Mr SPEAKERI have received a letter from the Hon Annette King seeking to debate under Standing Order 380 the Government announcement yesterday that the Ministry of Social Development is cutting up to 200 jobs, including a team of social workers dedicated to child abuse education. This is a case of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility, and I consider that it does deserve the immediate attention of the House. I call on the member to move the motion.
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) Link to this
I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance. Yesterday the chief executive officer of the Ministry of Social Development announced cuts of up to 200 jobs as part of restructuring demanded by the Government and Miss Bennett. We have been told that the cuts will save around $22 million a year. At the same time the Prime Minister announced that tens of millions of dollars will be spent on a venue for “party central” for a knees-up for the Rugby World Cup. Millions of dollars will be spent on a party at the same time as $22 million is to be cut from the social development budget. Those cuts will affect children and families, and they come at a time when unemployment is rising rapidly.
Only a few months ago the Minister for Social Development and Employment said unemployment was just a blip. Today on National Radio the Minister said—I think she has changed her mind—that we would be dreaming if we did not think unemployment was going to increase. The Minister is the one who has been dreaming. She has been dreaming for month after month. It is time she opened her eyes and looked around. It is time she stopped being the “Minister for Slogan Development”. It is time she stopped the photo shoots and the media stand-ups and started to stand up for families, young people, and children in our country.
She knows that the number of people on the unemployment benefit over the next year will increase by 164 percent. There will be a 164 percent increase in the number of people who will be thrown on the dole over the next year. Miss Bennett should stand up for the young people in this country. It is no good having a photo shoot and making a speech. That is no substitute for real policy. Unemployment for young people in this country has already reached 19 percent for those aged between 15 and 19 years, and 11 percent for those who are between the ages of 20 and 24 years. Those figures are well above the rate for other joblessness.
The Minister should wake up and look at what is happening to our young people. Young people had a chance a few weeks ago under a programme called Enterprising Communities, but it was dumped by Miss Bennett. The programme was scrapped by Miss Bennett. She said no research had been done on it, she did not believe that it worked, and it did not lead to jobs. I can tell Miss Bennett that 3,000 jobs would have come out of that programme if there had been continued investment in it. Let me put that into perspective.
The member says that is rubbish. Those are the figures that would have been given to her. Those 3,000 jobs are more than we will get from constructing a bicycle lane and more than we will get out of a 9-day working fortnight. The number of jobs resulting from those initiatives will not come to 3,000, even if we add them together.
Enterprising Communities is one programme that could have given an opportunity to young people, and with the swipe of a pen Miss Bennett got rid of it. That is despite the Mayor of Ōtorohanga telling her that it works, and despite the fact that she signed a memorandum of understanding with that mayor and with other mayors in the Mayors Task Force for Jobs, saying that young people were her priority and focus. That is balderdash! If young people were her priority and focus, why would she wipe out a scheme that in Ōtorohanga alone saw unemployment for young people drop to zero? The programme saw a 75 percent reduction in youth crime, and she said it does not work. Miss Bennett managed to find $30 million for boot camps for around 80 recidivist young offenders, but she chopped the funding for keen young people who want a job and who want to get on with their lives and to have an opportunity.
At this stage, 1,100 people a week are being thrown out of work in this country. I read a news report in March this year from TV3. It stated that in one month alone 2,000 people had lost their jobs. The number of people who lost their jobs was 2,000 a month in March, but 1,100 people are now losing their jobs every week in this country.
I ask Miss Bennett to stand up for our children. The closure of 12 Child, Youth and Family centres around New Zealand is nothing but short-sighted, foolhardy, and shameful. The Government can spend $50 million on a bicycle lane around New Zealand, but it cannot spend a few miserable dollars to keep open service centres that provide services to children, young people, and their families in this country. The termination of social workers, who are dedicated to preventing child abuse, educating people on detecting child abuse, and working on the front line in the area of child abuse, is bizarre. We are now told that all social workers will do that job. We now know that in addition to social workers’ case management they will also have to go out and educate, go to schools, meet with Plunket, and do a whole range of other activities because they have plenty of time to do them.
Who has it right? The Prime Minister said yesterday that he agreed with Christine Rankin—the person he has described as somebody who knows an incredible amount about abused children in New Zealand—when she said that social workers in Child, Youth and Family are already too busy and that people are having to wait 6 weeks for service. He said he agreed with that statement, but Miss Bennett is saying that social workers have plenty of time to pick up more roles and that it does not matter if they are already busy. In fact, she does not believe that social workers are already busy. I am very concerned about the impact this change will have on children and young people in New Zealand.
Last week in this Chamber John Key said that members on this side of the House do not care about abused children. I was nursing my new grandson when I heard that gratuitous comment. I do not believe there is a single member in this House, no matter which party he or she is in, who does not care about child abuse in this country. We do care; we care deeply about child abuse.
In my view the Prime Minister sunk to a new low in defence of the appointment of Christine Rankin. It was in that context that he made his gratuitous comment. He could have said that we need to do more in the area of child abuse. He could have said that we should work together on this complex issue. He could have said that child abuse is a priority area and the Government is committed to addressing it. But to stand in this Chamber and attempt to make cheap political points at the expense of decent members of Parliament who care about child abuse is shameful, and the Prime Minister should apologise to all members in this House.
All of us in this House know that child abuse has been a deep, dark secret in families for generations, and it is only now that we are seeing the light of day being shone upon it. It is only now that people are prepared to come forward and report child abuse because they are aware of it, they know it is wrong, and they are prepared to step forward. I was with Pita Sharples on Māngere Mountain with a candle when we were trying to promote awareness of child abuse and taking a leading part as members of Parliament to show the effects of child abuse.
In my view, child abuse is a complex issue and one we need to work together on. It means we have to work with non-governmental organisations, the police, neighbours, family members, and social workers—the very social workers who have been cut from their jobs in the changes the Minister made in Budget 2009. The social workers are there to raise awareness about child abuse and to put child abuse at the top of the agenda, because last year 12,116 children were abused in this country. John Key said yesterday that raising awareness of child abuse is no longer necessary. I was staggered when I heard him say that. He said we do not have to make people aware of child abuse, because they are reporting the cases. What naivety! Does the Prime Minister not understand that people report child abuse because they are aware of child abuse? Of course we want to prevent child abuse, but we have to make people aware of it.
