Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. The bill makes three main amendments to the Social Security Act of 1964, to put into effect Budget 2004 decisions. Three areas are covered: changes to the accommodation supplement, changes to the calculation of benefit stand-downs, and changes to section 70A of the Act to encourage more sole parents to establish the paternity of their children and apply for child support. In relation to the accommodation supplement, the bill will be beneficial to residents of retirement villages who have a “licence to occupy” tenure and who meet the other accommodation supplement eligibility criteria. This proposal was widely supported by submitters, and the change comes into force on 1 July 2005.

In relation to changes to the calculation of benefit stand-downs, the bill is likely to help approximately 4,500 benefit applicants a year who work for part of the year, such as seasonal workers, by enabling them to elect a 52-week or 26-week income assessment period for the calculation of their stand-down period. That change will come into force on 1 May 2005. I want, just in passing, to thank Mr Rick Barker and Mr Mark Peck, both of whom have, for a long time, advocated on behalf of seasonal workers in the meat industry, in particular. Those workers have found it very difficult to cope with the fact that they often earn what is seen as a relatively high income, but then they have a relatively long period of lay-off before they start the season again. That is particularly the case in Southland and in the Hawke’s Bay. I know that those workers will be very appreciative of the hard work of Mr Peck and Mr Barker in relation to the changes for workers in their industry, albeit that those changes will affect people across a wide range of seasonal occupations.

The changes to section 70A of the Act will mean that where the Government believes the State should assist sole parent beneficiaries, a parent should also contribute financially. I will extend that, of course, to say that I think parents should contribute emotionally and financially to their children throughout their lives. The majority of sole parent beneficiaries, 85 percent of them as at 26 November 2004, have established who the other parent is in law and have applied for child support. The bill further encourages sole parent beneficiaries to name the other parent of the child in law or apply for child support. The bill provides for a further reduction of $6 per beneficiary for those who are required to name, but who have not named, the other parent in law, or who have not applied for child support when required to do so. The reduction will occur only where the sole parent beneficiary has been given a reasonable opportunity to reconsider his or her decision.

The bill provides for two additional exemptions from the reduction of the benefit payable to sole parents where they fail to meet their obligations, such as naming the other parent or applying for child support. The two additional exemptions apply where, first of all, the beneficiaries or their children would be at risk of violence should they take steps to name the other parent of a child or apply for child support, and secondly, where there are compelling circumstances for the beneficiaries’ failure or refusal to carry out their obligations and child support is unlikely to be collected from the other parent in the foreseeable future. Examples of that would include refugees and asylum seekers in circumstances where the other parent of the child is overseas, missing, or deceased, and cases where the other parent of the child is deceased in this country. Carers of children who are not their own, in circumstances where the natural mother has not established paternity, would also be included under that exemption. I say to the House that I think those exemptions are very necessary. We do have to have criteria that will cover people who are in circumstances where the fathers of the children simply should not be in touch with their children or with the families because they are not fit to be parents in the first place, or people who are in a circumstance whereby they are simply not able to be part of this regime because the other parent is deceased.

From June last year to March this year there was a 15 percent reduction in the number of section 70A beneficiaries. This bill builds on that success and reinforces it, and those changes come into force on 1 July 2005. I say once again to the House that the changes are part of a package of changes that, for the first time, has seen the turning back of the numbers of people who are not declaring the name of the father of their child. Those changes are effective because they give a financial incentive for someone to cooperate, but also because we are getting out and working with people so that they understand what is going on here and have begun to tell us the name of the father of their child. I stress that, because I know there are people in the House who think the only thing to be done here is to have a financial incentive, as they would like to describe it, placed on these beneficiaries. That clearly has not worked in the past. The numbers climbed right throughout the period when the financial penalties were in place. It has only been by the introduction of a comprehensive approach, including financial penalties, that we have seen the numbers drop from their peak of a little over 20,000 to a little over 16,000 now. I intend to ensure that they continue to drop.

