Little Andrew: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Little Andrew: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 26 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8927. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ANDREW LITTLE (Labour) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call in the Committee stage of this bill the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. The last member who spoke Mike Sabin really exposed himself and what this Government is about when he talked about this Government looking to give the business community the tools it needs. That is what this bill is about. It has nothing to do with looking after the destitute and the poor and those whose life chances have evaporated or have been taken from them. This has nothing to do with those who are the victims of the vicissitudes of a difficult labour market and a difficult economy. This is about punishing people. 
It is all very well to say that work is the best route out of poverty. You will find no disagreement with that on this side of the Chamber I say to Mr Sabin and to any other member of the Government. We agree with that. So the question that then remains is what you are doing about the work side of that component. What are you doing about the work side of that equation? Nothing is being done because job numbers are going down. Another 140 jobs have gone out of the Department of Conservation today 1500 jobs went out of Telecom last week—I am beginning to sound like an auctioneer now. How many more hundreds and thousands of jobs are going to go before this Government takes the job creation part of the equation seriously? It has got nothing to say and even less to do about that. 
So the only recourse now is to beat up on the most vulnerable and the poorest of our people: those who look to the State for help at a time of need those for whom life has not delivered very good chances and those who may have done well once but whose life’s fortunes have taken a turn for the worse. They quite rightly look to the State for support and assistance during that difficult time. 
Yes Mr Sabin we understand social obligation. Yes Ms Bennett we know about reciprocal obligations—everybody does. But sometimes people have a difficult time in their lives. Sometimes people lose the job that they have been committed to and have worked in for 5 years for 10 years or for 25 years. They do not exercise a choice over that—it happens to them. When they go through that difficult experience because they have paid their taxes they have raised their children and they have done the best they can they are entitled to look to the State for that bridging assistance for that bridging support. They are not to be punished for it. They are not to have labels bandied about. 
 What of the woman who loses her husband or her spouse or her partner to a health and safety accident at work to a road traffic accident or to a disease or some other misfortune? She is no longer to be regarded as a widow for the purposes of our social security system. She now has a work-tested benefit. What dignity does she have left under this Government with that system? None at all. 
This is heartless legislation. It is nasty pettifogging mean-spirited legislation from a nasty pettifogging mean-spirited Government. No one will come out of this with any dignity. It is about changing labels and it is about putting the emphasis on punishing people rather than on addressing the real problems that we have which are a sluggish slowing economy and a so-called recovery—a so far so-called jobless recovery—where people are still struggling to get work. Over 1000 people are lining up for 50 jobs in Hamilton. There have been a number of occasions now when we have had 10 or 20 or 30 people per person lining up for a vacancy. That is the state we are in and it is not a good state. 
Those people who do not get work at the end of their long time in the queue who get through the interview but are still turned down and who are probably turned down dozens of times every couple of weeks are to be recast now as victims of a social security system rather than those who have looked to it for support. They are to be relabelled and renamed. The sense of failure they will have which is no fault of theirs will be compounded and emphasised. That is how heartless this legislation is. So we reject this. 
There is no need for this sort of legislation. We do not need to rename the widows in this country who face stress enough and pressure enough. We do not need to re-victimise those who are already victims of circumstance and misfortune. So the transitional provisions of this legislation provide nothing. They provide no hope and even less benefit to those people who look to our social security system for a lot more. They deserve better.