Social Security Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Social Security Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:639;Page:8966] 
Social Security Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Debate resumed from 3 May. 
Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 In considering the complex web of issues entangled in our social security system I sought some conventional wisdom from the Waitangi Tribunal. I found its conclusions highly relevant to today’s debate: “When such a system produces children who are not adequately educated they are put at a disadvantage when they try to find work. If they cannot get work that satisfies them they become unemployed and live on the dole. When they live on the dole they become disillusioned discontented and angry. … They are no more than representatives of many others in our community. When one significant section of the community burns with a sense of injustice”— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: Could members leave quietly please; there is too much noise. 
Dr PITA SHARPLES 
: —“the rest of the community cannot safely pretend that there is no reason for their discontent. This is a recipe for social unrest and all that goes with it.” That description is as true in 2007 as it was 21 years ago in 1986 yet when we in the Maori Party dared to raise the heat on the issue of welfare dependency the wolves were on the attack accusing us of redneck politics benefit bashing joining with the right te mea te mea te mea. The issue that all should have sufficient income to be able to participate in society and in their communities must be above the petty politicking we see from time to time in this House. The Maori Party will continue to bring heat to bear on the debate and to talk about the alarming dependency on welfare in Aotearoa which is a symptom of a much bigger picture—a picture that successive Governments desperately try to hide and deny or to blame previous Governments for. We refuse to refrain from asking questions. Why are 28 percent of Maori over 15 receiving a benefit compared with 10.5 percent for the national average? Why is it that of those receiving sickness benefit—some 48000—26 percent are Maori? [ 
Interruption 
] I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: I am sorry; yes it really is far too loud. Can I just ask members to give the speakers a fair go. It really is just impossible for people to hear the speaker. I do apologise. Dr Pita Sharples. 
Dr PITA SHARPLES 
: Why is that of those receiving invalids benefits—some 77000 in our country—21 percent are Maori? The last time I spoke on the Social Security Amendment Bill I said it had at its core a clever move by the Government to focus on beneficiaries claiming the necessity for people to participate in the labour market with work as an appropriate outcome. I am pleased that this most obvious neo-liberal tenet has been removed and that it is not now a requirement for beneficiaries to undertake activities in the community in order to receive a benefit. But the ever-pervasive threat of neo-liberalism can still be found in the “work first” approach that any paid work—however menial however poor the conditions and rate of pay—is better than no paid work at all. 
We must work together in this House to ensure that people are not isolated alienated or made to feel they have little value. We must work to dispel any notion that the circumstances in which individuals find themselves are a result of their individual failings and shortcomings. Let us instead sit down and really examine the notion of market forces the role of the State in that and the creation and maintenance of the rich and the poor. There is one thing I can say which is that the poor did not create poverty. So if they did not then who did? 
Too often in this debate individual beneficiaries are targeted. The Maori Party knows too well a sense of hopelessness that exists amongst some of our benefit-dependent families. We have tasted the terror of substance abuse of alcohol and of negative health statistics that devour some of our whanau. We have smelt the fear of rising crime and violence and suicide statistics. We have watched in horror as whanau disintegrate falling through the cracks of the education system alienated from their families by the State and incarcerated in ever-increasing droves. It has worn out our people. Where does hope lie? 
We are intolerant of a persistent focus on producing and supplying workers without necessarily considering the availability of appropriate jobs. I am concerned at the impact in my very own electorate of TamakiMakaurau of the closing of the Fisher and Paykel factory and the loss of 350 jobs. This House demands to know the economic philosophies and circumstances that have caused this. We have had enough of our people becoming entrapped in a welfare net with the only hope of escape being a job paying an amount that no one in this Chamber would get out of bed for. When will we see a “Let’s Create Full Employment Bill” a “Good Jobs Only Bill” prohibiting poor work conditions and an “Affordable for All Quality Childcare Bill”? This House pulled together last week to progress legislation to increase the safety and well-being of children but we are back here today to debate a bill that entrenches the poverty of the most vulnerable of them. We must face these particular failures before we can even hope to address welfare dependency—the failure of an economic system to redistribute wealth equitably and the failure of a political system to provide meaningful work sufficient income to participate in society and optimum conditions to stimulate well-being. 
