Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill

It is my pleasure to speak on the title and commencement clauses of this Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill in the Committee stage. For the large number of viewers at home, that is when we have the opportunity to say, if we agree with this bill, whether it is coming in at the right time and, secondly, whether we agree with the title that the bill is given. It always seems like a rather bizarre thing to be debating, but it does allow us to get to some of the core objectives of a bill and whether or not we agree with them.

Before I begin, though, at the beginning of my earlier contribution in the Committee stage I did raise an issue about the availability of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet for this bill. I will admit I have not had a chance in the last moments to look at whether or not that has yet been tabled. It was not available online when I looked last night. I just wondered whether or not the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Labour, could make a contribution during this title and commencement part of the debate to just advise the Committee whether the vet has indeed been made available to the public for this debate—acknowledging, of course, that the Opposition always does have a challenge during speeches on Budget-related legislation because we are given the bill literally at the moment that we begin debating it. That is basically when we get the information.

For viewers at home who are unable to see them, there are a large number of papers available on the Table. Trevor Mallard has been speaking about some of them recently. Regulatory impact assessments from different departments are provided. It gives us an insight into the process that has gone into this bill’s development, or it gives a bit of a clue as to where the Government tried to guide the options very early on. But the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet, which is provided by the Ministry of Justice, gives us an indication as to whether or not from its perspective people are unfairly discriminated against in the policy that the Government has put forward. It is a very important check and balance that enables us to see whether or not discrimination was justifiable. In some cases, a case will be made in a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet to say “Look, on balance, this discrimination has been made for x, y, and z reasons, and we think it is justifiable.”, versus those that are deemed to be not justifiable.

It does not mean that a bill will not go ahead, but it does provide an Opposition with legal advice based on the Bill of Rights Act. It is the way that we enforce the Bill of Rights Act in this Parliament, so it is very important. The vet was not available last night—that I could find. We were, of course, given just a typewritten link to look up, not specifically for that New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet but for where they vaguely might be on the Ministry of Justice website. The reason I am interested in that is I am interested to see whether or not the fact that not all children are covered by some of the changes raised any issues from the perspective of the Ministry of Justice.

I move now to the commencement clause, because I think it is interesting. We are in urgency, and that usually suggests that there is a matter—obviously, as the word implies—of urgency in passing a piece of legislation. For instance, if it is during Budget time, it might be that there is going to be an extra tax or levy. The best example I can think of is when we raise it for alcohol and for cigarettes. The reason we do that is so people do not go out and rush to purchase before we have had a chance to make these changes. As for these commencement clauses, obviously no one is going to rush out and procreate in order to get these minimal changes that the Government has put in. So from their perspective they might perceive that there is no particular urgency. But here we are in urgency for elements of the bill that actually do not commence for quite some time.

For instance, for clauses 6 to 18 of the bill—and clauses 6 to 18 basically set out the transition from 14 to 16 weeks; that is where we get up to with clause 18—that comes into force on 1 April 2015, which is quite some time away. The transition is something that probably could have been included in a non-urgency motion. The difference that would have made is that it would enable people to make submissions. Why is it that the Government may perceive that it is not necessary for people to submit on this element of the bill? Well, it is because not that long ago the public already gave their views. They did it through Sue Moroney’s member’s bill on paid parental leave. It came back, rather conclusively, that, actually, submitters were overwhelmingly in support of an extension to paid parental leave—not from 14 to 16 weeks, as the first phase in this bill does, but from 14 to 26 weeks. So that is a major disappointment, and it is probably why the Government thought it could put it through an urgency motion, because it already had a Committee stage for another bill that it had got the public view on but just, unfortunately, chose to ignore.

The commencement date for clauses 19 to 31 of the bill, which is the extension primarily from 16 weeks to 18 weeks, then comes in on 1 April 2016. That is interesting. Obviously the Government is making a decision here that the paid parental leave extension is not something that it sees any particular urgency around phasing in. It clearly does not think that people are going to go out and have babies to get paid parental leave, or the parental tax credit, in fact, because, let us be honest, the extension of the parental tax credit—if I have read this correctly—comes in at the point of Royal assent. Am I correct, Minister? So the extension of the parental tax credit from $150 to $220 for a period of 10 weeks rather than 8 weeks comes in at the point of Royal assent because, if I am reading correctly from the commencement clause, it basically says, as we have already said, that “Sections 6 to 18 … come into force on … 2015”, “Sections 19 to 31 … come into force on … 2016”, and the “rest of this Act comes into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent.”

So Government members are not concerned that raising the parental tax credit by $70 a week and then locking an extra 2 weeks on the end of that mean that people are going to go out and have babies. Yet, somehow, miraculously they had that concern about Labour’s policy. I do not quite understand the difference there. Oh, there is one difference. Our tax credit went to the most vulnerable New Zealanders. Ours went to individuals who are currently left out of the parental tax credit.

