Delahunty Catherine: Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDelahunty Catherine: Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 15 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17998. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green):Tēnā koe Mr Chair. He mihi nui ki te whānauwhānuio tePāremata. I want to talk about the title and commencement clauses of this Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill. Although the Greens are supporting it we have to go on the record with our deep concerns about the underlying discrimination that is being perpetrated by this bill. The title is the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill but really it is for newborn children of good parents. You can forget about getting any help for bad babies because this is all about the good babies not the bad babies. It is about the babies who are allowed to have financial support from the collective taxpayer contribution and the babies who can go without because they are not OK.What is interesting when you are thinking about this title is that poverty is referred to very clearly in the regulatory impact statement. It says that “poverty is one of the greatest risks to children’s health and development” so it would be logical given the title of the bill to make sure that all of the smallest children—and particularly the poorest children who are at the greatest risk—get some relief. So it is very confusing to those of us who thought that the parental tax credit for example meant that all parentsand all babies would get it that some babies get it and some babies do not. I do not think that the public of this country actually want us to discriminate against babies.If one wants to listen to talkback and hear the hate speech against beneficiaries although that is an occupation that will not do us any good psychologically it is a way in which people vent their own frustration about low wages in this country by scapegoating beneficiary families. But that is not what Parliament should be doing. In the title of this bill we should be saying that this is support for all newborn children. That is what is missing from the title of this bill. It should be the “Budget Measures (Financial Support for All Newborn Children Without Discrimination) Bill” but we do not say that in the title. What we are doing is saying “Hey welcome to Victorian England. We will provide charity for the good people who are grateful or who are lucky enough to have a job but we will forget about everyone else who has got newborns. They can lie in the gutter.” which is what happened to many of the babies in Victorian England actually.But we would presume that in the 21st century there would be more courage and there is actually a failure of courage in the title. It should be clear that we support all our children and all our babies. It is completely perverse to create inequality and poverty while claiming as it does in the title to be a bill for the financial support of newborn children. It is discrimination and it is actually disturbing and perverse to see this happening because we believe that this was a wasted opportunity to actually support the people who are most in need and their babies.This week I have been touring decile 1 schools and talking to principals about families and their newborns. During the families and newborns discussion they have said that the most important thing is for those newborn children to get what they need when they are at their most vulnerable because if they do not get what is needed then by the time they reach school they are already at a disadvantage. So why would a Budget bill called the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill create disadvantage which is going to be manifest very soon in those small people’s lives? It is simply not acceptable it is not a fairer society and it is not what most people expect us to do in this House. It is disturbing.Further to the commencement date well this is being put through under urgency. I will tell you what is urgent: child poverty is urgent. Newborn babies of beneficiary families urgently need support. There is no margin of error for those people. For some of those mothers it is the most urgent experience that they have ever had and they urgently need our support. For those who are less in need but who will benefit from this bill—and that is good—they are not going to get it until 2015 so this is not urgency is it? This is not. This is an election year but it ain’t urgency. Why do we not sent this bill to a select committee and have the conversation about why the bad babies of the poor are not going to get anything? That is what I would like to have a discussion about. I think there are many many people and organisations that would like to hold the Government to account through the select committee process on this very issue.I am proud to be a member of the Green Party because we have never discriminated. We have always supported through our support for the court case that the Child Poverty Action Group took extending in-work tax credits to beneficiary families and their babies.