Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill

I present to the House a legislative statement on the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill.

Legislative statement published under the authority of the House.

I move, That the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the bill as this bill amends the Social Security Act 2018.

I also want to acknowledge the Minister for Social Development and Employment, who is the Minister responsible for the Act, for her engagement in the development of this bill.

First of all I’d like to acknowledge the Hon Tracey Martin—the former Minister for Children. I’d like to acknowledge her for the work that she did. It was her that kicked off the review of the financial assistance for caregivers, which found that the financial assistance that we do give to caregivers is wanting and it is fragmented. It was her that got this bill to this stage now where it’s being read for the first time. I know that she would have loved to have been here to be the Minister in charge and the Minister making the statement that I’m doing now.

This Government has the aspiration that New Zealand is the best place in the world to be a child. It is everybody’s dream, I guess—or wish—that every child in New Zealand has a safe, secure, loving whānau, and preferably their own family; however, that’s not always the case. For whatever reason, there are a number of children who, sadly, cannot be looked after by their own family and therefore have to be looked after by other caregivers. Across New Zealand, there are about 15,000 caregivers who have stepped up on a day-to-day basis to look after some 24,000 New Zealand children who are not able to be cared for by their parents.

There are two types of caregivers: one are caregivers who look after children in State care, and on the other hand there are children who are looked after by caregivers who are not in State care. This bill is about the discrepancy between the support that those two types of caregivers get. For example, those caregivers who look after children in State care receive the foster care allowance, and they receive it immediately. Now, this allowance is used for such things as, obviously, living costs, food, clothes, school fees, sports, camps, and hobbies that the children who they are looking after may wish to participate in. For those caregivers who look after children outside of State care, they don’t receive an immediate allowance. They are entitled, if they can present a case that the children will be left with them or in their care for over 12 months, to receive the orphans benefit and the unsupported child’s allowance.

Now, these caregivers of children not in State care—more often than not these children are probably whānau. Their parents may have passed away or, quite simply, the parents might not be able to cope with looking after them. They may be imprisoned. They may have a long-term disability. There may be some family breakdown or illness, hence the reason these children are looked after but not in State care. So, in other words, they haven’t been uplifted by the State. Because the caregivers have to present a case that the children would be with them for 12 months, we call this the “12-month rule”. It’s not fair that the caregivers have to prove that they’ll be looking after them for 12 months before they receive an orphans benefit or the unsupported child’s allowance. It’s not fair, because these people have taken on the care of someone else’s child. Often they have no financial support, and often they have their own whānau, their own children, that they have to look after as well. This puts pressure, of course, on their own household finances, such as paying for the food, the power, the electricity. Of course, their own children may be wanting to participate in sports, hobbies, and those sorts of activities, and it is unfair on those families in their entirety. So what this bill does is it removes that 12-month rule and it ensures that the caregivers receive that appropriate financial support so that they can receive either the orphans benefit or the unsupported child’s benefit.

The second change that this bill is making is to support the children and their caregivers not under State care to receive the Christmas and the birthday allowance. Now, most of us in this House would have grown up in households where we would, before Christmas or before our birthdays, probably be lying in bed excited—the anticipation of knowing, when we get up in the morning, that we’ll probably receive a gift or there will be a birthday party put on by our parents. Most of us will remember that excitement from our childhood. Unfortunately, there are a number of children who don’t have that. At Christmas time and birthdays, they don’t have something to look forward to. They probably know that they might not receive a birthday present. They probably won’t have a party. They won’t have friends around. What this bill does is give those caregivers of children not in State care the birthday and Christmas allowance so that they can actually provide for those children on those very special days. Really, this is just making the system a lot more fair so that those caregivers of children not in State care receive a similar sort of support to those children who are in State care.

