Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Child Support (Pass On) Acts 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.

Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I move, That the Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 24 May 2023 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

The Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill will remove the discriminatory policy which has withheld child support from some of our most vulnerable sole parents. Through this legislation, this Government is delivering on its commitment to put dignity back in the welfare system and to make it fairer. Currently, child support payments that sole parent beneficiaries are entitled to are retained by the Government rather than being passed on to support their children. However, this is not the case for other beneficiaries, such as those on a couple rated benefit or those only receiving supplementary assistance, who have their child support passed on. The bill fixes this inequity by passing on child support administered by Inland Revenue directly to sole parent beneficiaries, as is currently done for other parents receiving child support and benefits. This child support will then be treated as income by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) for benefits and other assistance.

This bill will put more money in the pockets of sole parent families. Passing on sole child support will mean that from 1 July 2023, approximately 41,550 sole parent families will have more money in their pockets. These families will gain overall by an average of $47 per week, with a median gain of $20 per week. The lift in income this will provide for these families also contributes to our Government’s ongoing focus on reducing the number of children living in poverty in New Zealand. It is estimated that this will reduce the number of children in poverty by up to 14,000 in 2023-24.

As well as increasing a family’s financial resources, research suggests that passing on child support will increase the incentive for liable parents to meet their child support obligations. This is likely because liable parents are more willing to pay child support when they know that their child will receive that financial support. There is also evidence that if child support is passed on, it increases engagement by the parent paying child support with their child.

These changes contribute to our ongoing welfare overhaul work programme and build on our earlier work, including the 2019 change which removed the financial penalty for sole parents who did not name the other parent of their child when applying for assistance. Passing on child support was also recommended by the Welfare Expert Advisory Group in 2019.

When a parent receives child support, the normal monthly payment they receive needs to be spread equally and charged across four or five weeks against their benefits. The Ministry of Social Development will then treat this child support as income for their assistance using automated systems. Because information on child support payments will be shared with the Ministry of Social Development by Inland Revenue, parents will no longer need to self-declare their child support payments to the Ministry of Social Development, in most cases. This approach will reduce the likelihood of debt accumulation, demands on the time of these families, and increase MSD’s consistency and accuracy of income charging.

The bill also removes the requirement for sole parents on a benefit to apply for a formula assessment of child support through Inland Revenue. This means that these parents will be able to make arrangements that better suit their circumstances, such as formula assessment, voluntary, or private agreement. The bill will also allow liable parents who have a formula assessment of child support through Inland Revenue to claim this as a cost for temporary additional support and for special benefit.

This is a complex bill, and our Government is taking the time it needs to get this right. Preparation for this reform has been substantial and time-consuming, requiring changes to IT systems, operational guidance, and business processes. Work on the detailed design of this policy has brought up technical issues around how to treat child support as income while maintaining fairness and consistency.

Due to the complexity of the changes required to the welfare system to facilitate this, our Government is taking a phased approach to implementation. The first phase prioritises getting more money in the pockets of sole parents by passing on child support from 1 July 2023. A second phase of changes will focus on ensuring that the charging rules used for child support create fairer outcomes in more niche situations. Overall, this means that all sole parent beneficiaries will benefit from child support pass-on, but some will be temporarily advantaged or disadvantaged by the first phase of changes compared to how they will be impacted after the second phase of changes are made. This Government isn’t shying away from implementing child support pass-on because of the complexity, and that’s why our phased approach ensures sole parents on a benefit get additional income from July this year while we continue to work through phase two.

This is one of those complex pieces of legislation that I’ve spoken about so many times as we’ve been undertaking the welfare overhaul. This is a policy that has, basically, been in place since 1936. Other Governments have identified it as something that’s discriminatory and needs to change, but it has been viewed as too difficult to change and therefore not tackled. I’ve seen how difficult this is, but we’ve still gone ahead with pursuing that change. We do recognise that there has to be two phases to getting it done, but the primary consideration for us is making sure that we get the money in the pockets of those sole parents as soon as we possibly can, which will be 1 July 2023.

