Cunliffe David: Child Support Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCunliffe David: Child Support Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 09 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9156. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): There is a kids’ story about a little engine that was trying to get up a hill. It was trying and trying and trying and to get to the top it had to say that it was the little engine that could. Unfortunately the Minister of Revenue who has just resumed his seat appears to be the engine that could not. This is a huge missed opportunity.We all know that life takes interesting twists and turns that cannot be predicted. We all know that it is impossible to write a law that takes account of every unique personalcircumstance. But if the Minister was so committed in his final words to the paramountcy of the interests of children why did he miss the opportunity firstly to stay around and listen to this but secondly to write into the Child Support Amendment Bill that old principle of jurisprudence that the interests of the child should always come first? Why did National members of the select committee in question I am advised block a request by Labour members that the Social Services Committee write to that Minister and ask that that principle that he has just signed up to in passionate terms—for him—in the House be written into the law? Why was it not good enough for the Minister to put into the law the principle that the interests of the children should come first? It is the right thing to do. It is also in society’s interests because if children are given the best start they go on to be the most productive contributing members of society. As members opposite who have a history of law enforcement experience know well the children who go off the rails early are so hard to get back on the rails and the costs to society of lives gone wrong are so huge.So here we are. We have as a Parliament taken years to look at child support. I just want to flick back to some history. Around the time the Government changed in 2008 there was $1.3 billion of uncollected child support debt and penalties. Four years later under this Minister’s watch that has doubled to $2.7 billion of unpaid child support. It has doubled in 4 years. So the “Minister for Small Change” has fiddled while the child support system has been burning to the ground—burning to the ground.The previous Opposition spokesperson one Judith Collins said: “Writing off debt sends the worst possible message to absent liable parents.”Dr Rajen Prasad: Who said that?Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Judith Collins. What does this bill do? It writes down penalties. I happen to think and Labour happens to think that that is an appropriate change to make in that aspect of the bill. The penalties regime is so harsh that when liable parents get behind they quite often cannot catch up. They financially cannot possibly do it. Too many of them leave the country and that has the perverse effect of separating parents—usually fathers—further and further from their children who need that contact.So it is appropriate to reduce that debt but why did it take 4 years for the Government to change its mind? At least Peter Dunne has done the right thing in that respect. It is a shame that Judith Collins took the politically populist way out and simply slammed the parents. I come back to the central point. If this was the right thing why did it take the Government 4 years to do it and why has it now despite the urging of the Opposition refused to even consider putting in the legislation the principle that the interests of the children should come first? This is a huge missed opportunity.Let us talk a little bit about the formula change which is at the heart of this bill. The Minister says it needs to take account of more factors—that is true. Therefore it is to some degree more complex—well yes that may be true. But the formula is still not flexible enough it is still not transparent enough and it is still clearly unable to deal with the full range of family circumstances. And what are some of the key issues? The adequacy of the payments is really in question because the formula cuts in when a custodial parent has the child only 28 percent of the time. I do not know how they worked out 28 percent—Dr Rajen Prasad: Two out of seven.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Two out of seven. There you go—2 days a week. That is a very small share of time for that formula to cut in. And the implication of that is that for the primary custodial parent—which let us face it is usually the mother—the analysis presented to the select committee says that they are likely to get less on balance for the support of those children. Less money will go to the mothers and the childrenunder this formula and yet the costs of administering it by the Government’s own admission in the regulatory impact statement are going to go up. There is $100 million—$100 million—in extra administration cost.Andrew Little: How much?Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: A hundred million dollars’ worth. The Government is buying $100 million of red tape to wrap a bow round a debt mountain that has doubled on its watch.In addition to that there is $42 million more that is going into the estimated Crown liability for the gap between what liable parents pay and what custodial parents get. So there is $100 million more red tape and there is a gap of $42 million more. This does not sound like a system that has suddenly been fixed. This is a system that is being fiddled with and frankly the children of New Zealand expect and deserve more from this Government than fiddling with a system that it has taken 4 years to bring to this House.So it is with considerable sadness rather than anger in any sense that the Labour Opposition is saying that this is so much of a missed opportunity that we are sorry we cannot support the passage of this bill. We say to the Minister and the Government again now to stop and take it back to the drawing board write in the primacy of the interests of the children introduce real-world flexibility into the payment formula make it transparent protect the position of the mothers and the children and make this a system that is worth Parliament’s time. Let us not be the Parliament of small tinkering changes because we have not got the vision or the courage to make the big ones that we need.Andrew Little: Step change not small change.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Step change not small change—an echo from the Committee stage wonderfully penned by our justice spokesperson Andrew Little. Step change not small change. That is at the heart of this debate.It is doubly disappointing that National has taken this long when it has presided over a doubling of the debt when it has flip-flopped on its earlier criticisms of the bill and when members of the select committee have refused even to write to the Minister on the issue of the primacy of the interests of the child. That all adds up to a missed opportunity.There are some matters that are more operational in nature that I will briefly mention in this third reading contribution. The first is the issue of automatic deductions. Labour has raised concerns about the unintended consequences contained in provisions that strengthen the Inland Revenue Department’s ability to make automatic deductions without consent. I note that today on the same day as the third reading of this bill the same Minister has issued a press release suggesting that the Inland Revenue Department should be able to share for the first time personal and private taxpayer information with other Government agencies for the purpose of crime fighting. That in a week—Metiria Turei: They will just email it.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: They will just email it around the whole Government. And how long will it take for the first civil servant to press “broadcast send” and put people’s personal tax information in the public domain? If you have a problem with that just send it to the Prime Minister and he will probably ring someone and ask them to broadcast it before he makes them I do not know the head of New Zealand On Air or the head of the Government Communications Security Bureau. That is how this “Shon-key” works: ring a mate put them in a sensitive position breach the public trust—and the members opposite are squirming. They are squirming because they know that that is a very serious breach of the public trust. That has got their blood flowing has it not? What a mistake to have a third reading speech on the subject of personalprivate tax information on the same day that the Government put out a press release calling for the broadcast of personal tax information. Dig your way out of that one Mr Lotu-Iiga.