Support for Children in Hardship Bill

I move, That the Support for Children in Hardship Bill be now read a second time. The Support for Children in Hardship Bill enacts this Government’s $790 million package to assist children living in severe hardship, and can I thank the Social Services Committee for its work on this bill. The package and the measures set out in the bill represent our strong and ongoing commitment to tackle the material hardship amongst children in low-income families, improve the lives of our most vulnerable, and get better outcomes for these children.

Over the past 6 years we have put in place a number of initiatives to support our most vulnerable children, and these include free GP visits and prescriptions for children under 13. We have expanded the Kick Start Breakfast programme to all primary and secondary schools. We have extended Social Workers in Schools to all decile 1 to 3 schools. We have introduced a suite of changes under the Vulnerable Children Act to protect and help vulnerable children to thrive, and we have developed the Children’s Action Plan to combat child abuse and neglect, including the roll-out of 10 children’s teams working with at-risk children and their families.

The measures in this bill build on our progress to date and reinforce the Government’s commitment to support this country’s most vulnerable children so that they have every opportunity to live successful lives. Firstly, the bill strengthens work expectations for sole parents and partners of beneficiaries. Once their youngest dependent child turns 3 they will be required to be available for, and to seek, part-time paid employment of 20 hours per week. Twenty hours of employment a week is enough for sole parents to be independent of benefits. With Working for Families tax credits a sole parent living in Tauranga and working 20 hours a week could be $192 a week better off than they were on a benefit.

The bill also increases financial assistance for low-income families in work and those on a benefit. From 1 April 2016 the main benefit rates for families with dependent children will increase by $25 per family per week, in addition to any inflation adjustments. The bill also increases Working for Families entitlements to assist children experiencing hardship in low-income working families. These changes will see the in-work tax credit increase from $60 to $72.50 per week, with the minimum family tax credit also lifting by $12 per week.

Can I again acknowledge the efforts of the Social Services Committee in its consideration of the bill, and I commend the committee for its work on this very important piece of legislation. The committee received 31 written submissions and heard 16 oral hearings on the bill from a number of organisations and people working with some of the most vulnerable children in our communities. Overall, submitters expressed clear support for the bill’s intent to improve the outcomes of children living in severe hardship, and like these submitters, we too have a strong desire to do better for these children. During the select committee’s consideration of the bill many submitters commended the Government for taking the steps to increase the main benefit for families with dependent children. The increase was seen as a significant and important change in helping those families meet the basic needs of their children.

The bill recognises that hardship is not just an issue for families reliant on the benefit system. It also impacts on low-income working families as well. Over one-third of children in hardship come from these families. The committee heard concerns from some submitters over the level of increase in financial support for beneficiary households with dependent children. This bill will enact the first increase to the benefit rate, outside of inflation adjustments, in over 40 years and is an approximately 8 percent lift in most sole parents’ base rate of benefit. This is a significant step and it will ensure that these households are in a much better position to provide the basic necessities that are critical to their children’s well-being.

Submitters were concerned about the level of the increase in Working for Families assistance, including the planned increase in the abatement rate of Working for Families tax credits. The changes to Working for Families are expected to benefit an estimated 203,000 working families, and 383,000 children. The increase to the abatement rate means the package is targeted at children in the lowest-income working families. To further support these households the Budget package provides for an increase in childcare assistance to $5 per hour, which will provide important financial relief and reduce the barrier to work that childcare costs can often be.

Submissions on the bill raised concerns around the extension of part-time work obligations, and in particular how these would be applied to consider the needs of families and their children. For most families the best way out of poverty is for parents to find sustainable full-time work. Many sole parents recognise this and are already choosing to return to work sooner. By the time their youngest child reaches 3, half of all sole parents and two-thirds of all partnered mothers are in paid employment in New Zealand. Over the last 20 years the largest gain in employment for all mothers has been in the group where the youngest child is aged 3 to 4. So the Government’s focus remains firmly on getting beneficiaries into employment, because a paid job offers a better future for those who are able to work and much better prospects for their children.

There was some suggestion made during the select committee process that steps should be taken to define “suitable employment” in legislation. This is an issue that was well canvassed during this Government’s welfare reforms in 2012. A rigid definition of “suitable employment” simply would not be practical, given the dynamic and changing nature of life that families experience. Under the extension of part-time work obligations, Work and Income will continue to exercise flexibility around the type of work that is suitable for a parent’s circumstances. Case managers will consider a range of factors, such as access to childcare, the nature and wages of work, location of employment, a parent’s skills and experience, and family commitments. Continuing with this flexibility will best support families by enabling the Ministry of Social Development to consider their specific circumstances in being able to move to paid employment.

In considering the bill, the Social Services Committee recommended two minor amendments. The first amendment relates to the definition of “part-time work” under the Social Security Act. The bill intends to increase part-time work obligations for work-ready parents only. It inadvertently also changes part-time work obligations and the capacity for work test for job seeker support clients with a sickness, injury, or disability. This was not Cabinet’s intent and the amendment clarifies that. The second minor amendment replaces references to supported living payment, or job seeker support, with the term “main benefit” under this bill. This amendment is needed to ensure that the benefit rate increase is correctly applied when a supported living payment or job seeker support beneficiary is partnered with someone on the emergency benefit. It will ensure that the $25 increase will be evenly split between both parents, providing greater clarity on how the benefit increase applies in this situation.

It is critical that we support our most vulnerable children so they are able to live rich and fulfilling lives, like the majority of other New Zealand children. This Government continues to embark on its ambitious programme to improve the lives of vulnerable New Zealand children. The measures in this bill form an important part of the Government’s ongoing plan to support those children. We are committed to doing better for our children, and this bill represents a significant step towards ensuring we deliver on this. I commend the Support for Children in Hardship Bill to the House.

I rise to lend Labour’s support to the Support for Children in Hardship Bill at its second reading. But, as is the way of this Government, this is really the Government doing as little as it can possibly get away with, while trying to ease its own conscience about the large increase in children living in poverty under its watch. And although this bill is not going to address the issue, the Labour Party will support it because doing something is better than doing nothing. But that is about the best that I can say about this bill, because, in fact, it will not address the issue that the Government purports that it will address.

The Government and the Minister for Social Development, who just spoke are trying to paint a picture where this bill is going to lift children out of poverty. Well, in fact, what the Social Services Committee found was that for each family, and, actually, for the small number of families who are going to be entitled to this $25-a-week increase in their income, the per-family rate will end up being $23.10 a week that they are going to be entitled to. When we think about where this bill is targeted, this bill is targeted at the families who are in the most severe hardship. They are severely below the poverty line. And so, in thinking about that, although it is going to make a little difference, $23.10 for that whole family is not going to lift any of those children out of poverty. It will alleviate things a little, but not a lot, so it is not going to fundamentally address the issue.

