Logie Jan: Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Logie Jan: Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 18 July 2012. Volume:681;Page:3654. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JAN LOGIE (Green) 
: 
 Thank you for this chance to speak to Part 3 of the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. Again there is quite a lot to say. I would just also like to follow up on my colleague Holly Walker’s previous speech talking about the financial veto the use of that and the cost of the sanctions. Although the Minister for Social Development has responded quite constructively around the issues of the Work and Income workers not being able to make that assessment in terms of the well-being of the child I think that does not undermine the point my colleague was making about the welfare of the child.  
I think we need to recognise that the Regional Public Health survey around healthy food costs which came out earlier this year showed that somebody on the DPB with two children after paying the average rent in eastern Porirua and providing the very basics of a healthy food diet would have $100 a week left. That was looking at an income of the DPB the accommodation supplement and other tax credits. A hundred dollars a week would be left. It is not hard to see that a cut to a benefit—any cut to a benefit let alone a cut of 50 percent—is going to affect a parent’s ability to feed clothe and adequately care for their child. I think that the Government’s admission of seeking savings combined with that response is quite clear evidence of that and I think all of us in the House who have a real concern in terms of child poverty should be taking that quite seriously.  
I would also like to just address the statement that has been offered many times about parents and families being better off in work. I think we have to really question why that is because we know that two out of five families living in poverty in this country are working families. We know that families on welfare are living in poverty. That is without a question. But the response to that is not necessarily to push people into work. Maybe the sensible response to that is actually to lift things up from our base to improve welfare payments and by virtue of doing that to improve work conditions. That may be a more sustainable way of addressing child poverty rather than cutting the base and pushing more people into the job market when there are not extra jobs a situation that will actually undermine people’s ability to negotiate for the better wages and better conditions that would enable them to stay in work for longer. This bill is setting up for people an unsustainable vicious cycle which is going to keep them trapped in poverty and that should be of concern to every member in this House.  
I would also just like to speak to how these changes are a furthering of the Future Focus amendments in terms of work testing for parents on the DPB and how that seems to have been creating a bit more of a culture of disentitlement within the department. We are seeing that through an increased number of cases that are going to appeal where the original decision has been overturned and through the anecdotal stories that we are hearing from people who are not being told about the discretion and not being told of their actual basic entitlements. We are just hearing far too many of those stories for that not to seem to be a symptom of a culture of work testing—this belief that people should be in work at all costs.  
I have raised it before and I am going to continue to raise the issue of discretion and domestic violence. There is a work-test exemption that is available for victims of violence. In February I think it was 22 people had been given that exemption. I know there are more than that—