Sabin Mike: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sabin Mike: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 26 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8926. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
MIKE SABIN (National—Northland) 
: 
 I am very pleased to take a short call on the second part of the bill the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. There have been a lot of politicised comments coming across the Chamber today. We have seen that over the years I think with law and order bills as well. The reality is that what we are dealing with here is New Zealanders who are not in work and finding better ways to support them to be in it. At its very heart that has been the core focus in this bill. One of the key ways that this transition will occur is through the seven benefit categories becoming three and simplification of and clarifying the important messages that really underpin what this bill seeks to achieve. 
There have been some comments around the numbers. We hear various numbers being batted around and defended and challenged and so forth but the reality is that between 2000 and 2008—if we really want to dig into those numbers—there was a 51.6 percent increase in those on the sickness benefit a 47.2 percent increase in those on the invalids benefit and an 8.5 percent increase in those on a domestic purposes benefit. As a police officer working in Whangarei and Kaitaia and essentially throughout Northland I saw throughout the course of that time an immense change in the welfare system in the approach to welfare and in the belief in what welfare was about. Those figures absolutely spell that out—crystal clear in my view.  
This bill is really challenging I guess one end of the spectrum that I do not think too many members in this House are keen to discuss. That is the end of the spectrum where there are vulnerable children being abused and being beaten and where there are young people who are hardly adequate in my view to be making decisions about being a parent when they are children themselves— 
Sue Moroney 
: It’s all coming out now. 
MIKE SABIN 
: —who actually through intergenerational welfare—and we will hear opposition from the other side of the Chamber on this but the reality is that there is a group of people whom this House is not willing to challenge and not willing to acknowledge exists and this is where the vast majority of vulnerable children are and where the carnage that we see out there is happening. We are trying to address that. This side of the House is trying to address it in many ways but the reality is that there is an end of the spectrum where unfortunately mothers are trapped in welfare and they are making poor decisions.  
The Children’s Commissioner absolutely alluded to this point in his submission. The Children’s Commissioner made it very clear and I will quote him from his submission to the Social Services Committee. He said that work is the best route out of poverty. There is no one in this House who can deny that fact. [ 
Interruption 
] We will hear objection from the other side of the Chamber as we always do from parties that will sit there and rail against every effort that this Government is making to introduce growth into the economy through legislation and through giving the business community the tools that they need. They can stand on that moral high ground they seem to have occupied and quote ad infinitum that there are no jobs but they cannot come into this Chamber and not support bills that are about job creation.  
The Children’s Commissioner went on to point out also that social obligations are a normal part of society—social obligations are a normal part of society—in a family in a business and in a church. Social obligations are a normal part of what we have as a society. The Children’s Commissioner absolutely backs that up. He also went on to say—and this is the important thing to note—that he believes that the area of greatest harm where vulnerable children are most affected is in the area of the people who will require the most amount of sanctions in this bill. This is about challenging that particular group to ensure that they have the support they need and to ensure that the safety and vulnerability of those children are actually being addressed.  
The Children’s Commissioner says that work is the way out of poverty. It is not a punitive thing—it is not a punitive thing. Social obligations are a normal part of society and the most vulnerable children are at this end of the spectrum. We must address them and this bill does that.