Prasad Rajen: Social Security (Benefit Review and Appeal Reform) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Prasad Rajen: Social Security (Benefit Review and Appeal Reform) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:656;Page:5734] 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 I add my congratulations to Sue Bradford on bringing this bill to the House and thus continuing her longstanding advocacy for the most vulnerable in our society. She has been doing it for a long time. I have followed her work and she continues to be exceedingly successful in doing that here as well. Along with my colleagues on this side of the House I am pleased to support the bill. 
This is an important question relating to the rights of those who feel in some way prevailed upon by the decisions made against them. Therefore societies like ours develop robust appeal systems so that those who feel aggrieved can take this matter somewhere. What are the characteristics of that system? First is independence. It has to be palpably independent. It is also based on a set of principles in particular the principles of natural justice. That needs to come through and to be seen to be operating. Another characteristic of a good robust appeal system is timely decision-making. Also good systems provide reasoning for their decisions and perhaps most important of all they are not unduly criticised by other courts—there is support for them. It should also be comparable with other appeal systems in different areas. 
We can look at the benefits review committees and run this ruler by them and ask the same questions. Is this a robust appeal system? If we go back to the notion of independence is it independent? It is not. Essentially at the present time the chief executive is reviewing his own decisions. As the decision from the Supreme Court says the decisions reviewed by this group are the decisions of the chief executive. So it is not independent. It is based within the ministry. There is one outside person but two people from the staff of the organisation can clearly vote out the external person. So it is not independent and we need to develop a system that is. 
Does it work along the principles of natural justice? Well here again as Sue Bradford said clearly the decisions that they are making at the moment are based on administrative procedures within the Ministry of Social Development rather than based on the principles of natural justice. Again we would expect the decisions to be timely. 
This is probably one of the most important principles particularly at this time when there is going to be a growing number of people on benefits and particularly as we appear to be coming into an area where a punitive attitude towards people on benefits is growing. These people feel aggrieved. They are the ones who miss out and their concerns become real because when the money stops for families who are poor the effects on them are quite serious. When decisions take a long time then the problem is made worse. Clearly beneficiary groups are already saying again as Sue Bradford said that these decisions are taking too long—even as long as 6 months. That is an inordinately long period of time for a person dependent on income support to be waiting for a decision about those very things. 
The other point is whether the reasons are given. Well they are not. Again beneficiary groups have said very clearly that the reasons for these decisions are not given. The courts are critical of this particular system. The architecture of this appeal system under the Social Security Act is questioned by this decision. When we take all of those matters together we find that it is time to have a look at that particular system. Sue Bradford makes some suggestions in this Social Security (Benefit Review and Appeal Reform) Amendment Bill. They might not be the right ones but the way to look at them is to send the bill to a select committee so that it can be examined there and have improvements made to it. Thank you.