So, just to go through what exactly is changing in it, the bill removes the requirement that applicants are likely to be the principal caregiver of the child for at least a year by repealing the relevant eligibility criteria from sections 44(e) and 47(e) of the Social Security Act 2018. It’s removing the minimum time-period requirement for an arrangement to qualify for the orphans benefit or the unsupported child benefit and associated payments, and it would allow caregivers to receive the orphans benefit and the unsupported child’s benefit when the expected duration of the care arrangement may be short-term, unknown, or uncertain. So the applicants would still need to meet the remaining eligibility criteria, including that there must have been a family breakdown or that the parents have died, are missing, or have a long-term disablement. This will continue to be investigated and evidenced through the family breakdown assessment processor through a family group conference.

Again, why the change? The review of financial assistance for caregivers found that, in many caregiving situations, the expected placement duration may be short term: for example, when a parent is sentenced to prison for less than 12 months and an alternative caregiver will be looking after the child for that period, or the placement is unknown or uncertain: for example, when family members take on care of a child for an unknown period of time, such as while a more sustainable living arrangement can be found or when an intervention has been put in place that may address a root cause of the family breakdown. So, in some of these cases, what is expected to be a short-term care situation following a family breakdown can become a long-term or permanent placement.

In practice, it means there are caregivers who take on the care of a child, often in difficult and/or short-term situations where there is little other choice, who are unable to access financial assistance to help them to provide care. This is despite the fact that they, like other caregivers, have taken on primary responsibility for the day-to-day care of the child when that child’s parents are unable to care for them. Again, the second part that we’re changing: the caregivers in receipt of the foster care allowance receive the two allowances to cover the costs of celebrations and a gift for the children in their care on special occasions. The birthday allowance is paid in advance of a child’s birthday, and the Christmas allowance is paid in December of each year. The amount of the payment is half the amount of the weekly base rate of the foster care allowance that the caregiver receives, and it currently ranges from about $100 to $130. These two allowances are not currently available to the orphans benefit and the unsupported child’s benefit caregivers.

So the bill amends the Social Security Act 2018 to establish these two allowances for orphans benefit and unsupported child’s benefit caregivers. Kia ora.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak in this first reading of the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill, and I want to start my comments this evening by just saying what an extraordinary job the 15,000 caregivers in New Zealand provide for 22,000 children whose parents are unable to care for them for a range of reasons. Those caregivers, whether they are caregiving for children who are in the care of the State or looking after children within their immediate whānau or extended whānau, take on quite a challenge, and National accepts that there are some issues that need to be addressed; so we will be supporting this bill to select committee, but I do just want to raise a couple of areas that will require consideration by the select committee.

I think the other thing that I want to say from the outset is we recognise that the children who are being cared for by people other than their own parents have a number of challenges, and so what we have seen through the evidence presented through the select committee in the last term of Parliament was actually the ongoing financial hardship that the children themselves can experience. So I do recognise it’s really important that children who already have some challenges don’t remain permanently behind, and that we do give them the opportunity, through this system of support, to ensure that they come out of this on equal footing with any other New Zealand child. So I do think there are some issues that do need to be addressed. But it’s also looking at the reality that, when a family member is taking on the care of a child within their family, there might be some families who do have financial means to be able to support that child. So there is an area there in terms of at what point, or what is the line at which, taxpayers or the State should universally provide support, as opposed to providing financial support to those families who need it.

Can I say in my own electorate, having met with extraordinary organisations like Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Trust and Kids in Need Waikato, there are families who experience extreme hardship, and in many cases the families that take on caring for others’ children actually, in some cases, have greater challenges than the parents who are not caring for their own children. So we’ve got to recognise that, and I do want to put on record in this House the extraordinary work that Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Trust do, and other organisations like Kids in Need Waikato, which provide practical support for those who are raising other people’s children. In some cases it’s short term, but one of the things that we have learnt—and I want to put on record the work that the Hon Anne Tolley did in the significant changes to the organisation and the way in which we look after children in State care; part of that was addressing the children’s concerns about the stability and the certainty and the security in the family that they went to. So, if one of those challenges is providing financial assistance to that family to make sure that child is able to stay there for a longer period of time and have less movements, then that’s absolutely going to be better for that child. So, where there is a family who has a need, then absolutely we want to make sure that they get financial assistance that supports them raising that child, either on a short-term basis or, hopefully, for a longer-term basis, because we know from listening to the voices of those children they don’t want to continue to be moved from house to house. That’s why the Home for Life was set up.