So that is, again, the same old tired rhetoric from the Government around the deserving and the undeserving poor. That is exactly what we see from this. Actually, the commencement dates starkly highlight that that is exactly what this Government thinks. It also highlights that the Government is happy for there to be an extension of a parental tax credit straightaway but not of paid parental leave. I do not think the Government’s argument around phasing it in because of cost savings really stands, because it has said that it is fine to phase in one element of the bill, which, from memory, I think comes in at around $16 million, but the other bit can just simply wait.

The problem I have generally around the argument that Government members have been making about fiscal costs—and every argument they make around why they are not doing something or why they are taking longer to do it—is that they say it is because they are fiscally prudent. No, actually, it is just about priorities, because there is not any light any more between when Labour says it will be in surplus—we have demonstrated this—and when National says it will be in surplus. There is no difference. We have budgeted in the same way that National has. The difference is that we have prioritised things differently on this side of the Chamber. We have said “Yes, we need more revenue. We’ll bring in a capital gains tax. We won’t sell assets. This is the way that we’re going to do it.”

Also, the Budget surplus that that Government has actually marked up in this Budget, where has that come from? Let us be really honest about it. Where has it come from? It has come from a significant cut out of proposed spending on the Canterbury rebuild, first of all. It has come from holding on to ACC levies for longer than it needs to, because that is what we need in order to nudge ourselves into surplus. And it has come from no-interest loans through the New Zealand Transport Agency. That is basically how we have got to this surplus—this overwhelming surplus.

So let us be really honest about it. Yes—yes—the Government has governed during a global financial crisis, which we are well beyond now. Yes, it has done that. Yes, there have been earthquakes during National’s time in Government. And, yes, in comparison, Labour, when it had its nine surpluses across 9 years, did have some relatively good economic times. So why not do a little bit of comparison across Governments across the decades? If you compare National Governments with Labour Governments through history, Labour has always had stronger periods of economic growth than National has.

💬 Mike Sabin: Ha, ha!

Mike Sabin laughs because it is an uncomfortable truth.

💬 Mike Sabin: You can’t be serious.

I am absolutely serious. I challenge Mr Sabin to go away and do the calculation, because I am not using the rubbish rhetoric that he is throwing across the Chamber. I have actually based it on some numbers and analysis, which is uncomfortable for that member.

Finally, because I do not want my time to run out before I make this point—

Order! There is too much barracking and this is not a football field. It is the people’s House, and members will conduct themselves with respect for the traditions of the House as enshrined in the Standing Orders. That is why I am standing. I represent those Standing Orders and I crave your respect for them, and your understanding. I am sorry, Ms Ardern. Your time has finished.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. During the time that you were making your ruling—which I think was a good ruling and could well make it into the Speakers’ Rulings, given time—Mike Sabin was calling out. We cannot have the Chairperson asking for the Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings to be followed while, through the time that you were making your very good and well-reasoned ruling, a junior Government member was speaking loudly.

Thank you. [Interruption] No, I do not need any help, Mr Sabin. Can I just say that when I am giving a ruling it is unparliamentary and it is discourteous to continue to interject or carry on a conversation during that period. That is totally out of order, and I ask the member to desist.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. He mihi nui ki te whānau whānui o te Pāremata. I want to talk about the title and commencement clauses of this Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill. Although the Greens are supporting it, we have to go on the record with our deep concerns about the underlying discrimination that is being perpetrated by this bill. The title is the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill, but really it is for newborn children of good parents. You can forget about getting any help for bad babies, because this is all about the good babies, not the bad babies. It is about the babies who are allowed to have financial support from the collective taxpayer contribution and the babies who can go without because they are not OK.

What is interesting when you are thinking about this title is that poverty is referred to very clearly in the regulatory impact statement. It says that “poverty is one of the greatest risks to children’s health and development”, so it would be logical, given the title of the bill, to make sure that all of the smallest children—and particularly the poorest children, who are at the greatest risk—get some relief. So it is very confusing to those of us who thought that the parental tax credit, for example, meant that all parents and all babies would get it, that some babies get it and some babies do not. I do not think that the public of this country actually want us to discriminate against babies.

If one wants to listen to talkback and hear the hate speech against beneficiaries, although that is an occupation that will not do us any good psychologically, it is a way in which people vent their own frustration about low wages in this country by scapegoating beneficiary families. But that is not what Parliament should be doing. In the title of this bill we should be saying that this is support for all newborn children. That is what is missing from the title of this bill. It should be the “Budget Measures (Financial Support for All Newborn Children Without Discrimination) Bill”, but we do not say that in the title. What we are doing is saying “Hey, welcome to Victorian England. We will provide charity for the good people who are grateful or who are lucky enough to have a job, but we will forget about everyone else who has got newborns. They can lie in the gutter.”, which is what happened to many of the babies in Victorian England, actually.

