Logie Jan: Support for Children in Hardship Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLogie Jan: Support for Children in Hardship Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3531. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAN LOGIE (Green): I would like to start my speech on this bill by paying tribute to sole-parent families on a benefit who are struggling to do the best for their children who are parenting alone 24 hours a day 7 days a week and who are struggling to be able to put food on the table and feed their children. I acknowledge their children all too many of whom do not have a bed of their who do not have enough to eat who are surviving on sandwiches because some days that is all that is left in the budget at the end of the week who do not get Christmas presents or birthday presents because there is not enough money in the family budget to be able to pay for them and who cannot afford schools trips. I really want to acknowledge those children. I want to acknowledge the New Zealanders who have been fighting for years and who have been raising their hearts to the Government to stand up to change this situation. The well-being of our children is the soul of our country. When our children are suffering we are suffering as a country. So I want to acknowledge that fight and all those people who have forced the Government into this measure which is the first time that benefit rates have been increased since 1972.The Greens have been raising issues of child poverty for over a decade now. We are passionate about changing this reality because we know it is possible. Although we are hearing from the Government that this is the first time since 1972 that benefit rates have been increased the Government is admitting the fact that it cut the benefits in 1990 and that we are still not even returning with this increase to the level they were at in 1990. For most families this $25 is not actually $25 because this $25 will be eroded by cuts to the accommodation supplement and the temporary additional assistance supplement which many families are using just to get by. So the $25—which is the cost of say nappies for one child—is not even going to be that much extra in the hand for all too many of our families. So when you think of those children who are going without shoes who are going out without raincoats who are going without school trips and who are going without birthday presents and enough food to eat we know that this is not the answer. The Greens will support this bill because it is something. Those children need something but they deserve a whole lot more than this.I also really just want to raise a very real concern that we have with this bill. It is another example of the Government giving with one hand and taking with the other. What this bill will do is require parents with children who are just 3 years old to go out and look for 20 hours a week of work. Sole parents who are doing the job of caring for their family alone are now going to be expected to be working for a minimum of 20 hours a week as well as providing for the needs of their children. We know that that may actually mean a reduction in their incomes because of the abatement on the benefits. It will work out to I think about $2.20 an hour extra if they are getting $15 an hour in those jobs. We know most of those jobs sadly are at very minimum wages. That is actually probably not going to cover the cost of travel childcare or the clothes that are expected to be worn in that job—let alone the extra needs of those children to compensate for not having their parent there. I really want to say that although we are hearing a lot in the House about how we expect you to work if you can work the Green Party believes that caring for young children and children with complex needs is work. It is something that we value and that we believe will pay off in the long term for the entire society if we support it.As a society we have no concept yet of what the consequences are going to be in 20 years’ time of a generation of adults as they will be by that stage who have not had time with their parents who have been in the care of strangers for so many hours a week and whose parents have lost out on the opportunity to participate in Playcentre kōhanga reo or other family-centred childcare movements that have provided so much to our communities and so much in terms of growing knowledge around parenting for those families and our children. We have no concept yet of what the consequence will be of separating parents from their children as these kinds of policies are doing. I think it really really requires from this House and from the publicsome deep thought about this issue.The Green Party will certainly not be supporting this bill past the select committee stage unless this changes because our children deserve at least one parent who is able to be there for them in those early years. They deserve that ability for attachment and security. Again as is my wont I will remind this House that the indications are that of sole parents 70 percent are probably leaving violent relationships. Think of the needs of those children and that woman—typically—to resettle themselves to recover to actually bed in and get well and move on in their lives and think about whether that is actually possible while they are juggling the care of their children and working 20 hours a week. I would say from my experience of working with women in that situation that for many of them it is not possible and the needs of their children will suffer. That will put many women in a situation of feeling as if they are conflicted enough to go back into a relationship that is not safe.This bill raises many many concerns for us as a party and as a House. Also I really want to mention that while we are being told the Budget will also offer increases to Working for Families it is a little bit more complicated than that in that the change to the abatement rate without changing the abatement threshold will result in a family with one partner working being worse off than they currently are if their annual income exceeds $36406 or if they are getting $17.50 an hour. An extra 2c-per-hour income for those people will eat up the entire $12.50 increase in the base rate for the in-work tax credit component of Working for Families. With incomes still well below a living wage those people will actually be worse off under this proposed Working for Families regime. So we are being told by this Government that it has suddenly got the message that everyone’s lobbying around the welfare of our children has got through—that the Government has got it! It is making this change to Working for Families but in actual fact it is such a marginal change and within that change some families are actually going to be worse off.I am pleased that this bill is not passing through all stages under urgency because there certainly seems to be enough in here that we need to look at really closely. To conclude I really want to go back to the fact that we have over a quarter of a million children living in poverty in this country—between 60000 and 100000 without decent shoes without enough to eat without Christmas or birthday presents or without warm clothes or a bed of their own. Those children need us to fix this problem and sadly this bill will not fix this problem.