This bill is a representation of this Government’s continued focus on the things that matter most to New Zealanders. We know that sole parents do it tough, and we know that they do need more money in their pockets. By delivering on our commitment to pass on child support to sole parents, 41,550 affected sole parent families will receive the benefits of the policy as soon as possible. These changes will make a real difference for these whānau and raise up to 14,000 children out of poverty. I’m really proud that as a Government we get to tackle this discriminatory policy, and I really am hoping that we get support from across political parties to get this over the line and in place and that money in the pockets of the whānau that need it by 1 July 2023. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am pleased to take a call in this first reading of legislation that will pass on child support to those on the sole parent benefit. I have to say from the outset that we will support it in the first reading, but with some significant reservations. So I do want to speak through that in the first reading to be clear about where our support lies and where it doesn’t lie.

So the first thing is in terms of families being able to keep more of their own income—that is absolutely a philosophy that the National Party supports. In an instance of a sole parent where the child support is paid to support the children in that household, it does make sense to find a way to be able to pass that through from Inland Revenue. So I do support that measure, and that is based on the fact that if we are able to—and it would be very interesting to see when we get to the committee stages how many more liable parents will pay their child support commitments if it is passed through directly to the sole parent, and they are, more often than not, women, so it’ll be interesting to see how that goes.

We absolutely recognise that sole parents—particularly in a cost of living crisis—are doing it tough, and we want to be able to look at measures that alleviate that pressure on their households. We also want to make sure—and this is the bit that we don’t support. The Minister talks about this being a complex piece of legislation. Well, the more complex it is, the more there should be public scrutiny.

This is the seventh piece of legislation by Minister Sepuloni that has had either a shortened report-back, or none at all, being done through urgency. So it is particularly concerning, and I want to put that on the record now: that the Minister is calling for a shortened report-back. It means that those in the sector—those who are affected directly by this legislation—don’t have the opportunity to assist the House in improving the legislation. So I do want to put that on the record.

I think the other thing, when we talk about child poverty—and, of course, we’ve seen the statistics come out last week—is there’s been no change in the last year, and that’s not good news for anyone. So I don’t take any pleasure in saying that that’s a measure that we’re not seeing any progress in. But what we also know is that for the children in material hardship, 60 percent of them are in benefit-dependent homes. What we continue to see Labour’s answer being is simply to increase the benefit or increase support for the beneficiary—in this case, a sole parent—as opposed to looking at how we can support more sole parents into work.

I’ve been on the record on multiple occasions recognising how incredibly difficult that transition is from personal experience, and I know other members in the House have had the same experience. It is incredibly challenging to do that, but not impossible. When we look at the statistics, five years ago, there were 60,000 people on the sole parent benefit, and 5½ years later, that has gone up 13,000 to 73,000 New Zealanders. So we have one in five of our children being raised in a benefit-dependent home.

So that is the statistic, when I’m speaking around the community and in New Zealand, that has people’s jaws drop, because if we are coming out of an economy that has been going so strongly, why is it that we still have one in five of our children being raised in a benefit-dependent home? We all know the evidence tells us the outcomes for children who are raised in benefit-dependent homes are less positive than other children. So there equally needs to be a focus on how to lift children out of households that the primary source of income is a benefit, and to reduce benefit dependency.

Unfortunately, what we are seeing is not only are there more on benefits but they are staying there for longer. What we’ve seen in the sole parent support category is that, in addition, 14,000 have been on the sole parent benefit for more than a year. So I would like to see some of the focus and policy effort on how to actually support families into work, because we do know that’s when they will have greater incomes, greater opportunities, and greater choices in life.

Of course, we have seen two of the policies that Labour have already passed—the subsequent child and the requirement not to name the father—have both had an impact in terms of lifting the number of children being raised in sole parent households. So that of course has been a step backwards, in our view.

In terms of this legislation, the other part that we do not support is the fact that the unsupported child’s benefit hasn’t been included in this first phase, as the Minister refers to it, because, again, those who are receiving the unsupported child’s benefit are some of our most challenged and vulnerable families. So I think it is somewhat frustrating that that hasn’t been included. I’m hoping in the select committee process that we can push to have that included, and I’m sure there’ll be many stakeholders and submitters who ask exactly for that as well.