Measures to assist those beneficiaries who have a section 70A reduction have, therefore, been quite important to us. We have trained case managers, and required them to get out and talk with beneficiaries. Our early intervention programme has been very successful. Case managers provide information to pregnant single women, before they even get on to the sickness benefit, as to how to establish paternity. Sole parent beneficiaries who have a section 70A reduction imposed on them receive a letter that confirms the reduction, so that they know what is going on. They get a fact-sheet about how to apply for legal aid. All those kinds of changes, along with the financial penalty, are what is making the difference.

Other assistance to sole parent beneficiaries is important, as well. In addition to the specific assistance offered to sole parent beneficiaries who have a section 70A reduction imposed on them, case managers provide enhanced case management to all people on the domestic purposes benefit. Case managers work with clients to develop personal development and employment plans in order to help them to prepare for their eventual return to work, and I want to stress that. People who come on to the domestic purposes benefit are normally there for about 3½ years. We do not want people who come on to the domestic purposes benefit to wait until their child is 6 or 14. We want them to work, even before they come on to the benefit, on the assumption that they will return to work when that is appropriate. They have childcare responsibilities, obviously. If they are dealing with children and there is a large number in the household, it may be appropriate for the person to draw the domestic purposes benefit and look after those children. But even if that is what people are doing, they need to be preparing for their eventual return to work when it is appropriate, and that is what we are doing. I stress that, because I have noticed throughout the debate on this bill an enormous amount of ignorance about the significant steps that have been put in place to assist those people to return to work, and I have not heard one single good idea proposed that is not already in place. I think it is worth reminding people that those things are there now.

Other amendments are contained in the bill. It also makes a number of other changes to the Act to reflect current policy and practice, and to update terminology. Those changes come into force the day after the date on which the bill receives royal assent. I thank everybody in the House who has been involved with the bill. I know there is contention about the changes to section 70A of the Act, and I am sure those changes will be the substance of the debate that will take place now. But my understanding is that everybody supports those changes, because they can see that although the bill may not go as far as they want, it is a worthwhile step. I understand that people do support the benefit stand-down changes and the accommodation supplement changes, and I thank them for their support on those matters.

I would like first to thank the Minister, the Hon Steve Maharey, for mentioning the fact that many members of the House have put a tremendous amount of effort, work, and cooperation into getting the bill through. There were a few snide comments in the Minister’s speech, but that is, of course, what we expect from Mr Maharey.

I have long been a critic of some of the piecemeal attempts to deal with the issue of what we will call for today’s debate “childless fathers”. I make no apology for the fact that the National Party is supporting this bill, even though it is seriously flawed to various extents. We support it for a couple of reasons; first, because we agree with the retirement villages provision to bring the situation for, often, the elderly living in retirement villages into line with modern-day practice. And, yes, we support the provision of particular rules to make it fairer for seasonal workers to be able to do more seasonal work without losing benefits—or, in other words, being discouraged from working. We agree with that.

We agree that very significant steps should be made to ensure that every child in this country has a father. We think that the steps brought forward by the Minister, which were agreed to by a majority of the select committee and no doubt will be agreed to by a majority of the House, in relation to section 70A of the Social Security Act, which is the measly $6 a week to be taken off someone’s benefit when she refuses to name the fathers of her children—and I use the plural because that is what we are often dealing with—is, in fact, a disgrace. It is a disgrace for various reasons.

I make no apology for being in favour of the domestic purposes benefit. I make no apology to those fathers—those men who call themselves fathers—who write to me and email me and, frankly, abuse me because I stand up for the rights of responsible parents. I say that every child starts off with two parents and, wherever possible, those two parents need to be responsible for their children until those children are of adult age. Even then, as many parents and many of us in this House would say, one never ever is not responsible for one’s children, no matter how old one is—probably until the day that they become responsible for us in our old age.

In fact, to me it is a very personal situation. The reason I feel so strongly about this is that in my family I had a grandfather who left my grandmother with seven children and no money—not one bit. He went off overseas. There was no domestic purposes benefit, there was nothing. I would not stand in this Parliament or be part of any Parliament that would say we would do that to our people. That is why I support the bill.

