Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I will move that the bill be referred to the Social Services Committee. The bill makes three significant changes to the Social Security Act. It does so in the following ways. Firstly, it extends the eligibility for the accommodation supplement to residents of retirement villages who have “licence to occupy” tenure. Secondly, it ensures that benefit applicants who work for part of the year, such as seasonal workers, are not financially disadvantaged by enabling them to elect a 52 or 26-week income assessment period for the calculation of their stand-down period. Thirdly, it makes changes to the regime that encourages sole parents to establish paternity for children and apply for child support.

Let me go through those three changes one by one. The bill extends eligibility for the accommodation supplement to residents of retirement villages who have a “licence to occupy” tenure and who meet other qualifying criteria, including an income and cash asset test. This change ensures that people with a “licence to occupy” tenure are treated consistently in terms of access to financial assistance. It addresses a financial barrier facing older retired people on low incomes with limited cash assets and high accommodation costs who want to continue to live independently. The Working for Families package substantially addressed housing affordability pressures by increasing the maximum level of accommodation supplement in some areas and by making it available to more people. The amendment in this bill also assists people on low incomes with their housing costs. From 1 July 2005, it is expected that 200 to 300 retirement village residents will qualify for an accommodation supplement of, on average, between $37 and $54 a week. I imagine that that step will be applauded by the House.

Secondly, the bill changes benefit stand-down rules to improve incentives for people on a benefit to undertake seasonal work and other short-term employment. Currently, a stand-down period of between 1 week and 10 weeks applies to most new applicants before their benefit commences. The stand-down period is calculated on the applicant’s income in the 26 weeks before becoming entitled to the benefit and the number of children in his or her care. But from 1 May 2005 benefit applicants will be able to elect a 26-week or 52-week income assessment period for the calculation of their stand-down period. At the moment some seasonal workers who work for part of the year can be disadvantaged by the 26-week assessment period. Although they may have earned a reasonable income over a short period, if before they had a job they had a low income, their annual income position will become lower. This change will benefit approximately 4,500 benefit applicants a year, by reducing the length of their initial stand-down period. This will reduce disincentives for people to undertake seasonal work and may also reduce the need for recoverable assistance. I am sure that the entire House will applaud that change.

I should stress that this Government has been extremely successful in the area of employment and unemployment, and we are very keen to remove every single barrier we can to people going to work so we can also ensure that work pays. That measure will help.

Thirdly, as part of a broader package of initiatives, this bill also puts into effect changes to the regime that encourages sole parents to establish paternity for their children and apply for child support. People bringing up children on their own are not uncommon in New Zealand. At the last census one-parent families made up around 29 percent of all families with dependent children; over double the number recorded in 1981. For these families the State will step in to help them financially when they cannot financially support themselves. However, in doing so the State also expects the other parent to contribute to the costs of the child. It is not unreasonable to expect that single parents bringing up children on their own identify who in law is the other parent, or to expect that they seek financial support for the child from the other parent. It is not unreasonable to penalise financially those who do not. It is not a new philosophy.

Before the domestic purposes benefit, and after its introduction in 1973, single-parent beneficiaries were financially penalised unless they sought financial support for the child, where appropriate, from the other parent. What is unreasonable is a parent not providing anything towards the cost of his or her child. I am sure that the approximately 93,500 parents who are required to pay child support, because the other parent of the child is on a benefit, would agree. We actively encourage single-parent beneficiaries to name the other parent in law and apply for child support, and the majority do so. Some do not, and these people face a $22 a week penalty and miss out on that income.

This Government is letting sole parents know the personal financial cost of their decision. We are ensuring that this group has full information about paternity and child support. We are sending out field officers to every one of these sole parents. All evidence shows that given the right information in the right environment sole parents will usually reconsider their decision not to name the other parent or apply for child support, and our policies are having effect. When we came into office the number of sole parents penalised because they had not named the other parent or applied for child support had increased by over 40 percent since 1993. They were increasing at a rate of 1,000 a year, and that trend was not abating. We also found around 1,500 people who had not met their obligations and whose benefits should have been reduced. However, between March 2003 and March 2004 the number of beneficiaries receiving a penalty because they had not named the other parent in law or applied for child support increased by only around 200—down from the 1,500 we found that the other Government had done nothing about.

In this sense the bill is building on our successes. The $22 penalty per child has not been adjusted since 1993. From 1 July 2001 the Government will increase the penalty where 3 months have passed since the sole parent had the penalty imposed. During this period sole-parent beneficiaries will be given a reasonable opportunity to reconsider their decision. If they still refuse to comply with their obligations, their benefit will reduce by an additional $6 a week per beneficiary, not per child—that is, per household. That additional $6 reduction will continue to apply until beneficiaries have met all their obligations.

Some people will think we are being too tough, some people will think we are being too soft, but we think we have it about right. We will also ensure that there are exemptions where sole parents can prove such things as violence against them or their children, or it is proper that they are able to be exempted because they are refugees, asylum seekers, or have parents who are overseas. Those kinds of conditions will allow people to seek a proper exemption. There are special circumstances where this needs to apply, but I stress that this is working. It is working because we have begun talking with these beneficiaries, and they have responded well to it. After a long period of time when nothing was done about this by previous Governments, when the increase in the number of people in this situation was rising 40 percent over a period of 7 years, this Government, as usual, has stepped in to do something sensible about the issue. I commend this bill to the House.

The House will be stunned to hear that speech and to hear how the Minister has changed his tune on this issue. Let us not doubt the reason we are here debating this legislation: it is because of the work done by the National Party and by Muriel Newman. Both the National Party and ACT have brought up this issue time and time again over the last 5 years, but it is only now that the Government wants to do anything about it. It knows it is in trouble in the area of welfare and wants to look as if it is doing something constructive about it. However, this bill is unlikely to deliver what the Minister says it will.

