Ngaro Alfred: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Ngaro Alfred: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Sitting date: 20 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8699. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
7. 
ALFRED NGARO (National) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development 
: How will the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill back people off welfare and into work? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development) 
: 
 Our reforms fundamentally change the way welfare is delivered in New Zealand. We are modernising the welfare system making it an active rather than a passive system through the investment approach. This legislation simplifies the welfare system places a greater focus on work and ensures that expectations and obligations are balanced with incentives and support. 
Alfred Ngaro 
: Why are these changes to New Zealand’s welfare system needed? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Firstly because people who need support deserve better than what the current system gives them. It writes many off to intergenerational welfare dependence. The lifetime cost of New Zealand’s current beneficiary population is $78 billion. This Government spends more than $7 billion on benefits a year. That is more than $20 million each day. But we say we are going to spend more on support more on the wraparounds that are needed for these people and more focus on helping them get ready for work. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: What will the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill do specifically for the young university graduate who is on the unemployment benefit despite having applied for 70 jobs since last year other than change the name of the benefit she receives? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: What would happen with that university graduate is that they would go through quite a different system when they go into Work and Income. Work and Income would look at their strengths and their weaknesses and what they need in assistance to get jobs. More might be spent on actually getting them into the right training organisation so that they can get work-ready. It could look like a very different system for that university graduate. I could give you a hundred examples right now of people who have found work in the last week showing that the system has worked very well for them instead of the one little example that that member seems to like to come up with. 
Alfred Ngaro 
: How do these changes ensure a fairer welfare system balancing obligations and incentives? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: We are requiring job seekers to be drug-free ready and work available we are stopping benefits for those on the run from the police who have an outstanding warrant for arrest and we have introduced new social obligations to ensure that the health and education needs of children of beneficiaries are met so that they get the best possible start in life. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Should a sole parent be able to study to become a nurse or a social worker while on the DPB or in her new categories of sole parent support or job seeker; if not why not? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: It will depend on how that fits with their work-test obligations so that will depend on the age of the youngest child. If they are aged under 5 years old there will be absolutely no trouble in the parent studying full time. If they are aged 5 or over there may be some part-time work obligations alongside of them and the parent can still study if they are doing those. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: No they can’t. 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Yes they can. They can perfectly well study and work 15 hours a week. In fact most of us did over this side. I know that the member would not be able to associate with that but that is actually true. Parents can study part-time or full-time and also meet their part-time work-test obligations which I think are entirely fair.