Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister for Social Development and Employment: I move, That the Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I would like to thank the members of the Social Services Committee for their consideration of the bill, for the report on the bill, and for the amendments they have proposed.

The bill makes three main amendments to the Social Security Act. Firstly, the bill extends eligibility for an accommodation supplement to residents of retirement villages who have a “licence to occupy” tenure and who meet the other qualifying criteria for an accommodation supplement, including the income and cash asset test. I expect 200 to 300 retirement village residents will benefit from this change by qualifying for an accommodation supplement of, on average, between $37 and $54 per week. That will be very welcome.

Secondly, the bill changes the benefit stand-down rules in order to improve the incentives for people on benefits to undertake seasonal work and other short-term employment. The stand-down is calculated on the applicant’s income in the 26 weeks before becoming entitled to a benefit, on his or her marital status, and on the number of children in his or her care. At the moment some seasonal workers who work for part of the year can be disadvantaged by the 26-week assessment. The bill will now allow, from 1 May 2005, benefit applicants to elect to have a 26 or 52-week income assessment period for the calculation of their stand-down period. That change will advantage approximately 4,500 benefit applicants a year by reducing the length of their initial stand-down. That will reduce the disincentives for people to undertake seasonal work or temporary work, and may also reduce the need for recoverable assistance.

Thirdly, the bill will put into effect, as part of the broader package of initiatives, changes to the regime that encourages sole parents to name the other parent of their child in law, and to apply for child support. Sole parent families in New Zealand make up around 29 percent of all families with dependent children. For those families, the State will step in financially to help them where they cannot financially support themselves. But in doing so, the State also expects the other parent to contribute to the cost of the child, as well. It is not unreasonable for the State to expect that both parents of a child will contribute to the cost of caring for the child, or to expect sole parents to take the actions necessary to bring that about. It is not unreasonable to financially penalise those who do not do that. We actively encourage single-parent beneficiaries to name the other parent in law and to apply for child support, and the majority do. But around 17,200 beneficiaries are letting the other parent get away without providing for their children, because they refuse to name him or her or they refuse to seek child support.

This Government’s policies on section 70A of the Act are already having the effect of discouraging that. When the Government came into office the number of sole parents and beneficiaries who were not penalised because they had failed to name the other parent or apply for child support had increased by over 40 percent since 1993. The numbers were increasing by around 1,000 a year, and the trend was not abating. However, between June 2004 and March this year, the number of beneficiaries who were receiving a penalty because they had not named the other parent in law or had not applied for child support has decreased by 15 percent. It is continuing to decrease. The additional reduction is not intended to cause hardship to families. The reduction is $6 per beneficiary, not per child. The aim of the additional reduction is to provide a clear message that it is important to name the other parent in law and to apply for child support.

I now wish to commend the bill to the House.

This is one of those amendment bills that the National Party will support because of only a couple of points. The first point that we agree with is the area that Mr Barker has just mentioned in relation to retirement villages. We accept the fact that the current situation in relation to them certainly needs to be tidied up, and we are happy to support that. Of course, there is the second issue, and the main issue that this bill has been trumpeted around, and that is to do with the requirement of a further deduction from the payments to domestic purposes beneficiaries where they will not name the other liable parent—in other words, the father, although in 250 cases the mother—of the child. The deduction that is to be brought in with this amendment is a total of $6 per week per beneficiary. So those beneficiaries who do not name, let us say, the father of the child for four or five of their children, or in some cases six or seven of their children, will simply suffer a $6 per week deduction. With the Government’s big payout to beneficiaries that is coming very soon out of the hard-earned—

💬 Dr Paul Hutchison: Tomorrow!

Tomorrow, as my colleague Dr Hutchison reminds me, it being April Fool’s Day tomorrow. That money will come in and it will actually negate the whole point of this deduction, because beneficiaries will receive a big bonus.