The National Party intends to vote for the bill to go to the select committee, but with some pretty strong reservations. It covers an issue that has troubled the National Party for some time. When we look at the numbers, we see that about 19,000 women do not name the father of their children. Unfortunately, the issue involves mainly women, but, quite interestingly, the ministry was not able to give me any explanation at all why more than 250 men were getting this deduction. It could not tell me why those men were finding it difficult to name the mother of their children. Who knows, maybe the bill will clear that up, as well. We are talking about 35,000 children whose liable parent does not make a contribution to their support.

Under this Government, child support debt will go to $1 billion. The Government knows it is in trouble. That is why it is scrambling about trying to make some changes. What is its answer? It is to impose an additional reduction of $6 per week per beneficiary. Well, whoop-de-doo! If I have 10 children, then, frankly, $6 per week from my benefit will not motivate me to do anything.

💬 Jill Pettis: People don’t have 10 children.

I suggest to the member that if she goes out to her electorate, she will find that some families do have 10 children. I think she needs a lesson on the birds and the bees.

The problem of child support debt is very, very troubling. It is likely to go to $1 billion under this Government—and I hope that David Cunliffe will take a call to discuss this issue, because the collection of child support debt is very important. A growing number of women cannot, or will not, name the father of their children. I understand there can be some very reasonable reasons why that it is so, but I do not for 1 minute buy into it that nearly 20,000 women are totally unaware of who the father of their child is.

One thing the Minister did not explain was why the Ministry of Social Development does not collect child support from some non-custodial parents, even though the names of both parents are on its files. About 2,500 case files have the names of the fathers on them, yet the Government does not collect a cent from them when it comes to child support. This issue is not just about making sure that the House is fair to the taxpayer; it is also about making sure that we are as fair as possible to the children. I hope that most fathers would do more than just make a financial contribution towards their children’s upkeep; I hope they would give emotional support and support in other ways, as well. But if fathers are not named or asked to meet their responsibilities, then they would have to go some way to prove themselves as parents. We are unsure how these measures will make a skerrick of difference. Six dollars will not make a difference to a family of five or more children, because the amount does not go up. I question how the measure will motivate some parents to make a decision to name the other parent of their child.

The Minister keeps chirping in with all sorts of silly little comments. He needs to explain to the House why, under his watch, the number of women aged between 15 and 24 in south Auckland who do not name the father of their child has gone up to nearly 33 percent. So rather than there being an extraordinary situation where the father is unknown—I just do not buy that for one moment—it has become the way to do things in some pockets of that community. Things have to change.

💬 Hon Steve Maharey: We’ve got it under control.

After 5 years that is a bit of a lame comment. Today in the House we heard the Minister debate issues like the Community Employment Group and talk about some of the changes he is making in the welfare area, but let us not doubt for one moment that he is doing that because he needs to look as though he is talking tough on welfare. His polling information will be telling him that this issue is the next issue of concern for many of his constituents. He knows that for the last 5 years he has just sat on his hands while the problem has spiralled out of control. Thirty-five thousand children have a parent who does not make a contribution to their upkeep. Mr Maharey knows the names of 2,500 of those liable parents. They are on the files, but he cannot do anything about it. Because the form has not been filled out, Work and Income cannot take it to Income Support to get that parent to make a contribution.

It will be interesting to see what the submissions are like in the select committee. I think that the bill is unlikely to deliver on its stated aims. However, because we have an open mind we are supporting it to a select committee, and we look forward to hearing the submissions. I suspect that some of the submissions will say that while the bill talks tough, basically it is unlikely to change any behaviours out in the community; that rather than making any real changes, it is more about making the Government look as though it is doing something. Let us not one moment doubt that this issue is one of the major ones facing the welfare portfolio. When more and more parents will not name the other liable parent, an extra burden is put on the taxpayer. It is unfair not only to the taxpayers, who continue to carry the can for the upkeep of some of these children, it is also unfair to the children. It is difficult enough to bring up children when one has a supportive family, but doing it on one’s own and on a welfare benefit is much tougher.

I think that a lot of families will welcome some of the changes. Hopefully, they will bring in more income and more support for their children. But we need to get real about this particular problem and stop pretending that every single parent who refuses to name the other parent does not know the parentage of his or her child. I totally accept that there are some circumstances where that may be correct, but on the whole I believe that it is not correct. Many parents refuse to fill out the form so that the Inland Revenue Department can track down the liable parent to get some relief for the taxpayer and, more important, for the children involved. I do not for one moment think that Mr Maharey is as worried as all that about the children this legislation will affect; I think he is more interested in window dressing—more interested in looking as though he is doing something to try to turn round this problem.

I can tell members that this legislation will not make a difference for the 33 percent of women aged between 15 and 24 in south Auckland who do not name the fathers of their children. Six dollars over three kids! Why would that motivate anybody to make any changes? We need to be honest about this issue. We need to try to make some changes that will ensure that parents take responsibility for their children and ensure that the kids involved get the support they need. As child support debt spirals out of control to nearly $1 billion under this Government, those children will still wait for their soccer boots, their music lessons, and their school camp fees to be paid—$1 billion, and this Government continues to fail in this portfolio.

The disappointing aspect of the speech from the member who has just resumed her seat was the lack of policy from the National Party. That member stood there and whinged for 10 minutes about the Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill in its first reading. The only positive thing she had to say was that National would vote the bill through its first reading, and we are grateful for that. I hope it will come to pass that the whole House will support the bill through its first reading, because it is likely, although it has not yet been confirmed, that it will go to the Social Services Committee, which I am fortunate enough to chair. That is where the Minister has requested it go, I believe. Fortunately, Mrs Rich happens to be a member of that committee, so we hope we will see some more philosophy of the National Party regarding these particular matters drawn out from its members and thrown on the table for us all to consider. The wonderful thing about the select committee process is that those kinds of things can be nailed. That is what this Government has done with this proposed legislation.

I remind members of the House of the key points mentioned by the Minister in his speech. They are that this legislation ensures fairness and security and that it makes three significant amendments to the social security system by, firstly, extending eligibility for accommodation supplement to residents of retirement villages who have “licence to occupy” tenure; secondly, ensuring that benefit applicants who work for part of the year are not financially disadvantaged—for example, seasonal workers; and, thirdly, changing the regime to encourage sole parents to establish paternity for their children and apply for child support.

