Duncan Helen: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Duncan Helen: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:610;Page:7556] 
4.  
HELEN DUNCAN (NZ Labour) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: What initiatives is the Government taking to assist more people to move into employment? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 Yesterday the Government announced a $104 million Jobs Jolt package to help address skills shortages and get more New Zealanders into work. The package is designed to address employers’ skill and labour shortages and to ensure that groups such as the long-term unemployed sole parents young people and mature job seekers are well placed and supported to take up new opportunities. The Jobs Jolt programme is designed to be largely self-funding as it will reduce the number of people needing benefit support. That is good for both employers and job seekers. 
Helen Duncan 
: What are the key features of the Jobs Jolt package? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The Jobs Jolt package addresses both employer and job seeker needs. The package will ensure better matching between job seekers and particular labour shortages in areas such as hospitality retail and transport. The package will vary according to region so that there can be a response at an individual level to the labour market in that area. For example in more rural areas the emphasis will be on mobile employment services to take job-matching to the client while in metropolitan areas the focus will be on areas such as internships to give job seekers work experience and entry-level training. 
Katherine Rich 
: Why does the Minister not tell the House that none of his package is genuinely new because Work and Income has always had the ability to stop benefits if people choose to live in remote areas where there are no jobs and to undertake active case management and work testing for those in the 55 to 59-year age group as well as being already actively involved in the Mayors Task Force for Jobs information technology training and special assistance for sole parents; and why does he not admit that the programme he has re-announced is a jobs joke rather than a jobs jolt which will do little to make major changes in reducing welfare numbers? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I can confirm for the member that little in this package is new. It is in fact an expansion of policies that have helped to lower the unemployment rate by 33 percent since we became the Government. 
Barbara Stewart 
: How does the Minister reconcile his “move or lose the dole” scheme with the rights of those experienced and skilled people in the 55 to 59-year age group who have already contributed their labour and taxes and who face enormous barriers in re-entering the workforce? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: For people who are 55-plus years the package means that now they are work tested they also have access to work support so that they can find a job. For people in remote areas case managers will now be able to take those people who have decided that they simply want to live in a remote area but not seek a job and ask them to move. 
Dr Muriel Newman 
: In the light of the Minister’s announcement yesterday that people in the 55 to 59-year age group will be work tested for the dole why did he state only in May that: “The Government has no plans to introduce work testing for those over 55 years”; and is it not the case that his dramatic U-turn is being driven by an embarrassing rise in welfare numbers including the number of those on a sickness benefit who now number more than 40000 for the first time in New Zealand’s history? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The motivation for this package is that we are still enjoying about a 5 percent unemployment rate. We still have employers looking for labour and we still have skill shortages. Therefore this policy has been put in place to assist more people into work. In May we were not yet ready to announce these kinds of policies because we were not sure that the labour market would remain as robust as it has. But thankfully it has and now we can move on these policies. 
Sue Bradford 
: Why is the Minister increasing sanctions on beneficiaries when in 1998 he criticised the then National Government by saying it was “spending time and money on dreaming up silly penalties for beneficiaries who do not do as they are told.”? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Because the National Party did spend a considerable amount of time dreaming up silly things to do like work for the dole which has been proven to be a complete waste of time. 
Judy Turner 
: In the light of the announcement that case managers will work more closely with sickness beneficiaries does the Minister agree that the increasing number of people who transfer from the unemployment benefit to the sickness benefit suggests that more close scrutiny by case workers also needs to be directed at that particular category of beneficiaries? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The figures show that people go back and forth between different benefits and as I have said before that is not for lifestyle reasons as is often claimed by the member. Those measures ensure that we are able to tailor support more closely to sickness and invalid beneficiaries as we have been saying we would do. 
John Carter 
: If the Minister is serious about moving people into employment is the Government changing its housing policy of building houses in remote rural areas where there are no job opportunities and capturing people into welfare dependency? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: That is a good question because the member comes from Northland. That is exactly why we have not gone about simply building houses in the Northland area; rather we have ensured that the regional development policies run by Mr Anderton and the social development policies run by myself are matched with housing policies. 
Sue Bradford 
: Will the Minister require people who live in their ancestral papakainga district such as Northland to leave their home and extended whanau as part of the Government’s changes to the remote areas policy? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: No. 
Judy Turner 
: As part of this package will the Minister consider adopting a similar approach towards the sickness benefit as that used by the Accident Compensation Corporation in rehabilitating long-term claimants in the light of the fact that the benefit is intended to be temporary yet about 5000 people have been on it for 5 years or more? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The sickness benefit is temporary. Before we demonise people on it we should remember that most of them come off it because they die. What we are trying to do with this package is to take what we have always said would be a reasonable step forward which is to ensure we tailor a package of policies around people who are on the sickness benefit so that they may be able to return to part-time work in particular that fits their needs. 
Sue Bradford 
: Why can Work and Income not provide full job assistance to job seekers aged 55 to 59 without applying the full force of a sanctions regime on people who are already highly motivated to seek work and what research if any has the Minister done on the impacts of sanctions regimes on older workers like these? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: In essence a person who is 55-plus is simply on the unemployment benefit. We think it has been a mistake in the past to treat such people in a different way from other people. They will now be treated the same way. In addition we will be putting policies in place that are geared to mature workers. For example we will be helping to overcome the fact that many employers do not see mature workers as their preferred choice. We want to change those attitudes. 
Dr Muriel Newman 
: I seek leave to table the  
Dominion Post 
 article from 2 May entitled “Maharey plays down work tests”. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that newspaper article. Is there any objection? There is.