Newman Muriel: Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Newman Muriel: Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:624;Page:19578] 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chairman and I thank Mr Tisch for his help as well. I did want to take a further call because given that we are talking about tax in Part 2 of the Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill I want to alert the Committee to the fact that the statistical report the Minister released this morning identified exactly how much tax it costs New Zealanders to pay for benefits. It costs $23 million a day to pay for welfare benefits in New Zealand. That is almost $1 million an hour under a Labour Government that is meant to have done something about welfare. We know that beneficiary numbers have risen dramatically. We find that although in fact the number of unemployed people is down the numbers of people going on to the sickness and invalids benefits have increased dramatically by almost 40 percent since Labour has been in power and the number of people who have been on a benefit for more than 4 years has gone from 95000 to 108000 so we are in a situation whereby taxpayers have to pay $23 million a day in welfare. When the economy turns down which we all know it will—because those things are cyclical—then the number of unemployed people will grow and welfare will become an enormous problem for New Zealand. 
The Minister in the chair Steve Maharey has had an opportunity to fix the welfare system. He has had 5 years to put in place some proper welfare reform policies which would have brought all the numbers down not just the unemployment figure—and the unemployment number tends to go down because people want to better themselves find jobs and get off welfare and into work. To help people on the sickness invalids and domestic purposes benefits takes a bit of initiative gumption and leadership from a Minister. I say to the Minister that he has been a complete disappointment to New Zealand because those tough areas have really been left. This bill is a Clayton’s bill. Sure beneficiary numbers will come down but the Minister knows that he is not actually fixing the problem. He knows that in his heart. 
 I would have liked to see Labour instead of being soft on welfare actually sort out the problems in the system that allow far too much abuse and fraud to go on and ensure that the people who are on welfare are genuinely in need. That is what every New Zealander wants to see—instead of seeing people who could be working and should be working receive welfare day after day. That costs taxpayers money makes families struggle and does nothing at all for those people themselves or for their children and their future. It is no life to be on a benefit—it is a dead end—and this Minister condones more and more people going on to welfare. Twenty-three million dollars per day is being spent on welfare. That is $1 million per hour. By the time that this debate on this bill finishes the taxpayers of New Zealand will have spent $1 million on paying for people on welfare. In terms of the genuine people who will never be able to work nobody has a problem at all. But in terms of the people who could be working why are they not? New Zealand is crying out for workers; the labour shortage is holding the country back. On the one hand there are all those able-bodied people sitting on welfare whom the Minister is happy to pay for and on the other hand small businesses are crying out for people to come and work for them. 
There is an enormous mismatch and imbalance created by the Labour Government. Any other Government would have had the welfare numbers down and ensured that anybody who could work was working. The cost to the taxpayer would then have been at an all-time low which is logically what it should be and the country would have been in great shape.