Social Security Amendment Bill, Education Amendment Bill, Taxation (Support for Children in Hardship) Bill

I move, That the Social Security Amendment Bill, the Education Amendment Bill, and the Taxation (Support for Children in Hardship) Bill be now read a third time. This Government has expressed a strong commitment to assist children living in severe hardship in New Zealand. Supporting our most vulnerable children is critical to ensuring that they can succeed in life. As a Government, we have worked to build the right foundations to assist and support our most vulnerable families and their children, so that they can thrive. This package will reach more than half a million children in low-income and very low - income families.

In laying these foundations, we are focused on embedding our social investment approach by making early and better-targeted investment to achieve improved long-term outcomes amongst our most vulnerable people and families. Through Budget 2015 this Government is making an upfront investment of $790 million directly into the lives of children living in severe hardship. This investment builds on the foundations we have put in place, and represents a significant step towards assisting some of our most vulnerable families.

Collectively, these bills aim to provide more financial assistance to reduce pressure on the budgets of low-income families with children while strengthening work expectations for beneficiary parents in order to recognise the benefits of paid employment for these families. We know that participation in sustainable, paid employment is a key pathway out of hardship for many families and their children. Paid employment brings a range of long-term social and developmental benefits to both parents and children, particularly when they are disadvantaged. These include increased confidence, expanded social and support networks, increased social mobility, and reduced exposure to hardship in the long term.

In recognising these benefits, the Social Security Amendment Bill will require sole parent beneficiaries and partners of beneficiaries to look for part-time work of 20 hours per week once their youngest dependent child reaches the age of 3. Participation in paid employment will assist these parents to move towards independence so they are in a stronger position to provide the essential items that are critical in supporting their child to grow and thrive. As is current practice, parents covered by the strengthened work obligations in this bill will be required to seek and enter only paid employment that is suitable. This approach will ensure that a wide range of factors related to families’ circumstances and ability to move to work will be considered. The returns from moving to paid work will be further strengthened through low-income working parents being able to access increased Working for Families assistance as a result of changes through Budget 2015.

The Taxation (Support for Children in Hardship) Bill helps children from low-income working families who are living in hardship by providing for an increase in Working for Families assistance. This change will boost both the in-work tax credit and the minimum family tax credit, helping to reduce pressure on the budgets of our lowest-income working families with children. Access to additional Working for Families assistance will provide parents with greater support to move to and remain in paid employment, and that will be of direct benefit to both the parents and their children.

Lifting the returns from being in work will ensure that parents in these families are in a stronger position to provide the essential items that are fundamental to their child’s well-being. This Government is focused on ensuring that families can become more independent through participation in paid work so they can meet their families’ needs in the long term. The changes for Working for Families through this bill represent an important step towards achieving this.

In support of the changes to Working for Families, the Government has also taken steps to provide additional childcare assistance to help meet the costs of childcare. From 4 April 2016 the highest rate of childcare assistance will increase to $5 per hour for the lowest-income families. This change will be of real significance in helping to reduce the pressures of childcare costs on the budgets of the lowest-income families. It will also ensure that the developmental benefits of childcare are more accessible to some of our most vulnerable children.

Lifting household incomes is an effective way to reduce the hardship of children in the lowest-income families. In recognising these benefits, the Social Security Amendment Bill will deliver financial relief to better support some of our lowest-income households with children. From 1 April 2016 rates of main benefits for families with dependent children will increase by $25 per week. The increase to the main benefit provided through the bill represents one of the most significant and historic changes in supporting children in some of our lowest-income beneficiary families. This is the first substantial increase in the main benefit in over four decades. The increase in benefit rates will assist over 100,000 of our lowest-income beneficiary families. A similar increase will also be applied to student allowance rates to provide extra financial support to parents while they are in study. This will occur through changes to regulations.

Boosting the incomes of these families will make a real and meaningful difference by ensuring that beneficiary and student parents are in a stronger position to better meet their children’s basic needs. As a Government, we are committed to ensuring that all New Zealand children are able to thrive and realise their potential so that they can live fulfilling lives. Combined together with changes through the Government’s $790 million package, this will ensure that children experiencing that severe hardship are better off both now and in the future. These bills represent a significant and continued commitment by this Government to assist our most vulnerable children living in hardship. I commend these bills to the House.

I am going to start by just acknowledging the common ground that we have in the House. I acknowledge that that side of the House and this side of the House recognise we have a problem in respect of too many children living in poverty in New Zealand. Both sides of the House recognise a need to address this problem, and both sides of the House actually want to support people to be able to go into work. But there are differences in those common themes.

Although we recognise that we have a problem with poverty, what we on this side of the House recognise is that, actually, there are 305,000 children living in poverty in this country, and that is based on the household income measure that the Government chooses not to use. Instead, what we have is a Government that has selected a measure that would give them a figure of 60,000 to 100,000 children living in poverty. I think it is shameful that the Government would understate the issue that we have here with children living in poverty. It based the package that it provided through this Budget on that lower figure rather than using the household income measure that gives us a clear indication that we have about 305,000 children living in poverty, and we need to acknowledge that in the House.

Anne Tolley, the Minister for Social Development, has said that the Government is attempting to address the issue of child poverty here in New Zealand. Well, actually, this legislation is not money that goes directly to children. Let us acknowledge that these children do not go out and work for themselves. They belong to families. They have caregivers. They have parents who are looking after them, and this legislation is about those parents who are looking after them. We need to acknowledge that because, actually, if we do not support those people who are looking after the children, then there is no way we can address the children living in hardship issue, because they live within families.

We support the idea of people needing to go out into work—we have always done that. Labour lifted the number of people who were in employment over the 9 years that we were in Government in the years 1999 to 2008. Under Labour the unemployment rate dropped to all-time records. But what we have is an issue with the way in which the Government is attempting to push people out into work. It is a method that is based on stigma, that judges these parents, and, also, that does not take seriously their roles and responsibilities as parents as well. So we are disappointed there.