Let us discuss the issue of family violence alongside child abuse. In the last decade or so we have seen huge increases in the reporting of such terrible crimes. Why? Because people are aware of family violence. They have been educated about it and they feel confident that they can report it. We cannot cut the area of awareness, but that is what Miss Bennett and her Government have done. They have cut social workers out of a very important role. We need greater awareness, more reporting, and more prevention.
Mr Key said he was going to do something about abused kids. That is great. We will work with the Government on it. But we also need to do something about stopping the abuse—not after the kids have been abused but actually to stop the abuse. We need to make sure we do not cut parenting programmes such as has been done in this Budget. We should not cut budgeting services such as has happened in this Budget. We support stressed families because we know that if we do not then there will be an increase in child abuse and family violence in this country.
Why can the Government not see that the short-sighted approach it is taking will lead to more violence in our homes and more child abuse? I believe that the reason for the Government’s approach is that it is a greater priority for it to spend millions of dollars on one-off projects for the benefit of the Prime Minister, the Minister for Social Development and Employment, or any other Minister who has a pet project rather than to concentrate on the bread and butter issues that face our country here in New Zealand.
Cuts to services for unemployed people and our most vulnerable at this time are unfair and unjustified. The social development and employment portfolio needs a strong Minister, a Minister up to the task, but, sadly, we know that John Key does not have confidence in the Minister. She has already lost one portfolio. The Prime Minister said she asked to lose it. When the Prime Minister stands up and says “Didn’t she do a good job on Morning Report?”, and everybody rolls their eyes and laughs, if I were that Minister I would be very worried about what the Prime Minister thinks about my performance.
I believe that Miss Bennett has not shown that she is capable of taking New Zealand forward in terms of employment policy. She has not shown to be capable of giving the leadership that is needed at this time. No one says it is easy, but all we have had in the last 6 to 7 months has been slogans and comments about how she is a foot stamper and how she can make things happen. I ask the Minister when things will start happening. When will she do something for children and young people in New Zealand? When will she do something for unemployed people in New Zealand? When will she get over the photo shoots in magazines and get on with the hard work? That is what is expected of a Minister in charge of such a big portfolio.
We are very sorry to see cuts in the area of social development that will have an impact on families and children. Spending 22 million miserable dollars on them would have a great effect. The Minister has not shown that she is capable of standing up to the Minister of Finance and fighting for children, young people, and their families. We will reap the rewards of that sort of lack of care.
I am delighted we have the opportunity to debate this issue today. We feel strongly about it, and I know that members of this House feel strongly about child abuse in this country. I just wish that the Government would be a little less arrogant and would listen to what people are saying about the needs of unemployed and vulnerable people in this country.
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) Link to this
I thank you for allowing this debate today, Mr Speaker, because it is vitally important that the House debates child abuse and neglect, not just when there is a high-profile case, the issue is in the media, and the public are talking about it because one of our children has been absolutely, horrifically hurt. We have heard a lot of rhetoric, we have heard a lot of personal insults against me, but we need to speak about the actual issues.
New Zealand has the third-highest rate of child abuse and neglect in the OECD. That is a horrific statistic in any terms. Last year there were 87,709 care and protection notifications. That is 22 percent more than in the previous year. Many of those notifications came about because of changes in the notification process. When police visit family violence incidents where children are present, a notification must be made. We just heard the statistic that 12,116 children and young people were neglected or abused last year. When the notifications that we had were investigated, it was found that 12,116 children and young people had been neglected or abused. The most horrific statistic of all is that 1,356 of those children and young people had been abused again within 6 months. That is where this Government’s focus lies.
I can guarantee the public of New Zealand that due to the changes that have taken place in the last few months, more front-line social workers will be working with those children and with our children in New Zealand. I repeat that guarantee, because it is vitally important. I guarantee the public of New Zealand that because of the changes that have been introduced under this Government, more front-line social workers will be working in New Zealand. That is what we need.
We talk about unallocated cases, but let us talk about what is really important. The rate of unallocated cases continues to decrease. As I said at the estimates hearing last week, we have around 200 unallocated cases compared with 5,000 just 5 years ago. All of those notifications of abuse and neglect have met the deadline for action. That is what this Government and I expect the Ministry of Social Development to be truly focused on.
We have some horrific abuse in New Zealand and it is time we fronted up to it. Let us talk about who abuses children and young people. Unfortunately, young infants are most likely to be seriously abused, or even killed, by their own mother. The next group most likely to be abused will be abused by their father, or by their mother’s partner or boyfriend. Unfortunately, 47 percent of those children who are hospitalised are Māori. The rate is much lower among Pasifika and European children. We need to start to look at some of those demographics and start to look at the big picture. We need to actually recognise what that means and how to deal with it. [Interruption] There are catty calls from the other side of the House, but I take this issue really seriously. I think the New Zealand public does as well and is ready to see—
Hon Trevor Mallard Link to this
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The word that I object to is “catty”. That is an inappropriate description. It is one that is quite pejorative, aimed at women MPs, and just because the member who uses it is herself a woman, it does not mean that it is acceptable to use it or acceptable to describe members on this side as “catty”. Although it might not be on the proscribed list of unparliamentary terms yet, it is one I would like you to consider.
Chris TremainThis is a robust debating chamber. If we start outlawing, or ruling out of order, words like “catty”, we are going down a bad and precious path.
At this stage I have to say to the honourable member that it is a term in fairly common usage, and we do have to be careful not to rule out every critical expression that exists. I just ask the Minister to be reasonable in her use of the language.
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I take exception to the comment the Minister then made that we do not take this issue seriously. We take this issue very seriously.
The member cannot debate the matter under a point of order. It is a difficult call for the Speaker to make. Allegations of whether the other side takes an issue seriously are made all the time, and I think the next speaker for Labour can readily make the case for how seriously Labour takes it. I do not see how I can rule out that kind of comment.
