Dyson Ruth: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8230. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I know that it is not appropriate to bring the Chair into the debate but could I invite the Chair to join in my little quiz?The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No.Hon RUTH DYSON: I have a little quiz that I want to start my contribution with tonight. The answer is a day of the week. That is my clue for you. Consider this statement: “If a stand down period applies under this section benefits commence as follows: (a) benefits except those described in paragraph (b) commence on the later of—(i) the day on which the stand down period ends;”—let us say that Thursday is the day the stand-down period ends—“or (ii) the day on which the application for the benefit is received:”—whichever is the later. Here is my question: if the stand-down period ends on a Thursday what day does the benefit start?Iain Lees-Galloway: Thursday.Hon RUTH DYSON: Right. I heard the buzzer from my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway. He said “Thursday” but for 18½ years Work and Income has said “Friday”. In May last year through a series of events Work and Income was told that it has had it wrong all this time. It has been paying people their benefits starting on a Friday and it should have been a Thursday. That is the problem that we are seeking to address in this question. I want to particularly urge New Zealand First members Māori Party members and the Hon Peter Dunne to think about that.The words that I read out are the actual words in section 80BA—as only social security legislation can be numbered—(4)(a)(i) and (ii) of the Social Security Act 1964. That is what it says. If the stand-down period finishes on the Thursday the benefit starts on the Thursday. Work and Income started it on the Friday for 18½ years and we are fixing that problem tonight. So we have two choices. We can say: “Oh well we’ll just fess up. We got it wrong.” It was not deliberate of course. Nobody in Work and Income read that and decided to short-change anybody by a day I am sure and I am certain no Minister has over any of that period regardless of which party they are from.So we could just say: “Let’s fix it. We got it wrong.” We could say to everyone going back to 1998 since that legislation was passed: “Put in a claim and we will look at it and if you got short-changed by a day because we misinterpreted the law we will pay it to you.” Or we could have a nasty mean-spirited response and say we are not going to do that—we are not going to fix a wrong that was clearly created. We could say we are going to pay only the lawful amount to a very small percentage of people. That is what this Minister has decided.This Minister has decided that instead of paying what the law required she is going to pay only from the day her department heard about it to the day it was determined that it had been paying it wrong. That is outrageous. It is outside the law. What the little National Party people across the Chamber are going to do is vote to retrospectively make an illegal action legal and take away a day’s entitlement from a beneficiary.Well I hope they sleep well because frankly I would not feel too good about that being my contribution under urgency in the New Zealand Parliament. I would be thinking: “Truly? I worked so hard to get in here so I could cause the law to be changed retrospectively because it does not suit us to comply with the law?”. That is what they are doing. I would be ashamed actually. I would be worse than feeling not good about it. I would be ashamed to be a New Zealand member of Parliament saying we got it wrong and we are not going to fix it—well we are going to fix it for a very small number of people but not for all those who were legally entitled to get their benefit on the day their stand-down period finished.That has really frustrated me and puzzled me. Why would members of Parliament do that? All MPs have worked hard to get here. Whether they are list MPs or electorate MPs they all worked hard to get here. Is that the goal? Is the goal to change law retrospectively to take money off people who currently are legally entitled to it? Those members are lacking ambition I would say to them if that is their goal.I want to also comment on the process. I think the process has been outrageous. We have been denied the tabling of documents and advice from the officials. We have got no regulatory impact statement. The question for the Minister to answer is—