Cunliffe David: Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4) — In Committee 
Cunliffe David: Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4) — In Committee 
[Volume:633;Page:5143] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 I will take an opportunity to briefly respond to the two previous speakers. Firstly I express appreciation to the previous speaker but one Paula Bennett the list member from my own area of west Auckland who I think very honestly portrayed her level of interest and concern about the bill. It is an important bill and it really does affect the lives of a lot of children and a lot of families. I thank her for emphasising the common ground across all sides of the House—that we all care about kids and that we all want to see parents meeting their obligations to kids; that is not in dispute. We are reasonable people but as in all things we can disagree of course about whether the mechanism proposed is able to deliver on that objective. 
On that I have two comments. The first is that nobody on our side of the House is suggesting for a moment that we should weaken people’s individual responsibility. However I am reminded of a constituent who had got so far behind in his—and yes it was a he—child support payments that the sum amounted to several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of penalties and base debt and he was on an income of about $30000. There was no way after tax that he was able to save fast enough to offset the mounting penalties. He was bankrupted his house was sold in a mortgagee sale and his kids received nothing. Nobody won. The point is that some people can get themselves so far beyond the pale that there is no way back without the kind of measure proposed in this bill. Let us face it: I think Opposition members know in their heart of hearts that most parents despite their circumstances want to do the right thing for their children. There can be no more basic human instinct than that. 
I draw attention to a couple of points made by the previous speaker Dr Hutchison who noted an apparent increase in debt owed by liable parents in Australia and he somehow portrayed that as a debt mountain spiralling out of control. The interesting thing of course is that the reason the reported debt of liable parents in Australia has gone up is quite simply because we have referred more cases to the authorities in Australia for collection because we have allocated more resources to that task and because we recognise that that is a very high priority. I imagine that the Opposition— 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: Why didn’t you do it in 2001 or 2000 or 1999? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Well there we are; the member is asking why we did not do it earlier. That implies he supports this move. That is a welcome gesture of support and I thank Dr Hutchison. But then that no doubt means he would accept that part of the reason that reporting figure is going up is because we are doing the right thing. 
The second thing to say is that the Australian authorities partly at our urging are gathering better information on the true level of the incomes of liable parents. That is enabling and empowering us to do a better job at cracking down on them. As I say we have roughly doubled the amount of budgetary resource to allow the Australian authorities to make that crackdown and we make no apology for that. Because like with the Opposition it is common ground here that liable parents have obligations and that those obligations must be met. 
At the same time there is only so much pressure someone can be put under and I ask members and listeners to reflect upon that case from my electorate—a quarter of a million dollars of debts and penalties with a $30000 income and $20000-odd after tax. The situation was impossible; the numbers did not add up. Of course he should not have got into that situation but hindsight is always 20/20. Parents do love their kids and they do want to do the best for them in most cases. The few ratbags who do not want to will face the full force of the law and compliance action from the Inland Revenue Department—and so they should.