4. Question No. 4—Social Development and EmploymentRICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) to the Minister for Social Development and EmploymentQuestion No. 4—Social Development and Employment4. RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: Are livable incomes and ending benefit sanctions bread and butter" issues; if not why not?Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): All Governments need to make choices and as the Prime Minister has said the bread and butter issues affecting New Zealanders are our priority right now. At the end of last year we announced the changes to the childcare subsidy as part of our review of childcare assistance. This will impact over 10000 children. This policy sits alongside other Government decisions to support New Zealand families who have been impacted as global pressures impact inflation. These changes include minimum wage increases half-price public transport fares and the extension of the fuel subsidy. On 1 April beneficiaries superannuitants and students will also see increases to their weekly incomes. This all makes a difference and is wide reaching. We are clearly lifting incomes and have been for the last five years. The advice I received from the Welfare Expert Advisory Group was on adequate incomes and we have certainly made significant progress. As for sanctions we have ended those that impact children the most. Work has been paused on the other sanctions that do not have the wider reach of some of our other priority policies. However I can reassure the member that since becoming the Government there has been a 79 percent drop in the number of sanctions that affect children.Ricardo Menéndez March: Does she agree with the Children's Commissioner who said that benefit sanctions harm children; if not what evidence does she have that it is not the case?Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: The two sanctions that we have already got rid of are the two sanctions that had the biggest impact on children and so I'm very proud of the fact that we acted quickly to get rid of those. Some of the other sanctions including sanctions pertaining to work obligations are not things that we committed to getting rid of right from the beginning. We said that we would focus on the ones that were most punitive but not all of them would go. We do want them to be a last resort. So if we look at sanctions when they're applied to work obligations it's been really important that as a Government we have invested in work-focused front-line staff so they can have those meaningful engagements with clients rather than resort to sanctions and we've certainly seen the evidence of that working in the reduction in sanctions being applied.Ricardo Menéndez March: What evidence does she have that the existing sanctions are not harming children?Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: We have seen a significant reduction in the number of sanctions being applied to families with children. We never committed to getting rid of all sanctions. Some of the sanctions that are still in place I certainly would like to revisit down the track but they are not a priority for us right now. The changes that we're attempting to make at the moment are the ones that have the biggest impact and are bread and butter for New Zealand families. That work on sanctions has been paused and we will look at that in the future.Ricardo Menéndez March: How many more children will have to go without access to food because they're being sanctioned by the warrant to arrest sanction which has increased under her Government?Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: As I said there has been a huge reduction in the number of sanctions that have been applied to families with children and we moved quickly to get rid of two of the sanctions that most impacted on families with children. There is work to do—that has been paused at this present time—but it is on the medium to longer term work programme for the welfare overhaul.Ricardo Menéndez March: Is she aware that the civil defence—SPEAKER: Sorry to interrupt. I'll give you an extra question. I don't think that was addressed as well as it could have been.Ricardo Menéndez March: Appreciate that. I was thinking of doing a point of order. Thank you. How can she be confident of the impact that the warrant to arrest sanction is having on children when she hasn't been able to produce evidence of the impact that those sanctions have on families?Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: There was a reduction in the last year compared to the year before on the number of sanctions applied for warrant to arrest. I have spoken about the warrant to arrest sanction in the past. It is not something that I am personally supportive of but we have to make choices with regards to our policy programmes. Our actual Government agencies don't have capacity to hit up every area we would like them to at once. What I've asked them to focus on are things like the Working for Families review the childcare assistance review making sure that we have the front-line work-focused case management that we need in place and ensuring that they are working proactively with whānau.Ricardo Menéndez March: Is she aware that the civil defence payment has not been updated for close to 20 years and does she think it is adequate to support low-income families impacted by climate change - induced weather events?Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: The civil defence payment available for those that need access to things like food or bedding or clothing because of an event that has occurred like we have seen recently is double that of the hardship assistance support that they can access through the special needs grant. We have committed moving forward as part of the welfare overhaul to reviewing the grants that are in place and that would have an impact if there were to be changes on the civil defence payment. But we're not looking at changing the civil defence payment in isolation from other parts of the system.Ricardo Menéndez March: Will she permanently index benefits to wages or inflation whichever is higher to better support low-income people receiving a main benefit; if not why not?Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Mr Speaker I didn't hear the first part of the question.Ricardo Menéndez March: Will she permanently index benefits to wages or inflation whichever is higher to better support low-income people receiving a main benefit; if not why not?Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: Over the last 23 years—actually when we introduced the policy of indexing benefits to wages there'd only been two times where inflation had outstripped wage growth. And then in the last two years because of what we have experienced with the Ukraine-Russia situation and everything else that has occurred. That is why we made the change. To the member it is something that I'm certainly keen on looking at. So no commitment at this point in time but I am committed to exploring the work."