Support for Children in Hardship Bill

When we were last debating this bill, I was speaking, I believe, on Part 1, clause 4, and in subclause (1) is the definition of “part-time work”. This bill seeks to change the definition from what is currently standard—around 15 hours a week—to that of 20 hours a week.

I want to refer the Committee of the whole House to some submissions that were made regarding those particular changes, particularly with regard to the Council of Trade Unions submission. It has some very clear views about the change from 15 to 20 hours, and I just want to quote that submission: “Single mothers in particular face a range of economic penalties as well as social difficulties. They are more likely to find only unpredictable, part-time work, making it hard for them to access the childcare and other support they need in order for work to be feasible.” It makes a really valid point, which other submitters spoke to, and that is about the precarious nature of part-time work for some of these mothers, who are forced to also look for work that will satisfy the 20-hour definition. That often means transport to and from—and I know that this bill does make some provisions around providing some support for that, limited though it is.

But that also requires mothers, potentially, to be working during standard working hours, which would be during the day. That does not take into account that many part-time jobs might occur in the evening, which would require childcare services, which are not currently delivered as a norm in this country. It is not easy to access childcare outside the normal hours—after hours—in the evening, or overnight, where there may be jobs, for example, in the retail sector, stacking shelves at supermarkets, or working at services that operate overnight. That might be at gas stations or the like. We are talking, generally, about a group of workers who have limited skills and are not generally able to access work that would provide them with enough resources to attend to that childcare.

I also want to talk about clause 4(2) and (3), which change the age at which your youngest child should be before you are then required to seek work from the age of 5, which we all know is the age where most children will be attending school, to the age of 3. That does apply some pressure to parents to actually find that childcare.

I also want to go back to the Council of Trade Unions submission and just talk about what it says about this. It states that “The Bill requires solo parents and partners of beneficiaries to be available for part time work once their youngest child turns three rather than five …”. The Council of Trade Unions did not support these provisions in the bill, because they: “impose stronger work-testing which will heavily impact on sole parents. The stricter work testing obligations and sanctions regime will cause hardship and deprivation to already disadvantaged people and force sole parents into work when they and their children are not ready for it.”

We could not find any evidence—there was no evidence that was brought to the select committee—that could really rationalise dropping the age from 5 to 3. Not even the Children’s Commissioner could provide sufficient evidence to that fact. In fact, the Children’s Commissioner said that the basis on which the change should be made was really around the fact that, on average, when parents return to the workplace, their youngest child is 3. We are talking, on average, about all parents. They will be parents who have got resources to support them to stay at home for longer or they may be in different types of jobs. But the Labour Party members on the committee felt that that was not sufficient justification to require parents to return to work when their youngest child is aged 3. It just did not give us sufficient comfort that there was good evidence that that should happen.

In relation to that, the National Council of Women also raised the point that childcare would need to be available for shift workers and weekend workers, as well as being available during the standard working week. That is also required for these children who are aged from 3. When you are aged 5, I guess you are far more developmentally advanced. When you are aged 3, you are still in a particularly vulnerable age group. We were unconvinced by those aspects of the evidence that was given. As I said earlier, we could find no justification—no evidence was provided to the committee that could make us feel comfortable that dropping the age was in the best interests of the children.

I thought I would take a call in this debate to answer a few of the issues that have been raised to date by the Opposition, in particular. First of all, quite early on in the debate a number of people talked about no evidence being used to support the changes that we were making around the social obligation, but I refer those members to the very compelling evidence of the effects on families, and particularly on children, of long-term dependence on benefits. That evidence is very clear. It is accepted evidence both nationally and internationally. Right across the OECD, countries are working in the best interests to make sure that they get the best life outcomes for children, and getting their parents back into paid work is one of the best ways to ensure that children are able to live successful lives. The evidence is very clear, and that has been the basis on which this Government has supported getting parents back into work as quickly as we possibly can, for their benefit and for the benefit of their children.

Secondly, there were some issues raised around the requirements that Work and Income will have for mothers of children by reducing the age to 3, and there have been some outrageous claims made. I can say with absolute confidence, having talked to people all over New Zealand in Work and Income, which is working with these families, that it does not have hard and fast rules. Each case is considered individually. The circumstances, the job, the work that is available, the childcare arrangements—all of those are taken into account because the Work and Income staff are just as concerned to make sure that the children are safe. They really want to help those parents into sustainable work. Those two points I think are important.

That brings us to this talk about reducing the age from 5 to 3. In fact, the statistics support the direction that this Government is going in. By the time their youngest child reaches 3, half of all sole parents—half of all the existing sole parents—and two-thirds of partnered mothers are in paid employment in New Zealand. That is the reality that we have now. In fact, over the last 20 years the largest gain in employment for all mothers has been in the group where their youngest child is aged 3 to 4.

I was interested to hear the member Poto Williams, who has just resumed her seat, talk about the Children’s Commissioner during the select committee consideration. In fact, his very words, and I quote them, were: “I can’t see a good reason for the age of return to the workforce being different to people”—I would have said “from people”, but, however—“who are currently working than parents who are going into work for the first time from a benefit. And so 3 is a reasonable choice, and 20 hours of work will increase that connection to work. So I think that those are appropriate so along as obviously the work is child friendly and the Early Childhood Education and care is accessible and high quality.” So that was the Children’s Commissioner’s comments to the select committee.