Hon Trevor Mallard Link to this
There has been quite a lot of precedent where members have taken exception. This is a very serious issue, and to accuse members of being uncaring about child abuse is about as objectionable as one can get. It is a horrible, horrible thing. As members all around the country, we had responses after the Prime Minister’s similar comment last week. I regret that I did not take a point of order when he made it last week. I should have, but I was taking some particular care at the time. To suggest that members do not care about this issue is offensive.
Hon PAULA BENNETT Link to this
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The previous speaker in the debate made many accusations that I did not take this issue seriously and was not stepping up to the mark. I let those comments go because, after all, it is a robust debate and at the end of the day I would have my chance to speak. I can understand that members opposite are a bit disgruntled—
The Minister will sit down. The Minister had a perfectly good ground for a point of order until that point, but she cannot attack members on the other side of the House under a point of order. I accept exactly what the Minister has said, because, despite my poor ears today, I heard interjections and accusations across the House that the Minister did not take this matter seriously. However, in respect of the allegation that has been made by the Minister, personal objection by the mover of the motion has been taken. All I would ask the honourable Minister to do maybe is to withdraw the allegation that the Opposition does not take the matter seriously. That is what I ask the Minister to do, and I think it is in the interests of good order in the House for both sides not to make that kind of allegation on a serious issue such as this. I ask the Minister to withdraw.
Hon PAULA BENNETT Link to this
Let us just get back to some of the facts. Last year the chief executive of the Ministry of Social Development signalled in the briefing to the incoming Minister that there would be changes and a reduction in staff. Let us make it clear that the value-for-money process within the ministry started in 2005 under the previous Labour Government, and, as such, those changes were happening when I became the Minister. So that was not new. The process was detailed on 12 May, as I pointed out at the estimates hearing last week, and it is part of the ministry’s ongoing value-for-money programme that was started under Labour.
Let us make it really clear that more social workers will be on the front line. National campaigned on that promise last year, and that is what we are delivering. We are delivering more front-line staff and we are proud to do that. Already we have 60 new front-line staff in Work and Income. Already we have 104 new front-line staff in Work and Income being recruited. What we are seeing at the moment, which has come out of the review that has happened since 12 May, is that in the care and protection part of social welfare there will be more social workers in front-line roles. That is what National campaigned on and that is what we are delivering.
This is a serious issue; this is about our children. It is time we got the profile right, so that right at the start we can do the programmes that need to be done. When we look at the profile of who is abusing their children, we need to ask ourselves who they are and why they are doing it. They are isolated, they are urbanised Māori in big numbers, unfortunately, and they do not have the support networks around them that they need to make a difference. Having more front-line social workers will make a difference.
A lot has been made of the 18 community liaison social worker positions that are being disestablished. The key role of these people was to raise community awareness of child abuse. Their day-to-day activities included attending community meetings, visiting schools, working with health professionals, and developing policies about responding to and reporting child abuse. Eighteen people nationwide can do only so much. For example, they cannot reach all 7,000 schools in New Zealand. Let us move the responsibility of public education to everyone in the organisation. The deputy chief executive has been very clear that he expects all 3,000 Child, Youth and Family workers to be working in this area. Eighteen people nationwide were not making a huge difference, but we believe that every social worker being focused on it will. Over 100 Child, Youth and Family managers will lead this work.
Child, Youth and Family currently has 300 vacancies, 90 of which are for social workers. The chief executive informs me that he is very hopeful that these 18 social workers will apply for those front-line roles.
The savings from the restructure come mostly from reductions in administrative roles. That will fund extra front-line social workers. We campaigned on this, we promised it, and we are delivering it. That is what this debate is about, it is what the other side was asking, and it is what is happening. There will be an immediate increase of 12 caregiver social workers and 12 care services managers, and a further increase of around 30 to 40 social workers by the end of the year. That is the crux of the debate; it is what is happening. Let me just repeat that because of the changes that have been implemented in the last couple of months, there will be an immediate increase of 12 caregiver social workers, an increase of another 12 care services managers, and a further increase of around 30 to 40 social workers by the end of the year. That is this Government’s focus and it is where we are putting our priorities.
We can hear the rhetoric. We had years of change, but that change did not happen. Let me give the House an example. I think it is fair not to count notifications because they have changed drastically over the last few years due to some of those changes. Let us talk about substantiated cases of child abuse. In the 2004-05 year there were 11,441 substantiated cases of abuse and neglect. In 2007-08 there were 16,290 cases—
Hon Steve ChadwickHon PAULA BENNETT Link to this
Well why did the member not do something about it if she knows? If Labour members say that they know these statistics, then why did they not do something when they were in Government and could actually make a difference? Why were more social workers not moved to the front line to work with these people? Why was the matter not taken seriously enough so that there is a proper profile of these people? Why has there not been an actual service that talks about how those parents need support? Where is the profile around the isolation and urbanisation of these parents and what leads them to abusing their children? Why, for 9 long years, did we have report after report, but no meaningful action taken, and what is New Zealand’s ticking time bomb and most serious issue? There can be rhetoric, there can be talk, and there can be personal insults, but it does not focus on what is most important—
Hon Trevor Mallard Link to this
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This might seem slightly unusual, but I am listening to the Minister and I am having a little bit of trouble hearing, especially a comment that I thought the Minister said about urbanisation causing child abuse in Māori.
The member will resume his seat. It is unacceptable to interrupt the Minister’s speech on a spurious point of order to try to make a political point. That is not acceptable. I invite the Minister to continue. If the member is struggling to hear, he can speak to his own colleagues who are interjecting loudly.
Hon PAULA BENNETT Link to this
Those members do not like it when National is focusing on what truly matters. This Government is focusing on what truly matters. The time for awareness is over. We need to make actual changes, and that is what this Government is stepping up to do. We need to know what works and we need to know why. We need to have the sorts of programmes that will be getting into people’s homes and fundamentally making a difference. We cannot sit back and hand-wring and ask for report after report without there being actual and real action.