The internal tensions that are obvious between Katherine Rich and Dr Brash have stopped the National Party from making any progress in developing its welfare policy. When this bill gets despatched to the select committee we hope we can draw out some of that policy from National Party members.

High on the agenda of New Zealand First is the social policy that people should be independent of the State and of the encumbrances associated with dependency. New Zealand First supports the Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill. We as a party have always supported the concept of family and the responsibility of parents—that is, mum and dad as the minders or caretakers—for the upbringing of their children. Unfortunately, many people, from either gender, are left with that sole responsibility.

The quotation I am about to give, from Aristotle, touches on an area that is part and parcel of a social dilemma facing our country—one that is a major factor contributing to our demise. He said: “All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.” One can imagine the very positive effects this country would experience if the social traumas were eliminated and parents did all they could to help their children be the best they can be, at any given time. The Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill goes part of the way to try to rectify this problem. An increase from 5.6 percent in 1993 to 16 percent in 2004, indicates an increase in the number of liable parents who are failing to meet their responsibilities. One result is that it makes it financially harder for the custodial parent to move off the benefit, as that parent would not receive child support. The crux of the matter in sole parenting is how the children receive physical and spiritual support. Is the benefit sufficient? Will the sole parent become independent of the State? Many in today’s society would consider these questions to be quaint and old-fashioned, yet I say that we should look at where we have been, where we are, and where we are heading.

The bill increases the rate of reduction in the benefit, and does so as an incentive for sole parents to carry out certain actions so that the other parent contributes financially to the upbringing of the child. Currently, under section 70A of the Social Security Act the rate of benefit paid to the sole parent is reduced by $22 per week for each dependent child where that parent fails or refuses to identify the other parent in law, to make an application for child support, or to attend a hearing and give evidence at proceedings brought under the Child Support Act. By July 2005 additional increases in the rate of reduction will be imposed, but this decision will be reconsidered should the beneficiary meet the section 70A requirements.

Let us look at the responsibilities that we have as parliamentarians, because within the four walls of this Chamber we have the power to pass laws. But what about the citizens of this country? New Zealand First is not judgmental of people who find themselves in this situation, but it is the responsibility of Parliament to help them to become independent of the State. It is our responsibility to ensure financial support is given to the sole parent from the other partner, who, in many cases, is the father. On too many occasions we sit here and debate with each other, and among parties, about who did this and who did that, but our prime responsibility as parliamentarians is to govern so that freedom prevails and assistance is given to people in need.

This legislation will be very difficult to implement, but New Zealand First supports it. Some people will not be happy about it, both within this Chamber and outside. However, something has to be done about the problem so that these citizens of our nation can become independent. It will take a while. Speaking as an individual, I would not put a time limit on it, but we need to make this move. That is one of the reasons that New Zealand First supports this bill. We are seeing more people from all walks of life becoming dependent on the State. We have to rectify that situation if New Zealand is not to become a Third World nation. This applies across the board for all legal citizens who reside in this country. Our first commitment is to our citizens. New Zealand First is satisfied that a move has been made; that legislation will be put in place to help rectify the situation faced by some of our citizens. Those citizens also need to be more committed, and they need to be more accountable for their actions.

We need this legislation to ensure that children born from the union of a man and a woman are taken care of. When we look at other countries we see that that is happening. This ministry is one of the most important in terms of ensuring that the people of this nation develop their potential and prosper. Let us as parliamentarians put in place the means by which this can be achieved. New Zealand First understands that there is potential in this country for this area to be developed and for people to be accountable. We believe that every citizen should be taken care of. We support the bill and hope that in time to come the citizens in this situation will see and appreciate what this Parliament is trying to do for them to ensure they become independent of the State.

This afternoon we have before us yet another piece in the jigsaw puzzle of never-ending amendments to the Social Security Act of 1964. That ramshackle piece of legislation is now 40 years old, and it is high time some Government took the bull by the horns and gave us a whole new Act—one that simplified and clarified our social welfare system, rather than redoing it and fragmenting it endlessly. With hundreds of policy analysts being currently employed within the Ministry of Social Development, and a Minister who has at least some vision of how the system could be disentangled and streamlined, I cannot quite understand why a second-term Labour Government has not yet been able to take that long-overdue step. But perhaps with some encouragement it may consider doing so next time round.

The Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill we are considering today deals with three main areas. It extends eligibility for the accommodation supplement to residents of retirement villages who have “licence to occupy” tenure, makes sure that people like seasonal workers are able to elect a 52-week rather than a 26-week income assessment period for the calculation of stand-downs, and changes the rules around what happens to sole parent beneficiaries who refuse or fail to name the father of their child.

The Green Party has no quarrel with the first two measures. Indeed, we have always supported the extension of the income assessment period for calculating benefit stand-downs, as it has disadvantaged certain classes of worker for a very long time. Industries such as the meatworks and fruit and vegetable picking rely on a steady supply of willing labour, and at a time of low unemployment and increasingly pressing labour shortages it is critical that such workers are encouraged to continue in their occupations, rather than be discouraged by the rules governing stand-downs. Where we do have a problem with this bill is around the changes to section 70A of the principal Act, and in particular the increasing of the penalty for not naming the father of a child by a further $6 per week. Twenty-two dollars is already deducted for that. Once this bill becomes law, a mother on the domestic purposes benefit with one affected child will lose $28 a week from her benefit, and a mother with two affected children will lose $50 a week.

While to some people in this House and around the country losing $28 or $50 a week from their income may not seem like a particularly big deal, for a family on a core domestic purposes benefit of $235 or $256 a week that is a very big deal indeed. I really question the Government’s motivation in further intensifying this sanctions regime against the poorest families in the country. Report after report tells us that single parent families are at the bottom of all socio-economic indicators, yet Labour is deliberately increasing child and family poverty for some of those very same families. It is not even doing that by an amount that will make any real difference to the country’s finances, which are booming, anyway. What the Government is doing is taking a mainly symbolic, but punitive, step to try to win over those voters whose psychology unfortunately revolves around the idea that single parents who are bringing up children on a benefit must be harassed to the maximum extent possible—at least until they get a job or find a husband. I note with interest that the National Party is supporting this bill.