I asked for a bit more information, because people are asking “Where’s the evidence? Where’s the evidence?”, and, actually, when you look internationally, work obligations for parents do vary. But it was quite interesting. The Opposition often talks about Norway, and how they do things in Norway. It was interesting to see that France, Germany, Norway, and Switzerland have a work expectation for people receiving a benefit when their youngest child is 3 years of age. A range of other countries have work expectations at an earlier age, including Sweden, Japan, and Denmark, which is another country that is often quoted to us as one that we should take notice of. In Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Japan, and Sweden all sole parents are subject to a work test, regardless of the child’s age. So, actually, what we are doing here in New Zealand is consistent with international practice.

Finally, I refer to the Welfare Working Group from 2011, which recommended that sole parent beneficiaries should be required to seek part-time paid work of at least 20 hours per week once their youngest child is 3 years of age. Of course, we did not implement that—we did not go as far as that. But having seen, then, the success and the number of sole parents with children younger than 5 going into part-time work, we are very confident that the obligations we are placing in this bill will have a great long-term effect for those families—for both the mothers and for their children, long term. So I think the evidence has been well presented. It is very clear. It is well supported.

I refer the Opposition to the comments of Dr Lance O’Sullivan, who was last year’s New Zealander of the Year, who supported the proposals from the Government at the time they were announced. He stated—and, again, we have good evidence that shows it—that children from vulnerable families at risk, which we know many of those children in sole parent, benefit-dependent homes are, will benefit the most from having access to early childhood education. So the 20 hours’ early childhood education will provide those children with learning opportunities and with socialisation, and we think that that has good long-term benefits for those children.

So I repeat that I think the evidence is very clear that the direction that this Government is taking with this bill is consistent with international practice and evidence. It will have good, long-term outcomes for the children.

It is a real opportunity, actually, to take a call immediately after the Minister for Social Development to speak to some of the points that she has raised. She is right to point out that on this side of the Chamber we take our role as Opposition very seriously. We use evidence as the basis of our positions and as the basis of the arguments that we make in this Chamber. So of course it was to the evidence that we looked when we formulated our own plans around child hardship.

So when it comes to Part 1 of the Support for Children in Hardship Bill—because of course we need to keep in mind that this is a bill whose purpose is packaged up as reducing hardship for children—when we look at the evidence base around that, what does it tell us that we should be doing on behalf of those children? Well, clause 4 in Part 1, as the Minister has rightly pointed out, changes the definition of “part-time work” to 20 hours. The argument being made by the Minister, of course, is that by increasing the threshold of hours that are expected to be worked by families who are on benefits we increase income, we increase engagement in the workforce, and, therefore, we presumably reduce hardship in the home. That is not always going to be the case.

Firstly, we need to take into account, of course, the abatement regimes that apply to households that are benefit households. If the Government truly wanted to focus on increasing the income of these homes, then it would also be looking at abatements and the impact of abatement on families who are in part-time work while also receiving a benefit. That would have been a useful combination of issues to look at, because simply increasing the hours required in the threshold test does not necessarily have that wider impact. We as a party have looked at that. We have got a very clear view on the need to increase the number of hours that a benefit family can earn and keep before it starts seeing its benefit abate. So that would have been a useful thing for the Government to do—

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: They could have voted for the bill.

And, in fact, it could have voted for our bill, which was before the House not too long ago. So that would have been a nice thing to add to clause 4, if it was going to increase those hours.

The second claim that the Minister has made is that when you look at the evidence around benefit households and their transition back into work—obviously we are primarily talking about sole parent households—they tend to transition into work at the time that their child turns 3 or 4 already, before a law change. Of course, this piece of legislation, in clauses 4, 6, 7, and 8, reduces the age of children at which the work requirement kicks in for their parents from age 5 to age 3, and the point that the Minister just made herself was that, actually, by and large, parents are already doing that. Why? Because they want to work, because they know that in the longer term—even if in that moment, with abatement regimes being what they are, they are not better off—they end up being better off if they are able to put themselves back into stable employment. Those who can, do, when the child is at that age—3 and 4.

That is the point that we are trying to make on this side of the Chamber: those who can, do, but it is not a given that that is going to be the best thing for every single family. You may have a family with a child, or children, who has special needs. You may have a situation where a family is able to find 15 hours that work around early childhood education, but it is unable to find 20 hours. It will tack on an extra bit of after-hours cleaning that does not quite work but it juggles it to try to reach the requirement set out by the Government, and it then has a wider negative impact on that family’s make-up. Those who can, do, and those who cannot often have a very legitimate rationale, and all that we are saying is that for those extra 2 years—those extra 2 years of making it mandated—what gains are we making if, predominantly, those families who can are already moving into work?