There were two surveys that were undertaken by the Hon Tracey Martin when she was the Minister for Children, and it was her work that led to this bill being introduced. The first was a survey in 2019 that was conducted on behalf of Oranga Tamariki. That survey revealed that 32 percent of the participants believed that the allowances they received were inadequate to meet the financial costs associated with caring for a child. Interestingly, though, three months later, in December 2019, another survey was published by Oranga Tamariki, and that survey revealed that caregivers were divided on whether the orphans benefit and the unsupported child’s benefit were sufficient. So, even within Oranga Tamariki, the jury’s out, if you like, in terms of whether the financial support is enough or whether it’s sufficient. So, in the select committee process, we do actually want to hear from caregivers who are able to present their arguments in terms of whether it should be universal support or whether it should be targeted.

I would argue that there’d be some families who take on children, literally, within an hour’s notice, and they might require greater levels of financial support. One of the things that National’s really proud of is making sure that support should be targeted to where it is needed most. What that might mean is that for some there’s a greater level of support, particularly at the start, rather than a universal application. And, of course, it goes without saying that, actually, any investment by the taxpayer and by the State should be much earlier on. That’s why National has committed to investing in the first thousand days of a child’s life, to support a family, so that hopefully we will be able to prevent some children being taken into State care or being required to be in this situation where they are being raised by people other than their own parents.

So, with the removal of the 12-month rule, we do accept that will be required for some, and we want in the select committee process to hear from submitters about whether that’s the majority, whether it’s some. We want to make sure that it couldn’t be abused in any way and just to make sure that there is some robust scrutiny around how that would work. In terms of the Christmas rule, or the Christmas and birthday allowances, that is a bit of a no-brainer. It does seem unusual that those allowances are paid to the foster caregivers and not to others. As we all know, and some will remember and be dealing with families who are in desperate circumstances right now, Christmas and the holiday period come with additional costs and pressures and stress, and that is never good for a family. We know that, actually, the long-term impacts on a child can be devastating; so we do think that the change to the Christmas and birthday allowances makes sense. We do want to make sure that children in care have very similar experiences in their childhood to children who are raised in families with their own parents.

So we do want to make sure that there is a good number of people who submit on the bill, and I do hope, in terms of addressing this comment to the Minister for Children, that, given we are going into the Christmas period, there is sufficient time and consideration for people to be able to submit on this legislation, particularly families that have challenges. They deserve to have an equal opportunity, if not more, to provide a submission, and I hope in the select committee process there isn’t any suggestion that their opportunity to do so is reduced. As I said, National supports this bill. We support the intent of it. We do want to make sure, as in any instance where taxpayer funds are committed, that there is sufficient scrutiny, and that there’s a balance between universal support and targeted support to those who may need it more. So I’m pleased to announce National will be supporting this bill in the first reading to select committee.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m quite delighted to stand and take a call on this bill. I’d like to thank the member who’s just taken her seat, the Hon Louise Upston, for her very thoughtful speech and the things that she added to the debate. I’d also like to acknowledge our Minister, the Hon Kelvin Davis, for bringing this to the House. I acknowledge that this is not necessarily work that you have started, but it is definitely work that you will be finishing, and I appreciate this work coming to the select committee; so thank you for that.

Essentially, this is a bill about fairness. It’s a bill, quite simply, around two lots of children, often in very similar circumstances: one group of children who are under State care, the other group of children who are often under family or whānau care, or family members’ friends’ care. Essentially, what this bill does, very simply, is try to rebalance some of that inequity that is existing. The Minister and the Hon Louise Upston have both discussed well the changes to the bill and what will be happening. So I wanted to take a brief call to talk about the personal experience of my own family and why this bill is so important to us here in this House and also to those carers out there.