Sadly, in Aotearoa New Zealand, a food-producing nation, 305,000 children live in poverty in this country. That is a disgrace. That is something that none of us should tolerate and that we should not feel at all pleased about. The National Government, for three elections in a row, has promised a brighter future—it promised a brighter future. What is the result? There are 305,000 children in this country living in poverty. That is a disgrace. That is an utter disgrace. And the best the Government can do is, at this late stage, start offering $23.10 for these families to try to claw their way out of poverty. But, at the same time, National has got housing costs policies going through the roof—that Government’s policies have got housing costs going through the roof—it has got childcare costs going through the roof, and it has got all of these increased pressures on families. And the best the Government can do is offer $23.10 per week to the families who are in the most severe hardship.

💬 Jono Naylor: Ha, ha!

Well, it is all about priorities. Government members are laughing about it, but it is all about priorities. What do we hear the Prime Minister spending most of his time talking about? He is talking about a flag referendum and spending millions of dollars on that. He is talking about cuddly, cute pandas and spending millions of dollars on that. But when it comes to addressing children in hardship, the Government does not have an awful lot to say or an awful lot to offer.

There are measures in this bill that will make things a tiny little bit better, but there are measures in this bill that will harm families. I am going to talk now for a few minutes about this new requirement for families in receipt of benefits and social welfare payments, when their youngest child turns 3, to go out and be forced to find part-time work of, now, 20 hours a week. So I want the people of New Zealand to think about where these jobs are. Where are these jobs? Yesterday, the unemployment figure increased to 6 percent for the whole country. But in my region, in the Waikato region, it increased to 6.7 percent. That increased by 1.7 percent over the course of just the last 3 months. That means that 3,800 more people in the Waikato are out of jobs now who were not 3 months ago. So where are these 20-hour-a-week jobs that all of these women, primarily, are going to be forced to go out and find when their youngest child turns 3? Where are they? What sorts of jobs are they?

Well, here is my guess: the sorts of jobs they are being forced to accept because of this provision under this mean-spirited Government are the zero-hour contract jobs that the Government purports to be against. In fact, in another piece of legislation it is codifying it to make it legal for people to be required to work these zero-hour contract jobs. Those are the jobs that these women are going to be forced to accept: jobs with no security, jobs with no certainty over income—and then the $23.10 a week is going to start looking pretty sick. It is going to be looking pretty sick indeed, because that is the mechanism that this Government is using to force people into less and less secure environments—less ability to provide for their children, less ability to plan for the future.

Try going to ask for a mortgage at a bank with a zero-hour contract job, because the first thing the bank is going to ask you—the first thing many financial lending institutions ask, and the first thing many places where you get financial support ask you—is what is your weekly income. For many of these women, who will be forced to go out and look for these jobs and accept them when their youngest child turns 3, they will be forced on to these sorts of insecure jobs.

What is that going to mean for their family lives? What it is going to mean is that they are going to be required to make themselves available but have no certainty of work. They are going to need to find childcare and not have any certainty that they are going to actually get the income that allows them to pay for that childcare. So these are the very real situations that all of these most vulnerable families are going to be forced into as a result of this legislation.

If the Government was serious about lifting children out of poverty, then it would look to the sorts of policies that the Labour Party has put forward. I am going to spend a couple minutes talking about our Best Start package, because if the Government was serious about this, it would look to a comprehensive package like the one that is proposed by the Labour Party—that is, that every child—

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: How’s that package going with the public?

Well, how is the package going? I am going to test it out right now, Mr Williamson, because this is the package that would really make a difference: $60 a week extra per child for every child under 12 months of age—for every child under 12 months of age. The Government asks—because this is the only thing that the National Government can think about—how the country can afford that. How can the country afford its failed policies that are actually increasing unemployment and not getting us anywhere very fast? How can the Government sit there and be proud of its record when, in fact, all of its policies, right here, right now, are demonstrably failing—they are demonstrably failing.

So $60 a week for every child up to the age of 12 months, and for those families at the lowest end of the spectrum, that $60-a-week payment would continue up until that child’s third birthday. That would make a difference. If I was the Minister who just resumed her seat—she should feel ashamed. She should feel ashamed. She got up there and proudly said that a third of the families in the severe hardship category are from families where the parents are in paid employment. Shame—shame on the National Government that you believe that that is OK. It is the National Government’s policies that have a third of the people in the severest hardship out working—those children have their parents out working. Their parents are in these zero-hour contract arrangements, and these parents are being forced out to find these inadequate, insecure jobs once their children turn 3, and that is nothing to be proud of.

I am sorry. I neglected to ring the 2-minute bell, but you have had more than 10 minutes. That was the concession for my faux pas.

There was a time when in the Labour Party its strength was actually being able to talk and being able to plan and to initiate social policy that was in much need by the New Zealand community and New Zealand society as a whole. After that last speech it is no wonder that there has been a struggle, because that member, Sue Moroney, was not part of the Social Services Committee to read the 31 submissions and hear the 17 oral submissions.

💬 Sue Moroney: I still know what’s right and what’s wrong, Alfred.

That member did not speak on the bill, and when that member began to turn round and attack this bill, let me remind that member about this thing. I remind the member not to worry; the people at home can hear only my voice and not hers, so good for them. The thing is this: this member here should have been at the poverty debate that I was at where Ms Jacinda Ardern got up and spoke. When she was challenged about the children in poverty during the 9 years of a Labour Government, and when she was challenged about the fact that the state of the nation reports by the Salvation Army condemned and criticised the Labour Government for not doing enough, and criticised it for the so-called wealth that it had available to it, saying that it did not make a difference to the issues of poverty, here was the response that Mrs Moroney might want to listen to—Ms Ardern’s reply to those questions. This was her response: “Well, it was a job unfinished. It was a job that we did not complete.” Those were her exact words. In other words, in 9 years—when you had plenty, when you had enough, when you could have gone and you could have reduced the amount of poverty of children—that previous speaker did nothing. So it is with arrogance that that member stands up and uses the word “shame”.

We know that there are children in hardship. We know that is important. Those members over there—if they stop, if they do their homework, and if they look back into their own past—will realise that they had also failed in addressing this issue.

I want to talk about what this Government is doing to address the issue of children in hardship. I must say, though, that as a select committee hearing those submissions, we came to a point where there was unanimous support for the bill heading into a second reading and third reading back in the House. Why? Yes, we know that the fact is that for some it did not go quite the way they wanted. However, the intention was right. The direction that this Government was moving in to increase the base benefit rate, which had not been increased since 1972, was the right one. So we got the support that we believe is important to this bill.