We tried to make changes through the Committee stage, and I want to talk about some of those changes. I want to discuss our disappointment with the National Government for not supporting those changes. We talked about the need to actually define “suitable work”. When we are saying that these parents need to go out into work when their youngest child turns 3, we need to say what suitable work is for that parent and for that child. And, actually, the definition for “suitable work” should be based on work that works for children.

We have heard so many stories out on the hustings, out with our constituents, of people being pushed into work that is unsuitable—work that is outside standard working hours, work where they do not have access to early childhood education. We have had it raised time and time again this year, through the media and through reports, that access to early childhood education is still an issue. Access to quality early childhood education is even more of an issue. So we wanted to include in this legislation a section that actually stipulated that it had to be suitable work for children, and we wanted that defined. Part of that would have been ensuring that those parents had access to quality early childhood education before they would have that expectation on them to go out into work. I do not think that is unreasonable. I do not think that is unreasonable because what we do not want as a society is our kids being left in dangerous circumstances because they do not have access to quality care.

One of the other changes that we actually tried to make, because of the fact that we value the importance of upskilling and training these sole parents as well, was to include study alongside part-time work obligations as another option. The reason we tried to include that is that it is all good saying that these parents need to go out to work but, as the Minister said, it should be about sustainable, long-term employment. We want to support these parents to be able to get into sustainable, long-term employment. For some of them that means being given the opportunity to upskill, train, and increase their level of qualification, so that when they actually go out into the workforce they not only increase their earning capacity but also increase their chances of being able to obtain more secure work. That is important for them, and that is also important for their children.

So much of the evidence that we have seen shows that when you actually impose these types of work obligations what ends up happening is that these parents end up taking up minimum wage jobs, and, in some instances, end up being worse off employed than they were on welfare in the first place. We saw that in studies in the UK and the US. Yet the Government ignores that evidence and just continues to push sole parents out into the lowest-paid jobs, and, at the end of the day, that is not actually long term and sustainable for them and their families.

That study component that we tried to add is important not only in terms of the parents’ ability to provide long term but also just in terms of the research of role modelling education to children. For children, particularly when their mothers achieve academically, all the research shows that that has a huge impact on the academic achievements of them. It is disappointing, because so many times we have heard from the National Government that it is aspirational for New Zealanders. Well, actually, it is not aspirational for the New Zealanders who we are talking about here today. It is not aspirational for the parents of the children who are living in hardship, whom we are talking about here today. So, really, this legislation, unfortunately, is going to do very little to change the circumstances of these families. As I said, that is disappointing.

There are so many things that are being implemented through this legislation where there is no evidence to support them. I asked the Ministry of Social Development through written questions what evidence it has to support the recommendation that a parent goes back to work when their youngest turns 3 rather than 5, and the response I got was abysmal. The response was that the Ministry of Social Development has no evidence to support the recommendation that the age change goes from 5 years to 3 years. That is disgusting—that you would force a parent to go back to work based on some ideological belief rather than any evidence. That side of the House and some submitters made the point that, actually, many parents do go back to work when their children turn 3. That is good, but, actually, everyone’s circumstances are different, and this change in legislation does not take that into account.

The other issue that we had with the legislation was that there was an expectation that work obligations would increase from 15 hours a week to 20 hours a week. The reason we said “Hang on a second, that’s not going work.” is that, actually, these parents have access to only 20 hours of free early childhood education a week, and it does not take into consideration the travel time it would take to get those children to early childhood education, then to go to work, and then to come back to get them. That side says “Well, actually, they’ll have access to a childcare subsidy.”, but as we have seen this year, through other parliamentary questions I have put through, very few parents who are off the benefit are actually accessing the childcare subsidy.

We are supporting this legislation. The only reason we are supporting this legislation is that it puts a little bit more money into the pockets of some of our poorest families. But it is not enough money. It is $25 per family, and there are issues with that because it is not per child, so the bigger your family the more disadvantaged you are. We have to support it, though, because those families are struggling so much that any little bit of money, any little crumb that the Government can throw out to them, we have to support. We have so many issues with this legislation and we are disappointed about the lack of evidence that the Government has to support it, but we are in a difficult position. We will be voting for the legislation, but with very major reservations that I hope I have made clear today.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak in the third reading of the legislation arising from the Support for Children in Hardship Bill. I just want to, first of all, apologise, as the chairperson of the Social Services Committee, that the member Carmel Sepuloni did not get the evidence, because I think she is absolutely right. When we do enact a part of legislation that wants to direct parents into some form of work—especially when their child turns 3—there should be some evidence, and I do apologise if the evidence was not made available. It is in the regulatory impact statement, and I think I have made that clear also in a previous speech. It does talk about the fact that Statistics New Zealand does say that there is an increasing number of solo parents—in fact, it is 25.1 percent; it is actually higher than what you call “partnered mothers”, which is at only 14 percent—which does indicate the fact that there is evidence that shows that it is important as well. The other thing, too, is that there is also international evidence to show that this is the trend. So I do apologise to the member if she did not receive the evidence that is in the regulatory impact statement that is there as well.

I just do want to make my comments in regard to when we think about the direction that we are taking and the importance of it. There have been some comments in regard to the measurement of poverty, or the measurement of hardship. I want to direct members to the fact that in 2012 Statistics New Zealand published a report called Measuring child poverty in New Zealand: Issues and practicalities, and on page 4 of that report it talks about the aspect of—both internationally and also in New Zealand—if we were to measure, what would that look like, and what would be the important parameters around that? And on page 4, in the fourth paragraph, it says this: “International experience shows that the measurement of child poverty is complex. In addition to conceptual and practical difficulties, it entails making arbitrary judgements and choices that require a process of public consultation and political consensus.” That is not to say that we should not take some direction towards understanding what the issues are, and I think that is really important. It also, too, goes on to comment that in other jurisdictions—in fact, internationally—the US is the only one that actually has an indicator of poverty, but according to this one—

💬 Jacinda Ardern: That’s not true.

That may have changed. The member may direct me to that; I am happy to receive that information.

But going from the report here, it talks about the fact that “Unlike the US, Canada has no official definition of poverty and no official method of measuring poverty.” But what it does do is look at household incomes. It looks at the characteristics of that as well. If we go to Australia, for instance, just across the Ditch, Australia has no official definition, nor an official measurement, of poverty. But what it does do is it measures the characteristics of household incomes and other issues that are important. Though we have been talking about the measurement of poverty, this Government has taken what I believe is a measured approach, a common-sense approach, to addressing these issues that are important.

