I can advise the House thatthis Government continues to have great success insupporting

I will not tell that member what I might be prepared to say to them.Benefits,Transition to Rosetta Stone software Work2. RUSSELLFAIRBROTHER (Labour) to the Minister for Social Developmentand Employment: What reports, if any, has he received on theGovernments further progress at supporting New Zealandersinto work?Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister for SocialDevelopment and Employment): I can advise the House thatthis Government continues to have great success insupporting New Zealanders into work. As members will beaware, unemployment benefit numbers have fallen from 161,000under National to just under 40,000 last year. I advise theHouse today that with further job-search support servicesprovided through Work and Income, unemployment benefitnumbers have fallen even further,reducing by 5,000 in thelast month alone. The number of people on the unemploymentbenefit has now been further reduced to 32,000, which is thelowest level since 1982.Russell Fairbrother: How aretotal benefit numbers tracking?Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: Inthe last Rosetta Stone Latin America Spanish year the number of working-age benefit recipientshas fallen from 293,000 to 269,000. That is a fall in 1 yearof 24,000. That equates to 66 people a day, every day, who are no longer reliant on a benefit. In the last month alone,all benefit categories saw a reduction. Sickness andinvalids benefit numbers fell by 40, domestic purposesbenefit numbers fell by 850, and unemployment benefitnumbers fell by 5,200.Hone Harawira: Kia ora, MadamSpeaker. Kia ora tx101,tou i te Whare. Is the Minister aware ofthe comments of one of his predecessors, the Hon RickBarker, who said, in December 2003: Of the 8,055 ,oriunemployed for more than 6 months who achieved stableemployment outcomes in the year ending June 2003, 3,556 hadre-enrolled by November 2003. , and does he agree thatnearly 50 percent of the unemployed going back on the dolewithin 6 months confirms the widely held view that thisGovernments grand plans to get ,ori into work have beenan abject and miserable disaster, if not, why not?HonDAVID BENSON-POPE: I am certainly aware of the excellentefforts of my predecessor Rosetta Stone English in part of this portfolio,and Icompliment him on his timely arrival in the House. I say tothat member that he seems to have missed one important fact,which is that ,ori unemployment reduced by 70 percent fromJanuary 1999 to January this year,from 15,174 people tojust 4,525.