Upston Louise; Sepuloni CarmelHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you Mr Chair. And I listened to your comment earlier about grouping questions together. I have five themes that I'd like to explore with the Minister for Social Development and Employment which of course as we heard from the member who has resumed her seat has a budget of $32 billion.So my first question is around benefit dependency and the numbers that are long term on benefit. Long term according to the OECD is more than a year. So my first question is why did fewer people on benefit for longer than three years—I'm emphasising very deliberately longer than three years"—exit into work in 2021 compared to 2017? How can the Minister blame COVID for fewer long-term benefit recipients moving into work when 2018 2019 and 2021 had fewer exits? And doesn't this decline in work exits show that Labour's employment initiatives are not targeted to those who have been on benefit for longer with an increase in 50000 New Zealanders now on benefit long term under Labour's watch and will the Minister finally accept that New Zealand does have a significant benefit-dependency crisis?Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Mr Chair before I begin I don't want to do a big spiel but acknowledging the different portfolios that we'll be covering off today in the committee it is good if we continue to cluster in one particular area so encouraging members who have questions to be able to do that. And I'm thankful to that member for giving the opportunity for a theme and for me to speak to that. This has been raised a number of times not only during the Estimates review in select committee but also in the House during debate and during question time and I know that that particular member who asked the question is keenly watching benefit numbers—as we all have been over the course of the last two and a bit years. What we have seen as was pointed out by the chair of the Social Services and Community Committee earlier was not the dire forecast numbers that had been anticipated at the beginning of COVID and I do put that down to overall good general management of our economy during this pandemic. Also when we were first hit with the pandemic we were very clear that it would not only be social supports that needed to be invested in and put into place but also support for New Zealanders who may find themselves out of work because of the pandemic. The research tells us that we need to work quickly with people who fall out of employment to get them back into employment as quickly as possible and there certainly was a focus on that. The member who asked the question has asserted in the House a number of times over the course of the last few weeks that we have an increasing problem with benefit dependency. I certainly and very genuinely do not think that is the case. When we look at the proportions of people who are on benefit for any given time frame—even though they may have gone up in places a little bit—they're not significant increases so it doesn't give me reason for concern. I'm also alongside that very cognisant and aware of the many programmes that we have invested in as a Government that are targeted—whether it is Apprenticeship Boost Flexi-wage Mana in Mahi He Poutama Rangitahi—a range of different programmes that are targeted and we continue to monitor who is taking up those particular programmes. The reality is that we do have a number of people as did the previous Government and every Government prior to us being in Government who are on benefit for a more extended period of time—many of them for the reasons of health conditions disabilities or for the fact that they are caring for people with health conditions or disabilities and so we do need to take that into consideration. But also the other factor that I wanted to mention is that quite often when we have an economic event like we have done recently it is harder to place those who have been out of employment for longer. So there is this thing where people who come into benefit it's easier to place them into employment. For those that have been in for longer it's harder. There's also been additional challenges with regards to I know for instance with sole parents where school has been out in places like Auckland—inconsistency and reduced hours when kids could return to school—that made it difficult I think for a number of people on benefit to be able to take up permanent or full-time or certain employment opportunities because of the general uncertainty that COVID has created in people's lives and the flow-on impacts to that. We don't talk much about that but I think that there are some other elements like that that we do need to take into consideration as well."