This bill the Social Security Amendment Bill seeks to change the benefit application process—to tinker with the bureaucracy. We do welcome some of this tinkering as a matter of course. We support the fact that beneficiaries are not going to be required to submit to ever-increasing processes for determining eligibility—the Scoble principle. We welcome confirmation that the Taylor principle will be upheld in part—that is that applications do not necessarily need to be in writing. But despite the Scoble and Taylor case laws we do not see any incentives in this bill for the quality of service that Maori clients receive to be improved. Nowhere in this bill does it do anything to look at the broader structural problems—the problems that for well over a century our Maori leaders have identified as undermining our tikanga our thinking and endangering our life force. Yes I am referring to the colonial policies of land thefts and the appropriation of resources. For we can never forget this context in any debate on Maori welfare dependency—a context that the Foreshore and Seabed Act proved is also a “this” century context. 
There is little or no analysis of why the numbers of people on sickness and invalid benefits have increased in the first place. We know that the number of New Zealanders in these two categories of benefits has risen sharply to 124000. The Minister confirmed in March this year that there has been a transfer of 8.5 percent of people from the unemployment benefit to the sickness benefit. The Child Poverty Action Group has explained the increase in the number of people on sickness and invalids benefits as being part of a broader cycle throughout OECD nations. They see it as the “cyclical feedback loop of poverty—the more people there are in poverty the more people there are who get sick.” 
We must talk real in this House. The bill does nothing to address the disproportionate and ongoing unemployment of Maori. This bill does nothing to put a halt to the spiralling storms of cynicism apathy anger and despondency that beset too many of our communities. This bill does not address the trauma of the working poor the tragedy of unrealised potential the desperation of inadequate housing and the morbid consequences of escalating levels of crime. The bill continues to paint the proposition that the beneficiaries are victims of their own making. It ignores the deep underlying systemic causes of poverty and of vast disparities; issues such as institutional racism. We have called and will continue to call for a fresh look at the way in which we can assist people to be productive—to be gainfully employed in work that is meaningful productive and skill-enhancing. By that we do not mean people being pushed into programmes that make it look as if society is busy being busy. 
I liked the comment from Daniel Quinn in  
Beyond Civilization: Humanity’s Next Great Adventure 
 where he said: “If programs don’t work then what does work? In fact I have an even better way of asking the question: What works so well that programs are superfluous? What works so well that it never occurs to anyone to create programmes to make it work? The answer to all these questions is: vision.” This Social Security Amendment Bill is not about vision; it is not about hope. The Maori Party will not support this bill. 
JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future to support the second reading of the Social Security Amendment Bill. The bill introduces some important changes to the principal Act the Social Security Act which provides the framework for income support in New Zealand. The most significant is an addition to the principles of the Act so that where appropriate benefits are paid to people with a clear work focus underpinning the support on offer. 
Work and Income will have three streams of work in regard to its clients. The first is work support which will target people on the unemployment benefit and includes some pre-benefit activities. The second stream is work development support for those who have commitments or challenges that make paid work a goal but not an immediate reality—for instance people on the domestic purposes benefit sickness benefit and some people on the invalids benefit. The third stream of work will be community support for clients who have no realistic chance of participating in paid work but who require support to find appropriate ways to connect with others in their community and that would include some people on the sickness and invalids benefits. 
This bill is all about expectations. Most people in New Zealand derive income by meeting a set of expectations that are either self-imposed in the case of the self-employed or imposed by an employer. Expectation is the basis of a person’s work ethic. United Future has always advocated for the notion that paying a benefit minus a reasonable expectation is foolish. Expectations need to be tailored to the type of benefit being paid. For instance the expectation on those receiving the unemployment benefit should be understandably different from those that apply to a beneficiary on a sickness benefit or invalids benefit. The unemployed need to be actively meeting expectations that see them doing all that is in their power to be work-ready. Sickness beneficiaries need to respond to an expectation regarding making every effort to recover. 
The bill also increases the expectations placed on the staff of Work and Income. More active case management includes being more responsive to the needs of beneficiaries for whom we have no work expectation—those for whom any expectation of this kind would be unrealistic and quite probably cruel. United Future is pleased that the community support section of this fresh approach recognises that beneficiaries can often need support beyond income and that Work and Income case managers will now have an explicit mandate to cater in a more holistic way to those clients. 
This brings me to the United Future minority view included in the commentary on this bill. We were concerned—and others agreed with us—that removing work with the community agencies from sanction provisions within the bill was included. We were particularly concerned that those on the unemployment benefit living in more rural communities where other work experience options are more limited may miss out by excluding those provisions. We felt that a case manager should be able to require a client to gain relevant experience with a community organisation particularly where there were no other options. 
