Lees-Galloway Iain: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8179. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I enjoyed that speech from the member Parmjeet Parmar. The senior Government whip Tim Macindoe was staring at her throughout I think encouraging her to take her seat. I guess now that the member does not have taxpayers’ money available to her to promote herself as a possible candidate in an upcoming by-election she is having to do it the old-fashioned way by using her time in the House to try to raise her profile in the event that she should find herself the National Party candidate in any upcoming by-election.The member also said that this is an urgent matter for the Government I guess as some way of trying to convince the House that this bill actually belongs in the urgency motion. Well if it was such an urgent matter for the Government it would have dealt with it somewhere between May 2014 and today. More than a year and a half since the Government realised that it had been breaking the law it is finally getting around under urgency to dealing with it—a year and a half after it realised it was breaking the law.I have heard members opposite say: “Oh this is just technical. It’s not such a big deal.” The last time I checked being ignorant of the law was not a defence for breaking the law. But even when the Government became aware of the fact that it was breaking the law it continued to break the law until it became public. So the test for this Government was not “Are we doing the right thing? Are we adhering to the rule of law?”; the test was: “Will this look bad for us on the front page of the Dominion Post?” When it started to look bad for it on the front page of the newspaper and on the 6 o’clock news only then did this Government decide that it was probably about time to start doing something about it. I think that goes to the motivation of this Government. If it can get away with it it will break the law. Only when it becomes politically dodgy for it is it actually prepared to do something about it.I actually do not think this is just a trivial matter because it actually helps us to understand the standards to which the Government holds itself. We have heard about the housing Minister’s office encouraging Housing New Zealand officials to involve Parmjeet Parmar—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! This is not in the bill.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —in a roadshow because she wanted to raise her profile—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Come back to the bill.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: —and we have heard about a range of other matters that actually question the standards of this Government. I think the fact that it has brought this legislation under urgency more than a year and a half after it discovered it was breaking the law is just another example of the shoddy standards of this John Key - led Government.The other thing I have heard about why this is just a trivial matter is that for the people involved it is not a lot of money—it is just 1 day on the benefit. There are probably not many people involved although the Government cannot tell us how many people are involved. It cannot tell us what the cost of compensating everybody who has been affected by this breach of the law by the Government would be. I do not even think the Government has told us what the cost of the opportunity to seek compensation that it is offering will be. There is very little information for the House from this Government.But I want to challengethe notion—and other members have done this as well—that this is a small matter for everybody affected by this because there are a number of people and it is a growing number of people who move in and out of work on a regular basis. They are people who are in temporary work like seasonal work like fixed-term contracts and like casual work and people who get their work through temping agencies or labour-hire companies. For a lot of people these days they are moving in and out of work. Every time the work that they have comes to an end—whether it be because it is a fixed-term contract whether it be because it is seasonal work whether it is casual work that has come to an end—they then have to go through this stand-down period.The example that has been used a number of times particularly is of classroom support people. They have a number of fixed terms every year because they are actually employed only during the school term. For those people they are having to go through this stand-down periodfour or maybe five times a year. That is 4 or 5 days every year for many of them. We are talking about an 18-year period here over which maybe four or five times a year an individual may have been denied a day of benefit that they were entitled to under the law. So for some people—and I appreciate that it is probably not an enormous number of people—this is more than just trivial. Just because it is a small number of people—possibly; we do not actually know because the Government cannot tell us any figures. Just because they are not people who are a priority to the National Government does not mean that it is not very real for those people and it does not mean that we as a Parliament should not address that for them and compensate them for it. I think it is more than just trivial.Actually I think it raises the issue of just how relevant and appropriate this stand-down period as it is applied today actually is in the 21st century because the number of people who are engaged in this type of temporary work is growing and growing at a dramatic pace. Overall in the New Zealand employment market around 10.5 percent of workers fall into one of those categories of temporary workers—around 10.5 percent. OK so that is a significant number of people but only one-tenth of the overall employment market. However for the jobs that were created between 2008 and 2012 a full 28 percent of those jobs—28600 people—are actually in that form of temporary work. In recent years the overall proportion of people in these temporary work situations has grown significantly and that is a trend that shows absolutely no sign of abating at all.This issue of the stand-down period is actually one of those issues that falls into that suite of issues that we on this side of the House are talking about as part of our Future of Work Commission because the nature of work is changing. This is maybe a 19th century but probably not—very much a 20th century policy when overall the vast majority of people were in stable work with a set number of hours a week had long-term prospects of staying in the same job and were not moving in and out of employment on a regular basis. That is sadly becoming a thing of the past. The fact that it is becoming a thing of the past is not something that we should resign ourselves to and we as parliamentarians should be looking at how we provide employment security and income security for people. But we have to acknowledge that the nature of work is changing and this policy of putting people through a stand-down period especially those people who are on fixed-term contracts and especially those people who by the very nature of their work are required to go through a stand-down period a number of times a year—I think it is a well-overdue time for us to reflect on that policy and actually ask ourselves as a Parliament whether that is an appropriate policy in the 21st century.In a lot of ways I think this change is perhaps not the change we should be debating. We should actually be debating the question of how the stand-down period actually operates and whether it is appropriate. On this side of the House we do not see this as a trivial matter and we will not trivialise it in the way that members opposite have. This is significant and for the people who have been affected by it it is significant. We actually need to acknowledge that and treat this as a serious issue and try to actually get it right because some people have been severely affected—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry the member’s time has expired.