Logie Jan: Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLogie Jan: Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:13126. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAN LOGIE (Green):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. The Green Party has a long tradition in this House of advocating for employment law and a social security system that provides everyone with enough income to fully participate in their community and to live safe healthy lives. We support policies that are sufficient to ensure this simple to understand and access universal in their application and equitable within a wider social context. We will be opposing the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill today as it is not consistent with these values or this vision. This bill will we believe further stigmatise the most marginalised people in this country. It will remove some of the leniency that exists within the system which will result in less money in the hands of the poorest New Zealanders. It will treat debtors to the Ministry of Social Development more harshly than debtors in other parts of our system and our society are treated.I would like though to acknowledge the Associate Minister for Social Development the Hon Chester Borrows who has brought this bill to the House for taking the time to talk with me through this bill and for allowing us access to officials as well in order to discuss our concerns and check out our position properly.This bill makes a range of changes to accountability and culpability for benefit fraud and debt recovery by the Ministry of Social Development including imposing a new obligation on the ministry to take all reasonable practical steps to recover debt. That is a very important point. And it allows the Minister for Social Development to issue directions on when the ministry may temporarily defer debt repayment and what it can take into account when setting the rate and method of debt recovery. Currently this is the responsibility of the ministry so it is shifting that from within the agency with the knowledge and experience and moving it into the political realm. In terms of debt this will enable the ministry to hold partners of beneficiaries liable when benefit fraud is committed. It will allow the recovery of up to three times the amount paid in excess in cases of fraud and it introduces a new offence of partners knowingly or recklessly benefiting from fraud committed by their partner punishable by a fine of up to $5000 or 12 months’ imprisonment. It introduces a new system for working with people who decided to be dishonest with the ministry in the past regardless of whether they have a conviction.I really need to put those changes in context for those considering the bill and to point out that two-thirds of debt that the ministry recovers is not a result of fraud. So when we are hearing in this House that this is about fraud actually two-thirds of the system is about debt not fraud. Much of it is a result of administratively created overpayment and our Labour colleague Jacinda Ardern I think quite clearly articulated how that happens. It is the interface between beneficiaries who are working part time and reporting that work and the systems through the Inland Revenue Department. It is actually often just about a mismatch of those systems rather than any intent at all. Infact for most of these people in this situation it is absolutely not in their interests to end up with a debt or an overpayment and they would much prefer to avoid that situation. But our system does not work to enable that.Also what is recorded as debt in the system is often from advances given to people to pay for some of the absolute essentials in life including things like fridges washing machines tampons food sanitary pads. Absolute basic essentials are part of what we are talking about when we are talking about this bill and the recovery of debt. It is also I think important in the context of this to recognise that beneficiaries are routinely being denied their legal entitlements. This debt pretends that that is not the case. Auckland Action Against Poverty is seeing an emerging gatekeeper culture within Work and Income. It has reported that people are often now being told no as the first response from Work and Income staff and that at least nine out of 10 people with whom its advocates work have been incorrectly or unfairly denied assistance. This is from those people being misinformed about their entitlements whether it be a special needs grant whether it be their eligibility for a benefit to begin with or whether it be about coverage for disability costs or extra assistance for food—a huge range of things.We are hearing these reports all over the country and this raises the question of why this is happening because we have been hearing these stories for a while and they are increasing and there does seem to me to be a pattern. This Government and the one before it have focused their attention on saving money from the Budget. The latest law changes that we have seen have stigmatised beneficiaries further sending the message that they are job-avoiding drug-taking poor parents and criminals. You cannot send those messages and not have them influence staff and organisational culture.Further the legislation is far too complicated. It has been amended 131 times it includes 422 sections and 31 schedules and there are 50 policies that are at the discretion of the chief executive of the ministry rather than being enshrined in law. This makes this so hard for staff to know what people are actually entitled to. When you combine that with a loss of funding to so many of the benefits rights organisations that are able to provide advocacy for people going into the system—and the cuts to legal aid for beneficiaries wanting to appeal their lack of entitlement—we have a very dangerous system where the most vulnerable people in this country are having the food taken out of their mouths or the tampons in their trolleys illegally taken off them through a lack of entitlement. Yet the Government’s focus is to bring this bill which is focused on the recovering of the debt from the few people who have managed to get their entitlements to be able to feed their children to be able to have a fridge in their house.Mike Sabin:Well they just have to remain law abiding and it’s all good.JAN LOGIE: This is not about criminality Mr Sabin. This is about debt that is created through inefficient systems and people being ripped off by the system. And the Government chooses to focus rather on a very small group of people and not its own actions which I would suggest is where the most harm is being done.I will note that there is an aspect of this bill that the Greens do support or are interested in hearing more around in relation to fraud which is a small percentage of what we are actually talking about and that is relationship fraud. I do note Dr Rajen Prasad’s contribution. But I would note from having worked in Women’s Refuge that I have seen so many cases of women being threatened by their partners whereby their partners would threaten to dob them in to Work and Income. I do see that this provision of sharing the consequences of any dobbing in will have an impact that will be very positive for those women that this may no longer be able to be used as a tool by those abusers. That is a very positive aspect of this bill that we do support.However the fraud investigation system is still quite fraught. Officials said that evidence they are using is often unsubstantiated and we are hearing from women inviolent relationships that they are often persecuted through this system. We do not support this bill.