Russell DeborahHon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): I wanted to start with a quote that's often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi that the measure of a society is how it treats its weakest members—the measure of a society is how it treats its weakest members. Actually as it turns out although the great Mahatma Gandhi said that it's also attributed to Hubert Humphrey who was Vice President of the United States from about 1965 to 1969; a Democratic Vice President and obviously with liberal—classic small L liberal—thinking; lost a bit today. But coming out of the United States at around about the time when John Rawls was assembling and compiling his magnum opus A Theory of Justice published in 1971. Dan Bidois: What does this have to do with the bill?Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: And it's a remarkable book. You should read it—go ahead and read it Dan. It's a remarkable book because what it does—it became one of the seminal works of political philosophy in the 20th century and it had a great deal to say about the type of society we want to live in. Rawls went through a rigorous process of working out how we might set up such a society and came up with a series of propositions. Central to his thinking was the thinking that in terms of the way we set up our society we would set it up in such a way that we would ensure that our decisions benefited the least well off. That as we were making decisions that was the yardstick: how would it affect the least well off?Now that particular book really did become the work of political philosophy in the 20th century and most of the other works in the later part of the 20th century responded to it. But no one really turned that over—that proposition that as we set up our societies our concern is for everyone. But when we are making our decisions we must measure them by the impact on the least well off.I do want to refer to another great thinker of the 20th century as well and of the 21st century: Amartya Sen who won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1998 and is still working in this space. Now Amartya Sen is famous for what he calls the capabilities approach—the approach that we try to ensure that each citizen each person is able to live according to their capabilities. And that as Governments our obligation is to ensure that people are able to live according to their capabilities. Unsurprisingly he did think about all sorts of issues to do with distributive justice. One of the things that he said and that he argued is that being poor in a rich society in itself is a capability handicap. That the gap between the rich and the poor has a negative effect on people's capabilities because as the society becomes richer people who have less are less able to participate in that society.What I have given here is a whole series of thinking about what we ought to be doing in order to enhance the lives of everyone in our communities—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): And it's going to relate to the bill in some way soon.Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: —and I think it's—indeed it is relevant to the bill because it is about how we ensure that people in our society have enough to live on. It doesn't come out of some sort of weird nowhere land; it comes out of some of the great thinking of the 20th and the 21st centuries that we must have an adequate welfare system.Now of course in recent years we have had a huge problem with inflation in New Zealand and worldwide—an inflation problem that has been caused by a global pandemic that has been caused by the war in Ukraine that is being affected now by the war in Gaza that all these external events have affected inflation worldwide. In many respects it doesn't really matter what has caused the inflation; what matters is what Governments do to deal with it and to enable people to live through it. One of the decisions we took as a Government was to try to ensure that benefit levels were raised to a sufficient level to enable people to survive.But there's some really interesting wrinkles around inflation because it impacts different groups in societies differently. And there's some really clear economic research that shows that lower-income people are more affected by inflation. Now this is absolutely standard research that the inflation that the members of this House experience is not as bad as the inflation that people on lower incomes experience. That while the average inflation rate in this country might be—I'm sorry I can't recall exactly what it is at the moment—Dan Bidois: 4.7.Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Thank you Dan—4.7 percent. Lower-income households will be experiencing a higher rate of inflation because of the basket of goods and services that they actually purchase.I'm going to quote here from MoneyHub who've been assembling the research on this. Now this is an organisation that sets out to enable people to learn how to deal with inflation. They say that inflation is particularly painful for low-income households where the percentage of post-tax disposable income spent on essentials like food and petrol continues to increase while wages typically stay the same. As a result higher essential costs mean less cash left over at the end of the month while continuing to try to buy the same groceries. Additionally lower-income households have significantly fewer savings and investments than higher-income households meaning that these households have less cushion against rising costs.What this bill does is it means that people in benefit-dependant households will have less than they would overwise have had in order to deal with the cost of living. Now when we were in Government we worked hard to increase the level of benefits to ensure that people living in benefit-dependant households could participate in our society could enhance their capabilities could be part of our society. This bill works against that. This bill means that less money ends up in the pockets of the poorest New Zealanders. This bill positively goes against all the thinking behind why we have a welfare State in the first place which is to ensure that every citizen—that every citizen—can participate in our society.It gets even worse than that because as is sitting in the impact analysis that was prepared by social welfare that was brought to the House by this Minister the impact is going to be greater on disabled households where people are on benefit because they have disabilities. Now these are not people who can go out and find a job. These are not people who can put on their shoes in the morning and go out and find a job. Now of course many people with disabilities can and do work but part of the reason that many people are on benefit is because they have chronic illnesses or disabilities that mean they cannot work and this bill will mean that they have less money in their pockets for reasons beyond their control. So there's a really significant impact there on households with disabilities.We have listened to many fine speeches in this House over the last few weeks as our new members have talked about their values their beliefs and why they have come to this House. Many of them have expressed values coming from the Christian faith they profess. I would like to see that faith expressed in action not just words. Thank you Madam Speaker.