Williams Poto: Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Poto: Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 15 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17994. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): I want to pick up on a point that the Hon Trevor Mallard made around the policy development regarding the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill. He talked about the kind of baseline information that the officials had in order to develop the policy. Well Trevor Mallard what I have to say about that is that when you are coming from the point of view that actually there are not 285000 children living in poverty when you are coming from the point of view of denying the real situation that exists in this country and when your Government is telling you to write a report that actually misses out all of that information of course you are going to come up with the option that the officials did as being the most useful option. Like you I do not want to blame the officials. They are coming from a position where the Government is saying really clearly that there are not 285000 children living in poverty and that there is nothing to see here—move along. That is the fundamental flaw in this piece of legislation.We are looking at the parental tax credit which is supposed to be extending the eligibility to people who were not previously eligible but really when you boil it down when you look at the actual components of that parental tax credit we start to exclude those people who are most in need. Why is that? Because people on the other side of the Chamber have got blinkers on when it comes to recognising the reality that many of our families live in.I do want to just comment on Tracey Martin’s point. Reading through the abatement discussion is totally confusing. I have no idea what that is about. I like you Tracey would welcome the Minister to stand and explain those particular parts of it.Hon Trevor Mallard: That wouldn’t help.POTO WILLIAMS: No possibly it would not. We probably have a better idea of what is going on with our families than he does. I have to say that where this really misses the point is that we are not looking at children as a whole and what will benefit them unlike our Best Start package which looks at 26 weeks’ paid parental leave. All the good science says that staying home with baby for 26 weeks is the way to go. It is the bare minimum that we should be supporting our families through. When we are looking at free antenatal care when we are looking at increasing early childhood education hours and when we are looking at providing money to every single family who has a newborn child up to the earning level of $150000 we are starting to address the real areas of need. We are saying that most of our families need that not just a select few. Most of our families need that.The Child Poverty Action Group breakfast this morning was called “The Loaves and the Fishes”. We all know the parable of the loaves and fishes where a certain man spoke to a crowd and he had nothing to feed them. There was a basket of—was it five loaves and two fish? And he had to feed the crowd on five loaves and two fish. Every time he went to the basket the basket would miraculously replenish itself. Unfortunately the reality for our families is that they go to their basket and look to replenish that basket but they find it empty.Dr Rajen Prasad: And this Minister doesn’t walk on water.POTO WILLIAMS: No he probably does not walk on water Dr Prasad. These families are required to produce miracles for their children every single day. They are required to produce miracles out of the barest of supplies.I also want to talk about the name of this bill. What is it? Let us see. It is the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill. I would like to call it the “Baby Steps When Actually Bold Steps Are Required Bill”. It is definitely not enough in terms of supporting our most vulnerable families or even those families who just find it really tough when newborns come along. Let us face it. When you have a new babythere are lots of stresses and pressures on you as a new mum. So maybe we could call it the “We Could Have Done What Was Asked For But We Did Not Bill” or maybe we could have called it the “We Gave Lollipops to Some”—