Salesa Jenny: Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSalesa Jenny: Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 23 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5303. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): I rise to take a call on this bill because it is one of the issues that our constituents at Manukau East come to see us about on a daily basis. Labour supports the referral of this bill with reservations to a select committee. We strongly support the wraparound services that encourage higher education with appropriate childcare assistance and we also strongly support extending the Youth Service to all 19-year-old beneficiaries with children.Labour only supports this bill going to a select committee at this time though and I would like to share some of the concerns that we have about elements of this bill. Young people are the future of our country. Our young people are currently suffering though because they are having to deal with housing that is way too expensive they are suffering from poor educational outcomes and they have high rates of unemployment and very few pathways into jobs. In fact 40 percent of our total unemployed in this country right now are young people which is way way too high.Unfortunately some of our young people particularly Māori and Pacific young people are going to end up in prisons. Given the fact that prisons have been highlighted in the last few days it is not my wish—and probably not the wish of any other member in this House—for any of our young people to end up in prison. The majority of the young people whom this bill will apply to are most likely to be Māori and Pacific youth and those who will come from low-income families.Earlier on today my colleague Mr Ngaro stated that we all have choices. I agree—as adults we all have choices. However for many of our young people the choices that are available to them are limited in comparison with the choices that other young people from more affluent households actually have. Our children have no choice about being born into or growing up in child poverty—as another example. This Government however has a choice. It can choose to ensure that every child—that every single young person—in this country has the same opportunities regardless of their socio-economic status. The Government also can choose to address and to measure child poverty.The Government in considering the predictive risk modelling that this bill is actually proposing has been considering it since 2012. The Government later modified the predictive risk modelling and then decided to test predictive risk modelling but only to enhance front-line decision-making about cases of suspected child abuse. According to Professor Vaithianathan: “Predictive risk modelling may be used to enhance the decisions that Child Youth and Family makes on the frontline. But that will be after abuse is suspected—worlds away from the proactive model the research team proposed which can identify children at risk early—more than two years before it occurs—and can allow for preventive support and intervention.” which these can actually access.What this bill proposes is worlds away from the proactive model that the research team proposed which can identify children at risk early so that these issues can be addressed much earlier on. Beneficiaries are being rated within the Ministry of Social Development’s predictive risk model framework for the risk of long-term welfare dependency but they are not being told that they are being rated or indeed what the grounds of this rating is actually based on. They have a right I believe to this information and they should be given a chance to ask questions and the opportunity to challenge the assumptions that are being made about them. They are effectively being researched without any information on how the research is being undertaken the way in which information might be used or the implications that it could have on the supports that they are likely to receive.The Minister for Social Development and her department ignored the most basic ethical procedure with regard to gaining information from participants which is to obtain their consent. Given the fact that the majority of the so-called high-risk young people are going to be Māori and Pacific and those from low-income families the question I would like to ask the Minister is: has her department taken into account how it will use this tool to rate and then to measure the cultural components of how it might affect Māori and Pacific groups? All of the young people in this country deserve a better future as well as to have equal opportunity for everyone to achieve.My colleague from the other side Matt Doocey also stated earlier on that this bill is important because it is about transitions and it is about supporting our young people to transition during their life course. Well right now too many of our young people are transitioning into “neet”—not in employment education or training. In fact about 70000 of our young people under the age of 24 are currently not in employment education or training. That is way way too many and it is an issue that this current Government should actually address.This Government talks a lot about being aspirational. Yes that is right—we also agree that our young people should all be aspirational—but how about ensuring that many more of our young people actually leave high school and are actually able to have literacy and numeracy skills that would enable them to get better jobs and to get ahead in life?We as I stated earlier on are supportive of this particular bill but we have major reservations moving forward with it. Thank you.