In the National Party we accept that there are some mothers who will not name the father of their child because they do not know his name, but we do not believe in the tooth fairy. We do not, for a moment, believe that there are 19,000 women in this country who forgot to ask a man what his name was before they decided to make him the father of their child. We in the National Party do not, for a moment, believe that they did that not once but at least twice, and in some cases 6, 7, or 8 times.We actually believe that the taxpayers of New Zealand are being taken for a ride, and we are not prepared to support that sort of nonsense. We know there are 35,000 children whose parents are receiving a domestic purposes benefit, and for whom no liable parent is contributing even a measly $10 a week—which seems to be the amount that most people who are liable parents contribute—towards the cost of their upbringing. That is an absolute disgrace. Although there is a temptation not to support this absolutely pathetic amendment bill—apart from the residential villages situation—we will support it. At least it is the first time this Labour-led Government, supported, unfortunately, by United Future, which should know better, has actually accepted that maybe it is not very good that 35,000 children do not have a liable parent—in other words, another parent—even named, so that the person can be asked to contribute towards the upbringing of the child.

What we do know—and we know this because we do not wander around with rose-tinted glasses on, not understanding what goes on in the real world—is that an awful lot of “boarders” happen to live in the same home as mum and the children, and that somehow the children call him “Dad”. We do know that. We know there are women in their twenties—and I have met and dealt with some—who have had six children to six different fathers, and who think it is something to be proud of. Well, it is not, because the poor old taxpayer has to pay for that. The Government does not pay for anything; the taxpayer pays every single time. It is a fact that those children and their grandchildren, and their grandchildren after that, are being denied the basic right to know absolutely where they come from. In this country, in this century, with DNA, to carry on the myth that those women do not know whom the father of their child is, and do not have any way of proving it, is an absolute disgrace.

Until that situation is fixed, New Zealand will continue to have very, very high youth suicide rates, some of the worst in the world. We will continue to have very, very high youth crime rates, some of the worst in the world. We will continue to have that situation because we do not value fathers, do not value parenthood, and do not value our children. It is about time we took those things seriously, because until we do we are not going to have a country that we can be as proud of as we jolly well should be. That is one of the reasons, if for no other reason, that at least this Government has finally said it is worth 6 bucks to name a child’s father. Well, as I said, my inclination is to say no to this bill because it is so pathetic, but I will give the Government at least one point. I presume the Government has done something about the situation because someone told it that it had to do so, but at least there is an acknowledgment that the situation is not OK.

The worst thing is that with that acknowledgment have come all the exemptions. We see exemption after exemption in the bill. One of the ones that has been a cause absolutely praised by the do-gooders who live in another world is the one about a fear of violence. That is a reasonable thing if someone has a real fear of violence. But what is that fear based on? There is no requirement for there to be any truth in it. There is no requirement for the police to be involved. There is no requirement at all for there to be any evidence whatsoever of violence, when every day violence is occurring against the children who are being denied knowledge of their fathers, who are being denied knowledge of their history, and whose children after them will be denied in exactly the same way as that. The children we are speaking about today are the children at the very bottom of the social heap. Those children are being condemned by a society that cares more about votes than it does about the truth. That is a disgrace. This Government has not taken the situation seriously. It is only willing to say that it is worth 6 bucks a week.

It makes me very angry to listen in the select committee to people who are paid huge amounts of money, supposedly to protect and look after children—there are commissioners for everything—but who are not prepared to come out and say that kids need dads, mums, and extended families who care about them, rather than a bit of money. That is what they need. And it is the same people who are involved time and time again. In talking to the police in all communities, we hear them tell us that a quarter of all crime in this country is committed by children who are children in the eyes of the law, and that is also a disgrace. Where are the fathers? They are not there. They are in jail, or they are off with yet another person.

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: Or in Australia.

Or they are in Australia. It is about time we started to target the parents who do not contribute towards the upkeep of their children, and it is about time we took that seriously. Unfortunately, this Government does not. Its answer to the liable parents who do not take it seriously was given by David Cunliffe in about December last year—I hope I have that date right, but I think it was around December—when he said the Government was going to write off the debts. Well, that is a great signal to send out! It is a signal that says people should not bother to pay child support, and that the blokes who are paying are just mugs.

To the fathers and the mothers who are liable parents and do contribute properly to their children, not just in a monetary sense but in terms of their upbringing, I say: “Good on you!”. I know that sometimes families break up. I understand that, but I also know that at the end of the day our children are our children for life, no matter what else we happen to do.