When we talk about the legislation arising from the Support for Children in Hardship Bill, it is talking about supporting parents. The member Carmel Sepuloni talked in the previous speech about the importance of supporting parents, and we would agree with that. That is important. They are the caregivers of the children who are in their care at the moment. So I just want to make a couple of comments. I want to acknowledge the NGO sector, which works with our Government departments, and out of that there have been a number of commentaries. I refer to 1000 days to get it right for every child, which was a report from 2009 by Every Child Counts. It says this: “Let’s be clear. This is not a call by Every Child Counts for immediate increases in the public spend on children. It is a call for a fundamental look at what’s happening for children, the communities they live in, the supports they receive from government and how New Zealanders work together to grow healthy children.” In other words, what it is indicating—these are the NGOs that are working in the sector—is that it has to be a multi-systemic approach, with both the Government and the community working together so that there is a consensus around that.

I also refer to—and at times it is controversial—the Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty. I want to be careful because when I quote from this, I do not want to take it out of context just to confirm the direction we are taking. There are elements of this where I imagine that we would agree to disagree, but there are elements where we have commonality. I refer to page 14 of the report Solutions to Child Poverty in New Zealand from 2012, which said: “Work expectations for parents on income support: Ensure that parents of young children are appropriately work-tested if they are on a benefit. Clarity of expectations about work, accompanied by support for appropriate childcare, are characteristic of systems which generate high employment rates of sole-parents and lower rates of child poverty.” On this point in particular, I am sure that we would absolutely agree with this report as well.

Lastly, I just want to read from A Mountain All Can Climb, which is from the social policy parliamentary unit of the Salvation Army. It indicates on page 53 of its report, where it talks about “Work & Incomes”—these are social indicators that it is commenting on around employment and unemployment. It says: “Labour force participation reached new levels toward the end of 2014.” In fact, it was at 69.9 percent in the December quarter. It can see, and it comments on this, that there is an increasing opportunity—in fact, it is one of the highest in the OECD world, where more Kiwis are participating in work. It is around 2.5 million people. We can see that the direction that we are taking, which is not—as in the eyes and the words of members of the Opposition—forcing people into work. In fact, a Kiwi work ethic is what we are taking.

I want to round my comments up by saying, in a sense, that the direction of this legislation is about supporting children and it is about supporting families. That is the reason why the initial bill was entitled Support for Children in Hardship Bill. If we go to the explanatory note, this is what it clearly 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.”

This is about the intent of the direction and the vision of this legislation. It does not have an intent to be a beast of burden or to bring despair upon those families. Regarding the comments that were made on the other side that there may be a way of forcing people into work, and so forth, it clearly indicates in the legislation “to be available” for work that is accessible and affordable—childcare and so forth. If that member or any other member over there has a constituent who comes to them who makes a complaint about the system and who clearly indicates that, actually, it is going against the policy and the direction, then I would be more than happy to advocate with that constituent and even with that member if it was found that the system was not acting appropriately and there were not the entitlements that it was obligated to deliver. If that is the case, then that is what we will do.

💬 Grant Robertson: I want you to come into my office any day of the week, and I have got a list this long for you, Alfred. I have got a list this long.

Although we hear the talk of anecdotal stories of constituents who are being treated unfairly, I put this challenge out. I too, as an MP who has had constituents come to me who have talked about injustices that they have found—that they have not been able to have their entitlements. I too have advocated for them.

That is the intent of this legislation—to be fair and just. It does four key things. It strengthens work obligations for beneficiary parents. Benefit rates for families—for children—will rise by $25 a week after tax, the first time since 1972 that core benefit rates have increased more than inflation. It increases Working for Families payments for lower-income working families. It increases childcare assistance.

I commend this legislation to the House. I commend the work by the Minister for Social Development. I commend the work by the hard-working Social Services Committee members, who worked collaboratively together so that the legislation can be part of a range of measures to address the issues of hardship for our families, our children, and our communities of Aotearoa. Thank you.

I want to just repeat that offer. Anyone who is unable to access early childhood education in their community is to directly contact Alfred Ngaro, and he is going to establish that placement. That is on behalf of anyone. That means that if you are unable to do that, then, I am assuming, there will be no deduction or penalty regime via Work and Income. He is holding up a business card; he has put his name to the offer. I really want to make sure other members of the House know that—any casework, fire it straight through to Alfred in west Auckland. I look forward to doing that.

There were a lot of reports referenced by Alfred Ngaro, the last speaker, and he used those reports to try to demonstrate that there was not consensus around the measurement of poverty and hardship in New Zealand and, in fact, internationally. He referenced the Children’s Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty. There was some reference to Statistics New Zealand and some talk of the United States being the only place that has a recognised and agreed measurement. That is actually incorrect.

In fact, the Children’s Commissioner’s expert advisory group was the first, probably, to have put to the Government a solid proposal on how we can move forward and entrench poverty measures in New Zealand. It actually wrote a very draft legislative framework for us to adopt as a Parliament, one that I thought was so fantastic that I grabbed it, drafted it as a bill, and put it in the ballot. It was a real shame, then, that when I came down to the House the day that we did that and I asked John Key whether he would support it, he said no before, I believe, he even read it. So there is an established framework. There is an established way forward for us to build consensus around child poverty measures; it has just been that the Government has never wanted to adopt it, if we are talking plainly.

It is, I think, such a well-researched, evidence-based set of measures that, in fact, the Children’s Commissioner has used it as the basis of the Child Poverty Monitor, a monitor that is now frequently undertaken and that I think is so fantastic that I usually keep it within easy reach in my desk. Here we go, here is my prop—something I have prepared earlier. The Children’s Commissioner now on an annual basis reports against these established measures. They are established beyond New Zealand boundaries. They are established enough that Unicef now uses them internationally to compare where different countries stand on child poverty. New Zealand is unable to be compared fairly across those comparable countries because we have not entrenched all of those measurements in our country, but other States have—other OECD nations absolutely have.