First and foremost, I also do want to acknowledge absolutely the amazing work that our caregivers do. It is not an easy job to do. It is often blood, sweat, and tears to raise children, and the work that people undertake is just amazing, and I want to also put on record my thanks for that work.

So, in my family experience—and I think I have spoken about this in the past—my whāngai brother came to us as a small child, a baby, three months old. He received the unsupported child’s benefit and did so until he was no longer eligible. He’s now 21, and he’s a family member of ours. He’s never returned to his birth family. The circumstances I won’t go into, but it is what it is, and he’s our family member. At the time that the unsupported child’s benefit was granted, my mother was required to give up work because he was a little baby and she needed to care for him, and that was incredibly financially difficult. I do know how much she saved and scrimped to support him and how she often planned for Christmas and birthdays in advance and saved the money that was paid from the State in order to support him. And I know what a difference it would have made to our family.

She later in her life became a foster carer and, during that time as a foster carer, a couple of things that were remarkable in comparison were the fact that when the children—our whānau children—came to my mum, she needed a set of bunks; that was immediately supplied by Oranga Tamariki because there wasn’t appropriate bedding in the household. The children were supported with pocket money. The children were supported with birthdays and Christmas allowances, and the difference was really remarkable in terms of—these are children that we love. These are family members, and it just helps. It is just a little bit fairer for us here in this House to change this legislation to enable our children who are in these difficult circumstances to have some support.

So, with that, I would like to commend this bill to the House. And I thank the Minister once again for bringing this to the House. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I join the chorus of congratulations on this bill being in the House in front of us tonight for its first reading, the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill. I want to take this opportunity to recognise the work of former MP the Hon Tracey Martin for the effort that she put in, in progressing this bill to where it is today.

I too will start by acknowledging all the carers that bring children into their homes and provide them with stability. They provide for these children the basics of life: food, shelter, clothing, and those intangibles like love and safety. I recall a trip that the Social Services and Community Committee did together. We visited several NGOs and providers in Australia providing these kinds of social support to families. There’d been quite a lot of research done by one of these groups where they had actually interviewed some of the children that were in care, and one of the most amazing outcomes of the research that they did was that, in terms of priority for what children were looking for, it was to feel safe. So I do acknowledge all of the work that happens by those carer families when they take these children into their homes and provide that feeling of safety for them.

Now, we do know that often they are extended family members and they provide a very valuable service not only to those children but also to this country, because without the selfless gift that carers give to these children—and we’re talking about 22,000 of them in this country at the moment—they would undoubtedly face even more hardship and upheaval in their lives. So a huge shout-out to the effort that they put in on our behalf.

We have heard that this bill seeks to address some anomalies in the payments that go to these families. And, as we have a look through some of the progressed legislation, over time we’ve got the orphans benefit, we’ve got the unsupported child’s benefit, and we have foster care allowances. There is no synergy between them with regards to these payments for support for families that have these children in their care under 12 months and also for the Christmas and birthday allowances. So this bill is seeking to synchronise those aspects of those various other pieces of legislation.

But, as my colleague the Hon Louise Upton alluded to, there are fiscal implications in this bill and it does deserve the scrutiny of a select committee process, and it does deserve the input of those people who are at the coalface of the services that are provided. Some of, I guess, the most tangible feedback that we got from some of the other social service legislation that has been worked on in this House has come from the care-experienced children themselves. As part of that, we know that those voices are very real and deserve to be heard, and as part of the select committee process, we do hope to hear from some of those care-experienced children.