Recently there has been a little bit of talk about unemployment numbers going up. Quite frankly, it is time that Labour woke up to unemployment numbers going up. Unemployment went up for three consecutive quarters under Labour’s watch, and when we came in there was no plan and there had been no action. After three consecutive quarters of unemployment going up there was no plan and no action from the Labour Government. Within a few weeks we had introduced the ReStart package, which identified those people who had been made redundant and who needed some targeted assistance to help them through that time. We then introduced the Job Support Scheme through my own office. We have certainly seen success with that, and it is going better each week as more companies make contact with us and ask what they can do.
If for one moment we thought that in a global recession unemployment would not be increasing then, yes, that would be dreaming. When we talk about a blip—just so we can correct some of the debate from time gone by—we see those numbers changing week by week. We see the people who come into the Work and Income office change week by week. I said that we cannot take one week in isolation because it could be a blip, and the next week it could be more. One week it could be less, the following week it could be more. We do not take one week in isolation, which is what was said within that quote, and the reason that no one else is picking it up is that it actually is not right.
More than 30 percent of those people who walk into Work and Income do not go on a benefit; they walk out with a job. That is because the focus has gone more and more on getting jobs into Work and Income. Last week alone we had 824 new jobs come into Work and Income for us to place unemployed people into. It is an increase from 616 in the same week of the year before. In the same week the year before 616 new jobs came in, whereas 824 new jobs came in last week. That is because the focus is on jobs, jobs, and more jobs when it comes to people walking into Work and Income.
We heard today in question time about job matching and the relationship with McDonald’s. We have put forward 54 people for jobs at McDonald’s, 27 of whom got a job. Twelve of those people were on a benefit. The others were not on a benefit because we placed them in work so quickly. That is what we are talking about. I have absolutely no doubt that there would be more people on the unemployment benefit if Work and Income was not focused on jobs and work brokering as much as it is, and that is thanks to this Government and its priorities. Let us make no mistake that it is thanks to this Government and its priorities of jobs and focusing our workforce into jobs, into the way we get them, and into the way we place the right people into them, and I will stand by that every time.
I will end by thanking you again, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to debate child abuse and neglect, to talk about front-line services and what is needed within the ministry to address those very, very serious statistics we see in relation to children that are being hurt. We will stand up for those children every time. A series of policies will be introduced that will make a fundamental difference, but right now it is about getting the right people in the right jobs within our ministry. I support my chief executive in that role.
JOHN BOSCAWEN (ACT) Link to this
Mr Speaker, I also thank you for allowing this debate on child abuse and social welfare, because I have had a chance to see the Hon Paula Bennett in action this afternoon. I have to say that I could not be more impressed by a Minister. She shows compassion, she is so passionate about this issue, she is articulate, and she has a very clear view on what she wants to do. I congratulate her and I congratulate her Government. She has a very clear vision and she gave a very strong and impassioned speech.
What I took from the Minister is that she is reorganising the Ministry of Social Development. She is reorganising it, she is looking to save costs on administration, and she is looking to put more front-line staff in there.
Paul QuinnI thank Mr Quinn. That is right; I have understood correctly what the Minister said. She said she will immediately have 12 more front-line social workers or caregivers. That is what she referred to—12 more social workers or caregivers immediately.
Annette King is upset about the restructuring. She is upset that there will be 12 more front-line staff immediately. The Minister went on to say that we will have a further 12 caregivers or social workers a short time later, and that by the end of the year we will have a further 30 to 40 front-line caregivers or social workers. The Minister is focusing on what truly matters. I congratulate her because we need to look at the causes of child abuse and we need to put resources into front-line staff.
I heard Annette King talking about having to stop the violence and saying that the Minister’s action is short-sighted. She said we have to stop violence and that if we do not move immediately, then we will be going backwards. She talked about a paltry $22 million. If I heard her correctly, she talked about a paltry saving of $22 million. I remind Annette King that the previous Labour Government, which she was a member of, spent close to $1 billion on purchasing the railways. That is right—$1 billion. It cost $700 million to buy the railways, $300 million to upgrade them, and then annual subsidies of $100 million a year, and she has the audacity to stand up and criticise a restructuring.
So much money was wasted in the last 9 years by the previous Labour Government. It was a period of lost opportunity. Labour members are very happy to suggest that the solution to problems is to spend more money; that is right—spend more money. The more money we spend the better, and the more likely the problem will go away. We have had a massive increase in health spending—a 50 percent increase in health spending, adjusted for inflation. What do we see? We see a drop in productivity. It is not a question of spending more money; it is a question of how we spend it.
We also need to look at the causes of child abuse. What are the causes? How do we address the root problem? The solution is not just to spend more money; it is actually to look at the root causes of the problem. New Zealand, sadly, has become a two-class society. We are a society of two classes of citizens. We have the privileged and unprivileged. We have the haves and the have-nots. We have the people who have a choice in the quality of the education they get. We have children who are born to parents who can afford to move into areas with quality State schooling or can afford to buy private school education. We have those children who are denied that choice because their parents cannot afford to live in areas that offer a higher quality of State schooling. We have those who can afford the protection of private medical insurance, and those who cannot. We are a society of haves and have-nots, of privileged and unprivileged. We need to look at the real causes of child abuse when we look at what causes New Zealand society to have two classes of citizens.
I will conclude my comments by reasserting what I said earlier. Paula Bennett is clearly a passionate and articulate Minister. She is focusing on what truly matters. She knows what she wants to achieve. She is putting more resources on the front line. I congratulate her. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.
RAHUI KATENE (Māori Party—Te Tai Tonga) Link to this
Earlier this month the 2009 Global Peace Index results were released, which measured 23 indicators of peacefulness. To our amazement, Aotearoa was named as the most peaceful nation in the world. That is amazing, because we recall that not too long ago the Unicef report ranked New Zealand as being 23rd out of 25 OECD countries for child deaths, and as being 25th out of 25 for child injuries.
