Turei Metiria: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Turei Metiria: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 20 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8708. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. Paula Bennett will put children at risk of worsening illness—as she leaves the House— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! It is not appropriate to refer to any member leaving the House. Would those who are choosing to the leave the House please do so quietly as the member has every right to have her contribution heard. 
METIRIA TUREI 
: Paula Bennett will put children at risk of worsening illness inadequate health care and even maltreatment as she and her Government continue to pass the welfare reforms and they do not care. How do they know about these risks? Because the Ministry of Health told them over and over and over again. The ministry provided briefings on changes to the text advice to the Minister and pleas to the Minister that these reforms—the Well Child compulsion the severe financial sanctions—would cause beneficiaries and their children harm. 
I want to go through some of that advice so that people out there can understand just how seriously the Ministry of Health took these welfare reforms in its concern for child health. In May 2012: “The Ministry of Health expects that income sanctions will have a negative impact on the health of sanctioned beneficiaries and their families. We predict that these people will defer health care. We predict that these people will increasingly present at emergency departments rather than primary care.” It said that “The cost to the health system will increase accordingly.” Again in May in tracked changes to a Ministry of Social Development Cabinet paper it said: “There are risks to the Well Child programme if the checks are seen as a punishment or a sanction. One of the valuable traits of Well Child has been that it is non-threatening and has a high degree of public and family acceptability.” Further emails have passed between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social Development over this. Over and over the ministry tells the Minister of Health and the Ministry of Social Development that the sanctions will harm families. It even had to ask the Ministry of Social Development to rewrite parts of its report. The Ministry of Health says: “Please replace the phrase ‘MOH notes’ with the phrase ‘The Ministry of Health has a strong preference that engagement on the Well Child programme does not become mandatory.’ ” 
The ministry officials appealed to the Minister of Health Tony Ryall asking him to please put this information to the welfare reform Minister. They said: “The ministry is concerned about such heavy financial sanctions being applied. We anticipate these sanctions would have a negative impact on the health of sanctioned beneficiaries and their families. We expect that those sanctioned will be more likely to defer health care and present at emergency departments. We can do better to reach families not receiving Well Child checks by improving programme delivery.” It is over and over. 
Just as one example of the Draconian intention by the Ministry of Social Development in July the Ministry of Health asked the Ministry of Social Development to do this: “Please remove the word ‘surveillance’. The Well Child programme is not designed or intended as a mechanism for surveillance of beneficiary families or indeed any families. It is a health promotion child development programme that works on the basis of partnership and engagement between the practitioner and the parent and the child. Don’t use it to investigate families.” Despite the false claims by Paula Bennett that this compulsion is necessary for poorer families the ministry says that there is no strong evidence that health-related social obligations are needed. Then after months of persistent health advocacy for children the Ministry of Health asked that the regulatory impact statement attached to the bill note some key warnings: that the Well Child programme itself could be threatened if it becomes mandatory that sanctioned parents can face significant barriers to compliance and finally that there will be some substantial negative impacts on families who ultimately face financial sanctions not least because it is noted in the regulatory impact statement that child maltreatment and neglect is particularly sensitive to parental income where lack of resources limits their ability to meet children’s basic needs. Over and over and over the Ministry of Health told the Minister of Health the Minister for Social Development and the Ministry of Social Development that these financial sanctions for the Well Child checks the welfare reforms would cause children harm. It has solutions to increase the number of children who are registered with the Well Child system. It has ways of delivering a decent and better programme to those families. Paula Bennett knows that children will be harmed by her welfare reforms and she will do it anyway.