Cunliffe David: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCunliffe David: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8223. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): It is customary when rising to take a call especially one’s first call as this is in this debate on the Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill—and what a lovely benign positive rosy title that is—to state whether one supports or opposes the legislation. Unfortunately my colleagues and I are not in a position to be able to do that because our support for the legislation is contingent upon the excellent Supplementary Order Paper 142 being put forward by Carmel Sepuloni MP—the gist of which is to delay the commencement of the bill in order to allow all those who have received a benefit between 3 June 1998 when the mistake first arose and 19 May 2014 which in the current bill is when the Government is prepared to restore their rights—to fill in that gap.If the Government assents to doing that Labour will certainly be supporting the bill but Labour cannot support it without that assent because to do so would be to deny people their legitimate rights after the courts found that the Government of New Zealand is in an unlawful position and thus to trammel the dearly and long-held principle that although Parliament is sovereign no New Zealand Government can operate outside the law. A retrospective law change to fix a 17-year-old blunder being passed through Parliament in urgency without so much as a select committee meeting is a travesty unless it retrospectively restores the rights that in error the Government and Parliament unlawfully took. So either we fix it—in which case we can live with the truncated process—or we have to remind the current Government that this principle is worth fighting for and vote against it. The Government is not helping anybody. It is not helping the public of New Zealand; it is not helping the Opposition parties which are showing willingness to cooperate under certain circumstances. That is because the legislation is being rushed through all stages under urgency and we are going to be here until midnighttonight and possibly thereafter debating this bill.There is no regulatory impact statement attached to the bill. That means there has been no set of alternative policy options put forward and analysed in the normal way. Therefore there has been no argumentation advanced by the Government as to what the best optionis and therefore the public has been denied the usual rigour and thoroughness of policy advice. There is no regulatory impact statement. To make matters worse no Cabinet papers have been released to the public or to Parliament to show the logic that Cabinet followed in making its decision. The Minister in the chair may wish to take a call to explain what the fiscal risk is that the Government is concerned about. Surely that can be the only reason for not restoring as the court has indicated the full legal rights of New Zealanders since they were inappropriately and mistakenly taken away in 1998 and thereafter.If it is a fiscal risk issue and if there is a fiscal veto of Carmel Sepuloni’s amendment then at the very least Minister take a call. Be up front with New Zealanders. You pride yourself Minister on being a rural chap who does not mess around with words. Well just stand up and take it on the chin. Tell us how it is; we are big enough to take it. If you think it is going to cost $200 million to fulfil the High Court’s orders tell us.Hon Nathan Guy: Mmm.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Was that a “Yes” Minister? Because there are those who think that Yes Minister apparently is a training video for the current Government and the Sir Humphreys are alive and well—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Come on—back to the bill.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: —but we will not go there with your guidance Mr Chair.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No you will not.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: So there are no fiscal estimates contained in the bill. We do not know what the fiscal risk is. We do not know what the difference is between the 2014 fix and the 1998 proper fix and that matters actually because we want to know what the Government’s price is for sacrificing principle here. As I said there has been no options analysis so the public cannot tell. Why has the Government not—and the Minister may wish to answer this—considered an interest component in the payback because the time value of money wrongfully expropriated since 1998 would not be inconsiderable. If I can turn now to several of the clauses of the bill—