Tolley Anne: Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4) — Second Reading 
Tolley Anne: Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4) — Second Reading 
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ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) 
: 
 I stand to speak to the second reading of the Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4) as a member of the Social Services Committee and I thank the chairperson and fellow members of the committee for the work that was done on this bill. 
This bill brings to us several major changes to the legislation. First of all it intends to allow the writing off of half a billion dollars in penalties. 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: How much? 
ANNE TOLLEY 
: About half a billion dollars—it is a lot of money. Supposedly the intent of the bill is to write that money off to create an incentive for non-payers to start making payments again. I have difficulty with that logic. However that is one of the main intents of this amendment bill. 
It also allows the Commissioner of Inland Revenue—not just the custodial parent—to initiate a review of the liable parent’s affairs. It creates two new exceptions in the legislation: young people under 16 who meet certain criteria and victims of sex offences. It also allows an appeal to the Family Court for people who have been through an administrative support review and are not happy with it. 
It is with some sadness that I stand here with my colleagues today opposing a bill that actually contains many good features. We all believe the premise—and there was unanimous support in the select committee for it—that all parents have a responsibility to support their children. They have a responsibility to ensure that their children have every opportunity to grow and develop into good honest capable happy healthy New Zealanders. But National members cannot support this crazy idea that if we do not penalise those parents who shirk their responsibilities somehow that will send a signal that will make them start paying their way. I just cannot understand the logic. I questioned it throughout the select committee process and never really got to grips with the thinking behind that policy. I just do not believe that the Government understands the incentives that drive people to not support their children in the first place. Removing any penalties and trying to protect them from getting into debt do not actually deal with the main force that drives them to avoid looking after their children. 
I concur with Tariana Turia when she talked about the right of every child to have its mum and dad care about it and contribute to its upbringing. During the submissions we heard from a whole range of parents crying out for the opportunity to do just that. We had 70 submissions and a lot of them were about the Child Support Act rather than the bill that was in front of us. We had submissions from individual parents groups who were representing groups of parents legal firms and the Institute of Chartered Accountants—a whole range of people talking about a very important piece of legislation in family law. 
We also heard from some submitters who contested the need for this legislation in the first place. They said that in fact the Inland Revenue Department is currently able to conduct very serious investigations into liable parents’ affairs and had done so. They questioned whether we needed the provision in this amendment bill to give the commissioner further powers. 
I think for me the most interesting submissions came from a whole range of parents who were concerned about the way the law actually goes about maintaining support for children within current structures. We heard from a number of fathers who were talking about shared care arrangements and referring particularly to what was happening in Australia. That of course brings us to look at not just the liable parent and his or her financial and family circumstances but also the custodial parent. There was a huge desire to have recognised in legislation the joint responsibility of both parents for their children and a sharing of costs depending on both parents’ ability to earn a living and also the circumstances they found themselves in. 
 A very good submission was made by a gentleman who talked about the cliff effect whereby there is a rigid formula that the Inland Revenue Department currently works under and a percentage of custody entitles a person to a certain amount of support from the liable parent. That gentleman talked about what was happening in Australia where an attempt was made to even that out over a wider percentage range in order to give more flexibility to the arrangements that parents were making to look after their children. 
A number of submitters talked about the ability to determine paternity—an issue that was raised by fathers in particular obviously. Currently mothers have a veto so if someone disputes the paternity of the child whom he is being forced to pay maintenance towards he has no ability to demand a paternity test if the mother of that child refuses to have it. That seemed to be a bit unjust—in fact it seemed to be pretty unjust. There seemed to be consensus from many members of the select committee that we needed to look at the legislation with a view to making that situation better. 
The Institute of Chartered Accountants made a very good submission and I explored with the officials a number of the points that it had made. One of its points in respect of the new review that was being proposed within this bill was that the people conducting the review of the financial situation of the liable parent should have commercial law experience rather than family law experience because those people would bring much more to the table. Let us face it: the people we are trying to get at through that provision in this amendment bill are people who have very cleverly hidden their assets. The institute which is probably well versed in some of the ways that some liable parents hide their assets said that if the people involved in that review really understood commercial law and knew where to look there might be a better opportunity to dig out some of those facts. 
In conclusion I say that it is with some sadness that I find myself standing here opposing this bill. I oppose it because I believe that its basic tenet of letting parents off penalties in order to try to incentivise them to pay more child support does not make sense. I absolutely support many of the provisions in the bill and I hope the Minister of Revenue will take account of the submissions that were made and conduct a wider review of the Child Support Act.