Roche Denise: Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoche Denise: Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 15 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17993. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENISE ROCHE (Green): I rise to take a short call in the Committee stage on Part 2 of the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill. We have put forward an amendment to attempt to extend the parental tax credit to not just the extensions that are included in the bill but to all families particularly those who are on low incomes—the lowest incomes—those who are on benefits those who are students and those who are currently excluded from this scheme.Every family suffers the financial burden of a newborn child. There are costs associated with it. They include things like the equipment—cots prams and nappies. Each of these stresses is felt by every family that has a newborn. So those tax credits for the first 8 weeks or in this case now 10 weeks makes a significant difference. But it makes more of a difference for those families who are the poorest because they are less resilient.In respect of this part of the bill and these provisions around the tax credit this Government by excluding the poorest of our families those who are on benefits is punishing the babies of the poor. It is basically saying: “We will start your life out by discriminating against you.” This is unacceptable.This morning I attended with several of my colleagues in this House the post-Budget breakfast that was put on for us by the Public Health Association and the Child Poverty Action Group. They had done an assessment of the Budget. One of the things they said was that this Budget does nothing to raise those 285000 children out of poverty. What they said was that “The real value of Working for Families continues to decline because of failure to properly index payments rising abatement rates and a reducing threshold so fewer people are being able to access it. It is worth less because the cost of living is rising.” I was alarmed to find out from one of the speakers this morning that New Zealand has the second lowest wages in the OECD countries just above Iceland’s. That is shocking. How can people rise out of poverty when this is the situation and this Budget does nothing to alleviate that?This Government is picking the winners and the losers. This Government is spending in this Budget around about 50 percent of its income—50.1 percent I think—on superannuation and it is a clear indication of where this Government is directing its policies. Is it if I am going to be cynical because people who are receiving superannuation are voters whereas the babies of the poorest families may not vote for the National Government? I would suggest that this Government has directed these policies towards those who will vote for it and that is why this tax credit the parental tax credit applies to low and middle income families not to those who are the worst off in Aotearoa New Zealand.I believe that we should be supporting our children out of poverty because if we do not we all pay the costs. Those costs are things like poor education outcomes and poor health outcomes. We know that the health budget is one of the biggest that we have to deal with. It is a bottomless pit as my colleague Kevin Hague who is the spokesperson on health for the Greens would say. Unless we do something to alleviate the costs associated with poverty by raising people out of those dire circumstances then we are going to continue to keep paying for them.It is the short-term thinking that gets me the most I think—the fact that we are not thinking in terms of how our families will grow and how our communities will benefit if we invest now. It is a cynical Budget. It focuses mainly on those who do not need it the most.