Social Security (Clothing Allowances for Orphans and Unsupported Children) Amendment Bill

It is a pleasure to rise and speak to the second reading of the Social Security (Clothing Allowances for Orphans and Unsupported Children) Amendment Bill. At the outset can I congratulate the MP Tracey Martin, who has brought this issue before our Parliament. She is genuine in her concern towards children who are unsupported and are being taken care of by family members, and she is genuine in her concern about their equality with other children who are in similar situations. I want to commend Tracey Martin because she has done everything she can to make sure there is some progress on this issue.

I also want to say that I feel, as part of the Social Services Committee, which considered this bill, that I know how hard Tracey Martin has worked on presenting this issue. It was with a bit of a heavy heart that I was part of the committee when it agreed to an amendment that sees these changes not coming in until 2018. I think it is important that people listening to this debate understand the background to that, because that is not of the member’s choosing, and it was not the choosing of the majority of the select committee. It was because the Government does not see this as being a priority.

The Government simply would not agree to support this bill unless this proposed change, which brings equality to children very much in need, was pushed out not just beyond the next election—which at the time the select committee was debating this would have been the election we have just had, in 2014—but beyond the 2017 election. I am going to place a bet right now, because I am a betting person, that by the time this legislation comes into being, there will in fact be a Labour-led Government in place. There will be a Labour-led Government in place, and by 1 July 2018 we will be in control of bringing budgetary measures into this House that will not only help these children but help all the children who are suffering in New Zealand, particularly children who are living in poverty, which that Government absolutely fails to even recognise, let alone address.

This bill comes behind priorities for the National Government like suddenly finding the funding for 10 bridges in Northland—the bridges that the Northland Regional Council does not even want and does not say it needs. But that is a priority for this National Government at the moment, and these unsupported children, these children who are being brought up often by their grandparents and by other family members, do not deserve to have equality when it comes to the financial support they will have as they are growing up. That Government opposite would rather build bridges in Northland. It would rather have put its energy into trying to sort out the Skycity debacle. It would rather, actually, be focused on—

💬 Hon Annette King: Rio Tinto.

That is right—giving money to Rio Tinto. That is a priority. That is a priority for this Government. It will address those issues immediately, but these children and their families, who are working hard to support them, have to wait until 1 July 2018. I think that is an absolute indictment on the National Government and its lack of priority for the things that really matter.

I just want to remind people—because this is an interrupted debate—whom we are talking about here. We are talking about children who through a range of often really tragic circumstances are not able to live with their natural parents. That may be because their natural parents have died. It may be because—certainly it was in one of the submissions the select committee heard—the father of the children had murdered their mother, so the father was incarcerated and the mother was no longer with them. These are terribly, terribly tragic situations in which the grandparents had absolutely been there for their grandchildren. They had stepped in at a time of huge grief to themselves and started raising children who were at primary school, and teenagers, even though they were grandparents who suddenly found themselves in that position.

So these are often tragic situations. These are often children whose grandparents have determined or have worked with the rest of the family to say that they are the best people to be caring for those children, and yet the State support they get for doing so is less than what people who have no relationship with the children they take them on—foster carers—get. An example of that is that a foster carer can apply for a quarterly clothing allowance. They can apply for an allowance for Christmas and birthday presents. They can have their health and education costs met, depending on the child’s care plan. The carer may also be able to provide financial assistance towards recreational items. All of these matters should be extended to unsupported children as well, as we call them.

I remind the House that these children who are being taken care of by family members often have additional needs. Not only do they need another family member to take care of them but they are often suffering a high degree of trauma, and that has financial costs associated with it, as well.

We had several heartbreaking submissions on this bill before the select committee, one of which I just described before, but all of them—all of them—had one theme and that was the relatives, now the primary carers, of these children coming to tell our select committee how much grief it caused them to see that they could not provide. They felt they could not provide as much for these children in their times of need. So submitters were coming to us and talking about how they felt that they needed to go to the op shop and buy second-hand clothes for their children, because they could not provide anything more. These are often grandparents who are on New Zealand superannuation. They have got fixed incomes and they could not provide anything more than that, and the one thing they wanted was for their grandchildren to be able to hold their heads up high amongst their peers and be able to be treated just like anyone else, and they often felt like that was not the case. We heard many gut-wrenching submissions.

