Restoring hope to next generation

Northland MP Mike Sabin has again commended the government's Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill, telling the House that the Bill's core focus was on young people and how they might be supported.

"The reality is that thousands of young people, young teenagers, are currently staring down the barrel of a collision with an adult benefit, and experience tells us that they will be there for a very, very long time," he said.

"Like all of us these young people have dreams, hopes and aspirations, and often, through no fault of their own, they find themselves in very challenging situations where they will struggle to achieve those things. It does not mean they do not have those dreams. The challenge for the community, indeed the challenge for us as legislators, is to actually find ways to address that issue.

"The burgeoning problem with welfare is something that has concerned not only New Zealanders but everyone in this House and this political spectrum for many years, as $22 million a day is first not financially sustainable, but more important, the human cost, the human collateral, is substantial."

The Bill had three major planks, the first of which was to enable young people to find their way into work. It also provided a mechanism to build young people's capacity for work.

"It is a major cultural shift in the way that we have addressed welfare in the past," he said.

"A very good example of that is the incentive payments that form part of this Bill. Sanctions have long been part of the Social Security Act, but incentives providing encouragement and promoting behaviour by way of financial incentives is something new, and, I think, something we have not spent enough time focusing on.

"Beyond that, the payment card and the assisted management of essential bills, I think, will provide a number of these young people with an opportunity to step back from the stress that they are under and focus on what we want them to do, to be able to get control in their lives again, to be able to develop the skill sets that will match them with employers who I know want them.

"Certainly in my electorate [employers] they are saying to me, 'We will employ these young people. We just want them to come here and show us they are prepared to work and prepared to learn.'

"I believe that this suite of changes will make a huge difference in the lives of these very challenged young people who are at a very difficult stage in their life, notwithstanding their circumstances."

Another core feature of the Bill was the monitoring and guidance to be offered by youth support providers. For many young people, Mr Sabin said, that support would fill a gap that was lacking in their own families.

Changes for teen parents were another very important focus.

"The work focus must be there with them, the same as it is with other people on welfare, because they also will have dreams, wants, hopes and aspirations," he said.

"When the work is suitable, and when they reach an age where their youngest children are five or 14, or their second or subsequent child is one, then we expect them to be available for work, and we will support them with childcare to ensure that.

"Being in work does not impede a mother's relationship with her child. If anything it will enhance it. It provides a platform for far greater choices for that mother, and a sense of pride and something in her day that she otherwise would not get while she is sitting at home waiting for crumbs from the state.

"This Bill is the first step in fundamentally changing a culture that I believe has been very disabling for people on welfare for some time. This is about enabling. This is about supporting. It is not about just giving them money and leaving it up to them ... This Bill is about doing what will work - providing management, incentives and support, preparing them for the world of opportunity and the world of work that actually they should be in, they should want to be in, and we certainly want them to be in.

"This Bill goes where the Opposition parties certainly would not ... that is investing in and backing young people, believing in them to have a dream and actually backing them to get on and achieve it, and ensuring that we have got the right balance between obligations and responsibilities.

"What is the reward for the young people? The reward, in my view, is a little more than just being prepared to be, and actually being, in work. It is actually about having a purpose. I think it is about having opportunities. I think it is about having self-esteem and a sense of self-respect in oneself, and we all get that when we feel as if we have done something to contribute to the world each day.

"This Bill is the first step in the long overdue changes that New Zealanders want and need."