What might be some of those barriers to clauses 4, 6, 7, and 8 being complied with? Well, we have covered some of them off already—the availability of work at hours that are conducive or sit in alignment with early childhood education hours is one of them. Again, another thing that the Government could have done in Part 1, if it wanted to ease the pain of trying to find work that worked around early childhood education, is it could have increased the hours. It could have increased the hours—the free hours available to families—from 20 to 25.

That would mean that even if the Government was then bumping up the hours of work required, there might be a bit of buffer for travel time. That might have been a buffer. If it was going to mandate that you be required to work for 20 hours, by giving 25 free hours for early childhood education, that would have allowed even perhaps a little buffer time for parents to drop off their child and pick up their child around that part-time work. Again, something that Labour has promoted is that increase in hours, because there is nothing to suggest that increase will have a detrimental effect but it could ease some of the difficulties for those families. So, again, another missed opportunity.

Abatement, increasing the early childhood education hours—those would all make a difference for those families if truly it was hardship that this bill was genuinely focused on and not, as I am afraid I have come to conclude, simply that the Government is giving with one hand and wants to look like it is waving a stick with the other, rather than looking at reality. When I say “looking at reality”, again, when Labour designed its package to try to ease poverty amongst children we did look at the evidence. We looked at where children in poverty can be found. The Child Poverty Monitor 2013 is a really good start for telling us where we need to target. We know now that there are 305,000 children living in poverty. That is based on income measures, so that is the number who are living on 60 percent or less of the median income. Those in severe poverty—those living on 50 percent or less, those in the hardest end of poverty—were, at the time that the Children’s Commissioner did this report, roughly 10 percent. We know that those often tend to be families who are benefit-reliant and who have younger children, and those are the ones who are living in persistent poverty as well. That exists from the age of zero to 4—roughly, if we want to take an age range.

So if the Government was trying to create a targeted package, rather than make, necessarily, a generic payment of up to $25 per family across the board, what it might have done was be more generous in the package but target those families with children under, say, the age of 3 or 4. That would make the fundamental difference to children living in poverty. How I know that would make a difference is that we did the exact same modelling the Government did when we came up with our own package. We worked out that if you genuinely wanted to make a difference to children living in poverty, 25 bucks per family was not going to cut it. The gap between what these families are living on and where our average incomes are required to be to survive has grown so much that, as Jonathan Boston has modelled, you need payments that are as generous as an increase of roughly $60. So that is why our Best Start package was modelled around a $60 payment per child, and I would love to hear the Minister’s view on why she went for a per-family payment rather than a per-child payment, which was the recommendation that was set out by the Children’s Commissioner and the Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty.

In fact, I would be really interested in the Minister’s views on some of those recommendations generally, which again suggested that those payments be heavily weighted towards children on the younger end of the spectrum, rather than our current regime, which tends to weight to older children and makes assumptions about the cost of feeding and clothing and so on, and does not take into account that it is easier for caregivers to work part-time or full-time at that point in the child-rearing stage. So we should be weighting the payment towards younger children also, not only because it is harder to be in work and care but also because those are the most critical child-rearing periods. The first year—or first 3 years of life, in fact—is the most critical in terms of attachment, brain development, and so on. So that is where our support should be targeted.

Those are some of the reasons why the evidence base, in our view, around clauses 4, 6, 7, and 8 is contradictory and, in fact, could have the counter-effect of doing more harm than good, even though there is some good in this bill. The increased payment is good. We are pleased about that. Our concern is the generosity, and if, of course, there was a limit to the amount the Government was going to spend, it could have made a trade-off and really weighted it at one end of the spectrum.

I want to use my final contribution to support Supplementary Order Papers 135, 136, and 137 in Carmel Sepuloni’s name. One amendment makes part-time study an alternative to part-time work. That gives longer-term options for families. The other is to retain 5 as the age, and the other is to make the work requirement for parents of under-fives dependent—dependent—on access to early childhood education. The Minister has mentioned that. If it is her view that that is what is needed to make the bill work, why will she not legislate for it and give that discretion in the legislation to allow parents, if they cannot find adequate early childhood education, to not have that requirement mandated upon them in the absence of that?

There are quite a few points to make on Part 1 of the bill around the children’s hardship package. I think the Committee does need to remember that this was the bill that the Government said was its ambitious response to child poverty in this country. The most recent data tells us that over 305,000 children are living in relative poverty in this country. That is not too far off one in five children living with significant deprivation in this country. Research has told us that around a hundred children a year die in this country from low-income - related diseases—children who would not have died in other countries—because of our policy settings. I would like to just frame this whole discussion in the context of that being the problem that we should be addressing with this bill, which I do not believe is being addressed by this bill.

I would also like to challenge the Minister’s very strong assertion that it is very clear that there is harm from benefit dependency, and the fact that the Government defines benefit dependency—this is my understanding—as 6 months, when anyone who is managing a child with a disability would recognise that 6 months on a benefit is not something they may term as dependency. The other assertion from the Government is that it is always going to be better to be in work. Actually, the research is contested around that point, and I would reference a Ministry of Social Development report. It is from a few years ago now, but I will quote it. It was looking at research from around the world: “Overall the literature would suggest that while there is a range of potential benefits from being in paid work for both individuals and households, for many households, a shift from being work poor”—not having enough work—“to becoming part of the working poor provides few gains in wellbeing.”