I have explored ways in which a Supplementary Order Paper could be designed to that end. However with the way that this bill is structured it became obvious that it would be very difficult to change the bill without having the unintentional consequence of creating sanction provisions for beneficiaries with severe and complex disabilities. It was also difficult to design and word a Supplementary Order Paper that did not reduce the flexibility of case managers who need to tailor plans to individual clients. 
We also believe that although community organisations still present a real opportunity for work experience further work with the community sector would need to be done so that it was comfortable about taking on a role that included sanction provisions whereby it would possibly have a role in regard to sanctions. I believe it would be wrong to change this bill by Supplementary Order Paper to satisfy my concerns at this point without proper consultation with those directly implicated and by that I mean those in the community sector. So at this stage United Future is prepared not to move a Supplementary Order Paper at the Committee stage as we had planned because one does not do that unless one is sure one is adding value and getting it right. We do not believe right now that the timing of this would be correct. 
However we would like to encourage some more discussion to begin between the department and the community sector. We think there is real potential for a relationship between Work and Income and the community sector in this regard. We particularly think there is relevance in this regard in provincial centres where there are limited opportunities for work experience opportunities to be offered particularly to those on the unemployment benefit. We think there is real opportunity for dialogue in this regard so we signal that interest. I thank the officials who have worked patiently with me on this matter as I have tried to find a way forward and been unsuccessful. 
As I said earlier we could make progress but it would be to the detriment of people whom we did not intend to hit with a sanction and I am not prepared to do that—I know that the Green member will be very pleased about that. But I kind of support our minority view in that I still think there is much to be discussed around this matter. I think the community sector would be very open in some cases to helping with this and I encourage the department to continue exploring those options but we will support the second reading. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I am pleased to rise in support of the Social Security Amendment Bill. As members are aware the bill signals the commitment the Government has to work with people to assist them to move into work appropriate for their circumstances. We believe that delivering the services that get people working is a key priority. Work changes people’s lives; it is very simple. 
Getting New Zealanders into work—real work for real wages—is pivotal to Labour’s economic transformation agenda. This Labour-led Government has had huge success in reducing unemployment numbers. Since first taking office in 1999 Labour has reduced unemployment numbers from around 161000 then to a 27-year low a month ago of 28845. That is a dramatic decrease in numbers on the unemployment benefit of over 132000 New Zealanders. 
Long-term unemployment has continued to drop with an 83 percent reduction since 1999. In December 1999 there were 70438 people on the unemployment benefit for over a year and in March this year that number was just over 12000—as I say 83 percent fewer. Of course the decline in the number of people on the unemployment benefit means that it is very timely to take action to build on the progress that has been made by ensuring that all people have the right work-focused services right from the start. 
The bill introduces a number of additional requirements for people on the unemployment benefit that will ensure that these fantastic trends continue. These requirements build on the success of the Job Search Service to date. The Job Search Service is Work and Income’s new 13-week job search support programme for unemployment benefit clients and for any people who are receiving other benefits who choose to take part. Providing Work and Income with the ability to require people on the unemployment benefit to include a particular activity in their job seeker agreement will mean that people can be directed towards skills training that will be beneficial for their search for work their placement in work and the quality of the work they do. 
The introduction of a pre-benefit activity requirement will also encourage those people for whom an unemployment benefit is the appropriate benefit to engage upfront with Work and Income—a very positive step to have taken. Work and Income intends to make pre-benefit activities available quickly; usually within 3 working days. The member’s proposed amendments to the bill to require any pre-benefit activity to be specified in writing first would inevitably result in delays in providing those opportunities which I am sure is something that she would not wish for either. Removing activity in the community from the activities that people on the unemployment benefit can do in order to meet their work test requirements is also in my view a very positive step in this legislation. 
We all know what good shape the economy is in. There are plenty of real sustainable jobs out there so why should we tie people on the unemployment benefit who are available for work now into a 26-week programme that has not demonstrated its effectiveness? Work-tested clients will still be able to access other programmes that have been shown to have positive employment outcomes—like work experience wage subsidies and training programmes. 
This bill also introduces an activity test for 16 and 17-year-olds on the independent youth benefit. This is I believe much more appropriate than the work test they currently face. I am sure we all agree that young people should actively be encouraged to participate in education and training. Staying within the education system will have a far more positive long-term outcome for them than their leaving school and attempting to find work. Having our young people engaged in an agreed activity of some description for a set number of hours per week sends the right message to them. 
Many people who are not able to work because of an impairment are able to do so with appropriate support. The bill encourages this and provides for people to plan to move towards work in the future. Planning is the start of a dialogue about the services and support that can be offered to assist people to move towards work as their personal circumstances allow. 
