Macindoe Tim: Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Macindoe Tim: Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 12 June 2012. Volume:680;Page:2878. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 When I spoke in the first reading debate on this bill the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill I made the comment that the issue we are talking about is probably the greatest challenge of our political generation. I also made the point that I believe the outcome of this bill will be one of the defining achievements of the John Key - led Government.  
Jacinda Ardern earlier tonight misrepresented the figures that this bill will cater for so I want to clarify that we are talking about 14000 young people aged 16 or 17 years who are not in employment education or training. Not a few hundred but 14000. They deserve our help and our guidance and most of all they deserve a future. But they cannot do it on their own or with the soft bigotry of low expectations that characterises the approach over many years of members opposite in this House.  
I am very proud to be a member of the Social Services Committee and I will be especially proud when the benefits of this measure bear fruit as they undoubtedly will.  
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: Will you resign if they don’t? 
TIM MACINDOE 
: Opposition members like Dr Prasad are stuck in a time warp. And those members ignore reality—tragically not at their own peril but at the peril of those whom they claim to represent and whose interests they are unquestionably failing. I endorse 100 percent the outstanding work of our Minister for Social Development Paula Bennett. She is doing a fine job and a tough job and I commend her for that. I endorse 100 percent the excellent work of the chair of the Social Services Committee Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga who I have to say has handled the whole process with dignity with courtesy with respect with intelligence and with fairness. And I put that on the record because I have been appalled at the attacks on his character tonight. He is a fine man doing a very fine job. I also commend the excellent work of the very fine deputy chair Melissa Lee. I am proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with all three of those members of this House and I back their effort 100 percent. Let us get on with the job.  
Contrast their efforts and their contributions in this debate with the ideological claptrap of the Opposition speakers. Su’a William Sio accused the MP for Maungakiekie of being heartless. That was the word he used. Well I say to Mr Sio that I take offence at and exception to that claim. Mr Sio should be ashamed of making it because throwing young people into the too-hard basket and patronising them with welfare without expectations is what is really heartless. That is the bigotry of low expectations that characterises the members opposite. Michael Joseph Savage the architect of the modern welfare State would be utterly appalled. What Labour oversaw in the first years of this decade is so far removed from what Michael Joseph Savage and his colleagues envisaged and intended when they established the modern welfare system that I am sure that he and they would disown their successors on that side of the House.  
Mr Sio also attacked the select committee process. Well as I said it was a very well-run process and it was respectful in tone. No one was bullied Mr Sio in that process and no one is bullied by this bill. Dr Prasad’s constant refrain that these measures are punitive is absolute bunkum and I am sure deep down he knows it.  
I would like to say much more on this; I will at future stages. I am proud of what we are doing and I really commend this bill to the House because it is one of the most important things we could possibly do.