I have stood in this House and given speeches about this, and I have been abused by various people in the House and told that I am cynical. I find that a disgraceful statement. I feel very strongly about this. When I hear of fathers who say: “I can’t get access to my child, so I am not going to pay.”—so what? Access is a child’s right. I say to Mr Maharey that, yes, I know there are dreadful fathers. As he said, there are some fathers who are not fit to be fathers, and have no right to be. Those were his words. Yes, but every child has the right to know his or her father. When we take away that right, we take that right not from the father, we take it from the child.

I find that attitude of: “Oh, you’re just going to impose financial penalties. That’s being cruel and heartless.”, utterly ignores the fact that these children are, in almost all cases, the children of our poor. Unfortunately the attitude we are getting in this society is of fathers who are there for the fun times but not for the bad times and the tough times. They are running off to Australia. So many mothers have contacted me and said: “We are trying to get the Inland Revenue to get these fathers to pay for their children.” What are they told? They are told that the Inland Revenue Department cannot help them, or they are told that the Inland Revenue Department will not tell them what it will do.

I want to read to the House a statement from a woman whom I will rename “Mary” because I want to protect her privacy unless she says otherwise. Mary has been trying for years to get child support from her ex-husband who lives in Australia. Mary now has cancer. It is of grave of concern to her—which I think is putting it pretty mildly—that her partner is now having to support her children and she cannot work.

Despite Mary supplying the Inland Revenue Department with addresses, contact numbers, and the times and dates of her husband’s arrivals and departures in and out of New Zealand, neither the Inland Revenue Department here or in Australia has been able to make her ex-husband pay any child support to her. He has the money to travel around the world, but he will not give any to his kids.

Mary, of course, is not on the domestic purposes benefit, so the only way in which she can get any help with her children is through either her family or the father of her children. She has supplied the authorities with her ex-husband’s website address, which apparently shows that he contracts to Australian Government departments. But the authorities either cannot or do not have the will to follow up on him. A copy of that information was given to the Child Support unit and to the Inland Revenue Department earlier this year, but nothing so far has happened. And that is what happens!

We have heard at various stages that attempts are being made to bring those men into line. They are almost always men; we know that some women are involved, but mostly they are men. We know that attempts happen, but the attempts are too small. We know that in 2000 a reciprocal agreement was signed between Australia and New Zealand, and we all support that. But that agreement has to be enforced. The people who are responsible parents must be supported—not by doling out money to them but by actually helping them to provide for their children, and by saying to those children that even if their fathers do not have the gumption and the courage to be their fathers, we think they should have. At least, those children should know who their fathers are.

If a child has a father who is a murderer, that child should know who that father is. If children do not know their fathers, they do not know themselves, and that is a tragedy not just for those children but for the grandchildren and for generations to come. Recently, I was in the office of my colleague Nick Smith in Nelson. He had there a list of all the people who had come to Nelson on ships in 1842. I was able to go through that list quickly and say to him that my ancestors’ names were there. They had come to New Zealand in 1842. I was able to do that for one reason: I know my forebears; I know where they come from; I know who I am. I am not sitting around looking at someone and saying: “Well, maybe that’s my father.” I am not looking around and saying: “Maybe that’s my brother.”—because I know my family. Why is it that in this society we tolerate the fact that those people do that to their children? If that is not child abuse, I do not know what is. It certainly is! It is a disgrace, and we need to bring it to an end.

I rise to speak in the third reading debate of the Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill. I should more correctly during the second reading debate have made the acknowledgment I am about to make, but as chairperson of the Social Services Committee, which had the purview over this bill before it returned to the House, I would like to acknowledge the members of that committee. They put in a great deal of thought and consideration, some of which we have heard from the member who has just resumed her seat. I would like to acknowledge Dr Muriel Newman, who was the deputy chairperson of the committee, Paul Adams, Sue Bradford, Judith Collins, the Hon Taito Phillip Field, Bill Gudgeon, Moana Mackey, Dr Lynda Scott, and the Hon Judith Tizard. I also thank all advisers and committee staff who assisted in the passage of our work with this particular bill.

I would like to talk about two of the other provisions that are quite important in the bill. 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 the accommodation supplement, including an income and cash assets test. From 1 July this year, it is expected that several hundred retirement village residents will qualify for an accommodation supplement of, on average, between $37 and $54 a week.

