Sio William: Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sio William: Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 17 July 2012. Volume:681;Page:3585. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Mangere) 
: 
 I wanted to respond to some comments the Minister in the chair the Minister for Social Development made earlier in this debate because I got the impression that the Minister’s thinking was that somehow Maori and Pacific children grow up wanting to live on the benefit—wanting to be on welfare. I want to say to the Minister that that thinking is absolutely wrong. It is flawed and I think if that is your thinking it is actually an affront to the intelligence of New Zealand communities. I also think that it is the Minister’s thinking that somehow because the Opposition opposes this bill it is our desire for the wider New Zealand community to have a lesser quality of life. With the greatest respect to this Minister I am saying that she is absolutely and totally wrong if that is her thinking. In fact I would dare say that it is almost as if she is totally out of touch with the reality that many families and many young people are experiencing today. 
I suspect many of us who visit schools will take the opportunity to visit and ask the children of those schools what it is that they want to become when they grow up. I know whether it be in my electorate or somebody else’s electorate that every time you ask young people what it is that they want to become when they grow up no one—no child—ever says: “I want to be on the benefit.” No child ever says: “This is my goal: I’m going to be a bludger for the rest of my life.” Every child that I have ever come across talks about becoming an All Black playing for the Warriors becoming lawyers becoming doctors. I even had one young man out of Robertson Road School in Mangere who wants to be the Prime Minister of New Zealand. The dream— 
Grant Robertson 
: Probably do better than John Key. 
Su’a WILLIAM SIO 
: Could be. They dream these young people of going to the Olympic Games. They dream of being policemen in their local community nurses and doctors. They dream of being professors. So I find the earlier comments by the Minister just absolutely wrong. I think the Minister will be familiar with a group of young people who work with Strive Community Trust in Mangere. In the times that I spend with those young people they have big dreams of their future and of what they want to become. No one ever mentions that someday they want to be on welfare. They have big dreams. The last meeting I met with them they talked about what this Government can do for them in terms of part-time jobs or school holiday jobs while they are going to school. How can they earn income to support the projects they are involved with and also to support their families? They talked about opportunities that in so far as they are concerned just do not seem to be there particularly when they listen and hear that things will be tougher for their families or that they will not get the support they want to believe they could get if they wanted to go to university or tertiary education. 
I just want to say to the Minister that if the thinking in her earlier comments was that somehow Maori and Pacific children are working-class children—that somehow their purpose in life is to aim to be on the benefit or aim to be on the welfare system—then I say to her that she is absolutely absolutely totally wrong. Even with regard to the parents I work with or the parents who come to my office—those who have complaints with regards to Government departments—I say to the Minister that parents who are on the benefit are often embarrassed because that is not the kind of living that they dreamed about. They cannot support themselves or give their children a high-quality standard of living on the benefit that is provided. I have met numerous parents who are simply gutted that on the benefit they cannot provide for their families and therefore it is their hope—