Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill

Thank you, Madam Speaker—very, very keen. I present a legislative statement on the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Thank you. I move, That the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

I want to take this opportunity to reflect on the journey that this bill has taken to get to its third reading here today. The journey began in 2019 when the then Minister, the Hon Tracey Martin, initiated a first principles review of financial assistance for caregivers. I think it’s important at this time that we thank and acknowledge the 15,000 caregivers across the country who provide day-to-day care for 24,000 children in New Zealand whose parents are unable to provide care for them themselves. Now, the review that Minister Martin initiated looked at the foster care allowance, and that supports children in State care, and the orphan’s benefit and unsupported child’s benefit, which support tamariki outside of the State care system.

Following extensive consultation, the review found a range of fundamental issues with the caregiver payment system. One of the key findings is that there is a lack of equity in the payments and support that caregivers outside of the State care system get compared to caregivers of children within the State care system. So in late 2019, the Government agreed to a response to the findings of the review, and this bill, it forms part of the response. I’d like to once again acknowledge the Hon Tracey Martin for her work on the review and for introducing this bill to the House in her time as the Minister for Children. And, as this bill amends the Social Security Act 2018 and the Social Security Regulations 2018, I also acknowledge my colleague the Minister for Social Development and Employment, the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, for her engagement as this bill made its way through the legislative process.

I’d like to thank the Social Services and Community Committee for its thoughtful consideration of this bill. The committee recommended a number of changes that have improved the clarity of the bill to ensure that it can be implemented in line with the policy intent. I also want to thank members of the public who helped the committee to consider the bill through written and oral submissions. Many of those submitters were individual caregivers or organisations advocating on behalf of caregivers. I know that the committee will have appreciated hearing the lived experiences and expertise shared by those who took the time to make their submissions.

We know that many caregivers are under financial pressure and that caregivers need more support to care for tamariki. We also know that financial assistance is inequitable for caregivers caring for children outside the State care system. We know that some caregivers outside of State care are not able to access financial assistance simply because the care arrangement is short term or they don’t know how long it will be for. That’s why the bill will extend eligibility for the orphan’s benefit and the unsupported child’s benefit to caregivers in these kinds of situations. Now, this will ensure that caregivers who have stepped up to take on the care of a child whose parents are unable to care for them will be financially supported to do so, despite the care arrangement being short term or for an unknown or uncertain period of time.

To help address equity issues in the payments that different caregivers receive, the bill establishes a holiday allowance and a birthday allowance for caregivers receiving the orphan’s benefit and the unsupported child’s benefit. These allowances will support tamariki to celebrate and enjoy those significant events in their lives. They’ll also help caregivers to provide the tamariki in their care with the same experiences as other tamariki throughout Aotearoa.

So I want to reiterate the Government’s commitment to improving the system of financial assistance and support for caregivers. This bill is just one part of the Government’s response to the 2019 review. We are also progressing long-term work to reform the system to ensure that our tamariki who are unable to be cared for by their parents get the support that they need and they deserve. I commend the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m very pleased to take a call on behalf of the National Party in this third and final reading of the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill.

If we look back over the years, not just of the immediately preceding Government but the ones before that, there’s been a significant programme of work to support children who are either in State care or who are cared for, for a variety of reasons, by people other than their parents. So it is good to see that this work has continued and has transferred from multiple Ministers, including my former colleagues Anne Tolley, and this particular piece of work from the Hon Tracey Martin, and now in the name of the Hon Kelvin Davis.

For those who were able to listen to the debate in the second reading, I think they would have been reassured by the speeches that took place in this House and the very real understanding of what needs to occur in terms of caregivers who look after children, and we heard very personal examples of that, both from caregivers—and we also are aware of those in our House who have been supported by caregivers who weren’t their own parents. As we traversed this, there were a number of issues that did come up. As the Minister said, this is only a small piece of a wider programme of work, and I think anyone on the Social Services and Community Committee would agree there is further work to be done.

One of the issues that’s addressed with this bill is the time frames. There was previously a restriction in terms of not being able to access this financial support for caregivers within 12 months. Unfortunately, what we do know is that that first period of time is potentially the most traumatic for a child, and to be away from their parents for whatever reason and to then get the double kind of hit, if you like, of caregivers who are financially struggling just with the practicalities of a new child coming into their household shouldn’t be an issue that that new family faces. So we do think it’s sensible.

One of the points that I raised that I think was misunderstood in one of the earlier readings was also the fact that successive Governments have made a real effort to try and find ways to reduce the number of moves that children have, who are not with their parents or who are in State care. This doesn’t necessarily remove that. But what it does do is when that child has moved into the family environment of this caregiver, it actually enables support to get to them directly.

One of the issues that did come up that was raised by the Green member of Parliament in a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that was defeated—in fact, we voted it down—I do think requires further attention, because it’s potentially also a barrier to caregivers accessing support. And while I might not go as far as my Green parliamentary colleague wishes to go, I do think that it is an area that needs due consideration. So I’m pleased that the SOP was put on the Table, because often the reason for a child requiring time with parents who aren’t theirs can be complicated. And again, I think if the intent is how we are ensuring that the financial support goes to the family that’s looking after the child without too many unnecessary barriers—clearly, there need to be some clear reasons as to why it might not be immediate.

But the other thing that I do think is important—and I do implore the Minister to consider—that I raised in my first reading speech is there will be some families who take on the responsibility of children who need a hell of a lot more financial support. I’d like to see that there could be a way for those children and those families to get a greater level of support that is very targeted in supporting their specific family’s needs. I think this is not an area by any stretch of the imagination that you can have a one-size-fits-all approach. So I do request that the Minister consider a more targeted approach, a more flexible approach, a way that is far more able to ensure the child or children that are placed into a different whānau or household can be supported in the ways that their needs are met. Yes, some of that’s financial, but some of it’s logistical; there’ll be a much wider range.