I also want to also congratulate Tracey Martin on the way in which she presented her briefing to the select committee. As a former adult educator I was very impressed. We did not have bits of paper to wade through like we frequently do in briefings on this matter. We had caricatures of two children, and on each of those children—one was an unsupported child, and the other was being taken care of by a foster family—was written what financial support they were entitled to from the State and what they were not entitled to. It was a very, very graphic way of bringing that information before the select committee.

I conclude this contribution by saying that Labour endorses and supports this bill. We wish that it had a start date right now, because these children need the support right now.

I apologise if, somewhere along the line, my voice fades during this speech.

💬 Hon Annette King: It could be a blessing.

It could well be a blessing. In fact, I am sure the honourable member opposite would just love it if I would wallow down and sort of sink into the seat, but I will keep going as best I can anyway.

💬 Hon Annette King: Do your best.

I will do my best, and hopefully that will be good enough for her. It is a novel day, as I find myself in agreement with New Zealand First, or at least one of its members, on this bill that is going forward. I think in my 6 months in Parliament—[Interruption] I am just being told to be careful by my colleagues. Under normal circumstances, it may well be a career-threatening move to agree with Tracey Martin, but I think that, today, when we look at the content of this amendment bill, it is clear that the right course of action for us to take is to support this bill.

This morning, while we were in the middle of the review of the Social Workers Registration Board at the Social Services Committee, I received an out-of-the-blue text message from my daughter, who asked me which years it was that I worked for Child, Youth and Family. I thought it was a somewhat unusual text to get from one’s 21-year-old daughter, so I replied back to her and said it was in 1997 and 1998, which is a good few years ago now. She did enlighten me that the reason she was asking me that was that she was applying for a job with it on a part-time basis and thought she might have to disclose that at some point. Anyway, I digress slightly—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Yes.

But it did cause me to reflect—in fact, some might say even more than slightly. But there is method to my madness, because it caused me to reflect on my time as a Child, Youth and Family social worker. It was a brief stint. I think at the time the average length of service of social workers was about 10 months, and I managed 7 months. But during that time the issues that we are discussing today certainly came to light.

I remember on many occasions, one of the things that we were asked to do at times was to speak to caregivers who were caring for children who were, at that stage, under the care of the State, to see whether or not they would be prepared to take on additional guardianship, and then they would move to receiving the unsupported child’s benefit rather than care payments. There were good social work reasons for doing this. Some people had had a child in their care for a very long period of time and a significant bond had formed, and it was clear that the child would, in fact, really be better served by remaining with this family over a long period of time. Their need for social work input was minimal and, in fact, we used to find that with a lot of those children we would do our sort of mandatory visit just to make sure that we could tick the right box in the key performance indicators column, because, actually, there was no need for ongoing social work intervention because the placement was stable, the bond was good.

But as a social worker turning up to those families and putting to them whether they would consider taking on additional guardianship for the Ministry of Social Development, or—I cannot remember quite what it was we were called back in 1997 or 1998. I think we were the Child, Youth, Families and Young Persons Service or something. No, Children, Young People—anyway, CYPFS, in those days.

💬 Hon Annette King: CYFS.

We had a little P in the middle of the CYFS.

💬 Hon Annette King: Did you?

Well, you know, when you have got to go, you have got to go. But, anyway—[Interruption] Clearly, again behind me, I am hearing: “Is there a doctor in the house?”.

Anyway, whatever it was that we were called, we would have to go and talk to these families. But it was actually a pretty hard call to go and say: “Look, it is fantastic the work you have done with this young person. You have taken them from a place of brokenness to a place of wholeness, to a place of belonging, but by the way we would like you to get paid a whole lot less than you are now.” It was, I guess, an unpleasant thing to have to go and do. It was, as I say, good social work practice, actually, to say: “The time has come for us to pull out. The time has come for you to make it on your own.” But to actually then say: “We want you to do this and receive less money.” did not make a lot of sense. So I guess this amendment that we are putting through now, which will allow people in those situations to receive the same sorts of payments to support these children, is, I think, incredibly good.

