Bradford Sue: Social Security Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Bradford Sue: Social Security Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:638;Page:8948] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 As I stated in the first reading debate on the Social Security Amendment Bill the Green Party will not be supporting the passing of this legislation despite some of its useful elements. Unfortunately the potentially negative impacts of this bill outweigh the good things the Government is seeking to do. However to be fair to the Government I will briefly outline the changes the Green Party does see as beneficial and welcome. They include the reduction of the maximum stand-down period to 2 weeks the development of consistent residential qualifications across the benefit system allowing people who care for children who are not their own to qualify for the domestic purposes benefit aligning the ending of benefits for sole parents who cease caring for dependent children and extending the exemption from a stand-down to all benefit types for people who enter refuges after a relationship breakdown. 
I also acknowledge several major changes the Government made to the bill during the select committee process as a result of the many submissions that criticised or downright opposed the bill. The first of those was around the application process for benefits. Many submitters as well as the Green Party interpreted the bill as originally drafted as overturning the Scoble and Taylor decisions and requiring all benefit applications to be in writing and to be for a specific benefit. There appeared to be no provision to backdate entitlements except with the specific approval of the Minister and then only when the ministry acknowledged it had made a mistake. We were concerned that under the bill as originally drafted the onus would be on benefit applicants to work out which benefit they should be on and what they may be entitled to rather than on the department doing that. During the Social Services Committee’s consideration of the bill the committee agreed to amend the bill in order to make it clear that the Scoble principle will still apply and that an application for a particular benefit will be taken as an application for any benefit once the department has worked out the appropriate entitlement. The bill has also been amended to provide for retrospective substitution of the correct benefit. 
The second major change that came about through the select committee process was in the area of “activity in the community”. Under the bill as originally drafted a number of submitters felt that beneficiaries including invalids and sickness beneficiaries would potentially be required to undertake so-called activity in the community as a requirement of their job seeker agreements or personal development and employment plans. If they did not do the unpaid work required they would then be potentially subject to sanctions—in effect a form of forced work for the dole. The bill has now been changed to clarify that the definition of approved activity in job seeker agreements does not include “activity in the community” and that this element is excluded from pre-benefit activities. A new subsection has also been added to make it clear that a non- work-tested beneficiary cannot be required against his or her will to include “activity in the community” in his or her personal development and employment plan and that if it is included the person cannot be sanctioned if he or she fails to carry it out. I am relieved that the Government has seen fit to make it plain that it does not after all support the back-door introduction of a form of work for the dole and I welcome this change of heart on its part. 
However as the Green Party has pointed out in its minority report contained in the select committee commentary on the bill we continue to oppose this bill above all because of the major shift it represents towards a “work first” approach underpinning our whole social security system. As many submitters pointed out there is a total absence within the purposes and principles statement in the bill of any role for the welfare system that is not focused on paid work. Work is seen as the ultimate goal no matter what the conditions or pay and no recognition is given to the value of the unpaid work that many beneficiaries undertake—caring for children the elderly or people with impairments—or to the valuable voluntary contribution many beneficiaries make in their communities. The purposes and principles clauses reinforce the unfortunate attitude that people in the benefit system are somehow less worthy of dignity and respect than anyone else that they are not fully realised and recognised members of our community and that they will become so only if they join the paid workforce. The fact that many beneficiaries also happen to be people with long-term illness injury or impairment only intensifies the opprobrium with which some able-bodied and employed members of the community view people who are not only in the benefit system but also living with illness or major impairments. 
During the Committee stage of this bill I will be moving an amendment that contains new purpose and principle clauses. My Supplementary Order Paper will propose to get rid of the existing drafting and to substitute wording based on a mix of the Treaty of Waitangi the long title of the Social Security Act 1938 the recommendations of the 1972 Royal Commission on Social Security in New Zealand and the 1988 Royal Commission on Social Policy and the principles set out in section 6 of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989 that the welfare and interests of children and young people should be paramount. I also propose that the provision of full and correct entitlements to people applying for benefits should be included in the principles section and that although looking for sustainable and suitable work should be a priority activity for unemployed people the focus for other people like those on sickness and invalids benefits and the domestic purposes benefit should be worked out in consultation with them taking into account their individual circumstances. 
The second amendment I would like to see made to the bill is in the area of pre-benefit activities. At the moment the bill provides that the Ministry of Social Development can either orally or in writing require a beneficiary to undertake a pre-benefit activity and that if that beneficiary fails to do so he or she will fail to receive any benefit. The problem with that is the potential for misunderstandings regarding the precise nature of the activity that is required and consequently for people to lose out on the money they need in order to survive at even the most basic level. I am therefore proposing that requirements must be given in writing and that any decisions must be subject to review and appeal rights. I have also been concerned that the pre-benefit activity clauses in the bill will in some cases result in unnecessary administrative delays before someone actually receives the benefit he or she is entitled to. My amendment is designed to ensure that claims for the unemployment benefit are investigated as quickly as possible and not held up as part of the bureaucracy of the pre-benefit activity process. 
The third amendment I am putting forward deals with an anomaly in how blind people and deaf people are treated in terms of their ability to travel overseas for the purpose of receiving vocational training or guide dog training. The Ministry of Social Development has the discretion to pay an invalids benefit to a blind person for up to 2 years for those purposes but similar training for those who are deaf is limited to a period of 28 days. I am suggesting that Parliament rectify that anomaly by extending the provisions of the Act so that people who are profoundly deaf are allowed to be away for up to 2 years as well. I can ascertain no reason why that historical incongruity should continue and I hope members from across the House may find themselves able to support the amendment. 
The fourth amendment I will be putting forward is in the area of the definition of income. It is aimed at ensuring that if the definitions of income and deprivation of income are at any stage amended such changes should be undertaken through Parliament by an amending bill rather than by an Order in Council. We will of course have time to debate those amendments and other details of the bill in more depth during its Committee stage next week. 
I would like to finish by saying once again what I have said many times before: that it is a great pity we are once again tinkering with the administrative detail of the benefits system rather than producing a whole new Social Security Act designed for the 21st century and geared towards making our insanely complex system much simpler both to understand and to administer. 
Debate interrupted.