So what are those roughly well-established measures? I think it is really useful to talk about this, because if you are going to establish policy on child hardship, which is what this legislation does, we need a decent, agreed evidence base. It is continually a point of contention and it confuses the public. So I want to really briefly just run through this. This was the Child Poverty Monitor from 2014. The first box talks about the 260,000 Kiwi kids living in poverty. That has now actually been revised; we know it is 305,000. That measure there is a relative measure based on income. It looks at how many families are living on 60 percent of the median income in New Zealand—60 percent—and it generates that figure. The reason it does it on that basis, in the same way that other countries do, is it assumes that income levels demonstrate what is required to have a basic existence in that country. There are a few variations on this measure that take into account before-housing costs and after-housing costs, and that is useful because it demonstrates to us that actually we have a problem in New Zealand with unaffordable housing, which contributes to income poverty. So that is measure No. 1.

Measure No. 2 talks about the number of people here—10 percent of kids—at the hardest end of poverty. That is how many are in the severe end, because if you use a 60 percent measure you can use a 50 percent one as well. Three out of five children live in poverty for many years—that is your persistence measure, your measure around how long people are staying there. This one is interesting, actually, and the Government should have looked at this one because this one tells us that, actually, children are living in poverty in their youngest years—usually 4 and under. The reason for that, if you look at the evidence, is really clear. It is that it is harder for sole parents to be in additional part-time work when they have young children and caregiver roles, but then, when those children start to get older, they move into work. Actually, those were the numbers that Alfred Ngaro was talking about. When parents can, they do.

This legislation mandates parents being in work from the time their child is 3. You do not need to mandate. Parents, when they are able—for the benefit of their own children—will make that choice for themselves. The statistics that were quoted prove that. They prove that the mandatory nature is unnecessary, and all it does is remove the discretion that parents with children at that age need. Again, there is a real lack of analysis there, which is disappointing.

There is then a measure here: 180,000 children go without the things that they need—that is your material deprivation scorecard. That does not look at income. What it does instead is ask—I think, from memory—18 questions on basic needs. Can you afford to go to the doctor when you need to? Do your kids share a bed? Do you have shoes, clothing, the right food? That is trying to delve a bit deeper into those measures of poverty. Taken as a whole, that gives us a really good picture. The Government has always argued: “We don’t want to use one measure of poverty because it doesn’t tell us everything.” No one has ever argued with that. We have always said to use multiple measures.

In fact, the Children’s Commissioner actually uses five in his proposed legislation. Use this. It is a great start. That is the consensus we need, and the Children’s Commissioner has handed it to us on a plate. I think we would have had better legislation before this House if we had agreed to those sets of measures because it would have allowed us to use a proper evidence base. As I have said, it is not just about income—it is not. Income matters—that $25 that this legislation will deliver matters, but it will not be enough. Again, if you look at the evidence, what we know now is that because most of the really severe needs are for children in their youngest years and, often, children where there are siblings, that tells us that, actually, we need a targeted payment for young kids. It needs to be more generous, and it needs to be per child. That is what some decent analysis would have told us, but instead what the Government did is it went to officials and said “We’ve got a pocket of money. Here it is. Go and see what you can do with it.”, rather than setting out some really clear parameters about who needed that most. That is what we did with the Best Start payment.

My problem overall is that we have never argued that it has just been about income; it has always been about a raft of issues. But if we want to tackle child well-being generally—and when I say “child well-being”, I mean poverty and I mean child harm—we need a national plan that brings together those needs across income, across housing, across early childhood, across health, and across social development. When the Vulnerable Children’s Plan came up, that is exactly what we said to the Government: if you want to find one indicator, one thing, that is evident in child well-being generally, that indicator, that piece of evidence, will always be deprivation. It is the most consistent theme.

So if you want to reduce child abuse and if you want to improve child well-being, start from the position of reducing inequality and getting rid of material deprivation and income inadequacy. That will make one of the biggest differences to child well-being overall. I am not just saying that; the evidence tells us it is true. That is why I am disappointed that this legislation did not use the evidence. Otherwise, we would have been debating a completely different package here this afternoon.

It is an honour to rise and speak in support of the third reading of the legislation arising from the Support for Children in Hardship Bill. I will just start by acknowledging this Government and the Hon Anne Tolley and their work with vulnerable children. Today we announced the launch of the children’s team in Canterbury. It is another initiative of this Government, working with vulnerable children—1,300 young children in Canterbury—before they become at risk of State intervention.

We have heard the other side of this House today selectively use information. Those members referenced the Ministry of Social Development annual households income report, but what they failed to report was that that report actually stated that absolute hardship declined, from 165,000 young people in 2013 to 145,000 in 2014—the lowest since 2007. It is still not good enough, I agree, but it is some general traction and a clear pathway forward. Even the Salvation Army, in its state of the nation report this year, declared that child poverty was tracking downwards. People are presenting to food banks even less, because of job creation. This is what this legislation is premised on—getting people into jobs.

It is also about education. There was a reference to parents’ educational attainment and the impact that has on a young person, which is partially correct, but it is also about the parent’s expectation of education in that person’s life, and how the importance of education is placed on a young person. Getting a young toddler and infant and child into early childhood education—it is referenced clearly in the evidence that with beneficiary families, that can have the most impact. That is why I support this legislation and commend it to the House.

I rise to take another call on these bills arising from the Support for Children in Hardship Bill. I would like to start my contribution by referencing back to a submission from a Plunket nurse who was working in Christchurch East. She was talking about the reality of the lives of some of the children whom she was seeing on a daily basis. This legislation should be about our children. This legislation, we were told by the Government, is delivering on child poverty, which is one of its main priorities in this term. It is legislation that I think fails, so significantly.

From the evidence of this Plunket nurse—she was telling us that she is going into rental houses where families are paying a lot of rent. They are cold and damp houses that families are struggling to heat because they do not have enough money to do so, particularly with the challenges of the quality of the housing. Some of the houses lack curtains and carpet, and those families are not able to afford to provide that themselves. There is very little personal space for the children whom she is seeing, and in winter everyone is in the same room. And we know that that is one of the key contributors to the spread of infectious diseases, and that it is not an exaggeration to say it is killing some of our children. She is seeing vulnerable babies sleeping on couches and sharing adult beds because the family cannot afford appropriate sleeping conditions for their babies.