The previous speaker, Sue Moroney, alluded to some of the importance of that, because I think it is really important for young people and children, when they are in care—there is enough stigma at times associated with that as it is. So we want to make sure that at the very least there is adequate funding coming through to ensure that they are not having to go and buy clothes from the second-hand store and that we can make sure that there is the opportunity for them to be able to participate, perhaps, as children who have their own families do in society. So I think it is really important that we have payments like this to ensure that their dignity is maintained.

I referred to those people who, you know, have perhaps been foster carers who move into a more permanent arrangement with additional guardianship and receive the unsupported child’s benefit, but, of course, not everybody who is a kin carer has had that benefit or had the process of having been a foster carer first. Sometimes they simply, for all manner of reasons, wind up having young people in their care, which they had not planned on doing. Almost inevitably it has not occurred because some sort of pre-planned idea that that is how it would be. It is not because when they set out in life they thought: “Oh, at approximately this point in my life, it will be great to take on some children to care for.” No, it will often occur as a result of some form of tragedy, whether it be through the sudden death or loss of parents, or through abuse and neglect and children no longer being able to be with their parents, and they find themselves being cared for by extended family members—often grandparents, in fact—who perhaps are at a stage of life where they were not necessarily planning on doing this, and it becomes a very stressful environment. It is stressful enough being a parent at times as it is.

💬 Hon Annette King: So, Jono, why do they have to wait?

I am coming to that. If you just hang on, we have got 10 minutes to walk our way through this and we will get to it. [Interruption]Oh, 3 minutes? All right, well, I was talking in terms of the whole length of the speech, not what was left. But thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, I now know I have got 3 minutes left, and I will make sure I get to that point that the Hon Annette King made. I think I have got the full name right, so that is good.

Anyway, what I was saying was that there is stress involved and so it is appropriate that there are financial payments made to ensure that that stress is decreased, so that people, through whatever circumstances, when they find themselves caring for these young people, are having that burden lessened somewhat. At the very least I think what we can expect is that they would find themselves receiving the same level of compensation as if they had been foster caregivers, in terms of being able to provide for the material needs of those children.

I know that the honourable member over the other side of the Chamber, Annette King, has asked: “Why do we have to wait so long?”, and there is a rationale for that wait. I understand that in the report that came back from the select committee it was outlined pretty clearly that, actually, there are some transitional arrangements in place that have been set up already, and the Government has helped, through the annual school and year start-up payment for carers. I believe that in the first instance that may well be enough. We do recognise the issue over time of parity for people to be able to receive appropriate levels of compensation, in order to ensure that young people are being cared for appropriately and to ensure that young people who are in the care of not necessarily their legal parents but who are in the care of others who have stepped up to the plate in difficult situations are able to be provided for.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, I find myself agreeing with Tracey Martin on this occasion. It may well not be the last time, it may well happen again in the future, but we will have to wait and see if in fact that can happen. It has been, I think, overall, from my understanding, although this went through the select committee process before my time, a very constructive process. I understand that a good conversation was had between the member who brought this bill forward and the Government, and I look forward to seeing this bill continue its passage through the House and for this situation to be resolved. Thank you.

Catherine Delahunty—a 5-minute call.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tātou, I would just like to acknowledge Tracey Martin for her excellent effort here. He iti, he pounamu. It may be a small apparent thing, but for the children and the families that Tracey has created this change for, especially her original vision before it was gutted by the Government, it is an excellent effort.

I think this bill is a very good example of what is actually achievable in this hostile and adversarial space called Parliament. Tracey has negotiated extremely successfully, and although she had to make compromises that are pretty unacceptable, she decided there was enough in it—and we agree with her—to continue with this bill. It is a sword of Damocles when you get to this stage, and I think Sue Moroney knows this well, as well, after the paid parental leave debacle. We come in good faith with our members’ bills, we really hope to make change and make things better for people, and then we come up against a wall of adversarial pettiness sometimes when common sense is on our side, but we have to compromise in order to achieve anything. So Tracey has done that, and good on her. The Green Party is very proud to support this bill.

