Potaka TamaTAMA POTAKA (National—Hamilton West): Kia orana koutou kātoatoa. Mālō e lelei. I've got great pleasure in presenting on this bill at its third reading and I honour the Hon Carmel Sepuloni moving this matter urgently. Now like the majority of submitters on this bill we support it albeit with reservations. That sounds like my wife actually when I proposed marriage: Tautoko heoi taihoa e Tama". [A great idea but let's have caution.]National like others here is astonished and whakamā by the poverty that besets all Kiwis young and old. We want to see fewer whānau and fewer tamariki in poverty. An extra $20 in the whare is like my learned sister Soraya Peke-Mason has said a bit more parāoa a couple of huarākau or some miraka a—ka pai hoki. Now the social numbers are facing a dramatic and unfortunate course with 260000 or so Kiwis on main benefits for a year or more in 2022. There has been an increase from 10.7 years to 12.8 years in the expected time an individual will be on the benefit during their working life since Labour came into Government and of course there is the move from 60000 Kiwis on sole parent support to 73000 since December 2017 to today. For children—tamariki—it's even more urgent and galling with 35000 more kids waking up in benefit-dependent homes than five years ago—that's sad—and 3000 kids waking up in emergency housing and motels—sad. Actually I met up with a young wāhine—Everest—and her tamariki recently who are now living in transitional housing in New Zealand's finest electorate Hamilton West after eight moves in two years in emergency homes in Hamilton and of course there are 25000 applicants on the social housing wait-list which is up since 2017 from 5000. The Government's ambitious target—ultimately misconstrued—to lift 100000 children out of poverty by 2020 based on children living in homes receiving less than 50 percent of the median income has not been reached. It's not even close as it's still about 80000 children short. If this bill helps 14000 children out of poverty—if it does and there's no assessment of the likelihood of this—we'll get a little bit closer to 100000 but that's still well short of halfway to that target. As you know the numbers of Māori who fall into this welfare trap are disproportionate to our population demographic but I bet that not one rangatira who signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840 thought that kāwanatanga was going to explode into the Government being an incomplete surrogate father or mother. But that is the tricky destination that this current Government seems to be leading us towards and charting for young Māori in benefit support and housing and I wish we could say in education but 62 percent of Māori kids didn't turn up to school regularly last term. I've had a long read of the eight versions of the Treaty including the one by Sir Hugh Kāwharu and his translation and nowhere in those did I see that William Hobson or Queen Victoria guaranteed that the Government would repeatedly step in as a surrogate parent. My learned colleagues from Waiariki and Te Tai Hauāuru who are not here today and who rely on original interpretations may also share views in that regard—not cool whānau not cool. Now we've got a genuine concern that by allowing parents to have their child support paid for by the Government taxpayers will become the responsible provider for these children. This cannot be the case in this Whare in this city or in this country. Once we go there the mana motuhake of whānau and tamariki is turned into something more squishy. That is called big Government—a proliferation and a proselytization of big Government and the spin that goes with it. Liable parents are just that—liable—and not liable until the taxpayers are surreptitiously used to fiscally fund whānau who are not turning up to deliver on their parental responsibilities. Now National appreciates that this bill will tweak the way in which the relevant children receive income. This will help people in need during a cost of living crisis which is making it difficult for Kiwis—nearly all Kiwis—to remain committed to staying in this great country of ours. It also proactively deals with the unequal playing field between different beneficiaries and improving the administration of social security. This is the right change and it is sensible—kei te mihi e te Minita. We want to see fewer children in poverty and a focus by the Government on reducing the number of children in benefit-dependent homes but the larger challenge of course remains the increased cost of living that the Government currently has us under. A lot of single parents have been doing it tough—we agree. The bill adjusts the way in which the children receive income and this will help the people in need during the cost of living crisis. It might actually be better addressed by adjusting tax brackets though and enabling people to keep some of the moneys that they already earn. We need to help our whānau emerge from the welfare trap and the State is more responsible in the level of support it can provide. We are concerned that the Government is unable to state whether this bill will increase the overall costs for sole parents and/or benefit-dependent parents. E te Māngai o te Whare tēnā koe."