Logie JanJAN LOGIE (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tēnā koe Heeni. [Mr Speaker holding baby] It's beautiful to see a baby in the Chair as we go into this debate and passing legislation that is—Hon Dr Megan Woods: Your microphone.JAN LOGIE: Microphone? Oh. [Adjusts microphone] Thanks. Ha ha! I couldn't work out the sign language.It is really fitting to see a baby in the Chair as we go into this final debate on the Families Package which is—Hon Members: Two babies.JAN LOGIE: —ha ha! And the Speaker; yeah it's late—in this legislation that will lift 88000 children out of poverty and 384000 families getting an average of over $70 extra a week. This is what it's about: that baby right there and all of those other babies around the country living in households that are cold because they don't have enough money to put the heater on through winter that don't have enough kai for mum to be able to look after herself while she is caring for baby where the future that that family is looking forward to has been informed by the poverty that's come before.This is a day where we say We are changing that story for our country."—that we are putting our children first. And this day hasn't come out of nowhere. This has been a result of conversations happening in our community from amazing groups like Child Poverty Action Group and Tick for Kids which is a massive coalition of organisations and individuals who've been asking I think 15 years for this House to put children first.So as we go in almost to the holiday period and look forward into the next three years I am proud to stand here and to say that children are at the centre of this new Government. And I do want to say that for the Greens we don't see this as the end of the conversation—that this isn't the end of what we are going to do for children. We recognise the outstanding issues in terms of the in-work tax credit in terms of benefit levels for those families as their children get older—that they aren't sufficient yet. We recognise that there is still entrenched inequality in our tax system and we would lower the tax rate at the bottom and raise it at the top. But we also know that we need to be able to support people in and out of paid work as we have so much churn in our workplace. These are issues that this Government is committed to engaging with. They're not going to be solved in 43 days. We've had a blimmin good start—my pretty language: blimmin good start—in 43 days at putting children first and those larger issues we are going to grapple with.We recognise that the accommodation supplement is necessary now but it is also a structural problem that is feeding money into the property owners who already have a lot and is driving up rents. We do want to engage with that as a problem and find a solution and this Government is going to do that because we are putting children and families first.As we go into this holiday period I do just want to remind and bring in the focus of the experience of children that has been given to us from kids over the years talking about that impact of poverty. I assume that many people in this House when they think about holidays have kind of romantic images of maybe what it was like for them. And I'll speak for myself for me when I had school holidays. It was time at the beach it was time camping it was time roaming with friends and coming back for barbecues and a Christmas holiday with a full table on the day and eating too much and waiting to open the presents.It's a time that I think many of us assume kids are going into right now. But the truth is that children in this country right now whose families are in poverty are worse off now than when they're at school because when they go to school there's charity that they're having to be reliant on that will give them breakfast and give them lunch. The holidays are a time of hunger and they're a time where there is no Christmas dinner there are no trips away there are no ice creams at the beach they're lucky even to have the money to be able to get to the beach if they live too far away and they can't even necessarily be sure to be able to hang out with their friends because their friends might also be in the same situation and they are too embarrassed to bring people home because there's no food in the fridge and there's nothing to play with.That is a shame on all of us and that is what this legislation starts to fix. It's not going to fix it for these holidays. The last Government's tax cuts wouldn't have either. But we are making that commitment that we are hearing those children's experiences and their voices and we are committing to doing better because all of those children deserve that idealistic holiday of running wild on the beach or in the park or on the streets. That matters in terms of building a life; not just existing. So the Green Party is proud to support this legislation to put our children first."