What kind of society accepts discrimination against its children, let alone its unsupported children? We are the support of those children. We have an obligation—this State, us, here, in this room now—to support those children. If they do not have parents to provide for them, it is our duty, our obligation, and our responsibility to provide for them. So we do thank Tracey Martin very much for continuing in persisting with this despite all the difficulties.

I would say: “Feed the kids and clothe the kids.” It is about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, for any of you who have any idea about what that means. Feed the kids and clothe the kids. It is pretty basic. I guess we are now going to have to have a member’s bill about giving them homes as well, because the basic needs have not been met. But thanks to two fantastic women, Metiria Turei and Tracey Martin, we have got down to the basics of talking about food and clothing. And thank you, Hone Harawira, for the original concept. Some of us are not here to talk fancy lawyer language or spout on about economic growth if we cannot feed and clothe our children. These are our children. Make no mistake about it; these are our children.

So what is the message to these children? From Tracey Martin the message is that their lives are important and their needs are important. The Government’s amendments, however, which delay the changes to 2018 and do not quite create parity, are what I would call mean-spirited, minimalist, mealy-mouthed, and miserly—a nice bit of alliteration, I thought—as well as being completely unnecessary. What is the message we should be giving to these apparently unsupported children who are being treated differently from children who are in the care of strangers? What is the message? Because the Green Party believes that the message to these children needs to be that whether they have two parents or not, we will provide for them; that they are important to us; that they deserve the best; that they will not be discriminated against by having less access to things like clothing; and that they and their lives will be celebrated and cherished by us, the State, and by their community. That is the message we should be giving these kids—not that they are in any sense lesser or entitled to less because of circumstances that were not under their control, because those children are us. If we do not accept that, we do not have the right to be here making decisions on their behalf.

I did not have the privilege of being on the Social Services Committee, but Jan Logie passed me some letters that she received—a number of beautiful letters from children. They all say the same thing. I will just quickly share a few of those. “Please don’t make Gran and Grandad wait until 2018. They have looked after us for 17½ years.” Here is another of a little girl saying: “Please don’t make us wait until 2018.” She is sitting on a sofa that is obviously her bed. It has got a sheet on it. She does not come from a wealthy family. She does not have a lot of support. She cannot wait. There is another child on a sofa, which is also his bed. “Please don’t make me wait.” He has got a broken arm and a broken leg, so obviously he has health issues as well. “Please don’t make me wait.” There is another young girl, and her eyes are the eyes that will haunt us if we look into those eyes and do not provide for those children.

There are a number of letters here. Some of them have got stickers and some of them have got photos of kids. All of them have been written by children, asking: “Please do not make me wait.” Those children have a right to make that challenge to us. There is no reason to make them wait. It is time to do this. We should have done it better, but thank you, Tracey Martin. We will support this bill.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā tātou katoa. Kia ora. In the 1980s, our country got it right. We went on with a very hard, long piece of work known as Pūao-te-ata-tū. From Pūao-te-ata-tū came Matua Whāngai. Matua Whāngai is for parent caregivers, and it allows for tamariki, or Māori children in particular in Pūao-te-ata-tū’s case, to be cared for by their own families for whatever reason, whether it is a family breakdown, the stigma of teen pregnancy, or other issues that were discussed when the Pūao-te-ata-tū consultation went around.

It was a step in the right direction, but it just did not quite go far enough in supporting our families and supporting our kaumātua and our kuia, our grandparents, in looking after, and caring properly for, their tamariki, their mokopuna, or children who come into their care. The House might be interested to know that at one point in time, I was a case manager with Work and Income. We constantly heard sad cases of kuia and kaumātua who were unable to care properly for their grandchildren. It was not that they did not love them, and it was not that they did not give them a beautiful home or a warm home where they felt loved and grew up in a great environment; it was just those extra little costs that come with caring for, and looking after, tamariki.