A stand-down period of between 1 and 10 weeks applies to most new applicants before their benefits commence. The stand-down is currently calculated on the applicant’s income in the 26 weeks before becoming entitled to the benefit and on the number of children in the applicant’s care. From 1 May 2005 all benefit applicants will be able to elect either a 52-week or a 26-week income assessment period for the calculation of their stand-down periods. At the moment some seasonal workers who work for part of the year can be disadvantaged by the 26-week assessment. This change will benefit approximately 4,500 people a year by reducing the length of their initial stand-down period, and it will also reduce disincentives for people to undertake seasonal work.

I am pleased with the progress this bill has made in reaching its third reading. I look forward to its speedy dispatch in becoming law.

I was touched by the words given by Judith Collins about how important parents and family are to her. I likewise support her views—very much so.

In fact, as I listened to her, I thought about my own upbringing where our parents and grandparents were present, where we had aunties and uncles everywhere, and where we sort of ran out of room for places to sleep. Not too long ago, just before Christmas, I went back to the East Coast to attend a funeral. I took one of my grandsons with me, and also a little dustpan and broom. My grandson asked me: “What’s that for, grandfather?”. I said: “Oh, I’m just going to sweep the room of our hotel.” So we got to the area where we were to attend the funeral, and drove down the road to where an old concrete shed stood. My grandson looked at me, and asked: “Where are we going?”. I said: “Just to our hotel.” Unfortunately for us—or fortunately for him—the old doorway was all boarded up. The building was just an old concrete shed where our families had lived and slept. He asked: “Are we going to stay there tonight?”. I said: “Yes, but we can’t get in, because it’s on council property at this stage, and I don’t want to be charged with breaking and entering.” But that was the kind of spirit that was generated, where families were close and where both parents, grandparents, and aunties and uncles were there to support us.

If the figures given by Judith Collins in her press release are correct, they suggest that many more people than are known about have absconded and are now resident across the Tasman. The present system of international border control may need attending to. However, the lack of information is the main factor that allows fathers, and in some cases mothers, to default and leave the responsibility of financial support to the taxpayer. We can debate figures, but this still will not alleviate the problem, or produce a solution to the issue of fatherless children.

We must hold the parents responsible, unless we want a situation similar to what has happened in Romania, where many children are being cared for in orphanages. That would be the extreme case. New Zealand is not a Third World nation, but in some cases one might think so. To have an environment of balance, stability, and strong family orientation there need to be laws in place that will ensure that children’s welfare is paramount. Short of being a do-gooder, I ask if there is any other way this problem can be eclipsed. New Zealand First will support this bill with provisos, as stated in our minority report, but we also remind the Government that the State cannot carry the social ills of this country forever. New Zealand First advises strong and effective laws that will promote accountability, so that our children and families grow up in an environment that will include good parenting and life skills for future generations. This situation is an indictment on the communities we all live in, and the ball has bounced back to within the walls of Parliament.

I ask members to hark back to the policies that have been legislated for thus far, and see what we have come up with. Have they been for the benefit of our families? Are these policies working? If we have organisations that are not fully functional, how can the laws be implemented? New Zealand First lays down the challenge to this Labour-led Government to get it right. If not, New Zealand First will ensure that this will happen. I remind members that 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. I applaud the Minister’s foresight in helping mothers to prepare for an independent future. Flaws there may be, but a beginning that has a positive future is a good beginning.

Parents have the responsibility. I spoke with my son who manages a swimming pool in one of the towns in Waikato. He told me about a lady who goes there every morning to do her swimming training. She mentioned a young boy whose father left his mother, and the child was adopted out. Many, many years later this young man married and a family reunion was held. He introduced himself as so-and-so. An uncle pulled him aside, took him away, and told him who he really was. Unknown to this young man, he had married his own sister. How sad. How sad. Now we see the responsibility that the father should have taken.

