Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): It's a pleasure to be talking on the Child Support Amendment Bill first reading. I just wish the Minister of Revenue had talked with a little bit more enthusiasm doing that speech. It was informative I must admit but he just lacked a certain enthusiasm for this matter. I note that he said how he is pleased to be doing this—and he capped that off at the end of his speech as well. I am just so pleased he did too because this bill came out as a result of a review undertaken by the previous Government in 2017. The big question I've got for him is: if this bill is so important—and I think it is; I think it is—why has it taken it so long to come to the House? Why are we just in the closing stages of Parliament—child support something that is vital to families in New Zealand—and only at this stage does the Minister bring it forward to the House? I think there is a question to be asked there. The other thing I am disappointed about is I've heard that he is going to refer it to the Social Services and Community Committee. I am disappointed; the Finance and Expenditure Committee was looking forward to reviewing this bill. In fact it has a rapacious appetite to be able to look at tax matters and assess them in the proper light of day and I think it's unfortunate that the Minister has chosen to send it off to another committee because tax matters should go to the Finance and Expenditure Committee.Anyway I thought the Minister did a pretty good coverage about the key issues. This bill doesn't include radical policy changes to the whole issue of child support but it does have some very important elements. I think the first one is around the definition of income". We have many situations where one parent is not paying their full due and consequently our children in those broken homes are in a situation where they're not getting the full financial benefit and I think it's absolutely essential that the definition of "income" is appropriate and tidied up. As the Minister noted what this piece of legislation does is clarify it—it brings in things like dividends and other income to make sure that when one partner is declaring their income and they have to come to an agreement on how much they're going to support the child then it's important that the full range of income is taken into account and any tax losses or those types of things. I think having absolute clarity around that is very very important. I'm sure all of us here all of us members who hold an electorate seat—and I must admit most of those are held on the National side so we see this more readily—have seen situations where one parent is not meeting their requirements. I think the other one is this issue around penalties. I think this is where the bill strikes a good balance because what happens at the moment is basically there's a $5 surcharge or 2 percent levy. What it does is it gets rid of the $5 penalty and just says that if you're late you initially pay a 2 percent penalty on the unpaid amount of child support and that is appropriate. But where this is being pragmatic in the bill's approach is that it said under the previous stage you had eight days to make a correction to get it right. In many cases people are inadvertent about the way that they're doing that; not all parents don't fulfil the obligations. But what this 28-day clause does is it gives the time for both the parent and the IRD to recognise that there is an issue and to make good that issue before penalties start to apply and I think that is a very good thing. There's also a built-in proposition around a grace period when parents initially have to start to pay their child support. There's been a lengthened time frame now to 60 days basically two months and again I think that's pragmatic. That recognises that when people are just in this situation where they're just starting to pay child support they've been through all the trauma of that all the heartache that goes with marriage break-ups or partner break-ups. This is again a pragmatic approach to that and one that I think is appropriate in the circumstances. The other one is around the reassessments and the Minister spoke about it. I thought the previous rule was actually you could only go back five years—and the Minister talked about going back into the 1990s for one particular case. What this bill makes provision for is that there is a four-year period for going back retrospectively to make sure that if there are inappropriate or incorrectly calculated returns for child support they can be retrospectively looked back over the past four years. You've got four years to make that application but there are five exclusions and that is the exceptions apply where information provided by a person in the child support assessment is fraudulent. The second one is where a person who's providing the child support has died. The third one is where a person should never have been made liable; there's been an incorrect allocation. Fourthly amendment is required for the purpose of avoiding double liability and sometimes that can happen. And finally a court order is received—that applies to an earlier period. I think again those exceptions create enough tolerance to reflect life—its circumstances—but also give adequate time for reassessments to take place. The final thing I think I just want to pick up on is this issue about recognising at what point child support is required and when it's not and the bill makes the definition clearer. So a child cannot be deemed to be financially independent if they are under the age of 16. And the second thing is: if a child is still in school when they turn 18 there is a requirement to pay child support out to the end of that calendar year in which they have their 18th birthday. I think that'll be a bit of a discussion for the select committee but I think this is a good bill to try to tidy up some of these very important matters. I know that many of the members of the House will face inquiries and concerns from constituents who have come in seeking clarification around that. And on that basis I think we will be supporting the bill. I'm just disappointed that we won't have the opportunity in the Finance and Expenditure Committee to be reviewing it in particular."