Ngaro Alfred: Support for Children in Hardship Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNgaro Alfred: Support for Children in Hardship Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3531. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ALFRED NGARO (National): I rise to take a call on the Support for Children in Hardship Bill in its first reading. As the chair I look forward to the bill coming to the Social Services Committee a very hard-working committee that looks forward to the debate to the deliberation and also to hearing the submissions. It is always good to speak after the member Miss Ardern. She commented about the blind spot in regard to poverty and the intention coming to this House. I remember in the 2014 elections at one of the debates around poverty she was challenged about the fact that 142000 children were still in poverty during the time of the Labour Government. Her response was this: “It was a job unfinished.”—it was a job unfinished. So although the talk is about children in poverty there was a job that was unfinished by the Labour Government which talked about that. When talking about figures it is interesting that those members are talking about that now.The issue about a plan—this is a plan. As the Minister of Finance said this is a plan that is working for our children in hardship and for our families as well. How do we know? Well we can talk about ours—and I will in a moment—but in its state of the nation speech A Mountain All Can Climb out of the 22 indicators the Salvation Army gave us the thumbs up on 14 of them. I just recall at a glance that with regard to child poverty it was thumbs up for reducing it by 2 percent. With regard to children at risk there was a reduction of 15 percent. I could go on. There were 15 indicators by the Salvation Army with regard to the reduction of child poverty.As this bill comes to the House I say it is a good bill. Can I commend the Minister for Social Development the honourable Minister Tolley for the work that she has done to put this together. Can I also acknowledge our previous Minister for Social Development the honourable Minister Paula Bennett who is here as well for the work that she has done and for the leadership that she has taken for us as well. It was great to hear from the Hon Te Ururoa Flavell and this is what he said. He said that it has taken almost 43 years—in fact back to 1972—since the base benefit rate was actually increased. Under a National Government that is what has happened. What is it doing? It is doing this. As the Minister has said there is a vision and a plan for reducing hardship for children and that is what this bill is intending to do. It has a theme that I think is really important. It is this: your circumstances should not define your destiny. I think that is very important.Part of the amendments in this bill which is an omnibus bill are around the Social Security Act of 1964. If I quote from the Act in Part 1 which is its purpose and intent there is section 1A(a)(ii). It indicates that the purpose of the Social Security Act of 1964 is “to help people to find or retain paid employment;”. Section 1A(ca) says it is “to provide services to encourage and help young persons to move to education training and employment …”. I mention these because I think it is important for the public to know that the bill at hand is in line with the intentions the purpose and the principles of the Social Security Act which are to provide opportunities for employment for those who are actually in need as well. We know that employment lifts our families out of hardship. We think that is important. The bill is a balanced mix of greater work expectations. Two-thirds of children are living in hardship and we think that that is important—80000 are in sole parent families hence the reason why this bill is focused on that. We know that nine to 10 of those children are from sole parent families and we think that that is important as well.So we think that this bill will go to the select committee. We look forward to the submissions. The benefit rates we think are going to be quite important news to our communities. Can I finally just conclude my remarks briefly because I think this bill is due for its reading and its referral to the select committee by saying that the comments that are made about children in poverty are often made about Māori and Pacific children. It concerns me that in our communities a stigma is created by the Opposition about that when there is all the talk there is all the rhetoric but there is not the plan to be able to make a difference. I believe that this bill and its intentions will absolutely make a difference to those families that we are talking about.Jacinda Ardern: Now you’re just not telling the truth Alfred.ALFRED NGARO: I look forward to this bill. I look forward to the debate even if Ms Ardern returns to the Social Services Committee as well. I think that this is going to be good news for our communities. I look forward to the discussions and the submissions and I commend this bill to the House.