Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): Mr Speaker thank you very much. I wish I'd taken note of some of the quips that we've heard in the House today in relation to this bill. I rise to—SPEAKER: Only some of them.MAUREEN PUGH: I won't repeat some of them either sir. I rise to speak tonight in the third reading of the Social Assistance Legislation (Budget 2019 Welfare Package) Amendment Bill. It's been a very big debate today and many details have been canvassed. I think this actually demonstrates the depth of interest and the raft of feeling around some of the content of this bill. There was a lot debated and questioned this afternoon and full credit to the team over here for their interest in trying to get the very best legislation that you can when a bill is before this House.But the thing that has troubled me around this bill is: why the rush? Why the rush when the commencement date of this policy is not until 1 April 2020? So we're talking 10 months away—so why are we in urgency debating this bill when there is still plenty of time to have actually received the scrutiny of a select committee and still come back to this House in plenty of time to have the policy ready for that date? So it does beg the question: what is it that we are trying to achieve here in rushing it through in this omnibus bill?We've seen and we've heard examples already today about the benefit of going through that select committee process. It is open then to submission from affected parties and I'm sure that we would have received very good feedback from the public but it also would have given the select committee members an opportunity to question the experts and have that advice challenged and tweaked so that we did get the best of bills.As my colleague Alfred Ngaro has alluded to there are parts of this bill that we do support. One of those is the indexing of the veterans pensions and as part of this bill we are making that change to the Veterans' Support Act because if we hadn't they would simply be out of kilter with other benefits as a result of this bill. We all respect and honour the part that they've played in our country here and abroad. This move will allow them if they so wish to enjoy more of what they earn should they be in paid employment and also have their pensions indexed.But we certainly don't understand the need to change the policy around indexing of the other benefits because we've heard—once we saw the scrutiny of the impact that this bill was going to have—that the financial benefit to people by the time this bill is fully enacted in 2023 the difference between indexing to the Consumers Price Index as it would have been in 2023 to now being indexed to the average wage makes a difference of about $11 a week. At the rate of change in the rate of the cost of living going up rentals going up and fuel taxes going up that $11 is going to disappear very very quickly.We do also support the abatement rates that are in here that allow people on benefits to be able to find themselves in paid employment without that affecting their benefits to a huge degree. By allowing them a bit more of a free board so that they can go out and earn more money I personally believe that that gets them well trained and ready for full-time work. That would be the ultimate gain: to have people gainfully employed.What's most concerning about some of the background information that was delivered on this bill is the projected rise in benefit numbers and we've seen that in the information that was delivered to us—up by 13000 already since the 2017 election. The Budget forecast a further rise of 2500—a cost of $122 million. Sole parent support beneficiaries are expected to increase by a further 1600.By removing sections 192 and 194 of the Social Security Act we have generated quite a lot of debate today. One of the things that we have noticed over here is that there has been no strong case put forward that really supports this change of direction around the removal of the requirement for someone on a sole parent benefit to name the father of a child. I'll say this: the rationale is completely lost on us on this side of the House especially when that policy had its origin in the Labour Government—the Clark Labour Government. So it would have been good to have been able to hear that through the committee stage but that information was not forthcoming. We also have not heard how the Government plans to keep those fathers involved in their children's lives because we all know and the evidence is—SPEAKER: Order! Order! Back to the bill please.MAUREEN PUGH: Sure. The bill in its current form allows that a parent does not need to name the father of the child. So we believe that preventing that requirement is also depriving the children and/or punishing the parents because it's contributing to the wellbeing.I use the analogy of someone that has an investment—and I know this from personal experience—in a racehorse. They have a small amount of money invested in it. At least they go and watch the horse run. They watch it go and race. If a father has no tangible or financial commitment—they have no tie to that child whatsoever—there is no responsibility or need for that father to be there. We know that the support of two parents is very important to a child.Now the claim by the Hon Carmel Sepuloni that it will affect all kids within a family if the father is unknown is actually false in the case of kids with a different parent because the children deserve to know that their father is actually taking an active role in their life. If the Government wants to hold distant parents accountable the fathers need to be present before the Government removes their own policy from requiring that that is actually done.One of the concerns that I've also got about not naming a father through this process is that we then run the risk of losing track of the siblings of that child. So for instance if the parents were living in a close community then chances are they would remain in that community. They may go on to have separate relationships. They may go on to have further children of their own. What are the chances then of those children finding themselves in relationships with siblings that they are unaware of? I think this is a terrible risk that we run by not keeping track—[Bell rung]SPEAKER: Sorry. I apologise; I forgot to warn the member. You don't get extra time.MAUREEN PUGH: So I think that's a real risk that we run if these children are not tracked through their lives so that we know that where there are siblings out there in the same community we're not going to end up with some incestuous kinds of relationships later in life. We don't fix the problems of society by keeping people dependent on the State and that's definitely the direction of travel that this policy is taking us in. We actually fix the dysfunction in our social environment by making sure that people are—[Interruption] Mr Speaker I have to wonder whether it's even relevant that I'm even speaking to this bill when you are taking an active role in the Government's—SPEAKER: Sorry?MAUREEN PUGH: —criticism of what's going on. I find that a bit disheartening.SPEAKER: Well I'm listening to them. If the member wants to put it on the record I will interrupt them.MAUREEN PUGH: I don't know what that means but anyway.SPEAKER: Well I'll explain it to the member although her time's up. If I interrupt or if she interrupts by way of point of order the interjections become part of the records of Hansard and I think given the interjections the member probably would have desired that that not be the case.MAUREEN PUGH: Fair enough. Thank you.