This is a really key part, and this is also backed up by the Marmot Review from the UK, which was a very comprehensive look at income and health. When we do not have really strong employment settings that provide for stable hours, good work conditions, remuneration that reflects your work, and flexibility for families in our workplaces, actually pushing people into work against their own judgment about what is best for their family is not going to deliver the well-being outcomes. This bill is operating in a context of very, very weak employment legislation. We have to actually look at the whole picture, and that was a substantive message from a large number of submitters on this bill. They wanted more. They wanted a comprehensive response to child poverty, which deserves a comprehensive response, and this is not it.

I would like to point out some of the specifics that are so deeply disappointing to me in this bill. One is that the increase in the base benefit rate will come into effect from April of next year. This was a Budget initiative for this year, but it will come in next year, while all the time we know that children are being hospitalised because of that lack of income. The Government, because of its insistence on bringing its Budget back into surplus, prioritises that political measure over delivering to our families now, and to me that is not good enough. That is not us doing our job and providing leadership and looking after everyone in this country.

The Government has been saying that it is increasing benefits by $25 a week to these families. Actually, the average increase is $23.10 a week, and Jonathan Boston’s research around what was needed to actually reduce child poverty showed that there was a really significant range. Some families may need an increase of well over $100 a week because they are in such a tough position right at the moment, but the absolute minimum that was needed was $30 a week. That is only a few more dollars compared with this, and this Government could not even bring itself to just make that the base, to get just one small group of people over the line and out of relative poverty. That to me is embarrassing, to be honest.

The point has already been raised about the fact that this payment is per family. It is not per child. We do know that the families that are experiencing some of the toughest challenges of poverty are our larger families. You can imagine that being a parent juggling several kids and getting back into work is a tougher thing—it is harder to do the more kids you have got. Anyone can work that out. So by making this a per family increase, we are actually entrenching inequality so the families that are struggling the most now are the ones whose children will get the least out of this measure, and that was a policy choice of this Government. It made the decision to make this a per-family increase so that our children who are struggling the most right now will get the least, and they are most likely to be Māori and Pasifika families, and they are the families that protect us from an ageing population struggle in the future. They are the families that we would benefit most from protecting, and yet this Government has chosen to leave them out or penalise them.

I think we also need to look at some of the facts. Around 40 percent of children of sole parents who have part-time work—and this is still entrenching that, though they will be off a benefit and be in part-time work—live in poverty. Is this the solution for our children? I do not believe it is. When we know that we can address housing and we can address employment laws and we know that a lot more is needed in terms of income, this bill is not the answer.

There were concerns raised by one of the submitters that, in fact, they believed that this breached the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, in terms of article 27 and the assurance for States parties’ Governments to ensure adequate standards of living. So this Government had a choice to bring legislation to the House that would have guaranteed our children the right to an adequate standard of living. What it has brought to us instead is a conscious choice to leave our children in poverty, not to reduce the number of those children or to lift them out of relative poverty.

The Minister for Social Development said about the work testing and the requirement to go to work when the youngest child reaches the age of 3 that “Well, half of sole parents do that anyway, so, yeah, it’s OK to do this.”, which is basically taking the choice away from parents. And she is saying: “Well, Work and Income officers care about the families. They will take a lot of discretion into account.” These are people who are being paid to work for Work and Income and have got extraordinary caseloads. They are being expected to make the decision on what is best for a family and take away a parent’s own ability to choose the needs of their child. That is bizarre to me—that we would take that choice away.

We also really need to be reminded that a significant number of these children have disabilities. I think two out of five children who get the disability allowance have a parent on a benefit, either sole parent support or superannuation, so we know a lot of these parents have children with disabilities who will have significant needs. I have already mentioned that it is likely that about 70 percent of these families are leaving violent relationships, and their children will have very significant attachment needs, and we are expecting the Work and Income staff to be able to have the medical knowledge, the social work knowledge, or the family knowledge to make that decision. They are not living with those kids. They are not living in that family. How can we expect them to make the right decision? I think it is asking too much, and I think it actually just becomes punitive and unconstructive.

I want to continue where the Green Party member Jan Logie left off. I just want to refer back to the main issue here, which is that we have 305,000 children in New Zealand living in poverty, and I think that is something that all of us in this Committee should be ashamed of. The reality is, though, that we do not have the numbers to make legislative change like members on that side of the Chamber do. Of the 305,000 children who are living in poverty, 60 percent of them are in beneficiary households and 40 percent of them are in working households. Forty percent of them are earning so little money that they are also living in poverty, and we need to make that connection. If we care about children living in poverty, then we also have to care about the people who are looking after those children living in poverty.

I have put forward a number of Supplementary Order Papers to amend this bill. We support any increase that will go to our poorest families. Of course, as my colleague Jacinda Ardern pointed out, we do not understand the science behind how the Government assessed $25 per family as being the right amount. We know that that will do very little to actually address the poverty issue, but it does do a little bit, and so we cannot deny our poorest families that. But we do have some concerns, and those concerns are addressed by the Supplementary Order Papers I have put forward.

