Newman Muriel: Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Newman Muriel: Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party to speak on the Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill. This bill more than any other shows us just how soft on welfare this Labour Government is. The Minister talks tough but is actually a soft touch—and I will explain what I mean by that. We know he is driven by the beneficiary unions; we do know that. Under this Minister’s watch the number of women who have refused to name the fathers of their children has grown from 14000 when he took office to almost 20000 now which is a growth of 40 percent. Some three women a day are now refusing to name the fathers of their children—that is 40000 children who do not have the name of their father on their birth certificate. I say that is a modern scandal and this Government has been watching over that as the numbers have grown. 
On assuming office the Minister promised as a priority to deal with this issue. Here we are 5 years later with his answer. What is his answer? His answer is to take another $6 a week per household off those women who do not name the fathers of their children as of 1 July next year. But can members guess what else is happening on 1 April next year? On that date the family support package that will go to those families will be $25 a week per child for the first child with an extra $15 a week for other children. So we have the Labour Government pretending to get tough on this issue when it is increasing the penalty by just the rate of inflation per household and is then giving those same households another $19 to make up for the $6 it has already taken off them. That is absolutely an utter and a complete farce. 
Not only is that the case but the explanatory note of the bill explains that social workers will go out and talk to those families to make sure they receive all their entitlements. I predict that rather than the amount of money those families receive going down it will actually go up as social workers find other entitlements that they think those families should have. That will increase the dependency of those families and make it even harder for those women to leave the welfare system get a life that is independent of this Labour Government and get out there and do better for themselves and their children. 
But that is not the only really bad issue about this bill. The Government is introducing some very very poor incentives through the exemptions that will be brought in. First of all there is an exemption if a woman claims that the father of her child is violent. The worrying thing about that is that it will go both ways. Firstly it will create an incentive for men to be violent towards the mothers of their children and secondly it will lead to more false allegations. A woman knows that if she claims that the father of her child is a violent man then she will not lose an $6 extra a week nor the $22 of family support. I think that is absolutely disgraceful. This Government is bringing in an incentive to create more violence in households. We already have enough of that; we do not need legislation to create an incentive for more violence to occur. 
Secondly there is another exemption essentially for deadbeat dads. If the woman can claim that there is no hope that the father will ever pay for his child then she is exempt and he is exempt. I ask what sort of signal that sends out to all those fathers out there who do pay child support and who have taken responsibility. What kind of message is that? The message is that if a man is a deadbeat dad who does not care everyone will forget about him. He will not be chased and the mother of his child will not be penalised. Well I say that incentivising fathers into becoming deadbeat dads is absolutely stupid and I do not know why this Government would even contemplate having such a provision in this bill. 
Finally there is another exemption: if a woman can claim that the father is dead then she does not get the penalty. Now that will incentivise lying. How on earth if the father is not named can anybody who is trying to investigate the case prove whether he has died? It is an absolutely crazy situation whereby the Government will incentivise violence irresponsibility and lying. 
We do know that as a result of all those new incentives—in answers to parliamentary questions we have been tracking the number of women who do not name the fathers of their children—the number of women who receive the benefit cut will go down. There is no doubt about that. But it will not be because those women are naming the fathers of their children or because the fathers are fronting up to their responsibility to pay child support be a dad and give those kids the right to know who their dad is on their birth certificate. No it will not be because of any of that; it will be because the numbers are hidden. The Labour Government rather than getting on top of the problem will simply hide it so that the Government cannot be found out and held accountable. 
No one believes that 20000 women today do not know who the fathers of their children are. We do know that they are refusing to name those fathers and in many cases unfortunately it is because there is a rort going on between mothers and fathers whereby payment is being received under the table. The Minister has acknowledged that in public statements. The really worrying thing is that by letting that go on we are denying those children the right to know who their legal father is. I think it is an absolute disgrace that aided and abetted by this Labour Government those children are being denied their legal right to know their father. This bill will make that problem worse. Not only is that the case but this bill will allow more fathers to avoid the responsibility to pay child support for 18 years leaving the taxpayer to foot the bill for raising those children for 18 years. A penalty of $6 a week is just a joke. It means that those fathers will evade that responsibility making it totally unfair on the taxpayers of New Zealand and on the 140000 liable parents who front up to their financial responsibility to raise their children—often while working hard to start a new life. 
It is unacceptable that what Labour is proposing here is the answer to this complicated problem. If the Government were serious about this issue it would have looked overseas and found that fathers are very happy to be named on birth certificates and happy to pay their financial dues if they can have quality time with their children. Many countries have introduced shared parenting as a way to facilitate that—and it works. This Government has denied New Zealand families the opportunity to bring in shared parenting. With the Care of Children Bill it had another chance to do that but it is turning its back on a proper solution to this problem. The child support laws are totally unfair; they need urgent reform. That is why all sorts of deals are going on under the table and is the second reason why fathers are not named. The third reason is that paternity testing in New Zealand is very difficult to obtain. We have to get the mum to agree to it even though the test is now done with just a mouth swab. A lot of fathers out there who are paying child support for 18 years know they are not the father of the child concerned and a lot of men do not want to be named because they are not sure whether they are. I say to the Government that it should sort out those three problems and the number of women who refuse to name the fathers of their children will then diminish dramatically. 
This is poor legislation. The ACT party cannot support legislation that is based on bad policy and bad incentives because it will create bad outcomes. We oppose this legislation.