Ngaro Alfred: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNgaro Alfred: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8152. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ALFRED NGARO (National): I rise to take a first call on this the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill going through all stages under urgency. The point I want to raise—as the previous speaker Carmel Sepuloni has talked about—is that the issue is this has been a legislative error since 1998. It goes some time back so I think there needs to be some cognisance that the issue of responsibility and liability probably goes a long way back. However we are at this point where we do need to address a critical and a technical issue where the legislation does not follow policy. I just want to put that on the record. Although we can talk about the responsibility and the liability of this Government which it is taking under urgency we also remind the House and those who may be listening that this is an issue that has been a legislative error since 1998. I want to make that point really clear. We are taking responsibility and this is what needs to be done.I do want to acknowledge the previous member too. She did also make petitions and inquiries into this issue under a previous bill. I know that it was also due to her persistence in trying to get us to a point where we could address this issue. But I also want to acknowledge the Minister for Social Development who herself has also taken on the role of responsibility to ensure that we progress this bill under urgency because of the concerns that there are. I want to talk about some of those concerns as well. We must act quickly to mitigate the increasing financial and legal risks that this technical error poses to the affordability of our welfare system. I think that is quite critical and it is important as well.One of the issues too that comes up is that the tax reduction and social policy legislation from 1996—and I know that people out there will be riveted to hear about this—contained an error that technically provides for benefit and stand-down periods to end a day earlier than intended. So there is the technical aspect that this bill is trying to address. Again I want to go on record as commenting on that. That is what this bill is trying to address.The other aspects I suppose and the concerns that have been raised by the member in her speech are around the impact on beneficiaries. The bill protects people from the effect of a retrospective validation. If they have had a benefit commence on the day that a stand-down period ended before the amendment is enacted whether through a new grant or a review or an appeal process commenced before the bill comes into force then any reviews relating to that period back to 3 June 1998 that are lodged prior to the legislative amendment coming into effect are allowed. This is to provide some sort of protection for those in that situation as well. There are a couple of other points. Those people affected can do this before or in the case of a benefit that commenced on or after 20 May 2014 within a 6-week period after the bill comes into force. The other thing is that these protection provisions are a measure of the Government’s good faith and do not negate the original policy intent that a benefit should commence on the day after a stand-down period begins.There are some other points I want to raise. The legal and financial risks of this error have been increasing so we are fixing the problem. We do acknowledge that it is a problem it has been a problem for some time and we do need to address this. In fact in May 2014 the Social Security Appeal Authority alerted the Ministry of Social Development to this error and through that alert and through that judgment it was important that it acted in the appropriate way. In May 2015 Cabinet agreed that a correction was needed with full retrospective effect to 3 June 1998 when the Tax Reduction and Social Policy Bill 1996 took effect. At this time the risk to the Crown was considered relatively low. A plan was put in place to correct the error that was established and amendments were included in the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill and that amendment bill is currently before the Social Services Committee. In the meantime the ministry practice is to continue to reflect the policy intent until the legislative correction is passed as it was considered that people should be able to get only the assistance that they were intended to have.I look forward to other opportunities to speak in the House on this bill as it goes right through all its stages under urgency. Again we first of all take responsibility for what was an error that goes some time prior to the time of 1998. It is a legislative error a technical error that needs to be corrected. The intent of the Minister and of the select committee and also hopefully of the House is that we will correct this error through having this bill go through the House under urgency. I commend this bill to the House at its first reading.