I do want to take the opportunity in this third reading, while we are supporting this legislation, obviously, to signal some of the areas of further work that we would like considered. Part of that was also around the name of the orphan’s benefit, which has come up in a number of readings. Most people would assume that if someone’s receiving an orphan’s benefit, the parents of the child involved are deceased, and that’s often not the case. And again, if we have in our mind the objective of providing the most support for that child and reducing the harm involved in being separated for a period of time from the parents, then I think this is another issue that can be addressed.

Some of the allowances, in terms of renaming “Christmas allowance” to “holiday allowance” and actually getting financial support for that, and birthdays, is a no-brainer. We want to make sure that these children, who are precious children and who have additional challenges, are given as many opportunities as possible to live a normal and fulfilling life. It’s our duty and responsibility as lawmakers to make that as easy as possible. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to rise today to speak on this bill, the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill. I’ve reflected on the process that it has taken, and it has been utterly enjoyable to work so collegially across this House in regards to this matter. I think this bill is one of those pieces of legislation that, we all agree, has fixed an issue—that there was potentially no reason why there was a difference. It’s fixed an equity issue. So, in that regard, I’d like to acknowledge the Minister in charge, Kelvin Davis, for his completion of the process of carrying this bill through. I’d also like to acknowledge, as others have, the Hon Tracey Martin for her work. She also came and submitted to us, which I thought was a really nice touch, during the select committee process. She was there to just tautoko the ongoing work that was happening with our Government. So, if she is watching today—as probably most people are out there!—I’d just like to mihi to her and acknowledge her work, but also to my Minister for his completion of this work.

This piece of legislation is part of an ongoing work programme in the Oranga Tamariki space. This work came out of a process where, in 2019, there was a review into Oranga Tamariki, and one of the findings was around this particular issue. So it has been a relatively quick journey through, into becoming legislation, I guess, when you consider that this has been in place for many, many years.

I want to take the opportunity to thank our officials, who were very gracious with their time and very useful in terms of some of the technical questions that we had. They were absolutely a delight to work with. So I’d like to acknowledge them as well. The entire select committee—we often work this way, and most people out there in the community probably don’t understand that select committees are really about the process of getting good legislation created. That’s something that we hold dear, and that’s something that we’ve done very well here.

To our submitters, as well—those who came and told us their stories or the stories of the young people or clients that they worked with—we cannot make good legislation without their voice, and so I want to acknowledge those submitters that came.

And, finally, to the 15,000 caregivers out there, who are doing their very best, who are often kin carers or whānau carers who are stepping up and taking care of our children, where there has been some reason why their parents cannot do so, I want to thank you most sincerely for the work that you’ve done. Having been a caregiver under the unsupported child’s benefit regime, I would just like to say that it is an honour and a pleasure to do that, but it comes with some financial cost.

I’m really delighted to be standing here. This bill is, as I said, about equity. It’s done a couple of things—the first I’ll talk about, which is somewhat minor, but probably not to those children, to be fair. So we have, as other members have said, ensured that the birthday and what we have named “holiday” allowance is able to be paid to the caregivers. It seems quite sensible that if a child under State care receives that support, children under kin care or with family or friends should also receive this support. So we’ve put that in place.

We’ve also created another category of caregiver, and this is probably the biggest change. The caregiver is known as a “temporary caregiver”. We had previously what was called the “12-month rule”. The 12-month rule was around, caring for a child, you needed to be able to prove that you were going to care for the child for 12 or more months in order to access the support of the unsupported child’s benefit. However, what we know is that families don’t come in simple and easy-to-manage packages. What we know is, for example, that what may be a temporary issue or temporary family situation may become a long-term situation. The permanent caregiver could have perhaps been incarcerated or become medically unwell or, for some other reason, is unable to care. The child then goes into the care of someone else, and it was, under this 12-month rule, a requirement to prove that, actually, the child was going to stay with that family for those 12 months.

We’ve done away with that on the basis that families are messier than that, and it also meant that those families could step up, knowing that they could get the support financially at a time when they were taking an additional child or children into their family. That’s really important in terms of enabling and supporting our families to be able to do this. Because, as we all know, all children have a cost associated. Everyone needs to be fed. We need a bit of furniture for the kids—a bed; those kinds of things. So it’s really important to make sure that, in these circumstances, which was happening in the process under State care, if a child was in State care, it can now also happen under the care of the unsupported child’s benefit.

So it is, essentially, a way for us to ensure that the hardship that our caregivers told us, in the 2019 research—and who told us, when they came to submit, they were putting their hands into their own pockets, and wanting to do that and not resenting that, but it was costing a lot of money to be able to do this. Families were often going without in order to support these children, and so this is part of the policy intent around the equity for these families and to ensure, in fact, that these families have that support.

I also wanted to talk a little bit about a couple of the other issues—one that has been raised by the Hon Louise Upston—and that was the issue of the orphan’s benefit. Look, we’ve raised this, and we raise it each time, I think, each of us gets up to speak. It doesn’t sit comfortably with us that the term “orphan’s benefit” applies to children who are not orphans. Nevertheless, we weren’t able to solve this issue. It’s a relatively minor thing, I guess, but certainly it did not sit comfortably with us to have children whose parents are still living to be called orphans. And, in fact, “orphan” is quite an antiquated term. So we will leave that there, and maybe, if there’s anyone out there listening who can come up with an alternative term, because the great minds of Parliament were not able to do so, I expect there will be some flooding of answers coming to us.

The other very small but, I guess, really important change for the children born on a leap year is the creation of a specific birthday payment for those kids born on a leap year. So that will be 1 March, and I think that that’s a really thoughtful and useful thing so that those children are not missed out—so their payment goes ahead, is paid in advance, and is designated for 1 March. With that, I have the great pleasure of commending this bill to the House. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I too take pleasure in standing this evening to talk to the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill in its third and final reading.

