Menéndez March Ricardo; Sepuloni CarmelRICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you Madam Chair. So I wanted to pick up on something the Minister has talked plenty about around the overhaul of the welfare systems time lines. There are some issues that have been determined to be short term—so in the next sort of 12 months. One of them was around the review of hardship assistance. I want to get a sense whether that review had started and if not when is it due to start and how she expects that work to be carried on in terms of who would like to be consulted or what the scope of that review would be. Because as you'll know the civil defence payment is tied to hardship assistance and every time that our families are experiencing severe weather events they are having to apply for a 20-year-old payment. So it would be really useful to get a sense of when we expect it to be started/finalised. I also want to get an understanding about whether Working for Families changes are still a priority for this Government. As we know there was a failed Budget bid that didn't make it through and we think a Working for Families overhaul is a priority and I just want to get an understanding of what work she intends to do this year to improve access to the full Working for Families package particularly for people who are receiving main benefits.Equally I want to get a sense about whether any work had been started around the removal of the warrant to arrest sanction and whether she foresees that to be happening in the next 12 months. I also know that there was plenty of consultation with advocacy groups around the purpose and principles of the Social Security Act. I know there were some kind of exchanges between officials and groups at the front lines and I want to get a sense of what we should be expecting in the near future around that because the previous member was talking about I guess people entering employment and the number of people receiving benefits. There is that fundamental question about whether the purpose of the Act is to serve the needs of businesses as members on my right would like to allude or whether it is to enable people to live good lives. So I'm really interested to get a sense of where that's at. Then finally the Minister may have seen reports around a spike of sanctions in the regions of Wellington around the occurrence of work seminars and therefore that leading to a spike of sanctions. I guess I want to get a sense of the confidence the Minister has around the integrity of how information is captured in those work seminars because we have seen reports of people attending those seminars and then them being noted as not attending and then being sanctioned. So I just want to get her levels of confidence around whether those seminars are guaranteeing that and whether she intends for those seminars to guarantee people good work and whether they're actually then contributing to people entering decent work. Also whether she's got any measurements or any information that she collects to test how useful those work seminars are beyond them resulting in a spike of sanctions when they do happen in great frequency.Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): That's quite a number of things covered in that one contribution by the Green Party member but I appreciate that and I'll do my best to respond to all of the matters that he has raised. I'm starting with the review of hardship support. So that work is under way but we haven't stopped doing things because we're looking at the whole system around hardship support. That member is very aware that we were able to move quickly to make some changes including the lift for the dental grant from $300 to $1000 per year and changing the eligibility criteria around that to make it more accessible. We also were able to lift the income thresholds so that more low-income New Zealanders can have access to hardship grants through the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) which previously they couldn't. That was something that happened when we were really going through the throes of COVID but we decided to make permanent. It really came off the back of the feedback that we were receiving from many of our social services out there who were saying that it wasn't just beneficiary families it was low-income working families that were struggling during that time and so we wanted to extend the hardship support to them as well. Is there more to do? Yes there certainly is but we need to look at the whole system. Ricardo Menéndez March: When?Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I would hope that there would be recommendations around changes within the next two years. The Working for Families review is ongoing and we continue to seek advice in respect of that. There was nothing in the Budget as the member cited but that doesn't mean that all of that work has been cast away or parked for ever. The intention is certainly to continue doing that work and then to make changes in the future. The next point I will speak to is just in respect of sanctions. When we came in we made it very clear to MSD—or I did as a Minister—that it should be a last resort and they should be giving plenty of notification to people so that they have the ability to re-comply. So my understanding is that they are still following that system and it certainly is still used as a last resort. If the member has examples of where people are saying that they showed up to a work seminar and they were sanctioned anyway then those are definitely examples I would want sent to MSD or myself so that we can follow up and make sure that someone hasn't been treated unfairly by the Ministry of Social Development. But I have no reason to believe that that is a wide-ranging or common practice that's occurring. There is always the potential that human error has occurred but if there are examples of where that member thinks that has happened then those examples or cases should be sent through to myself or the Ministry of Social Development to be able to resolve as quickly as possible. In terms of a spike of sanctions I would say that during the throes of COVID again there was certainly a reduction in sanctions because of the fact that we couldn't necessarily apply the expectations around work obligations to the extent that we can during any business's usual year or time. There were reasons why people would not be able to comply during that period and so there was quite a reduction then but still the numbers that we're seeing are significantly less than what was being experienced or what we were seeing pre us coming into Government and making the commitment to ensuring that we have a welfare system that upholds the dignity of New Zealanders that have to access that system.Then finally the other question was put to me around the purpose and principles of the Act and when we are going to do that. That is certainly something that we would like to get on to in the next year as well. Some people thought that we should have started there with the overhaul but one of the reasons why we didn't start with that at the beginning was because unfortunately given the nature of some of the policies in the legislation and throughout the welfare system potentially any revised purpose and principles could have ended up being completely unaligned with the practice and what is happening in the welfare system. So we've been doing what we can to overhaul the whole system whilst in the back of our minds knowing we want to get to the point where we can change the purpose and principles in a way where everything aligns.