Logie JanJAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a real pleasure to rise on behalf of the Green Party to offer our support for the Social Security (Subsequent Child Policy Removal) Amendment Bill at this the second reading. I do first up in contrast to some of the previous speakers want to start my speech by acknowledging the amazing parents we have in our country who leave everything they've got on the floor for the wellbeing of their kids and for us as a society.I really want to acknowledge just how unique every child is and how the process of family building after the birth of the child for parents as well as children is different after every single birth. Actually the mental wellbeing the physical wellbeing of the birthing parent may be quite different. It's not always the same. We need as a society to be looking after our birthing parents our mums and our kids as best we can because it is the most important—and some have said the most difficult—job in the world. There is no guidebook on how to do it right.I think part of what I've found so offensive with this piece of legislation that we're overturning today is the sense of you can create one rule for all and just the disconnect between that and how different all of our kids are and how different their needs are and how different circumstances are after the birth of every child and there's a difference that we're setting up for the treatment between different kids like the State is picking favourites. I was always taught that parents should lie and say they don't have a favourite. I think it's really wrong that our legislation has been picking favourites for kids. I'm saying that the older ones get more time with their parents than the younger ones if they happen to be born into a family where a parent is receiving a benefit.It was fantastic to see how much support there was for this legislation. As I think it's been mentioned like 81 percent of the submissions were in support. The reasons that they gave—there were six kind of core reasons that reflected the Green Party reasons for supporting this. I'd like to go through some of those. So (1) that the policy is forcing parents back into looking for work usually often in this case when their kid's only like a year old is harmful to children's development and it fails to prioritise the first 1000 years—first 1000 days. Ha ha! That would be interesting wouldn't it? Which we all know and I think I remember hearing from the National Party heading into the last election the importance of the first 1000 days a few times. Yet they can't seem to bring that thinking to this piece of legislation. But surprise it's not unfamiliar for the inconsistency on that side. That first 1000 days is absolutely vital for the emotional and physical wellbeing of children and their attachment to parents and caregivers and we should not be forcing that detachment at that time because that has lifelong consequences for those children.The second reason that submitters were supporting overturning this horrible rule was that it doesn't reflect parents' caring responsibility and it makes it harder for parents to stay home with a subsequent child and devalues parenting as unpaid work. Like it's peak capitalism at its worst I think to just say It doesn't matter what job you're doing as long as you're being paid. We don't care about your kids because that's going to matter more." and the sense that the poverty that we are fighting can only be solved through paid work rather than us coming together as a community and ensuring people have enough to be able to look after themselves. Ultimately—Hon Member: Where does the money come from?JAN LOGIE: —it doesn't serve anyone. It comes from all of us. Ideally it would come from a wealth tax. You know actually there's some people who are doing pretty well these days and they wouldn't hurt to be sharing a little bit to ensure that everybody and all of our children are able to thrive.The third reason that people said they supported it was that this subsequent child policy as it has existed has a really negative effect on the mental health and wellbeing of parents and caregivers as well as their kids. It's that sense of stress and being under surveillance and losing that dignity that we heard about from the last speaker. It's not the having been supported by your society to look after your kids and the acknowledgment of the importance of your role of caregiver that is stigmatising and takes dignity from people; it's the surveillance and the sense of the message that that policy conveyed that you have no ability to make choices for yourself that are good that the State has to force parents to make those decisions for themselves. That does not reflect reality. That is just purely stigmatising.So the fourth reason that submitters supported the overturning of this was that it's actually racist and discriminatory and the Greens we would say misogynist quite clearly in terms of the other forms of discrimination. That this policy has impacted—56 percent of the people affected by it have been Māori and 86 percent have been women. That is embedding and reinforcing existing discrimination in our society and really outdated views that are in contrast to the human right to be able to choose if and when to have children and the spacing of those children—fundamental human rights acknowledged through a lot of the United Nations human rights instruments. That was in contrast to this piece of legislation I would say.The fifth reason was that it creates inequities and suggests subsequent children need less parenting time and care than their older siblings which there is no grounds there is no research to say that children that come along later have less need to be parented. That is just not based in facts.And the sixth point was that it adds complexity to the welfare system and that's expensive to administer and that takes up people's time that could otherwise be put to caring for their kids or if they were getting to the point where the best for their family was that the parent be in paid work actually looking for that work rather than having to go to appointments or being able to prove their case to this institution that does not seem to understand or care about them.Now we've heard from the Opposition that this policy addresses poverty and reduces independence. Let me say very clearly that the evidence does not support that hot take at all. International research has shown that sanctions don't lead to positive long-term results. Close to home the Australian Journal of Social Issues found work obligations do not support people into paid work. And the Ministry of Social Development's own modelling hasn't shown that the policy supports people into paid work. So even if you do privilege paid work over the more important I would say work of parenting then actually the policy is a failure on that ground alone.But if you want to actually have a society where you value caring you put the wellbeing of our children and our families first then actually you wouldn't be asking that question; you'd be saying "How can we support people in terms of being able to do the best for their kids in those first few years of life?" The analogy that's made about well this is just lining it up with paid parental leave which is often a situation where people are in relationships I think the Opposition fails to recognise the distinction and the challenge of sole parenting several children and that actually sometimes paid work is just not an option. It is just not what is going to work for your children for you to be able to get your kids to school; to health appointments if they have those needs; or if they've got attachment issues; or if they're healing from trauma—any number of things it will not work for them. We need to ensure that as a society we honour the choices for good parenting based on the judgment of those parents."