We heard briefly about the social investment approach that National has evolved over some time over the last term of our time in Government, and we know that the investment in children in those early days makes absolutely perfect fiscal sense, it makes great social sense, and it is the right thing to do. So we are very supportive of investing in those early years and supporting children and the families that care for them. We know that, by doing that, the long-term outcomes for those children are far more enhanced. For instance, for children who have those advantages, we know that they are about 50 percent more likely to have better paying jobs and be in more stable relationships as they grow older. So it does make very good sense to invest in these families early on.

We know that some of these families who have them for less than 12 months are now supporting these children out of their own pockets. That is not feasible now, given that we have identified the anomalies between the other benefits that are available. And, simply because a child is in State care and is entitled to all of those other benefits, even though they have had those children in their care within 12 months, it does not seem fair that those other children who are on the orphans benefit or the unsupported child’s benefit should miss out on those advantages. So we will be seeking to improve those inequities as this bill progresses.

Extending the Christmas and birthday allowances, of course, is also a bit of a no-brainer in this piece of legislation. We know that not everything that is important to children takes money. In fact, I know a lot of children would prefer time rather than gifts. But, at the same time, to be able to give a child a special treat at Christmas or on birthdays is usually a very memorable time in their life and is well worth that investment.

I’d just like to conclude my contribution by looking at some of the background work that has been done on this bill and looking at how it impacts on New Zealand’s international obligations. It was really pleasing—and we’ve had this conversation in the select committee many times in the past about our international obligations, and especially this one, which is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). So it was very good to read that this particular piece of legislation will address three of those policies and conventions within the UNCRC, article 3, which is relating to ensuring children have the protection and care necessary for their well-being. It addresses article 20, which relates to the entitlement to special protection and assistance for children who cannot remain in their family environment. And it also addresses article 27, which relates to children’s rights to a standard of living adequate for their physical, mental, spiritual, moral, and social development and the State’s role in providing material assistance in support programmes. So this piece of legislation clearly looks to address some of our obligations under UNCRC, and, of course, that’s always a very good thing.

Going back and talking about the birthdays and Christmas allowances, if this bill does pass, there are dates—and I, obviously, understand the Christmas allowance will start in December of 2021, but the proposal is for the birthday allowance to begin in January 2022. I look forward to the select committee process, where we can tease out the rationale for that, because it does seem to make very good sense that this would be in a budget bid that could actually begin on 1 July 2021. So we will look forward to some discussion around it. With that, I have pleasure in commending this bill to the House. Thank you.

Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. It’s an honour and privilege to stand and give a contribution on the first reading of the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill.

When I speak on a bill that has something to do with children, I remind this House all the time that 32 years ago John Rangihau and the ministerial committee on a Māori perspective for the Department of Social Welfare published its landmark report Puao-Te-Ata-Tu (Day Break). In those 13 recommendations, it speaks clearly that whānau who are looking after mokopuna need to be financially supported.

I want to take this opportunity to thank the Minister, Hon Kelvin Davis. I want to thank him for bringing this to the House today so that we can refer it to select committee so that New Zealanders can contribute to this bill. But I also want to ask whether we continue to call children “unsupported child’s benefit” or whether we still continue to call children “orphans benefit”. I want to acknowledge kuia, kaumātua who’ve looked after mokopuna, grandparents raising grandchildren, but the fact of the matter is that every child wants to be with mum and dad. Over 22,000, we hear today, are not with mum and dad. And, in this case, if the State happens to make an assessment that you are in need of care and protection and the State takes over your care, then you are entitled to get a birthday allowance. You are entitled to get a Christmas allowance. But if you are cared for on another benefit, called unsupported child’s benefit or orphans benefit, then that carer has to actually say that they’re going to look after you for over a year before you can get the benefit.

So I say, in the spirit of Puao-Te-Ata-Tu, that we waste no more time of this House and refer this to the select committee, because discrimination in all its forms needs to be eliminated. And, in the spirit of Puao-Te-Ata-Tu, I commend this bill to the House. Mokopuna, regardless of where you are, need to be financially supported by everybody. Malo.

