Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. I too take pleasure in standing this evening to talk to the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill in its third and final reading. As the chair of the Social Services and Community Committee has alluded to this is quite a simple bill that was supported across the committee. So there has been nothing contentious about it because as we are all aware the main issue that we need to consider when we are talking about these types of legislation is what is in the best interest of the child and that needs to be always front and centre of any legislation that we are passing through this House.This bill simply sets out to align the different types of benefits—the orphan's benefit the unsupported child's benefit—with the foster care allowance. It turned out that between those different types of allowances that are paid to carers of children that are not their own was somewhere between $10 and $30 a week. So that disadvantaged one group of children against another and this is simply aligning those benefits and addressing that inequity.But I would also like to use the opportunity to acknowledge the carers that do take these children into their homes. When we started talking about this bill we were talking about 22000 children. The Minister has mentioned this evening that there are 24000 children. Regardless of the exact number that is a huge amount of children that are out there in care. We do want to acknowledge those people that take the children into their homes.We have traversed through the various details that are in this bill but one of the main things that I'd like to address is around the—as the member for the Green Party raised in his Supplementary Order Paper (SOP)—assessments that need to be done in terms of qualifying for this allowance. It was discussed in quite some detail in the select committee so it did surprise me to see the SOP turn up because it actually had been traversed in some detail and I'm not sure whether the member was even aware of that. But one of the things that was highlighted around the need for some type of an assessment was to ensure that children were placed into stable homes because the last thing we wanted was for it to be a transitional arrangement that is made without any kind of assessment being made because that simply opened the door for these children to be moved around too much.We all know that having that stability—having a stable home—is very very important to the children because it's not only the stable home that they get there; it is the stable caring it is their social circle it is their friends and their playmates it is the kids that they go to school with their sports teams and we know that having kids in school regularly is an absolutely crucial part of their development. We actually do know—the data tells us that children who attend school regularly that are in stable families and stable homes they have a 50 percent improved chance of going on to lead successful stable lives. So the investment that we make in children in care is absolutely part of the National Party's philosophy it's part of our social investment philosophy and a huge amount of the work that was done in reforming social policy in this country was based around those principles. The outcome for those children is definitely front and foremost of any legislation that we do pass in this House. We have a need to care for these children and make sure that there are no inequities between the unsupported child's benefit the orphan's benefits with the foster care children. This bill addresses that very easily and I have pleasure in commending it to the House.