The other measure that we don’t support is the change for liable parents to be able to access greater benefit support. We think it’s really important in terms of the social contract, both in terms of, if you are providing assistance from the State, that there are responsibilities that you have as well, and, in this instance, where there is a liable parent who is receiving a benefit, to then allow them access to greater benefits where they have child support obligations. To me, it feels like a backward step.

What we should instead be doing is asking: how do we support parents to provide for their children rather than loading that burden on to the taxpayers? That was exactly what happened, unfortunately, with the change that the Government made when there was no requirement for fathers to be named in terms of the sole parent benefit.

So it’s a mixed report on this bill, and that’s why we do support it with some pretty significant reservations. Yes, on the surface of it, additional money into a sole parent’s household for their children is a positive step, but we do want to see some of these other measures thrashed out in the select committee, and I accept there’ll be a further discussion on the time frames of that in a little while. I would encourage as many people as possible to submit on this legislation. Because it is technical and because it is complicated, it is more important that we get it right. We definitely don’t want legislation back in the House fixing things, which is what we’ve had to do in the past when there’s been insufficient time for scrutiny. All that does is actually have an impact on those that we are all here to serve.

So I don’t think because it’s a complex bill that’s any excuse not to get it done. It was a Welfare Expert Advisory Group recommendation back in May 2019—one that, in principle, the National Party agreed with. So it is somewhat frustrating to be here years later, dealing with legislation and having it rammed through under a short time frame without sufficient scrutiny, and it not being the whole job anyway, with the unsupported child’s benefit excluded and more work to happen.

So, as I say, we support the bill. We have significant reservations and we do want to have some of these issues ironed out in the select committee. It would be nice to be in a position where it is legislation we could continue to support, but that will depend on what happens next. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, I’m really stoked to be standing and speaking on this bill. This is about us fixing a longstanding inequity that exists for sole parents out there who have, for whatever the reason was—and, frankly, I think it was a philosophical argument, fundamentally, about the punishment of single parents—it has happened for many, many years. We are looking to fix this.

Look, this bill is incredibly complex, and don’t get me wrong, I want to acknowledge the Minister for that. I want to acknowledge the Minister because of the amount of work that has had to go on to bring this bill to the House, and the complexity that we will be addressing in two tranches.

I also want to acknowledge that the member the Hon Louise Upston has spoken of supporting this bill in part, and I also just want to acknowledge that we appreciate that. We are working on other things, and, of course, the Training Incentive Allowance will really help get people off benefits, and we can’t disagree that living on a benefit is not the best for our families.

But this bill is actually about helping those sole parents get the same amount of money as any other beneficiary family. That’s the bottom line, really. Any other family that is a beneficiary family is not having their child support treated in this way, and that, fundamentally, is wrong. It is an inequity that has sat for many, many years. I appreciate the member the Hon Louise Upston saying that, actually, you know, it’s sat since 2019—well, no, actually, it’s sat since 1936. They haven’t done it, we haven’t done; we’re now doing it. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is, indeed, quite a responsibility to take a call on this Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill, and I do so in support of the bill, in support of the Minister, the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, in support of my colleague the Hon Louise Upston, both of whom are women who have been dedicated as parliamentarians in this highly specialised area and highly needed support area for our children.

As spokesperson for children for the National Party, it’s important that—and I’ve said this on many an occasion in this House speaking to child welfare legislation, and this is child support legislation—we keep a lens on those children front, centre, and foremost to ensure that they are deserved of the best welfare that not only the State and the nation can provide but their families.