One of the concerns is about the extension of the work obligation from 15 hours to 20 hours per week. We had the Minister for Social Development stand up before and tell us that there is evidence to support that. The Minister cited Norway and other European countries as examples of where there is a 20-hour work obligation for parents with a youngest child of 3. I just want to point out to the Minister that, actually, in countries like Norway, work is readily available. That is not actually the case here. In fact, we currently have 58,000 people actively seeking part-time work. So to place the expectation on these sole parents when, actually, the work is not available is a little bit unrealistic.

We had the Minister saying that people would not be pressured into taking up work that was inappropriate, but I have had so many stories told to me by sole parents undertaking employment courses through Work and Income where they are getting pressure put on them to take up work that is inappropriate. In fact, I spoke to two sole parents who were both doing the same course. They were both articulate, educated women and each was a solo mother with one child. Both of them said that they felt for the other women undertaking the employment course because of the fact that if they were vaguely passive, or passive in any way, then, despite the fact that the work that was being pushed on them was inappropriate, they would often end up saying: “OK, I’ll do it.”

This topic actually raised a really interesting conversation in the Social Services Committee, and that conversation was around the availability of early childhood education outside standard working hours. A concern that was raised at the select committee was whether we as a country are moving down the track where we would think that night care for children is actually acceptable. I think the general public would agree that early childhood education—and I do not think it can actually be deemed that if it is just a babysitting service at night time—is not appropriate at night time. I think most New Zealanders would be fearful of that becoming commonplace in this country.

So we did put up amendments, with one to say that, actually, the work obligation should not be moved to 20 hours and it should remain at 15 hours. The evidence that we found was that, actually, in countries like the UK and the US where work obligations like this were imposed, unfortunately, the reality for these sole parents was that they often ended up having to take up the lowest-paid work and they ended up worse off than they were when they were just accessing welfare full time. That is the risk that I think we are running here.

The other risk is that we have seen so many media reports, and so many reports out in general, about the quality and availability of early childhood education. So the assumption is always “Oh, you can put your child into an early childhood education centre and go out and work.”, but, actually, sometimes there is no early childhood education available and sometimes there is no quality early childhood education available. Why should parents be put in the situation where they are forced to put their children into care when they are not confident that that level of care is appropriate for their children?

One of the Supplementary Order Papers that I have put forward actually also adds study as an option, alongside part-time work. I really want to talk a little bit about that because that Government, the National Government, has talked about being aspirational for New Zealanders on so many occasions, but I really feel that where it is clear that it is not is when it comes to beneficiaries. Supplementary Order Paper 135 is aspirational. We do not want to just force sole parents into any old job. We want them to be better equipped to increase their earning capacity and to increase their chances of being able to get into long-term, secure work, rather than just push them into whatever minimum wage job is available. We think that the National Government should support this because it is aspirational.

We had some conversations about this in the select committee as well, and what came up was: “Well, actually, they can access the student allowance.” There are issues with that. The issue with that is that you have to be in full-time study to access a student allowance, or be doing 32 hours a week. Any parent who might want to access, say, 20 or 15 hours of study will not be supported to do so with all of these measures in place. They will not be able to access a student allowance, work obligations will kick in, and, therefore, study will basically be denied to these parents.

Why would we deny the opportunity for these parents to take up study? We know that all of the educational research out there supports them doing this. We know the impact that it can have on their children in terms of their children’s own academic attainment. So why would we not support this happening? I really urge all parties in the House to look carefully at that Supplementary Order Paper and to take seriously the option of study alongside part-time work. I—like a number of other MPs in this House, I know—as a sole parent actually studied and was able to access support, so why would we deny that to others, given that there are so many in this House who were accessing support from the State whilst raising children by themselves in order to take up study and better their own lives and the lives of their children?

I just want to go back to my other Supplementary Order Paper, Supplementary Order Paper 136, which deletes clauses 4, 6, 7, and 8. One of those clauses is to do with changing the age for when work obligations kicking in from the current age of 5 to what is being proposed by the National Government—that being 3. We did have a discussion at the select committee. This came through in many of the submissions. Many parents do go back to work when their youngest turns 3. That is OK. That is OK if that is the choice, but different parents have different circumstances that need to be taken into account.

One of the topics of conversation in select committee was: “Hey, you know, that might be OK for the parent who has one or two children, but what do you do with the parent who has four or five children? Perhaps it is a little bit harder for that parent to go back to work when their youngest turns 3.” I just want to point out that all too often when we are talking about those parents who have four or five children, we get this kind of attitude and stigma that comes with that, as if they did something wrong by giving birth to all these children. Well, actually, I just want to say that for members on this side of the Chamber there is no stigma or judgment attached to it. All we care about is the well-being of those children, and if it is in the best interests of those children for that parent to stay home with them for a little bit longer, then why would we not support that?

Many of those making submissions on this bill supported the additional $25 per week despite the fact they felt it needed to be more. Many of the submitters pointed out the fact that parenting actually needs to be valued as well, and the fact is that we are stigmatising these parents to the point where we are assuming that they do not want to go out and work when, actually, the evidence suggests otherwise—many of them do. But if they need to, we should be responsible and actually support them to be the stay-home parent that they need to be in instances where it would be better for their family.

