O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): One of the funny things in life that—well it's the case of the lady doth protest too much. I know it's gender specific and we've had a speaker just sit down not of that gender but if someone stands in the House and is constantly saying policy-neutral policy-neutral policy-neutral" the funny thing is that it doesn't make it so. In fact having followed this legislation through the House and particularly through the committee stage where I was particularly happy to spend many many an hour discussing this Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill the constant claims that it was policy-neutral despite evidence to the contrary remains here in the third reading. We're going to draw a little of that out.I acknowledge the member who's just taken his seat Darroch Ball for continuing to push that particular line but the very accusations which the Labour-led Government and members opposite have spoken to particularly as they critique what they saw as the problems in the National bill indicates the fact that now that they're happy that of course it's not policy-neutral. The fact that flexibility has been taken away from parents; the fact that children are not the centre of elements of this legislation; the fact of the winter energy payment or bribing people with their own money—these are not policy-neutral elements nor is removing social investment. But I think that's a good illustration which I will get to of the difference between the mentality of the left and the right. I am pleased to take a call on the social security legislation rewrite bills. It's cognate legislation: obviously it's the Social Security Bill the Residential Care and Disability Support Services Bill and the Artificial Limb Service Bill. Fundamentally and importantly this was a rewrite bill put forward by a National Government and I think probably listening to some of the earlier speeches all parties agreed many years ago—and obviously led by a very competent Minister at the time in the previous Government—that a full rewrite was needed. Now obviously as you get into some of the nitty-gritty tensions develop. But fundamentally there is agreement that we need to modernise this legislation. In contrast to what the previous member was saying I think regardless of the debate around this those seeking benefits will not be reading the rewrite bills themselves. What is and isn't agreed upon by the National Party does not affect any entitlements whatsoever. What this legislation does do is provide in effect—or was seeking to—better mechanisms in order to serve people. But I think it's important to say that no entitlements effectively have changed.National introduced the bill. It went to select committee and I think that's where problems began to develop. Fundamentally having chaired a number of them now committees across the House work very hard—or members rather from across the House work very hard—to try and improve a bill. The select committee reported back the bill with its suggestions but just before we moved into the committee of the whole House stage the Minister now a Labour Minister dropped the infamous I would suggest Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 25—600-plus pages.Hon Member: How many?SIMON O'CONNOR: 600-plus pages of changes. I'd better be clear: not every page had changes on it but it was a substantial rewrite of the rewrite. That never went through the select committee. That never went in front of the people of New Zealand to discuss. And even more of an affront to the dynamics of this House although I would suggest that it's becoming sort of the norm from this Labour-led Government is that there was no transparency there was no openness. I remember taking call after call in this House putting very good questions—I would suggest some of the best questions from this side—to the Minister and not once do I recall the Minister standing to take a call or to answer those substantial questions. There were sometimes deflections but hour after hour of debate raising important questions around an SOP that was never discussed with the public was ignored. In fact the last few hours of that committee stage was effectively a wall of silence from the Government while at the same time in press releases—those of course that the Government wants to put on the Beehive site and one of the things I've discovered today is that we can't even get a full list of press releases from this Government on our Beehive website—protesting open transparency yet no engagement with the debate of this House.So here we are at the third reading and I think importantly and symbolically we're getting a sign of that continued frustrating attitude of the Government towards social security in general in the process of this bill of members opposite members on the Government benches taking short calls. They don't appear to want to discuss this bill—Hon Kris Faafoi: Oh how they forget so fast.SIMON O'CONNOR: —and more importantly they do not wish to discuss SOP 25. I am pleased that there is some heckling coming from the other side. The important thing to note of course because it won't be picked up on the microphones is that it's got nothing actually to do with the legislation.So this is the fundamental problem. We have no issue overall with a rewrite of the Social Security Act. It's been many a year and it's needed to be updated. However what was dumped on this Parliament at the last moment without debate without discussion and without public engagement was not and would never be policy-neutral. The first element is the introduction of the winter energy payment. That is a left-wing promise and one that they've attempted to deliver through this rewrite legislation. As I said at the start the winter energy payment like many things of the left is simply a bribe using other people's money or in this case people's money already. Hon Kris Faafoi: So what does that make a tax cut?SIMON O'CONNOR: Those who are receiving a winter energy payment are fundamentally just getting that back through a bureaucratic process. Someone yells out "What about a tax cut?" That member opposite forgets that taxes are taken off people in the first place. We're not returning anything to them that they didn't already have. But this is an occasion like Working for Families and other things where they take the money off the public put it through a bureaucratic system and then spit it back out so you can say "Oh thanks very much everyone." There's nothing to be thankful for here and it is certainly not policy-neutral.We've heard a lot about trying to put children first and at the forefront and in another illustration of why this is not policy-neutral there is a situation now where two parents who are looking after multiple children—Priyanca Radhakrishnan: Urgh!SIMON O'CONNOR: I hear a sigh from the other side because they cannot confront the reality of their decisions: that only one parent despite both looking after the children will get their money. And look that doesn't surprise me from those who buy into all of this sort of gender stuff at the moment that goes on around gender stuff. Actually I should expand that. Those who are into all this politics of identity and so forth will only ever allow one side to win. I just love that we just riled them up there. It always shows you that you're hitting a raw nerve. I've said in this House many a time that those who buy into identity politics and it touches on gender and inclusivity are always about winners and losers and what this legislation shows is they do not care about the children. They do not care about the parents. Kiritapu Allan: This'll be a good speech to put up on YouTube.SIMON O'CONNOR: They only want to give the funding to one parent. That's actually and I've said it always in the House not about diversity or inclusion; that's about winners and losers and that's classic left-wing behaviour.Hon Kris Faafoi: I'll put this on Facebook myself.SIMON O'CONNOR: The other one that we get—oh yeah definitely put it on Facebook; that'll actually help me immensely. Ultimately when you look at this legislation and it's playing down those lines it's always about winners and losers. This is ultimately not about both parents winning; it's not even about the children winning. The changes they're making are just to make one side one parent the winner and I think that's actually quite shameful.The final one is ultimately around social investment. That concept's been thrown out. Social investment is actually just a really simple concept—complex in some ways to implement but a simple concept—that if you put moneys up front to support the needs of people to target and measure you can bring about fundamental change. It's a real pity to drop it but it doesn't surprise me because this is another divide in the left and the right. On the right we're prepared to put that money up front to say to someone "You've got dignity. We're going to stand behind you respect you and bring you fully into participation in society." The left unfortunately can't handle that. The left always wants to be effectively—and this is the other funny contradiction you get—that hierarchical person always handing out the lollies always being the person to provide help. They just want those needing help to always be grateful. See the problem they've got with the fundamentals of the social investment approach is that after using it those people will no longer need the support of the Crown and the State and other people. They'll be able to stand up on their own two legs and the left never likes that. The left fundamentally always wants a whole lot of people to be grateful to them to always come back and always want more help because it makes them feel good about themselves."