Parenting is the utmost responsibility in every land in this world. If parents do not carry out their responsibilities as parents, what do we have? As Judith Collins said, the poor are mainly those who come from parents who have lost their parents, or whose parents have denied them the opportunity to be brought up in a good, functional home.

I rise on behalf of the ACT party to oppose the Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill. It is interesting to reflect that as a Parliament we should treat child welfare as being of paramount importance. If we think about children and what it is that damages kids, we now know that welfare harms children if it goes on too long, we know that not having two parents harms children, and we also know that for children not to know who their parents are damages them and damages them forever after they become adults. Previous speakers have acknowledged that. It seems to me that of all the responsibilities that Governments have, the laws that deal with children are the most important responsibility. When one thinks about that and then looks at the bill that is in front of us, one can say only that what the Minister for Social Development and Employment has delivered to Parliament is a sad reflection of the fact that he has not taken his responsibilities seriously enough in this area.

When the Minister finally delivered this bill to Parliament, he mentioned that 20,000 women had refused to name the father of their child. He has known about this problem for 5 years. When he first learned about the problem, 12,000 women were refusing to name the fathers of their children. As he said, that number had grown to 20,000. The largest reason why women do not name the fathers of their children is not that they do not know who they are—they do—but that welfare fraud and welfare abuse is going on. Those women and their partners decide that they will not name the father so that he will not have to pay child support. I remind the House that if a father is named and has to pay child support, he can have to pay up to almost half a million dollars over the time that the child is his financial responsibility. Until the child is 18 years old, the father has to pay child support. Any man who is given the opportunity to pay under the table—to give the partner $100 per week, or whatever it works out at—will be tempted by that, unless the law is strong. The Minister knows that the law in that area has been extremely weak. All I can say is that the Minister’s lack of action, and the fact that he has not brought into this House a bill that will fix the problem properly, shows that he, as a Minister, is soft on fraud.

It is interesting to note that we have been having a debate this week about the descriptions that Mr John Tamihere made of some of his colleagues in the Labour Party. About Mr Maharey, Mr Tamihere said that he was smarmy and very clever, but that he had no substance. When I look at this bill, I see that it typifies a Minister of no substance. This is one of the most serious problems that New Zealand faces. Thirty-five thousand children do not know who their father is because the Government colludes with women not to name the father. Labour has delivered to this House today a bill that now gives those fathers who do not want to be named, and the mothers who do not want to name them, two new exemptions. It gives to any man—any casual partner who does not want to accept responsibility for raising his child, or any man who wants to be a dad but who does not want to go through the child support system—two new excuses not to be named.

If a man tells the child’s mother that he will beat her up if she names him, then she will not have to name him. We already know that in that area, false allegations of violence are rife. It is one of the biggest problems the Family Court faces. We already know that around New Zealand there are thousands and thousands of court orders against men who are not violent, because all that a woman has to do is to claim a man is violent. Because we have had some terrible tragedies whereby people who were claimed to be violent have gone out and committed the most terrible crimes, there is a very, very low test for violence. Now we will find that many casual partners who do not want to pay anything will simply say that they will beat their partner up. The level of violence—perceived violence, or violence being used against women—will grow. The other point the Minister made was about the other new exemption for fathers who are unlikely to pay child support. All that a man has to do is to say that he will not pay up, and he will be excused.

It is really worrying for, in particular, members of the Opposition, and for members of Parliament who are worried about the issue of children not having their dad named on their birth certificate that those two new exemptions mean that the numbers will be hidden. We will no longer know exactly what is going on in that area. The Minister has already claimed that the number of women who do not name the father of their child has gone down from 20,000 to 16,000. The question that I have is: does that mean that those 4,000 women all named the fathers and that the fathers will now start to pay child support, or is it that the majority of them—3,600 or whatever—have claimed exemptions under those two new areas? I do not know whether that is the case. I have put in parliamentary questions already, but I do not know whether the Government will tell me. So I worry that this bill provides a way for the Labour Government to actually hide what is going on in this really important area.

