Prasad Rajen: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Prasad Rajen: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 20 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8736. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 The bell should have rung for that member Alfred Ngaro a lot sooner but I notice the bell did not even have to ring for that member. That member did not get a job. The bell did not ring for that member. I want to say to that member that when Labour was in Government there was no need to ring a bell. People had jobs. There was full employment—the lowest unemployment in the world. Melissa Lee who does not know the record of Labour’s 9 years in Government asked what Labour did. I say to Melissa Lee that people were in work. They were working. There was no need for the bell. That is some kind of Pavlovian experiment—some kind of Pavlovian reinforcement—that that member believes in. He should be ashamed of himself. I would not want to put people through having to listen to bells so that they can be in jobs. What do you think this is? A psychology laboratory? This is real people we are talking about. I hope they do not ring bells in the way that that member describes. The unemployed have become some kind of a joke—some kind of a tool. So when they get a job you ring a bell. Oh come on! Give us a break—give us a break. 
This Government has an awful record in any of the social areas—any of them. It has been in Government for almost 5 years and what has improved? Has housing improved? Has education improved? Has health improved? Has abuse prevention improved? Are children better off? No they are not. So the record of that member’s Government is awful and people out there are suffering. Of course they blame all of this on—what? Oh that is right there was that global economic crisis—the global economic crisis. Well much of the difficulty has been made by that member’s own Government and by the Minister for Social Development who presides over this. 
The National Party has always had difficulty—always had difficulties—supporting beneficiaries and this bill represents another example of how National members malign beneficiaries in order to reduce support for them. That is its track record that is its modus operandi and it is happening again. National would have destroyed the welfare State. It has tried but the people in this country are smarter. By golly National tries every day! That is all it does—it tries to destroy it. It is getting clever in how it is doing that but it is still trying to destroy it. 
You see New Zealanders are fair-minded people I say to those members sitting at the back there. They are fair-minded people who are happy for people to contribute to the nation’s development when they are in work and in every other way and for them to receive support when they need it. This Government is trying to do away with that social contract. But that is the nature of New Zealand society and New Zealanders have understood that since 1935. Some of those members who have not been around very long do not actually appreciate that but many others do. Most of us embrace it and are proud of the caring society that we have created that we understand and that we have developed. 
That is not to say that cheats should not be brought to justice. Nobody on this side actually supports cheats. This is another cornerstone belief of the New Zealander: do not game the system. But by golly I know that that side there does not stand up to the rich who game the system; it is just the poor. But anyway that is another story for another debate. 
The National Government and its previous manifestations have demonstrated their contempt for welfare beneficiaries and have always tried to put them down. 
Melissa Lee 
: Oh rubbish! 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: I will take the member through it. They have painted the beneficiaries as cheats as criminals as fraudsters. Remember the motorway that that member was against because the criminals from the south would come to the west? Remember that Melissa Lee? That member was maligning this group when she was campaigning for Mt Albert. So do not come here and cry false tears. That member was doing it and that member’s Government does it all the time. You see the prejudice it creates. Then it creates this notion of dependency. It has been created. Anybody on a benefit for over a year is now a dependant. Dependence is bad. It is pejorative and we must do something about that. 
Then it does this intellectually dishonest thing. This Minister has done this absolutely intellectually dishonest thing which is to ask what the cost of welfare is. It is taking a leaf out of Nick Smith’s awful awful approach to ACC. At $67 billion it is absolutely alarmist—absolutely alarmist. Nobody has to pay for all the welfare costs and lifetime costs of any beneficiary up front any more than ACC but no that is how those members do it. Then they say “We are going to fix it with this investment approach.” but members on that side fool nobody. The mechanisms that that member’s Government has used over the years are legendary. 
Do you remember what Ruth Richardson did? She actually cut benefits. She took $1 billion at a very early period from the poor and many of those poor people in our suburbs have suffered until today. That generation probably never recovered. They produce adolescents who are unprepared for the modern world and their children probably still suffer. That is National’s record. 
Do you remember what Jenny Shipley did? She tried the Code of Social and Family Responsibility. That was just another code of social responsibility. New Zealanders rejected it. The Government put it in every house in New Zealand and it was rejected in its entirety. 
Todd McClay 
: Yeah that’s actually a better speech—have another. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: Nobody—nobody was fooled by that. I say to that member there the member for Rotorua Mr Todd McClay that nobody was fooled. But that member has not been around long enough to appreciate that. When it came to tax cuts what did the Government do? It gave the poor a miserable few dollars. The member took for himself over $100 a week but the poor did not. So here where was the fairness in that? 
In the last Parliament and in this one this Minister has embarked on a mission to punish the poor and those on limited incomes through a series of so-called welfare reforms. And those members who came recently to Parliament are really just the cheering mob. They are just the cheerleaders here. That is what they are. I noticed how they were pleading to the Minister a little while ago. She tried to sell the current policies as emerging from real concerns. She told her own story and opened up the door for us to talk about that experience. But that fools nobody. The Minister cannot tell that story about herself and then demonstrate how she takes it away from others. That is exactly what has been done. 
They reflect endlessly on the importance of evidence and so do the select committees—the importance of evidence-based policy and practice. Where is the evidence for this policy? Where is it? It does not exist. The English have tried it. What is the English experience? I ask of the members there what did the English tell us in the select committee? That suicide rates are up and people are miserable so there is no evidence about this in the UK experience. I say to the members to go and read the research evidence and they will find out. I want to say to this Minister that the deficit model will never achieve the goals of what her own party campaigned on—a brighter future. This is the deficit model. These are people on the line and then you come up with Draconian policies and you try to sell them as something the country needs. There is no fairness in that. There are no ethics in that. There is no evidence that that will actually work. 
If the provisions of this bill are such a great idea then why is it that the overwhelming majority of submitters were against it? Why? Are they all wrong? They are all wrong? No no—nothing from my colleagues on that particular point. It was painful in the select committee to see those members on the select committee actually defend these provisions. It was sad because all they could say was that they were trying to be fair. Here were people pouring their hearts out to the select committee about the impact of these provisions on them. 
Members on that side talk about choice. What choice? They love talking about choice but they do not give parents themselves the choice about how they are going to bring up their children. Why? Only because they happen to be on a benefit for a period. That is the only reason. Well the Minister had a choice. The Minister had a choice to have a child to go to university—I know I was there—to have all of those benefits but they are not there now. Why? What changed? What changed between that Minister’s background as a student and as a sole parent and the sole parents of today? What changed? I will tell you what changed. She joined the National Party and she became a member of Parliament. She got seduced by the ideology of that particular party. The submitters saw through this. One submitter said the provisions in this bill were another form of abuse—another form of abuse. 
Todd McClay 
: Apologise like you did to the Families Commission. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: I will not apologise to that member or to those people who support him because there is nothing to apologise for. That is what they said that this was another form of abuse. The Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind—hardly a radical organisation—said that it believed that this focus on work would make life more difficult for the blind. The disabled sector said the same thing. 
Finally the one thing we did not get in the select committee was what the assessment method is going to be. They could not present it to us. We did not see how these people are going to be assessed by outside contractors. It is another arm of the ideology of that Government—privatise it and it will be good. It will not be. This is a terrible bill and we will fight this— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Sorry to interrupt the honourable member.