This is part of the Government’s Budget package in 2015 addressing the issues of children in hardship—$790 million over 4 years. It is a significant investment. It is an investment in which we want to get to a point where we cannot say that it is a job unfinished, but we also know that poverty is a difficult issue, and it is a challenging issue for all Governments right throughout the world as well.

I want to return to the regulatory impact statement—[Interruption] The member may not have read that. I do not think that previous member, that previous speaker, had read the regulatory impact statement. It talks about the meaning of “poverty”, the definition of “poverty”. But it also talks—because that member also talked about 305,000 kids in poverty. Well, if that member bothered to read the regulatory impact statement, here is what it says. But that member does not—it says this. So what do we know about child poverty and material hardship? How many children are in poverty or in hardship? There are no simple or single-figure answers to that question that would command respect or support. That is right—this is from the regulatory impact statement, which clearly defines it. Why? Because you can bandy about 305,000 as a figure that you can cite and leverage support for out there in the community, but the question you have to ask is this: how many are really in that continuum of poverty and hardship that we need to address, and who do we need to provide that support to? That is what this Government is doing. It is targeting its support in the right place, in the right way, because we know there is need for that.

Here are the key elements in this bill, as it returns to the House, that we know are important in addressing the issues of poverty. In fact, when it defines “poverty”, it defines it in three ways. It talks particularly about the issues of hardship and difficulty in a home. There are three things—firstly, low household incomes; secondly, it talks about the demands to meet the needs of budgeting in that house; and thirdly, which is probably the most challenging, is this: the ability to use your household income in appropriate ways. In other words, it often has to deal with people’s attitudes towards the household income. We do not often talk about that, but that has come into the regulatory impact statement.

What this Government is doing in this bill is important to address those issues, and here is what the Government is doing: it is strengthening work availability obligations for beneficiary parents. We know—the research has shown—that those who stayed longer on benefits would often come to a point where, actually, it becomes more difficult for them to provide a better future and better incomes for their children. We think that is important. Lowering the age of the youngest dependent child at which part-time work search obligations are work-tested for beneficiaries will go from 5 years to 3 years. Changing the target hours of part-time work from 15 to 20 hours—we know that the intention of this is important. We can see that this is a way of actually helping those families. It is targeted at those who are in need—sole parents. We have wrapped round support, we have raised the benefit levels, and we have also increased the abatement levels in there.

This package is not the answer to all things, but it is definitely, as in the words of the Opposition, support in the right direction. So I commend this bill in its second reading to the House.

I am a bit concerned about the way this debate is going, based on the contribution of the previous member, Alfred Ngaro. The member failed to admit that when Labour was last in Government, we recognised that poverty was not an easy issue to address. It was systemic, but there was a whole range of other initiatives that Labour addressed to help alleviate some of the biggest pressures facing vulnerable families.

Let us look at some of them. Income-related rentals—we ensured that in the State housing sector those families that were on low incomes and were the most vulnerable had access to income-related rentals, paying no more than 25 percent in some instances. It made a huge difference in communities, and we certainly did not sell the houses off. The other thing that we did was we introduced 20 hours’ free early childhood education, so that parents had access to quality early childhood education and had the guarantee of a qualified early childhood education teacher. If that is not investing in the future, I do not know what is.

But we also reinstated the training incentive allowance. I campaigned in 1996 when National was in Government, and it did away with it. Labour promised it would bring it back, because it knew that by investing in women and ensuring that they had pathways back into education, it was going to help lift opportunities for the most vulnerable families and get them on a pathway to sustainable employment.

💬 Hon David Parker: Working for Families.

Labour also introduced Working for Families, and we ensured that those people who were on the pathway to sustainable employment could also get the type of support that would guarantee a lift up and a hand up, not a handout. We know the importance of getting people into employment, and we had in our region alone—myself and Sue Moroney, in the region of the Waikato—unemployment at its lowest. Unemployment was down to 3.2 percent—at its lowest—and that is where the rubber hits the road for us, because we know what the benefits of Labour’s contribution in the last 9 years of our Government looked like for families in need.

Statistics do matter, and the numbers tell a very serious truth. Here is where the rubber hits the road for me: 97,000 Māori aged 18 to 64 years and their household whānau are welfare-reliant right now. Right now 26 percent of Māori adults are welfare-reliant, and that is a shame because in the last quarter there has been no movement, right to this minute. Today in question time we challenged the Government because Māori unemployment currently sits at 12.9 percent. That is a shame because when we look at this bill, the Support the Children in Hardship Bill, which looks at work provisions, we cannot deny that the Government has failed to address the issue of job creation, because unemployment is going up, certainly for Māori.

The previous speaker spoke about being more conscious of household income. Well, here is where the rubber hits the road for Māori. The median Māori household income is $28,000, 15 percent lower than any other group. So there is not a heck of a lot of disposable income, and, if this bill is going to help those most vulnerable, I know where the great majority of the whānau that he is talking about are, and that is in many of the communities that we represent. More important—and the member Sue Moroney made this very significant point—more children are living in poverty. Let us look at the numbers. Around 33 percent of Māori are living in poverty—around about 215,000 people, 94,000 of whom are Māori. It is unbelievable.

When the Government talks about “material hardship”, I think it is a convenient term. It cannot get away from the fact that there are a number of families in our communities who want work. So when they look at the 20 hours’ work provision in this bill, where are the jobs? For those mothers who have children, who want to work, where are the jobs? And if they do not have access to a car and have to travel 30 kilometres away on public transport to get that 20-hour job, what childcare provisions are available in their small town to get that job?

Then we have got to ask ourselves: is this the best way, in and of itself, to alleviate poverty? The simple answer is no. It is something, but in and of itself it is not the best way. There are far too many things happening that negate the benefits that the Government is promoting around the Support for Children in Hardship Bill. The insecurity of work for a lot of vulnerable families makes them more prone to the whim of their employer, and this is really difficult. I come up against this a lot. In fact, I visited a school and I talked to a mother who had four children. She is working, and she is very proud of the fact that she is working, but she does not consider it a stable job. She believes that at any minute her employer could just tell her to walk. She has got four mouths to feed. Her and her husband’s combined income does not earn them more than $40,000 a year. They consider themselves proud people who will work, but that kind of environment makes it very difficult.

This bill, as I said, has made a number of considerations and, as the Minister for Social Development has pointed to, a number of changes to the definition of “part-time work”. I can only say that in reading it—and I am not a member of the Social Services Committee—I have to ask the serious question: is this a part of a systemic approach to addressing the issues of poverty? Because the chair of the select committee, Alfred Ngaro, himself said that these are big issues. There is no single answer, and if there is no single answer, we cannot debate this issue in isolation from all the other aspects of poverty that impact on how families are feeling the struggle. And the struggle is real today—the struggle is real today.