Working New Zealand makes available to all the support that was previously available only to those on the unemployment benefit and it makes it available at an enhanced level. We are saying that people’s aspirations will be recognised and that support will be based on individual needs and circumstances—not on benefit categories. 
The bill also introduces a number of new provisions. To give one example the ministry has not previously had a mechanism to correct the situation where a person has not completed an application for a benefit because of an error on the part of the ministry. The introduction of the new correction power addresses this lack. The bill also introduces a number of highly beneficial changes. For example people will no longer face an income stand-down of up to 10 weeks; people will have to wait for a maximum of 2 weeks only. Carers for people who would need to be in residential care of some kind without that care will now be able to receive a benefit—previously this applied to hospital care only. Someone who is applying for an invalids benefit will no longer have to have been a New Zealand resident for 10 years; a reduction to 2 years’ qualification is a significant change. 
A further Government-proposed amendment would extend the current discretion for Work and Income to continue to pay a benefit to people in receipt of the invalids benefit due to blindness when they are undertaking vocational or guide dog training overseas. The extension to the profoundly deaf community on the invalids benefit has some merit but I consider that the amendment will discriminate against other disabled people. Therefore we have prepared an amendment—which will be tabled this afternoon—to extend the provision to anyone who is eligible for and receiving the invalids benefit. I thank my colleague Lynne Pillay for her role in strongly advocating this amendment and bringing it so assiduously to the attention of Cabinet. 
 In addition for the first time the bill introduces purpose and principles provisions into the Social Security Act. Some of these statements are new others are based on existing case law. They are intended to make the law easier to understand and much more accessible. Certainly there is no intent to undermine the purposes set out in the long title of the 1938 Act. Nor is there any intention to undervalue the caring roles that people have or to devalue the importance of parenting and the care of children. Paid work is key in people’s lives but people for whom work is not appropriate will continue to be supported—certainly while this Government is on the Treasury benches. 
The approach that this bill takes towards investing in people underpins the social policies at the heart of this Labour-led Government. Nowhere has that investment shown greater value than in the results of our policy for the Maori and Pacific Island community. The number of Maori on the unemployment benefit in 1999 was 44378. That number is now 9902. The number of Maori aged 18 and 19 on the unemployment benefit in 1999 was 6276. That number is now an extraordinary 605. Maori who had been long-term unemployed for more than 1 year in 1999 numbered 20598. That number is now 3711. 
As for the Pacific Island community well in 1999 12317 Pacific Islanders were receiving the unemployment benefit. That number is now 2568—a 79 percent reduction. In 1999 when National was last in Government the number of Pacific Islanders in the category of 18 and 19-year-old unemployment was 1544. That number is now a commendable 194. 
The most powerful figure is the final one I will share with the House—that is the total number of 18 and 19-year-old recipients of the unemployment benefit. In 1999 that number stood at 15855. After nearly 8 years of this Government that number is now 1566—a 90 percent reduction in youth unemployment. That is the most powerful message that this Government could give to any community. 
Finally may I commend the highly professional and diligent work of Sue Mackwell and her team in the ministry. I am delighted that they are able to be with us today. I commend this bill to the House. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this Social Security Amendment Bill which our colleague Pita Sharples has pointed out is not about vision and is not about hope. I would add that it is about Labour Government bureaucracy and Labour Government social engineering. 
We have just heard the Minister quoting selectively the unemployment figures since 1999 but the real legacy of Labour must go back to 1990 when after 6 years in Government it left Pacific Island unemployment in the order of 35 percent and Maori unemployment in the order of 22 percent. Over the succeeding 9 years there was a dramatic trend downwards. Where the Minister goes to claim that Labour has made any difference at all to unemployment figures the difference has occurred despite the Labour Government not because of it—despite the Labour Government not because of it. 
We in National would have gladly supported this bill for its objectives but sadly it has been manipulated and distorted in the usual way that Labour is inclined to do in its Pavlovian-dog reflex which requires it to bring in more and more bureaucracy and more and more complication. I just quote to members the Ministry of Social Development’s aim in September 2007 for support case managers: 55 new employment coordinators principal health adviser principal disability adviser 13 health advisers 13 disability advisers and 13 health and disability provider liaison coordinators—whatever they are. [ 
Interruption 
] I ask Steve Chadwick over on the Government benches to tell us what these 13 health and disability provider liaison coordinators will be doing. They are just adding more and more bureaucracy to this ever-increasing mountain of bureaucracy that we have seen this Labour Government preside over in the last 9 years. 
