Lee Melissa: Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLee Melissa: Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:13128. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MELISSA LEE (National):Ahnnyung ha seyo Mr Assistant Speaker.Tēnā koutou katoa. It is a pleasure to rise in support of and talk about the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill in its first reading. Before I actually begin I would like to just remind members that this bill brings in new tools to prevent detect and catch welfare fraud. I know that members opposite have talked about many things including their notion of what this Government is all about in terms of welfare. Let me remind the members opposite that Labour in its 9 years of Government did nothing about welfare reform and this Government is spending more than $536 million in 3 years to reform welfare.Those members talk as if the National Party and this Government do not care about people on welfare and they talk about beneficiary bashing. Let me actually remind the members that if that was in fact the case why are we still providing welfare for the most vulnerable in this country? It is the misconception that Opposition members like to tell the public so that they will be misinformed as though we did not care about people. We on this side of the House do care about people. That is I would have thought a given considering that we are doing something and spending a lot of money on welfare. [Interruption] We are. For example welfare will always be there for people in our community who need it. It will be there for people who actually need it but anyone who can work should really go out and look for a job. That is what we are saying. We are not saying that people who cannot work should work. People who cannot work who actually need to depend on the benefit will get the benefit. There should be no misconception about that.This bill creates an offence for those spouses or partners of beneficiaries who have knowingly benefited from a beneficiary’s fraud and will allow the Ministry of Social Development to recover those debts more successfully by information sharing between Government agencies. Previously what actually happened was that if the ministry suspected there was fraud it had to tell the people whom it was investigating. The Ministry of Social Development was required to tell a person that they were being investigated for welfare fraud and that person was required to provide the necessary information. Imagine that. If I was on welfare and someone had come and told me that I was being investigated if I was an honest person—which I am—I would actually say “Welcome. Investigate me.” but often they are not. A lot of people were given the opportunity for the fraud to be covered up and evidence often destroyed. That is not how it should happen.This bill provides the ministry with the tools to investigate people who are actually offending. It is a criminal offence. They are defrauding the taxpayers of $128 million a year. That is no small sum that we should laugh at. Imagine how much more we could help people in vulnerable circumstances with that $128 million that is currently being defrauded. Partners of beneficiaries know of such fraud—and often they do. They are living in the same house often as husband and wife. They must know that their partner is on welfare. They must know that they are actually drawing from the Ministry of Social Development a sole parent benefit for example. If they are living in a relationship that is like a marriage they should not be drawing that benefit and they are committing a fraud. If they know about it they will be fined up to $5000 or given a jail term of up to 12 months.This bill also provides for review and appeal rights for spouses and partners. However the vast majority of people declare their true circumstances and comply with their obligations. I think that is actually something we should expect of everyone. I know that Opposition members have also said it is only a small percentage of peoplewho are on welfare who actually do in fact create this situation that tars everyone with the same brush. I think we need to make sure that we show them that it is not acceptable to defraud the taxpayer and that it is about time they changed. This is a great bill. I commend it to the House.