Warren-Clark AngieANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. It's a real pleasure to stand and speak on the third reading of the Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill. A real pleasure because I think it's a highly complex piece of legislation and all of us in the Social Services Committee I think worked quite diligently. I have to acknowledge the fact that we don't often have Inland Revenue come in and give us advice—tax matters are often quite complex—and so I want to just acknowledge the members our officials and also our clerks for organising this for us. The Minister for Social Development and Employment—I'm delighted she's brought this bill to the House and I'm delighted to be speaking on it. As I said it is a complex bill but at the heart of the matter it does create or does enable an inequity to be addressed. Now the member who just resumed her seat Louise Upston said that actually it's much of a muchness; it's all fear of fear. But actually what this bill does is a little bit different to how that member explained it in my understanding. So for example if a parent is re-partnered and on a benefit—so re-partnered they are on a couples' benefit—child support pass on occurs for them in the way that this bill is changing the law for sole parents. So sole parents currently do not get child support pass on. Now that is when there is one parent in the household and they are not receiving this. If you're re-partnered and in a form of relationship you do get child support pass on. So that in itself is an inequity that I think needs to be addressed and changed and that is quite simply what this bill is doing. I think it's very important that we make it extremely clear that this bill takes that piece of discrimination away.Now there are other pieces of work to be done and the member who resumed her seat has mentioned the UCB the unsupported child's benefit. This is a piece of work that is ongoing in another ministry and this will be addressed. We do not disagree that that needs to occur. However the best opportunity to fix this piece of legislation and this problem is what we have in fact done so I'm delighted to stand here and speak on this bill.It's one of those things that I think people may say it's a very small change. But materially about 41000 families will be positively affected by this. It means that the children who live in these households with sole parents will have the same entitlement to have their liable parent receive income as a child whose parent has re-partnered and gets that money. That's plainly and simply the way that it should be. It's plainly and simply the way that we should have legislation operating in this country.I also want to just address the concept that somehow by us ensuring that this small piece of discrimination that affects 41000 families will suddenly open the floodgates for single parents to suddenly all want to be on a benefit. Nobody wants to be a sole parent on a benefit. It is not the lifestyle of the rich and famous. I've been there; I've done that. In fact the Hon Louise Upston has been there and done that. The Hon Carmel Sepuloni has been there and done that. I think it's very very clear from our experiences but from what we hear across the country that living on a benefit is not a lifestyle choice. I think it is incredibly incredibly important to state that in this House. We are not seeing an increase of beneficiaries who are sole parents because suddenly they are receiving $20 more on average a week or will be on 1 July. It's about our society currently. It's about the fact that we've been through a whole pile of things. It's about the choice and the decision of families to break up when it's not safe to be there in the same relationship. I don't think the two can be conflated and I think it is not appropriate for us to try and balance those out.So with that I just want to say that I think this is a good piece of legislation. It's an important piece of legislation and I utterly commend it to the House.