Bradford Sue: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Bradford Sue: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:624;Page:18960] 
5.  
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: Does he agree with economist Dr Susan St John who was reported in this morning’s  
New Zealand Herald 
 as saying that the new single benefit would be sensible if the core benefits were high enough but they were not; if not why not? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 The focus of the single core benefit is on helping even more people into work rather than categorising them as to why they cannot work. It is about providing more people with more opportunity to get a job. No one will be financially worse off as a result of the changes to the single core benefit just as no one will be financially worse off under the Working for Families package. In fact under the Working for Families package currently being implemented all beneficiary families with children will be better off. 
Sue Bradford 
: Has the Minister given consideration to increasing core benefit levels as part of the Government’s Working for Families and/or single benefit welfare reform; if so when can beneficiaries expect to see a real increase to bring them up to pre-1991 equivalent levels? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The Government is not considering increases to the rates apart from the 1 April consumer price index adjustment which will be around 2.7 percent. I should note however that one of the key policies of this Government has been to ensure that people get their full entitlement. As the member will know that has meant for example a dramatic rise in the number of people who have access to benefits which has meant substantially more money for beneficiary households. 
Georgina Beyer 
: How much will beneficiary families gain under the Working for Families package? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Working for Families will deliver an average increase of $100 a week to families with children by the time it is fully implemented. Family support rates and thresholds will be regularly adjusted for inflation. The lowest net gain a beneficiary family will receive by the time Working for Families has been fully rolled out is $17.86 a week for a couple with one child and at least $92.86 a week for a couple with four children. Key changes from 1 April include increases to family support of $25 a week for the first child and $15 a week for an additional child and changes to the accommodation supplement that will lift the average increase for 100000 people to around $19 a week. 
Judith Collins 
: How long will it be before we know the true cost of the Minister’s proposed single benefit system given that nothing has been decided apart from the fact that he wants a single benefit which was first announced in 2000; and how can anyone have confidence in the idea when no detail has been decided and nothing has been costed? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: As I said at the time of the release of the single benefit there is a time line for the release of aspects of the policy. The first part of the policy will be done within baselines as was announced at the time within the Department of Work and Income. The questioner can trust what I say because I am not a Tory. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Twice today we have heard Ministers the moment they are challenged or are caught being less than honest give us the line that they are not Tories. Are you going to accept those responses in terms of the Standing Order that requires Ministers only to answer questions and not to deal in irrelevancies let alone make those sorts of derogatory remarks? 
Hon Mark Burton 
: In at least one of those cases the member was asked why he should be trusted and the remark was offered as a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why he should be trusted. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The Minister did address the question. The term “Tory” is not unparliamentary but it was not strictly relevant to the answer either. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I would like you to rule on whether that is acceptable and I draw your attention to Standing Order 370(2)(c) which states: “discreditable references to the House or any member of Parliament or any offensive or unparliamentary expression.” What you have here is Ministers standing up question after question and saying that an entire party cannot be trusted. If we are going to have that then what is the point of question time? It is the Ministers who are being asked it is what they are responsible for and they should be confined to that. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Madam Speaker perhaps I can assist my having been here in this Parliament for some time. I think the idea that you would banish the word “Tory” in here is a shameful one. There was a great tradition at one time of course of a party of principles and beliefs that was prepared to make sacrifices for the nation. Otherwise if you ban— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: But he left! 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Actually I did leave; the member is right. Otherwise we will have to substitute things like “redneck” “opportunist” or “reactionary”. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Thank you Mr Peters. I think the point Mr Hide was making if I may say so Mr Hide was that the term was more irrelevant rather than insulting in terms of the context of the answer. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. It was not the phrase “Tory” that I was objecting to; of course it is allowed. What I was objecting to is the idea that an entire party—well I do not even want to repeat it but it is the idea that Labour can be trusted and another party cannot simply because of their party affiliation. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order. Would you please sit down. 
