SpeechHARETE HIPANGO (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. It is indeed quite a responsibility to take a call on this Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill and I do so in support of the bill in support of the Minister the Hon Carmel Sepuloni in support of my colleague the Hon Louise Upston both of whom are women who have been dedicated as parliamentarians in this highly specialised area and highly needed support area for our children.As spokesperson for children for the National Party it's important that—and I've said this on many an occasion in this House speaking to child welfare legislation and this is child support legislation—we keep a lens on those children front centre and foremost to ensure that they are deserved of the best welfare that not only the State and the nation can provide but their families. So this bill is very much a technical bill; a highly complex bill. It's often referred to in the House—and for the sake of lay people who were listening in this is an omnibus bill. The term omnibus is derived from Latin and means two four by with or from everything". So with this being a proposed piece of law—legislation—as an omnibus bill it is a single document that is accepted in a single vote by a legislature but packages together several measures into one or combines diverse subjects. So I say that because the explanatory note to this bill identifies that in being an omnibus bill it is addressing amendments to three other pieces of law—Acts—two sets of rules and two sets of regulations. So in total this is a bill that—in its complexity—is addressing seven different elements of the law all encompassed and wrapped up into one. So that's one element of its complexity and the technical aspect. The other element of course is drilling into the detail of what benefit entitlement there is to the sole parent families. So again in the explanatory note to this amendment bill—and for those members of the public listening in—the estimated general effect of this is that approximately 41550 sole parent families will receive on average $65 per week of child support income with a median gain of $24 per week. What does that mean? In essence this is a bill that is addressing the entitlement under a State welfare provided system to those sole parent families to now be the direct recipients and beneficiaries of a liable parent payment that is currently at the moment rerouted through IRD. This legislation will redirect and direct payments from the liable parent directly to the sole parent and the subject child. That's the importance of the child-centricity element of this bill this legislation. It is highly specialised and technical. It will go before the Social Services and Community Committee for scrutiny. The concern that my colleague the Hon Louise Upston has identified is the truncated process; Minister Sepuloni has indicated that the select committee is to report back to this House by 24 May. A prior speaker—and the Minister in fact—said that this has been a policy in place since 1936 that it is now before the House introduced and now at its first reading will go before select committee but it's being rushed through under urgency. It is so important that we get this right. And the reason to get this right from my point of view as the children's spokesperson is the impact that it will have on the children. Ultimately the State welfare system is where the parent is unable to provide and there is a liable parent—the State has been drawing funds from those parties towards the sole parent who is providing for the needs of the child or the children. My mind turns to—before we had a State welfare system the dependence and the responsibility lay at the fabric of society which is the family and the whānau. This is a substitute for those families for those parents for those caregivers who for variable reasons are dependent on the State to do that. There has been mention made that we wish to see fewer children in poverty and that this is one means of lifting or easing children out of poverty. This addresses some material hardship; not all. This is a way of working—tweaking—the system that will ensure that the liable parent payments are directed directly into the mouths of our children. But that's going to be dependent on the response. Hopefully the responsible parent in prioritising and making decisions that the extra handout from the State is going to be responsibly managed by the parent to ensure that that goes directly into the mouths of our babes. That's not always the case. So to suggest that this is going to address poverty is tinkering at the edges. My point is that coming from a generation where many did not depend on the State they depended on community and the responsibility of those within our whānau to provide. And I've mentioned in the House before conversations that I've had with some of my elders one of whom is the Hon Tariana Turia. And also he has come up in conversation he has since passed the Hon Parekura Horomia. Coming from a generation where poverty was something that was there in terms of deprivation of material provision but we had subsistence standard of living and providing and meeting the needs and the means of our children and our families. And what's come out of the kōrero and the conversations from some of the old people—which I happen to be becoming one of those more quickly than I would like—is that poverty of spirit is a big factor that's impinging on our society. So this legislation addresses the material struggles and hardships but it does not address and lift the responsibility and elevate the importance of addressing value systems addressing attitudes and lifting our people out of that poverty of spirit. I think it's important to put that into context because as a child advocate many of my former clients were dependent on the State and I would have conversations with them about the importance of the family support that they came from. And I know Mr Speaker I'll be reminded to come back to the bill but this does have bearing on this bill because the message is that—as a child advocate representing not only children but mothers but fathers but grandparents—it's about how we as a fabric of whānau can provide the supports without being dependent on the State and wrapped up in generations of oppression of State welfarism. In the final minute—and less—that I have the point that is being made from my kōrero to the House today is: yes we can have legislation that will provide for material means. We don't have legislation that provides for the importance of values and addressing that poverty of spirit that our old people the Hon Tariana Turia the Hon Parekura Horomia and others of their ilk who have gone before who will always come back and say "Mana motuhake starts in our whānau."We will get into the detail of the bill. I've transgressed from what I was going to say but the important thing to say is that we focus on the importance of feeding our babies. This bill is about child support and to ensure that what support comes from the State the responsible parent ensures that it goes into the mouths of our babes."