But we would presume that in the 21st century there would be more courage, and there is actually a failure of courage in the title. It should be clear that we support all our children and all our babies. It is completely perverse to create inequality and poverty while claiming, as it does in the title, to be a bill for the financial support of newborn children. It is discrimination, and it is actually disturbing and perverse to see this happening, because we believe that this was a wasted opportunity to actually support the people who are most in need and their babies.

This week I have been touring decile 1 schools and talking to principals about families and their newborns. During the families and newborns discussion they have said that the most important thing is for those newborn children to get what they need when they are at their most vulnerable, because if they do not get what is needed, then by the time they reach school they are already at a disadvantage. So why would a Budget bill called the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill create disadvantage, which is going to be manifest very soon in those small people’s lives? It is simply not acceptable, it is not a fairer society, and it is not what most people expect us to do in this House. It is disturbing.

Further to the commencement date, well, this is being put through under urgency. I will tell you what is urgent: child poverty is urgent. Newborn babies of beneficiary families urgently need support. There is no margin of error for those people. For some of those mothers, it is the most urgent experience that they have ever had, and they urgently need our support. For those who are less in need but who will benefit from this bill—and that is good—they are not going to get it until 2015, so this is not urgency, is it? This is not. This is an election year, but it ain’t urgency. Why do we not sent this bill to a select committee and have the conversation about why the bad babies of the poor are not going to get anything? That is what I would like to have a discussion about. I think there are many, many people and organisations that would like to hold the Government to account through the select committee process on this very issue.

I am proud to be a member of the Green Party, because we have never discriminated. We have always supported, through our support for the court case that the Child Poverty Action Group took, extending in-work tax credits to beneficiary families and their babies.

There are two issues that we are currently debating. The first is whether the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill is appropriately titled. I think we are beginning to develop a consensus—in fact, I think it has been unanimous amongst all the speakers in the Chamber on this particular phase of the bill—that this bill is not appropriately titled. I think it could have been titled “An Election Attempt to Steal a Wee Bit of Labour, Green, and New Zealand First Policy, Water it Down and Pretend it is Appropriate, and to Mis-phase It - Type Bill”, or there are a number of other points. I think that, certainly, the implication that the newborn children who most need support are getting anything at all from this bill is wrong.

I want to refer to the question of timing and commencement. This bill is coming in across quite a wide range of time. There are parts of it that come in from April next year—not very much; about $3 million worth, I think—there are parts of it that come in from July next year, and there are parts of it that come in from July the year after. I think that there are bits that come in from April next year, and April the year after, depending on which particular part it is. The question I have got—and it is a technical question on which the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Labour, might need to get advice—is why it cannot all be brought into force tomorrow. Even if we are sticking with the dates that were previously agreed as to when the payments are to be made, why is the bill being brought into force with some parts coming in as it is approved by Royal assent, and others not coming in until dates that are much later? I just do not see the need for it.

Within the bill there is very clear phasing, and very clear, very well-set-out transitional provisions. They are wrong because, of course, things should have been brought in much, much more quickly and they should have been much better, but even if one accepts, as the Committee appears to be accepting, the timing of the actual provisions, the question I have got for the Minister is this. Why has an unusual format been used in the drafting in order to bring some of these provisions into force on the legislation getting its Royal assent, and some do not come into force until a long time later?

I just want to be a little bit cynical. Is there some ulterior motive here? Is there a motive in the provisions that bring these measures into force, to reverse this out at some stage after 20 September? I am just feeling a certain lack of love and a certain lack of trust with the Minister. If the Minister had been upfront and defended Part 2, and even if he had defended Part 1, then I might have been slightly more inclined to go along with these provisions. Normally, of course, you do not argue with them, but it is a genuine question. I have been around this place for a little while, and normally when there is a delay in the bringing into force of provisions, there is a reason for it. The fact that a bill does not come into effect until later—and that is clearly set out in the clauses of the bill—is not a reason for the bill to be broken into different parts for the commencement clause. There does not appear to be a good reason for it.

We know that, for example, with the parental tax credit measures that are sitting in the bill, the Inland Revenue Department has to be prepared to do some things in April next year and in April the year after. There is no reason why, given what is in the bill, it cannot actually do that. You do not need to phase in the bringing into force of provisions, which on the face of them cannot be brought into force anyway—

I actually feel slightly sad, having come to the Committee stage, that we have seen attempts to make this a better piece of legislation, but they have just been rejected out of hand. Here we are dealing with something that really should be a cause for celebration. This bill, the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill, should be a cause for celebration because finally National has got it. Finally it accepts that paid parental leave is something worth supporting. It has taken a while.

