Moroney Sue: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Moroney Sue: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 26 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8916. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 It is not a pleasure to stand and speak in the Committee stage of the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill because actually this is a bill that shows—particularly in Part 1 with all of its punitive effects that it brings on people on mothers in particular—that the Government has just given up. It really has given up on this idea of a brighter future. No longer is it prepared to make sure that there are jobs created and that we have a society where people actually feel like they can contribute in a positive way to their society. Instead it is using Part 1 of this bill to bring in a whole range of punitive measures—a whole range of punitive measures—to get people lining up for jobs. That is the demeaning situation that we actually face here in New Zealand today under the National Government. It is that demeaning prospect of people having to line up for jobs. 
There were a couple of stories in the  
Waikato Times 
 just in the last week that really paint this dismal picture that the National Government has got us into that will not be rectified and that will in fact be worsened by this bill and Part 1 in particular. The first story was the front page of the  
Waikato Times 
 on the 18th of this month. It had a big banner headline that read: “Jobless fight for work”. The jobless are having to fight for work in a city like Hamilton. That is the sort of brighter future that this Government has delivered to us. What the story detailed was situations like 1013 people applying for 120 jobs at the Hamilton office of the Earthquake Commission—1013. The burger chain Wendy’s had 100 applications for six management positions. And they were expecting more than 500 people to apply for 50 minimum wage crew jobs. The Mexico Group is also looking to recruit people but these are not flash jobs; these are minimum wage jobs. Again about 200 people had applied for 25 jobs at that restaurant. So this is the prospect: people lining up in queues to actually try to secure the dignity of work. The demeaning lining up and queuing for jobs for the dignity of work—that is what it has been reduced to. 
The other story that I think is relevant to Part 1 of this bill which was in the  
Waikato Times 
 just a few days later was a story where—it was quite demeaning actually—this was the employers starting up. The employers were starting up to say: “We have these jobs. They are minimum rate jobs and when people line up to apply for them they are really not worthy of these minimum wage jobs.” It was disgraceful but tucked in there was a sentence where those employers were complaining that this piece of legislation was going to make matters worse. That was the employers complaining that it was going to make life worse for them. Never mind the people forced to line up because there are no jobs in this country forced to line up in those queues and go through that demeaning exercise with a punitive approach that this Government is about to take through Part 1 of this bill. In that queue after this legislation passes will be the mother who has been forced to look for employment against her will and against the needs of her children. They will be the people who have been forced to put their children into early childhood education against their will. They will be the people forming these queues. 
The employers in that story were already complaining about people lining up to be applicants who they said did not really want the job. I do not know how they have come to that conclusion that people—