Judith Collins 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The inference from the Minister’s answer is that all Tories are untrustworthy. It is not as though it is our party that has had to leave the benches because of dishonest Ministers. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order. It is a debatable matter. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I refer you quite specifically to Standing Order 370(2). It states: “The reply to any question must be concise and confined to the subject-matter” and must not contain “inferences imputations … or ironical expressions”. There is no objection on this side of the House to our being referred to as Tories; what there is objection to is the implication that members are less than honest. If you are going to allow it not just from one Minister twice but also from another speaker I think the standards in this House will significantly decline. We simply ask on this side of the House that you enforce Standing Order 370(2)(b). 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: This point has now been raised in one guise or another I think on four separate points of order none of which were actually points of order. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: That is right. I will ask the Minister Steve Maharey however to clarify what his response was in terms of the objection from the National Party members who have raised the points of order. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I was simply trying to clarify my position in relation to the question I was asked about the true cost when it would be announced and whether I could be trusted on this matter. I was simply clarifying that I could be. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. It is very odd procedure for a Speaker to go to a Minister and seek a ruling. The issue that I am objecting to and I think all of us in this House should just take a moment to reflect on this is that if a Minister is able to stand up and say: “Look I can be trusted because I am not a member of the Green Party.”—or not a member of New Zealand First or not a member of the Labour Party—then that is a drop down in parliamentary standards. We could not say that about an individual MP. I think the idea Madam Speaker that you go across to the Minister and ask him to clarify what he was saying and consider that to be a ruling is very very unwise. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I was asking the Minister whether in fact he was reflecting upon the other members. That is a perfectly acceptable process—for the Minister to clarify—and he has done so. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Your final comment to the House is absolutely correct: it would have been perfectly in order and in fact the right response to ask Mr Maharey whether he was making a reflection on other members when he made that statement. But I think you will find that you did not actually put that question to him; you just asked him to clarify which gave him another opportunity as they say to take a free shot. But I think it would be helpful if you were now to ask Mr Maharey to give us all an assurance that when he gave that answer he was not making a reflection upon any honourable member in this House. If he was—as I thought he was and obviously so did many others—then he should withdraw and apologise for it. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I listened carefully to the Minister’s answer. He in fact was clarifying his own position not casting aspersions on others. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. It was not the clarification we were objecting to; it was the Minister’s original answer which cast aspersions on members of this Parliament. That is what we are objecting to—not his clarification. The point that my colleague the Hon Richard Prebble raised is that this could easily be cleared up by your asking him whether he was casting an aspersion—we certainly heard it; members here all heard it—and if he was to withdraw and apologise. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: If members have taken offence I simply withdraw and apologise. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I am sorry to take time on this point but I just want to rise to support my friends in the ACT party. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Please come to the point of order Mr Brownlee. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I think the mere fact that the Minister has now stood to withdraw and apologise indicates surely—if he is an honourable member—that he did have some intention other than what you have managed to extract from him to this point. So I ask again as I did earlier today that you come back to the House after some consideration of today’s questions and give us as Opposition members some clear steer of what we can expect when a Minister gives an answer and give Government members a clear steer of what you expect from them when they give an answer relative to all of the parts of Standing Order 370. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Thank you Mr Brownlee. The matter has been dealt with by the withdrawal. 
Sue Bradford 
: Given the Minister’s reply to my question some time ago that all families with children will be at least $7.86 a week better off after 1 April can he give that same assurance to a one-parent one-child family currently receiving a special benefit of $90 a week following their first special benefit renewal after 1 April this year? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: That family will be moving on to a higher rate of support through the family support system so yes there will be no losers in this system. 
Sue Bradford 
: Will the Minister reconsider this Government’s policy of retaining the child tax credit given that his colleague Michael Cullen called its predecessor family support under National a “simplistic tangle of bigotry and ignorance and barely disguised attack on beneficiaries”; if he is not reconsidering the retention of a child tax credit why not given that sole parent beneficiary families are still disproportionately living in poverty despite the Working for Families package? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The main reason that we are moving from the child component being delivered through the current system to putting it into family support is to ensure that people can take it with them into the workplace. That is one of the major advantages of doing that. We have two payments now. There will be one payment in the future and that payment will be portable because it goes to people through the Inland Revenue Department.