The families are incredibly stressed, there is poor food in the house—sometimes no food—and the adults are skipping meals, trying to be able to afford to give their children that bare minimum. Their children are experiencing the parents’ stress. Infectious diseases, particularly respiratory diseases, measles, and skin infections are happening as a result of this poverty. And these families are deeply embarrassed because they feel the stigma that is being associated with the rhetoric that we hear from this Government of saying that it is their fault, that they need to get into work, and that that would fix everything. Some of these families are in work, and some of these children—because of their sicknesses and illnesses as a result of their housing and the poverty—need additional care, which means that their family cannot go into full-time paid work, or even sometimes part-time paid work.

Our system, as it is operating at the moment, is causing sickness that is keeping parents out of the workforce, and we are telling them that the answer to this is for them to get into the workforce. That is at the heart of the message that the Government is giving them in this legislation. It is completely, wilfully ignorant to the reality of the root causes of poverty and the challenges of these families. When this is the Government’s big answer to child poverty, it just deeply, deeply disappoints me.

I think we need to be reminded that in this legislation the Government is saying that it is increasing the per family benefit rate by $25 a week from next year—not immediately from the introduction of this legislation, or even when the Budget was introduced this year, when the Government announced this, but next year—because it prioritised the surplus over even the small amount of money going to these families whose children are suffering. This $23 a week—the academics and the advisers told this Government that to move any of those beneficiary families out of poverty, the minimum required from the Government to move just a small group of those families out of poverty was $30 a week. It chose a level below that.

I have said it already in this House, but that just offends me because it was a conscious policy choice not to move any of these families who are unable to work out of poverty. And this is the Government’s answer to child poverty! It is not an answer, yet we are having to swallow this dead rat of supporting this legislation because $23.10 a week, when you do not have shoes for your kids, when you are going without food, and when you are struggling to pay what the Government thought was an insignificant prescription fee, matters. But it is not going anywhere near solving the problem.

The Government’s emphasis on taking away family choice, saying that these families will be subjected to more sanctions when up to 50 percent of these families’ benefits could be cut for not meeting an appointment, which is what we saw—I think the evidence of the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services was that over 80,000 families had had their benefits cut in half over a year and that for two-thirds of those families it was because they had missed an appointment. So I would like to see Alfred Ngaro deal with every single one of those concerns, many of which, I am sure, were not valid. If you do want to contact him directly, as he has kindly offered to help, it is Alfred.Ngaro@parliament.govt.nz. I do encourage people to take the Government up on its word, given that it seems so convinced that the system is not unfairly penalising anyone and that everyone is getting their entitlements, when the evidence we get on this side of this House does not reflect that reality.

But to get back too to the point of that $23 being completely inadequate, it is also, unfortunately, going to increase inequality. We know that the families that are struggling the most at the moment are those with more children. So this means that because it is a per family rate, children in the families that are struggling the most are going to get the least out of this. Those families are the families that we need to be investing in. If we understand the concept of investment and the concept of an ageing population, then we would get it that actually a bit of money upfront now to help those young people, those children, to be well, healthy, and to participate and engage in school and have good outcomes will pay off for those of us who are likely to be relying on their workforce participation in the future. But this Government’s concept of investment seems to be a concept that does not meet my understanding of that word. It really seems to be so constrained by this focus on the short-term fiscal bottom line for this Government, not the well-being of our children and not actually investment in the long term.

I also want to mention that we have been told that there was good evidence for dropping the threshold for requiring parents to look for this work to the age of 3. The evidence that was provided was that that is the average age of their child when people are doing that. That is no evidence of why this is a good idea, because actually it could well be that these families who are requiring income support are there because their children are sick. We know that a significant number of these parents in this situation have children with disabilities who require their attention. There are significant numbers—over 70 percent, they say from international research—leaving violent relationships, and their kids need them there. So it is not comparable. Actually, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner also said that although it is the norm, the commissioner was not sure whether it was a good thing. There is research showing that in families in Auckland parents are returning to work earlier, and that that is being economically driven.

Again, if we were thinking and putting our children at the heart of our decision making and our planning, would we want to say that economic necessity should override the choice of parenting and the decision making about what is best for our children, particularly when we know that not all jobs are better than no job? Actually, some jobs cost in terms of stress and in terms of money, but it is the children in these situations who sometimes pay. This legislation is a sad, sad disappointment.

It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the legislation arising from the Support for Children in Hardship Bill. I would like to start with an analogy. We believe that the legislation should actually have been called the “Oliver Twist Bill”. If you remember the story, we have got Oliver and we have got Mr Bumble, who is handing out the spoonful of gruel, I think it is. Oliver is hungry. There is a room full of orphans and paupers. He goes up and he says: “Please, sir, may I have some more?”. Because, yes, the Government and Mr Bumble, I think it was, who was giving out the gruel are doing a good thing in giving out some food to the children who need it, who are hungry, and who are poor, but it is not enough. Oliver goes up and asks: “Please, sir, may I have some more?”. That is exactly what the Opposition on this side of the House is doing to the Government. It is asking and telling the Government that those children in poverty who are in those poor beneficiary households with sole parents need more than what they are getting through this legislation.

So, yes, we are going to be supporting this legislation because it is a little bit—and yes, they need that food, yes, they need that gruel; yes, they need that $25, yes, they need the extra money—but it is not enough. That is the position that New Zealand First is taking on this. What we heard the Minister say earlier on was that it is going to make a real and meaningful difference. Well, New Zealand First believes that, yes, it is making a difference, but it is not real and it is not meaningful.

