Beyer Georgina: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
Beyer Georgina: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
[Volume:621;Page:16791] 
4.  
GEORGINA BEYER (Labour—Wairarapa) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: What recent reports has he received on the number of New Zealanders requiring an unemployment benefit? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I have very good news. At the end of October this year the number of people receiving an unemployment benefit was 65085—over 26000 lower than it was 1 year ago. That is like the population of Blenheim or Timaru moving off the unemployment benefit in the last 12 months. Since 1999 the number of people needing an unemployment benefit has dropped by over 81000 or over 55 percent. This demonstrates the Government’s commitment to ensuring that we have job growth and that New Zealanders get a decent job. 
Georgina Beyer 
: How many employment placements has Work and Income made to help people move from a benefit to work? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: In the last financial year Work and Income made over 87000 placements into employment. This record level of employment placements reflects the active approach Work and Income takes to helping people into paid employment through for example a new initiative such as the industry partnerships with growth industries such as the hospitality road transport retail master plumbers roading and—as soon to be announced—meat industries. This strategy and this Government are about real jobs and real wages. 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: Does the Minister accept the serious fact that sickness and invalids beneficiary numbers continue to rise and that the money spent on the invalids sickness and disability allowances increased by $141 million in the year ended June 2004? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Accepting that the sickness benefit is there for people who are sick and that the invalids benefit is there for people who have a disability and that there is a worldwide trend in industrialised countries towards higher numbers on these benefits I say that yes there has been a rise. That is why this Government unlike the previous Government has been piloting policies that are now showing real benefits in moving people who can work back into work. We are about to extend that pilot here in the Wellington region then roll it out right across the country as world-leading cutting-edge policy in that area. 
Peter Brown 
: Will the Minister clarify the whole situation and tell us the exact numbers—by that I mean the actual numbers—of people who have gone on the sickness benefit or the invalids benefit over the same time frame to which he has just referred in relation to the unemployment benefit reduction? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I do not have the figures with me but there has been a rise of around 36 percent during the time we have been in Government in the numbers of people on these benefits. But I say to the member opposite that while the National Government was in power for 9 years those numbers rose steadily. It has taken this Government to put in place the kinds of policies that are beginning to show a turn-round in those trends. 
Peter Brown 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I accept that the Minister has not got the numbers there. I specifically asked for numbers—I repeated that phrase—and he came back with percentages. Can I ask that the Minister supply us with the increased numbers of people on the sickness and invalids benefits? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am sure the Minister will do that in due course. He has just nodded to indicate that he will. 
Judy Turner 
: Has the Minister received any reports which show that as a proportion of the total number of sickness beneficiaries those aged over 50 have increased from 32 percent to only 33.7 percent since 2000 and that as a proportion of the total number of invalids beneficiaries those over 50 have actually decreased from 41 percent to 40 percent; how can he continue to claim that the increasing numbers of sickness and invalids beneficiaries are due to an ageing population when those figures indicate that there is actually an across-the-board increase? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The Government has never claimed that there was one particular reason driving the increase in the numbers of sickness and invalids benefits. One of the reasons is in fact the ageing population. One of the others—which goes along with that—is of course the lift in the age of superannuation eligibility to 65. Members will find that 46 percent of the people who are on those kinds of benefits are in the 60-65 year age group. So age does have something to do with the numbers of people who are on those benefits. But so do such things as diagnoses of psychiatric conditions that many years ago were never accepted as conditions that made people eligible for a sickness or a disability allowance but that these days under both Governments—National during the 1990s and this Government as well I say to John Carter—are accepted as such. 
Judy Turner 
: Has the Minister received any reports that show that against the overall decline in the number of unemployed the number of those on the dole for more than 3 years has increased by 24 percent since 1999 with the number of those unemployed for over 5 years doubling over the same period; and does this entrenched unemployment not mean that he simply cannot rely on a burgeoning economy to find those people work? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: We are seeing dramatic drops in the number of people who have been on the unemployment benefit long term—that is over 6 months. As for people who are on that benefit for longer—for over 4 years for example—I return the member to what I said before: that one of the major drivers for that is age and the lifting of superannuation eligibility to 65. That is an issue that we are dealing with as a country. That is an issue that will be partly dealt with of course by those people getting older and getting entitlement to superannuation. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Is the Minister aware that the Department of Labour told the Finance and Expenditure Committee just over a week ago that 1 hour a week constituted a measurement of employment and went down in the statistics as such; that being the case why is he trying to flannel the country with a cock and bull story? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: For a good two decades now New Zealand has used the household labour force survey measure of employment just as countries throughout the OECD do and we use that measure so that we can make it internationally comparable. Because the member does not seem to understand the use of the figure I refer him to another statistic that is very important. It is the statistic on who feels that they are underemployed—that is that they do not have the hours that match their needs in relation to the work they are looking for. That figure has dropped dramatically under this Government—unlike what happened under the one he was part of in the 1990s. 
Judy Turner 
: Has the Minister received any reports that show that over 26000 additional children have been born to women while they are on a benefit including 7000 women who have had two or more children and one who has had eight additional children; and does he agree that the right to receive a benefit is balanced by a responsibility to both the child and the taxpayer to minimise reliance on that benefit? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I am aware that beneficiaries have children just as other people throughout the community do but the member needs to know that the kind of extreme case that she has been raising of a woman on the domestic purposes benefit who has had eight children is very far from the normal situation. The majority of domestic purposes benefit recipients are between 25 and 45 they have one or two children and they are on the benefit for fewer than 5 years. Because we have introduced a very intense process of case management which is supported—I am pleased to say—by that member she knows that we are getting even better results.