I have had a lot to do with the team from the Growing Up in New Zealand study in respect of teasing out some of the research that it has done that is relevant to this bill. I just want to clarify for the Committee that all of that research shows that, actually, these sole parents—sole mothers, predominantly—do want to work. In fact, this research shows that they have got more of a desire to work than the parent who is in a relationship.

I just want to make some remarks in regard to the Support for Children in Hardship Bill, and the comments from the previous speaker, Carmel Sepuloni: she talked about the 305,000 children in poverty. We know that the indicators for that—approximately 20 indicators—have a broad sort of reach inside that. Inside those indicators there is a continuum of those who are captured under what we would call children in hardship.

That is recognised because just last week there was in fact a cross-party hosting of Unicef. It was called Make My Future Fair. While we were there it talked about the factors. It has got a new website, and what it has done is it has captured the 100,000 kids that it believes are captured under what it would call hardship. So when the member opposite talks about the 305,000, we have got Unicef, which has defined the true number of those in true hardship in that continuum as being 100,000. The Opposition can talk all it likes, but go on to the website and have a look for yourself. You will see it there indicated: 100,000 kids. We think that is further evidence, right across the sector, that these are the kids that we need to focus on. So that is a little bit of evidence just to put out there for the member as well.

There were some comments around social obligations. I would like to ask the member also, if she does a bit of research, to see that in 1998 the Hon Roger Sowry, who was the Minister for social development, included inside that an amendment to the Social Security Act 1964. Under that amendment was the talk about work obligations. I can tell you this: Steve Maharey was in the Opposition, Annette King was in the Opposition as well, and they also contested this issue, but since that time when it was introduced there has been no change under the Social Security Act. Even in the 9 years of a Labour Government—if it thought it was the beast of burden and if it thought it was the issue of contention, why did it not change it? I will tell you the reason why: even Labour knows that work obligations are important. In fact, if it looked at the primary section under the Social Security Act 1964—yes, Michael Joseph Savage was the founder and the father of this Act—what does it say? The primary clause talks about the fact that work is the best opportunity for those to further themselves out of that vulnerable circumstance. Work obligations are not an evil; this is a necessity. However, what is important is the way in which we ensure that we wrap around support for those who are much in need in that sort of situation.

There were also comments about the question of where is the evidence. The Minister has talked about international evidence, and the Opposition said there was a lack of evidence. We have heard from the Children’s Commissioner, Dr Russell Wills. I actually saw him in Copperfields this afternoon and had a chat with him there. But even in his comments he did not go against the issue. In fact, he said it is actually a common trend—it is happening. In fact, if the member had actually read the regulatory impact statement, on page 29, this is what it says: “The children of beneficiaries face a greater risk of educational underachievement and are more likely to benefit from quality ECE from an [early age].”

From a career perspective, women are probably best advised to go back to work around 6 months after childbirth—so it talks about this. The international evidence that it comes from is the OECD report. You can download that, and you can read from the report. The OECD report adds further evidence to the fact that the growing trend around fertility rates and around workforce placement for women internationally is that more of them are heading back to work when their children are between the ages of 3 and 5. We believe that not only is this piece of legislation in line with international evidence but it is supported very much there.

We can talk about international evidence, but let us talk about our own evidence. If we talk about the census, Statistics New Zealand talks about this: “This reflects significant changes in employment patterns over the past two decades. As Figure 6”—on page 29—“shows below, over the last 20 years the largest gain in employment rate for all mothers has been in the group where the youngest child is aged 3-4 years.” This is evidence, not only from our own census and statistics, not only from international evidence, and not only from organisations like Unicef, that has said that we are talking about those who are most in hardship being at around about the figure of 100,000. We believe that is the evidence that supports, even in Part 1 of this bill, the Support for Children in Hardship Bill. Thank you.

It is my pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak in support of this bill, the Support for Children in Hardship Bill. But the problem, and I have spoken about this before, is that this is not actually focused on the children at all. It is actually—and we have heard it from different members of the House today—focused on the main benefit holder.

I would just like to pick up on something that Alfred Ngaro said. Just looking at the introduction to the commentary on the bill it says: “This bill is intended to implement several initiatives for helping children who are living in severe material hardship.” Alfred Ngaro was talking about the spectrum that this bill was supposed to be targeting. But if we are talking about children who are living in severe material hardship, and this bill is purporting to target sole parent beneficiaries and beneficiaries in general because they are down at the most severe end of poverty, there are far more than just the 100,000 children in that cohort targeted. Like I said at the start, the problem is that this bill is not actually targeting those children; it is targeting the main beneficiary holders. So it is quite contradictory in the title in itself, and I have spoken about that previously.

Actually, there are a couple of points I want to make. The first one is that one of the effects of this bill and this legislation is that it actually creates inequality with larger families. Because it is not concentrated on specific individual children, like Jacinda Ardern pointed out earlier on, the families with more children will become more unequal than those with just a single child. So it is actually creating inequality.