So this bill is very much a technical bill; a highly complex bill. It’s often referred to in the House—and for the sake of lay people who were listening in, this is an omnibus bill. The term omnibus is derived from Latin and means “two, four, by, with or from everything”. So with this being a proposed piece of law—legislation—as an omnibus bill, it is a single document that is accepted in a single vote by a legislature, but packages together several measures into one or combines diverse subjects. So I say that because the explanatory note to this bill identifies that in being an omnibus bill it is addressing amendments to three other pieces of law—Acts—two sets of rules, and two sets of regulations. So, in total, this is a bill that—in its complexity—is addressing seven different elements of the law, all encompassed and wrapped up into one.

So that’s one element of its complexity and the technical aspect. The other element, of course, is drilling into the detail of what benefit entitlement there is to the sole parent families. So, again, in the explanatory note to this amendment bill—and for those members of the public listening in—the estimated general effect of this is that approximately 41,550 sole parent families will receive, on average, $65 per week of child support income with a median gain of $24 per week. What does that mean? In essence, this is a bill that is addressing the entitlement under a State welfare provided system to those sole parent families to now be the direct recipients and beneficiaries of a liable parent payment that is currently at the moment rerouted through IRD. This legislation will redirect and direct payments from the liable parent directly to the sole parent and the subject child. That’s the importance of the child-centricity element of this bill, this legislation.

It is highly specialised and technical. It will go before the Social Services and Community Committee for scrutiny. The concern that my colleague the Hon Louise Upston has identified is the truncated process; Minister Sepuloni has indicated that the select committee is to report back to this House by 24 May. A prior speaker—and the Minister, in fact—said that this has been a policy in place since 1936, that it is now before the House, introduced, and now at its first reading, will go before select committee, but it’s being rushed through under urgency. It is so important that we get this right. And the reason to get this right, from my point of view as the children’s spokesperson, is the impact that it will have on the children. Ultimately, the State welfare system is where the parent is unable to provide, and there is a liable parent—the State has been drawing funds from those parties towards the sole parent who is providing for the needs of the child or the children.

My mind turns to—before we had a State welfare system, the dependence and the responsibility lay at the fabric of society which is the family and the whānau. This is a substitute for those families, for those parents, for those caregivers who, for variable reasons, are dependent on the State to do that. There has been mention made that we wish to see fewer children in poverty and that this is one means of lifting or easing children out of poverty. This addresses some material hardship; not all. This is a way of working—tweaking—the system that will ensure that the liable parent payments are directed directly into the mouths of our children. But that’s going to be dependent on the response. Hopefully, the responsible parent, in prioritising and making decisions that the extra handout from the State is going to be responsibly managed by the parent to ensure that that goes directly into the mouths of our babes. That’s not always the case. So to suggest that this is going to address poverty is tinkering at the edges.

My point is that, coming from a generation where many did not depend on the State, they depended on community and the responsibility of those within our whānau to provide. And I’ve mentioned, in the House before, conversations that I’ve had with some of my elders, one of whom is the Hon Tariana Turia. And also, he has come up in conversation, he has since passed, the Hon Parekura Horomia. Coming from a generation where poverty was something that was there in terms of deprivation of material provision, but we had subsistence standard of living and providing and meeting the needs and the means of our children and our families. And what’s come out of the kōrero and the conversations from some of the old people—which I happen to be becoming one of those more quickly than I would like—is that poverty of spirit is a big factor that’s impinging on our society. So this legislation addresses the material struggles and hardships, but it does not address and lift the responsibility and elevate the importance of addressing value systems, addressing attitudes, and lifting our people out of that poverty of spirit.

I think it’s important to put that into context because as a child advocate, many of my former clients were dependent on the State and I would have conversations with them about the importance of the family support that they came from. And I know, Mr Speaker, I’ll be reminded to come back to the bill, but this does have bearing on this bill because the message is that—as a child advocate representing not only children but mothers, but fathers, but grandparents—it’s about how we as a fabric of whānau can provide the supports without being dependent on the State and wrapped up in generations of oppression of State welfarism.

In the final minute—and less—that I have, the point that is being made from my kōrero to the House today is: yes, we can have legislation that will provide for material means. We don’t have legislation that provides for the importance of values and addressing that poverty of spirit that our old people, the Hon Tariana Turia, the Hon Parekura Horomia and others of their ilk who have gone before, who will always come back and say, “Mana motuhake starts in our whānau.”

