Upston Louise; Sepuloni CarmelHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you Madam Chair. I understand the new format in terms of a series of questions back and forward across the committee of the whole House and that's the model I intend to follow. I just want to start by putting on record that the total Vote Social Development appropriation is just shy of $44 billion. I accept it's a significant Vote that we are discussing in this first component of the Estimates debate for 2022-23. The first series of questions I would like the Minister to answer are specifically around employment and social outcomes support and of course we've seen a drop back from the estimated actual last year to the estimate this year. My questions include: of the initiatives that are funded under this category which of the initiatives and what percentage of the funding is targeted to those who are on benefit long term—i.e. longer than one year? I'm talking about job seekers in total. So in that question again I'm looking for detail in terms of dollar value and percentage of the employment and social outcomes support. How much of that and what percentage of it is focused on supporting people who have been on the jobseeker benefit for longer than 12 months? I'm also interested in concrete examples—because we continue to hear it—of what defines meaningful work" and probably more importantly what doesn't. We've also heard it a lot in the last week—the language shifted to people having a good job. So to the thousands of employers out there who have jobs that they are desperately trying to fill I think it would be useful for the Minister who is in charge of a nearly $40 billion Vote to answer my first series of questions around the employment and social outcomes support and to describe and define what is and isn't "meaningful work" and a "good job". Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Madam Chair thank you very much. Well just to start the member Louise Upston has pointed out the $40 billion Vote and I do want to clarify that in that $40 billion Vote almost $20 billion is for superannuation. The three main working-age benefits receive about $7.4 billion; accommodation assistance about $2.3 billion; student allowance $682 million; hardship assistance $608 million; winter energy payment $518 million; and disability assistance $418 million. So it is important to keep it in perspective with respect to the significant amount—50 percent—that is paid towards superannuation. There were a number of questions asked by the member. I'm going to attempt to answer them. However I completely understand if she may need to reiterate some because there was a lot in there to unpack. The member asked how much from the dedicated pool of funding that is in there for employment is targeted towards specifically long-term beneficiaries or those in welfare receipt. I think the point of difference perhaps is that our view is that we can prevent and avoid long-term benefit receipt if we invest early into people that came on benefit. All of the evidence shows that when people are supported to get into employment quickly then they are able to exit more—when they get on to benefit and are able to be supported into work quickly then they are less likely to stay on benefit. So that has certainly been the focus for us. Particularly during COVID I think it was around $163.596 million that was dedicated to employment and training and that is one of the many numbers that is in front of me. I also wanted to respond to the question that was asked around meaningful work and good jobs. The approach that we have been trying to take—which has been an approach asked for actually by employers—is that we match people up appropriately with work. We do have large numbers of clients showing up to things like work expos but not necessarily walking away with a job because at the end of the day the business gets to choose who would be the right fit and who has the skills and capabilities to go into work. So the best jobs for our clients are the ones where they have the skills to take them up and where they are a right fit for the employer because fundamentally we can't force people on to businesses and employers and that certainly hasn't been the approach that we've taken."