I would like to look at a submission that was made by Susan St John, who is an associate professor in the department of economics at the University of Auckland. It is quite a good report, but I would just like to highlight one thing that she said. She talked about the new approach to welfare, and she said that “This sees an intensification of the relentless focus on paid work as the solution to poverty, including child poverty. Investment in this approach since 2012 has been about not more money for families but more money for the infrastructure of management of beneficiaries into work.” That is true with this bill, and that is the problem that New Zealand First has with this bill.

In fact, the consequence of that approach is that there is an increase in the sanctions that are applied. So the administrative costs, when applying new legislation like this, can get quite high. In fact, there were over 80,000 sanctions applied between 2013 and 2014. So, like I said, if you are looking at the intent of the bill, it is not achieving that. In stages, it is actually creating inequality for the larger families and it is not actually focused on child poverty at all.

One of the focuses, as I stated, was the sole parent benefits, and it states in the general policy statement that there are a couple of points why children live in poverty. One of them is that the household income is too low, even with good budgeting and discipline, and another one says that the special demands on its budget are too high. But if we are looking at the sole parent benefit itself—and we are looking at it from 1990, I think it was—the sole parent benefit was around 75 percent of the average wage. And, as we know, what happened in 1991? It got cut quite dramatically, by about 25 to 30 percent, and ever since then, down to 2015, it has consistently dropped from around 75 percent in 1990 to around only 50 percent of the average wage today.

That is the kind of issue that this Government is trying to remedy by throwing not $25 per child, and not even $25 per family, but $23, on average, per family. That is not going to create a solution for the massive gap that has been created over the last 30 years. That is why New Zealand First is concerned about this bill, because the bill has the opportunity to do some good and focus on the children, but—it is a step in the right direction. New Zealand First will support anything that is increasing the financial benefits that look after children, but—

Let us look first at the primary legislation that this bill seeks to amend, and that is the Social Security Act 1964—1964. It is a long time since the primary legislation was enacted. There have been many and significant changes to it over that time, and one would argue that, in terms of its ability to continue to deliver the intent, it may be time to be looking at it much more widely.

I want to refer to some of the comments that the member Alfred Ngaro made about the number of children in hardship, or the number of children in deprivation. However you slice it or dice it, you cannot get past the fact that there are 305,000 children living in poverty, and Unicef—which Mr Ngaro did quote from to the Committee—on the very front page of its website, quotes that figure. So whether you are talking about hardship or poverty or deprivation, or whatever you are talking about, you cannot get past the fact that we are talking about 305,000 children living in poverty. Are there children who are more deserving than those living in poverty?

This bill, obviously, is going some way to address some of those families, but we are talking about a small percentage of children who live with poverty every single day. That includes not being able to have their nutritional needs met, not being able to have their housing needs adequately met, and probably not even being able to have their educational needs met. That is a significant proportion of our future that is dealing and struggling with these issues every single day, so, although Mr Ngaro might have a point about slicing and dicing the numbers, it does not go past the fact that we have hundreds of thousands of children who are living in poverty.

When we look at this bill, clause 10 gives us the enabling provision for the $25 a week per family. It has already been said across this Committee that, in actuality, that probably amounts to about $23 in the hand. We are talking about $25 per family. The size of your family does not determine how much money you get, so if you are from a family of three or four or five children, you are looking at a couple of dollars for each child per week extra, which is, really, what? A loaf of bread, but probably not even a bottle of milk. So we are not talking about a huge amount.

Do not get me wrong. I am very, very happy that there are families that are going to get a little bit extra, but if we are actually going to deal with the issue of children in hardship we should be making significant resource available to those families, and it should not just be about money. We all know that the level a mother’s education reaches has a significant impact on how well her children do. However, there is no provision within this bill to actually support parents, mothers, to upskill and to utilise the time on a benefit to do further training to provide themselves with better skills, which, actually, at the end of the day, would probably have more impact on the well-being of those children and those families.

But I want to get back to the point of paying $25, or $23, in actuality, to that family. When we are talking about some families, we are talking about beneficiary families tending not to be one-child families, but families with two, three, or four children. So if we are looking at supporting those families in hardship better, why have we not looked at the recommendations from other experts in the field, who ask us to consider amounts of around $60 to $80 to around $100 per week for families, as opposed to $25? What would that do? That would make a significant difference, particularly if you were then requiring those beneficiary families to get out and get to work. It would make a significant difference—

I move, That the question be now put.

Annette King—and I will warn Poto Williams that she has had her four calls.

This is my first speech on this bill. First of all, can I say that I welcome any improvement that can be afforded to families living in hardship. So I say to the Government, thank you for recognising that there is a problem, but then I will go on to say that it is only partial recognition of that problem.

I think it is beholden on a Government to listen to the very best advice that it can receive when making policy, and there has been some extremely good advice proffered to this Government on the state of families and children living in hardship in this country. I would reference the Children’s Commissioner. The Children’s Commissioner is a very highly regarded man. He was chosen by this Government to be the Children’s Commissioner. He has decades of experience as a paediatrician. He was chosen because of his experience, and we supported the appointment of Dr Russell Wills as the Children’s Commissioner. He is independent—probably more independent than many Children’s Commissioners we have had in the past. He has been advising the Government on a number of issues, and he has certainly made it clear to this Government that the changes it is making in this bill mean there will be small average gains for a family. He says that it will not incentivise parents to leave a benefit, given that the high cost of quality childcare is a barrier for many families entering employment.