What I would like to do is to go through one of the documents that Alfred Ngaro went through, which was the regulatory impact statement. We have heard a couple of comments from Mr Doocey as well, saying that this side of the House is being quite selective with the information and the data. There is a lot of information in the regulatory impact statement, actually, that the Government is being quite selective about presenting to the House and to the people of New Zealand. What we have been hearing is a bunch of rhetoric and media sound bites. Basically, what the Government wants the public of New Zealand to understand is that people who are beneficiaries or who are the working poor who are feeling the pinch of being in poverty will get extra money. They will get $25 a week. That is the sound bite that the Government wants to put out to the public and wants the public to believe, but it is not true. I will prove that by going through the regulatory impact statement.

I would like to just echo a few things from Carmel Sepuloni to say that there is common ground—yes, there is. We all in this House understand that there is an issue with poverty, and children in poverty is just an absolutely unacceptable fact that we have in New Zealand, and we want to address that. This goes some way to doing that, but not far enough.

In the regulatory impact statement it goes through the actual objectives of what this legislation is about. It states that it is “to reduce material hardship amongst children, particularly those living in deeper levels of material deprivation …”. So it is about reducing material deprivation. Does this legislation assist and target sole parents? The answer is yes. But does it assist and target those sole parents, or even couples, with large families? The answer is no. Actually, it increases the inequality for large families. That is a fact of this legislation. The Government cannot deny that. So if the title of the legislation really was the Support for Children in Hardship Bill, then surely logic dictates that the legislation should be targeting the children in hardship? But it is not. It is targeting the beneficiaries, the families. I will go through the data in a second. If we are talking about families with four or more children, they get less per child than what one family with one child would. The legislation is not specifically targeting children in hardship. It is going a very minuscule way in trying to assist the entire family, but it is not targeting the children.

There are examples in the regulatory impact statement that actually highlight the limitations of the legislation itself. One example is when it is talking about the options that they were going through and the broad coverage—specifically, the increase to the benefit rates. It states here: “An increase in benefit rates is relatively well-targeted to families in material hardship,”—relatively—“but misses working families in material hardship …”. So the first question is: what about the working families? We have got a lot of children in families that have at least one of their parents working, and they are still below the poverty line. How is this legislation addressing that issue? Of course, the real problem in that statement is that it says “relatively well-targeted”. What does “relatively” mean? How on earth is that real and meaningful difference? One of the main points that I wanted to bring out of this was, actually, the data and the statistics that, first of all, the Minister has not mentioned, and none of the backbenchers of the National Party has mentioned yet, and yet it is quite important.

Perhaps the National Party members might want to listen so they can understand the position of New Zealand First and other Opposition parties. In regard to the benefit increase, it says it is targeting 108,000 families. Of course we have heard that at the moment we have got over 300,000 children in poverty and suffering from material deprivation. That is what the entire objective of this legislation was. It goes on to say that due to the flow-on effects of the increase in the benefit rate, around 26,000 non-beneficiaries—so we are talking about the “working poor”—will see average gains of just $7 a week. So it is $7 a week. That is what I was saying before, about the Government wanting to stand up and pretend that people in material hardship, families in material hardship, will get $25 a week. That is not the case. But it goes on. It says that around 4,000 non-beneficiary households will see a decrease in their weekly income from the accommodation supplement. They will see a decrease in their weekly income from the accommodation supplement. But we have not heard any of that from the Government.

I have a bar graph here. It shows that 50,000 to 60,000 families will receive less than $20 a week. In fact, around about 25,000 families will get under $10 a week. If you add to that the fact I have just mentioned—you have got 4,000 who will be losing money a week—this is not the grand solution and the best legislation that the Minister and the Government backbenchers are trying to sell it as. They have failed to mention all of this information.

If we look at the table across the page, it goes to break down exactly how much different family types will get. If we are talking about sole parents with four or more children, sole parents with four or more children will get just over $22 a week. If you break it down to a daily average, for a family of four children, it will be less than a dollar a day per child. How is that real and meaningful, and how is that going to achieve the objective of decreasing material hardship for these children? It will not. It gets even less for couples. If you have got a couple with four or more children, they will get $16 a week. That is around 50c a day per child. How is that real and meaningful? Bear in mind the departmental report, which states that the legislation intends to provide an increase in the amount that beneficiary families receive and will help to ensure they can pay for family necessities, which is critical to the well-being of their children. How does that make sense, if they are getting 50c per child per day?

That is the Oliver Twist part of this legislation. That is why New Zealand First, although we will be supporting the legislation, has massive reservations. We have got issues. The real problem that New Zealand First has is that this is all in the regulatory impact statement. We have not heard any of that information at all from the Minister or from the Government. New Zealand First will be supporting this legislation, but with massive reservations. Thank you.

I am taking a very short call to support the legislation arising out of the Support for Children in Hardship Bill. The people of New Zealand, just like the submitters, are very supportive of the $790 million package in Budget 2015 to help children in hardship. This legislation delivers a few important components. One of the main components is that people with families, those who are dependent on benefits, will be receiving an increase of $25 per week in their benefit. I have heard Opposition members saying that this is not enough—that $25 per family is not enough. I ask the Labour Opposition members—they were in Government for 9 years—why did they not do anything about this? This is the first increase since 1972, and it is this National Government that is giving this increment. It is this National Government that is putting in the hard yards to put more money in people’s pockets, to help children in hardship. [Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Can I ask members to settle down—[Interruption] Can I ask members to settle down a little bit and not to interject when the Speaker is on his feet. Can I also ask the member to address the Chair as she is going, and not quite so much directly to the Opposition members.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Yes, this is true. This is the first increase in benefits since 1972. We are matching that increase in the student allowance. There will be more money for people receiving Working for Families payments. We are increasing childcare assistance.

This is great legislation. I support this legislation and I commend it to the House. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare Pāremata. This interchange that we have just witnessed is a classic, because I am old enough to remember the “mother of all Budgets”.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Everyone loves a classic interchange.

A classic interchange is why we are here—especially one without fossil fuels. What we love is when children are at the heart of policy, and this is not it. I think we have heard some excellent speeches this afternoon from my colleagues Jan Logie, Jacinda Ardern, Darroch Ball, and others—and Carmel Sepuloni as well. Their contributions talked about the real content of this legislation and the real consequences, where we have this complicated, messed-up morass of punitive welfare legislation. Inserting $25 into the legislation and not talking about the reality of that $25 and what happens in different categories of benefit and Work and Income treatment does not acknowledge the real effects.