No one in this House would deny that our international status in confronting the crime of child abuse is deplorable. Also, no one in this House would deny the horrendous and harrowing impacts of child abuse. The short-term and long-term outcomes of child abuse have been revealed in a tragic list of consequences, which span physical aggression, antisocial behaviour, mental health issues, sexually inappropriate behaviour, violent offending, suicide, and a host of emotional and behavioural problems. The challenge, I believe, is one that all parties are united on: the challenge, indeed the responsibility, to ensure that all our tamariki are loved and grow to their full potential. The debate is not about the why; it is all about the how.
The previous Labour Government put considerable focus on social marketing and communications campaigns. The Campaign for Action on Family Violence, with the primary focus on the concept It’s Not OK, has been a very effective strategy for raising awareness about what family violence is and who is affected by it. Recent research, tracking surveys, and media audits have revealed some fairly staggering results. In November 2008 tracking revealed that there was a 95 percent awareness of the campaign. The highest recall of the campaign was by Māori females and Māori males, at 99 percent and 98 percent respectively. One would not think there could be better evidence of a successful campaign than those statistics, but the key sticking point to progress is in the fact that only 22 percent of the people who were surveyed said they had taken some action as a result of the campaign. If only one in five people reported taking action as a result of having seen the advertisement, clearly we still have work to do in order to translate words into action.
If we were to look over to the education sector, we would see that there are many awareness campaigns, such as Keeping Ourselves Safe, Eliminating Violence - Managing Anger, He Whānau Piripono He Iwi Pakari, and the buddy programmes, to name a few campaigns. Although the evaluations are fairly consistent in recording the success of child abuse prevention programmes in equipping children with skills and knowledge, what is not known is exactly how effective this new knowledge is in real life, in actually helping children to draw upon those skills to address real-life situations. The evidence is lacking as to whether children, even when equipped with an impressive knowledge base, can carry the new behaviour over into high-risk situations.
The complex nature of child abuse cannot possibly be responded to by any one fix or solution. There is no one answer, no right response, that fits every situation. The announcement yesterday to disestablish the administrative service centres is part of an approach by Child, Youth and Family to put more investment where it counts: at the front line. The 18 community liaison social workers have done an excellent job of promoting greater awareness of child abuse, but it is time now to look for another strategy, and to move from the awareness campaign towards making a difference in behaviour. As a first point, the challenge now is to mainstream the awareness so that, in effect, every social worker in Child, Youth and Family, every front-line worker, and every member of the family knows exactly what to do when child abuse is suspected.
The New Zealand Family Violence Clearing House has been a key proponent in advocating for a focus on preventing violence and abuse that demands wide-scale ownership and cooperation. It talks about a need for multi-agency coordination, with a consistent and comprehensive response to services for individuals, families, and whānau. The impact of the recession has made it even more critical that we take a responsible look at all of the strategies and interventions that are being promoted in the name of preventing child abuse. Paramount in our considerations must be how whānau ora is maintained so that, collectively, families are able to meet their responsibilities to create positive futures for our children. I mihi to the amazing organisations out there that do the mahi every day in terms of protecting the well-being of our whānau: groups like Amokura with its family violence prevention strategy, the National Network of Stopping Violence Services, Project Mauriora, the Stop services, the Safe Network, WellStop, Te Kahui Mana Ririki, and others. They do an incredible job of supporting families to take ownership of these critical issues that face our nation. We must mobilise all of our energy towards ensuring that our whānau can find their own solutions to addressing the horrific issues of abuse and violence. It is about everybody taking responsibility and acting now.
I want to make it quite clear that there will still be key advocates for children caught up in the storm of family violence. Although today’s debate has a focus on the 18 community liaison social workers based in the administrative service centres, I do not think we should overlook the vital and continuing presence of some 45 fulltime-equivalent advocates who sit within community agencies, and who have a single focus on children who are affected by family violence. These advocates provide independent advice and support, and are determined to ensure that children and young people who are exposed to family violence are protected from witnessing or experiencing further abuse, and to minimise the risk of poor outcomes later in life.
Probably the most significant strategy that any State could employ is to realise that the key advocates for protecting and investing in children are the cause champions whom we can find in every family. An Auckland study of women’s attempts to be free from abuse showed that many Māori women continue to look first to their whānau for help. Our investment must be focused on families taking action and on families being empowered to make the difference that counts. We have done well in raising awareness and encouraging the recognition that violence and abuse is not OK. But, clearly, we are not achieving the progress we need via awareness campaigns alone. We must be bold and take action.
In the whānau summit held last year, entitled E tu! Taking Action, Moana Jackson, in his inimitable way, laid out the steps towards building a strong whānau and hapū base in order to address the issues that afflict too many whānau, especially the issue of violence. He issued the challenge: “Stop the hurt; explore the reason; deny the presumption; and address the causes”. We must all rise up to the opportunity for leadership, whether within our families or across our communities, in knowing that we can make a difference in addressing all aspects of violence. We must not leave it to community liaison workers to take on the task of achieving well-being. We must not sit nohopuku in front of the TV and ignore issues that are bringing our families down. We must take action that shows it is not OK to sexually abuse children, to destroy their futures, and to damage their life chances. We need to start from families up—transforming our homes into sites of safety, encouraging the family champions to stand up against abuse—and to invest in the protection of our precious children. If the restructuring of the Ministry of Social Development helps to make that happen, then surely all parties across the House would extend unanimous support to taking the action required to put a stop to the horrendous levels of abuse that shame us all. Kia ora.
SUE BRADFORD (Green) Link to this
The Green Party shares the concern of colleagues in the House that the Ministry of Social Development is cutting a total of 558 positions in the very ministry that is responsible for dealing, above all, with the effects both of unemployment and of child neglect and abuse. It is a deeply ironic situation. I am aware that the chief executive officer, Mr Peter Hughes, has gone to great efforts in terms of identifying where the job cuts can most effectively and with the least damage come from, and in terms of providing support to staff who are, sadly, in that position. But, at the same time, the Green Party believes that the Ministry of Social Development is the last department where there should be a net cut in jobs.
