SpeechKIWISAVER (ORANGA TAMARIKI GUARDIANS) AMENDMENT BILLThird ReadingHAMISH WALKER (National—Clutha-Southland): I move That the KiwiSaver (Oranga Tamariki Guardians) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. Let's foster a financial future for the 6500 foster children living in New Zealand. This bill is simple. It removes the difficulty of enrolling foster kids into KiwiSaver; it improves equality puts foster children on the same playing field as any other child in New Zealand; and provides opportunity for our most vulnerable children—our foster children in New Zealand—to get ahead by allowing foster parents to open a KiwiSaver account for their foster children. The three main issues as I currently see it—the first one is difficulty. It's incredibly difficult to enrol a foster child into KiwiSaver. The current process: you have to go through your social worker who then has to go through the CEO to sign off the paperwork. We know the CEO has thousands of tasks at hand so this takes a while. You only need to look at Megan Barclay who has been trying three years for this—she's tried on three separate occasions. If you read her submission she wanted to do this to provide some financial independence later in life. She wanted to save up funds so if that child left her she could provide something for its future. She even approached Fostering Kids New Zealand who on one occasion said what they had to do was meet the social worker at the bank and get the documentation because a foster kid had started a job and needed to enrol into KiwiSaver to get the money to get the contributions from the employer. You only need to look and talk to the grandfather—seven grandkids one of those being a foster child—who wanted to leave some inheritance money for those children. He could do for six out of the seven but for that foster child couldn't. It's pretty sad. You only need to look at the numbers—around 320000 out of 1.1 million kids under the age of 18 about a third currently have KiwiSaver yet only 3 percent of foster children have KiwiSaver. We want to remove the difficulty there is in accessing KiwiSaver for our most vulnerable—give them a chance to get ahead.The second issue is equality. Currently it's not fair that foster children don't have the same access to KiwiSaver as any other child in New Zealand. Foster children often don't have access to birth certificates to IRD numbers. Some of them don't even know their own names at birth. Some of them don't know who their parents were. We want to remove the barriers and the hurdles for these children. There's already enough barriers and hurdles in place for them. Let's remove the barriers and give them the best possible chance of getting ahead. A KiwiSaver account is not just a privilege for a few in New Zealand. This clearly demonstrates that foster children currently aren't on the same playing field as any other child in New Zealand as shown by the numbers of foster children—3 percent versus 33 percent of non - foster children living in New Zealand.This is about opportunity. Enabling foster parents the opportunity to open up a KiwiSaver account ensures that foster children have the best possible opportunity can get on the right path in life to lead a successful financially secure fulfilling life. Of the foster children who have lost that opportunity so far one that comes to mind is the child that saved $2500 over several years only to have that money pickled by his foster parent. Now we know that a KiwiSaver account is the only place the account holder himself or herself can touch. A bank account can be touched. For example a second child saved up $700 only to have the $700 lost because that child moved home so often.I'm trying to change the law here to give foster children the same opportunity as any other child to get ahead—something positive they can look forward to. Something they can build to but that also gives them a sense of identity. This isn't that hard. Unfortunately during the process of this member's bill—it's been a fascinating process. I just want to thank all the foster children that did submit during the submission process. It's hard enough to engage under-18s into politics into democracy in New Zealand so it was great to get so many submissions from those foster children.I just want to pay respect to a 13-year-old called Blaze. She said she lived with her foster mum and dad. Having a KiwiSaver account would make her feel like other children in her life because when she gets older she can buy things that she wants like a house. Isn't it great that a 13-year-old is already planning for a first home? It's pretty tough and almost impossible at the moment.Another submitter Angela who's a foster parent she's been trying to get a KiwiSaver account for a 9-year-old boy in her care. Despite trying for months and years on end she didn't have any luck. The saddest thing she said was the child in her care was left disappointed and frustrated. She lost track of how many hours and days she spent trying. Through the submission process the National Party advised the Government that we would lodge a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) which we did. The SOP was an amendment to allow all foster parents to have this right because currently how it came back from the officials which unfortunately the Government have taken on board is that they're only going to allow the legal guardians access to KiwiSaver. So now we're only going to allow a privileged few foster parents—around 10 percent; 700 or 800 out of the 6500—to have access to KiwiSaver. I think this is sad. I don't often do this. I just want to acknowledge Greg O'Connor MP who spoke in the general debate. As he said KiwiSaver is one of the most progressive things we've done as a country. We've all benefited from this. Well Mr O'Connor actions speak louder than words and I hope that the Government thinks strongly about this.It's unfortunate that the Government is not allowing the full intent of the bill because it's all about control. It's all about ideology. They think the best way for a society to succeed is controlling and running everything. I think this is absolutely sad that the Government is shutting down this idea because it is not theirs. They even changed the name of the bill from the KiwiSaver (Foster Parents Opting in for Children in their Care) Amendment Bill to the KiwiSaver (Oranga Tamariki Guardians) Amendment Bill. We are elected here to represent the people of New Zealand. The officials aren't elected here to represent the people. We are here to make the best possible decisions to give all New Zealanders especially our most vulnerable our foster children the same opportunity same equality as other children and remove the difficulties which I'm trying to do with this bill.I'd like to acknowledge everyone that's helped me during this process: John Anderson; Sam Stubbs from Simplicity who's offered free fees; Katrina Shanks from Financial Advice New Zealand who have offered free advice for any foster child should they take it; all those brave foster kids who fronted up at Parliament and presented to the select committee—it's a pretty scary thing to do and I think it's just fantastic that they did that—and all the caregivers all the foster parents out there I've met a large number of them over the last 12 to 18 months. You're all incredible people and I just want to acknowledge everything you've done.With that let's give all kids the same opportunity equality and remove the difficulties currently in place for foster children and their parents trying to get ahead in life and lead fulfilling lives. Thank you.