Hipango HareteHARETE HIPANGO (National): I rise to take a call on this at rather short notice but it just happens to be coincidental that on the weekend—little did I know that I'd be speaking on such an issue—I was reflecting with whanaunga Dame Tari back home. We were sitting on the porch in the sun like two old kuia reflecting on how our old people used to deal with these issues. We were talking about how our people—New Zealanders and Māori also—have become locked in to this mentality of welfarism and State dependency and the loss of mana motuhake. Literally the mana is the dignity that our people have and had and the motuhake; the ability to stand upright and independent in the most trying and hardship of times. Here I am before the House addressing those who are listening in the second reading of the Social Security (Subsequent Child Policy Removal) Amendment Bill.There are members in the House who sat on the select committee and the process was that this amendment bill was referred to the committee on 6 April 2021. The Minister the Hon Carmel Sepuloni was invited to give an initial briefing which she did on 2 June 2021. The closing date for submissions was 19 May. Thirty-one submissions were made and oral evidence heard from 11 submitters. And here I am standing before the House just reflecting on the kōrero that I had with one of our old people our kuia and we were reflecting on the advice and kōrero and the mātauranga the knowledge base of our old people. Our old people were not welfare dependent were not locked in to the mentality that in order to get by we needed the State to provide and support.It's accepted that there is a time and there is a place for the State to provide. But really the question that we should answer is: do we continue to perpetuate that welfare dependency? In my submission: regrettably this does. And I say regrettably" because this is an area that I've given service working in areas of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in my community in our community. I have seen the intergenerational dysfunction of welfare dependency and the perpetuation of the State saying our people can't do and can't get by cannot stand upright without the State telling us: "This is what you need. You need the State to keep giving you the pūtea." to keep giving you the poverty of a sense of loss of spirit and dignity.I do not go into the detail of this bill other than to say that it proposes to move a policy that had been introduced in 2012 by the National Government recognising the importance of uplifting and elevating and helping our people out of that sense of a poverty of existence but importantly the kōrero that I had back home on the weekend—the greatest poverty that we have as a nation is that of spirit. We have a State welfare system that perpetuates that poverty by telling our people: "You can't get out of this locked-in level of dependency." That is the greatest depression that we have in the country: the reliance on a welfare system that our people become so locked in in mentality and spirit that it is oppressive. That the level of dependency in this country is keeping our people suppressed from being elevated up into what we once knew as a proud nation of mana motuhake. I do not support this bill along with the National Party."