Sepuloni CarmelHon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development): That member Amy Adams started off by saying that the numbers don't lie. Well we on this side of the House might tend to agree with that actually. With 5 percent in the polls or just scraping 5 percent—actually behind I think Judith Collins as the preferred leader on that side of the House—the numbers don't lie: he's not popular with the general public and we know for a fact that he's not popular with his own caucus. We know that on that first Tuesday back from the Easter break it wasn't Easter break stories that they were sharing over their long caucus meeting. When they put to us that we're a debacle that there's decay on this side of the House I have to challenge that and say the D" that we need to be talking about with regards to that side of the House is "dissent"—dissent. We will see more of that play out over the coming months I am sure.This side of the House is committed to delivery and there already has been much that we have delivered. I'm very proud of the fact that today 1 May marks the second year of the roll-out of the winter energy payment. That payment is one of the—if not the—biggest payment that has been pushed out through the welfare system and we will see close to 1 million New Zealanders benefit from that winter energy payment. So that is part of what we've delivered.The previous speaker mentioned that on Friday the expert advisory group will be reporting back with their welfare report and that will go public. I'm really excited about that. That is going to help inform the overhaul of our welfare system that we have committed to as part of our confidence and supply agreement with the Green Party. We will be taking those recommendations seriously and I'm very grateful to the chair of that group Cindy Kiro and all of the members of that reference group who have helped inform that report. But the report is not all the overhaul. Some work has already begun and I want to touch on some of those things to lay the platform for the work that we will continue with the recommendations that come from the expert advisory group's report.We last year launched the Families Package. That saw 384000 families better off by an average of $75 per week and will lift 64000 children out of poverty by 2021. As part of that we saw the Best Start payment to help with the cost of children in the early years and of course the winter energy payment that I've mentioned to assist with heating costs over winter. We saw extended paid parental leave. We saw increases to the accommodation supplement and increases to the orphans benefit the unsupported child's benefit and the foster care allowance. So please don't tell us on this side of the House that we have not delivered anything as of yet.Alongside that my ministry has been focused on the cultural change shifts and service delivery that they had to undertake. I have to say that under the previous Government what we saw was an absolute focus on getting people off benefits with no regard for whether they went on to a better situation and whether or not they and their families were better off. What that ended up creating was a shift away from that duty of care that we should naturally see through our welfare system and which we are attempting to put back.As part of that culture change already we have seen changes to the layout of the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) offices. We have seen the eligibility guide launched so we can make sure that the New Zealanders who are eligible for support from MSD are actually getting that support. We have taken steps to ensure that benefit recipients are treated with respect in all of their interactions. All of those who access support from MSD should be treated with respect and have their dignity upheld whether or not they are an unemployed young person a superannuitant a disabled person or anybody else that needs to seek out the support of MSD and we are focused on making that happen.We on this side of the House believe that if you treat people right if you support people in the right ways then actually you will support them to be able to take up meaningful opportunities for themselves and their families. We do not believe in the punitive culture that the previous Government undertook and the evidence supports the fact that it did not work."