Whom exactly is this bill punishing? It is not necessarily punishing absent or unaware fathers, who will remain untouched, but rather the children, who will continue to pay an even greater price for the State’s moral vendetta against their parents. Increasing the deduction and extending its enforcement by Work and Income will only succeed in forcing families to fall back on food banks, and on a ceaseless cycle of debt to both Work and Income and other bodies. The children in those families will continue to suffer from a lack of decent food and housing, carrying with it the long-term negative educational and health impacts that have been exposed over and over again in so many studies of child poverty. There are no moves to lift core benefit levels alongside this bill. There are no announcements of a drastic increase in the provision of State housing, which is needed to meet the real needs in many of our communities right now. Instead, what this bill does do is to further calibrate and index degrees of deprivation, so as to punish children for the so-called sins of their parents.

I question the underlying assumption behind this shaming approach to benefit law—the assumption that somehow it is morally better to be dependent on a completely absent and uncaring father than on the State. As a society we should value all those who choose to bring children into this world, and to raise them to the best of our ability. We are not suffering from an over-abundance of children in this country, and each and every baby should be valued for the contribution that he or she will make in future, just as the mothers of those babies should also be valued for the work that we all do as mothers in raising our children. In the end, the moral argument around this issue comes down, for me, to quite a simple question: would all those people from whatever political party, or church, who support increasing the penalties against those single parents also support the State advising mothers to have abortions if they are not willing, or able, to name the father of their child? That, after all, would be the simple answer to the problem. If we are to blame and punish someone after her child is born because she does not wish, or is unable, to name the father, the logical extreme is to ask her to consider not having the baby at all, much earlier on in the piece. I doubt whether there are many people in our society who would, in reality, wish to go as far as that, but I suggest that is the ugly, but ultimate, inference one can take from this debate.

The Green Party has no problem with the Government doing more to encourage mothers to name the father where it is possible and desirable for them to do so. We obviously have no problem with another amendment to section 70A in this bill that will provide for an exemption from benefit reduction when the parent or children would be at risk of violence if the parent takes the steps of naming the father or applying for child support. What we do have a problem with is the extension of penalties against beneficiaries who are often already trying to cope with an inadequate income and a whole host of other problems, and the lack of recognition of the concept that all children, even the children of those whom some in society see as morally reprehensible, deserve the best possible start in life, not the worst. There are all sorts of reasons that mothers do not wish, or are unable, to name the father of their child. Sometimes it is because the contact was so fleeting that there is no connection and no reason why the mother would ever want to know or see the father again. Sometimes it is because she simply does not know who the father is. In other cases one of the more common reasons at present, I suspect, is likely to be that the custodial and non-custodial parents have come to an arrangement that means that an application for a child support assessment will not be made.

The making of private arrangements like that is frequently a response to the inflexible nature of the Child Support Act in regard to the amount payable in shared custody and substantial non-custodial access situations. At the moment, a liable parent is allowed to pay decreased child support only in a shared custody situation that is seen as substantially equal. That does not allow for the variations that happen in real life—for example, when the mother may care for the child or children for 57 percent of the time, and the father for 43 percent. In that situation the father would have to pay full child support payments, despite caring for his offspring for 43 percent of the time and having a similar share of the costs associated with that care as the mother. Even if two parents in that situation decide to share care absolutely equally and both become subject to child support liability, the percentage for each of them does not drop to 9 percent, but rather to 12 percent. To compound the inequity, there is a risk in a fifty-fifty custody arrangement that the mother will no longer be seen as the primary caregiver, and may completely lose her entitlement to a sole parent rate of benefit. In those kinds of situations, it is easy to see why some mothers take the step of not naming the father as a trade-off for maintaining some kind of equable relationship with him, and for financial reasons. Surely the State would be better served in dealing with this particular issue by reforming child support alongside the welfare law, rather than by increasing benefit deductions. In that way a far healthier outcome could well be achieved from all points of view in the long run.

Without the provision that increases the penalties for sole parents who fail or refuse to meet the requirements of section 70A of the principal Act, the Green Party would happily have supported this bill. However, under the circumstances we are voting against this legislation, and will continue to do so unless this part of the bill is chucked out. I believe that as with the no-go zone aspect of the Jobs Jolt package, Labour is once again succumbing to pressure from parties on the right, and is further penalising beneficiaries in a bid to win the votes of those who think beneficiaries—in this case, solo mothers—should be demonised. It is a real pity that Labour thinks in that way, and I hope in the future it will not feel obliged to include such nasty little attacks inside otherwise laudable legislation.

I rise on behalf of the ACT party to speak on the Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill. This bill, more than any other, shows us just how soft on welfare this Labour Government is. The Minister talks tough, but is actually a soft touch—and I will explain what I mean by that. We know he is driven by the beneficiary unions; we do know that. Under this Minister’s watch the number of women who have refused to name the fathers of their children has grown from 14,000 when he took office to almost 20,000 now, which is a growth of 40 percent. Some three women a day are now refusing to name the fathers of their children—that is 40,000 children who do not have the name of their father on their birth certificate. I say that is a modern scandal, and this Government has been watching over that as the numbers have grown.

On assuming office the Minister promised, as a priority, to deal with this issue. Here we are, 5 years later, with his answer. What is his answer? His answer is to take another $6 a week per household off those women who do not name the fathers of their children, as of 1 July next year. But can members guess what else is happening on 1 April next year? On that date the family support package that will go to those families will be $25 a week per child for the first child, with an extra $15 a week for other children. So we have the Labour Government pretending to get tough on this issue, when it is increasing the penalty by just the rate of inflation per household and is then giving those same households another $19 to make up for the $6 it has already taken off them. That is absolutely an utter and a complete farce.

