Sepuloni Carmel: Social Security (Pathway to Work) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSepuloni Carmel: Social Security (Pathway to Work) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 11 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:7916. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I move That the Social Security (Pathway to Work) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services Committee to consider the bill. This weekend just gone our leader Andrew Little gave an incredible speech—in Palmerston North a wonderful place that this side of the House recognises as a wonderful place unlike the other side of the House. In that speech he said that under his leadership the Labour Party has three priorities: jobs jobs and jobs. Under Andrew Little Labour is the party of work in this country. We are the party of a stronger economy and of economic opportunity for everyone with a chance for everyone to live for the Kiwi dream.Unfortunately National is the party that is sticking up for those already doing well and throwing up barriers that stop other people from getting ahead. I remember really clearly that before the 2008 election National was running that message of aspiration. Well what we have come to realise on this side of the House—and a lot of New Zealanders are now recognising this as well—is that National is aspirational only for those who are already there. It is not aspirational for those who are just trying to get ahead and need a little bit of help with that journey. My bill is about jobs. It is about opportunity. It is about smashing the barriers that stop people from finding work and cut them off from the opportunity to get ahead.We all know that under National the economy is struggling. Unemployment is rising. In fact we have lost 11000 jobs in just the last 3 months. We only need to look at the Government’s attempts to try to get people off benefits into employment and we can see very clearly that it has been failing abysmally. If we look at the number of people participating in the Ministry of Social Development’s employment programmes we see that that has dropped by 60 percent since 2011-12. We can see that the number of people returning to a main benefit 8 weeks after the end of an employment contract has increased from 15 percent to 23 percent—more people ending their employment contract and going back to benefits. For the year ending September 2015 less than half of job seekers’ benefits were cancelled for the reason of having obtained work. People are not leaving benefits and going on to work yet that Government would have us believe that they are.We have seen other trials. There are employment trials for sole parents. There are employment trials for mental health consumers. All of those employment trials all of these schemes are failing under National. This bill helps get people on benefits a pathway back into full-time work by raising the number of hours they can work part-time without having their benefits cut. Actually I want to mention that when I met with the Minister for Social Development Anne Tolley she said to me—her exact words were something along the lines of “Oh if we put more money in these people’s pockets or if we give them a financial incentive then it would be a disincentive for them to go back to work.” Just like all of the National Party’s policies what she was saying made no sense. If we incentivise the opportunity to go back to work financially then more people are going to want to take up the opportunity to go back to work.When we look at the abatement rate threshold it has barely been lifted in at least the last 17 years—I think since I was on a benefit back in the 90s. In fact for the jobseeker support beneficiaries it is still set at $80 before you start getting penalised. For sole parent support beneficiaries it is still set at $100 and when you start earning $100 you start being penalised. Those thresholds are too low. They are not even a full day’s work for someone on the minimum wage. What this bill does is it raises the threshold so that those people can go out and earn a little bit more money without having their benefit penalised. They can earn up to $150 without having any money deducted from their benefit. What is wrong with that National Government?Right now this Government is actually penalising people who want to find more work. That is right—it is taking money out of the pockets of people trying to get into work. It is backing rules that mean it pays better to be on the benefit rather than to find work and it is wrong. We can do better. In fact in many ways this bill is not only a new policy but also playing policy catch-up because of the fact that those thresholds have barely been lifted—at least over the last 17 years if not longer. Under this bill people will have a pathway back into work. They will have a chance to get work experience and get a stable job. It makes sense to us. It makes sense to most employers. It makes sense to the many benefit advocates and social services that I have been out there talking to. Why would we not encourage people to get out there and where possible take up a full day’s work? That is a pathway back into work. That is a pathway towards full-time work and that is what we want to see.On that side of the House over the last few years we have seen welfare reforms that have introduced work obligations social obligations a whole lot of obligations—a whole lot of stick but actually very little carrot for these people. This bill is actually a carrot. We need to bring a little bit more balance back into our welfare system actually because that side of the House has created a completely imbalanced system that stigmatises beneficiaries and assumes—assumes—that these people who are in a position where they need to access welfare do not want to go out there and work. They do want to go out there and work. I have seen some research recently from the Growing Up in New Zealand study. They broke it down for me and they did a comparison of the parent who is parenting alone—so the sole parent—versus the parent who is in a relationship raising children. Actually the findings are really interesting and I think that side of the House needs to read them. Actually the sole parent had more of a desire to go back to work than the parent who was in a relationship. Not just for financial reasons so that they could provide for their family but for the obvious reasons that many of us know of—things like wanting to be in the company of adults.Members on that side of the House have always underestimated beneficiaries and if they choose to vote against this bill then they will be continuing to underestimate beneficiaries continuing to put the boot in and implement punitive measures—lots of stick but no carrot. This bill is a test for the Government: does it have the moral courage to do the right thing and help lift people out of poverty? Does it have what it takes to back job creation? Currently we have 305000 children living in poverty.Hon Member: We just create jobs.CARMEL SEPULONI: Jono Naylor says: “What does that have to do with it?”. What that has to do with it Mr Naylor is that actually of those 305000 children 60 percent of them come from households where a parent is not working—60 percent of them come from households where the parent is not working. So why would we not support the parents of these children to be able to get back into the workforce? Why would we not say: “Well actually take that first step and we will make sure that you are not penalised in the process of doing it.”?With what we are proposing those families of the 60 percent of the 305000 children—so let us say 181000 children—those parents could potentially be $50 better off than what they arecurrently. That is a lot more than the $25 that is being offered through the children in hardship package that the Government has proposed. Actually that amount of money will go a lot further in lifting some of these children out of poverty than the $25 per family that that Government has proposed in its children in hardship package. If the Government votes against this bill I think Kiwis will see clearly that this is a Government that cannot be trusted to get people into jobs and that does not want to lift people out of poverty.What we have seen recently is a Government that does not care. We have heard from the finance Minister Bill English his response to the worsening unemployment figures saying that the Government does not intend to do anything specific to tackle that rising unemployment. The Government is negligent in not doing enough for this country in respect of creating job opportunities and offering incentives to get into work. I am not surprised in some ways that National is not supporting this bill. If recent events are anything to go by it cannot be trusted to back New Zealanders. There are lots of different examples that I can use there. Labour has clear and practical plans to help Kiwis get ahead to restore opportunity and to rebuild the Kiwi dream. I am hoping that the other political parties in the House will see that and vote for this bill.