Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise today too to speak to legislation arising from the Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill. There's never any shortage of material when you're one of the tail-end speakers and I have to take note of the co-leader of the Green Party Marama Davidson who deciphered what my colleague Simon O'Connor said earlier and proceeded to tell us what we on this side of the House actually believe. But then they went and used the word ideology"—"ideology" from the most virtue-signalling Government that we have ever experienced.I'd just like to note for the House that some of the comments made by Marama Davidson talking about those people at the bottom who they believe the National Party would like to see there—absolutely false. That is the difference in the philosophies between both sides of the House. We actually support people to become independent in their own lives and not dependent on the State. We also recognise that the problem that we do have with socialism is that we do eventually run out of other people's money to fund it.So there's this legislation. There is no question that this is a large piece of work—a huge piece of work. And in fact the original Act—the Social Security Act 1964—was long overdue for an overhaul and it was an enormous task and it had languished without much attention to the overall overhaul because the tweaks that had been made over the 50 or 60 years had simply made it very cumbersome. So it was filed away in the too-hard basket.So who was it that took the initiative to make the legislation clearer and to make it more user-friendly and appropriate for the 21st century? The former National-led Government of course. We did the hard work—and it was a massive piece of work—and we progressed it past the first reading and on to the select committee prior to the Government changing and the change did happen: by metamorphosis into this Labour-led Government that we have today the three-pronged coalition now self-referred to as "dysfunction junction". It's a Government that's had the handbrake put on it because it is now completely incapable of making policy announcements in case one of the partners has a bad hair day and withdraws his support while at the same time he contemplates his next big bargaining chip. Now to be clear this bill is not about reforming the welfare system.Hon Tracey Martin: Personal attacks. It's beneath you—beneath you.MAUREEN PUGH: It's simply about making the law—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Don't refer to the Speaker.MAUREEN PUGH: Sorry?ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Sorry carry on.MAUREEN PUGH: It's simply about making the law clear updating the language and bringing it so that it is fit for purpose for modern implementation.And we have heard this from both sides of the House today. There is no argument that this Act was in dire need of this rewrite. These bills will repeal the Social Security Act 1964 and the Social Welfare (Reciprocity Agreements and New Zealand Artificial Limb Service) Act 1990 and they will provide a lot more consistency and clarity across all of those Acts.But the process these bills have gone through has been a farce of a process by this Government who have picked up a piece of legislation with all of the heavy lifting done—and all done by the National-led Government. It's a farce because without any prior notice the Minister dumped this 500-page Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 25 on the Table a couple of hours before the second reading. Essentially it was a "dewrite" of the original rewrite bill with no consultation and no explanation.In the interests of good government and good governance and the process this SOP really should have gone back to the select committee but instead it stepped outside of the well-established process that we have in this Parliament that would have given the community and the public an opportunity to scrutinise the changes that had gone on in the "dewrite" of the rewrite. It would have given officials an opportunity to write the departmental disclosure statement and a regulatory impact statement.Now the National Party members as we'll all be aware invested a huge amount of effort and time in trying to improve this legislation. At the committee stage in this House we saw literally dozens of further SOPs submitted in an attempt to make these bills better. However none of them were accepted by the Minister. And then during the final stages of the committee stage of this House there was a flat-out refusal by the Minister in the chair to answer any questions about SOPs that no member of the public had sighted or had the opportunity to debate which also denied this House of Representatives an explanation on that SOP. So this is in my opinion an outrageous abuse of the process in this House.It might have been argued that there was a time constraint—that actually we needed to move this legislation quickly through the House. But what happened after we had been through the committee stage? Nothing. These bills have languished for a further 2½ months on the Order Paper waiting for their third reading. The final hours of the committee stage—it was a sad day in this committee when the Labour-led Government wouldn't allow the scrutiny. I don't believe this Government actually believes in allowing the public to have their chance to make changes on some of the most significant area of spend that any Government has. We're not talking about milk money—we're not talking about loose change here—we're talking about $25 billion of taxpayer money a year. Members of the public should be absolutely outraged and the reason they should be outraged is because taxpayers—now taxpayers are workers they're small businesses they're medium businesses they're big businesses who employ people. They all pay their taxes and they work hard every day to fund a fair welfare system that supports people in need and yet they had zero opportunity to have their say on this SOP. Now we have heard on many occasions—and I quote—"the most open the most transparent Government that New Zealand has ever had." Well we are still waiting for that to materialise because this is far from an open and far from a transparent Government. This Labour-led Government has preached about placing the well-being of children at the forefront of everything that it does. I acknowledge the contribution made earlier by the Hon Louise Upston when she used the example of parents—and so too did my colleague Simon O'Connor—who separate who have children between them and want to share custody. One parent is going to miss out on support under this new system. They will not now be eligible for sole parent support despite both of them potentially needing financial assistance.At the moment the Social Services and Community Committee is currently working its way through the Child Poverty Reduction Bill and that bill is all around child-centred policies. But these child-centred policies are not reflected back in this SOP in this piece of legislation. This is a Government that wanted cross-party support for the Child Poverty Reduction Bill so alongside this legislation it will have direct effects on the same children—the ones we are all trying to lift out of poverty—Hon Tracey Martin: Is National not going to support the child poverty bill?MAUREEN PUGH: —yet they have dumped this document with very little time for scrutiny and for the Opposition to inspect it ahead of the committee stage of this House. So there are issues where cross-party agreement should be reached. I do acknowledge the Hon Tracey Martin on supporting and continuing with the work in the social investment area. So this legislation and the adjoining SOP should have been sent back to the select committee.I support my colleague the Hon Alfred Ngaro in his recent contribution where he said that those who can work should work. We owe it to those hard-working Kiwis those workers and businesses who pay their taxes and we on this side do not support these bills.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I understand this is a split call. Greg O'Connor—you have five minutes."