Let us start with the wonderful—if you have got more than four children—effect of getting less than a dollar a day per child. It is a little bit like World Vision. We have got to that point now in this country where it is like World Vision. The children of this country who are living in poverty are supposed to be grateful for less than 50c a day. It is a little bit like the picture on television that we see of this child suffering from the effects of famine, and, yet, we are re-enacting that in our legislation towards children, none of whom deserve it in any country, and certainly not in a country that can afford to do a whole lot better. It is less than a dollar a day—absolutely unbelievable.

So instead of dealing with that, we are now going to have charity workers all over the country—the Oliver Twist metaphor that my colleague referred to—who will be providing the gruel, who will be doing the breakfasts in schools, and who will be doing all the charities. There will be people sponsoring—I used to joke about it—a goat in South Auckland. It is not a joke. The reality is that people in the Government are happy to accept that we should use the benefit system to keep people in poverty and punish people who do not believe they should bow down and accept that.

People are sanctioned every day in Work and Income for daring to challenge the way in which they are being treated, and then they are trespassed and out the door. They are falling through the cracks and they are not acknowledged in the statistics, and this legislation is not going to help. Of course we believe that any dollar is better than no dollar for families on benefits, so we will be supporting that part of the legislation. But we will not be supporting the tax provisions, and the reason we are not is that, as the Child Poverty Action Group has made it clear, by increasing the Working for Families abatement rate and lowering the threshold, this policy fails to protect the working poor. In fact, by its calculations, a family earning the minimum wage—working 60 hours on $46,000—is about $2,225 worse off a year in real terms by this legislation. So that is how the Government has kept the cost down. But it is not right and it is not fair.

Then let us get on to the 20 hours a week—the work testing. The word “appropriate” was bandied about a number of times and it is in the legislation—“appropriate” and “affordable”. No, do not talk about “affordable”, because no one has got a right to talk about “affordable” unless they are rich now—but “appropriate” and “accessible”. Sorry, but bollocks—this is not how it works in the benefit system at all. People are being sanctioned daily. They are constantly being sanctioned because they did not fulfil the work requirements.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!

Do I have to sit down?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Yes, you do when I stand up. That is right. We are trying to do a little bit of tidying up of some of the language, and I think that the word the member just used is something we do not normally hear in here. I think I would prefer for it to be kept outside. We are not going to repeat it or withdraw it. Thank you.

I certainly will not, Mr Assistant Speaker. Many words are used in this House in very interesting ways, some a lot worse than what I said, and in worse ways.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): And the member will sit down again. Members do not comment when I make a ruling. I know that has not been our experience together over many years, Miss Delahunty, but on this particular occasion you are not going to answer back. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker. Rules are important; so are traditions. I would like to talk about—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I give up.

Apologies, Mr Assistant Speaker—back to the bills, back to the bills. As someone working on early childhood education, I am very concerned about the quality of early childhood education and what is actually on offer for people who are being told they must work 20 hours a week from when their child reaches the age of 3. We have a crisis in quality. We have the Ministry of Education saying there is a crisis in quality. We have home care that has not been reviewed because the review was frozen. We have people deeply concerned about the situation for many early childhood centres that have been set up for commercial gain and there is no real evidence that there is any benefit. We have those reports. Those reports come from the Government’s own people. They say that early childhood centres are not necessarily, in some cases, safe and helpful places for children’s learning. Yet, on the other hand, we have the Government saying that people, if they are on a benefit, must go to work 20 hours a week and must put their children in an early childhood centre. This is actually Draconian and inappropriate. Thank you.

It is a pleasure to rise in support of the Support for Children in Hardship Bill, in its various components. But, look, I do want to say at the outset that this, sadly, is a lost opportunity for the Government. It is yet another example of this Government doing the least it thinks it can get away with to make itself feel better and make itself look as if it is doing something meaningful. With this legislation, although it is marginally better than doing nothing at all, it is, sadly, just marginally better than doing nothing at all, because the truth is that this legislation is targeted at the most vulnerable children in our society—those in the hardest bracket of hardship. They are children who are living a long way below the poverty line in New Zealand and, at the outset, I want to put on record that it is the Labour Party’s view that that should never happen in our country.

It is the Labour Party’s commitment that we have zero tolerance of child poverty. We are a country, a food-producing nation, where the living standards are generally pretty good compared with many other countries. We have got loads of opportunities, we have got a great climate, we have got all the right conditions to raise children well and to do that in a way where every child gets the best start in life, and yet this is an area where we lag behind the rest of the world. Our children do not get the best start in life—and they could. This used to be known as the best little country to raise a family and, sadly, that has been diminished and certainly has not recovered under this Government.

So the Government is doing this to try to ease its conscience about the environment that it has created, which sees 305,000—305,000 children—living in poverty in Aotearoa New Zealand. That is a disgrace. The Government should hang its head in shame, but before it does that it should actually accept and stops denying that that is a reality for far too many New Zealand children, because until it accepts it and stops denying that level of poverty it will not truly address it. In this legislation, what it is attempting to do for the children most in need is to give their entire family, not just per child but the entire family, an additional $23.10 a week, maybe—maybe. For many of the families, as some of the other speakers have already said when they contributed to this debate, it will be significantly lower than that.

I want to talk briefly about the two in five children living in poverty in New Zealand for whom the income coming into that family home is a result of paid employment. That is right—40 percent, roughly, of the children living in poverty in this country live in a family in a household where the parents go out to paid employment. They get paid so little for their efforts to do the best by their family that they cannot afford to feed, clothe, and house their children properly. Those children are living in poverty.

💬 Hon David Parker: And some of them are full-time.

And some of them are working full-time. Some of them are in full-time employment. Those are your zero-hour contracts, I say to the National Government. Those are your failure to actually address having decent wages in this country. That is your failure to create the environment in which hard-working New Zealand families can actually make sure that they can look after their own and that they live in a sustainable situation where they can take care of their children, and those are the issues that should be getting addressed.

Twenty-five dollars is better than nothing—marginally better than nothing—but the answer is the comprehensive approach that the Labour Party has proposed with the Best Start package to make sure that all of our children truly do get the best start in life.

