sufficient income to sustain his or her family structural and other forces could always compound achieving that particular ambition. The violence perpetrated on the families of the poor by owners of capital—through poor work conditions poor wages and the withdrawal of work—have led many families to crime and relationship breakdown and to a gulf between rich and poor. The welfare State was the response to those inequalities and followed the realisation that no nation could take advantage of only financial capital; it also had to develop social and human capital which were partners with economic capital in order to develop a decent society. Therefore welfare policies were put in place and from the time that they were put together they served the citizens of this nation well. 
However welfare policies have had to be tweaked from time to time; they have always had to be tweaked. We remember well when Ruth Richardson a National Minister of Finance attacked beneficiaries and took a billion dollars from them—and it is vulnerable families who are beneficiaries. Then the previous Labour Government had to tweak the policy again to address the low wages of New Zealand’s working families through the Working for Families programme. Through a series of policies about the focus on work Work and Income has achieved tremendous results. 
I thank Katrina Shanks who is the chair of the Social Services Committee and the members of the committee. Katrina chairs this particular committee very very well and gives us all a fair go. I think that we as members of that committee worked quite well. Although members on the other side of the House are not generous in acknowledging the contribution of members on this side I shall acknowledge theirs. I also acknowledge the work of the officials. The officials do not have a pleasant job to do but they do it very well and I congratulate them and their department on providing straight advice and on getting the information required from time to time. They did their work very very well. 
The purpose of a select committee is to place the Government’s ideas before a group of parliamentarians served by its officials and the committee is where any citizen can come and really say from their experience and backgrounds what they like about the particular provisions of a bill what they do not like about it and what other advice they would like to give. We are required to interrogate them to listen to them and to use their advice to produce better legislation. But that did not happen on this particular occasion. As other speakers have said only a small number of submitters supported this particular bill and in fact I cannot recall who did. The overwhelming majority of submitters did not support this bill at all and gave some very very serious advice. 
One of the driving forces here is the notion the Government has that we need to reduce welfare dependency. We have asked the officials as well as the Minister to define welfare dependency but they have been unable to define it to anybody’s satisfaction. We have asked them time and time again; it is just not possible to do so. The officials are put in an unenviable position when they are asked to define it; I appreciate that. But the Ministers who proposed this set of ideas and the members opposite who are pushing it must come up with a definition and unequivocally and simply put it before this Parliament. I invite the next speaker to do that. The National members have not been able to define welfare dependence so I do not know what they are trying to address. In the absence of that definition all I can assume is that it is their particular ideology their particular form of conservatism that they are trying to push. 
Another point is that the Government is trying to push this legislation through even before its own Welfare Working Group has reported. But where is the sense in that? The Government has asked the group to look at welfare dependency and the group is spending a lot of time and money doing that yet major major changes are being made here to our welfare State and to the social provisions that affect our most vulnerable but the Government is not prepared to take the group’s report into account. In the end this is only a political process that the other side plays around with; it is not based on any evidence at all. Somebody should respond to the challenge put before the Minister by Metiria Turei who asked where the evidence was. It is interesting how members on the other side talk about evidence but produce nothing. 
The other point is to realise what the submitters are saying. It is very instructive that Associate Professor Michael O’Brien a former colleague of mine gave the advice to the select committee unequivocally that this bill should be removed and withdrawn; it had no redeeming features. The Minister should listen to that advice because that person is the professor of social policy who taught social policy to the Minister herself. It is absolutely clear that there are no redeeming features in this set of provisions or in the ideology or principles that guide them because they go nowhere. Presbyterian Support New Zealand also provided similar advice. There is nothing in there at all. The Human Rights Commission and the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services have both asked for this measure to be removed. 
I will speak briefly on the work test. For sole parent beneficiaries the work test is a form of abuse because it provides no understanding of what a sole parent does to bring up children from the hours of 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.. Somehow the parent is required to go and work then come home and provide ideal care for the two or three children that that parent might have. The work test is a rather nasty piece of work. It does not even define appropriate work nor does it acknowledge voluntary work. [ 
Interruption 
] Many of those women who are sole parents provide huge amounts of support particularly to our schools as Mr Macindoe would surely confirm. 
Finally there is the notion of beneficiaries having to reapply for the unemployment benefit. There is no need for that. Work and Income does a fantastic job at the moment triaging day in day out those who register for unemployment so I ask why they have to apply again after 1 year. What is it that Work and Income does not know about those beneficiaries? There is no need to do that and we do not need this legislation. Thank you very much.