Roy Heather: Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4) — First Reading 
Roy Heather: Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4) — First Reading 
[Volume:628;Page:513] 
HEATHER ROY (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I rise to speak to this first reading of the Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4) with a certain sense of déjà vu. I think back to the very first bill that came before Parliament beyond the Address in Reply debates and the Imprest Supply Bills when I was a new MP 3 years ago. That bill was also a social welfare bill and the Minister responsible for it I think surprised everybody in the House by approving the ability of sole parents not to have to undergo work tests until their youngest child was 18. I felt at the time that that probably was not something he normally would have agreed with. In fact in years gone by he probably would have voted against it. 
I suspect that this child support amendment bill also falls into that category and I reinforce the comments Judith Collins made in her speech when she said she suspected that Mr Dunne would like this bill to be toughened up at the select committee stage. I suspect it will pass this first reading because the Government will have the numbers for that. 
ACT will not be supporting the bill. We have several quite grave concerns about it although there are some good points in it too. But as a new member of the Social Services Committee I look forward to receiving this bill there so that we can work on it and get the best possible outcome for our children. 
There is certainly no doubt that because of the splitting up of families children have to put up with and endure many tragic circumstances for a large number of reasons. I think there certainly is widespread support for the legislation from every party in this House. No one would deny that our children must come first when we look at legislation being put in place particularly with regard to welfare. However the ACT party thinks that this bill only tinkers with many of the very real problems that many children in this country—too many children—face when it comes to issues of welfare and specifically with regard to this bill issues of child support. 
The tinkering that I mentioned has been well spoken of and the issues I think have already been pretty much addressed. It is disturbing to think that the proportion of financial support debt as outlined in the commentary—and that includes child support debt represented by penalties—exceeds outstanding core liabilities and continues to grow. I think that we as legislators and parliamentarians should be very concerned about that. As Dr Hutchison pointed out we are talking here about $500 million of debt. That is a lot of debt; it is a lot of money in anybody’s book and we should be very concerned about it. 
I also note Dr Hutchison’s point about how much this bill being implemented in its current form—no doubt there will be changes at the select committee—will cost the country. I hope that we will have a regulatory impact statement made available to us at the select committee so we can look at those issues. I am afraid that in the 3 years I have been here already we have had far too many bills before select committees where no regulatory impact statements have been done so that we as legislators trying to do our best for New Zealanders and particularly for vulnerable New Zealanders—in this case children—have not known how much the legislation will actually cost. Only too often regulatory impact statements have been promised but never delivered. I hope that that will not happen in this case although I fear it may well do. 
It was also disturbing to read in the explanatory note that more than half of all liable persons are in arrears. That tells me that the system we have in place is failing. We have to ask ourselves now whether this legislation this bill before us now will alter that at all. I fear the answer to that question is “No.” I think some big questions are being raised—in fact more questions are raised than answers are presented with this legislation. 
I want to come back to a point that many others have touched on which is the rights and responsibilities of parents. The first obligation of parents of course is to provide the support their children need to live in a safe and happy environment. There is an obligation and a responsibility but this bill touches on only one of those. Responsibility though is across the board. It is most important in an emotional sense but this bill touches on the financial aspects only. Far too many people unfortunately—mostly fathers but also some mothers as others have pointed out—are not taking up their responsibility of providing properly for their families and for their children. 
I would like to raise a new point though that has not been mentioned and I mention my colleague Dr Muriel Newman who sadly is no longer in this House. She fought long and hard for many welfare issues. In particular one issue that is relevant here is that of shared parenting. She fought long and hard for shared parenting to be the norm unless there was a good reason that it should not be so as opposed to the situation of having just one custodial parent. Her battle will continue I am sure. But one thing we ignore in this bill when we concentrate on just the financial aspects is that many other options could be explored for the benefit of our children here in New Zealand. 
I have been the social services spokesperson for ACT for only a very short time but already I am inundated with many many letters every week—as I suspect those on the select committee and other spokespeople for social welfare also are. A letter I got last week springs to mind. It was from somebody who felt that there were many unfairnesses when it came to child support. We should be trying to promote fairness in this bill too of course. 
 The letter asked where a non-custodial parent has provided support for his or her children for many years and the former partner has since remarried or joined with somebody else and is now on quite a significant income how fair it was that the non-custodial parent is still obliged to support the children although that parent may not be in good financial circumstances. The non-custodial parent still has a heavy and burdensome obligation to those children despite the fact that he or she is denied access to them. 
Issues like this must be raised. I am sure that they will be at the Social Services Committee. Submitters will tell us stories very like that one. Many people—particularly fathers—are denied access to their children but are paying their dues. They are taking responsibility. They want to take much more responsibility for their children. They accept financial responsibility yet they are denied access to their children and I do not think that in anybody’s mind that would be considered fair. 
I will finish by talking about incentives. The incentives are one reason ACT will not support this bill. We feel that the incentives in this bill are wrong. When we talk about writing off funding we provide a perverse sort of incentive. We give an incentive to those people who have not paid and who have got into arrears for whatever reason but we then disadvantage the people who all along have been accepting their responsibility in good faith. The incentive suddenly becomes topsy-turvy when we talk of cutting off payments and of people not having to pay arrears. 
Other ways to deal with that issue must be explored. Some of them are very simple. ACT has always heavily promoted mentoring. In some cases people who get into arrears do so not because they do not have the money but because the money they do earn has not been budgeted wisely. Areas like that could be explored. Tax cuts are another issue that I find myself coming back to just about every time I get to my feet in this House. If we put money back into people’s pockets because they have earned it then people in that position would find that because they have more money in their pockets they might well be able to budget their own money more effectively and to good cause in order to support their children. 
There are many areas we could look at and I certainly hope that the Social Services Committee when it receives this bill—as I am sure it will—will explore them rather than just look at a very narrow field of writing off money and providing perverse incentives that really do no one any good. Certainly I have great confidence that the committee will take this bill very seriously and deal with it in a very constructive manner. Despite the fact that ACT will not support this bill going to the select committee—we will oppose the bill at this stage—I hope that it will be much more than just a tinkering tool and will benefit children in New Zealand who are vulnerable and dependent on the Government for their income. I hope we can toughen up the bill and make sure that the fairness I talk about exists and that the incentives are in the right place.