We will get into the detail of the bill. I’ve transgressed from what I was going to say, but the important thing to say is that we focus on the importance of feeding our babies. This bill is about child support and to ensure that what support comes from the State, the responsible parent ensures that it goes into the mouths of our babes.

Kia ora, e te Mana Whakawā. It’s always an honour to stand and make a contribution in this House, but in particular in this case. The bill, in itself—Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill—it is about the first word that is important: about the child, and followed on by support.

I want to acknowledge the leadership of the Minister, Carmel Sepuloni. It’s difficult; this has been a difficult matter to get to this stage, and through her passion and her advocacy, we are here, 87 years since 1936—we are here.

And there are four things that I want to speak on in my short contribution: (1) that the bill removes the discriminatory policy that withheld child support payments from parents receiving a sole parent rate on the main benefit—and their children; (2) it passes on about $47 a week, or a median of $20. If it’s $20, it’s $1,040 a month—

Angie Warren-Clark: A year.

ANAHILA KANONGATA‘A-SUISUIKI: —a year, sorry about my maths. And if it’s $47 a week, it’s $2,444 a year. For 87 years, these families and children have been robbed of what they’ve been entitled to. I want to remind the House that this was a recommendation, recommended by the Welfare Expert Advisory Group (WEAG) in 2019.

And we are here tonight to pass it in urgency—and it so should be in urgency that we pass the first reading, and I want to really acknowledge, again, the leadership of Carmel Sepuloni that we are here. We’ve gone through a lot of recommendations by the WEAG, but we are now here, and I want to commend this bill to the House. Mālō.

Children growing up in households where their incomes are below the poverty line—it’s a political choice, one that, unfortunately, too many successive Governments have made for decades, which is why the Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill is a step towards remediating some of this. It will make important changes and finally remove and reverse an unfair decades-old rule, often labelled the parents tax, which says that if the primary caregiver of a child is on the sole parent benefit, Inland Revenue is entitled to take child support payments to recoup the cost of the welfare system.

This, basically, has penalised our families and has created the conditions where the other parent of the child is not encouraged to actually be participating in the sort of family unit, and ultimately all that it creates is a situation where the caregiver, the primary caregiver, will be disadvantaged. So we do support this bill because it will put more money into people’s pockets and it will restore certain dignity to our welfare system.

I did want to note, though, that a Government that centres the rights of the child, the wellbeing of the child, would not just be passing on child support but ensuring that children are growing up with enough to thrive. And this is why in this complicated bill, we do have some concerns and things that we would like to explore further at the select committee stage, particularly in the way that the bill would intend to treat the pass-on as income for the purposes of determining entitlements to income support and the benefit.

I would want, actually, the child support payments to not actually prejudice the ability for someone to receive their full entitlements under the welfare system, and that, actually, we work towards ensuring that parents are able to receive everything that they can. And I do want to push back on some of the National Party’s comments around that focus on putting people off the benefit, because I think often these comments seem to ignore that caregiving is work that we should value as such. And if caregivers want to move into paid employment, that is a choice that caregivers can make in their own right, but I think at no point should we diminish the importance of caregiving as labour that often goes underpaid and not recognised. I think this bill will go some way towards that.

I do, though, agree with some of the comments from the National Party members around the concerns about a sort of shortened select committee stage. We do think this bill is complex enough to warrant a more fulsome discussion and to have input from stakeholders around, for example, the impact that treating benefits as income would have. And, actually, I would want officials—as much as I see the brows from the Labour Party members on this—to be able to give us substantive advice, for example, on what it would mean if we didn’t take this pass-on as income for the purposes of determining someone’s benefit entitlements. It’s important that we get this right because, as the Minister noted, this has been in place, the current policy has been in place, for far too long and this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get things right. From what I’ve heard from the National Party members, I wouldn’t trust that if we had a National Government there would be any attempts to remedy this. So I want to make sure that we actually do do the right thing.