As the chair of the Social Services and Community Committee has alluded to, this is quite a simple bill that was supported across the committee. So there has been nothing contentious about it, because, as we are all aware, the main issue that we need to consider when we are talking about these types of legislation is what is in the best interest of the child, and that needs to be always front and centre of any legislation that we are passing through this House.

This bill simply sets out to align the different types of benefits—the orphan’s benefit, the unsupported child’s benefit—with the foster care allowance. It turned out that between those different types of allowances that are paid to carers of children that are not their own was somewhere between $10 and $30 a week. So that disadvantaged one group of children against another, and this is simply aligning those benefits and addressing that inequity.

But I would also like to use the opportunity to acknowledge the carers that do take these children into their homes. When we started talking about this bill, we were talking about 22,000 children. The Minister has mentioned this evening that there are 24,000 children. Regardless of the exact number, that is a huge amount of children that are out there in care. We do want to acknowledge those people that take the children into their homes.

We have traversed through the various details that are in this bill, but one of the main things that I’d like to address is around the—as the member for the Green Party raised in his Supplementary Order Paper (SOP)—assessments that need to be done in terms of qualifying for this allowance. It was discussed in quite some detail in the select committee, so it did surprise me to see the SOP turn up, because it actually had been traversed in some detail, and I’m not sure whether the member was even aware of that. But one of the things that was highlighted around the need for some type of an assessment was to ensure that children were placed into stable homes, because the last thing we wanted was for it to be a transitional arrangement that is made without any kind of assessment being made, because that simply opened the door for these children to be moved around too much.

We all know that having that stability—having a stable home—is very, very important to the children, because it’s not only the stable home that they get there; it is the stable caring, it is their social circle, it is their friends and their playmates, it is the kids that they go to school with, their sports teams, and we know that having kids in school regularly is an absolutely crucial part of their development. We actually do know—the data tells us that children who attend school regularly that are in stable families and stable homes, they have a 50 percent improved chance of going on to lead successful, stable lives. So the investment that we make in children in care is absolutely part of the National Party’s philosophy, it’s part of our social investment philosophy, and a huge amount of the work that was done in reforming social policy in this country was based around those principles.

The outcome for those children is definitely front and foremost of any legislation that we do pass in this House. We have a need to care for these children and make sure that there are no inequities between the unsupported child’s benefit, the orphan’s benefits, with the foster care children. This bill addresses that very easily, and I have pleasure in commending it to the House.

I didn’t sit on the select committee which considered the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill, the Social Services and Community Committee, but it does have some very personal meaning to me. My namesake and her brother live with their grandmother, and their whānau is a whānau that has experienced colonisation, addiction, recovery, family violence, poverty, incredible leadership, healing, hope. I love both the parents of those children and I completely understand why at this point in time they cannot be there to look after their children. Their grandmother has stepped up to do that, and what an incredible job she is doing. So to see that this piece of legislation will make it easier for her, as a grandmother who is not working in paid employment, to be able to do the best by her mokopuna and my namesake is a real pleasure, and I just want to thank her, as well, along with the 15,000 other caregivers who have taken on that job of looking after the most precious resource that we have in this lifetime, which is our tamariki.

Without wanting to go into too much detail and repeat too much, I’d just like to point out what I think are the main highlights of this legislation. The first one really is that 12-month temporary caregiver exception now, which not only means that it supports people like the grandmother of my namesake, but I feel that it also means that families are not forced into making final decisions about tamariki before they are ready to. That’s a really important part of this legislation, and I’m so glad that the thought has gone into making that exception. Secondly, changing the Christmas allowance to a holiday allowance is very, very important in terms of recognising the diversity of our society—that not all New Zealanders necessarily prioritise Christmas, that there are other days on their annual calendars which are more important to them, yet around 25 December they can access that and still have the same entitlement and still be able to give their children some special cultural acknowledgment, whether it is Christmas or some other event.

The care that has gone into this is very evident through reading through the notes—the care from the select committee. Not only did they ask extra questions about the meanings of “family breakdowns”, not only did they consider 29 February leap year babies like my young nephew Jamie, but they also even considered pocket money and whether that was in scope. So it’s great to see that the select committee have put so much care into this amendment bill and to hear in this House about the collegiality across the House, as members have really been mindful to make the tamariki front and centre of this bill. So I am very heartened to commend the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on the third reading of the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill. I’d like to begin, as many have done before me, by thanking the 15,000 caregivers who are currently on the unsupported child’s benefit (UCB) and the orphan’s benefit (OB), who have stepped in as part of a wider community to look after our tamariki.

I’m starting by touching on the issue that this bill is trying to address around the disparities that have for too long existed between caregivers who are in the benefit system and the welfare system, compared to those that end up looking after children that are in State care and receive a foster care allowance. I think the intent of this bill was really positive, and I commend the Minister for progressing it, because I do think that the disparities that have existed between those receiving a UCB or OB and the foster care allowance have created the conditions where we’re creating barriers for children to remain in their communities and with their wider whānau, instead of going into State care. I do think we should all aim for State care to be the absolute last resort, and seek ways in which our children can remain rooted in their communities.

This bill introduces some changes, which other speakers have spoken about, and one of the key ones, which will enable more people to step into that caregiving role and be supported by the State in doing so, is changing the eligibility criteria for those looking after children for less than 12 months. That change reminds me a lot of the experiences I faced in my previous role as coordinator of Auckland Action Against Poverty, where I met countless people on the benefit who struggled to access the support that they needed because of the very restrictive criteria. So I do also want to pay tribute to the many people who came through our doors at that time, my colleagues who continue informing the work that I do in this House and that instructed me and helped feed me the knowledge to create the Supplementary Order Paper that we tried to put forward.

