Collins Judith: Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Collins Judith: Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:624;Page:19534] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 This is one of those amendment bills that the National Party will support because of only a couple of points. The first point that we agree with is the area that Mr Barker has just mentioned in relation to retirement villages. We accept the fact that the current situation in relation to them certainly needs to be tidied up and we are happy to support that. Of course there is the second issue and the main issue that this bill has been trumpeted around and that is to do with the requirement of a further deduction from the payments to domestic purposes beneficiaries where they will not name the other liable parent—in other words the father although in 250 cases the mother—of the child. The deduction that is to be brought in with this amendment is a total of $6 per week per beneficiary. So those beneficiaries who do not name let us say the father of the child for four or five of their children or in some cases six or seven of their children will simply suffer a $6 per week deduction. With the Government’s big payout to beneficiaries that is coming very soon out of the hard-earned— 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: Tomorrow! 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Tomorrow as my colleague Dr Hutchison reminds me it being April Fool’s Day tomorrow. That money will come in and it will actually negate the whole point of this deduction because beneficiaries will receive a big bonus. 
In the National Party we accept that there are some mothers who will not name the father of their child because they do not know his name but we do not believe in the tooth fairy. We do not for a moment believe that there are 19000 women in this country who forgot to ask a man what his name was before they decided to make him the father of their child. We in the National Party do not for a moment believe that they did that not once but at least twice and in some cases 6 7 or 8 times.We actually believe that the taxpayers of New Zealand are being taken for a ride and we are not prepared to support that sort of nonsense. We know there are 35000 children whose parents are receiving a domestic purposes benefit and for whom no liable parent is contributing even a measly $10 a week—which seems to be the amount that most people who are liable parents contribute—towards the cost of their upbringing. That is an absolute disgrace. Although there is a temptation not to support this absolutely pathetic amendment bill—apart from the residential villages situation—we will support it. At least it is the first time this Labour-led Government supported unfortunately by United Future which should know better has actually accepted that maybe it is not very good that 35000 children do not have a liable parent—in other words another parent—even named so that the person can be asked to contribute towards the upbringing of the child. 
What we do know—and we know this because we do not wander around with rose-tinted glasses on not understanding what goes on in the real world—is that an awful lot of “boarders” happen to live in the same home as mum and the children and that somehow the children call him “Dad”. We do know that. We know there are women in their twenties—and I have met and dealt with some—who have had six children to six different fathers and who think it is something to be proud of. Well it is not because the poor old taxpayer has to pay for that. The Government does not pay for anything; the taxpayer pays every single time. It is a fact that those children and their grandchildren and their grandchildren after that are being denied the basic right to know absolutely where they come from. In this country in this century with DNA to carry on the myth that those women do not know whom the father of their child is and do not have any way of proving it is an absolute disgrace. 
Until that situation is fixed New Zealand will continue to have very very high youth suicide rates some of the worst in the world. We will continue to have very very high youth crime rates some of the worst in the world. We will continue to have that situation because we do not value fathers do not value parenthood and do not value our children. It is about time we took those things seriously because until we do we are not going to have a country that we can be as proud of as we jolly well should be. That is one of the reasons if for no other reason that at least this Government has finally said it is worth 6 bucks to name a child’s father. Well as I said my inclination is to say no to this bill because it is so pathetic but I will give the Government at least one point. I presume the Government has done something about the situation because someone told it that it had to do so but at least there is an acknowledgment that the situation is not OK. 
The worst thing is that with that acknowledgment have come all the exemptions. We see exemption after exemption in the bill. One of the ones that has been a cause absolutely praised by the do-gooders who live in another world is the one about a fear of violence. That is a reasonable thing if someone has a real fear of violence. But what is that fear based on? There is no requirement for there to be any truth in it. There is no requirement for the police to be involved. There is no requirement at all for there to be any evidence whatsoever of violence when every day violence is occurring against the children who are being denied knowledge of their fathers who are being denied knowledge of their history and whose children after them will be denied in exactly the same way as that. The children we are speaking about today are the children at the very bottom of the social heap. Those children are being condemned by a society that cares more about votes than it does about the truth. That is a disgrace. This Government has not taken the situation seriously. It is only willing to say that it is worth 6 bucks a week. 
It makes me very angry to listen in the select committee to people who are paid huge amounts of money supposedly to protect and look after children—there are commissioners for everything—but who are not prepared to come out and say that kids need dads mums and extended families who care about them rather than a bit of money. That is what they need. And it is the same people who are involved time and time again. In talking to the police in all communities we hear them tell us that a quarter of all crime in this country is committed by children who are children in the eyes of the law and that is also a disgrace. Where are the fathers? They are not there. They are in jail or they are off with yet another person. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Or in Australia. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Or they are in Australia. It is about time we started to target the parents who do not contribute towards the upkeep of their children and it is about time we took that seriously. Unfortunately this Government does not. Its answer to the liable parents who do not take it seriously was given by David Cunliffe in about December last year—I hope I have that date right but I think it was around December—when he said the Government was going to write off the debts. Well that is a great signal to send out! It is a signal that says people should not bother to pay child support and that the blokes who are paying are just mugs. 
To the fathers and the mothers who are liable parents and do contribute properly to their children not just in a monetary sense but in terms of their upbringing I say: “Good on you!”. I know that sometimes families break up. I understand that but I also know that at the end of the day our children are our children for life no matter what else we happen to do.