Bill Gudgeon raised a very, very serious issue just before. Under the Labour Government’s thoughts on all this, we will end up with children who are brothers and sisters, first cousins, or whatever marrying each other, because they will not know of that relationship. Whenever the issue is raised in Parliament of children not knowing the identity of their father it is quite often picked up on talkback radio, and then we hear those terrible, terrible calls where a woman may call in and say that she does not know who her father is, that she has spent her whole life trying to find out, and that her mother will not tell her. The woman’s mother hides it, and the woman says she is not whole. I think to myself that we are a Parliament and we make the laws, but here we are, passing a law that the Minister has had 5 years to sort out. I ask myself whether I can put my hand on my heart and say to those people out there who are worried about the fact that children do not know who their dads are that the bill we are passing today will fix that problem. I have to say that I cannot say that. This law will not fix that problem. This law may hide the problem. This law will not ensure that the problem of people who want to avoid having their names on their children’s birth certificates, or who want to avoid paying child support, will be fixed. This law will not fix that. Nor will this law allow for that other group of men who want their names to be on the birth certificate, and who want to be dads, to have that recognition. This bill will not fix that problem, either.

It is a sad day for New Zealand when we face a serious, serious problem, and we have a Labour Government that fails in its responsibility to give us decent legislation that will solve the problem.

I rise on behalf of United Future to speak on this bill. I also commend Judith Collins for the speech she gave in this House, because I heard the heartbeat of a mother as she spoke, and I think many others also heard that heartbeat. No doubt, many were touched when she made mention of her grandfather, who left his seven children with no money. I think the issue that possibly struck a chord with some in this House was that of the family having no money. I want to think of, and meditate on, that for a moment. In reality, today, with much of the social engineering that goes on in legislation, the issue of money is not as relevant as it was in the time that her grandmother faced that issue.

But as one who is proud to stand up as a married man, a father of four children, and a grandfather of 2½ grandchildren—one is still cooking in the oven—I believe that we men have a tremendous responsibility to stand up and be responsible for what we are, and that is men and fathers. Yet I have seen in this House legislation that has pulled down and even mocked those who dare to stand up and say that a relationship is important. I have always said, and will always continue to say, that I am a generational politician. I am very tired of seeing laws come in that focus on one generation—one particular lifestyle. Where are the laws to build the very unit that Judith Collins’ grandmother had pulled apart on her?

Let me clarify something here. I would never dare to stand and judge why people in a relationship part company. I see many things in society—many things that we have put in place—that make it too easy for us men to walk away. I think one of the major changes was when no-fault divorce came in. I have heard and understand the reasoning for it, but it made it just that little bit easier for men to walk away from a responsibility that we should seriously give consideration to.

Sometimes when we get caught up in issues, I believe, we fail to ask the right question. I have felt for the Minister of Police in this House as he has been questioned—in many cases, I believe, unfairly—on the policing issues in this country, and on the shortage of police. I am yet to hear one person stand up in this House and ask the real questions on why the crime rate is increasing. I believe that the crime rate is increasing rapidly because fathers are not taking their responsibility to raise the children whom they are responsible for. If we can begin to focus again on the responsibility of being a parent, and if we can begin to put things into place that will help parents to do their job better, I do not think we will need an increase in the number of police; I think we will see a decline in crime.

This bill does not assist the establishment of paternity, and this is an issue on which United Future would like to see more extensive work done that recognises that the law needs to support the right of children to access information about who their father and mother are. All members relate, I am sure, to the situation of seeing that faults or habits that we thought were our parents beginning to develop in us as we age. It is quite scary. Even the medical profession is starting to recognise that things are hereditary. If for no other reason, children deserve to know who their fathers and mothers are, so that, at least, they can find out areas in their own lives that they will need to work on. United Future wants to acknowledge that establishing paternity is not just about catching dead-beat dads but also about fathers who wish to be involved with their children but who are being denied that by the mothers, who want no potential involvement by them. This situation needs to be recognised in law. We are pleased to see the Law Commission is due to report shortly on this DNA testing issue, and await significant change to what has been a problematic and, at times, damaging state of affairs for mothers, fathers, and children.

We understand there will be contention over the exemptions to the section 70A penalty that this bill argues. Currently the law allows exemptions to naming if a child was conceived through—

I am sorry to interrupt the member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.