Other changes include establishing the holiday and birthday allowances, and this does help ensure that caregivers have access not only to an allowance that supports a child’s important milestones such as a birthday but also to celebrate holidays of cultural significance—and I want to pay tribute to the select committee for finding a way to rename the allowance in a way that was a little bit more culturally competent, and I think that’s a great thing we got through, so I thank my colleagues for that. The other thing that these allowances will do is address the issue of income inadequacy that too many whānau on the benefit face. There’s still issues that I think we need to address, such as the fact that there’s a bit of discrimination on the rates that people get paid, based on their age, within the welfare system, and I look forward to the Government, hopefully, doing more work in that regard.

During the select committee hearings, what we heard plenty on—on top of most submitters actually supporting the changes proposed by this bill—was a really strong call for some changes to the criteria around the breakdown in the family. So while submitters were not necessarily always able to give a cohesive or clear alternative proposal to the current barriers that exist, I think most people acknowledged that there needed to be changes in terms of the family breakdown criteria. One of the reasons why we decided to put an amendment to that, and to help make this bill go further and pass through into enabling our children to thrive, was that the current barriers on top of the 12-month period that this bill is addressing is the fact that requiring a breakdown in the family ultimately creates the conditions where people are told—especially those in whāngai arrangements or in other arrangements—that in order for your wider village to step in and to look after a child, there is a breakdown, and that the biological parents or the parents looking after the child were somehow unwilling or uncaring. It creates that negative stigma, when actually for many cultures—including my own culture back in Mexico—it is quite common for your wider village to step in to raise a child. It’s not about a lack of love or a lack of support; it’s actually an acknowledgment that you often need a wider community to step in.

So I was confused when, in the previous contributions by the National Party members, Louise Upston pointed out that that was an issue that needed addressing. I commend the member for pointing out that this is, hopefully, an area of work that the Government will commit to later down the track. But then I was puzzled by her colleague Maureen Pugh then saying that perhaps I didn’t listen to the submitters hard enough, because this is actually something raised by submitters as an issue that needed more work. At the end of the day, this is not about putting children in unstable homes; this is actually about ensuring that children are able to remain within their communities, that they’re able to be connected to their wider whānau, and that we look at ways in which State care is not the first option, rather that it becomes the last resort, when no other options are available for children.

So I do hope and trust that the Minister is intending to embark on more work to reform—and I pay tribute to Minister Carmel Sepuloni who’s here in the House today, and I know that the Minister is doing more work to overhaul our welfare system—and that whatever further reforms to the unsupported child’s benefit look like, we do ensure that our welfare system stops discriminating whānau and whāngai arrangements, or just wider communities putting in to look after children. So I do think that this bill will do some great stuff for the community, and the Green Party will continue advocating for our welfare reforms to go further and faster so that communities can thrive. Kia ora.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to stand on behalf of ACT and support the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill. There are many reasons I can stand here and say I’m proud to be standing here supporting this, and one of those reasons is because I can relate so much to how this bill is going to help people. Growing up, I was one of these children that was raised by caregivers. I was one of these children that had a breakdown in the family that didn’t allow me to be living with my mother. There are always going to be parents out there that for, some reason, may not be able to, at the time, provide what their child needs for them. And caregivers step up and take that place while parents are getting themselves together to be able to do that. Sometimes they can change their lives around and have their children back, and other times it can be quite difficult.

So I’ve stood here and I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: thank you to every caregiver in this country that donates their time, their love, and their efforts to make our children feel loved, cared, and wanted. Every child in this country deserves to be living in a safe, stable home, and every child deserves the care and protection to make sure that their wellbeing and their needs are met. This doesn’t just affect caregivers; it affects children and it affects the wider family and the communities. When our children feel loved and our children feel stable, they thrive and they grow and have a better chance of becoming contributing members of society later in life.

This bill, although it may seem simple, actually does quite a lot for our children. This bill removes the disparities between benefits and provides the same support for children on the unsupported child’s benefit and the orphan’s benefit so that they line up with children that end up in State care. Oranga Tamariki is currently making a change in the way they deal with taking children into State care, and in some ways this is a good thing. If we can avoid our children going into State care and provide the wraparound services for these children before they end up in State care, and have caregivers from families stepping up and being able to do that job, then maybe we would have less devastation in our communities. This is happening now, and currently caregivers are not getting the support they need because of the 12-month barrier. Once this 12-month barrier is gone, I feel that this may enable family members to take on children that they may not have felt comfortable to because of financial reasons before.

So I’m not going to say too much more, because I feel that this bill is long overdue, and the faster we get through this, the faster we can have this bill working. So thank you very much for all the submitters that came in and gave us their points of view. Thank you to all the caregivers out there and all the NGOs that make this possible and the wraparound services that make it possible, and thank you to our children who sit there every day and do better and better, no matter what they’re going through.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Thank you for letting me take a call. I rise in support of the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill. I do want to acknowledge my colleague Karen Chhour, who was on our select committee, and so thank you for your kōrero tonight. For many of us, this is personal and for you to share your story—and this is personal—we thank you for being open during the select committee process but also in the House as we’ve gone through the reading stages.

We have to realise, as we talk about topics, and issues, and challenges within our communities, that many of these things are personal for us, and I rise to support—as we’ve said already tonight, to tautoko all the people who are involved in caring for young people, for children, who are not their own.

Tonight, I just want to focus on three particular things: I want to talk about the problem, and why we’re here in this third reading stage; I want to talk a bit about the process, how we’ve got to where we’ve got to; and then finally, I want to finish off by talking about the people—the people that this affects, the people who have been on this journey and, as we’ve said, our young people.

So the problem—we’ve heard, and we’ve talked about right through from the first reading until now, in the House tonight—is around this inequity, this disparity for children who aren’t in State care, for children outside the State system. That is a problem, and that is something that I have negotiated myself as a caregiver, and I’ve had to grapple with over the years, and I’ll allude to that a little bit later. The other problem within this was extending the eligibility for those on the orphan’s benefit, for those on the unsupported child’s benefit, for caregivers who look after that child for less than a year, less than 12 months, and the challenges that that imposes when you’re having to take in somebody who may not be your own child, and the challenges, financially, that brings.