We all know what those costs are—in particular, clothes. We know that when you are sending your kids to school, you want them to have the bare essentials of a nice outfit and nice clothes, in particular if they are not going to a school that has a uniform. I know that most do have uniforms now, and they are quite practical. Once upon a time, it was a nasty, grey, buttoned-up shirt, but now there are nice polo shirts. But with that comes a cost. We know that our kaumātua and kuia were unable to meet those costs, so they put off other things and finally accumulated just enough money to knock their bills on the head.

We support this bill. We support it for the very reason that a foster carer and those whom—just like with Matua Whāngai—are family members who look after young ones get some sort of parity, get equal assistance under the eyes of the law. We support this particular bill. We support it for all of the reasons that have already been mentioned. I do not want to labour too many—but we talked about stigma. It was funny; I was having a chat with my son—and he had a lot to do with my parents, his grandparents—and he always spoke about how bummed out he was that he was the child who took a date loaf to his shared lunch. And nobody, no 8-year-old or 9-year-old, eats date loaf, but all the MallowPuffs and all the Rashuns and all the Twisties were taken. There was a stigma attached to it. Now my boy is quite a bit older, and he is still known as the “date loaf kid”. So we support this particular bill so that those tamariki are not affected by those types of stigma, which can live with them for a long time.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): My favourite food.

In that vein—food is food, eh? That is what I try to say to him. We cannot have our children being disadvantaged. There is a lot of rhetoric around poverty in our country at the moment and what that means for our tamariki. We know that the bill that is being proposed here will go some way to alleviating some of that poverty and supporting our families to look after our tamariki and allow them to enjoy the carefree days that I am sure most of us in this House enjoyed. So we support it. Kia ora tātou.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill. I am rising to support this bill in its second reading. I acknowledge the work that the member in charge of this bill, Tracey Martin, has done on it. I acknowledge the select committee, the previous Social Services Committee, and its work that it did in the past term. I also recognise that Tracey Martin has put forward a very genuine concern in the form of this bill. This bill is about the clothing allowance entitlement and parity for orphans or unsupported children with foster children. This bill seeks to make that entitlement clarification through legislation.

The purpose of this bill is to increase financial support for kin carers. I believe that this is really vital because if this financial support is not available, it can lead to the inhibition of the growth of our children. This is for any kin carers—unrelated caregivers, family members, or grandparents looking after their grandchildren. I also acknowledge the select committee’s recommended amendments. I was not part of that select committee in the past, but nevertheless I, like everyone else here in the Chamber, understand the issue of clothing. If the clothing issue is because of material deprivation, it can lead to an impact on the psychological state of children, leading to a lot of other problems. This can happen because children will be hesitant to socialise, and socialisation is very important for children because that helps them acquire a lot of skills that are required throughout life. The lack of sufficient clothing can create some mental and emotional issues as well, so that can create some prejudice against children. Sadly, this may not be under their control if it is due to the financial situation of their kin carers.

The National Government has been actively supporting children through the Children’s Action Plan. The issue of providing all children with the opportunities for them to succeed is something we all agree on. Just like my colleagues, I want to see all children succeed at all levels, and clothing issues can hold them back. Having been actively involved in the community, I understand the hardships of our community. I also want to acknowledge the work that kin carers do in looking after these children in unfortunate circumstances. Their job is an extremely difficult one, and requires a large amount of empathy in order to come to some realisation of the hardships that one can face and that these children go through. It is really essential that this support is provided to these kin carers so that this support can be passed on to these children in need, who have no control over their situation.

Sometimes these responsibilities come unexpectedly. I remember during doorknocking while campaigning in the general election that I met a family. These were very elderly grandparents looking after their two grandchildren because of a tragedy in their son’s family. They had no choice but to look after these children with a very limited income. These children do need support. They need to be looked after. The Government recognises the incredible work that family members do to look after these children—those who have lost their parent or parents, or who cannot be looked after by their family or their parents. More than 12,000 New Zealand children are being cared for by wider family members because of the death of a parent or a family breakdown.

