Download the Supplementary Submission to the Social Security Rewrite Bill (July 2016)
The Salvation Army’s view that this Bill offers New Zealanders very little and as such it should be abandoned.
The Army accepts that the one of the purposes of the Bill is to simplify and modernise current welfare legislation which has been subject to continual and frequent amendment over the past 52 years. But the Bill makes no more sense than the legislation it replaces to those who might receive benefits or to the more general public.
The changes offered in the Bill are a convenience solely for the bureaucrats who administer welfare programmes. While no doubt such an improvement is important for the people who advise you there is in fact so much more to be gained from a rewrite of our social security legislation.
The Salvation Army asks members of the Committee and all members of Parliament to cast their minds to these greater possibilities.