Next is the leap year which was mentioned, the problem of just getting that right, which is obviously a really simple fix. We’ve done that for 1 March, which will always be when that payment is made. And of course the holiday payments and the birthday payments which we have talked about, and the problem, obviously, being the State system is a little bit different to those who were caring for young people, for tamariki outside of the State system.

So, for me, the process that we’ve followed, we go right back, as the Hon Kelvin Davis said earlier, we go right back to Tracey Martin, back in 2019, who began this journey to ensure that this piece of legislation was passed, to ensure that caregivers are paid a fair and equitable amount. So we thank you, Tracey Martin, for championing this, we thank you for coming to our select committee to speak on this. I also thank the Hon Kelvin Davis for picking it up, for running with it, and now for us to be about to pass this piece of legislation into law. Throughout that process, the stages of the House: the first reading, the committee stages, and second readings, and committees, and now on to the third reading. I want to thank those who submitted in the select committee stage: 31 submissions, eight oral submissions, who all spoke in favour of why this needs to be changed.

I just thought, really briefly tonight, I might just bring up a couple of comments that were made, because it’s really appropriate in terms of why we’re here and why this needs to be changed. This was from Birthright New Zealand, who said that “We strongly believe that every child has the right to an equal start in life. This bill is another step to ensure that every child has that start.”

We ought to then move across to grandparents raising grandchildren, which is a phenomenal responsibility and as wonderful as it is that the grandparents are there caring for their grandchildren, there’s more and more doing it, and we want to ensure that they are looked after. They talked about the many, many years that grandparents raising grandchildren have been strong advocates for change of the process, for the bill, feeling an inequality when it comes to the orphan’s benefit and the unsupported child’s benefit. They want to see this change. Then, finally, it was from YouthLaw Aotearoa, and they had a case study of a person that took on a family member, a relative. The unfortunate thing was because it was only for a few months, because the parent was struggling, they took them, and it was over Christmas time. They weren’t complaining because they were there; they were whānau, they were there to look after their family member, but they were unable to receive any support because it was less than a year. So to be able to change that tonight is really significant for all those caregivers out there.

I want to thank the officials who worked with us and, finally, the people. I want to thank our tamariki, our rangatahi that have to live away from their birth parents, their parents who were meant to look after them, but for whatever reason they haven’t been able to. One of the submitters, and I brought it up in the second reading and I want to remind us of it, they said that the care of tamariki, the care of our rangatahi—this is everybody’s business. This isn’t just up to the State, this isn’t just up to a family; this is up to all of us to ensure that our young people grow, to flourish.

So I want to again thank those caregivers who have stood up, who step up day after day, night after night, week after week, year after year, decade after decade to care for someone who wasn’t born to them—but I know in many, many cases that they love them like their own. That’s my story as a caregiver, and I’m still in a relationship with many young people I cared for who are now having their own kids. I’m happy to be part of that process and be part of raising, let’s not say grandchildren, but younger people who are growing up. It makes me feel old.

But I also want to close with a couple of stories. There was a young person I mentioned in the second reading who came to me because his mum was unable to care for him and he was on the unsupported child’s benefit, which actually was a real challenge for us to obtain, and, hopefully, this will make it a simpler system. But just last week, his little sister celebrated her birthday. It was really cool. But, unfortunately, the whānau situation still is a struggle. This young—well, he’s a young man now, who was in my care, who was on unsupported child benefit, now has his little sister living with him. He’s now receiving the unsupported child’s benefit for the care of his little sister, and as much as it would have been cool if she and he could live with their mum, it just isn’t appropriate and it just isn’t possible. But there’s love, there’s care, there’s whānau within that little home. I’m really grateful to our Government, I’m really grateful that we can ensure that he can look after his sister. His sister can be looked after, his sister can receive the holiday payment, can receive a birthday payment, can ensure that the benefit that they receive is equal to that of a child in the State care system.

So I probably haven’t got much longer to go to tell any other stories, but just to say that this is personal, that people’s lives are affected, that the process of going through this piece of legislation makes a real difference. Every week when I’m back in the electorate I often have that question: “Do you feel like you’re making a difference? Do you feel like you’re doing anything? Do you feel like you’re making a change?” And of course every time I say “Yes, of course. I just did this, this, this, and this this week—most of the time.” But tonight, it’s very much around “Yes, I am making a difference. Yes, we are making a difference in this House for our tamariki, for our rangatahi, for those who care for them.”

So thank you to the Hon Kelvin Davis, thank you to the Hon Tracey Martin, thank you to our Social Services and Community Committee colleagues, and for this being a collegial process. It was constructive, it was not robust at all, because we did not need to be robust because we were on the same page in terms of ensuring that equity wins on the night and ensuring that young people, that children, are well cared for. On that basis, it’s with great pleasure that I commend this bill to the House.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call. I call Harete Hipango.

Thank you. In returning to the House to speak to this bill I do so, first of all, in acknowledging Minister Kelvin Davis for ensuring that this does pass into law, and that will do so at the end of the third reading.

But I also speak from the perspective, after hearing the contributions of members in the House, that I was very much involved as an advocate, working as a lawyer within Child, Youth and Family, as it was known in those days in the 1990s through to the 2000s, and then also as court-appointed counsel for children, and also as counsel for families who are caregivers of children. So, finally, to see the adjustments that are being made in terms of the financial contributions and assistance to caregivers is overdue. But it is now due, and it is about to happen. So I’m grateful for that, because—and I’ll keep this brief—in the days when I was advocating as lawyer for children but also counsel for Child, Youth and Family, as it was—now Oranga Tamariki—I was working alongside social workers, trying to navigate through the financial assistance that’s available to caregivers to ensure that the children would be able to be materially adequately provided for. Because all too often, the challenge for caregivers taking children into their care, they were often the people who had the least material means to provide but the most in terms of emotional support and security and stability.

