Dunne Peter: General Debates 
Dunne Peter: General Debates 
[Volume:617;Page:12850] 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. This afternoon I want to highlight the plight of the struggling middle-income family in New Zealand. The people I am talking about are those with a combined or individual household income of around $61000 a year. 
That is not a high level of income but when one considers a number of other issues one finds that it is becoming even more difficult and parlous for people to live on it. Family support for such a family with one child cuts out when its income exceeds $30000 per annum the child tax credits disappear at $33000 per annum the family tax credit goes once its income gets beyond $18300 per annum the parental tax credit abates from $33000 per annum and childcare subsidies go out the window at $32000. That family on around $61000 a year—assuming that there is a sole earner—is now in the top tax bracket. Even if the income has not been earned by one partner at least one of the partners will be in the $38000 tax bracket. Almost certainly that family will have a student loan debt to service which is approximately $3500 a year on an income of $50000 per annum. 
It is no wonder that as costs increase and as standards of living are expected to improve that middle-income family starts to look at the great New Zealand dream and say: “Where to for us? Where are our opportunities? What can be done to redress the imbalance and the struggle that we are now talking about?”. This afternoon I want to put forward some ideas about steps that could be taken to improve the lot of the struggling middle-income family. We are talking in a general sense about people who have a household income of perhaps a little under $50000 and rising to as high as $80000 but principally around that $60000 to $65000 mark. 
United Future has for a long time promoted the concept of income-splitting for tax purposes and that would be highly beneficial to the archetypal family that I am talking about. If a couple with a combined income of just under $61000 were able to split their income for tax purposes they would end up being around $3000 a year better off and that would offset many of the costs they incur that I have already described. That is a policy we ought to be looking at because it is fair. It gets away from a lot of the complexities we see in the current system with abatement rates tax credits and all sorts of other transfer payments. It actually allows people to retain much more of their own income for their own benefit. 
But that of itself is not enough. We need to address the fact that many of these families are the parents of students undergoing tertiary education and the absurd situation at the moment whereby if a family’s income is above $28000 students under 25 who are members of that family start to have their entitlement to student allowances abated. Those figures have not shifted since the current student loan scheme was introduced in 1991. We say it is high time for an adjustment in those thresholds because that is becoming the toll gate on education that members opposite used to speak about. The notion of a 25-year-old being held to an income test on his or her parents’ income is absurd when one considers a number of the other age-limits that apply in so many other areas. We also need to be looking at one other way of reducing those students’ indebtedness—but more particularly the burden on their parents—and that would be by some form of bonding or equivalent for years worked after graduation being years of reduction in the principal of their loan. 
There are some other issues we need to address to look after the needs of that particular family. For most people the largest single investment they make continues to be in their property. For many of them at a time of rampantly rising house prices the costs they bear through the rates imposed by their local authorities are becoming oppressive and we say it is time to cut those as well. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 What I am about to say will shock this House. Every member should be ashamed of what happened. This Government and the last Government have ignored a dreadful scandal. In 1987 three little girls went to the Glenelg Health Camp in Christchurch. They were put in the care of the State. Their parents trusted their children to the care of the State. A State employee sexually abused these little girls and no Government has ever done anything except sweep this scandal under the carpet. 
The Ministry of Health employed a medical officer of health Dr Diane Espie to work at the health camp. Without the parents’ permission and with no other adult present Dr Espie repeatedly examined these little girls in a way that can only be described as sexual abuse. She inserted swabs into their vaginas. She measured their vaginas with tape measures not once not twice but over and over again. She kept saying to these little girls: “This is what your fathers do to you isn’t it?”. One little girl says that Dr Espie rubbed her breasts and when the little girl cried Dr Espie slapped her and said she was having a bad day. 
That was child abuse but worse this doctor convinced the Department of Social Welfare that these girls were being sexually abused by their fathers. The girls were not allowed home to their families until their mothers agreed to separate from their husbands. The police investigated these men and found there was not a shred of evidence that they had sexually abused their daughters. These families have been destroyed. One of the girls whom I am in contact with now is a very very damaged young lady. She was put into foster care. She was abused in foster care. She lived on the streets from the age of 11. Eventually she found her way back to her father. These people have fought for 17 years for justice for someone to just stand up and say “I’m sorry.” and for Dr Espie to be accountable. Nothing has ever been done by any Government despite letters written by Helen Clark and Phil Goff letters to Katherine O’Regan and Peter Gresham. 
In 1987 the Cartwright inquiry was appalled that vaginal swabs were taken from stillborn female foetuses without parental consent. This situation is worse because no Government has been appalled by it. Why did not any one care about these families? I believe that if Dr Espie was a male doctor she would have been brought to justice and she might well be in jail now. She might well be innocent but she needs to be brought to an inquiry which I have asked this House to instigate. I ask members of this House to imagine for one moment that their children had gone off to a health camp with minor health problems and never come home to their families again and that they had been sexually examined without parental consent. How would fathers feel being accused of sexually abusing their daughters? How would mothers feel being forced to break up their families so that they can keep their children? The State has enormous power. It has huge powers. It has abused its power in this case and the State can try to do something to put it right. The State has been so wrong and I implore the Minister of Justice to act on my letter and my petition to do something for these families.