I read with interest some of the submissions, but also some of the comments, and it would seem to me that by investing in other aspects of those raising vulnerable children there could be other ways to improve circumstances. Again, I would make comment about the training incentive allowance. What greater investment could be done than to ensure that women raising children had access to the training incentive allowance to lift their skills and lift their opportunities? They have got a Cabinet Minister who has had this very direct experience, yet that is not a reality for a number of families who the Government purports to support.

The other thing is the value of volunteer contribution. Again, I come across a lot of young mums who try to help out at the local kōhanga or the local early childhood education centre, and they believe that contributing there, getting their confidence up, and being able to learn the parenting skills from that type of environment is about contributing not only to that community of children but also, more important, fundamentally, to their own raising of their child. These are the types of unseen investments that the country, or even the Government, could recognise make an equal, satisfactory contribution to the raising of children who can reach their potential—not just simply a $25 increase. Yes, it is a start, but is it everything? No, it is not.

Will Labour support it? Yes, we will, recognising that the issues around poverty are systemic. This is not a blame game, but this is a very serious challenge, if the Government really believes in what it is saying, to set targets to eliminate and reduce child poverty now. Do not wait—do not wait and then just sit there glibly and blame Labour when we were last in Government. Let us do something about it. Let us, across Parliament, agree that targets are necessary. Let us look at the range of policies that will alleviate poverty, so that we are not debating this issue in another 3 years’ time but are actually tracking on how policies are fundamentally reducing poverty and fundamentally improving the lives of young people. That is what the children’s policy under Labour attempts to do: look at the issue systemically and try to ensure that we can track progress.

This is a second reading. No doubt the Committee stage will be robust. I look forward to ensuring that we have a fruitful debate around the broader issues of poverty and where, in context, this bill actually will or will not make a difference. Kia ora.

It is an honour to rise and speak in support of the second reading of the Support for Children in Hardship Bill. Just picking up where that last member, Nanaia Mahuta, finished, I agree: it is a very complex issue, and one that we need to work across both sides of the House on. I feel that is where we landed with this bill after our Social Services Committee work: that across the parties we felt that the intent of the bill was correct and we were working through the detail.

I must say for myself that like many young New Zealanders I had the fortunate experience of going overseas on my OE, and it gave me a great understanding and experience to understand a range of other countries and the levels of aspiration and the levels of quality of living that young people grow up with in other countries. It really made me proud to be able to come back to a country like New Zealand and bring up my kids here. The reality for some young people in New Zealand is, though, that they do not start off on the right foot and they will not enjoy the many qualities of life that the average New Zealand child will enjoy. I think it is right that this Government is putting in place measures to address that.

What we need to do is stay focused on the facts. We know international research, and it is demonstrated in the departmental report, has identified that the most effective way of reducing the risk of family poverty, enhancing child development, and generally giving the best possible start in life is getting into paid work. That is something we need to be supporting. The Salvation Army state of the nation report identified that the decrease in child poverty, the decrease in the numbers presenting to food banks, was in exact correlation to job creation. We know that this Government is working hard, and can do better at creating jobs now and in the future. It is right that we are focusing on a bill that will support beneficiaries getting into employment and provide the support they need—the childcare support.

One of the main arguments that we had through the submissions process—we received about 31 submissions, 15 of them orally—was about the tension of children, infants to the age of 3, going into early childhood education. But we listened to Russell Wills, the Children’s Commissioner, and he identified that, actually, that is the average age that infants are going in—at the age of 3. He wrote that participation in high-quality childcare is beneficial for children, particularly if they are disadvantaged and live in hardship. That is very much the intent of this bill. So I wholeheartedly support it, and look forward to it going through the further legislative process. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I think it is important to start this speech with the voices of New Zealand children, provided through a report by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, describing what poverty means for them. So I am going to quote from children in this country: “Sleep on the floor—wooden floor.”; “No power—can’t pay their bills—can’t cook, no heating.”; “Not enough money to pay for basketball fees/sports.”; “You can’t go to the pools and learn to swim.”; “Scavenging for food just to eat for a night.”; “You get bullied because of your appearance—they look at your clothes and mock you.” This is currently the reality for thousands of children in this country right now.

If I am honest, I feel like I am swallowing a bit of a dead rat standing here today to vote in support of this misnamed bill, the Support for Children in Hardship Bill. This bill pretends to support children in hardship, when the reality is that it represents a conscious decision by Minister Tolley and the Government to not move children out of poverty. What this bill does instead is take money from struggling families to provide an average of $23.10 per week to our most poor families and to provide an additional $12 a week in tax credits for 4,000 families. That is deeply, deeply frustrating to me.

There are 305,000 children in poverty in this country. Two out of five of these children have working parents. Otago University research shows that 60 children a year are dying of low income - related diseases in this country. The Government was told that to lift any—not all, not even most, but any—children whose parents are unable to work out of poverty, above the accepted poverty lines, it needed to increase benefits by an absolute minimum of $30 a week. Instead, it chose to offer us benefit increases of an average of $23.10 per week. It would have cost only a few more dollars a week to be able to get at least some of those children over the line and out of poverty. I believe it does an absolute disservice to us as a country, and to our concern for our children, to offer that amount.

The Government is saying to us as a country that these tiny increases reflect our collective concerns for those thousands of children sleeping on floors and scavenging for food. Well, it does not reflect the Green Party’s concern, and it did not reflect the concern of submitters who wanted a comprehensive solution, a brave solution, to address these problems. We are supporting this bill today because we cannot vote against that extra $23 and $12 for those families who today have empty fridges, for those children who are scavenging for dinner. But this in no way reflects what we think is right. If I try to detach from my emotion on this issue, I can acknowledge that this inadequate increase is at least a formal acknowledgment of the State’s responsibility for alleviating child poverty, and that is something.

But the Government is taking from the poor to pay the poorest. By increasing the Working for Families abatement rate and lowering the threshold for Working for Families, the Child Poverty Action Group pointed out, the Government is failing to protect the working poor. In fact, by its calculations a family earning the minimum wage, working 60 hours a week, getting $46,000 a year, will now be over $2,000 a year worse off. These are poor families, from whom this Government is taking their money to pay the absolute poorest, when some of us in this House could actually afford a bit of our income. People on our incomes could afford to pay a bit more tax to be able to address child poverty in this country. It should not be taken from the working poor.

Anne Tolley has said that she will only do this pitiful bit to help our children if their parents do more in return. Let us be clear: this is more for the Government, not more for their kids. The Government is saying that in return for a small contribution from the Government, parents need to give up their right to choose how to parent their children. They will be required to look for 20 hours of work a week from the time their children are 3. This policy, really—the underlying message of it—is that these families are work-shy and ignorant of what is best for their children. And we heard from the Minister for Social Development that there will be discretion here—Work and Income will make the decision on whether it is appropriate work for that family, not that parent. The Minister thinks Work and Income is best placed to decide on what is appropriate for the needs of a child.