So the detail of this has been traversed in the House—simply to say, in commending this bill to the House, I acknowledge Oranga Tamariki for the work that is done there, all the social workers, and the challenges that they’re confronted with on a daily basis, but also to those who nurture and provide for our children in the communities, the whānau, the extended families. Always as a lawyer advocating for the children, the paramountcy principle, as it’s known, the welfare and the best interests of the children was often forgotten by the State when it came to providing sufficiently to ensure that their needs and their means were met so that the caregivers could do that.

I think as not having been present to hear the submissions at the select committee, what I’ve noted with interest is the reference to caregivers outside of the State care system and those who are inside the State care system. What many people are not aware of is that what was utilised within the agency Child, Youth and Family—Oranga Tamariki, as it now is—is that a way to avoid our children going into formal custodial care was to use what was called a section 139, a temporary care agreement. There were always challenges associated with that because there was no formal custodial status for the State to have to provide for the caregivers to meet the needs, the material means and needs, for the children. So this will remedy that. This will rectify it. So, I wholeheartedly support and commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is an unexpected pleasure to briefly rise, in lieu of the fact that the Māori Party have not taken their call, on the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill. I think the thing that strikes me, having sat here in this House for this part of this process and listened to the previous contributions, is just the sheer number of colleagues who have got lived experience, whether it be through their early lived experience, as we heard from our colleague on the other side of the House Karen Chhour, or whether it be further on in life and the lived experience that my very dear colleague Glen Bennett possesses in terms of his wealth of experience as a caregiver, over many years now. I think it kind of highlights that it’s one of those things, one of those adjustments, one of those pieces to life that, whilst it’s fairly obvious we all agree on it, needs impetus and requires someone to, sort of, take that bull by the horns and progress this and champion this. So I’d also like to acknowledge not only the Minister Kelvin Davis for picking up and for recognising the importance of these simple but meaningful changes, but I’m sure he would also like further acknowledgment to be extended to Tracey Martin for first tackling this work.

The bill, as has been talked about on several occasions this evening, simply seeks to improve the financial assistance for caregivers of children who are unable to be cared for by their parents. As many of us can either remember or relate to, sometimes life can just be really precarious, and, sometimes, “there but for … goes anybody”, and what could be a relatively stable beginning can turn out quite differently through various sorts of life experiences. It’s incredibly important that children have someone to care for them if they can’t be cared for by their parents, but as has been previously discussed, the financial ramifications or the financial considerations that come along with that can indeed then end up being another stressor on top of that situation.

That’s certainly not ideal, particularly because the development of children—we all know that certain developmental periods and certain phases that we go through in childhood are incredibly important and set the scene for lots of future development. Children are very sensitive and they crave stability, so anything we can do to rectify and to fix what might be simple fiscal considerations is worthy of consideration—let alone the types of things that children naturally do when they start comparing themselves to others and start making really unfortunate comparisons if we don’t rectify those situations.

The proposals in this bill extend the financial assistance to support children also being cared for outside the State care system, and that’s another important consideration. There shouldn’t be differences between those two types of needs. The bill, by extending the eligibility for the orphan’s benefit and for the unsupported child’s benefit to carers who expect to provide care for less than 12 months—again, noting the precarious nature and the unforeseen circumstances that many people can find themselves in and who, within those unforeseen circumstances, and the most precarious, actually require that consideration and help.

So, considering all of those things, and the removal of the 12-month rule when establishing the birthday and Christmas allowances, the gist of all of this, really, is to create a fairer and much more equitable process for everybody. It certainly follows a report that looked into various aspects, and one of the key findings—reiterating—was that there was a lack of equity in the payments and support for caregivers outside the State system and those within the State system. So it seems that the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill is a pragmatic, sensible, and well-supported means by which, for us, as my colleague Glen Bennett from the mighty New Plymouth said—an easy means by which we can all go home feeling that we have achieved something good and proper today. Thank you.

The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 5.57 p.m. to 7.00 p.m.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is an honour at this late stage to speak on the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill. I wasn’t on the select committee that considered this bill, or able to speak on this bill during the earlier readings of this bill. However, it is an honour to do so now, and to hear the contributions from around the House on why this is a significant bill and one that enjoys widespread support.

Earlier in the general debate today, I spoke about the initiatives that the Government is taking to assist children. I talked about things like raising benefits that will help address child poverty, the initiative that we have to introduce period products in all schools and kura from June, the extension of Ka Ora, Ka Ako—healthy lunches in schools—and better childcare assistance for working families. It is my pleasure, therefore, to stand again to take another call on another initiative that puts the needs of our most important constituents—our children—first and carries on the Government’s work towards making New Zealand the best place in the world to be a child.

I think it is worth reflecting on the words of the Minister for Children, Kelvin Davis, in his speech that he made at first reading. He said—and I quote—“It is everybody’s dream, I guess—or wish—that every child in New Zealand has a safe, secure, living whānau, preferably with their own family; however, that’s not always the case.” When it is not the case, we all have a role in caring and looking after these children in our community, and this is exactly what this bill does.

So what does this bill do to assist children who are in care? This bill addresses a longstanding discrepancy between caregivers who look after children in State care and children looked after by caregivers who are not in State care. Now, children themselves are probably often unaware if the care outside their family is provided by the State or whether it is not, and so therefore it seems very unfair that some of these most vulnerable children in our society are treated differently, currently, compared to the source of the provision of their care.