This Government’s spending has caused interest rates to go sky high and exporters have been crippled because of it. When we hear David Benson-Pope showing some sympathy for Fisher and Paykel we should just remember that his Government has been utterly profligate. When we look at his plans in this bill to bring more and more bureaucracy we realise what a mess Labour has made to New Zealand over the last 9 years. 
When I hear Pita Sharples saying: “This bill is not about vision it is not about hope. What has it done for Maori?” I agree with him. Because after all it was Sir Apirana Ngata back in the 1930s who said to all New Zealanders Maori and non-Maori: “Just be careful of being trapped in the welfare dependency trap.” He was absolutely right in saying that—and this is the very sort of thing that this bill is doing. This Government is in denial of knowing that that is what is happening. 
One of the things that is particularly interesting in this bill is the requirement for the plan. The plan was to go to all the various beneficiaries and was to be the forerunner of what they were expected to do. Well we find out that beneficiaries might be shown the plan but they do not have to keep the plan. Some of them are given the plan but then it is taken away from them and they do not see it for a year. They do not have to act on the plan in any way or show responsibility for the plan. That is an absolute sop of what this Government was trying to initially do in this bill which I understand was to begin the movement towards a work-focused system by ensuring that requirements on recipients are aligned with significant developments in service delivery and support. 
Here we have a plan that beneficiaries are supposed to work out with support and then do something about but in actuality we heard from the Rotorua Peoples Advocacy Centre which did a study for the Families Commission that the plans are put in place rather than a work test but there is no need to act on them whatsoever or even to carry the plan out. That is the sort of lack of accountability this Labour Government requires of those beneficiaries. That is the sort of looseness this Labour Government perpetuates in this area of welfare and it is very very bad for New Zealand. 
Of course we have seen this phenomenal increase in the number of invalids and sickness beneficiaries over the last 7 years—a 50 percent increase. There is absolutely no requirement made by the Labour Government to make sure that the assessment to go on those benefits has improved in any way. We have heard the Minister say that one in five of those sickness and invalids beneficiaries is actually fit for work but there has been absolutely no effort made on behalf of this Labour Government to tighten those assessments. That again is another indictment on this Labour Government. 
I think it is fair to say that this bill does tinker with the bureaucracy. It does not do anything to bring in the basic simple incentives that should be brought in—reward for effort reward for individual responsibility and reward for accomplishments or qualifications. None of those signals are there and they should be absolutely spelt out cleanly and clearly. 
It is very interesting that we have in the commentary the definition of full-time employment. I would have thought that this would be pretty easy. I think that back in the days of Richard Seddon it used to be 8 hours’ work 8 hours’ play and 8 hours’ sleep. That was just one of the basic definitions. But in the commentary on the bill we see that the Labour Government is recommending the deletion of the new definition of “full employment or full-time employment”—because the Government thinks it is too hard. It thinks it is unclear because it refers to an average period. 
We see that it was thought that the proposed change would clarify the definition and that the intent of the proposal was to increase rather than reduce the period over which employment could be averaged. Once again the Government is unable even to define the basis on which the Labour Party began—back in the good old days. It cannot do that; it is just too hard. 
In the meantime the newly elected French President has said to the French people that a 35-hour week is not enough to increase their economic growth and that their hours of work will have to be increased. That country’s productivity rate exceeds New Zealand’s enormously. Under this Labour Government our rate of productivity has been stagnant over the last 7 years—and Labour cannot even define what full employment is all about. It cannot even define what Seddon defined way back in the early part of the last century. 
Unfortunately the Social Security Amendment Bill has been eroded and jumbled up by this Labour Government in a very bad way. It was an opportunity to see a new vision for and to put new hope into the benefit system in New Zealand which would have allowed clear incentives for people to proceed on to work. Instead the bill is mired in bureaucracy; it is mired in social engineering. 
STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
: 
 What a sad speech that was from the member of the Opposition who does not even take account of the number of people in this country whom we are proud of: beneficiaries who have moved into work. It is great as a Government to be able to go out there and say: “Well done and we’ve got more work to do.”. We know that on this side of the House. I shall hold up this graph so that all members can see the stunning decline in the number of New Zealanders who are receiving a benefit since this Labour-led coalition came into Government in 1999. 
I think the Social Security Amendment Bill the title of which does not say much about the bill itself at least holds on to the fundamental tenets of a social security system and provides a social benefit net for all those people who genuinely need a benefit at different phases of their life. We keep proud to that brand but this bill launches a new approach in terms of the way we work alongside and with beneficiaries. 