It is a privilege to speak to the second reading of the Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill. I remind the member who has just resumed her seat that her party had 9 long years in Government to make some changes in this regard, if it had so desired. At least this Government has taken some action. The member’s whingeing is quite intolerable and unnecessary. I repeat that National had 9 years to do something about the issue. At least we have addressed it.

There are two other important points about this bill. Firstly, it is expected that from 1 July 2005, several hundred retirement village residents will qualify for an accommodation supplement of $37 to $54 a week, on average. Secondly, the bill will reduce disincentives for people to undertake seasonal work, by enabling applicants like seasonal workers to elect either a 52-week or a 26-week income assessment period for the calculation of their stand-down period. Soon 4,500 people a year will benefit from a reduction in the length of their initial stand-down.

I support this bill and hope it progresses quickly through the House.

There has been a steady increase in the number of sole parent beneficiaries who do not legally identify the other parent of their child, or who refuse to do so when applying for child support. The number has gone from 7,965, or 5.6 percent of all sole parents in 1993, to 19,467, or 16 percent, in 2004. A growing number of liable parents are failing to meet their financial responsibilities to their children. This in turn creates financial inequity between the parents in respect of the costs of supporting their children. It reduces the child support revenue the State receives to help offset the costs of paying benefits to sole parents. It makes it financially harder for the custodial parent to move off the benefit, as that parent will then not receive child support, which may cause long-term financial disadvantages for the children. The bill’s purpose is to put into effect, as part of a broader package of initiatives, measures to encourage more sole parent beneficiaries to establish paternity and apply for child support.

New Zealand First’s minority report states: “New Zealand First strongly believes that there is an onus on mothers to name the fathers of any children for whom taxpayers are asked to contribute through the benefit system. The only exceptions should be those cases where it is absolutely impossible to identify the father, but even then every scientific avenue should be explored, including DNA sampling, and in those instances where the security of the mother/child is endangered by such identification. It is unfair for taxpayers to contribute the sole cost of individuals who conspire or contrive to defeat the obligations of their own responsibility. With this reservation, New Zealand First will support the bill.”

The ministry has undertaken two studies of sole parent beneficiaries receiving reduced benefits, to determine why they do not name the liable parents. The results suggest that the reasons for not establishing paternity in applying for child support are multiple and complex. The most common reasons given were that the other parent could not be found or denied paternity, and that the beneficiary did not want the other parent to have guardianship rights over the child. The question I leave the House with is how the figure of 19,000 people receiving the domestic purposes benefit can be reduced. There are now 19,000 mothers receiving the domestic purposes benefit who refuse to name the fathers of their 35,000 children. If that is the case, can the Government tell me what kind of future those 35,000 fatherless children will have? Will future costs escalate? Will the same pattern be repeated when those children become young adults, or is there a plan in place to relieve the taxpayer of that burden?

New Zealand First is not averse to helping people who are on the domestic purposes benefit, but those responsible must be held accountable for their actions. Again, with the reservation stated in our minority report, New Zealand First will support the bill. Let us look at the pattern and the social structure of what is happening today in our country. As has been stated in the House today and at previous times, the pattern is that those who are struggling and getting into trouble come from families who either have no fathers or have disputes in the home. The counsel is not there, the priority is not there, the education is not there, and the ability to converse with one’s children is not there. So what is the result of that?

When I hear that children are born to mothers who do not even know who the father is, I think we are in cuckoo-land. In most cases, if not all cases, the woman would know who the father is. If she does not know, we have scientific methods of proving who the father is. Fathers who abscond from their responsibilities of taking care of their children financially should be held accountable by the courts of this land. Parents who are responsible, and are responsible taxpayers, should not be left with the burden of supporting people who are in that situation. However, from the goodness of our hearts we look at those people in that situation as other human beings who have made mistakes, or who have fallen into this situation through no choice of theirs.

New Zealand First supports this bill, with the proviso that those steps should be put in place, and that serious consideration should be given to holding the fathers accountable. We support this bill, with those reservations, and if there is a possibility of looking further at how the problem can be solved, we will also look at supporting such measures when they come to the House. So, without further ado, this is where New Zealand First stands. The country needs to know that people who are in that situation must be more accountable and more responsible for the activities they are involved in.