What a pleasure to follow that speech. I really feel the energy and the sentiment of it. It is about time, and it is really great to see this legislation in the House to rectify a very longstanding, quite incomprehensible to me, wrong. I too want to add my voice and to acknowledge the Hon Tracey Martin for her work in developing this legislation and providing the case for it, and also to recognise that, before she was the Minister, she was starting on this kaupapa and through a member’s bill to ensure that young children receiving the orphans benefit were able to access the clothing allowance, which, at that time, they weren’t. So this is a very natural and obvious next step from that piece of work as well, and it is about time we got it done.

I also, when I was reading this again, too, was looking at the orphans benefit and the unsupported child’s benefit and putting myself in the place of those kids. I don’t think anyone feels comfortable, that I know of, referring to themselves as an orphan. It’s one of those things where, actually, you try and not connect to that reality. I think it’s a very difficult thing, and I also have a concern that we are reinforcing that reality, that many people try and find other ways of coping with, through the name of that benefit. Maybe it’s not this piece of legislation—it’s possibly out of scope—but I do think it’s about time to review those. I personally can’t see any reason, apart from historical precedent, for the separation. When it’s the same amount of money, I don’t understand why we have two separate benefits, with different criteria, one being family breakdown and the other being death, missing parents, or long-term serious disablement of parents, which I also think needs examination around our commitment as a country to properly supporting people with disabilities to be able to actively fulfil their caring duties when parents are wanting to do that. We have a gap in that area that, I think, also needs attention.

So the point of this bill is a pretty simple thing that we’re doing. It’s aligning the financial entitlements for people in the State care system—so where they’ve been formally made to be foster caregivers—with the support provided to—actually, it’s the other way around: aligning the support that goes to people who step in without the State telling them they have to, to care for our babies. And this is usually family members. Significant numbers are Māori—around the orphans benefit, of the caregivers, 40 percent are Māori, and 46 percent of the unsupported child’s benefit caregivers are Māori. These are people who are not doing it because they’ve been told they have to; they are doing it because they’ve seen the need and they have that sense of connection. And this is what we all want. We don’t want the State to be intervening and removing children. We want families to be in a position to step in, and the fact that families who may be struggling financially themselves have been actually penalised in comparison to those families who are in the State system doesn’t make sense to me. It’s always seemed really odd to me when it has disincentivised people from being able to step up and care, because they’re worried that they’d be able to provide less for their kids, for their moko, than those kids would get access to in the State system. That’s just wrong, and this is a step towards fixing that. And it’s really, really important for us to do that.

I hear from the National contributions talking about the need for targeting and not being convinced that this is necessary. I think the core principles of what has been tried to be done here is about just standardising and streamlining and removing that disparity between the two systems, and that’s a completely separate question to targeting. I don’t think targeting is an appropriate consideration in this context. I think removing that disparity and disincentives for family to be able to step in should be our priority at this time. I did support them, though, in having an interest in looking at the implementation time frames, particularly around the birthday allowances coming in from 2022 and whether it would be possible to bring that forward. I thought that was interesting.

I also am quite interested in, at some stage, whether it’s through this bill or not, examining why we’re privileging Christmas over other religious celebrations that may be significant to other communities in this country, where Eid is a time when there is traditional outlaying that has a financial cost, and if children are not able to participate in that way, they lose out in the same way that children living in communities that celebrate Christmas do. I think, it feels to me, that in this day and age it’s time just to share and even that out a bit to all of our communities, particularly today when I’m thinking about the marginalisation of some communities in our country.

But, really, I’m not going to stretch out the time unnecessarily—I think it’s been pretty well canvassed—but just to bring it back again to saying thank you to the whānau for stepping in, and to those kids, just to say that, from the Greens and the other speeches I’ve heard in the House tonight, we want the best for you, and this is us taking another step to ensure that you get the lives that you deserve.

Members, it’s come time for me to leave the Chair. This debate is interrupted. The House is suspended until 9 a.m. tomorrow morning. Pō mārie.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Wednesday)