We heard from the previous speaker that the Children’s Commissioner acknowledged that the average time that parents go back into the workforce is when their child is 3. Sure, but that is missing the difference between shared parenting and sole parenting. It is missing the difference between the reasons why so many people are on Work and Income benefits due to family breakdown and the needs of different children. There will be children in this situation who have disabilities, for whom Work and Income will decide, on behalf of their parents, how much time the parent can spend with them—taking that choice away from parents. It will be over 14,000—that is a horrible under-estimation. Families are leaving violent relationships, and I know, from having worked with those families, that their children need them. For a Work and Income officer, who has no knowledge of those children, to decide when it is appropriate for that parent to be going back into work and losing that relationship and ability to be on Work and Income assistance is, frankly, wrong.

And we are further concerned that making parents look for that 20 hours of work a week may compromise their ability to participate in kohanga reo, aoga amata, or Playcentre models of early childhood education, which require substantial parental involvement. As has been pointed out by a previous speaker, these models have substantial benefits to families. And we believe that the right to participate in those models needs to be protected.

There is so much awfulness in this bill. The decision to increase an assistance to be per family, and not per child, is going to lock in ethnic and financial inequality, because we actually know that New Zealand is blessed in some ways, that we are protected from the very worst of the ageing population crisis faced by other OECD countries by the higher birth rates for Māori and Pasifika. But that means the families are larger, and they face institutional discrimination that is blocking them out of the workforce. So their children—while we should be nurturing them because they are the future of our country and our workforce, we are going to be penalising those families, compared with smaller families of other ethnicities. That will have a long-term cost for us.

There is so much more I could say, but I want to wind up now with more words from children about what they want from us. This is another quote from the Children’s Commissioner’s report. They say: “Everyone is equal. We have the same potential as everyone else. Don’t put barriers in front of us and don’t leave us in the ditch. Help and support us, our families and communities. How can they [the Government] expect us to look after this place, New Zealand, in the future if they are looking down on us …”. This bill hands snacks to children in the ditch. By supporting this bill we are supporting children’s right to eat, but we are deeply offended that we are being asked to leave them and their parents in the ditch.

It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak in the second reading of the Support for Children in Hardship Bill. We will be supporting this bill during this stage, but I believe that the title of the bill is a bit of a misnomer when it is concentrating on children, because in fact it is not, and a very fundamental reason why is that the benefit increase is not being directed at children at all. It is being directed at the families, or the individuals within those families, and that opens itself up to a massive flaw from the get-go. If you have got a larger family, the children themselves, individually, get less of a benefit. That is to start off with.

It seems to me like this Government brought in this legislation more for the point of wanting to hang its hat on the fact that it is the first Government to increase the benefits for 43-odd years, because every time a National member stands up, that is exactly what they say. But what they do not mention is the fact that in 1991 a National-led Government slashed the benefits by around 25 percent, or a third. And if we are looking at the most vulnerable children in this country right now, it is not only those children who are in benefit income families but also, in fact, those children in sole-parent benefit families. If you actually have a look at the statistics, in 1990 a sole parent benefit was around 77 percent of the average wage, and if you have a look at year by year, going down through to this year, this year it is only around 50 or 51 percent of the average wage. So when you have got the Government saying that it is the first Government in 43 years to increase the benefit—

💬 Todd Muller: It’s because we are.

Yes, but how much was it cut in 1991 and how much of the gap has spread since then? It is a token gesture at best.

The Minister actually said in her speech that the vast majority of submissions and people who came in actually agreed with the bill and the intent of the bill, and of course they did, because it is not necessarily that they agreed with the legislation or the intent; it is that they agreed that there is a need there and they are desperate for that need. And of course they are going to take anything that they can because that gap that they are in is really forced poverty or supported poverty, like I said in my first reading speech. It is supported poverty. This Government is currently supporting people on the benefit, especially sole parent benefits, to be in poverty.

This is actually an opportunity that the Government has squandered, to address child poverty directly. When we hear the term “child poverty”, it actually is a little bit more than that, because every child who is in poverty is in a family that is in poverty. On a bigger scale, if a family is in poverty, then so is the community itself, so it gets even bigger, to a nationwide level of poverty. That does not mean that every single individual within that nation is in poverty, but the policies that are implemented at the national level do affect the poverty down at the other end. At the moment this legislation is just tapping at the symptoms of the issues of poverty that we have in this country.

At the very bottom are the sole parents, as I mentioned. This should not really be a discussion or a justification of giving a handout to beneficiaries, but, unfortunately, this is what it has become. We have got a justification for increasing benefits and why we need to increase benefits or why we should not increase benefits, and that we are doing a good thing by doing that in the first place. If it was actually about lifting children out of poverty, it would be a lot more comprehensive. The amount that the benefit is increased would be a lot more than just $25—and, of course, as we have heard, it is not actually $25; it is a lot less than that, and it is not per child. It is not for the individual children; it is for the families.

I would just like to read a couple of points that I would like to make out of the minority report that was submitted. It states in there that families with more than one child is where the hardship is likely to be more significant. The Children’s Commissioner himself actually said that the amount of about $12.50—for example, if there were two parents both on benefits, they will be getting $12.50 each—will not incentivise a parent to leave a benefit, given the high cost of quality childcare being a barrier. One of those main barriers is that childcare cost.

We have actually heard recently—I think there was an article within the last sort of week or two where an individual on the benefit did a calculation, and, in fact, they would be better off, technically, on a benefit rather than going and finding work because of all those hidden costs; because of the childcare, because of the petrol costs. So this legislation, although we agree with the intent—just like every other submitter agrees with the intent of the bill—it is the lack of robustness in the legislation that we disagree with. It lends itself to having flaws. We support the recommended change by the officials to amend the proposed definition of “part-time work”, being that it is retained at 15 hours for job seekers with sickness, injury, or disability.

Alfred Ngaro looked at the regulatory impact statement. I will do the same. There are a couple of things that I would like to highlight out of it in the components of the final package itself. It says that there are 108,000 beneficiaries who on average would gain around $23.10. Of course, that is not beneficiaries themselves—it is actually the entire family who would gain that. But, hidden right down the bottom in small print—in fine print, literally—it says that there is actually an increase in the rent that social housing tenants receiving a benefit will pay, so “The Income Related Rent charged to social housing tenants is set at 25% of their income” and their rent will actually increase by over $6. That was in the fine print. So if this legislation was actually a robust piece of legislation and wanting to fulfil the intent, then those sorts of things would not occur.