I will just mention the unemployment figures in Rotorua. The Government is getting good coverage at home because that is one of our good news stories. We used to talk about youth crime truancy and the problems of vagrancy and that was all because so many people were unemployed doing nothing and getting up to mischief. Well our jobless figures at home are really impressive. We have only 1182 locals in the Rotorua electorate who are receiving the unemployment benefit. That is a 27-year low. I will not accept the Opposition’s claim that we have done nothing and are benefiting from a booming economy that is humming along. The improvement has happened because of an active hands-on approach by the Ministry of Social Development and the fantastic work done locally along with youth transitions programmes—principals at schools identifying young people who want to leave school and go on to school-based training apprenticeships or university careers or to get some good in-work training. 
Our figures are very impressive. In 1999 4769 people were on the unemployment benefit. No one can tell me that reducing that figure has not had a huge impact on our community in Rotorua. It goes alongside the sense of pride that people have when they bring a cheque home and put food down on the table. That makes work pay and that has been the fundamental tenet of this Government—that people can bring home the bacon and feed their families—along with helping people through the Working for Families package. I just mention that the Opposition has an approach whereby John Key has admitted that his tax cuts would not help as many Kiwi families as the Working for Families package does. He is not really sure what he would do about that but if he scrapped Working for Families 160000 Kiwi families would be worse off than they are now. So that improvement does not happen just by chance and that is the context that I want to mention. 
We also have 500 fewer domestic purpose beneficiares than we had in 1999 and that is because of initiatives like our teen parent unit and a variety of hands-on approaches—work-ready programmes that help women to return into work after having lost confidence in their skills to get a job. Also the bill assists people with disabilities. They have always said Governments should not tell them what they cannot do but tell them and help them with what they can do. They said the Government should get in beside them get them some part-time work opportunities and work with them. I think the figures we see at home and nationally show us that the mentoring and upskilling of those who were previously on a benefit are starting to work. Making work pay and having that more aggressive approach to getting people off a benefit—those who genuinely work—is a wonderful approach. 
Because there are so many fewer beneficiaries we are noticing that staff are now undertaking work training that they did not have the time for when the number of beneficiaries meant it was like working in a processing unit. So 112 offices right throughout New Zealand have completed their training in readiness for the introduction of the key aspects of this legislation. We are seeing a fantastic approach today. We do need a flexible approach and some aspects of this bill give us a little flexibility especially in areas like Rotorua. We have a lot of forestry workers on contract work and when suddenly the contract is over they have a stand-down period of 10 weeks which is too long until they can get out and seek other work. I have had Work and Income come out to the tiny village of Kaingaroa which is full of forestry workers work with those workers and say that as soon as their contract has expired they should let the ministry know. Staff have told those workers that Work and Income will come in beside them that the stand-down period would be only 2 weeks and that the ministry would either get them back into training or help them to pick up another contract. 
So this bill is about putting in the right services around people at the right place and at the right time getting a working New Zealand and putting New Zealanders on their feet. The bill also heralds a second phase as we get into a more targeted approach to those on a benefit. It is about simplifying the benefit. I have often heard the Opposition ask when the Minister is going to bring in a simplified benefit. We are flagging today that that is the next phase after this amendment bill which is focused on service delivery and removing the barriers to work. Next year we will see that more simplified approach to the benefit. 
I congratulate the Social Services Committee on the work it did on this bill. We looked at it very well as a committee. One good thing is the application process. It is much much smarter. It was never set out in the legislation before which always resulted in a lack of clarity and transparency in that area. It is also quite a complex area so I think it is good to have it in the law. In the past we have had to rely on case law to interpret policy. So it is great to have that specificity in the bill. I think it is also great to know about the period of residency—for 2 years—for all benefits. That makes the situation much simpler. Removing the qualifying child criteria for the domestic purposes benefit and the widows benefit and extending the definition of hospital care which used to work in the past out into new types of residential care—those are all amendments that may seem small but to beneficiaries having to go on to a benefit when it is necessary they will be helpful. It think this is a great bill. It will take us to the next step in getting New Zealanders out of the philosophy that the dole was an opt-in solution and into work. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Social Security Amendment Bill be now read a second time. 
Ayes 61 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; United Future 3; Progressive 1; Independent: Field. 
Noes 59 
New Zealand National 48; Green Party 6; Maori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 2. 
Bill read a second time.