McClay Todd: Income Tax (Universalisation of In-work Tax Credit) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
McClay Todd: Income Tax (Universalisation of In-work Tax Credit) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 17 October 2012. Volume:684;Page:5958. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to rise and speak on this bill the Income Tax (Universalisation of In-work Tax Credit) Amendment Bill. I want to start by paying tribute to Metiria Turia because I do believe that she has brought this to— 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That is a deliberate mispronunciation. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I hope it was not deliberate. Pronunciation is a very important thing and some people do have difficulty with it but I would hope that the member does his best. 
TODD McCLAY 
: I apologise; it was not intentional. If it was intentional it would have been much much longer than that but I thank the member opposite for correcting me on that. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: It may have been your accent Todd. 
TODD McCLAY 
: It must have been my accent—exactly. I want to pay tribute to the member—Ms Turia? 
Metiria Turei 
: Turei. 
TODD McCLAY 
: Turei—hooray! I got it right. I pay tribute to Ms Turei for bringing this bill to the House. The reason for that is that I do believe she has brought it here with good intention. But having said that it is not something the Government can support and the reason for that is we do not believe that this legislation will achieve anything close to what she actually wants to achieve with it. 
 The Government is committed to investing in ways to eliminate child hardship and improve the economic and social well-being of individuals families and communities. We are doing that through supporting families and individuals into work and importantly recognising those families who do work. I think this legislation would blur those lines about what we need to do in this country and what is achievable for those who deserve support to be able to do more for themselves. 
The welfare reforms that we have introduced and the measures that we are taking to support New Zealand families will ensure that we are getting New Zealanders off benefits and into work where they are much better off. I challenge members of this House to find examples of where families who work are not better off—every member of the family being better off. On this side of the House we are committed to fairness and an unrelenting focus on work and we are focused on what people can do not on what they cannot do. 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: This is jargon now. 
TODD McCLAY 
: It is what New Zealanders voted for at the last election. It is a commitment and a promise we made and one we are delivering on. 
This bill from a member of the Green Party seeks to pay people to stay on benefits rather than supporting working families. I will say that again: it seeks to pay people to stay on benefits rather than supporting them into jobs and into work. There is a very important difference in philosophy between the two sides of the House. You see the current in-work tax credit offers an incentive for people with families to gain and retain sustainable employment helping to ensure a better living standard and a secure future for them and for their families. Evidence suggests that the most effective way to achieve a long-term sustainable reduction in child hardship is to address its causes directly by encouraging and helping people into work while continuing to provide support in the shorter term. 
This is about making sure that we support those people. As a society and as a Government we absolutely must support those on welfare who need the assistance of their society but we also need to take responsibility to help them to do more for themselves and for their families. I do not believe that this bill will achieve that. Evidence suggests that the most effective way to achieve a long-term sustainable reduction in child poverty is to address its causes directly by encouraging and assisting people into paid work while continuing to provide that support in the short term. 
I want to touch upon some of the things that we have been doing in this area. The issue of children how they are raised what support is available to them and their livelihood around them is extremely important to us in Government and I do take it that it is important to all members of the House. Where we are different is the approach to how we combat this problem. The Government is committed to investing in ways to eliminate child hardship and to improve the lives of individuals families and communities both economically and socially. Some of the changes to welfare reform that we are putting in place currently through this House are a step in that direction. 
The Ministerial Committee on Poverty is working through a number of issues critical to improving the lives of low-income New Zealanders and their families. This committee is focusing on ensuring that the Government is getting results from the billions of dollars it spends on a wide range of social services. I will say that again: the billions of dollars that it spends on a wide range of social services. We are able to commit and spend that money to support New Zealanders who deserve support only because hard-working other New Zealanders are out paying their taxes. Where we can encourage people and help them into the workforce they and their families their children are better off. The Government has invested in increasing our knowledge about the nature extent and persistence of material hardship amongst families with dependent children in New Zealand and we are committed to continuing to make progress on eliminating this hardship where it exists in New Zealand. 
I hear members opposite say: “Where are the jobs? Where are the jobs?”. We are hearing that a lot but 60000 jobs were created by this Government—60000 jobs have been created. Members opposite might not like that members opposite may be disappointed by that but the cold hard truth and the fact is that jobs have been created. What we do have a challenge with in this country is people who do not have the skills to be able to fill these jobs as they are created. It is a very important piece of work the Government is doing to look to support them to help them to bring more skills to them and to give them confidence and at the same time skills so that they can find their way to the workforce. 
We make no apologies for saying that families are better off when a member of their household works. It is an overarching ambition and a challenge and the direction the Government is going in is to help more New Zealanders into the workforce. Again—I come back to where I started—to the member who has sponsored this bill: I do recognise that she is concerned about the hardship of children and families in New Zealand and I think there are many areas where we will be able to work with other parties in this Parliament to find ongoing solutions to these problems. Unfortunately I do not believe that this bill is one of those solutions and therefore the Government will not be supporting it.