Ball Darroch: Social Security Amendment Bill Education Amendment Bill Taxation (Support for Children in Hardship) Bill — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBall Darroch: Social Security Amendment Bill Education Amendment Bill Taxation (Support for Children in Hardship) Bill — Third Readings[Sitting date: 03 December 2015. Volume:710;Page:8587. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DARROCH BALL (NZ First): It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the legislation arising from the Support for Children in Hardship Bill. I would like to start with an analogy. We believe that the legislation should actually have been called the “Oliver Twist Bill”. If you remember the story we have got Oliver and we have got Mr Bumble who is handing out the spoonful of gruel I think it is. Oliver is hungry. There is a room full of orphans and paupers. He goes up and he says: “Please sir may I have some more?”. Because yes the Government and Mr Bumble I think it was who was giving out the gruel are doing a good thing in giving out some food to the children who need it who are hungry and who are poor but it is not enough. Oliver goes up and asks: “Please sir may I have some more?”. That is exactly what the Opposition on this side of the House is doing to the Government. It is asking and telling the Government that those children in poverty who are in those poor beneficiary households with sole parents need more than what they are getting through this legislation.So yes we are going to be supporting this legislation because it is a little bit—and yes they need that food yes they need that gruel; yes they need that $25 yes they need the extra money—but it is not enough. That is the position that New Zealand First is taking on this. What we heard the Minister say earlier on was that it is going to make a real and meaningful difference. Well New Zealand First believes that yes it is making a difference but it is not real and it is not meaningful.What I would like to do is to go through one of the documents that Alfred Ngaro went through which was the regulatory impact statement. We have heard a couple of comments from Mr Doocey as well saying that this side of the House is being quite selective with the information and the data. There is a lot of information in the regulatory impact statement actually that the Government is being quite selective about presenting to the House and to the people of New Zealand. What we have been hearing is a bunch of rhetoric and media sound bites. Basically what the Government wants the public of New Zealand to understand is that people who are beneficiaries or who are the working poor who are feeling the pinch of being in poverty will get extra money. They will get $25 a week. That is the sound bite that the Government wants to put out to the public and wants the public to believe but it is not true. I will prove that by going through the regulatory impact statement.I would like to just echo a few things from Carmel Sepuloni to say that there is common ground—yes there is. We all in this House understand that there is an issue with poverty and children in poverty is just an absolutely unacceptable fact that we have in New Zealand and we want to address that. This goes some way to doing that but not far enough.In the regulatory impact statement it goes through the actual objectives of what this legislation is about. It states that it is “to reduce material hardship amongst children particularly those living in deeper levels of material deprivation …”. So it is about reducing material deprivation. Does this legislation assist and target sole parents? The answer is yes. But does it assist and target those sole parents or even couples with large families? The answer is no. Actually it increases the inequality for large families. That is a fact of this legislation. The Government cannot deny that. So if the title of the legislation really was the Support for Children in Hardship Bill then surely logic dictates that the legislation should be targeting the children in hardship? But it is not. It is targeting the beneficiaries the families. I will go through the data in a second. If we are talking about families with four or more children they get less per child than what one family with one child would. The legislation is not specifically targeting children in hardship. It is going a very minuscule way in trying to assist the entire family but it is not targeting the children.There are examples in the regulatory impact statement that actually highlight the limitations of the legislation itself. One example is when it is talking about the options that they were going through and the broad coverage—specifically the increase to the benefit rates. It states here: “An increase in benefit rates is relatively well-targeted to families in material hardship”—relatively—“but misses working families in material hardship …”. So the first question is: what about the working families? We have got a lot of children in families that have at least one of their parents working and they are still below the poverty line. How is this legislation addressing that issue? Of course the real problem in that statement is that it says “relatively well-targeted”. What does “relatively” mean? How on earth is that real and meaningful difference? One of the main points that I wanted to bring out of this was actually the data and the statistics that first of all the Minister has not mentioned and none of the backbenchers of the National Party has mentioned yet and yet it is quite important.Perhaps the National Party members might want to listen so they can understand the position of New Zealand First and other Opposition parties. In regard to the benefit increase it says it is targeting 108000 families. Of course we have heard that at the moment we have got over 300000 children in poverty and suffering from material deprivation. That is what the entire objective of this legislation was. It goes on to say that due to the flow-on effects of the increase in the benefit rate around 26000 non-beneficiaries—so we are talking about the “working poor”—will see average gains of just $7 a week. So it is $7 a week. That is what I was saying before about the Government wanting to stand up and pretend that people in material hardship families in material hardship will get $25 a week. That is not the case. But it goes on. It says that around 4000 non-beneficiary households will see a decrease in their weekly income from the accommodation supplement. They will see a decrease in their weekly income from the accommodation supplement. But we have not heard any of that from the Government.I have a bar graph here. It shows that 50000 to 60000 families will receive less than $20 a week. In fact around about 25000 families will get under $10 a week. If you add to that the fact I have just mentioned—you have got 4000 who will be losing money a week—this is not the grand solution and the best legislation that the Minister and the Government backbenchers are trying to sell it as. They have failed to mention all of this information.If we look at the table across the page it goes to break down exactly how much different family types will get. If we are talking about sole parents with four or more children sole parents with four or more children will get just over $22 a week. If you break it down to a daily average for a family of four children it will be less than a dollar a day per child. How is that real and meaningful and how is that going to achieve the objective of decreasing material hardship for these children? It will not. It gets even less for couples. If you have got a couple with four or more children they will get $16 a week. That is around 50c a day per child. How is that real and meaningful? Bear in mind the departmental report which states that the legislation intends to provide an increase in the amount that beneficiary families receive and will help to ensure they can pay for family necessities which is critical to the well-being of their children. How does that make sense if they are getting 50c per child per day?That is the Oliver Twist part of this legislation. That is why New Zealand First although we will be supporting the legislation has massive reservations. We have got issues. The real problem that New Zealand First has is that this is all in the regulatory impact statement. We have not heard any of that information at all from the Minister or from the Government. New Zealand First will be supporting this legislation but with massive reservations. Thank you.