Ngaro AlfredHon ALFRED NGARO (National): Mr Speaker I do realise I probably have only a minute and I look forward to after the break completing my speech—SPEAKER: Not even that long.Hon ALFRED NGARO: Not even that long? OK. Sorry are you calling it now Mr Speaker?SPEAKER: Not yet.Hon ALFRED NGARO: OK. So Mr Speaker I'll just name the bill just before you sit me down: the Social Assistance Legislation—SPEAKER: Order! It's kai time. The House is suspended until 7 p.m.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.SPEAKER: The House is resumed. When we broke for dinner we were debating the third reading of the Social Assistance Legislation (Budget 2019 Welfare Package) Amendment Bill. The Hon Alfred Ngaro had the call and if he so desires he has nine minutes and 43 seconds remaining. Hon ALFRED NGARO: I'm proud to do so even though in the next half-hour the Blues will be playing the Bulls. Even though I can't be there I'm here doing the work that's really important in regards to this bill. On this side it's been a long day and those of us who have championed alongside this bill to see it to its completion—you will know and will have heard that we will vote against this bill. But I want to start off by saying that there have been parts of this bill that we've spoken about that we actually agree with. We want to be starting on a positive note so what are the parts that we agree with? Well the abatement threshold has never been an issue with us. We can see the fact that we're going from $80 through to $150. That's an extension of $70 which is a little bit less than what the Welfare Expert Advisory Group had wished for. They were actually asking for $100 but we think that that's fair and just and reasonable. It will return itself into an Order in Council where under regulations those adjustments can be made. So we're actually in support of that. The second part of this bill in particular is around indexing—indexing benefits each year to the average wage growth. Well we are in support of that. However I've had some expert advice from Mr Andrew Bayly who's actually just given me some information. I suppose there's one thing for the Government on the other side just to be mindful of which is that when indexing there's actually no difference between the Consumers Price Index (CPI) and average wages. In fact when you move to an average wage what you've introduced is a huge amount of complexity because those rates will change and he's proven that. He's got a schedule that will prove that. In fact what will happen is that when you change the wages tax and other deductions will actually mean that you make it quite difficult. So I just wanted to put that on the table. We do support that. We think that indexing is really important. In fact we want the members on the other side to remember that in fact it was under a National-led Government that we increased the CPI indexing which was there around the benefit rates. I know that on the other side they've been crying that this is an amazing amazing piece of legislation that they're putting through. It's the generous spirit that has gone out from this current Government and they've said that what this will do is increase the benefit rates by $11 accumulative to 2023. I had to remind them. There are some new members on this side that haven't heard this but I would just remind them that in 2015 it was actually a National-led Government—SPEAKER: Order! Order! Order! Now let's get back to this bill now not 2015—all right? Hon ALFRED NGARO: Yes Mr Speaker. Well actually this relates to this bill. It's the comparative to that that I am talking about with this bill. In fact what happened is that when we're talking about indexing there was a period of time in the history of benefits that there has been some increase in that base benefit rate. In fact in 2015 there was an increase of $25—that's right. It was an increase that hadn't been made for nearly 43 years. SPEAKER: Order! Order! We're now going to get back to the bill. Hon ALFRED NGARO: Thank you Mr Speaker. So when we compare the $11 that was given by this current Government thinking that it's the hand of generosity that has been spoken out there well comparatively there was previously an increase of $25. There were some independent results that came out here and this is what $25 will buy you. SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will resume his seat. This is a final warning. The member will speak on this bill. He will not speak on the 2015 legislation. We've had the second reading. That debate was marginally relevant then. We're now in the third reading which is only about this bill as it emerged from the committee process. Darroch Ball: No—can't do it. Hon ALFRED NGARO: Thank you Mr Speaker. SPEAKER: Order! Mr Ball will stand withdraw and apologise. He will not comment on my rulings. Darroch Ball: I withdraw and apologise. Hon ALFRED NGARO: Thank you Mr Speaker. I do have to say though that the parts of this bill which we have been contesting throughout most of today are in regards to the removing of those sanctions. So in my final speech I do want to talk about this. In fact the Minister referred to the report that she was given and this is the report here. She tabled the report. In fact the report—[Interruption] This is very interesting. So when the Hon Louise Upston asked for the report in an Official Information Act request the report wasn't submitted but this is the report that is directly related to this bill and it's section 70A. Out of the report that the Minister had tabled in regard to this bill she quoted from the executive summary. She said that In mid-2017 the then Minister