Across the page in the net impacts of the package it states, concerningly, that “As a result of the benefit rate change, around 4,000 non-beneficiary households will see a small decrease in weekly income from the Accommodation Supplement …”. In fact, it goes on to say “that sole parent families will benefit more than couples from the benefit increase”. So that actually proves a couple of things. One is that although some individuals will have the increase, and it is much needed, there are also families that will have a decrease because of this legislation—not only that but some families will benefit more or less depending on how many children they have. That actually points to the fact that this is not legislation that is aimed directly at the children. It is actually aimed at the main beneficiary themselves.

Just looking very quickly at a couple of the submitters, the Every Child Counts campaign submitted a two-page submission. I have highlighted one of the main points. It highlights the fact that this is not a child poverty issue; this is a community and a family issue. It recommended that along with this legislation there should be a sustained programme of work across a range of areas. It noted that Māori and Pasifika are disproportionally represented in child poverty, that resources and support for community-led development needed to be included, and that there needed to be adequate income, affordable housing, support for parents, and accessible and quality early childhood education. So there are a number of things that have been left out of this legislation.

Right at the start I said that the Government had the potential here to actually really have a good go at addressing child poverty but it has been squandered a bit. New Zealand First will support this legislation at this stage of the process. I will be looking forward to having a go during the Committee stage. Thank you.

I rise for a short call in the second reading of the Support for Children in Hardship Bill. We had 31 submissions, and 16 then submitted in person. All—every single one of them; that may well have been lost in the narrative to date—were generally supportive of the intent of this bill to improve the lives of New Zealand children living in material hardship. If I can quote just one submission from the Child Poverty Action Group, not known for its echoing of the National Government’s direction, it said: “CPAG is pleased that the government has acknowledged the role adequate income plays in child outcomes and is pleased that there is no attempt in this Bill to confine the increased income to only those children exhibiting hardship.” So from all quarters we have had unanimous support that the intent of this bill was heading in the right direction.

I have to acknowledge that there were, of course, two or three areas that had some debate and concern covering obligations and the nature of the support that is proposed, and I particularly want to talk about the obligations this afternoon. The specifics that were raised through the select committee process related to the obligations that we now have on sole parent support beneficiaries and partners of those same beneficiaries around lowering the age of the youngest child at which the part-time work obligations kick in—from 5 to 3 years—and changing the hours of work required to meet that part-time work test from 15 hours to 20 hours.

You have already heard in this debate this afternoon some highly emotive and, I think, quite extreme responses to those sensible obligations to ensure that when your youngest is 3, you ready yourself to get back into the New Zealand workforce. Through the debate I was significantly convinced by the advocacy of Dr Russell Wills, the Children’s Commissioner, who, when talking to this point specifically, said: “The research indicates that a parent obtaining full-time paid employment with sufficient earnings is the most important event to lift children out of poverty.”

He then went on to say in respect of the obligations around moving from 5 years to 3 years—and although this is a significant quote, it is worth adding to this debate this afternoon. This is again from the Children’s Commissioner: “I can’t see a good reason for the age of return to the workforce being different to people who are currently working than parents who are going to work for the first time from a benefit. Therefore, 3 years old is a reasonable choice, and 20 hours of work will increase that connection to work.” So this is the Children’s Commissioner—whose report has been echoed here this afternoon ad nauseam—speaking very clearly, without debate, that the move from 5 years to 3 years and the move from 15 hours to 20 hours are appropriate for New Zealand and are appropriate for this group to connect them back to the New Zealand economy because that is how they lift themselves and their families out of poverty. That is why we have this policy in place and why it enjoys the support not only, I am sure, ultimately of this House but of the wider country.

Finally, I would like to make a couple of points in respect of the concern that was raised around the obligations that we have of putting people back into suitable work and some concern around what suitability looked like. In my view there was far too much of a paternalistic view from the other side that jobs needed to look a particular way otherwise it simply was not appropriate for people to put themselves forward for such part-time work, as if somehow the Labour Opposition knows a view of what works best for people out there. It is paternalism at its highest order.

I do want to make a final point around flexibility. It is absolutely clear that there already exists a highly flexible approach from Work and Income that looks at the individual, looks at the family situation, looks at the part-time work that is on the table and puts a sensible solution together that works for them, works for their family, and works for the country. I strongly support this bill.

It is with no great pleasure that I take a call on this piece of legislation, the Support for Children in Hardship Bill. As my colleague Jan Logie has said, we are supporting this bill, but simply because it would be perverse not to support even the most begrudging, parsimonious increase in support for our least well-off families—for our least well-off children. The previous speaker made the comment that there was unanimous support for the intent of the bill, and I would be very surprised if there were not unanimous support for the intent of better supporting our least well-off children. It is in the implementation where this Government and this bill fail badly. It is all about the appearance of giving more support to our least well off, and it is very, very thin on substance.

Equally thin is the boast we have heard ad nauseam—if I may borrow that phrase—from our members in the Government about being the first Government in “x” number of years to increase benefits. It is a good thing to increase benefits, but such a parsimonious, begrudging approach to this—it is a very blaming sort of approach to suggest that the responsibility invariably rests with people in the position of being amongst our least well off. The Greens believe that we need policies that actually contribute to children’s well-being—to put children first, in fact.

I am reminded that in the 1980s, when there was a significant and very interesting debate about the establishment of what eventually became the Ministry for the Environment—there was the proposition that something like the Ministry for the Environment should exist; I think it was referred to as the “Ministry in the Middle”—there was the idea that all Government policy and all proposed legislation should pass through the filter of “Is this going to have positive environmental outcomes?”. As we know, unfortunately that is not how the Ministry for the Environment evolved. I do wonder whether it would be valuable if we could apply a similar lens to all legislation going through this House—“Is this going to benefit our children, collectively and individually?”. Would that not be a really powerful and useful way to interrogate proposed legislation? Put that lens over it: is it good for our children? Frankly, I think that this legislation would, at best, get a very marginal C minus—it certainly would not be in the B’s or the A’s.

One of the provisions that have been talked about is the fact that the point at which work-testing of parents will kick in is when the youngest child is 3 years old. I think that that is an unrealistic blanket application. It is true. Actually, I recently spoke, just a matter of a day or two ago, to a woman who is returning to the workforce. Her children, from memory, are 4½ and perhaps nearly 3. She is returning to a well-paid professional job. Her husband is in good employment where he has some flexibility. The woman whom I referred to is also coming back on a part-time basis, with a degree of flexibility. That is a very happy situation. She is wanting to get back into her career, and good on her for doing that. She is assured of high-quality childcare for her kids for the time that she is at work. That will absolutely not be the situation for many of the people with children as young as 3 years old who are forced into this work-testing regime.

