Henare Peeni: Support for Children in Hardship Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHenare Peeni: Support for Children in Hardship Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 05 November 2015. Volume:709;Page:7782. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Ā tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare tēnā tātau katoa. Ka tīmata ake ahau i taku kōrero i te ahiahi nei me te kōrero kīwaha o te iwi Māori: “Pai ake tēnei i te kore noa iho!”. I just wanted to preface my contribution this afternoon with a well-known Māori expression: “Oh well I guess this is better than getting nothing!”. It has been well talked about this afternoon that this is really just a drop in the bucket.I want to just touch on the comment made by Mr Muller about how most of the 31 submitters on the Support for Children in Hardship Bill support the intent of it. Well I have sat in this House for just over a year now and I have heard from the other side of the House how good policy is about supporting the outcomes and not the intent. I look across and I wonder: “Well jeez you know—I don’t think they got that one right.” It would also appear that that is the case when I consider the submissions that were made on this particular bill. All of the submitters came in with the belief of my opening comment that well this is actually better than nothing. So we are willing to support it on the basis that at least some of our whānau out there some of our families will get a little bit of something as opposed to getting nothing.Most people in the House have spoken about the impacts it will have on family. I want to talk about just very briefly this juggernaut that is heaving this juggernaut that is slow this juggernaut that is certainly is not a slick machine. I am talking about Work and Income. It is going to be laboured with the job with the task of making decisions—and not only about this particular piece of legislation. It might interest the House that once upon a time in a former life I was a case manager at Work and Income and I do know that the job that those case managers have is already really hard. It is hard not only because they are dealing with our people constantly but also because of the administrative responsibilities that are placed on them by the likes of this particular Government. This bill will add just another task to their everyday job.I think about that job. So you walk into Work and Income you sit down with a case manager and that case manager with that particular client has to work out your eligibility for Housing New Zealand. Who gets to make the call on that? They do. They also have to work out your entitlements for the benefit. Who gets to make the call on that? They do. Now all of a sudden we are saying here that they get to define what it means to go into a job and what kind of job you enter into. So all of this has to be compacted into a half-hour interview—at maximum 45 minutes—with a case manager at Work and Income knowing full well that you have got a large caseload sitting in the waiting room. Most of them will have tamariki with them who will be crying. They do not want to be there. I acknowledge that our people want to be out working. They want to feel empowered. They want to make sure that they are bringing home the bacon for their family. But I do not think this is the way. I do not think this is the way. So I do feel a little bit of aroha for my former colleagues of Work and Income those who actually have to bear the brunt of policies and legislation such as this.This House has mentioned and quoted my grandfather many times: “We’ve come too far not to go further.” and “We’ve done too much not to do more.” There is another one of his that I quite like. It is: “Everyone is equal. However some people are more equal than others.” I think that has been mentioned just a couple of times by our Green colleagues here in the House. When I thought about that particular statement as a young fellow I did not exactly know what that meant at the time. I thought it had something to do with civil rights. Well actually now I have seen how it works. There is a poverty trap in this country and the gap between the haves and the have-nots is growing daily. Members of this House have mentioned the number of tamariki who are caught in poverty. They have mentioned all of our whānau who are out there struggling and sadly this Government cannot see that. So I want to finish on what I started on to close my contribution: “Pai ake tēnei i te kore!” [Better this than zilch!].