Hutchison Paul: Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Hutchison Paul: Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker for the opportunity to speak on this somewhat dubious Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill. 
The National Party will support this bill but with deep reservations. There is no doubt that the rest home provisions are appropriate; however the only real purpose of this bill is to attempt to indicate that fathers should be named. This is the first time that this politically correct socialist Labour Government has actually made an attempt to address this situation and to acknowledge that it is important to name the father. But I think that this bill is undoubtedly dubious and deceptive because here we have the extraordinary situation where the Minister is suggesting that $6 be taken away from the mother as a punitive action for not naming the father of the child when the reality and irony is that from tomorrow 1 April—April Fool’s Day—the Labour Government will be rewarding those mothers by substantially increasing the benefit almost to the order of three times the benefit for the first child and something like double the benefit for the second child. 
That is the way this socialist Labour Government politically correct as it is tends to work. If ever one could identify a political party that sends mixed signals it has to be the Labour Party in Government between 1999 and 2005. It is extraordinary that it has lined up with a party that purports to call itself the Progressive Party yet we see here perhaps some of the most mixed confusing and regressive legislation that we have seen for a long time. In fact the situation where on the one hand a penalty is imposed on certain people and on the other hand within 24 hours of our discussing it a reward three times over is given to those same individuals is just nonsensical. But it is typical of the confused signals that this Labour Government sends to people with the politically correct social engineering it cannot help itself from doing. 
As both Judith Collins and Muriel Newman pointed out last year it has been under this Labour Minister’s watch that the number of fathers who have gone unnamed has risen from 14000 to a massive 20000—an increase of 40 percent. Three women per day are choosing not to name the fathers of their children. Thirty thousand women are affected and one in six of those is on the domestic purposes benefit. 
The genesis of the situation goes back a long time. Back in 1993 for instance there were in the order of 7900 women who chose not to name the fathers of their children which was about 5.6 percent. But under this Labour-Progressive coalition—call it what one will—that figure has risen to the extraordinary number of 20000 women who do not name the fathers which is about 16 percent of all the 107000 women on the domestic purposes benefit. It really is a most extraordinary irony that the Minister on the one hand is taking away the $6 and on the other hand is tripling the amount he is putting back. He is rewarding the mothers who do not name the fathers. 
Last year the House passed the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Act and one of the basic tenets of that legislation was the very important benefit to and natural instinct for a child to know the name of its father. Surely the right of a child to know its father is fundamental and one of the most excellent amendments to that bill happened to be brought up by the member for Port Waikato— 
Darren Hughes 
: Who? 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
:—the excellent member from Port Waikato; I am too modest to name him. But undoubtedly from all over the country there were people saying that that was a great amendment and that it demonstrated that huge instinct of children to want to know who their fathers are. Funnily enough the opposite situation occurred in relation to some of those fathers because at that time they were actually required to be anonymous. 
 Yet what we have in this bill under this waffly politically correct socialist Labour Government is an extraordinarily mixed set of incentives. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Minority Government. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: That is quite right. It is absolutely a minority Government and is becoming more and more so as time goes on. 
It is extraordinary also that the Government has failed to supply any evidence in the background notes to this bill as to why there is a huge number of beneficiaries who do not name the fathers of their children. One must think it is only because this Government actually encourages them. That is what we are very much seeing today. The Government is tripling the benefit yet providing a pathetically small disincentive that has really become totally meaningless. 
Some people have asked whether there is collusion between parents who make their own deals. I remember in the debate last year that the senior Government whip came out with an example in which one parent might say: “If you go me for child support I’ll go you for custody.” Clearly that is an intolerable sort of attitude. The sort of thing that was suggested by the Government whip is totally inappropriate. I agree with Hon Ken Shirley who said how absolutely vital it is to be crystal-clear with incentives otherwise we will get a situation such as the 20000 women are not prepared to name the fathers of their children spiralling on. A perpetuation of this Government’s social engineering will see that number increase. 
This is no way to break the cycles of disadvantage that we see in New Zealand. I have been down to Huntly West and heard the headmaster of the local school say that on any one day 25 percent of the children will be truanting. I am told by the Work and Income office that on any one day the children who turn 18 will be brought into the office by their parents to sign up for the dole. This is the sort of atmosphere that the Labour Government is perpetuating—intergenerational dependency. With this bill it is again incentivising something that will not help children to aspire to be and be independent and proud of the very basis on which they were born. 
We reluctantly support this bill for some of the very minor benefits that it may have and in the hope that it will incentivise women to name the father of their children. But we have been absolutely appalled by the fact that one day after we speak about this the Labour Government will disincentivise the naming of fathers. 
Debate interrupted.