Moroney Sue: Support for Children in Hardship Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Support for Children in Hardship Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 01 December 2015. Volume:710;Page:8408. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour): It is a pleasure to rise and speak in support of Part 2 of the Support for Children in Hardship Bill. This is the part that amends the Education Act 1989. As the previous speaker Todd Muller said it is an attempt to make sure that the same payment exists for people whether they are in full-time study or whether they are in receipt of the unemployment benefit—or in fact whatever we call this thing these days; I think it is jobseeker support. It seems to have a whole range of different titles but it is what we know as the support that people get if they have children—in particular with this bill—and they have not got employment. It does attempt to actually get these two things lined up together so that there is not an incentive for people to give up the future that comes with being in full-time study and instead go on another payment.However I do have to agree with the contribution made by Jacinda Ardern previously that it does actually show a very miserly approach from the Government to this particular part. Let us remember that the people who are going to be in receipt of this payment which is described in Part 2 are people in the most dire hardship. These are families in the most dire hardship. The reality is that the $25 a week is not actually going to lift them out of poverty because they are so far below the poverty line that they are not going to be lifted to being even close to getting out of poverty. So let us just remember it in that context and then let us apply Part 2 to that because effectively what it is saying is that people will get a Consumers Price Index adjustment to their student allowance before the $25 is applied to it.I just want to quantify that a little. The Minister will have the actual figures so I would ask her to share those with the Committee but what is the impact of putting $25 on to the base rate first before the Consumers Price Index is adjusted? At the moment I believe the Consumers Price Index is running at something like about 0.4 percent; it is certainly below 1 percent. On 1 April next year it will be expected to be running a great deal higher—well we cannot look into that particular crystal ball and know but let us imagine that it does creep up to say around 1 percent Consumers Price Index. One percent of $25 is 25c. That is effectively what we are quibbling over here in Part 2. We are taking this debate up quibbling over the people in the most dire need perhaps getting 25c or less more than if Part 2 was not there at all.If Part 2 was not here the impact would be that the $25 would be applied to the student allowance first before the 1 April Consumers Price Index adjustment was made. I just want members opposite to reflect on that. We are quibbling about less than 25c and it does not seem to me that that would be an awful lot to ask. But instead—I would hate to think how much time we spent on the officials getting the wording right to avoid that additional 25c payment because it is going to happen once and once only and that is on 1 April next year.We have already addressed that in the previous part when it comes to the—what is it called? Is it called the supported living allowance? No—what is it called?Jacinda Ardern: The supported living payment.SUE MORONEY: The supported living payment thank you. We have already done exactly the same measure for that and now in Part 2 we are applying it to the Education Act with regard to the student allowance. But in both of those instances we are talking about a tiny amount of money and probably an awful lot of energy and time. It would be interesting to know the costings of how much time officials spent on coming up with this drafting to avoid that small amount of money.I am speaking in support of the bill generally. I do not see that Part 2 actually adds much value. In fact it takes away a small amount of value and takes an awful lot of words to do that. Maybe the Government thinks that it is somehow double-dipping but in fact the $25 should be applied to the base allowance and that should have the Consumers Price Index adjusted to it as well.