Martin TraceyKIWISAVER (FOSTER PARENTS OPTING IN FOR CHILDREN IN THEIR CARE) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingDebate resumed from 8 August.Hon TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you very much. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the KiwiSaver (Foster Parents Opting in for Children in their Care) Amendment Bill. The author is Hamish Walker. First of all can we acknowledge Mr Walker and congratulate him on having his member's bill drawn from the ballot. He's a relatively new member to the Parliament so it's pretty good luck. I myself have had two in my time so congratulations Mr Walker—only one more to go to meet my record.New Zealand First will be supporting this bill through first reading and to the select committee. We do so because we do have some concerns and I have articulated these in one-on-one conversations with Mr Walker. The concerns are actually those that Oranga Tamariki has raised. I know that Mr Walker went into some detail in his opening address around his member's bill to acknowledge the foster families that are caring for these children and absolutely we take nothing away from them. But ultimately this is a piece of legislation that is supposed to be for the benefit of the children in our care—the care of Oranga Tamariki—that are then being placed with foster families. I note that again Mr Walker talked about VOYCE - Whakarongo Mai which is the new and independent advocacy body that has been formed since the development of Oranga Tamariki. I myself have spoken on at least one occasion with the young people's panel from VOYCE - Whakarongo Mai. Currently it is within the capacity of Oranga Tamariki to open bank accounts on behalf of the young people in our care and that is appropriate because of the guardianship that the chief executive has and Mr Walker acknowledged that quite rightly. There are some difficulties. We do have concerns about people who have no legal status as guardians to open something of what could be this magnitude for these children. So therefore it will be how the law interacts with what is I think a fairly realistic desire of Mr Walker to provide some support for these young people and we applaud him for that.The young people that I spoke to were actually more fixated on how they can have a bank account and say an EFTPOS card on how they could have the pocket money that is already provided for them by the State given to them directly and on whether they could possibly have the clothing allowance which is provided for them by the State given to them directly so that they at least had some money to be able to buy themselves a little something should they go out so they didn't have to ask somebody else for it. So I'll be interested to see how the conversation goes. I very much encourage care-experienced young people to come forward because at the end of the day we should hear the voice of those young people. It should be the care-experienced young people who we listen to not the adults that are involved in this—not a business not a member of Parliament not a foster parent but the care-experienced young people themselves. It is somewhat ironic I would have to admit that I've spoken with employees from Westpac where KiwiSaver accounts were opened previously under the guardianship rules around the chief executive—at that time it was Child Youth and Family. There was a purpose to that because there was instantly a $1000 kick-start put in by the Government of the day. However the previous Government—the National Government—removed the $1000 kick-start so therefore it just became not really relevant to open a KiwiSaver account at that time due to the fact that there was no lump-sum kick-start and there were fees and management and administrative costs that took place there. I acknowledge that Mr Walker has actually had conversations with one particular provider. He will know as I know and as this Parliament knows that you can't write legislation for one particular provider. So it's those sorts of things those nuances that we are going to actually have to talk about in select committee but we're prepared to talk about them. We think that it's worthy of actually having that wider conversation. We acknowledge Mr Walker's work to this date. We look forward to the conversation inside the select committee and as I say we look forward to hearing from the care-experienced young people as to whether this is a priority for them does this work for them or is there something else perhaps that may flesh out once we actually take this to select committee. Kia ora.