Moroney Sue: Child Support Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Moroney Sue: Child Support Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 08 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:2031. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 It is an honour to stand and speak at the first reading of the Child Support Amendment Bill which has been introduced by the Government. I just want to reflect at the outset that this is called the Child Support Amendment Bill and I make it really clear that when Labour considers this bill it will be children and the effect and impact on children that we will consider first and foremost. As we all know the New Zealand Labour Party makes all of its policy decisions basing children at the heart of everything that we make decisions about in this regard. So when we listen to the Social Services Committee considerations in the minds of the Labour Party members will be how this affects children first and foremost.  
I think that is a really important element to introduce into this debate and to make sure is strongly held in this debate because of course it becomes an extremely emotive issue once we start talking about families—the breakup of families and the way in which that all shakes down. I think many of us as MPs will have experienced having in our offices many very distraught members of families who have been through family breakups describing the very real and diverse impacts on them of things that have happened with the relationship breakdown. So I guess it is a little bit of a sad bill in that regard in that to get to the point where we are talking about child support at all in this regard we are considering the breakup of a relationship and the breakup of a family and how we actually deal with that.  
I am sure that the Minister of Revenue Peter Dunne came face to face with this when he originally said that he was going to bring this bill forward within 6 months of going to people to find out what they thought about the child support system. He was going to review that and it was going to come back to Parliament within 6 months and I am sure that what he found was that the issue is not as straightforward as it may seem. I think that is also what this Parliament will find when we listen to the submissions coming forward at the select committee.  
Labour’s view is that we are supporting—as many other parties have indicated during the course of this debate—this issue at the first reading. We will be listening and questioning very carefully the submitters as they come before the select committee to make sure that there are no unintended consequences from this piece of legislation because there could so easily be unintended consequences. It is really important that this Parliament works together to get this right because where we do not those suffering are some of the most vulnerable people in our society actually—children from a broken relationship from a broken household with all the members of that household trying to work out how they make this new situation work.  
So if we do not get this right if there are unintended consequences sometimes the people whom that affects—the children in this relationship—will be the very people who are unable to come through the door of their MP’s office and explain to them why it is not going right for them. They will be the very people who will be unable to make a difference in policy terms. So we must take this very carefully and make sure that we get it right. I think the key to that is to ensure and encourage a lot of submissions from the very families that this bill will affect. Families in New Zealand are very diverse. We need to make sure that all the different types of family arrangements are brought before our select committee so that we can make sure that these arrangements are going to work for them.  
I think that the objectives of this bill are very honourable. Yes it is time that the Child Support Act was reviewed because it is a number of years since it was introduced—in 1992 in fact—and the world has moved on since then. The current legislation is out of date because it does assume that the paying parent is the sole income earner and that the receiving parent is the main care provider. For many parents living apart parental responsibility is shared and both remain active in the children’s lives. But I think we need to make sure that all of our legislation actually is up to date with the current situations that families face. And yes I will take the opportunity to make a link between this bill and the bill that I have introduced to Parliament to extend paid parental leave to 6 months because I think there is a very strong connection in terms of making sure that families are well supported. It would be really good to see the Government supporting working families in the same way that it is prepared to look at this bill to improve child support.  
So I will take the opportunity to make a plea to the Government members opposite primarily the National members to take a very good look at their current position on using a financial veto to ensure that hard-working families do not get the sort of support that they need with extending paid parental leave to 6 months. That will be very much a factor for the very families that we are considering here in this bill before us with regard to child support because of course the children of many of these families suddenly find themselves in families in a household where there is one parent now providing the income. In the event of a new baby being in that household—and yes that does happen. I think members opposite are concerned that that would happen that there would be a relationship breakup and then a baby would arrive. Well actually guess what? In the real world that does happen. Those families in that sole parent income earning situation are going to need as much time as they can to bond with that new baby particularly in the situation where there has been a recent relationship breakup. So all of these pieces of legislation are connected and I think that if the Government is serious about being concerned about this group of families we are addressing here today—families where there has been a relationship breakdown—then it will think seriously about supporting the extension to paid parental leave as well.  
Coming back to the purpose of this bill the scheme was originally introduced in 1992 and it does provide financial support for 210000 children. I think it is important that we remember that number because each of those children will have had a different experience and each of those children will have different arrangements between their parents. Maybe the non-custodial parent is nearby and there can be a shared-care arrangement but maybe they are far away and that situation is just not going to work.  
So there are a lot of complexities in how this might shake down but the primary concern for the Labour Party will be what the impact is on the children. I think it would be really easy in debating this bill to focus on fairness and equity for the parents and what is equitable for the parents in their new relationships or what is equitable for the parents in terms of their desires in the situation. For the New Zealand Labour Party we are firmly focused on what is going to be in the best interests of the children. And that may not be actually the liable parent paying less. That might not turn out to be the answer to that question but that is the question that the New Zealand Labour Party will be asking itself as we listen to those submissions.  
In closing my plea to people listening to this debate is that if you have a view on this bill if you know of family members who will be impacted by this bill please encourage them to have a look at the impact that this bill will have on them and to make a submission. I know that those submissions might be quite hard for people to make because it is about talking about their personal experiences but I believe that if we are going to get this right we will need to have those personal stories and we will need to have those case studies of families that this will affect so that we can make sure that we get it right.  
I just want to reiterate that Labour does support this bill going to select committee. We will be ensuring through our questions and through our considerations that the interests of children will be best served by these amendments.