Currently, caregivers have to prove that they’ll be looking after children in their care for at least 12 months, and I think we’ve heard from others that this particular provision that currently exists in our law is very problematic. The requirement isn’t fair. This bill would remove the 12-month rule, as it’s known, and it would do this by extending the definition of who a caregiver is. Often when people are caring for a child, they may end up caring for them longer than they originally thought, meaning that children who would have been entitled to additional benefits if the final length of their care had been known remain unentitled to them. So the removal of this rule will allow caregivers to receive allowances when the period of care is short term, unknown, or uncertain.

This is, I understand, an issue that was brought up by submitters on this particular bill, and it seems a pragmatic solution to a problem that exists. It is fair and equitable to make this change to the 12-month rule, and I’m proud of the Government for recognising this injustice. I also just want to acknowledge, as have others who have spoken on this bill tonight, the former Minister who brought this bill to the House, Tracey Martin. I was really heartened to hear that she attended the Social Services and Community Committee to give her view, and I really want to commend her for that. She obviously cares deeply about this policy and was able to put her time and energy into it when there was no direct benefit to her and she had no direct role in seeing its passage through the House. So, for that, I thank you for you leadership on this particular bill, Tracey.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Not the Speaker.

Sorry—I thank Tracey Martin, not you, Madam Speaker.

The next significant change is a change to make sure that children with caregivers who are not in State care receive a holiday and birthday allowance. This is done through clause 6, through amending Schedule 4 of the Social Security Act 2018 in respect of allowances. This will allow caregivers to receive an allowance on children’s birthdays from 2022 and every year after that. This will mean that days that are special to most of us can also be a bit more special for some of our most vulnerable children.

As a teenager, I read the autobiography of Sonja Davies, a former union leader and a Labour Party MP later in her career. The title of her autobiography is Bread and Roses. The title Bread and Roses is from the Lawrence textile workers’ strike. It was popularised by the Lawrence textile workers’ strike in 1912, which was a famous strike that took place in America. The women there were fighting for fair wages but also for dignity. Making sure that children in care, whether in State care or not, receive a birthday or holiday allowance recognises, I think, children in a very similar way. Yes, children need the essentials. They need food, shelter, and love, as all people do, but they also need to be treated with respect and deserve to celebrate extra things like birthdays and holidays that might be important to them. Children, like the striking workers, need bread and roses too.

I also want to acknowledge the committee for the change of name from “Christmas” to “holiday”. This appears to me to be a long-overdue change that better recognises our diverse community. Not everyone in our community celebrates Christmas and I think it’s important that in legislation we have language which is as inclusive as it can possibly be, and this change to recognise holidays as opposed to the previous wording in the bill—“Christmas”—would recognise that. I think when Minister Davis first spoke on this bill, he acknowledged that the level of these allowances means there won’t always be big birthday parties or big celebrations or dinners that some of us might enjoy in our own homes, but it will be a recognition of something.

There are also additional changes apart from those two main changes which I think we’ve heard quite a few speakers talk about, which were the change to the 12-month rule and, additionally, the allowances in relation to holiday and birthday allowances, which I think are the main changes in this bill. I personally wasn’t aware of the main types of financial assistance that are provided to carers, but on reading the bill, I was made aware that there are three types of main benefits that are provided to carers in New Zealand.

The first is the orphan’s benefit, and first of all, like other speakers, I want to acknowledge the language on this. It does cover children whose parents have died or are missing, but it also covers children whose parents have long-term disabilities. So not always orphans—I think it’s right to acknowledge some issues perhaps with that language. The second type of financial assistance is the unsupported child’s benefit. This supports children where there has been a breakdown of family or the children are unable to be supported by their parents. The third type of financial assistance provided to carers is the foster care allowance for children in State care.

Now, these first two benefits or allowances that I described are provided to carers who are caring for children not in State care, and the third one, the foster care allowance, is for children in State care. So what this bill does is remove the disparity between the orphan’s benefit and the unsupported child’s benefit and brings it in line with the foster carers benefit, which is what I just described as a main benefit that people who care for children in State care receive.

Another thing that the bill does is expand the “principal temporary carer” definition. This move allows more people to be covered—those on an orphan’s benefit and the unsupported child’s benefit. However, there are some exclusions to this which I think further leads to the integrity of the bill. Specifically excluded from this additional principal temporary carers definition are private arrangements for care while parents are employed overseas or in another region, arrangements where a child is being raised by family members or extended family, care when a child is staying in short-term visits with friends or family members, and care related to school holiday programmes and early childhood education. I understand further advice will be provided by the Ministry of Social Development on how that will be interpreted, but I think it does lead to the overall integrity of this bill that those particular things that we would expect to be excluded are, in fact, excluded by this bill.

In conclusion, I just want to acknowledge the different people in the House who have shared their stories. I want to acknowledge my colleague Koro Glen Bennett, who, through his care of many, many children over many years is, I think, deserving of the title “Koro”. So thank you, Glen, for all of your work in that area, and also to all the others around the House who have shared personal stories. This is a personal matter. Being in care is very personal, but it’s important that we recognise how important it is that we get this right.

So, in conclusion, I just wanted to acknowledge the 15,000 caregivers who are supporting the 22,000 children. We thank you, and to those children in care, we see you and you are entitled to a full life, one of bread but of roses too. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m happy to take what will be a short call and the last call for the National Party on the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill. I say short call because I think we have been traversing many of the same issues over and over again and have thanked the same people over and over again—not that they are not deserving of that thanks; Tracey Martin, obviously, did a good job in bringing this bill to the House and doing all the background work to get it to this point.

I just wanted to say that there are a number of caregivers out there who, out of the kindness of their hearts, on many occasions, are looking after children and are not being remunerated for it. Either they are spending money on those children for their birthdays and Christmases—or looking after them without any compensation—or, in many instances, many of those children are going without, which is not something that we want to see for any of our children.

