Williams Poto: Support for Children in Hardship Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Poto: Support for Children in Hardship Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 10 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:7867. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): Kia ora. Tēnā koe Mr Chairman. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to this bill in the Committee stage. In this contribution one of many I hope to take over the course of this Committee stage I too want to keep my comments specific to subclauses (2) and (3) of clause 4 which are specific to the age your child will be when you are work tested to seek part-time work.There are many aspects of this that concern me. As with many people in this House I too was a single parent of a young child and I know the difficulties that anyone—whether you are parenting whether you are co-parenting or whether you are parenting alone—has with young children when you are required to go out to work and what happens with your child. What concerns me about the lowering of the age at which your child is when you are work tested is that there does not appear to be any evidence given that justifies that that is actually in the best interests of the child. None of the submitters to the Social Services Committee could provide any evidence at all that lowering the age of your child at which you are required to be work tested for part-time work from 5 years old to 3 years old is actually in the best interests of your child.Given this bill is called the Support for Children in Hardship Bill surely the care of your child as its mother or father or the significant adult in its life takes some primacy but there has been nowhere—in the select committee process none of the submitters were able to provide that evidence. I ask the Minister please whether she would take a call and explain to the Committee why the decision was made to lower the age to 3. And why 3? Why not 4? Why not 2½? Why not 3½? Why the age of 3? The only reason I could find for the justification for that age was a comment that the Children’s Commissioner made which was that on average when parents return to the workforce after the birth of their child that child is usually around the age of 3. That is the only evidence that has been submitted to the select committee as the reason why the age should be dropped to 3. There is no other evidence that shows that it is in the best interests of your children—none.All of the select committee submitters disagreed with lowering the age. There was not a single one who said they were in favour of lowering the age so that should be evidence enough to say that this is not a good move and it is not in the interests of the child. Let us quote some of the submitters.The New Zealand Nurses Organisation—not only was it concerned for the well-being of parents but it was also concerned about many aspects of the health of the children—the health and well-being. They say “the stricter work testing obligations and punitive sanctions regime”—because let us face it if for some reason you do not meet the obligations that are required you could face sanctions. There were 80000 sanctions that happened in the last year alone and they impacted 44000 children. When a family is sanctioned it means that money is taken out of their pockets and the children are impacted by that. So the New Zealand Nurses Organisation says that “the stricter work testing obligations and punitive sanctions regime—i.e. requiring parents to be available when their youngest child turns three rather than five as at present—is arbitrary and ignores child developmental and differences in family circumstances.”—arbitrary meaning there is no good reason. It is not acting in the best interests of the child.They also said: “The health of both parents and children is a significant consideration in parents’ ability to work outside the home. Nearly a quarter of Aotearoa New Zealand’s children are affected by asthma for example and are particularly vulnerable in their preschool years. It is a well-known cause of low and interrupted attendance at school and at work. Parents should not be pressured into leaving young children; if a parent is negatively stressed at work the impact on the children is likely to be negative”.Some of the contributors have already spoken about the difficulties in entering into childcare services for their children. Many of us know that if your children become sick they cannot attend childcare. If your child cannot attend childcare you cannot attend work. If you cannot attend work does that mean that your family will have a sanction imposed?Carmel Sepuloni: The only other option is leaving them at home by themselves.POTO WILLIAMS: That is right. So it leaves very few options. Particularly for people who parent alone it leaves very few options and it is not acting in the best interests of the children.Young children particularly in the ages 2 to 3 do get sick often and when they are sick as I say they cannot go to childcare. Where are the services to be set up to support that parent to have some other form of childcare that does not involve going to a public childcare service such as private in-home carers—is that going to be available? Where is the support from the employer when parents have sick children? We know that many of these parents are in precarious low-paid employment where employers can get another worker at a moment’s notice. So if they have any sense of unreliability about them particularly if they have children who are sick and they have to stay home and care for them they are likely to not be employee of the month and to potentially lose their jobs. How is that in the best interests of their children? Minister Tolley I really really urge you to stand and take a call on this.Let us see—what else have we got here? Oh yes I do want to talk about the Council of Trade Unions because it spoke not only of the 58000 people seeking part-time work but of the 100000 part-time workers who are currently looking for more hours. So we are going to require these parents to seek work. We all agree that being in work is beneficial—well-paid work secure work—but balance that against the pressure that they come under to find work when there are 100000 part-time workers seeking more hours diminishing the pool of part-time work available.It also says—this is the Council of Trade Unions submission—that “Single mothers in particular face a range of economic penalties as well as social difficulties. They are more likely to find only unpredictable part-time work making it hard for them to access the childcare and other support they need in order for work to be feasible.” Childcare is not universally available across the country at a time that is suitable for when you may or may not be required to work. We know that many of these parents will be in roles that may be shift work. They may be outside of the normal hours of childcare arrangements. What then? What then? Are they to be—how are they to be in a position where they can find part-time work—