Finally, I hear the Minister’s points that this is a complex bill. I want to acknowledge the work that has gone in to get this over the line and to a place where we’re able to debate this. The Welfare Expert Advisory Group report is four years old now. It is by no means a gospel, and it was a snapshot of the welfare system at the time, before the pandemic, before inflationary pressures. And so now that we’re finally getting this through, it is important that we prioritise all the other important Welfare Expert Advisory Group recommendations and more that will put more money into people’s pockets and will lift people out of poverty, because ultimately this is a choice, and a choice the Government can make. Kia ora.

Thank you for the opportunity to rise on behalf of ACT today. We’d like to convey to the House that ACT will do what it needs to do to make this successful, but we’d like to—without taking any disagreements with the current Minister, who we’re pleased has brought this bill to the House—step back a little bit to talk about the fact that $1 billion has been paid by parents in child support over the past five years to the Government.

The practical reason the Government said that they wouldn’t pass it on was because it would have to pay for the costs of the welfare system. I think the people of New Zealand—the solo mothers, the Pasifika and Māori mothers and caregivers—deserve an apology from the Prime Minister because of the pain that this has enacted on New Zealand society. A third of these payments have been intercepted by the IRD and it has been described as work that Jacinda Ardern wanted to complete as Prime Minister, and it was called a parent tax. But this is no time for spin, and I noticed Mr Hipkins came out the other day and said that this policy has been defended as a way for the Government to fund the welfare system. Mr Hipkins described it not as a tax on the poor, but a diversion of the child support payment.

This is where the bureaucratic system in this country is getting the connection with the public wrong. This is a very serious matter that needs to be resolved. It has caused endless pain in households up and down the country, it has stopped the incentivisation of men paying for proper child support for their children, and it has affected children’s livelihoods. The Government hasn’t defused this over the last five years, and it is not enough to hide behind the fact that this is a complex bill.

Complexity over five years can be surely fast-tracked. If you look at the regulatory impact statement, this has never made logical sense in this country, and the payments now, which will be counted as income, have a solution that takes it out of the hands of the IRD. That’s a good thing: 41,000 sole parents are affected by this. It’s an extra 20 bucks a week, median-wage wise. But the policy has been totally discriminatory against these people, and we believe an apology is necessary to get over this hump of miserableness and illogical Government settings that have allowed this benefit to be distorted.

There’s no policy that should be defended as a way to defend the welfare system or the IRD system as a cost. Just to give you some facts and figures, which I think are important, the costs and savings for the Government are as follows: $458 million is the cost of passing on child support—that is, no longer retaining child support to offset the cost of income-tested financial assistance. There’s $25 million—that’s the cost for enabling child support liability to be considered allowable costs for temporary additional support and special benefit purposes. Then there are savings of $175 million from benefit statement due to increased incomes passing on child support payments, and then savings of $25 million on how child support is treated for the purposes of income-related rent subsidy. This will provide a net benefit of 41,000 sole parents receiving something extra in their pockets at the end of each month.

This was a social contract that has been abused. ACT will support the bill in its first reading to select committee. We are disappointed, as well, with regards to the fact that this process is short and, ironically, is being pushed through in an election year, when it should have been dealt with, in a fashion, when Jacinda Ardern was in Government herself.

So we now look at the impact of this tax—or is it a diversion payment? We don’t know, but we’ll find out. But it is sad that $1 billion paid by parents in child support over the past five years has gone to the Government, and it hasn’t been managed properly. For that reason, the ACT Party requires change and real reform in this area. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Good heavens! Two extraordinary lessons, or, rather, mis-lessons, in economics today. The first, from Mr Seymour—I beg your indulgence for one second, Mr Speaker. The earlier one was a lesson in what a tax isn’t. A tax is not something where it goes to an individual; it is something where it goes to a Government. Maybe Mr Seymour and ACT need to think about that.

But now we have had a lesson in economic history. Mr Damien Smith has just spent the last five minutes or so telling us and lambasting this Government for having had this terrible policy that discriminates against single women, or single parents—particularly, of course, that’s going to be single mothers. This terrible policy—87 years this policy has been in place. It took this Government to unravel the complexity and to now get rid of it—87 years of Governments. Don’t blame us, Mr Smith. The question is: why did it take so long?