Not only is that the case but the explanatory note of the bill explains that social workers will go out and talk to those families, to make sure they receive all their entitlements. I predict that rather than the amount of money those families receive going down it will actually go up, as social workers find other entitlements that they think those families should have. That will increase the dependency of those families, and make it even harder for those women to leave the welfare system, get a life that is independent of this Labour Government, and get out there and do better for themselves and their children.

But that is not the only really bad issue about this bill. The Government is introducing some very, very poor incentives through the exemptions that will be brought in. First of all, there is an exemption if a woman claims that the father of her child is violent. The worrying thing about that is that it will go both ways. Firstly, it will create an incentive for men to be violent towards the mothers of their children, and, secondly, it will lead to more false allegations. A woman knows that if she claims that the father of her child is a violent man, then she will not lose an $6 extra a week, nor the $22 of family support. I think that is absolutely disgraceful. This Government is bringing in an incentive to create more violence in households. We already have enough of that; we do not need legislation to create an incentive for more violence to occur.

Secondly, there is another exemption, essentially for deadbeat dads. If the woman can claim that there is no hope that the father will ever pay for his child, then she is exempt and he is exempt. I ask what sort of signal that sends out to all those fathers out there who do pay child support and who have taken responsibility. What kind of message is that? The message is that if a man is a deadbeat dad who does not care, everyone will forget about him. He will not be chased, and the mother of his child will not be penalised. Well, I say that incentivising fathers into becoming deadbeat dads is absolutely stupid, and I do not know why this Government would even contemplate having such a provision in this bill.

Finally, there is another exemption: if a woman can claim that the father is dead, then she does not get the penalty. Now, that will incentivise lying. How on earth, if the father is not named, can anybody who is trying to investigate the case prove whether he has died? It is an absolutely crazy situation, whereby the Government will incentivise violence, irresponsibility, and lying.

We do know that as a result of all those new incentives—in answers to parliamentary questions we have been tracking the number of women who do not name the fathers of their children—the number of women who receive the benefit cut will go down. There is no doubt about that. But it will not be because those women are naming the fathers of their children, or because the fathers are fronting up to their responsibility to pay child support, be a dad, and give those kids the right to know who their dad is on their birth certificate. No, it will not be because of any of that; it will be because the numbers are hidden. The Labour Government, rather than getting on top of the problem, will simply hide it, so that the Government cannot be found out and held accountable.

No one believes that 20,000 women today do not know who the fathers of their children are. We do know that they are refusing to name those fathers, and in many cases, unfortunately, it is because there is a rort going on between mothers and fathers whereby payment is being received under the table. The Minister has acknowledged that in public statements. The really worrying thing is that by letting that go on, we are denying those children the right to know who their legal father is. I think it is an absolute disgrace that, aided and abetted by this Labour Government, those children are being denied their legal right to know their father. This bill will make that problem worse. Not only is that the case but this bill will allow more fathers to avoid the responsibility to pay child support for 18 years, leaving the taxpayer to foot the bill for raising those children for 18 years. A penalty of $6 a week is just a joke. It means that those fathers will evade that responsibility, making it totally unfair on the taxpayers of New Zealand and on the 140,000 liable parents who front up to their financial responsibility to raise their children—often while working hard to start a new life.

It is unacceptable that what Labour is proposing here is the answer to this complicated problem. If the Government were serious about this issue it would have looked overseas and found that fathers are very happy to be named on birth certificates, and happy to pay their financial dues, if they can have quality time with their children. Many countries have introduced shared parenting as a way to facilitate that—and it works. This Government has denied New Zealand families the opportunity to bring in shared parenting. With the Care of Children Bill it had another chance to do that, but it is turning its back on a proper solution to this problem. The child support laws are totally unfair; they need urgent reform. That is why all sorts of deals are going on under the table, and is the second reason why fathers are not named. The third reason is that paternity testing in New Zealand is very difficult to obtain. We have to get the mum to agree to it, even though the test is now done with just a mouth swab. A lot of fathers out there who are paying child support for 18 years know they are not the father of the child concerned, and a lot of men do not want to be named because they are not sure whether they are. I say to the Government that it should sort out those three problems, and the number of women who refuse to name the fathers of their children will then diminish dramatically.

This is poor legislation. The ACT party cannot support legislation that is based on bad policy and bad incentives, because it will create bad outcomes. We oppose this legislation.

I rise on behalf of United Future for the first reading of the Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill. Although this bill makes changes to the eligibility of retirement village residents—so that they can apply for the accommodation supplement—and also adjusts the way in which stand-down periods are calculated for seasonal workers who move on to the benefit, it is kind of inevitable that the focus of today’s debate has been the changes to the penalties for a domestic purposes benefit recipient who fails to name the other parent of her child when applying for child support.

On the one hand, the bill increases the penalty from the current $22 per child by an additional $6 per beneficiary but, on the other hand, the bill widens the exemptions for a reduction in the benefit, under section 70A of the Social Security Act, to include the situation where there is risk of violence to the beneficiary or her children, and the situation where no child support is able to be collected for some reason—for instance, the death of the liable parent.

The Government has indicated that its aim is not necessarily to create a more punitive system, but to get beneficiaries to name liable parents. United Future would certainly be supportive of anything that would effect that kind of change. It wants parents to pay child support and to take greater responsibility for their offspring, and that is a very noble thought.

I do not believe that this is a great money-making exercise for the Government. About 15 percent of domestic purposes beneficiaries have their benefits docked for not naming the father, so that measure may save $6 per beneficiary, but it would be more worthwhile if more fathers paid child support at even the lowest rate of $13 a week, which apparently is about 70 percent of what liable parents pay at present.

