Borrows Chester: Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBorrows Chester: Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 April 2014. Volume:697;Page:16951. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CHESTER BORROWS (Associate Minister for Social Development):Thank you for the opportunity to speak in respect of this bill the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill. I thank the Labour Party members for articulating where they are standing on it and for confirming that they are supporting the bill albeit they have said that they are doing so with some reservation. That was not clear for some time because what we had was that on the day the bill was introduced the leader of the Labour Party voted for it but then said that if Labour is elected into Government it would repeal the bill and it would quash it. So I guess it is nice to have the spokespeople from the Labour Party giving some indication to their leader as to which way he should be voting in respect of this bill. If he is going to change his mind I guess I would ask that the Hon David Cunliffe comes down to the Chamber and tells us that he is going to do that. I also appreciate the way in which members across the Chamber have engaged with my office in respect of the preparation of the bill and the indications that they gave. I had very meaningful discussions with Jacinda Ardern and Jan Logie and also with Tracey Martin the Māori Party and others in respect of the bill.It is also important to point out what we are discussing here. We have heard a number of figures quoted comparing for instance tax debt with welfare fraud. Really as they have been quoted—tax debt in the billions of dollars and welfare fraud at $23 million—we need to just acknowledge that you are sort of comparing apples with elephants there. When we talk about billions of dollars of tax debt established we are talking about overdue tax debt—in other words overdue taxes that have not been paid. A portion of them will be fraud a portion of them will just remain unpaid—as frequently happens within business—and a portion of them will be penalty payments which are not attached to fraud.But when we talk about $23 million in benefit fraud that is fraud that has been established from actual people who have been prosecuted. It is estimated that the average welfare benefit overpayment is established at about $1.2 billion. So you could make a comparison between the established overpayments from welfare being $1.2 billion and the estimated overdue tax being about $6 billion—about five times as much. Then when we start looking at the energy that the Government is putting into recovering that debt it is important to note that we spend about four or five times as much on recovering tax debt as we do on welfare debt. We have put a lot of new money into that. Since we came into Government for instance we have taken the budget up about four times to $138 million of new money in 2014 spent on chasing tax debt. We are operating from a baseline within the welfare budget.I think it is important to make that comparison. Obviously as listeners would have heard the assertion has been made time and time again that the Government is more interested in chasing after welfare debt than tax debt. The energy put into recovering tax debt and the money put into recovering tax debt is well in excess—in fact it is nearly five times as much—of what we are spending on welfare fraud. More and more of those people are being prosecuted and hundreds of millions of dollars is being collected each year from those who are ripping off the tax system. It is very important to note that.Another important issue has been raised around partnership crime. The fact is that when you are talking about new provisions that will criminalise the behaviour of the partners of beneficiaries it is important to recognise that this crime can be committed only by two people in a relationship which separates it somewhat from other crimes where we also use a recklessness type of criminal liability. For instance if someone is receiving stolen property or receiving property known to be obtained by a crime such as run-of-the mill fraud then their recklessness about whether or not that was obtained by a crime is their criminality. Although it is true to say in respect of welfare crime that we have not seen this recklessness aspect of criminal liability applied before in respect of living off the proceeds or benefiting from the proceeds of fraud it is not true to say that this is novel and this is new.Another good point has been made in respect of women living in abusive relationships and the fact that they have been manipulated or forced into committing crime. I can see where the fears are in respect of that. Largely the victims of this type of crime are women. But it is also important to note that the findings of the court have been—and I have made this point previously during questions around the proposals of this legislation—that a woman in a violent relationship is not in a relationship in the nature of marriage which would make her liable to benefit fraud. I just need to restate that.What that means then is that if two people are living in a violent relationship the woman is usually the victim in that violent relationship. If for instance she was accused of committing a benefit crime and it was obvious from that investigation—or she made the allegation and it was substantiated—that she was continuing to live in that violent relationship because of pressure being put upon her by her spouse then she would not fall within the definition of living in a relationship in the nature of marriage which would make her liable under these provisions. We are doing everything we can to ensure then that a woman caught in a violent relationship and being manipulated by a partner who is going on to live on the benefits of welfare crime cannot actually be held accountable in that system.But I would contend quite strongly that this law is about fairness. As it sits at the moment we have a situation where if a woman and a man are living in a relationship and she is receiving a benefit and he has done anything at all to promote the gathering or the obtaining of that benefit—for instance by filling in a statement that they are not living in another relationship giving social welfare investigators another address for where he is living telling lies etc.—he can be charged as a party to that offence now. The criminal liability and the debt travel with him and her equally. But if that partner—generally male—just stays dumb about it and does nothing but quite happily continues to live in that home where he is paying no rent and is contributing nothing to the household but taking the profits of that welfare crime he cannot be touched.What this change in the law does is say that if he lived in that house and he knew or should have known but was reckless as to whether or not his partner was in receipt of a benefit then he is going to carry the whole of that debt as she carries the whole of that debt—they carry it equally—and also the criminal liability for that.I do not believe that there is a person in this Chamber who does not think that that is fair—who does not think that that is fair—and so that is why out on the streets and across the organisations we have spoken to most people are largely supportive of this.What we do have though is the mantra which keeps going back along political lines I guess that says National will favour only those who are rich and will always step on those who are poor. We have heard it so often before we can recite that in our sleep. But the fact of the matter is this: on this day in this Committee we are talking about welfare fraud and in respect of welfare fraud we are going to be fair. Firstly we are going to be fair. Those who choose to vote against this will have to account for that when they go to the public on 20 September.