On the question of child abuse, particularly, the Minister Paula Bennett was at the Social Services Committee just the other day telling us that over the past year there has been a big increase in terms of reporting child abuse and neglect, from 9,000 to 12,000. It is good that this is being picked up, but surely at this time, with this sort of increase, this is the very point at which skilled people should be right there not only on the front line but also backing the people on the front line. Child abuse specialists should be out in the community working with the people in the schools, working with the social workers, and working with the health professionals. This problem has not gone away, sadly. It is continuing in communities around the country, and this is not the moment for cutting back on the people who are doing this very difficult, sensitive, and highly skilled work. I sincerely hope that the Minister and the chief executive officer might think again about where exactly they are making the cuts in this area. There is also the issue that the towns where these jobs are being stripped out of include places like Whangarei, Tauranga, Hamilton, Napier, New Plymouth, and other places where often these skilled people who are being made redundant will have a difficult time getting a job again. Often they are women—often older women—who, despite their skills and experience, will have difficulty securing alternative employment. So, again, we have the Ministry of Social Development putting some particularly vulnerable women workers into the dole queue.
Looking at the bigger picture, of course we see that unemployment is going up. As of last week the Minister informed us that a net 1,100 people a week are going into the dole queue. We are seeing more lay-offs daily in retail, manufacturing, the clothing sector—as we have seen with Line 7 going under—plus, of course, what is happening in the Public Service, and this will just continue to deepen. The Minister and Treasury give us various predictions about what is going to happen with unemployment. The other day the Minister said she expected that by 2010 up to 80,000 people would be on the unemployment benefit, and that will go up to 90,000 by 2011. I think these figures are likely to be an extreme underestimation of the reality. Of course, as more and more people who are finding themselves without work at the moment are realising, just being unemployed does not mean that you are counted in the unemployment benefit figures, because so many people today who are losing their jobs are actually those who have partners who are still in work; therefore, they cannot register as unemployed. So although the Government boasts about how low the numbers on the unemployment benefit are in New Zealand compared, for example, with Australia, a huge number of our newly redundant and newly unemployed people are those who have no eligibility for the benefit, because their partners are in work.
As I said yesterday, I believe that the Government and this very ministry should be looking closely at the regulations around the income limits above which people cannot get any unemployment benefit when they are in a relationship. Our level at around $534 a week is way too low—the Australian level is much higher—and the Government should be looking closely at that right now, because a lot of families are finding themselves in extreme stress. In fact, the continuation of this very low limit is only going to lead to more and more couples coming under such pressure that they will find themselves breaking up, either deliberately or by default, putting even more strain on our welfare system and more strain, in the end, on their children, leading to poor educational, housing, health, and employment outcomes in the long run and actually costing the Government a lot more than it would if it dealt with this problem now. There are many, many jobs that could be created with and through the Ministry of Social Development that could be usefully done. For example, the Green Party would really like to see the Government look closely at our proposals for a green new deal. We have many ideas about how jobs could be created through things like energy efficiency programmes, investment in public transport, investment in protecting rural waterways, increasing the rate of housing construction—both in the State sector and in the community sector—and waste and recycling programmes.
We would love to see a community economic development function restored to the Ministry of Social Development. With the loss of the Enterprising Communities scheme, we have seen the last vestiges of community economic development gone from the Government. This is very sad. Although that was, in the end, a comparatively small programme, at least it existed, and groups like the Mayors Task Force for Jobs apprenticeship scheme, and many other programmes around the country, are very focused on helping the vulnerable unemployed—helping them to upskill, and helping young people working in places like Ōtorohanga, Dargaville, and other rural and provincial communities where jobs are hard to come by. That scheme is gone, and I do not know that the Minister and her Government quite understand the roll-on impact of that loss. Although they may prop up one or two of those programmes, because they have been lobbied and they understand that a particular scheme is really good, they forget that a whole lot of other programmes will go down the tubes. That is tragic for those communities where the good work has been done, and it is tragic for the vulnerable unemployed people and the people who have been helped through those programmes who will lose their jobs, or for whom the opportunities will no longer exist.
I doubt that the Ministry of Social Development or the Minister for Social Development and Employment understand the point of community economic development. I heard the Minister talking in the select committee the other day and tried to talk about it with her. She said that the main reason that the Government is cancelling the Enterprising Communities scheme is that after 3 years its programmes are not fully self-sustaining. Anyone who has worked in the community economic sector—as I did for 16 years before I came to Parliament—knows that it is impossible to get this kind of scheme to be totally self-sustaining. It is simply not possible. The fault lies with the Government not understanding the realities of the community economic sector and the efficient way in which these programmes can create and promote jobs. I would love to talk to the Government if it would like a few lessons about this. I can talk from years of raw experience. Without any outside help, these kinds of programmes are almost doomed to fail, yet we have only to look at a very current example—the Clean Stream Waiheke Ltd waste programme. This created 23 jobs on Waiheke Island, and many of those jobs with the vulnerable unemployed. This is not an Enterprising Communities programme, but it is a scheme that is sadly going under because of the Auckland City Council decision to transfer out that contract.
But these sorts of community programmes that do really good work, in this case with waste and recycling and with job creation, are where the Government should be investing, and not withdrawing money. The Ministry of Social Development should be employing people who understand community economic development and about working with communities to create jobs. The Government should not be getting rid of jobs; it should be putting more effort into changing our benefit system so that it works for people in a time of recession. The Government should not be leaving it in the kind of mess that it is in right now. It needs to have a greater focus on helping unemployed people into work. It should be looking at real job creation, rather than the kind of job creation we were talking about earlier this afternoon: 7,000 jobs in McDonald’s over the next 5 years. Is that the kind of future that National wants to prioritise? Is this the kind of place that it wants to put Ministry of Social Development money into, propping up a multinational company that made $23 million profit in this country last year? Why are we subsidising McDonald’s when we are cutting Enterprising Communities? We should be putting the money that we are putting into McDonald’s into groups like Clean Stream Waiheke Ltd, and like all those programmes that have been funded by Enterprising Communities. We should be creating jobs for the long-term unemployed and do really useful environmental and social work. We should not be funding a multinational company.
