Ngaro AlfredHon ALFRED NGARO (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's an honour to be able to speak in the second reading of the KiwiSaver (Foster Parents Opting in for Children in their Care) Amendment Bill with my parliamentary colleague and caucus colleague also Hamish Walker. He brings in this bill because he was approached by constituents in the local community who were pleading with them a case in which over a number of years not only have they been battling with Oranga Tamariki but also too the effort and the intent is to provide the best possible future for the children that are in their care. So that's been the intent of this bill as well. Though we may think that KiwiSaver is a small part in a sense of the care process the intent is that—and we would all agree in this House—even foster children or children in care should have the same rights as all children. On many occasions and in many situations many of the children that have come in there have often been through tragic and almost always traumatic situations and incidents. So the intent of a foster carer and kin carer is to provide first of all some normality a caring place of wellbeing and at the same time too if it is a long-term guardianship situation it is to provide some normality in regards to progressing in the ways that most young people would as well. So that's the whole intent of this bill as it has come.We have around about 6000 foster children that are currently in care either in foster care or in kin care as well. So there is quite a significant number. When this bill was introduced the whole intent of it was to again ensure the opportunities where over a longer period of time by amending section 35 of the KiwiSaver Act of 2006 this would enable those foster carers and kin carers at the same time the ability to be able to enrol these children into KiwiSaver. That was the whole intent. That's what the effort was.Over that period of time I was in the Social Services and Community Committee in which we heard 19 submissions and in fact one even from the Inland Revenue Department themselves to talk about the whole process in regards to the benefits and the pros and the cons to this. The majority were in support of the intent but it was trying to fine-line I suppose the details of what was there.I know that as the bill is reported back into the House in this second reading there are some changes. I want to commend the member for consistently advocating for the true intent of what this bill was. I know that the previous speaker Jan Logie spoke about ensuring that there was still provision for connectivity between biological parents and ensuring that their rights weren't removed—that wasn't the intent of this bill. This bill was—and particularly where there were long-term care arrangements where there were quite clear situations in which they wanted to provide better provisions for the child; that was the intent of the bill. So as the bill comes back by way of supporting the bill National Party members of the select committee have put in our own minority view but we're supporting this. We know that currently as it is formed it will support up to 500 children and foster carers as well. We're hoping that through the committee stage—I know the member himself will be putting some Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) to try and see if we can continue to improve the bill so that the rest of the 5500 others that are there may be impacted may be benefited by this bill as it progresses through the House as well.I think there are just a couple of things that I want to highlight that I believe are important in this bill in what it's seeking to do. In particular what I think is important is the eligibility to allow—and we heard from officials that actually currently at the moment under the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki there was still an ability and a provision to allow them to enrol but that wasn't always the case hence the reasons why the advocacy from the member to give provision for the ability for those guardians to be able to make that call. This wasn't I believe an onerous task. I don't believe this was taking away the intent so that the connectivity between a biological parent would be removed. What this was in the whole care plan and the pathway for the future for these young people who often have difficult situations and circumstances—the intent of the member and those caregivers who came to him as constituents was to ensure that they too had the ability to make provision for them with this.So yes while we do support this bill to the House we look forward to the committee stage. The hope is that Government members will be able to have the opportunity to deliberate. Some of the SOPs that will be put forward by the member—I think that these changes will still have the intent of the bill but will improve it. We commend this bill to the House.