The bill, as has been said, makes a couple of really big changes. Although, I have to say that the Social Services and Community Committee did a really good job. I didn’t sit on this committee, but, looking at the changes that the committee made to this bill and some of the recommendations that they’ve made for some future work, it looks like it was a very hard-working committee that actually paid a lot of attention to the detail of the bill—because of the number of changes that were traversed by the previous speaker to the bill.

But there are two main changes that are worthy of note. Getting rid of the 12-month rule, that really is the one that is probably the most significant, because you do get a number of carers who are looking after children around New Zealand who don’t meet that threshold of 12 months and won’t be remunerated for it. So this is just bringing into line those State and non-State payments. But also significant is the birthday and Christmas allowance—again, bringing into line the State and non-State allowances so that children get to have a birthday and a Christmas that they will remember.

So it’s been nice that we’ve been able to work collegially on this bill in select committee, and it’s nice, for a change, to be able to all, across the House, agree on something. I commend the bill to the House.

Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. It’s an absolute privilege to be the last speaker to make this contribution on the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill. I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the leadership of the Minister for Children, Oranga Tamariki, the Hon Kelvin Davis. He spoke earlier today and he recalled the journey of this bill by acknowledging the previous Minister, the Hon Tracey Martin, and her leadership in shepherding this important bill into the House.

I also want to extend my acknowledgment of the chair of the Social Services and Community Committee. I am part of that select committee and it is an example of when we, here in Parliament, work well in select committee, we come out with something that’s great. And for the children and caregivers that this bill covers, it’s meaningful and it’s worthwhile. I want to also acknowledge the officials that supported the select committee in our work and also the officials within the Minister’s office for their support in terms of getting this, the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill, into the House at its third reading. I am the last speaker.

I also want to acknowledge the 31 submitters who took the time, because they know that this is important for children and young people, they know this is important for caregivers, to let us know what they think. But I want to acknowledge a couple of the young people that came to make submissions on this bill. One of them was my Youth Parliamentarian from Youth Parliament in 2019, Jennifer Thornrithi. Jennifer was a child in care. She was able to share her experience about her journey in care. So I just want to make mention of Jennifer’s experience coming to select committee.

In acknowledging Jennifer Thornrithi and her submission at the select committee, I want to acknowledge that there are around 24,000 children who are not today with their mother or their father or both of their parents. So I want to acknowledge the children: it is by no means your fault that you ended up in a place where your parents, for one reason or another, are unable to care for you. I was, myself, as I said in my couple of contributions on this bill, raised by my grandfather and then, when he passed, my uncle raised me until I was able to come to New Zealand to join my mother. So, yeah, if we ask, in terms of those 24,000 children, if those people weren’t able to care for them or put their hand up, then it’d be a different story. So I want to acknowledge and say thank you to the caregivers who have taken the role of being parents, to those grandparents caring for grandchildren—they have taken the extra care that’s required for their mokopuna to provide care as a parent would.

As previous speakers have spoken about, we looked at this in terms of—in my last contribution in this bill I spoke about the money having to follow the child. This is an example of how that statement is true. Before the bill came about, for a child or young person who was in care of the State, caregivers were able to have a birthday allowance for them when it was their birthday, and at Christmas they were able to have a Christmas allowance for those in care. However, in comparison to children who were either on the orphan’s benefit or unsupported child’s benefit, those children weren’t eligible for those payments. So when we talk about equity of payment, we’re actually talking about that if a child is without their parent, then that child is deserving of a birthday allowance. Then we also, at select committee, changed the Christmas allowance to a holiday allowance. In Minister Davis’ kōrero in the second reading, he mentioned that it would be another day that the caregiver would make special for the child, “for our children”. That’s what I remember from the Minister’s second reading speech.

So that’s what this bill does. It acknowledges that whether a child is in the care of the State, the care of a grandparent, or any other adults, they do need the support. In my experience as a social worker and as a manager and working with children, sometimes for caregivers that little extra support financially means a whole lot. It means they can continue to care for the child in their care. So that’s why this bill, although it may be small in numbers of pages, it means a lot. So that’s what we mean by equity of care of financial support.

Also, if one was an unsupported child on the unsupported child’s benefit, the caregiver and the child or the young person had to prove that the child would be in their care for 12 months. So this bill changes the 12-month rule to make it simpler for a caregiver to just provide care so that the children and young people in their care continue to receive that care.

Also, when I spoke about the Christmas allowance, at the select committee we decided to change it to a “holiday allowance”, because it acknowledges that we’re growing as a country, and that for some religions Christmas is not something that they have in their religion. So that’s why we changed it at the select committee to a “birthday allowance”.

There was a lot of discussion on the orphan’s benefit. English is my second language, and I’ve always thought that being an orphan was having both parents pass away. But the orphan’s benefit, as described in the social security bill, is paid to children whose parents are deceased or whose parents are missing or whose parents have serious disability. That was difficult for the committee to change the name. But in hindsight, I was thinking, we probably could have just moved the benefit into “unsupported child” for a missing parent and just leave the orphans benefit by itself.

We’ve had many contributors in this House speak about their experiences like the member Camilla Belich has mentioned. But I want to acknowledge Karen Chhour from the ACT Party, because she is someone who brings the care experience and someone who, when provided with the right support, can be a member of Parliament, can come and add their voice of experience into making laws about children and about how her experience now has added value in this House, and, of course, Matua Glen Bennett and his experience as a caregiver. On behalf of all of us, Matua Glen Bennett, thank you for caring for children and do continue to do that, because it is a calling to be able to care for children. I myself would find that a challenge. So I want to echo what the Minister has said in his many speeches—taking his hat off to all the caregivers out there. On behalf of everybody that has spoken, that has made submissions on this bill, we just want to say thank you. Thank you for your care and your love and support of our children, and, please, do continue to do that, and all the people that have worked too in the administration of this allowance in the Ministry of Social Development and Oranga Tamariki. Treat this as if it’s for your own child.

And on that note, I commend Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill to the House. Kia ora.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.