Turei Metiria: Social Security (Child Benefit) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Turei Metiria: Social Security (Child Benefit) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:617;Page:13101] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 This bill is a godsend to those many hundreds and even thousands of low-income families in our country in need of financial support. It prioritises their highest need—that is a boost to their regular income. The universal child benefit will not be income tested but applied universally so that families will not have to beg to justify their need. This legislation is focused on the children of a family and makes some gesture to prioritise children and place them at the centre of policy making. It does not undermine the dignity of families by identifying them as the deserving poor and it makes a real tangible contribution to the efforts of those families to climb out of the poverty trap that many hundreds of them are in. 
This Labour Government is turning its back on those families. It is turning its back on the 30 percent of this country’s children who live below the poverty line. It renders any Government rhetoric in the lead-up to this year’s Budget an insult to the needs of those families. Given that the National Party disgracefully abolished the family benefit in 1991 along with benefit cuts and other acts that attacked the low-income people of our country we can only assume that on this matter Labour and the National Party agree that child poverty is not the national disgrace it is but merely an expedient problem that they are prepared to put up with and do nothing about. 
This Government will not even allow this bill to go to a select committee where the needs of families and children can be identified and explored financial implications considered and the consistency between this bill and the New Zealand superannuation scheme established. The universal child benefit is one small step that we as a country can take towards eliminating child poverty. It will not cure all those poverty issues but it will take the first crucial step to centre our economic policies on the needs of children and their families. 
This legislation has received wide support from the New Zealand community—women parents and low-income families. Many community organisations such as the Child Poverty Action Group and the Downtown Community Ministry have done an extraordinary amount of work to assist families and support the measures set out in this legislation. The New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services and even the Public Health Association recognise that the measures in this bill are a necessary part of the strategy to end child poverty in our country. 
The tragedy is that it is not just the traditionally understood low-income families who desperately need this measure but also those in the middle-income earning band. It is that group that does not qualify for other targeted funding such as the community services card and it suffers extraordinarily. It is finding it harder and harder to make ends meet and we saw some of the stark realities of that situation just a few weeks ago. This bill could signal a serious and real improvement to the problem of increasing poverty in our country. The question is whether the Government is concerned to end child poverty in our country. Clearly it is not.