Upston Louise; Sepuloni CarmelHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you Madam Chair. I want to come back to the point the Minister referred to around focusing on people who have been on benefit short term and just to question the decision to ignore those who had been on the benefit long term particularly those on the jobseeker benefit long term because we've seen the number of those under the age of 25 double. That number has doubled under this Government and I want to ask the Minister about the very deliberate decision to leave behind a group of young New Zealanders who could have had the opportunity to come off welfare into work and the very deliberate decision the Minister made during COVID to focus on people who weren't on benefit at all to get them back into a job and to deprioritise—i.e. not support—those who had been on benefit particularly the jobseeker benefit for 12 months or more at the very time there are employers everywhere who have jobs for those people.Why is it that of the funding in Vote Social Development in the employment and social outcomes area more funding has not been focused and prioritised on a group of people that can work and want to work—many of them are desperate to work—but because they've been out of the workforce for 12 months or actually in fact for many young people they may never have held a job and their prospects are or their opportunities should be just as great their potential is just as great and there needs to be some very focused efforts on supporting them into employment? I'm interested in more detail Minister about the conscious decision as you said during COVID to leave those people behind and to focus on those who either weren't on benefit or were only on benefit for up to three months.Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I think I outlined it in my previous answer: this Government is focused on supporting New Zealanders into work and our focus hasn't deprioritised those that have been on benefit longer term. We've got a much more fulsome focus. The fact that we have more front-line work-focused case managers allows us to work with more clients and allows us to dedicate more time to those clients.The point I was trying to make earlier is that we do want to get in there early to support people. We know that the longer they stay on benefit the more likely they are to experience loss of confidence. At the same time there are a number of people who are on benefit who experience a range of challenges and we've spoken about them in this House whether it be that they don't necessarily have the skills for the jobs that are available in their area; whether they don't necessarily have the ability to be able to transport themselves to the jobs that are available—which is why we announced at Budget the $86 million I believe to go into driver licences. There's also a number of people that are on benefit that experience some type of health condition or disability including in some instances mental health and so there are a range of challenges that people come with and we need to meet them where they are at and to ensure that we've got the front-line case management to be able to provide that support.The other point I do want to make when we speak about job seekers: the assertion that is often made by the other side of the House is that they are all doing nothing. About 10 percent of those that are on jobseekers benefit are actually working in some way—part-time perhaps and still claiming a benefit. A good example of this is a woman who contacted me the other day to say that she had had grade four brain cancer and used to be a teacher is not able to do that anymore because of the impact that the treatment has had on her. She is able to work part-time but she is still in receipt of a jobseeker's benefit. Now I absolutely endorse the fact that that particular person—and there are many others like her—is only able to work limited hours and is continuing to claim the jobseeker's benefit. But that doesn't mean that she's a failure in any way because of that.Programmes like Mana in Mahi have a number of people on them who are on benefit when they go on to the programme. The remainder are people who are actually deemed to be disadvantaged in a tight labour market and potentially at risk of coming on welfare. So the point is that we believe on this side of the House—and I think our Budget and the programmes that we've put in place demonstrate this—that we need to get in there early particularly with our young people and sometimes it's before they even come on benefit to avoid a situation—and I'm not going to say just long-term welfare receipt—where they don't get to realise their potential in the employment market.