We’re doing it. We are relieving this burden from women and from solo parents generally, and I am so darned proud to stand here as a member of the Government, as a member of the wāhine caucus, and as a supporter of Minister Carmel Sepuloni, who has championed so many initiatives for women and for mothers, in particular, through this House.

I am so darned proud to be here and I am so darned proud to be a member of the select committee who will do this, because I am going to tell you now: why did this take so long within this Government—not the 87 years, but the last couple? I have watched tax experts go white when asked why we can’t remove this. It is that complex. It has taken this time to get to the point where we have a bill that is workable, and by all that is holy, we are going to get this thing through in time for July so the money goes into the pockets of the women and the children, where it should have been, and it should never have been put in such a discriminatory regime.

Again and again, our women are discriminated against. Under Carmel Sepuloni, no more. I commend it to the House.

This is a five-minute split call.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker; I did realise that. I have pleasure in standing in support of the Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill in its first reading here today. The National Party is supporting it to select committee with some reservations that I will traverse as we go through this short reading.

The key messages that we would like to talk to—and I take the point that the previous speaker, Dr Henderson, raised about it taking 87 years to get to this point. The reality is that this was a recommendation from the Welfare Expert Advisory Group four years ago, and it has taken four years to finally get to this point. But after investing four years of preparation, we are now faced with a very shortened select committee process, and as the previous speaker has mentioned, this is complex and it has taken some time to get here. Yet the community and the public don’t have the courtesy of having enough time to give it due consideration through the submission process. In fact, if we have a look at the sitting schedule for Parliament before the report-back date for this bill, which is 24 May, basically we have four sitting weeks ahead of us once this has moved on to the select committee. So the Government may be very cocky about finally getting it here but it’s a shame that the public isn’t going to enjoy the similar respect due to it in having an opportunity to work their way through the complexities.

The bill is complex but National is supporting it because we know that, at the end of the day, it is going to benefit the children of single parents, but we are also the party that wishes to see fewer children living in poverty. We see this as a step in the right direction but the problem we have is the former Prime Minister made herself the Minister for Child Poverty Reduction and she has fallen short, by about 81,500 children, in her goal of something like 100,000 children lifted out of poverty by 2020. So while the Government is crowing about its success in getting this little piece of legislation through, the bigger picture is still a complete failure.

We also need to put it in the context of other sole parents as well, because if we look at the stats for sole parent support in December 2022, who had been on benefit for over a year—and we know because the data tells us this—the longer people are on benefit, the harder it is to re-enter the workplace. There are now 14,000 more people on sole parent support in 2022—that’s 59,000 people. So this is not a proud day for the Government. In fact, it is band-aid over a poor-performing Government over many years.

But I’d also like to remind the Government that when we’re talking about the benefit of child support payments going through the Inland Revenue Department directly to the other parent, we are taking the money that was going into the Government’s coffers to subsidise the benefit of those people on a sole parent support payment. So that was the responsible parent paying for their children by subsidising the taxpayers of New Zealand who are supporting their children. So we are taking that money off the taxpayers, and we are talking a figure of $350 million over four years that once sat subsidising the taxpayer support. That is no longer going to be there and this is a cost to the country. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. All I can say is, that was a real downer, and there would be no doubt in our mind that, if it were up to a National Government, we would probably have the discriminatory policy in place for another 87 years. The National Party is obviously all talk and no action. And so I want to join my colleague Emily Henderson in her rousing speech in acknowledgment of a brave Minister, one that is very indicative of a Government that is not afraid to kick the can down the road, who actually tackles the long-term challenges, make life better for New Zealanders, and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill continues our Government’s work to make sure that we are creating a fairer welfare system that upholds the dignity of people and families and kids. I’d just like to say at this time, as well, that I want to acknowledge our commitment to do this—of our Minister Carmel Sepuloni. I know this one is close to her heart.