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) Link to this
Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, for the opportunity to debate this particularly important issue. It has been important for a long time and is even more important today. I accept, without reservation, the sincere concern of the Minister for Social Development and Employment, Paula Bennett, about child abuse and her efforts to understand the issue and do something about it. However, I do not understand why the Minister is saying that for 9 long years the Labour Government did nothing about this issue. How does the Minister think that Child, Youth and Family became more effective? It was an institution that for years took the brunt of criticism from up and down the country. Who gave it the resources—not once, not twice, but time and time again—so that it could get its act together and provide the quality of service that it is currently providing? Child, Youth and Family was enabled through those resources to focus its work on specialist teams, because the generic teams were not working. The resources were provided, so it began to do well. Voluntary agencies were supported, time and time again, so they could support the work of Child, Youth and Family, and the Taskforce for Action on Violence within Families was created. I could go on.
It is quite instructive that the first action the Minister has taken on Child, Youth and Family has resulted in it becoming the biggest net loser in the ministry’s restructuring. That is a fact. How did that happen? A decent society demands that Ministers are responsible for ministries that provide sensitive services to those who are most vulnerable, and that people are fully informed about how those services will be provided. I am seriously concerned about whether this Minister has the level of analytical skill that is required to decide for herself that the kinds of recommendations that have been made ought to be accepted.
I refer, in particular, to the closing of the 12 Child, Youth and Family service centres and the closing down of specialist positions. I question sincerely whether the Minister understands why those units were set up in the first place. It was because of the very failure of years of generic front-line work, which is the very model that this Minister now wants to take us back to, aided and abetted by those who are providing advice on Child, Youth and Family. This was the very model that led to New Zealand having the worst breakdown rates in foster-care placements in the Western World. I have done the research; it is certainly true. Why is it that our children were drifting into foster care year after year? They were the real people who missed out on the kinds of services that were provided. I have done the research and examined the international literature—and I have written about it as well—that addresses those kinds of issues. The international literature shows very clearly that we need to focus our skills on specialist units. The performance of Child, Youth and Family has been exemplary, and it has done particularly well in terms of its specialist units. Why are we now trying to disband those specialist units? We are trying to disband them because somebody wants to take this agency back to the future. We will pay for this down the track. It is an old and failed model.
Does anyone really believe that we have turned the corner on child abuse? If so, why is it that we are getting rid of the people who go up and down the country encouraging us to think about, and be sensitive towards, child abuse issues? As it was reported today, those people would be more effective if they were put in different positions. We are told they would be more effective if they worked in front-line services.
Finally, I do not know why we live in a society where we want to cut back all our services at a time of scarce resources. Children who are vulnerable ought to be protected more than those from many other parts of our society, but the Minister is not advocating that. If she was, then she would put a stop to the stupid metaphor that this new model will return our social workers to the front line. Those social workers always were at the front line. Our front-line workers could not function previously, because they did not have the support systems around them. It is like people being out in the field and fighting a war without anything behind them. This is stupid logic. It is a stupid metaphor and the Minister ought not to follow that, even if that is the advice she has been getting. However, we know what the facts are: Government members have internalised this notion of reducing the bureaucracy—
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) Link to this
I regret to advise the member that his time has expired.
KATRINA SHANKS (National) Link to this
I would like to talk about the Ministry of Social Development staff changes. Staff changes in a department are operational, and normally it is the chief executive who makes the overall decisions as to how the organisation is managed, where it is going, and how it will get there with its staff. This was signalled by the chief executive in the briefing to the incoming Minister last year. That means the process was begun under the previous Labour Government. In fact, we know that the Ministry of Social Development had been going through a value-for-money process for the last 2 years under the previous Labour Government. It is part of the organisation’s strategy for directing resources where they are most needed. Although this review was not a new initiative from the National Government, we will continue it.
In these tough economic times the Government must also tighten its belt, in the same way that everyone else has to. We believe that all taxpayers will support our drive to ensure that departments are delivering value for money, and that the Government is delivering value for money to the taxpayers and to the people of New Zealand. This is one of the biggest sectors in New Zealand, so we have to ensure that every dollar counts.
The National Party campaigned on moving resources from the back offices to the front line. We are delivering that, and we make absolutely no apologies for delivering on our campaign policies. The Ministry of Social Development stated that many areas needed to be improved in terms of their efficiency and effectiveness. It has moved slowly through this process, and this is one last place it is moving to now. The ministry has already stated that it is moving through this process. It will keep on looking at value for money within the organisation, as all good organisations should do to stay current with the issues they face.
The concentration of these changes ensures that the ministry moves people into roles that will achieve the overall goal of boosting the front line and streamlining all its operations. This change process, as the select committee was informed, is part of the ministry’s ongoing value-for-money programme. Through the value-for-money programme, the ministry seeks to save $440 million. What will these changes mean? There will be more front-line social services within Child, Youth and Family immediately, with more to come later in the year. These changes are going where the need is—104 extra Work and Income front-line staff have already been recruited. These changes are going where the need is.
This process will generate savings of around $22 million per annum, of which $10 million is additional savings. The Ministry of Social Development baseline is over $900 million. The changes being initiated by the Ministry of Social Development are designed to reposition the ministry to deliver better front-line services for those people feeling the effects of the recession, and to put more social workers on the front line. This is in contrast to the 9 years under Labour when numbers and costs of backroom staff rose substantially.
Let us talk about departmental extravagance. In November 1999 Helen Clark said that Labour wanted to look ordinary, hard-working taxpayers in the eye and say that their tax dollars were being spent on the things that mattered. She promised that a new era of moderation and integrity would develop throughout the public sector. Expenditure on salaries has increased from $240 million in 2002-03 to $566 million in 2006-07. Expenditure on recruitment advertising has increased by 255 percent. Recruitment costs have trebled, from $604,000 to $1.8 million. The number of communications, public relations, and media staff has increased by 150 percent. That helps those children getting abused, does it not? That is 150 percent of spin. The number of policy analysts increased from 202 to 351. The number of staff earning more than $100,000 per annum increased from 54 to 397. Even allowing for mergers with other departments, there has been a 28 percent increase in staff in just over 5 years, despite there being fewer beneficiaries. How does that work? How can the number of staff increase by 28 percent when there are fewer beneficiaries? How does that work?
