Logie JanJAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to take a call on the Estimates of Vote Social Development. This is the portfolio that has primary—though not exclusive—responsibility for ensuring that we are all safe and well fed and that New Zealanders are able to live in dignity. This vote covers Oranga Tamariki Work and Income access to emergency housing disability services social service agency funding and youth development—to name just some of the key areas within this vote. It essentially relates to the safety and well-being of our children our families and our communities and I really think that the last speech by Alfred Ngaro demonstrated for me the fact that the Government seems to home in on certain bits to prove its case while missing the big picture.I was visiting a community organisation last week up in Kāpiti—Birthright which works with young mums supporting their babies and wanting opportunities. They said in the last year and this is in Kāpiti that 20 percent of the families they had been working with were homeless. That is mind-boggling in a community that has never been on the list of communities that are struggling round this country. That they are seeing that level of deprivation—it just shows me that Government members are missing the point in their agenda. They have waited until there is a crisis and then they show their half-arsed response to that crisis as proof of how much they care.This vote also relates to the Government's No. 1 priority in Government. For those people outside of Parliament who may be watching this speech let us reflect briefly on what the Government has chosen as its No. 1 priority. It is not improving the ability of New Zealanders to participate in their community it is not eliminating poverty it is not even reducing poverty and it certainly is not eliminating or reducing child poverty because it has refused to define that. It is not ensuring that children in this country have their basic needs met. It has refused to even add such a purpose to the legislation around child protection or the Social Security Act.Neither is it improving the employment outcomes for people with disabilities or anyone else who has been consistently locked out of the employment market. It is not even ensuring that people who are unable to be in paid work for any number of reasons like sickness disability or domestic violence have enough to be healthy. Sadly it is not even reducing child abuse or the number of children being abused in care because suddenly in recent times the Government has stopped recording that so we cannot even track it. It is not preventing gender-based violence or even creating pathways out of violence reducing the impact of domestic violence on victims.I could go on and on about some of the really important goals that the Green Party supports that could make a difference to this country. But let me put on record now what this Government's No. 1 goal is. The thing that it thinks is the No. 1 priority for this country—well it is reducing the number of working-age clients receiving income support by 25 percent. It thinks that is the most important thing for us as a country. Maybe after years of hearing that receiving a benefit is as bad as smoking a packet of cigarettes a day—and yes that Government did spout that rubbish—or that people getting benefits are lazy and hopeless drug-taking bad parents there may actually be people out there who think that this goal has some logic or appeal. But hopefully the moral bankruptcy of this goal becomes evident in the fact that the National Government does not know or care what happens to people after they stop getting a benefit. All it is concerned about is that they stop getting it in the first place. For this Government someone ending up in prison is equal to someone getting a degree. The way National measures things someone committing suicide is a better outcome than a mother being at home for her child who is constantly being sent home from school because the school is not resourced to support that child's autism. Think about that for a second. In the way this Government measures things that is the reality of what it considers is good. The way the National Government measures things someone living in a shed with a baby not getting income support because she cannot deal with the stigma and shaming is a better outcome than someone with a disability who is unable to work full time being able to live in dignity. That is what this Government's priorities force them towards.While you might think this is harsh how else do we explain some of the stories that we have been hearing? We have heard examples of someone having to haul a person into Work and Income while they were on an oxygen machine every 2 weeks just to prove that they were sick; of people having to wait an hour or more with their children with wet pants because the toilet within the Work and Income offices is not available to clients and because they know if they leave to go to find a toilet or a changing room somewhere else they could miss their appointment and get their benefit cut; of people not having enough money to cover increased housing costs and Work and Income refusing them that additional money—so they become homeless.How else do we explain the fact that there is now a recognised problem that women on income support are unable to afford sanitary products and are missing days of work if they were working as well as being on a benefit because they cannot afford the absolute basics? How else do we explain the fact that despite a growing surplus and strong job growth in this country so many of the children in this country are going without the basics of food warmth and shelter let alone those things in life that we all used to assume were just givens like birthdays or a replacement for shoes? How else do we explain the fact that those workers at Birthright in Kāpiti talked about their clients going in and shaking and perspiring and being completely bamboozled by the process? How else do we explain the fact that those workers describe going in to Work and Income as the place that you should go if you ever want to see what bullying looks like? How else do we understand and explain the fact that somebody who gets off the benefit and into 20 hours of work a week is financially worse off after she has paid for childcare for her children over the year?The system is not working. The priorities of this Government are wrong. That is why the Green Party is prioritising in this election a promise to eliminate child poverty to make sure that our children in this country have enough and a promise that the people who are unable to be in paid work have their dignity restored to them that we support them into paid work when that is appropriate for them and enable them to keep the financial benefits of that work so that they gain value in being in paid work.We have costed these policies. And you know what? They do not break the bank.Hon Member: Ha ha!JAN LOGIE: They are not unaffordable. When we hear laughter from that side of the House suggesting that that may not be true I really just do come back to this—it is not ultimately about money. When something matters to you you find the money. For the Green Party the well-being of our children—ensuring that we keep our children out of hospitals from low income - related diseases and that we stop them dying from low income - related diseases—is something that we will find the money for. It is something that we absolutely have a commitment to—getting people off the streets and into homes so that we can all walk along with our heads held high with a sense of dignity and understanding of what it is to be a New Zealander.