This bill is quite a small measure, but National voted against paid parental leave when it was introduced in 2002. It voted against extending it in 2004, and I think National members might have abstained in 2007. Then, you know, National has been playing all sorts of silly, silly games with Sue Moroney’s very excellent piece of legislation—well supported by many members in this House—which tries to really make a difference and extends paid parental leave. We have had all sorts of requests by Mr Auchinvole to extend the time for reporting back with a view to reach some decision, and then reneging on that, and we have had filibustering, basically, for weeks and weeks and weeks to try to stop a vote from happening on that bill. Then, of course, finally, we have had the Government putting something forward in the Budget.

I assume that the Government’s intention is still to veto Ms Moroney’s bill if it ever lets it get back into the House to be voted on, but what we have got here, something that should be a cause for celebration, is somewhat tempered by the fact that the changes are minor. Next year there will be 2 extra weeks of paid parental leave, and 2 more weeks the year after. Of course, in the parental tax credit provision we have seen that, despite its being described as supporting “lower and middle income families”, and I think that somewhere else it talks about low and middle income families, it quite clearly excludes 14,000 of the most struggling families. Those who are really struggling to make ends meet and those whose children are living in poverty are being excluded. So the changes are minor and they exclude the people who really need it.

Of course, we saw last night and this morning the Government vote against opportunities to fix those things and to stand up in this Chamber and say: “We all support families and we all understand that newborn children need the best start in life. Let us give them, and primarily their mothers,”—not always their mothers, but primarily their mothers—“the best possible start in life.” We need to give them the opportunity to have bonding, to have good breastfeeding established, and to make sure that children have a very healthy and exceptional start to their life. We want all of our children to do well, not just some of our children—

💬 Mike Sabin: Title and commencement.

—and not just the wealthy, or, as Mr Sabin keeps referring to them, the hard-working ones. We want that for every person and every child in the country. Children are not workers. Last night we had Mr Sabin talking about hard-working babies, it seemed. But, anyway, this is something that we wanted to make real progress on.

I have to say that this bill is deeply cynical—deeply cynical. This Government has done this only because there is an election in 4 months. It has done it only because it knows that it is so strongly supported. The campaign around Ms Moroney’s bill—the 26 for Babies people—has struck a real chord. There is a genuine need out there in the community. The Government’s measure is deeply cynical, very small, excludes many, and is effectively an election bribe, but at least it is some progress. As I said, it should be a cause for celebration that National has finally understood that paid parental leave is worthwhile.

What is also deeply cynical is that the Minister in the chair, Simon Bridges, stood there last night and started talking about how this measure is extending paid parental leave to lots of other people who are not currently covered by it. Well, what the Minister was talking about was announcements about measures that were made in the Budget but are not being enacted in this bill, and, I understand, will not be coming into effect until 2016. There were very good announcements about casual workers and seasonal workers, and so on.

I want to say that this bill should perhaps be called “Support for Some Newborn Children Bill”—

I move, That the question be now put.

I move, That the Committee divide the bill into the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Taxation (Parental Tax Credit) Bill, pursuant to Supplementary Order Paper 448.

I just rise to support the Minister of Labour in this particular decision to divide the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill. It is absolutely clear that this bill is one that it is very, very necessary to divide. If it was not divided, then we would have a separate Act that contained changes to the Income Tax Act and changes to the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act that were together. Although, of course, they would stand as the law of the country, it would make it almost impossible to reference those particular sections because they would not sit within the relevant legislation; they would be sitting outside it. It would be quite a problem—quite a problem—for people who were attempting to refer to particular sections. It would be a problem for people who were looking for these changes. They would go to the Act and they would find, for example, in their particular law libraries the 2004 or 2006 changes sitting within the Act, but they would not be able to find these relevant changes, because the cross-referencing would not be done at all.

I find it slightly extraordinary that we are having a debate in this area. I think it might be described as unprecedented. I am not absolutely certain, within the Standing Orders, whether it is allowed. But I think it is an interesting test. I wonder whether, in fact, I should raise a point of order against myself, because certainly if I was on the other side, I would have raised a point of order to say that a speech on the division of a bill is not consistent with the Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings. But it appears, Mr Chairperson Robertson, that in the dying days of your role in the Chair, you are setting precedents, and this is an interesting precedent. I think it is fair to say that it is a precedent that a future Chairperson will no doubt overrule—will no doubt overrule.

But it is not often that I can be 100 percent supportive of a Minister. In most of the stuff we have spoken on previously, I have said he should have gone further or he did not go far enough, even though we were voting for the particular clause. But the motion that he has moved that the bill be divided is something that we are totally supportive of. It is a wonderful thing to do. It is necessary for the law of the land to be properly interpreted and for this particular bill, which refers to a number of Acts, to be properly placed within that legislation. If we did not do this, then, of course, that would not occur. But the idea that it gets debated is certainly novel.

Motion agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment.

Report adopted.