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) Link to this
Only one thing, in my mind, is worse than reported child abuse, and that is unreported child abuse. That happens when we have a situation where a baby, a little toddler, or a kid at primary school is beaten and abused, left cold and in pain, and no one does anything about it. That is worse than reported child abuse, and that is why, despite the agony I am sure it causes every single member in this Parliament to know about the horrific record of the child abuse we have in New Zealand, we have said that it is better to have that abuse reported, than to know that those kids are being left in pain and on their own, and in a home where all they should expect—but do not get—is love and security.
In the Budget cuts that the Minister for Social Development and Employment, Paula Bennett, signed off, we have made that situation worse for those children. The very people who worked in our community—with our families, with our nurses and doctors, and with our teachers—and who taught all of those people how to recognise child abuse, how to stand up and take what for many is a big step, and how to ask for help, have now been sacked. I heard some members opposite say there were only 18 of those people to cover the whole country, so we should just get rid of them. We could have increased the number, because we have a disgraceful record of child abuse in our nation. We know that every day there are children who are living in fear in their own homes and who do not have anyone to help them. The role of the community social workers was to get out in the community—amongst those families, and amongst their preschool education teachers, their primary school teachers, and the general practitioners and nurses who treat them—and to tell us to recognise that these kids need help because no one else will put a hand up to help them if we do not.
This Parliament should be ashamed of some of the contributions in the debate today. We have said we are going to turn our backs on those children, even though we know they are being hurt and we should instead be doing everything we can to stop them being hurt. Most people in our country—thank goodness—do not understand child abuse. We do not understand it; it is literally beyond our comprehension, and thank goodness for that. We certainly do not understand how anyone can know that a baby or a child is being abused or hurt, and just stand by and watch that. We do not understand it, because if we did I am sure that every single one of us in this Parliament would do something about it.
But as a Government, there is an additional responsibility on top of the responsibility we have as individual members of our families and communities. It is the role of leading, of putting money where our mouths are, of putting resources where our families need them, and of putting the Budget behind the biggest need. In my view, there is no bigger need than the need of kids who are hurt in their own homes. It beggars belief that that is the very area Paula Bennett has signed off for a cut. It was not the only cut; she let a whole lot of other cuts go through. But I ask how on earth a Minister could allow the department to put that proposal to her. Maybe she said that it was “so last year”, maybe she said that we need to “step up”, or maybe she said that it was too long a report and that she would just sign it because she did not want to read it. I do not know what she said, but it beggars belief that any Minister could sign off what could be for many families their only lifeline to getting help. I think we need to do more, not less, to protect our kids. I really urge the Minister to reconsider these tragic cuts, which will affect the very people who have been working in our communities to give our babies and our children the protection that as New Zealand citizens they deserve, however little they are. Those workers should have been better supported and not sacked.
We have heard a lot about the recession, the worst recession in 30 years—that we are going through tough times, that we have to tighten our belts, and that we have to make tough decisions. Well, we do. We do have to make tough decisions, and that is all about priorities. Now is the worst time to be cutting jobs. There could not be a worse time for the Government to be cutting back on Public Service jobs and adding to the list of unemployed people. This is the hardest time for families. When the mums or dads in the family, or maybe even both parents, lose their jobs, then suddenly the money is gone, but the bills do not disappear; people still have to pay their rent and power. People still have to buy food and buy clothes for their kids. A huge amount of stress is put on families, because the benefit is not much to live on. Not too many people in this Parliament would know that, but I say to members that the benefit is not much to live on. It takes a lot of hard work to support a family on a benefit, yet that is what over 1,000 more families every week are having to do. So we have the Government adding to unemployment.
We have families that we know are facing increased stress, and we know that during times of increased stress people resort to behaviour that we would find unacceptable, including abusing their kids and abusing each other. The husband cannot cope with not being able to support his family, the mother is under huge stress, so they start fighting and often end up in a violent situation. That is the time when we should all be working together to help those families, and support and protect the children, but “No, no—let us cut some more of the social development jobs.”, we hear from the Government. I heard Paul Quinn, a one-term National list MP, saying that Government members were getting rid of the pen-pushers. But these are community social workers, who are working in the homes of families that are finding it hardest to get by every week. Community social workers are not pen-pushers; they are men and women throughout the country who have worked very, very hard to support the families that need that help most. So I say “Shame on Mr Quinn for talking about our community social workers in that way!”; I think that that is a disgrace.
Going back to the “tough times, tough decisions, tighten our belts” words that we are hearing from Government members, I say that when a Government puts together a Budget it has to look at different priorities. It has to ask what is important for the Government and what is important for the country. Well, I think that families are more important than cycle lanes and bike lanes. I think that families who need help are more important than boot camps that do not work. We could have saved every single dollar of cuts in the social development area if the Minister had not decided to go ahead with her boot camp proposals, which will fail. We could have had $8 million left over to pay for a few more social workers in schools, and we could have—heaven forbid—canned the knees-up at the Rugby World Cup if social welfare had been a priority for a Government. There was the choice of social workers to help our families or a party at the Rugby World Cup. National has made its choice to go partying in Auckland, while our wee babies will get hurt and no one will be there to help them.
The final point I make on behalf of the children who are abused in New Zealand is about the offer I made under the previous administration to the National Party. Every single party but National committed itself not just to attend but to work on a cross-party family violence task force. I pay tribute—and this is a rare occasion—to Heather Roy. She would not have felt comfortable in the grouping she was in; maybe Tariana Turia and Pita Sharples did not always feel comfortable, either. But every single party except National attended and contributed, so we put in every good idea. We reviewed the domestic violence legislation together, and we made agreed suggestions to the Minister. The whole of Parliament except the National Party did that, because we thought that not only could we make a contribution—we all have good ideas; why do we not all put them in—but also the message that family violence is not OK would be a very strong message for Parliament to send.