So I wonder why the Government has not listened to some of those who live and work in the community every day with children who live in hardship. The fundamental issue here is the problem that the Government is having grappling with the meaning of hardship. It has danced on the head of a pin on the meaning of poverty and hardship for years now. “Poverty” is a word that is not allowed to be said. You can use any other word, but do not use “poverty”; so the word that is used is “hardship”, and these families are living in hardship. From the Minister’s own figures we are told that the number of children living in poverty—in other words, in hardship—has increased to 305,000 children. But the Minister’s bill assists only 18,000 families with children, a smidgen of the 305,000 children living in poverty. I wonder why the Government does not want to have a comprehensive approach, to lift all children out of poverty/hardship. Why has it decided to choose such a small number? Do those other children not count when it comes to this bill?

When I look at what the increase is going to be, how much these 18,000 families get, it is around $23.10 per family per week. Not per parent and not per child, but per family; so it could be a family with six kids or it could be a family with one. I know that the Minister for Social Development is a very practical woman. She does her own shopping, she prepares her own meals, and she must know that a block of cheese in New Zealand costs $10, a dozen eggs are $4.86, 2 litres of milk is close to $5, and 2 litres of petrol is close to $4. So when I add that up, that is what a family can look forward to from the increase that is being provided to a family. The Minister will know that is not going to make a huge difference to a family, depending on its size. Maybe it would make a difference if you were a single person, but if you are a family with children, and particularly if you have got some growing teenagers and they happen to be boys, then you know that they would probably eat the block of cheese in a couple of days. Those of us who have had teenagers know that a loaf of bread would be lucky to last for 1 day after school.

I have watched and listened as Government members in speech after speech have crowed about how it is the first Government in 40 years to increase benefits.

💬 Jono Naylor: Because it’s true.

But I say that they have got—yes, it is true, but they have got very selective memories, I say to the member Jono Naylor, and maybe I could remind you.

💬 Jono Naylor: Please do.

The first Government, I remind the member, in 40 years to cut the benefit was a National Government. Some of us can remember the benefit being cut, and this increase in the benefit does not even restore it to what it was. So when the crowing is finished, just take a hard look at the fact that benefits were cut by the very same Government.

We set about to help restore some of that through Working for Families, something that National called “communism by stealth” but has not got rid of. We went about supporting families with income-related rents and a number of other issues to help lift those families out of poverty, and those members crow about how they lifted the benefits—the very benefits that they cut. So I say to the members opposite: get that in the head. Remember that because that is the truth.

I have to say that I support the Supplementary Order Paper put up by my colleague Carmel Sepuloni. This is Supplementary Order Paper 136, where she is saying that she would like to ensure, by deleting clauses 4, 6, 7, and 8, that “parents of children under 5 are able to care for them full time if appropriate and affordable early childhood education is not available to them.” Many members opposite live in provincial and rural New Zealand, and full-time, affordable, and appropriate early childhood education is not always available. Why would we not choose to have parents—whether it is a sole father or a sole mother—looking after their children in those first 5 years? Is that not the gold standard that we would all like? How many of us had our mums at home for the first 5 years of our lives? Everybody in this room, mostly, I would think.

Then there were others of us, myself included, who were sole parents. I went back to work when my daughter was 3 years old. I would have liked to have had 5 years at home. It was not possible, but that, to me, is the gold standard—that you give children the best start in life by giving them as much care as possible by their parents, whether it is one or two parents. So I wonder why the Minister would not accept what I think is a very good suggestion in this Supplementary Order Paper: ensuring, if there is not affordable and appropriate early childhood education available, that parents of children under 5 can stay at home and look after them and care for them. You see, I have always thought of that as real work. It is not a “nice-to-have”, or something that is just done; it is real work, and valuable work. It is unpaid work—work that if we had to pay for we could not afford. So I say to the Minister why not consider this Supplementary Order Paper?

I also think that the definition of “part-time work” should be 15 hours a week, which is in Ms Sepuloni’s Supplementary Order Paper 135—not 20 hours a week; 15 hours a week—because who is going to be at home when children get home from school at 3 o’clock in the afternoon? If parents are not home, there is criticism of them for not caring for their children and not taking enough account of their children’s needs. Why not 15 hours a week? It is a great start for them, and as their children get older and they can move into more employment because they have got a foot in the door—well and good. So I say to the Minister, why this 20 hours a week? If the Minister looks at reality out there and what really happens to families, the Minister would know that 20 hours a week makes it incredibly difficult to be a parent, particularly a parent on your own—a good parent doing the best job possible, but—

I move, That the question be now put.

I think we have been going for 2¼ hours. A number of members have had four calls. I think we are probably in a position where the Committee can decide whether it wants the question to be put or not.

Motion agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 135 in the name of Carmel Sepuloni to clause 4 be agreed to.