Turia Tariana: Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4) — Second Reading 
Turia Tariana: Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4) — Second Reading 
[Volume:631;Page:3667] 
TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tena tatou katoa. Eight years ago a cunning piece of advertising was conjured up by the Inland Revenue Department to promote child support. It featured a young boy who dejected and forlorn is unable to play a good game of soccer. This is all due to the baddy his daddy who had supposedly failed to provide child support. Ostracised to the sideline by the coach and his peers the lad provided a visible focus for New Zealanders to express their outrage about the blatant negligence of the liable parent. The suffering child provoked an immediate controversy with the Children’s Agenda the Child Poverty Action Group the centre for child and family studies at Auckland University the Hillary Commission for Sport Fitness and Leisure and even the soccer association all speaking out loud about how misleading the picture was. 
Although the advertisement managed barely a 2-week run its impact was enormous fuelling public perception that the liable parent was not paying his—and it is normally a “his” —dues leaving the poor old public taxpayers forking out yet again. It reinforced an impression that the “d” in “DPB” stands for “deviant” when in actual fact the “d” for deviant is solely that in “IRD”. The caregiver parent on the domestic purposes benefit pays liable funds directly to the Inland Revenue Department—not for soccer not for food not for piano lessons not for school bus fares. It is a direct transaction to the Inland Revenue Department that bears little reference to how the individual child support payment is used. The Maori Party is pleased to stand today on behalf of that soccer player and both his parents—custodial and non-custodial—to support a bill that will help to lift some of that discrimination. 
It would be fair to say that the outrage and anxiety of the general public around the issue of child support was also represented among the 35 submissions received on the Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4). Some of the women with sole custody of their children relayed how their ex-partners had structured their financial affairs to reduce their personal incomes thus lessening their financial liability. We all know of anecdotes where wealthy liable parents have somehow been able to avoid their responsibilities by hiding their income source. The bill addresses this situation by allowing the Inland Revenue Department to investigate a liable parent’s true economic income and to enable this information to be used in the administrative review process. 
Yet other submitters expressed a high level of concern over this aspect perceiving it to be part of the snooper surveillance culture that this Government likes to fall into. The Institute of Chartered Accountants suggested that levels of child support were a matter for parents to settle and the Inland Revenue Department should not be able to interfere in that process. While the Maori Party is always opposed to any move that invades personal privacy or that intervenes in and affects the possibility of achieving effective relationships within whanau our overriding concern in this specific instance must be the well-being of the children. The key driver for this bill is ensuring the responsibilities and obligations of parenting are duly respected so that our tamariki do not miss out. 
The Maori Party is absolutely committed to any policy that can be applied to support whanau development. To truly consider whanau development requires a revolution in the thinking of tangata whenua and the Crown. The imposition of Crown programmes being “done to” whanau does nothing but increase dependency upon a benevolent State. The revolution is in how we consider whanau and how we harness its strengths potential and talent. 
We can encourage whanau development by supporting fathers to become involved with their children. This bill does that by making it easier for the non-custodial parent to contribute to paying child support. I have a lot of sympathies for fathers who through the decisions of the Family Court end up missing out on the special privilege of parenting. I firmly believe that no one should raise a child alone. It is the whakapapa right of every child to know his or her parents whether or not they live in the same home. I am also concerned that in restricting access to the father we are also denying the children the unique knowledge and experience that spring from having relationships with their extended family. It was with considerable concern that we read submissions from fathers describing how their ex-partners who have custody are exploiting their generosity. Some of them expressed a belief that custodial parents were refusing to share custody out of fear that they would receive less money. The submissions revealed tales of men wanting to protect themselves from money-grubbing women or of women victimised by men’s economic power. They tell of a resentment that builds from custodial decisions a resentment that manifests itself in a battle between parents a resentment for which the child suffers. 
Our sadness was focused on the avoidance of parental responsibility that came through these concerns. We are absolutely clear that trying to make do on meagre benefits is an enormous struggle. Whanau face huge difficulties every day to feed clothe house care for and educate their children. The child support system has been seen in the midst of that struggle to cut across any possibility of better relationships between divided families sharing children. Too often the bitterness and distrust experienced within the parental relationship colour the nature of the parenting received by the child. 
But in a Maori world view parenting is not the sole domain of the birth or whakapapa parents. Kuni Jenkins describes the interaction of parents and their children with the rest of the whanau in the following terms: “… the Maori woman was part of a community. The home unit was part of the whole kainga. Grandmothers aunts and other females and male elders were responsible for rearing the children of the kainga. The natural parents were not the sole care-givers.” The Maori Party is committed towards the restoration of obligations responsibilities and roles to strengthen whanaungatanga. Although the Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4) focuses on the levels and application of financial support we are determined to promote the massive resource that is available for children and parents within the embrace of the wider whanau. Although the bill changes are basically intended to increase compliance with the existing liability assessment formula we believe that there is another formula for success just waiting to be revealed within the layers of whakapapa. Justice and fairness require that all children are able to maintain their genealogical links to the ancestral treasures into which they are born. Child support must support every child to know his or her birthright to identify his or her history and to live out his or her ancestral aspirations. 
Parents whanau and hapu have the responsibility of upholding enforcing and maintaining the cultural values within the whanau. It is a collective responsibility not reserved for the exclusive role of two parents. The expression “Children can shed tears but the embarrassment is the parents’.” conveys some of the nature of the mutual play between child and whanau. The way in which children are raised including whether they have been taught the appropriate values is reflected in how they behave and rather than being an individual thing the shame or glory the embarrassment or pride reflects on the whole whanau. I remember many excruciating moments as a child knowing that one wrong word or one careless action would reflect on my Auntie Wai my grandmother my aunties my uncles my cousins and beyond. 
This is not and does not have to be the preserve of tangata whenua. I am often intrigued in this House how a crisis for say a Maori family is deemed to be the problem of the Maori MPs only. It is an extension of what happens in many school communities where a Maori teacher becomes responsible for all the Maori problems even if sometimes the problem is actually the way the non-Maori teacher is teaching. We can all take responsibility for each other and the Maori Party wants to encourage and foster that sense of collective responsibility that is essential to a caring community. Whanaungatanga has its cost and that cost is collective accountability. But it also yields such richness through the reciprocal obligations and ownership which mean that whether in a crowd or on one’s own one is never alone. Children are the hope of our future—the foundation of all our futures. We must take every step forward to consolidate that foundation to make it secure stable and strong. The Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4) is one step along the way to achieving that foundation. The rest of it is up to all of us—all of us. Kia ora.