However, I think this whole debate about section 70A penalties would be a lot more enlightened if we had a lot more information about why mothers do not name the father or apply for child support. I think Katherine Rich mentioned that numbers of beneficiaries have both parents on the certificate but do not claim that support, and we need to address that issue. There is a theory that some separated parents are effectively colluding to avoid the child support system. I think Ms Newman referred to suggestions that some fathers pay their ex-partners on the benefit less than their liability for the child, in return for not being named in domestic purposes benefit applications. That way both the mother and the father are better off, because the mother gets the benefit plus the extra cash, while the father pays less than the law requires.

It is probably more realistic to assume that many of those who have had their benefits docked from the beginning have simply become accustomed to getting by without that money, yet to increase the amount would perhaps give beneficiaries the opportunity to reassess their position about naming the other parent.

Although we will support this bill in its first reading, I need to signal several areas within the bill that we think the select committee will have to give further consideration to. One of the issues is the additional exemptions to the section 70A penalty. Currently this applies where the child was conceived through rape or incest, or where there is insufficient evidence to establish the other parent’s identity. The addition of the risk of violence uses the definition in the Domestic Violence Act to include physical, sexual, and psychological abuse. Muriel Newman argues that this will open the way for more “deadbeat dads”, who will get away with not paying child support because they have been violent or abusive, but I would imagine that fathers’ rights groups would argue that this new exemption strengthens a mother’s ability to shut them out of children’s lives by making false allegations of abuse.

I would question the inclusion of domestic violence. Presumably it has been included due to the concerns that filing for child support would further enrage the abusive parent and place the family at risk. But if we were to use the same test as in the Domestic Violence Act, then the law has already established the occurrence of abuse, and some kind of protection order or restriction on access is already likely to be in place. I do not want to devalue the severity of domestic violence or the need to ensure the ongoing safety of a family, but that is somewhat separate from the issue of ensuring that the father contributes to the financial cost of raising the children. In those situations, there is usually little question of who the father is, but there are also situations where the father, through his own violent and abusive behaviour, has denied the children his presence in the home and the associated financial contribution.

Those fathers need to be held accountable not only for their criminal behaviour, but also for their obligations to their children. The Government may know who those men are, but at present, without the mothers’ consent, it cannot file for child support. So in addition to scrutinising whether the threshold for an exemption should be lowered in this way, I would like the committee to give serious consideration to the proposal that the State should be able to file for child support if the mother is unwilling to do so.

Furthermore, once paternity or child support liability is established, I see no reason why the State could not set backdated child support payments from the liable parent, going back to the child’s birth. I would also like the committee to consider whether another $6—not per child whose father is not named, but per beneficiary—is sufficient to achieve the kind of outcome the Government wants. I agree that that amount needs to be reviewed. I realise that the penalty is intended as a symbolic gesture in order to achieve a salutary effect, but in this case I really think it is worth considering increasing the amount to make it more meaningful.

Ultimately we need to look more broadly at the whole system of child support, such as raising the minimum amount of child support payments to better reflect the cost of raising a child, rather than reviewing the financial situation of the liable parent. Another possibility is to pass liable parent contributions directly to the custodial parents on benefits, as is the case with custodial parents in paid employment. The domestic purposes benefit could then be reduced by the amount of child support, yet liable parents—and for that matter, custodial parents—would be able to see their money going directly into their children’s upbringing, and I believe that compliance would increase as a result. I realise that those moves are beyond the scope of the bill, but they signal our intention to seek wide-ranging changes to the system of child support in the future.

I would also like to pick up on some comments I think Sue Bradford unwittingly made that acknowledge, I believe, the weakness of the Care of Children Bill. That bill posits more equitable parenting arrangements, yet I believe that it is pure window dressing, because it is quite clear that unless the Government is prepared to review and reassess the benefit system, there is no way it can facilitate shared parenting orders of any kind. The benefit system is just not flexible enough to allow that kind of arrangement.

Therefore, the Care of Children Bill becomes a bit of a nonsense. We change some unpleasant terminology, but the outcomes are exactly the same because we will not address the benefit system to reflect the kinds of orders that I believe the ACT party would support because of Ms Newman’s long campaign for shared parenting arrangements, and I am sure that that would get the support of other parties, as well.

As I said before, we are very keen to support this bill in its first reading, but we are very keen that the select committee looks very closely at some of the arrangements we think could be reviewed as part of that process, and that it has the courage to make the kinds of changes we are recommending.

I shall just respond initially to some of the comments made by other members during this debate. Of course, ideally in an ideal and perfect world, all mothers would name the fathers of their children, so that those people could take shared parental responsibility. But we do not live in a perfect world. To the best of my knowledge, there has been only one immaculate conception, although I suspect from time to time that a number of people, particularly when there are moral crusades issuing forth through the media—I am not blaming the media; the media are just a conduit—I suggest that some people would like to imply that the same situation applied to them, but that is not the case.

I would also like members to consider that sometimes mothers do not name the fathers of their children, because of the very real threat of violence. I know—and other speakers this afternoon have acknowledged it too—that there is room for exemption. But I want to also point out to members—and I am sure they know this themselves through their own constituency work—that a fair degree of bribery, coercion, threat, and other methods of emotional blackmail are imposed upon the mother by the father of the child, by words such as: “If you go me for child support, I’ll go you for custody.” Now I am sure that the phrases used might be a little bit more colourful, but I know that members know exactly what I am saying.

This is not attacking fathers; 99.9 percent of fathers in this country do an exemplary job. But I just caution members that there are a lot of things that we do not know about, because—luckily for us—the majority of members in this House enjoy very good relationships.

We in this House do, in the main, live in a nuclear family, or, if not in a nuclear family, in a safe family environment. One does not have to be a nuclear family to be a safe family. But one would think that this was the only issue in the bill, when there are a number of extremely positive aspects to it. One that I am particularly pleased about, because it will have tangible benefits for older New Zealanders living in retirement villages, is that up to 300 retirement village residents will be better off by between $37 and $54 per week. That is money in the hand—money that can be spent on essential items. That is very real and extremely helpful relief for people in that category.