Currently, kin carers are entitled to assistance to help with the cost of raising orphaned or unsupported children. In 2009 National ensured kin carers got the same weekly amount as foster carers. The National Government is known for delivering value for money, and is already working in that direction and looking at exploring options to see how the $10 million capped fund that was announced can be utilised to help children in this situation. To address that, the National Government has already set up a ministerial reference group, which is currently working through options for how help can be provided to kin carers or how in this kind of situation extra funding can be applied. This extra $10 million that was announced is to help with kin carers’ additional costs. This ministerial reference group also has a representative for grandparents who are looking after grandchildren, so that experience is also there in this ministerial reference group. That group will be providing advice on how best to allocate this funding to help kin carers in similar circumstances. This National Government is always striving to deliver for our communities, and our focus is the well-being of our families. That is a very vital package of our mission. This is why the Minister for Social Development has asked this ministerial reference group to explore all options to get positive outcomes.

There are other recent initiatives taken by the Government as well. One is to make parenting very practical and possible for grandparents. It is very important that grandparents are given the assistance that they need to raise these children because sometimes there is a big gap between when grandparents have looked after their children versus when they have to look after these children in their family. This kind of assistance will be required and some special parenting skills are also required, and to provide that assistance Work and Income has now assigned a manager at its national office to work with grandparents raising grandchildren. This is like a one-stop place for grandparents to seek the information that they need, and this is really important.

The times are changing really fast—we know that technology is changing really fast as well—and how we are raising our children changes really fast as well. And so it is really important that grandparents are able to catch up with the changing technology, are able to catch up with new ways of raising children, and are able to understand the expectations of children. This monetary support, which is for clothing, is really important. It is also really important that grandparents learn parenting skills under the current legislation. It is really important that this kind of training is available to grandparents because parenting is a very complex issue, no matter how many children one has raised. Every child is different, they come with their different traits, and so it is a very tricky issue. Therefore, this parenting support is very important.

For this, the Government is investing $600,000 a year in a Toolbox parenting groups programme that is especially designed for kin carers. This is a great tool as it provides a refresher course on parenting for grandparents, and this training is facilitated by trained volunteers. All this is being done to support the incredible work that kin carers are doing to raise children who are in the unfortunate circumstances of not having a parent to live with them and look after them. I recognise that our children are our future, and that is why the National Government is so focused on our children. As I said before, there are more than 12,000 children in this situation, and currently kin carers are entitled to assistance to help with the cost of raising orphaned or unsupported children.

Along with this entire issue, I feel it is important to provide every child in New Zealand with an equal opportunity of prosperity and happiness. It is essential we focus on our children because they are our future and they will carry our long-term ideas and hopes for our country. So, in summary, we are already working in the direction to provide additional assistance in areas that this bill seeks to address. As this bill is in line with our objectives, I support this bill in the second reading. Thank you.

Kia orana, Mr Assistant Speaker. With the indulgence of the House I would like to talk a little bit about my previous life, having worked on a child protection review panel for a Child, Youth and Family site, and say what that was about.

The review panels came about because of some unfortunate incidents that happened in the community that resulted in the death of some children. The child protection review panels were charged with reviewing the work of social workers, particularly in the Child, Youth and Family environment, to ensure that they were given the best resources, the best support, and the best networks into the community sector to ensure that they could do their work effectively so that we could minimise the harm to children in our community.

Why I raise it is that—I am referring to my colleague Peeni Henare—he talked about Pūao-te-ata-tū, which was a programme that really first started the discussion in the social service arena around whānau caring for their tamariki when the parents were unable to do so. I believe that is right, is it not, Mr Henare?

💬 Peeni Henare: That’s right.

That is the genesis of a lot of the work that we are now engaged in, in Whānau Ora. It had its genesis in the idea that the family should be able, and should be encouraged, to care for their own when circumstances make it difficult for parents to take that role, through whatever mechanism.

It was a really important step forward because it made us recognise that there were a whole lot of components to caring for children that were more than just providing a safe home or a warm bed or food. It was about attending to that child’s emotional needs and their cultural needs and ensuring that they had connections to their family, their history, and their past.

So I must commend the work that started with Pūao-te-ata-tū and has continued to evolve into different programmes, because really, for most of the children who come to the notice of Child, Youth and Family—when they get to the process where they may be uplifted or there are some real difficulties—it means the family gets involved at a very significant time. The family may be encouraged to find options to support that particular child. It may be that an aunt may provide some kind of respite or provide oversight for the family.