This is forward-thinking legislation from a forward-thinking Government, and I commend it to the House.

What a dreadful contribution from the Government Minister. This is important legislation and we should—

💬 Jono Naylor: Ah! Not yet—not yet.

I am sorry, I have given the member a promotion—not deserved, I should say. That was a dreadful contribution from the Government. This legislation will mean that a family can buy roughly a couple of loaves of bread, a bottle of milk, and maybe add a little bit of petrol to the petrol tank. It does nowhere near enough to address what it claims to address—providing support for children in hardship.

Let us start with the name of the original bill, because nowhere in the legislation does the Government really define hardship, or say how it will actually target that hardship and how it will measure itself against those targets. That is a failure of this legislation. The Government cannot even define hardship. It interchanges the term with “poverty” and “deprivation”, all through its discussion, all through the regulatory impact statement, and it does not actually know what it is trying to achieve with this legislation.

I see that the regulatory impact statement talks about monitoring it through the Ministry for Social Development’s DEP-17, or deprivation index. But we will not know for a few years whether this particular legislation has had any impact on that index, because the commencement date is not until April 2016. So families, after being promised much, are going to get nothing until after April 2016. That is how desperate this Government is to support children in hardship—it cannot bring forward the commencement date to the day after it receives the Royal assent. That is how desperate it is!

Let us talk again about what the regulatory impact statement says are the causes of poverty and hardship. The statement says that it is when the household income is too low, even with good budgeting and discipline, and when the special demands of its budget are too high from such things as high levels of debt servicing. Sometimes the debt is actually the debt owed to Work and Income by families who owe the Government money for things that they actually need in order to get on with their lives, such as furniture and suchlike. Another cause is high net accommodation costs for renters, and unusually high health-related costs because often people are living in homes that are not fit for children to grow up in, and they have terrible health conditions. They may be trying to fill major gaps in the stock of basic household furniture and appliances, and they may have high work-related costs—for example, childcare and transport.

So the $25 that Mrs Parmar says we should all be grateful for is not going to go very far to support families who have to deal with these issues every single day. The $25 that the Government mentions is actually also a misnomer, because we know from the tables presented to us in the select committee that we are talking about an amount somewhere between $12.50 and $23.10 a week that families will get in the hand. We are talking about between $12.50 and $23.10 per family—not per child, but per family—and this definitely is not going to go very far towards addressing the causes of poverty as quoted in the regulatory impact statement.

On top of that, parents are work tested when their youngest child is aged 3. The current age is 5, and nowhere have I seen—despite asking the Minister for Social Development for clarification—any justification for why the age is now 3. The only evidence that was presented to the Social Services Committee was from the Children’s Commissioner, who said that that is the age at which most people return to work. When their youngest child is 3, that is the age at which most people will return to work; not people who have serious difficulties in paying for transport costs and childcare costs, who have high health costs, or who are dealing with high accommodation costs in relation to their income. So there is no clear justification as to why that age should have been dropped from 5 to 3.

While we are talking about childcare, we have not actually traversed the issue of access to quality childcare. We have not thought about what happens in rural or remote settings. We have not thought about the quality of childcare that is available. We just demand that these parents are work tested and that the children are required to go into care. And do we have care available to match the requirements of the jobs that these people will be likely to hold? No, likely not—that is right. They are jobs that may be outside the standard hours of work of nine-to-five—often we are talking about people who are involved in the retail sector, who may have jobs stacking supermarket shelves at night and who may have shift work. Finding childcare to cope with those requirements is really difficult. They often are going to be in low-paid jobs, and they are going to be subject to some of the most precarious working conditions that workers have faced in this country, particularly around 90-day trial requirements.

My colleague Jacinda Ardern talked about the Child Poverty Monitor, and she had the infographic there for you. But I just want to refer to some of the statistics that were in that. One in 10 kids is in severe poverty. That is about 6 percent of New Zealand’s population in severe poverty. To quote what is also on that poster, this means that these kids are going without the things that they need, and their low family income means that they do not have any opportunity to change this. I know that we keep stressing the point, but we cannot stress it enough.

Actually, an increase of $25 is something, but it is nowhere near enough for these families. Again, we are talking about the payment going to a family that may have two or more children. So we are diluting the impact of this. If we have five children, four children, or even three children in a family, we are talking about, as I say, a couple of loaves of bread and a bottle of milk. A block of cheese in the supermarket is about $10. We are not actually going to make a significant contribution to bringing these children out of hardship.

We are also going to rely on Work and Income staff to make the decision about what suitable work is when we know that staff at Work and Income are under all sorts of pressures to meet the Government’s policies, particularly around work testing. Are they in a position to actually make a judgment about what the right, appropriate work is for these parents to take? Are they the right people to make judgments about the quality of work, or are they under such pressure that, actually, they will be applying pressure to those parents to take work that may not actually be suitable?

I just want to end my contribution with a quote from one of the submitters, the New Zealand Christian Council of Social Services, which made a great contribution to the evidence at the Social Services Committee. It talked about the fact that this legislation does not factor in the number of kids in the family. It talked about how more regulation around emergency benefits, and increases in obligations, are really going to impact. In terms of the number of sanctions, for example, that might apply to families, it talked about the 80,000 sanctions that had applied over 14 months, which meant that were 44,000 children in those families to whom sanctions applied. That is a huge number of children to be impacted on, and sanctions will often mean a cut in benefits. I just want us to think about that for a minute—that we can have the power to sanction these very lowest-income families and jeopardise 44,000 children.

As you know, we are supporting this legislation because it will put a few more pennies in the purses of people who need it the most, but it certainly does not go far enough.

This is great legislation that will reach half a million children who are living in low-income families and it will make a significant difference in their lives. With that in mind, I commend the legislation to the House.

Social Security Amendment Bill read a third time.

Education Amendment Bill read a third time.

A party vote was called for on the question that the Taxation (Support for Children in Hardship) Bill be now read a third time.

Order! I am now going to interrupt and ask the member who interjected to stand, withdraw, and apologise.

I withdraw and apologise.