Curran Clare: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Curran Clare: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 26 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8909. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 This is truly a sad day having this debate. This is truly a very flawed bill the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. It is an ideological bill. It is not a bill that is built on common sense. It is extremely unfortunate that we are having to debate it in this manner. We object absolutely to the underlying assumption in this bill and in all of the provisions in this bill that those on Government support do not want to work. I do not know where the Government gets this assumption from. I do not know in particular whether that member who spoke previously Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga actually meets with constituents who are suffering from not being able to find jobs from not being able to get the support that they need to get to find jobs. 
In my electorate I have countless examples every single day of people who are having more and more barriers put in their way in order for them to find work. I particularly want to mention and reiterate what my colleague Su’a William Sio said earlier about people with disabilities. I recently had 10 people sitting round a table in my office—people with disabilities—telling me about the barriers that are being put in their way to being able to find jobs. They cannot even get to the point where they get an interview because of the barriers that are there and because this Government has taken away the mainstream funding that was providing support for them. 
Hon Paula Bennett 
: That’s not true. 
CLARE CURRAN 
: Yes it has gone. These people implored me to do something about this and to try to work out how it is that they could even get an interview and get to employers who were willing to interview them when there were so many other people standing in line for each of these jobs. 
This is a bill that we cannot support because it does nothing to address those barriers to work the availability of work the childcare costs and whether the individual has the necessary skills required. It is pushing the buttons of negativity. That is what it is doing—pushing the buttons of negativity and blame. It is targeting and demonising good people in our community who want to work and who cannot find work. The Government is punishing the most vulnerable members of our society for its own lack of ability to improve the economy. As I said my office is overwhelmed by increasing numbers of needy constituents who seek help to simply access their entitlements under our current social security regime and those barriers are just making it harder for them to move out of the poverty cycle. There is no carrot in this bill. It is like using the stick when a person is already cornered. 
Recently my office has had four cases of people approaching me when their benefits have been cut for non-compliance with job-seeking including a family with a very young baby. These are people who find it difficult to regularly report their situation to their case manager to state for instance the jobs that they applied for or that they have moved and they are getting into difficulty with these things. These are the ones who have already been let down by our education system and who are having difficulties with the regime that is providing more barriers for them. These are the people whom social welfare was designed to support into a better situation not to penalise them for their lack of skills. I do not think that members on any side of this Chamber will try to convince you Mr Chair that we do not need to decrease the number of people who are reliant on State support but what we do disagree on is how we go about achieving this. This Government is playing into the stereotypes of bludging of putting everybody into the same basket of—