We know currently that parents and caregivers who receive sole parent support are not treated the same as others, like people on couple rate benefits and people on supplementaries like temporary additional support and accommodation supplement. Currently, IRD are collecting that money and offsetting it against their benefit. This is discriminatory, and this bill seeks to remove that inequality and the discriminatory process against the sole parent support.

This passing on of the child support will lift 14,000 more kids out of poverty. We’ve heard that over 41,000 sole parents and their children will now have at least $20 or more in their budget. This is about supporting our kids. This is about supporting all New Zealanders. This is what the Labour Government does. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. So I rise to speak in support of the Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill in this, its first reading, and I listened carefully to the Hon doctor Carmel Sepuloni in her introduction of the bill, and also to the Hon Louise Upston in her response, because it’s important to listen carefully to people who have got significant experience and knowledge in this area.

As a number of people have said, the bill changes the way child support is paid to sole parent beneficiaries, and it’s being considered today under urgency. We’ve heard much about the 87 years that this has been in place, and of course, the bill removes that different treatment for most sole parent beneficiaries.

The current law, as we’ve talked about, creates this inequity and inconsistency between how beneficiaries receiving a sole parent rate may benefit, and other beneficiaries are treated in the welfare system. So the key change is the child support income is treated as income. I noted the Minister said that she felt this would increase the motivation for liable parents to pay, and I would say I hope this does occur and, from the reasonable regularity that I have constituents coming through with complaints in my electorate office about this, I’m hopeful that that may well indeed occur.

I also listened to the Minister saying it is such a complex matter and the Hon Louise Upston dealt with those complexities a little further. Obviously there is significant technical support needed to enable this to happen, and a phased change does seem appropriate. I also listened to what has been described as a rousing speech by Emily Henderson, and it was indeed a rousing speech about how pleased she was to be able to spend taxpayers’ money. I think that it’s important for us to just remind ourselves when some of the speakers on the other side get terribly excited about what they are doing and what Labour is doing—it’s actually taxpayers that are doing this. So it is taxpayers’ money that is going on this. So let’s not get too excited about what we are doing individually.

The other point that I do note is that this is only part of the solution. So, yes, 41,500 sole parent families will receive additional support—a median gain of $24 a week—and, following the abatement of income test and financial assistance, that medium gain will be $20 a week. That’s certainly not to be sniffed at; it is an important amount of money, and it will be a small step towards reducing child poverty. But we all know the big step in reducing child poverty is to support parents—sole parents—into employment. That is the main way in which we are going to decrease child poverty. So let’s not think that we’ve put the final piece in the puzzle by ensuring that $20 to $24 extra is going to those sole parents a week.

It cannot go past without being noted that the number of individuals receiving the sole parent support has increased under the watch of this Government by 21 percent—21 percent; that’s an additional 13,000 people receiving sole parent support. So that should be of major concern because that is not lifting children out of poverty. So we have been dealing with an uneven playing field between different beneficiaries, and we need to be improving the efficiency of administering social security. We all want to see fewer children in poverty. I hope there is no one in this House that does not want to see fewer children in poverty, and so this is a sensible change, a small change, but we also want to see a focus by the Government to reduce the number of children in benefit-dependent homes. That is where a real difference will be made. We want to ensure that children are getting out of that welfare trap, and that is where we would like to see greater emphasis by this Government.

This Government has had a lot of rhetoric about how they care but, often, their actions have fallen well short of that rhetoric. So let’s not get too rousing in speeches about what good this has done, when there is far, far more work that needs to be done. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to speak on this bill, which is going to lift thousands of children out of poverty, and it builds on the work the Government has already been doing to increase family incomes. Things like the Best Start payment for newborn babies, Working for Families, increases to benefits, and winter energy payments are amazing things, and by removing this discriminatory policy, we’re going to see around 41,550 sole parent families financially better off by a median gain of about $20 per week. A fantastic bill, and I commend it to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

The question is, That the Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill be considered by the Social Services and Community Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Social Services and Community Committee.

Instruction to Social Services and Community Committee