Children at 3 are still very high needs. I know this. I am blessed to have two 2½-year-old granddaughters and they are in need of constant attention and constant stimulation and—dare I say it—some wrangling. It is a privilege and I enjoy it a great deal, as do their parents most of the time. But to impose this 3-year limit on people, I think, is unreasonable. It borders, I think, on the inhumane. It does not recognise the reality that some families do not have access to even part-time work that is even modestly well paid.

I live in Northland and would not choose to live anywhere else. But a lot of our least well-off families who are dependent, for the moment at least, on benefits will be seriously disadvantaged by this determination that they must begin looking for work when their children are as young as 3. Access to work itself in an area with still, sadly, the highest levels of unemployment in New Zealand—physical access, transport to work, getting there, looking after a number of children, getting quality childcare for a number of children based on the income you might extract from part-time work in a fairly low-income environment—is simply not the reality. It is not true; it is not going to occur that way. We need to do a great deal better and the Greens in Government will. Kia ora.

Ā, tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā tātau katoa. Ka tīmata ake ahau i taku kōrero i te ahiahi nei me te kōrero kīwaha o te iwi Māori: “Pai ake tēnei i te kore noa iho!”. I just wanted to preface my contribution this afternoon with a well-known Māori expression: “Oh well, I guess this is better than getting nothing!”. It has been well talked about this afternoon that this is really just a drop in the bucket.

I want to just touch on the comment made by Mr Muller about how most of the 31 submitters on the Support for Children in Hardship Bill support the intent of it. Well, I have sat in this House for just over a year now and I have heard from the other side of the House how good policy is about supporting the outcomes and not the intent. I look across and I wonder: “Well, jeez, you know—I don’t think they got that one right.” It would also appear that that is the case when I consider the submissions that were made on this particular bill. All of the submitters came in with the belief of my opening comment that, well, this is actually better than nothing. So we are willing to support it on the basis that at least some of our whānau out there, some of our families, will get a little bit of something as opposed to getting nothing.

Most people in the House have spoken about the impacts it will have on family. I want to talk about just very briefly this juggernaut that is heaving, this juggernaut that is slow, this juggernaut that is certainly is not a slick machine. I am talking about Work and Income. It is going to be laboured with the job, with the task, of making decisions—and not only about this particular piece of legislation. It might interest the House that once upon a time in a former life I was a case manager at Work and Income, and I do know that the job that those case managers have is already really hard. It is hard not only because they are dealing with our people constantly but also because of the administrative responsibilities that are placed on them by the likes of this particular Government. This bill will add just another task to their everyday job.

I think about that job. So you walk into Work and Income, you sit down with a case manager, and that case manager with that particular client has to work out your eligibility for Housing New Zealand. Who gets to make the call on that? They do. They also have to work out your entitlements for the benefit. Who gets to make the call on that? They do. Now, all of a sudden, we are saying here that they get to define what it means to go into a job and what kind of job you enter into. So all of this has to be compacted into a half-hour interview—at maximum, 45 minutes—with a case manager at Work and Income, knowing full well that you have got a large caseload sitting in the waiting room. Most of them will have tamariki with them, who will be crying. They do not want to be there. I acknowledge that our people want to be out working. They want to feel empowered. They want to make sure that they are bringing home the bacon for their family. But I do not think this is the way. I do not think this is the way. So I do feel a little bit of aroha for my former colleagues of Work and Income, those who actually have to bear the brunt of policies and legislation such as this.

This House has mentioned and quoted my grandfather many times: “We’ve come too far not to go further.”, and “We’ve done too much not to do more.” There is another one of his that I quite like. It is: “Everyone is equal. However, some people are more equal than others.” I think that has been mentioned just a couple of times by our Green colleagues here in the House. When I thought about that particular statement as a young fellow, I did not exactly know what that meant at the time. I thought it had something to do with civil rights. Well, actually, now I have seen how it works. There is a poverty trap in this country and the gap between the haves and the have-nots is growing daily. Members of this House have mentioned the number of tamariki who are caught in poverty. They have mentioned all of our whānau who are out there struggling, and, sadly, this Government cannot see that. So I want to finish on what I started on, to close my contribution: “Pai ake tēnei i te kore!” [Better this than zilch!].

I just want to, if I can, take you back to 1972. At that time people were driving around in HQ Holdens. Our family was driving around in our Mark IV Zephyr. It was the year of the Munich Olympics. It was 2 years before those famous Commonwealth Games in Christchurch—for me that was a distant memory, I have got to say. For some of my colleagues here, I think that Ministers Guy and Lotu-Iiga were probably in nappies. It was the year that my colleague here Mr Doocey was born. That was a long time ago—1972—and yet that was the last time that a Government put up the real amount of benefits for beneficiaries in New Zealand.

I have heard people say today we should stop talking about that and that it seems parsimonious. Somebody else was saying that it was a National Government that cut the benefits, in another distant memory as well. But in order to do this—in order to this—it takes a certain level of management and over the last little while that we have been in Government it has not been possible, necessarily, to take this step, but we are now in a position where we are seeing a growth in the amount of wages. We are starting to see a bigger gap between wages and benefits. That means that we can actually start to raise these benefits.

I am proud to be a part of a Government that is bringing this into place, and to hear the negativity around the House today is, I think, sad because actually today is a day that we are actually doing something very positive to ensure that the vulnerable children in our communities will have a better chance at making it out of that poverty. There has been a lot of criticism to say: “Oh, this one thing isn’t going to do it. The Government is just barking up the wrong tree if they think this is going to do it.” But this is not the only thing that this Government is doing to ensure that our vulnerable young children will have better outcomes. There are going to be 750,000 Kiwi kids under 13 receiving free doctors visits. Ninety-four percent of 2-year-olds were immunised last year, whereas in 2007 a mere 67 percent of them were. We have insulated over a quarter of a million homes as well.

This bill is part of an ongoing package. It is part of an ongoing commitment of this Government to ensure that we are lifting people up from poverty; we are living people up into places where they can do better for themselves. I am really proud of what we are doing here. I am proud that we are starting to make some progress. This is a good bill. I wish we did not have so much sour grapes about it, but I am so glad that it is going to go through with such strong support and that we are going to see great things for young New Zealanders as we move forward.