Why that is important to mention is that this bill, which Tracey Martin is bringing to the House and which she has got wide support for, actually speaks to the heart of caring for children. We place a lot of responsibility on our families, as we should, to support parents to parent well and grandparents, or aunts and uncles, to take control when parents are unable to. This bill actually speaks about the equity of that. Yes, it is right and true that families should take care of their own, but not at the expense of being seen as unequal or having some inequity with other carers such as paid foster carers. This is really about the principle of having an equitable response and equitable treatment for all children, with that being the basic principle for this. So I really commend you, Tracey Martin. It is a small but a potentially very significant step in ensuring that we treat all children equitably.

Let us look at what has come from Pūao-te-ata-tū to what we currently view as a very important way of dealing with families: Whānau Ora. The basis of Whānau Ora is about families caring for their own, but it is also about families finding solutions that are fit for them and having the resources to do that. Sometimes that includes having the funding resources to support whānau to care for their own, because sometimes our families are not the best place. We have had some issues in our families and we need to do a little bit of work on our families to ensure that they can be providing the appropriate care and support for our tamariki. We know this, which is why Whānau Ora is such an important opportunity for families to deal with those longstanding issues.

We must look not at the imposition but at what actually happens to grandparents and aunts and uncles, or even older siblings, when they are asked to care for children—what that actually does to the dynamic of a particular family. I want to refer to a dear colleague of mine who took on the children of her sister. Tragically, her sister was killed at the hands of her partner in a family violence homicide, and my colleague was then asked to take care of these two children in addition to caring for her own children, one of whom was a special needs child. Very tragic circumstances, but she was given very limited resources and did not really know where to go for support. She cast around various agencies looking for support.

In circumstances like that, should not the State be at the front of that queue, not at the back of that queue? It should be right there saying to people like my colleague: “We will help you every step of the way. We won’t wait until 2018 to put this bill through. We’re going to put it through as soon as it has received its Royal assent.” So I want to challenge the Government members. They are obviously very supportive of what Tracey Martin’s bill is attempting to do. I thought Jono Naylor made an extraordinary speech. I was really happy to hear what he had to say—he obviously speaks from some experience—but then we look to when this bill is actually going to be in place: 2018. What is the significance of 2018? What is more significant is why it is not going to be in place as soon as it is possible. So—

💬 Tracey Martin: In 2018 the $4 million is gone.

That is right—thank you, Tracey Martin.

This bill has got a couple of clauses in it that are important, but, really, it is the sentiment that sits behind this bill that is most important, and it is around ensuring that our kids are treated equally. The basis is that it should be regardless of their circumstances. The tragic nature of the circumstances in which some of these children come into our notice should not actually disadvantage them, at all. We should not have any more children who have to go to school and compete with Peeni Henare’s son for his date loaf. I think that is a delightful story, and I would like to encourage all parents who make date loaf to put it in their children’s school lunches. That actually speaks to something—families that are thinking about the nutrition of their children. That is another issue that we could talk about, but this is not the place for that.

But I do want to say that this is a great bill. It will do a great thing. I encourage the Government to look at bringing the date forward in order to bring this bill into play, and thank you very much for your indulgence, Mr Assistant Speaker.

As this is the first opportunity I have had to speak in the House since Cyclone Pam, I would like to take just a brief moment to acknowledge the hardship that has gone on, particularly for the people of Tanna island. In my electorate there is a close affiliation with Tanna island. A lot of the recognised seasonal workers have come from Tanna island and it has been quite devastated there. I note that there is quite an effort going on in Marlborough to put together a 40-foot container with building materials, generators, and other things to help those people get back on their feet. They make a valuable contribution to our economy and their work, in turn, makes a lot of valuable contribution back to their own GDP. I would like to take just a moment to acknowledge that, so thank you.

