Logie Jan: Support for Children in Hardship Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLogie Jan: Support for Children in Hardship Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 01 December 2015. Volume:710;Page:8394. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAN LOGIE (Green): There are quite a few points to make on Part 1 of the bill around the children’s hardship package. I think the Committee does need to remember that this was the bill that the Government said was its ambitious response to child poverty in this country. The most recent data tells us that over 305000 children are living in relative poverty in this country. That is not too far off one in five children living with significant deprivation in this country. Research has told us that around a hundred children a year die in this country from low-income - related diseases—children who would not have died in other countries—because of our policy settings. I would like to just frame this whole discussion in the context of that being the problem that we should be addressing with this bill which I do not believe is being addressed by this bill.I would also like to challenge the Minister’s very strong assertion that it is very clear that there is harm from benefit dependency and the fact that the Government defines benefit dependency—this is my understanding—as 6 months when anyone who is managing a child with a disability would recognise that 6 months on a benefit is not something they may term as dependency. The other assertion from the Government is that it is always going to be better to be in work. Actually the research is contested around that point and I would reference a Ministry of Social Development report. It is from a few years ago now but I will quote it. It was looking at research from around the world: “Overall the literature would suggest that while there is a range of potential benefits from being in paid work for both individuals and households for many households a shift from being work poor”—not having enough work—“to becoming part of the working poor provides few gains in wellbeing.”This is a really key part and this is also backed up by the Marmot Review from the UK which was a very comprehensive look at income and health. When we do not have really strong employment settings that provide for stable hours good work conditions remuneration that reflects your work and flexibility for families in our workplaces actually pushing people into work against their own judgment about what is best for their family is not going to deliver the well-being outcomes. This bill is operating in a context of very very weak employment legislation. We have to actually look at the whole picture and that was a substantive message from a large number of submitters on this bill. They wanted more. They wanted a comprehensive response to child poverty which deserves a comprehensive response and this is not it.I would like to point out some of the specifics that are so deeply disappointing to me in this bill. One is that the increase in the base benefit rate will come into effect from April of next year. This was a Budget initiative for this year but it will come in next year while all the time we know that children are being hospitalised because of that lack of income. The Government because of its insistence on bringing its Budget back into surplus prioritises that political measure over delivering to our families now and to me that is not good enough. That is not us doing our job and providing leadership and looking after everyone in this country.The Government has been saying that it is increasing benefits by $25 a week to these families. Actually the average increase is $23.10 a week and Jonathan Boston’s research around what was needed to actually reduce child poverty showed that there was a really significant range. Some families may need an increase of well over $100 a week because they are in such a tough position right at the moment but the absolute minimum that was needed was $30 a week. That is only a few more dollars compared with this and this Government could not even bring itself to just make that the base to get just one small group of people over the line and out of relative poverty. That to me is embarrassing to be honest.The point has already been raised about the fact that this payment is per family. It is not per child. We do know that the families that are experiencing some of the toughest challenges of poverty are our larger families. You can imagine that being a parent juggling several kids and getting back into work is a tougher thing—it is harder to do the more kids you have got. Anyone can work that out. So by making this a per family increase we are actually entrenching inequality so the families that are struggling the most now are the ones whose children will get the least out of this measure and that was a policy choice of this Government. It made the decision to make this a per-family increase so that our children who are struggling the most right now will get the least and they are most likely to be Māori and Pasifika families and they are the families that protect us from an ageing population struggle in the future. They are the families that we would benefit most from protecting and yet this Government has chosen to leave them out or penalise them.I think we also need to look at some of the facts. Around 40 percent of children of sole parents who have part-time work—and this is still entrenching that though they will be off a benefit and be in part-time work—live in poverty. Is this the solution for our children? I do not believe it is. When we know that we can address housing and we can address employment laws and we know that a lot more is needed in terms of income this bill is not the answer.There were concerns raised by one of the submitters that in fact they believed that this breached the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in terms of article 27 and the assurance for States parties’ Governments to ensure adequate standards of living. So this Government had a choice to bring legislation to the House that would have guaranteed our children the right to an adequate standard of living. What it has brought to us instead is a conscious choice to leave our children in poverty not to reduce the number of those children or to lift them out of relative poverty.The Minister for Social Development said about the work testing and the requirement to go to work when the youngest child reaches the age of 3 that “Well half of sole parents do that anyway so yeah it’s OK to do this.” which is basically taking the choice away from parents. And she is saying: “Well Work and Income officers care about the families. They will take a lot of discretion into account.” These are people who are being paid to work for Work and Income and have got extraordinary caseloads. They are being expected to make the decision on what is best for a family and take away a parent’s own ability to choose the needs of their child. That is bizarre to me—that we would take that choice away.We also really need to be reminded that a significant number of these children have disabilities. I think two out of five children who get the disability allowance have a parent on a benefit either sole parent support or superannuation so we know a lot of these parents have children with disabilities who will have significant needs. I have already mentioned that it is likely that about 70 percent of these families are leaving violent relationships and their children will have very significant attachment needs and we are expecting the Work and Income staff to be able to have the medical knowledge the social work knowledge or the family knowledge to make that decision. They are not living with those kids. They are not living in that family. How can we expect them to make the right decision? I think it is asking too much and I think it actually just becomes punitive and unconstructive.