Maharey Steve: Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Maharey Steve: Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:624;Page:19571] 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 Part 1 covers a wide range of issues but it appears from the debate so far that the issue that is attracting most of the attention is one that has had a fair amount of media coverage over the years—that is section 70A of the Social Security Act. That section provides for the reduction in the benefit of a person who will not provide the name of the father of a child and therefore people avoid paying their child liability payments. 
I thank New Zealand First for its usual very insightful contribution to the debate. I also thank United Future for its contribution and advise its spokesperson on social services Judy Turner through Mr Adams that although its proposal today to see a change in the bill came in so late—it will be out of order I think—the issue is one that we will make sure we work on together probably in the Child Support Amendment Bill later in the piece. 
I return to the contributions from National and ACT. Perhaps I will leave aside ACT’s contribution because that party will probably not be in Parliament after the election and just come back to Mrs Collins who for someone who is supposed to be National’s spokesperson demonstrates once again a staggering inability to know what is going on in these portfolios. The National Party apart from once again offering no obvious answer to any of the issues appears to have no policy on the issues whatsoever. Its contributions just become a long-running diatribe about people who should be responsible for their children. We heard nothing else from Mrs Collins and thankfully she stopped. I do not know about the rest of the Committee but I usually enjoy it when she is quiet. 
I tell Mrs Collins for her own edification that section 70A of the principal Act is being changed to the extent that the penalty imposed on parents by this bill essentially inflation-protects the Crown’s interest. Children are involved here and the reason that the domestic purposes benefit is paid into a household is so that they can eat be well supported have the lights on stay warm and go to school—all of those kinds of things. Penalties therefore have to be provided for in a way that takes account of the fact that we still want children to be well supported financially in those households. We do not want to punish them. That is what makes these kinds of issues so difficult. Yes it would be very easy simply to adopt an approach whereby we remove the money from the households of people who do not agree to name the father of their children but the impact on the children would be that they simply would not be supported. A penalty is therefore being put in place and we asked that it be at a level that not only allows the children to continue to be fed properly but also gives a clear signal to a person who does not provide the name of the father that things are not the way they should be. 
It is my view and the Government’s view that fathers must and should be responsible financially and emotionally for their children throughout their lives. One of the issues we inherited from the National Government was that nothing had been done about this issue through the 1990s. The numbers continued to grow and they maxed out at around 20000 fathers. The entire Chamber knows that some fathers will never be involved in the emotional and financial support of their children and they should not be. We are talking about exemptions in the Act for things like incest. We do not want to see those fathers involved and if anybody in the Chamber thinks that such fathers are the kinds of fathers who should be in touch with their children then that is up to them. But that is not the Government’s view. Our view is that the bulk of the people currently who are not naming themselves as the father of a child do not have that excuse. They simply are not carrying out their financial obligations to their children. 
So what is the answer? Well Mrs Collins and the National Party do not have one. However when the Government undertook a long programme of research on a large sample of people within this group it found that one of the major problems was that people simply did not understand the fact that they were being penalised financially and they did not understand how they could go about the process of naming the father once they had settled in to being a mother and getting on with their life—after they had gotten through all that part of settling in to being the parent of the child. We have run a very successful process that—as of 1 April I am told by officials—now sees the number of people in that situation as being 16130. In other words since we started introducing the real change the number has dropped—and the penalty as Mrs Newman points out is not the real change but is simply to remind people that there is a financial penalty. It is no wonder that Mrs Newman and the ACT party are polling 1.7 percent. 
Every answer that ACT gives to these kinds of issues is usually blunt and unthinking. The real answer is what we are doing. We are now talking to people before they go on to the domestic purposes benefit. We then go back to them 3 months after they have been on it if they have not named the father of the child. We are finding with those two kinds of interviews a substantial change in the behaviour of people who understand. Mrs Newman pointed out that people may say that their partner is dead but she offered no solution as to what to do about it. I do not know the answer as to whether a person is lying to us either other than to try to find out through the means we are using. But we have found that many of the people who are interviewed who are re-interviewed and who are informed of the obligation people have to provide support for their children do tell us the name of the father. 
So it would be useful I guess if Mrs Collins and the National Party—and I see Mrs Pansy Wong is about to rise on behalf of the National Party—were to stay in touch with the policy because it would find that it is working and that we are now seeing a steady and continuous drop in the number of people who are not naming themselves as father of the child and those people are now paying their child liability payments. That is why those who have thought this issue through such as Mr Gudgeon from New Zealand First and Mr Adams and Judy Turner from United Future are supporting this bill. They recognise that this amendment is simply one part of a comprehensive answer that is finally after many years of failure by the National Party beginning to get men to front up to their obligations and pay their child liability payments. 
That is the bottom line for me. Men must support their children financially and emotionally throughout their lives. They must not walk away from those obligations. For the first time we have now found a successful way of turning back the numbers. We are seeing major progress and I want to see that progress continue.