It is a great pleasure to speak to the Social Security (Clothing Allowances for Orphans and Unsupported Children) Amendment Bill. Tracey, like everybody else, I would like to pay tribute to you for putting this together. It is a fantastic bill and it is a really important issue to bring forward to people. Unfortunately, I was not on the Social Services Committee that looked at it, because I was not elected to Parliament at that time, but I am now on that committee and I really am enjoying the work that we do there. So I look at this with different eyes from those I would have had prior to the election, so thank you and well done.

I would also like to say that as part of my election campaign I spent quite a bit of time going around places like the Salvation Army, Bread of Life, and Barnados looking at the sorts of issues that this bill attempts to cover. It is really quite a big issue out there because with this bill we really are talking about the unsupported child’s benefit, which is available only when the family breaks down—and who knows what sorts of circumstances have gone on behind that; perhaps the parent or parents have gone to jail or something like that—or the orphans benefit, where the parents have died or cannot be found. That is a pretty traumatic thing for a child to go through and then to have them supported by their kin as kin carers. There is a heck of a lot going on for them to put up with and to adjust to, and to then go through financial difficulties as well would be pretty traumatic. This bill attempts to alleviate that, so well done on that.

I note that there is no income or asset test for this particular benefit and I think it is an important point that the families who are going through this do not have to go through the added difficulties of having to apply for that. This particular bill is trying to fill another hole—I realise that—but I will come to that a little bit later. I also note that the child automatically qualifies for a community services card, and, depending on how the benefit is applied for, there may well be an in-work tax credit for some of the beneficiaries, which I think is also a very good thing to do.

When we are talking about kin carers we are really talking quite often about grandparents. I thought we could, just for a moment, turn our minds to that. It was a common practice for grandparents to have quite a role in bringing children up in the past, perhaps two generations ago. That really has changed a lot today. The big difference we note today is that when a grandparent is looking after and bringing up a child, they will be much older than they would have been two generations ago. People start their families now in their late 20s and 30s, and sometimes late 30s, whereas going back two generations ago it would be in their 20s. So there is a much bigger age difference between the grandparents and the grandchildren, and that is pretty difficult to deal with sometimes. Having three children of my own, I know how difficult it can be, without being a grandparent, trying to look after them.

When we are talking about clothing allowances for young children in particular, being, as I said, a parent, I know how hard kids can be, particularly boys, on their clothes. It is an expensive business trying to buy school uniforms for them and to keep those up to date, let alone all the other clothes they wear—sports uniforms and all that sort of thing. In regard to the implementation of the bill being pushed out to 2018, when you are talking about gathering tax from taxpayers and redistributing it to people in need or to provide the goods and services that Governments provide on our behalf, you really have to walk a delicate line. If you go too far and tax people too heavily, they will put too much effort into trying to minimise their income tax liabilities. That has been shown many times around the world to have a perverse effect on the economy and to drag the economy down and hold everybody back, and we cannot do that.

Being in Government, being leaders, and being members of Parliament, we have to make tough decisions about how we balance out the needs of people and our ability to pay. The demand for Government funds is limitless but our ability to pay is very much limited, and we have to take those things into account when we pass laws. The Government is quite rightly taking a sort of whole-of-Government approach in looking at its welfare policies and how they might be implemented, and I think that is a really smart thing to do. So that is why there is a delay. We really need to do it properly, because simply bolting more things on in an ad hoc manner is really not good government, and that is what is driving the implementation of this bill.

I noted Poto Williams talking about Whānau Ora before and the other sorts of policies that go around it. Those are fantastic policies and they are all going to hit specific needs in different ways. The likes of Children’s Teams is another policy that is working very well in that way, and, I am proud to say, in Marlborough, which is the fourth place in New Zealand for Children’s Teams to be introduced. I believe that it is going to work very well and that it will help in this sort of area, particularly because those children will often be the ones who will need those services. When I was going around those various community groups, it struck me that there is quite an overlap in services and that often those people will grab a bit of service from here and another bit from another area, and it is not necessarily in the best interests of that particular child. So I think that having an overall approach is needed.

I am certainly supporting this bill and I think it will go through. The delay is needed because of balancing up all the policies and making sure that they all work together. But I do commend you, Tracey, for all the hard work that has gone into it, and it is a great pleasure to actually commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Bill read a second time.