Sage Eugenie: Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSage Eugenie: Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 23 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5296. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]EUGENIE SAGE (Green): I am pleased to take a call on the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill on behalf of my colleague Jan Logie. The Green Party will not be supporting this bill largely because of the quite paternalistic attitude that it takes towards young people. When this Parliament has debated the drinking age in the past the argument was made and it was accepted that if you are old enough to be sent to war to get married and to have children then you should be allowed to drink. It seems inconsistent then if you are allowed to do all of those things that with parents under 20 the State sees itself as being able to impose significant obligations on those young people in order to access social security. So because of the paternalistic approach we are not supporting the bill.The bill amends the Social Security Act and its main purpose is to extend the ability to access Youth Service provisions to all 19-year-old beneficiaries with children and to 18 and 19-year-old beneficiaries without children who are considered at significant risk of long-term dependency. But these youth services involve significantly more social obligations and more social control by the Government over young people. We certainly support for example young people having access to education and the wraparound service that is provided there but some of the other obligations include attending regular meetings with a provider to discuss activities spending and budgeting; having key bills paid directly out of the benefit; using a payment card; and being restricted to $50 a week in cash unless the young person can prove that they deserve more.As Carmel Sepuloni has noted there is a two-tier system in relation to young parents because the obligations on young parents to return to full-time education training or work are much harsher than they are on adults over 20 who are receiving a benefit. So in our view these provisions in the bill are quite discriminatory on the basis of both age and family status. They take a patronising approach to the provision of social security for young adults. The assumption that the Government seems to be making is that young people are incapable of managing their own financial and personal affairs.So although one of the requirements on young parents is that they enrol their child with a primary health organisation—that is obviously something that should be encouraged when it is being encouraged in a supportive environment. But when such decisions are tied to the potential loss of benefit income we do not think that those obligations are appropriate to put on 18 and 19-year-olds because it is creating the basis for quite a punitive regime rather than a constructive and supportive one. It is also suggesting that young people aged from 18 to 20 are not able to take important life decisions themselves without reporting to someone else. It is suggesting that they sit around and that they are unfocused without the threat of sanctions and so that paternalism is at the heart of our objection to this bill.We in the Green Party certainly want to support young people who are disadvantaged. We want them to have the same opportunities as others but we do not think that the way this bill goes about it by restricting life choices and removing control over key life decisions is in any way desirable for 18 and 19-year-olds. They are adults and it is patronising for the State to seek to control their decisions in the way this bill does.Certainly with the youth services concept—everybody has talked about it as wraparound services and there have been some good stories that have been reported back around the country but we have also heard some stories that worry us. We have been told of dairy owners who are charging young people $100 to get $50 cash on their payment cards. We have been told of young parents in teen schools who believe that they are potentially in breach of their obligations if they tend to their children and settle them while they are in class. We have also been told of parents having their incomes sanctioned for spending too long away from their course to attend a tangi. So that is the sort of paternalism and the sorts of examples that we are concerned about.We have also got quite serious concerns about forcing single young people up to the age of 20 into a model with quite onerous accountability based on the State’s identification of them as at-risk young people. That is being done as the regulatory impact statement makes clear using a behind-the-scenes formula. It is likely to mean that some young people will be identified as being at risk and that they could have a friend who is the same age and in the same circumstances but they have got a slightly different profile and so they get dealt with by Work and Income while the other one gets directed towards Youth Services.This sort of situation where you get assessments of people being made by a State agency who are then put into separate streams and receive different services based on the State’s assessment is quite risky in terms of alienating people from Government processes. And it is at risk too of arbitrary and unfair decision-making. We do not want a system where people feel that they are being stigmatised that they are being labelled and where they potentially become quite resentful and mistrusting of the Government. When you look at the regulatory impact statement—Hon Anne Tolley: Unbelievable.EUGENIE SAGE: The Minister says it is unbelievable. But the regulatory impact statement says that it “… makes a number of distinctions based on age family status and other risk factors …”. That leads to 18 and 19-year-olds who are identified as being at risk of long-term benefit dependency being treated quite differently from 18 and 19-year-olds who are not considered at risk. [Interruption] The Minister says that is right but she cannot see that this is a huge infringement on human rights by having the State determine which category you fall into and therefore which services you should have access to.One of the key principles in the regulatory impact statement is also that the liability for the Crown to have to pay for future welfare services for these people is a major determinant in the Government’s decision making around the bill. So it seems to be based on the Government saving itself money in the future rather than actually delivering and embracing a social security system. We want to support human dignity and human rights and not have this categorisation process that has the State intervening to cut across people’s ability to make decisions about their future when they are aged over 18 and when elsewhere they are considered an adult in terms of being able to drink to go to war to get married but not according to the Ministry of Social Development and its categorisation.In the Green Party we want jobs for everyone and we are not about beneficiary bashing the way this Government is. Making it harder for people to live on a benefit will not somehow magically create jobs for them to move into. The welfare “deforms” in this bill will increase inequality and it will make it harder for people to live on a benefit. That is going to compound the challenges that are faced by people who are unemployed and by disengaged young people and it will undermine the ability of parents to take care of their children.We cannot support this bill because it is the Government’s thinking that if you make it hard enough and tough enough for beneficiaries if you introduce enough work tests and if you threaten them with enough sanctions somehow jobs will magically appear that they can move into. We know and the Government knows that it does not actually work like that in the real world. Officials have told the Government that but the only response that it has developed in this bill seems to be a paternalistic one where the State is making critical life decisions on behalf of people aged 18 and 19 who are old enough to make those decisions for themselves.We know that there are good providers but we also know in terms of youth services that there are some problems that have arisen and that we do not want to see the privatisation of social security that this bill is extending. That is another one of the reasons why the Green Party is opposing the bill. Thank you.