Borrows Chester: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBorrows Chester: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 01 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19106. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CHESTER BORROWS (Associate Minister for Social Development):It is my pleasure to take a call in the Appropriation (2014/15 Estimates) Bill debate in respect of social welfare. I would like to start by congratulating my friend and colleague the Hon Paula Bennett on the wonderful work that she has done in her 6-year tenure as the Minister for Social Development. It is interesting to look back over previous Ministers and see the imprint that they have left on our social welfare system and I am sure that with hindsight people will say that Paula Bennett has made a significant impact in the social sector. It is interesting also to note—to acknowledge I guess rather than note—that there is always a bit of a scrap between left and right in the way you do social welfare. The left will always say that those of us on the right are mean and stingy and look after only our rich mates. We will say that those on the left only ever patronise the poor and do their very best to either ignore them or leave them poor so that they have got a reason to keep on voting for a socialist Government.I want to talk about a couple of key changes that we made. [Interruption] I will give the member calling out just now a quick indication. I was in charge of a piece of legislation. It was the welfare fraud bill. I offered the opportunity for people to come and to sit in my office and talk about exactly this piece of legislation obviously with a view to be able to gain their support as it came before the House. Jan Logie took advantage of that. Tracey Martin took advantage of that. Su’a William Sio took advantage of that but Sue Moroney’s opportunity to come coincided with the Melbourne Cup. She never showed and has never been back to hear about it. We have just heard a speech on how Labour is the only lot who care and apparently we on the right side of the Chamber do not give a stuff. But there are a couple of initiatives that I would really like to be able to just elucidate for those people who are listening.One of them is around the youth payment. When Labour was in Government the independent youth benefit was money that was handed to those people under 18 who could not get the dole and who for some reason could not live at home either because they would not live under the rules of house as they existed at the time or because home was a dangerous place and it was not good for them to live there. In any event they were given a sum of money and that was it. Under this Government on the initiative of the Hon Paula Bennett those people on the youth payment now get their board paid for them. They get a card with their allowance on that and they get some discretionary spending. At $6000 a head they get a budget mentor to walk alongside them show them how to spend their money how to save and where to put their energies in order to have a better life. What we know is that under the system that Labour continued with about 100 percent of young people on the independent youth benefit who turned 18 went straight on to the dole. What we know now is that only 45 percent of young people turning 18 and going from the youth payment go on to the dole because they are going into education or they are going into work or they are going into training and that is a real plus.Paula Bennett also instituted a similar system for solo mothers under the age of 20; a similar system where they get their board or rent paid and their electricity paid. They get their benefit on a card. They have some discretionary income with the opportunity to be able to get some more discretionary income by attending up to three courses—they are able to get an extra allowance for each course as they spend it. That allows them to spend that money as they wish and so they should because good behaviour should be rewarded. Also at $6000 a pop they get a budget mentor who assists them in learning how to live in learning how to budget in learning how to care for their children. That is the encouragement.Under the Labour Government they got the benefit thrown at them and they walked away; the Government took no more skin in the game. What we know is that when we started this policy there were 4300 solo mums under 20 receiving that benefit. Now 2 years later we know that there are 2600 of those mothers. They are still having their babies so it is not the circumstance of pregnancy or a lack of relationship that finds them on a benefit. What we do know is that this Government is doing a heck of a lot for those people who otherwise could easily make up the statistics of children living in poverty that the previous speaker was speaking about. I applaud the Minister for that.I would also like to touch on a number of other things that we are doing within the social sector and the results that we are having. I talked earlier about the initiative around welfare fraud. What we have found over many many years is that women living on the domestic purposes benefit are frequently the prey of men who snuggle up next to them who provide some comfort for them who invariably take their benefit from them and use it for other means rather than for the support of the children; or they live like a leech in a relationship with these women and carry on working and because of that relationship the domestic purposes beneficiary the mum is in breach. The law has only ever attached criminal responsibility and the debt to the beneficiary the mum. How fair can that be? When a relationship goes on for say a number of years what we find is that of those people who are found to be committing benefit fraud the highest dollar value is attached to people on the domestic purposes benefit. These blokes if they do nothing to perpetuate the fraud by making a false statement say to the police or to social welfare walk away scot-free.Under this Government what we set about doing then was to change the law to read that if somebody has benefited from living on the proceeds of a benefit then they will carry not only the criminal responsibility for that act but also the debt. Now we have an opportunity to charge the male—usually—who was living on the proceeds of benefit fraud and who knew should have known or was reckless as to whether their partner was a beneficiary. Now they will be prosecuted and will carry the same criminal responsibility as—it is usually the woman—the beneficiary partner. Also we will be able to recover the debt—not half the debt; we can recover up to the whole debt from that male partner. How on earth can a male living in a household like that where he is not paying any rent not paying any power not contributing to the groceries or anything else but using that money for his own purposes or for both their purposes be able to walk away scot-free? One of the things that was raised at that time of course was about a woman in a violent relationship. If she is being extorted to live in this relationship or to continue applying for a benefit would this change in the law then put her under a legal encumbrance? The answer is no because the courts have found that a woman living in a battered-woman relationship is not living in a relationship in the nature of marriage so would not be held liable for that offence. That is a really important point to note.Members on the other side of the House drew analogies between welfare fraud and tax evasion. They said that the Government was putting far too much emphasis on welfare dependency and none on those who were avoiding paying their taxes. The point that they overlook is that in a succession of three zero Budgets this Government put aside $200 million for efforts to uncover tax evasion and to get that money in. It has easily paid for itself. We are proud of the attributes of the Inland Revenue Department for doing exactly that. Another thing that we have done in this particular space is to share information with the Inland Revenue Department so that we can find out for instance those people who are registered on the dole the domestic purposes benefit the sickness benefit or the invalid’s benefit and are also working and paying tax. The Inland Revenue Department advises the Ministry of Social Development of those people who it believes are defrauding the taxpayer through this mechanism. It is interesting to note that since we started 6300 people have gone off a benefit because they were already in work and they had been receiving illegal overpayments.