The Green Party will not support this bill, and that is a shame because there are two areas in it that we strongly support—namely, extending the eligibility for accommodation supplement to residents of retirement villages who have a “licence to occupy” tenure—we think that is an excellent idea—and also the provisions that make 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. This will make it easier for people in industries such as meatworks, fruit and vegetable picking, and so on, so we strongly support both of those measures.

But we have a real problem with this bill around the changes to section 70A of the Social Security Act, in particular the measures that increase the penalty for not naming the father of a child by a further $6 a week. Twenty-two dollars a week is already deducted for this. Once this bill becomes law a mother on the domestic purposes benefit with one affected child will loose $28 a week from her benefit, and a mother of two children will lose $50 a week. The core domestic purposes benefit for a mother with two children is now $256 a week, so if we strip $50 from that it leaves $206 to support three people.

I notice that the National Party representative said a “mere” $6, but when we look at incomes like $206 a week, that is a very substantial amount of money. The question is: who are we punishing here? Why are we punishing the children of single mothers when all of the research suggests that children of single mothers are the most disadvantaged in our society? Report after report has come out telling us that single-parent families are at the bottom of all socioeconomic indicators, yet here we are deliberately increasing child and family poverty for the most vulnerable section of our society.

Why is the Labour Party taking this punitive step against single mothers—a segment of society that the Government should strongly support? Why is the Labour Party joining with the National Party in the scapegoating and punishing of solo parents?

It is interesting that ever since the introduction of the domestic purposes benefit single mothers have been the scapegoats and under constant attack from politicians. In 1990 Gordon Campbell noted in a Listener article: “It’s election year. Politicians are already out DPB-bashing, playing on the widespread hostility towards solo parents. It seems to be open season against DPB recipients. Why is it that single mothers are the subject of such vitriolic abuse?”.

He might as well have been talking about today. The “DPB-bashing” has begun in earnest in the same pattern that has occurred for many decades. In 1990 the domestic purposes benefit action group said: “We’re sick of being election scapegoats and being used as a ploy or a diversion to take attention off the real issues.” I am sure that is how hundreds of single mothers feel today. I am sure they are as perplexed as the Green Party is as to why the Labour Party is joining in this scapegoating and attacking of single mothers.

I would have thought that single mothers on their own trying to bring up a family would have the support and encouragement of this Parliament, rather than being singled out for abuse and scapegoating. The domestic purposes benefit is never presented as a form of payment for bringing up children, but, rather, is a sort of handout that is grudgingly given by society to enable single mothers to survive. Single mothers on the domestic purposes benefit are usually lumped together with the unemployed as if they are receiving a benefit for being out of work, when what they are receiving a benefit for is for the most productive work that there is, albeit unpaid work—bringing up children. They are receiving assistance to bring up the next generation of children.

We know that the children of single mothers are amongst the most vulnerable in New Zealand. They are the ones in all the statistics. Why, then, would we seek to penalise and to punish those children? Why punish them for the sins of their fathers by increasing penalties on single mothers who do not, or are unable to, name the father of their child.

There are all sorts of reasons why 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 or reason why the mother would know or even want to know or see the father again. Sometimes it is because she simply does not know who the father is. The implication of the debate in this House is that this is all the fault of these terrible women who do not know who the father is—but what about the men? Where is their responsibility?

We are certainly in favour of doing everything we can to make the fathers accountable and to help them to pay and contribute to the bringing up of their children.But we do not believe that penalising the single mothers who are struggling on the lowest of incomes in our society, and their children, is the way to do it.

I am not at all surprised that the National Party is supporting this bill. It seems to have a policy of scapegoating and targeting single mothers. While glorifying motherhood and saying how wonderful it is for middle-class women to be mothers, they seem, regrettably, to feel compelled to attack and scapegoat mothers who, for various reasons, find themselves on their own, as single mothers, trying to raise children in our society.

Parenthood is the most productive work in our society. Quite frankly, it is astonishing that it is unpaid work. Surely it is important that we acknowledge and support those women who are on their own, who are often unsupported, and who have no real encouragement or support in their efforts to bring up the next generation of New Zealanders. Surely we should not be punishing them and, most of all, their children. Surely we should not be joining in yet another scapegoating of single mothers. It has happened throughout history. It is tragic that it is happening under a Labour Government. In the 21st century we find it incredible, and for that reason we will be opposing this bill.

Debate interrupted.