SpeechDAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Thank you for the opportunity to rise on behalf of ACT today. We'd like to convey to the House that ACT will do what it needs to do to make this successful but we'd like to—without taking any disagreements with the current Minister who we're pleased has brought this bill to the House—step back a little bit to talk about the fact that $1 billion has been paid by parents in child support over the past five years to the Government. The practical reason the Government said that they wouldn't pass it on was because it would have to pay for the costs of the welfare system. I think the people of New Zealand—the solo mothers the Pasifika and Māori mothers and caregivers—deserve an apology from the Prime Minister because of the pain that this has enacted on New Zealand society. A third of these payments have been intercepted by the IRD and it has been described as work that Jacinda Ardern wanted to complete as Prime Minister and it was called a parent tax. But this is no time for spin and I noticed Mr Hipkins came out the other day and said that this policy has been defended as a way for the Government to fund the welfare system. Mr Hipkins described it not as a tax on the poor but a diversion of the child support payment. This is where the bureaucratic system in this country is getting the connection with the public wrong. This is a very serious matter that needs to be resolved. It has caused endless pain in households up and down the country it has stopped the incentivisation of men paying for proper child support for their children and it has affected children's livelihoods. The Government hasn't defused this over the last five years and it is not enough to hide behind the fact that this is a complex bill. Complexity over five years can be surely fast-tracked. If you look at the regulatory impact statement this has never made logical sense in this country and the payments now which will be counted as income have a solution that takes it out of the hands of the IRD. That's a good thing: 41000 sole parents are affected by this. It's an extra 20 bucks a week median-wage wise. But the policy has been totally discriminatory against these people and we believe an apology is necessary to get over this hump of miserableness and illogical Government settings that have allowed this benefit to be distorted.There's no policy that should be defended as a way to defend the welfare system or the IRD system as a cost. Just to give you some facts and figures which I think are important the costs and savings for the Government are as follows: $458 million is the cost of passing on child support—that is no longer retaining child support to offset the cost of income-tested financial assistance. There's $25 million—that's the cost for enabling child support liability to be considered allowable costs for temporary additional support and special benefit purposes. Then there are savings of $175 million from benefit statement due to increased incomes passing on child support payments and then savings of $25 million on how child support is treated for the purposes of income-related rent subsidy. This will provide a net benefit of 41000 sole parents receiving something extra in their pockets at the end of each month. This was a social contract that has been abused. ACT will support the bill in its first reading to select committee. We are disappointed as well with regards to the fact that this process is short and ironically is being pushed through in an election year when it should have been dealt with in a fashion when Jacinda Ardern was in Government herself. So we now look at the impact of this tax—or is it a diversion payment? We don't know but we'll find out. But it is sad that $1 billion paid by parents in child support over the past five years has gone to the Government and it hasn't been managed properly. For that reason the ACT Party requires change and real reform in this area. Thank you Mr Speaker.