Also, there are advantages for those in seasonal work programmes—those 4,500 benefit applicants per year who are affected by having a longer stand-down than is necessary. That is a large number of people who will benefit from the flexibility that applies to seasonal workers, as the stand-down period will be much shorter for them. That will not only benefit those seasonal workers, but provide considerable support and assistance for growers, particularly in provincial New Zealand.

So there are many positive aspects to this bill. I am sure it will be debated and discussed extremely comprehensively in the select committee. But rather than concentrating just on moral issues all the time—that does get tiresome—let us also consider the very positive aspects of the bill that provide a direct response in a meaningful way to retirement village residents and seasonal workers. This is a good bill.

There have been some very interesting speeches in this debate this afternoon—none of them from the Labour Party, unfortunately. I particularly enjoyed the contributions from New Zealand First, ACT, United Future, and the Greens, as well as Katherine Rich’s contribution for National. I mention the Greens because although I do not agree with everything they say—in fact, not a lot—at least Ms Bradford’s comments have some logic to them. She has done her homework, and she does not just twitter on about nothing, as the last speaker did. Certainly, most of us are finding it quite bizarre that, having heard a speech from Jill Pettis—it was the longest speech I have ever heard from her—we have absolutely no idea what she was talking about. I do not think any of us do. It was something about morals.

There is an old saying—and it is becoming increasingly true—that it is a wise child who knows its own father. That is increasingly true in this country. It is a shame. It is not about money. Certainly, Ms Rich made it obvious that National will support this bill going to the select committee, not because we think it is a fantastic bill—we do not—but because we think there are issues here that need to be raised and looked at thoroughly. Hopefully, we will get back something that is a bit better. The reason it is not just about money is that we are talking about $6 per week. I know that $6 per week is a lot of money if one does not have it, I know that it is a lot of money if one does not have enough money to buy shoes for one’s children, and I know that it is a lot of money when one has to decide which of one’s children will get what. Having said that, I say that money is the easiest thing we can give children. It is also the thing that gives them the least in terms of what they need. It is the easiest thing for parents to give children. There are lots of parents in this country who give very little to their children other than money. One is not a good parent just because one gives ones children some money, and one is not a bad parent just because one does not have an awful lot of money to give. Children need an awful lot more than money. They need a tremendous amount of commitment. They need love, understanding, and education. They need a warm bed and someone to care. Giving $6 per week to a child’s mother does not amount to caring or not caring.

We have been told this afternoon that close on 20,000 mothers in this country cannot or will not name the father of their children. I do not believe for a moment—and I do not believe that anyone in the House would believe—that 20,000 women in this country did not bother to ask: “Hey mate, what’s your name?” before they decided to have a child with that particular man. I do not believe for a moment that 20,000 mothers did not have enough nous to say: “Oi mate, what’s your name?”. I also do not believe for a moment that 35,000 children in this country do not have a clue who their father might be. That is a staggering number of children when we look at the fact that we are talking about 20,000 mothers. There must be an awful lot of twins born in this country, or else the mothers again forgot to ask the man’s name, the next time they decided to have a child with a particular sperm donor father.

I am pleased there are some exemptions in the bill to the rules about that, but I also say that those exemptions are not necessarily the right exemptions, nor given for the right reasons. I do not say that because I do not care about mothers who live in abusive relationships—certainly not. I say that because it is a child’s right to know his or her parents. It is absolutely fundamental to children that they know the names of their parents—more than that, that they know their father and mother. Whether children always live with their mother and father is an absolutely different issue, but every child has that right. Recently we looked at a Supplementary Order Paper introduced by my colleague Dr Paul Hutchison. It related to children born as a result of sperm donation being able to find out the name of their father and something about him. This issue is the same: children must know. It is the same with adoptions; we find that adopted children who do not know their birth father or birth mother often have an absolute need, whether they are 10, 20, 40, or 50 years old, to know where they come from.

I was a lawyer before I came to Parliament. I dealt with fathers—I will call them middle-class fathers because they earned significant amounts of money—who said to me that they were going to be the father of a child. One particular father said he had arranged with the mother of the child that he would not be named on the birth certificate. I can remember looking at that man, who must have been 40 and who was having his first child—that he knew of—and asking why he would not be named. He said that he and the mother had arranged it so that he would give her some cash and she could get the domestic purposes benefit. This is not just an issue for people on low incomes; this issue goes right through our society. A whole stack of men are being told they do not need to care. They do not need to care that, in a couple of generations, when some child is looking up his or her ancestry, the child will find a great big vacant space where that father’s name should be. They do not care about the message that that gives to their own children—when they are adults and become parents themselves—about the value of parenthood.

So I support this legislation going to the select committee. I support it because it does little other than to send a signal—that is the only thing this particular provision does. It sends a signal that the Minister for Social Development and Employment has heard from the National Party, ACT, and some of the other parties about the need for children to have parents. He has had so many letters from people on this subject that he is having to do something. However, I know that what he is doing is nothing more than sending a signal, because I know that on 1 April next year—April Fool’s Day—these same people will get a pay rise, despite the $6 being taken off them now. They will get an extra $19.

But at least the bill does send a signal, and that signal needs to be sent. Parents must be responsible. They must have the rights and responsibilities of parenthood. And children need both their parents. Whether or not their parents like each other, children at least need to know who they are. That a mother had a relationship with a man who is violent does not mean that that man should not be named as the father of that child. I do not say that because it is his right; I say it because it is the child’s right to know. Even if children have a murderer for a father, they have the right to know who their father is; that is the children’s right. The children do not need to acknowledge him particularly, but it is certainly their right to know who he is, and it is also the right of their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren after them. This is something we need to start taking seriously in this country: the rights of children, the rights of parents, but, mostly, the rights of families.

There might have been a lot of discussion about the splits and divisions in the ACT party over the last fortnight, but I would have thought that the last party that would want to speak in the House on any welfare-related issue would be the New Zealand National Party. The National Party caucus cannot agree on anything regarding welfare policy, so divided is it between the right-wing extremists, like Mr Brash, and the more moderate, like the one-time favourite Katherine Rich. So it is extraordinary that we have already heard two speeches from the National Party, and by the look of Dr Hutchison, who was girding his loins a few moments ago, we will hear from him as well. I hope we get some consistent positions on the National Party welfare approach, because this bill, which is having its first reading, is another piece of legislation in which the Labour-Progressive Government sticks very firmly to its principles of fairness and security. That is very evident throughout this bill.