for Social Development instructed the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) to undertake research" but what she didn't quote was the next sentence and I'd like to quote that. It states "This request followed policy advice from MSD that there was insufficient evidence to assess the policy's effectiveness in achieving its intent". So this is the fact of what's there. The Minister kept on saying that the evidence was there and that the Minister at that time could have made the decision—these are the Minister's own words—in regards to the changing of the sanctions when in actual fact the report and the advice given said that there wasn't sufficient evidence to make that decision at that time. Mr Speaker I want to make my remarks because I've actually read through this full report as I've been here. Again it does relate to the bill because on the basis of this the decision was made by the Minister as declared by the Minister in regards to the sanctions. In fact what it actually says is this. It said that there wasn't enough evidence and it looked for other solutions and other alternatives which the Minister didn't actually talk about. But I'd like to talk about this because it is in the tabled report. There's an initiative called an early intervention programme (EIP) which is a facilitated approach. So when the question was asked of the Minister of whether there were any other solutions and were there any other approaches that she could have taken there was not a reply to that response. I would like to say to the Minister that in the report that she submitted—on the Table—there were other solutions and there were other options. One of them was called the EIP as it states in here. It's called the early intervention programme. This is a facilitated approach and what was found was that when they have facilitators working with those in that situation where there was the potential for a sanction then that could have actually happened in this regard to this bill that was talked about. So this bill actually talks about those sanctions and I'm hoping—I'm guiding myself Mr Speaker clearly to the scope of this. SPEAKER: Yeah the member got a long way out. He's getting closer but he'd better get closer still. Hon ALFRED NGARO: OK I'm returning back to the bill where it actually clearly states over here—because the bill talks about removing sections 192 and 194 of the Social Security Act and the basis of that was based on this report that was given. In this report it added to this debate and in my final reading speech on the bill I would like to submit that I would support the recommendations that are in here that could be added. I hope that the Minister might look at this and see that this would be a good way of actually progressing this bill to another potential solution and it could be added on. I also want to add to that that one of the things that we did talk about in regards to sanctions was the discretions that currently are actually in the bill. We referred to those and we think that those discretions were actually discretions that would allow for safety concerns that may have been raised. There could have been issues around family violence. There could have been issues in regard to the fact that they weren't able to find the actual legal and lawful other parent which is in there. So we raised these issues there with regard to this bill and those things are really important. We didn't feel that it was mean-spirited. They were actually appropriate and again to this report—it spoke to those sanctions and the removal of them in removing sections 192 and 194 in the actual bill that is here is what we were talking about as well. In my final two minutes I'd like to talk about the fact that there are other recommendations which we think are important. The Minister did actually mention these recommendations in the—SPEAKER: Well if the Minister didn't mention them and they're not in the bill they're out of order. Hon ALFRED NGARO: Sorry Mr Speaker the Minister did mention them—SPEAKER: Oh "did" mention them—sorry. Hon ALFRED NGARO: Yes that's what I'm saying. SPEAKER: That's all right—OK. Hon ALFRED NGARO: I did say that she mentioned these actual bits here—SPEAKER: OK. All right very good. Keep going—keep going. Hon ALFRED NGARO: —hence the reason why I'm actually going to them. Actually she mentioned what's in recommendation No. 5 as potential measures that she would be looking at so that's the reason why I'm commenting on them and I'd like to recommend that the Minister look at these. These recommendations were actually part of Supplementary Order Paper 243 which I put forward which I think are critically important. They do talk about measurements they do talk about entitlement and if this progresses—and it seems like it will progress through—then we think that's actually a good part of a compromise to the bill and the Minister has indicated that she's looking at that as well. So we on this side feel that there are parts of the bill that we would support like the abatement rates and the threshold that is there and the indexing even though there will be complexities with those sorts of changes. But when it comes to the sanctions that's just one part that we feel we cannot support. We wish that the Minister would look into the recommendations she quoted from the Welfare Expert Advisory Group. We believe that they are a way of both monitoring and increasing the ability to be able to ensure that entitlements could be met by those that this could apply to but overall we cannot support this bill in its final reading. So we say that on this side we won't be supporting this bill to the House."