I do want to start off on a positive note and say that, yes, we acknowledge on this side of the House that this bill will provide more money to low-income families. We acknowledge that, and this bill is a step in the right direction. But it is almost like taking one step forward and three steps back, because in other ways the Government’s policies have really impacted to make our families more vulnerable. But, as I say, I acknowledge that this bill is a step in the right direction

I just want to quote from many, many documents, including from the general policy statement in the commentary on the bill. It says: “The Government believes all New Zealand families and children should have the opportunity to live fulfilling lives. While most families do well, some struggle and their children may face a higher risk of poor outcomes.” To quote my colleague, it should be about the outcomes that are delivered at the end of the day, not the intent of the bill. We know from the technical report from the Child Poverty Monitor that somewhere in the region of 17 percent of children are in poverty and that about 10 percent of kids—one in 10—are in severe poverty. We know that they are going without the things they need, and the low incomes that their families receive mean that they do not have any opportunity to change this. So I want to echo what people have said: this is not just about putting a little bit more money into the pockets of low-income families; it is actually about a systemic, complete package and approach to dealing with the issues that these families and these children suffer.

This bill looks at changing the definition of part-time work from 15 hours to 20 hours a week. That is going to impact on the ability for, mostly, our mums to actually find part-time work. I know that from one of the submitters, the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, I think—and I have to say that we had a broad range of submitters; they were not from just the usual groups—which told us that there are over 100,000 part-time workers currently looking for more hours. So we have put some families under pressure. They are looking for more hours. As people know, people want to work, and they want to be able to take care of their own families, but this is going to impact on the ability of the families that are captured by this bill to actually find sufficient hours of work.

We also know that the work test takes effect from when your youngest child is aged 3. I know from the Children’s Commissioner’s report that, on average, working families generally get back to work when the child is about aged 3. That does not make it right. That does not mean it is in the best interests of children, and it does apply extra pressure to families to find the resources to then be able to go out to seek work. Not only is it difficult to find work and not only are they in competition with other part-time workers looking for more hours but they are looking for work when their children are at the age of 3. Generally, they will be people who have lower skills, and usually they will be in low-paid jobs. The jobs will generally be minimum wage jobs. They could have zero-hour contracts, precarious working situations, often with shift work. What do we do about childcare when the work that they are offered is actually in the evenings and at inappropriate times so that it is not a good opportunity for a family? That has not been explored in this bill.

We talk about work testing parents. I would actually like the Government to be work tested. I think what we should be doing is testing the Government on the appropriateness of doing this. The work-test obligations now extend to spouses and partners. I find it extraordinary that we would require that. As I have said many times, people on low incomes have to jump through more and more and more hoops in order just to attract what they need to take care of their families. In fact, this bill will give, on average, somewhere in the region of an extra $22 or $23 a week to families. They may find part-time work, which will add to their income, but the Government is saying that 20-something dollars to families is adequate. It is important to note that that payment is not per child per family—it is per family. It is important to note that many of the lowest-income families are larger families of two, three, or four children. So when this payment is per family, it means that the effect of that payment is dissipating across the numbers of children. It will have limited effect.

I want to quote from some of the submitters. The New Zealand Christian Council of Social Services, when we asked it questions, said, as I have just said, that it does not factor in the number of kids in a family and that there is more regulation around emergency benefits and increasing the work obligations, without actually offering job training for the Work and Income New Zealand staff who are going to have to make the decisions about the appropriateness of work. Given the concerns that I have about the ability to have appropriate childcare at times that may be difficult for these part-time workers to attain, does this mean that sanctions could be applied to these families if the Work and Income caseworker decides that it is appropriate work, but, actually, it is not appropriate for that family? And let us face it: there have been 80,000 sanctions in the last 14 months imposed by Work and Income, and that has impacted 44,000 children. Every time a family is sanctioned it impacts those kids.

Let us look at the opportunities for childcare, according to the New Zealand Christian Council of Social Services, saying that commercial early childhood education providers potentially diminish the quality of care for our children. So not only are we forced, potentially, into precarious work situations around zero-hours but we are also worried about the quality of care our children are receiving. People are being encouraged to move off benefits, but it does not mean that this Government has actually created any work for them to do. I could go on for ages.

Let us look at the New Zealand Nurses Organisation. It talks about readmission rates for children from low-income families and how the readmission rate a month after being discharged is much higher with low-income families. So we are talking about a population who are also impacted by, mostly, the poor living conditions that they have, and their children do experience higher levels of engagement with our health services. These families are also indebted to GP practices because parents cannot access health care for their kids. The New Zealand Nurses Organisation was very concerned about dropping the age of work testing to the age of 3 years—when your youngest child is 3.

The Council of Trade Unions came up with a statistic that 100,000 part-time workers are currently looking for more hours. There is just not enough part-time work in this country to satisfy what is being required in this bill. There was another select committee submission that suggested that in order for beneficiaries to be able to work in paid employment there would need to be much greater availability of inexpensive childcare.

I finish where I began. This bill does take us a step in the right direction, but there are many, many aspects of the system that need to be fixed in order for this to work and for our low-income families to actually have the right opportunities to get ahead. Tēnā koe.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the second reading of the Support for Children in Hardship Bill. Our welfare system, the way it works currently, is one of the best in the world, and I appreciate the system because I was born in one the many countries that does not have this kind of welfare system. I am really keen to see that families are doing well. I am really keen to see that children, including in low-income families, are able to get the best possible opportunities, so they can do well in their lives. Among low-income families, more generally, if there is a slight increase in expense, it creates a huge financial burden on those families. Similarly, if there is a slight increase in income, that can create a huge, positive difference in those families. This bill is about creating that positive difference in low-income families.

We all know that staying on benefit is not going to help families get out of poverty. Work is the only step that people need to take—getting into work—to get out of poverty, and that is why this National Government has been actively working to get people off benefit and assisting families on benefit to get into work. Since this National Government came in in 2008 we have seen that the number of people on all main benefits is reducing, and we are not shifting people from one category to another category like the previous Labour Government did. It just shifted people from the unemployment benefit to the sickness benefit. It just manipulated numbers to make it look good and to make it look like it was doing something for families on benefits. But the numbers we are seeing now—the numbers that are going down—are real numbers, and these people are now proudly contributing to our economy, and the children in these families are also feeling better because they can thrive in financially independent families. The progress that we are making now will pay off for generations because we are breaking the cycle of welfare dependency.

Income is not the only factor for poor outcomes in children, because there are several other factors too. I acknowledge that income can be an important factor in outcomes for children, and that is why this National Government in Budget 2015 allocated $790 million to help children in low-income families. These changes, once the bill goes through, will come into effect from 1 April 2016. I hear the Opposition saying that it is not enough, but we need to realise the fact that this is the first time since 1972 that beneficiaries are getting a real increment, and this just shows that those members do not have any other worthy argument, which is why all they have to say is that this is not enough.

Finally, I want to acknowledge the submitters—those who made submissions. There were 31 submissions during the select committee process, and it was a great privilege for me to be part of the Social Services Committee, which considered this bill, because I know there are so many families out there eagerly looking forward for this bill to go through. It is a great bill and I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a second time.