Bradford Sue: General Debates 
Bradford Sue: General Debates 
[Volume:610;Page:7662] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 I have one question to ask members of the Labour caucus and the Labour Party today: “Whose side are you on?”. After nearly 4 years of Government boasting about its achievements for ordinary workers and low-income people such as income-related rents the Employment Relations Act and the rest of it it all seems to have come to a screeching halt with Steve Maharey’s “Jobs Jolt” programme announced on Monday. 
Without warning we now find out that 55 to 59-year-olds will be subject to the same sanctions regime as unemployed 20-year-olds and that the “remote areas” conditions abolished in the mid-1980s by a Labour Government—theoretically more right wing than this one—will be reinstated. The Minister justifies the extension of work testing to 55 to 59-year-olds on the grounds that that is the only way they can be provided with the full employment services of Work and Income New Zealand. What a fallacious line of reasoning. If the Minister had chosen he could easily have directed that those workers be proffered the full assistance of the department without their having the psychological pressure of sanctions being heaped upon their unsuspecting heads. 
Mature-aged people are one of the most highly motivated and at the same time one of the most disadvantaged groups of unemployed workers in the country. It is often very difficult to get into the regular workforce both because we still have high unemployment and because of employer prejudice against anyone from around age 40 and up much less age 55 and up. I would go out of my way to commend any Government that increased job placement support and training for mature unemployed. However to extend the whole blaming and sanctioning apparatus of the State on to that age group is callous beyond belief. I do not think that the Minister can begin to comprehend the humiliation involved nor the anxiety of people who are plunged into despair at that attack on their dignity and self-esteem at a stage of their lives when society owes them a lot more than sanctions and punishment for daring to be out of work through no fault of their own. 
I turn to the question of booting people out of so-called “remote areas”. I see in this morning’s  
Dominion 
Post 
 that the Employment Service is already drawing up a list of no-go areas for the unemployed. Does the Minister not realise that one reason so many beneficiaries live in rural and provincial areas where there are fewer jobs is that it is a lot cheaper to raise a family well in such districts than in a big city like Auckland or Wellington? Does he not comprehend that another reason people live in those areas is that people who are unemployed in the big city often choose to move to their papakainga or home rohe because they can survive better with whanau support and in an area where the land and sea can be a source of food? 
Unemployed and beneficiary groups around Aotearoa fought a long hard battle in the early to mid-1980s to get recognition of the injustice shown particularly to Maori people returning to their home districts and being denied the benefit. After a long struggle which included memorably the first occupation of the Kaitaia social welfare department in 1985 the “remote areas” clause was overturned. It is now pitiful that a Labour Minister in a Government supposedly more sympathetic than its 1980s predecessors sees fit to turn back that particular clock. 
I am beginning to ask myself whether Steve Maharey and Darren Hughes are driving Labour’s welfare reforms or whether the real drivers are the ghosts of Jenny Shipley and Christine Rankin as personified in 2003 by Katherine Rich Don Brash and Muriel Newman. It appears that Labour has taken National and ACT’s momentum on welfare reform to heart and is now making a bid to capture all those voters who love anything that beats up on beneficiaries. Does Labour not realise that after all this time we still have literally hundreds of thousands of people out of work and that it is not unemployed people’s fault that the system has failed them? 
There is a further ugly twist in all this. Since Labour has come to power it has made a justifiably big deal about its willingness to consult community groups about the issues that affect them and the people they serve. After 4 years of a non-governmental organisation Government consultation process and regular meetings between the Ministry of Social Development and beneficiary groups and between the Mayors Task Force for Jobs and public officials all that nice talk has been rendered meaningless by Maharey’s latest effort. Ask any of the task force mayors or any of the advocacy group representatives whether they have been consulted about this latest attack on beneficiaries and I am pretty sure that the answer will be that no such consultation took place. In fact the Minister confirmed that in the House this afternoon. I do not know whether all Labour MPs realise it but they are now moving on a fast track back to the era where Government trampled wholesale on its erstwhile allies in the community sector and local government and on unemployed people and beneficiaries. I ask again: “Labour whose side are you on?”. 
DAVID BENSON-POPE (NZ Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 I am pleased to have the opportunity to make some brief comments today. Initially I would like to take members’ minds back to the general debate last week. I cannot for a moment imagine a more telling example of the real difficulty the National Party in Opposition faces than the extraordinary performance of its leader discredited and failing as he is taking a speaking opportunity with its first call—namely the fourth call—in the general debate last week. Aside from his sad and pathetic performance in that debate the most telling comment was that five members of his caucus came down to support their leader in a major speech in this Chamber. That is how much support Mr English has in the National Party. Perhaps it is rather a poignant and telling comment to observe that today the largely invisible and certainly ineffective and ineffectual deputy leader Mr Roger Sowry managed to double the leader’s support by having the princely sum of almost one-third of the National Party caucus 10 members in this Chamber to support him. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: Point of order Mr Speaker— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I know what the member will say. I just bring members’ attention to Speaker’s ruling 5/2 (Supplement) under which he cannot refer to the absence of members from the Chamber. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member is sort of skating around the rules because he is not referring to the absence of members. However I ask you to rule that it is out of order to refer to the numbers of people; otherwise we would be saying that there are only five Labour people here to listen to this pathetic speech.