Parliament passes government's welfare changes

The government's controversial welfare changes were passed into law tonight after an angry debate in Parliament.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett said her bill marked a turning point and the obligations it placed on beneficiaries were fair and reasonable.

Labour and the Greens said the changes would lock more people into poverty and children would suffer the most.

Key changes that have been enacted include:

* sole parents will be work tested and have to look for part-time jobs when their youngest child turns six;

* penalties for non-compliance will be graded, becoming progressively punitive;

* abatement rates will be increased for some benefits to provide work incentives; and

* high users of hardship and emergency assistance will be targeted.

Ms Bennett said the government was asking beneficiaries to make every effort to work -- and there would be consequences for those who didn't.

"We're making the sanctions regime more effective -- penalties will get progressively tougher if people continue to fail to meet their obligations," she said during the third reading debate on the bill.

"We're serious about holding people to their obligations, we owe this to them and the taxpayer."

Ms Bennett said 15 hours' work a week was a "fair ask" and there was no intention to force sole parents into unsuitable work.

She said that in a few months she would introduce a new requirement for sickness beneficiaries because at present there was no requirement for any of them to work regardless of the nature of their illness.

"We know that some people are capable of working part-time and we know it is better for them if they do," she said.

Labour's social development spokeswoman, Annette King, said Ms Bennett was running a political agenda.

"She has an unrelenting focus on work -- but does she believe in caring for children?" Ms King said.

"The people most affected by this bill are sole parents and it is the children of those beneficiaries who will be hurt the most."

Ms King said that with unemployment running at 6.8%, there were 159,000 people out of work, yet the government expected beneficiaries to find jobs.

"This will leave people in a poverty trap," she said.

Green Party MP Catherine Delahunty said the government believed being poor was a crime.

"This bill will entrench poverty, more people will need foodbanks, it will cause extreme hardship and the cost will be carried by the most vulnerable," she said.

"A crisis has been manufactured and the extreme right, represented by Paula Bennett, will use the cost of income support as a stick to beat the anti-beneficiary drum. God help the poor of Aotearoa."

Act MP David Garrett attacked Labour for opposing the legislation.

"They want people to be trapped in poverty," he said.

"They want them to sit at home on a subsistence income. They want them to do that so they will stay dependent on the nanny state and vote Labour for the rest of their lives."

Mr Garrett said the new measures were "a gentle nudge" to get people back into work and escape from "the disease of welfarism."

The bill was passed on a vote of 65 to 55.