I will remind this House of the three significant amendments that this bill will make to the social security system. It will extend eligibility for the accommodation supplement to residents of retirement villages who have “licence to occupy” tenure. I am very pleased with that measure, representing as I do the Otaki electorate, which has the highest number of senior citizens in the country. The second aspect of the bill will ensure that benefit applicants who work for part of the year are not financially disadvantaged. A classic example of that is seasonal workers. With the situation our economy is in at the moment, with this country having the second-lowest unemployment rate in the OECD, we need to pay special attention to industries that use seasonal workers, because it can often be hard to recruit such workers. Once again, the Government is responding to a need, through this legislation. Finally, the regime is changed so that we can encourage sole parents to establish the paternity of their children, or to apply for child support.

I return to those themes of fairness and security that we believe our coalition Government stands for, and contrast them with the divided rhetoric coming from members opposite, who cannot even sign up to agree to much. They would have difficulty filling out an unemployment form, but very shortly more of them will get that opportunity.

I take the opportunity to speak on the somewhat dubious and deceptive Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill. Here we have the extraordinary situation where the Minister for Social Development and Employment is taking away $6 from each mother who does not name the father of her child, but next year—on, of all things, 1 April—the Minister will give something like $25 for the first child and $15 for each successive child. What an extraordinary thing! If one could identify a party that was totally mixed up in terms of providing consistent incentives, it would have to be the Labour Party. There is nothing progressive about it; it is totally regressive.

There is no doubt that the situation that has arisen in New Zealand is a scandal. As Muriel Newman so clearly pointed out, under this Minister’s watch the number of fathers who have not been named has gone from 14,000 to 20,000—an increase of 40 percent. Three women per day are choosing not to name the father of their child. In fact, the genesis of this situation arose over some period of time. Back in 1993, in the order of 7,900 women chose not to name the father of their child—about 5.6 percent. But under this so-called Labour-Progressive—I would say “Labour-Regressive”—Government, that figure has now risen to 19,467, or 16 percent of the total. That has to be an extraordinary scandal.

The Minister says that the Government is sending a salutary signal; that it is putting out an incentive for people to front up and name the father. He is penalising a parent $6 for one child, which is a total reduction of the benefit of $22. If a family has four children, the figure is $88, and the $6 increase on 1 July makes it $94. That is a substantial amount to take away from a family of four. But then we hear this absolutely laughable irony that while the Minister is indeed taking away, he is tripling how much he is giving. On 1 April there will be $25 more for the first child, and $15 more for each child after that. That has to be an absolute farce.

As my colleague Judith Collins quite rightly pointed out, tomorrow there will be another irony, in that we are debating the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill, and one of the basic tenets behind that bill is the huge importance and benefit to children of their knowing their biological background. Certainly, the right of children to know their father is fundamental. Yet this waffly “Labour-Regressive” Government is giving such an extraordinarily mixed set of cues as to how people should think.

It is also extraordinary that Labour has supplied very little evidence as to why almost 20,000 women do not name the fathers of their children. It seems absolutely inappropriate that Labour should bring in this sort of legislation without knowing the facts. What evidence is available? Labour has provided none in the background notes or background papers that I have seen. Some people have asked whether there is collusion between the parents, who make their own deal. I think Jill Pettis came out with the idea that one parent may say: “If you do me for child support, I’ll do you for custody.” That sort of attitude, suggested by the senior Labour Party whip, is absolutely inappropriate. The incentives should be utterly clear, and based on evidence as to how to solve this massive problem, which is occurring in New Zealand every day.

I note that a number of exemptions are posted, and there are new ones. I was quite interested to hear Muriel Newman’s point that the exemptions could be incentives. I think that is a very valid point. So often we hear of fathers quite incorrectly being accused of violence or abuse, which only makes the situation worse. Here we have an incentive actually to name someone for the very fact of his being abusive. It seems as though the Labour Party members not only are confused, in terms of this amendment, but also are providing absolutely inappropriate incentives.

There are some extreme and compelling situations, and I note three that are listed: refugees, asylum seekers, and carers of children not their own where the natural mother has not established paternity.

That brings up another very valid point that Muriel Newman brought up. In this day and age the science of paternity testing is reasonably simple. I well remember about 20 years ago going to the Pukekohe District Court after being asked to be an expert witness to sort out which of the men a woman had slept with over a course of about 6 weeks was most likely to be the father. I checked the menstrual dates, and worked out who was most likely to be the father. The most unlikely one was the only one with any ability to pay for the support of the child, and that was the one who was nobbled by the judge. It was absolutely outrageous. That judge holds a hugely important position in New Zealand society today.

💬 Darren Hughes: That was 20 years ago?

That was 20 years ago. Today we have paternity testing; a very easy, simple swab can absolutely, unequivocally identify the father. Yet the “Labour-Regressive” Government has failed even to suggest in this important amendment that such techniques should be introduced. The Government is 20 to 30 years behind, and is using very crude, mixed messages to address a very complicated and serious problem.

There are some outstanding anomalies in terms of the failure over the last few years to collect the money. I point out that a separated father earning $40,000, whose ex-wife cares for the children, pays only $129 a week, or $6,000 a year—not $250 a week, or $13,000, which is a major proportion of the domestic purposes benefit. In other words, it is only when the father starts to earn more than $65,000 a year that Child Support recovers the benefit. At that wage, the amount of child support is $246 weekly or $12,000 a year. The extraordinary thing is that 70 percent of those paying child support earn so little money that they pay only $13 a week. It is quite absurd that 70 percent of liable parents are paying that extraordinarily minimal amount. It is worthwhile our sending this bill to the select committee for it, hopefully, to sort it out.