Radhakrishnan PriyancaPRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. May I begin my contribution to the KiwiSaver (Foster Parents Opting in for Children in their Care) Amendment Bill by commending the member Hamish Walker for the intent behind his bill which is to make life a little bit easier for foster children. It is a well-intentioned bill and he worked very collegially with members of the Social Services and Community Committee to get to this point. The amendments that were recommended by the select committee do narrow the scope of the bill a little bit but at the end of the day this bill will still benefit hundreds of foster children and I just want to state that up front.The original bill sought to enable any foster parent or kin carer to open an account with a KiwiSaver provider for any foster child in their care. Now under the current legislation—and I'm just going to read this bit because it's quite precise: under the current legislation section 35 of the KiwiSaver Act states that children under the age of 16 can only be enrolled in KiwiSaver if all of their guardians consent. Children under the age of 16 with a CYPFA which is the Oranga Tamariki guardian can be enrolled by the guardian without the need for consent from all the other guardians that this child might have. Now the Act defines the Oranga Tamariki guardians as the following: it could be the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki it could be an iwi social service it could be a cultural social service or the director of a child and family support service. So any other person who is a natural guardian or who might be appointed as the child's legal guardian under the Oranga Tamariki Act can only enrol a child in KiwiSaver when they have the consent of all the other legal guardians of this child. Foster parents who are not legal guardians are unable to enrol a child in their care into KiwiSaver and that's the crux of what Hamish Walker's bill is trying to change.Now the main amendment that came through officials' advice and has been recommended by the select committee is to enable only those foster parents who have committed to a long-term care arrangement to be able to enrol their foster child into KiwiSaver without the consent of the other legal guardians. So that's where the scope is a little bit narrowed but it's still broad enough to benefit I think it's about 500-600 foster children.Now I just want to point to the fact that this bill raised some very valid concerns in the eyes of the select committee members one of which came through submitters and was the time that it takes for children in care to obtain documents like birth certificates and IRD numbers which are prerequisites for their KiwiSaver account to be opened with providers. It takes some time as the member Hamish Walker has pointed out in his contribution as well and we were gladdened to hear from Oranga Tamariki officials that there are processes in place to actually speed this up and it is an issue that they are looking into as well.Some of the concerns that were raised by members and also through officials were that allowing all foster parents even those who have very temporary care arrangements with their foster children to be able to make what is considered a major financial decision for foster children including temporary ones is out of step with current legislation and with current practice where often temporary caregivers can't even make decisions like being able to cut their foster children's hair. So this sets a precedent and that's one of the points that was raised by officials.Now while members on this side of the House laud the benefits of KiwiSaver given that it was a previous Labour Government that introduced KiwiSaver as a scheme in the first place in 2006 to encourage working New Zealanders to set aside a portion of their earnings to fund their long-term income security we note—and I'd like to note specifically—that the previous National Government watered that scheme down considerably and this came up in discussions in select committee as well. I'm actually now pleased that the National Party finally recognises the importance of the KiwiSaver scheme that they tried again I mention to weaken by removing the thousand-dollar kickstart payment. Again this came up in select committee and the point was made that it would have been easier to get to a point of agreement with regard to this bill if there was actually that incentive still in place. The second was to introduce an employer superannuation contribution tax and decrease the maximum annual member tax credit from $1042 to about $521.Now the third problem—and this was a bit of an issue that I particularly wanted to look into in select committee—with allowing all foster parents including those who have very temporary care arrangements with their foster children the ability to enrol their temporary foster children into KiwiSaver is the issue of fees. Now there are currently about 30 KiwiSaver scheme providers out there and only one Simplicity has said that they will waive fees for foster children. I commend them for that and applaud them for that decision. The problem if foster children enrol through any other KiwiSaver provider though is that those fees could accrue and especially in temporary care arrangements it means that one foster parent might put in a lump sum of money; many others may not. If fees continue to drain the amount of money that they have in that account and it reaches a balance of zero by law that account will be shut which then means that those foster children have to go through the whole palaver all over again of opening another account. It could be detrimental for them because they end up losing that amount of money that's in there.So in conclusion the recommendation of the select committee was that this bill be passed with the amendments that came through and that are laid out very clearly in the select committee report. Once again I just want to thank Hamish Walker for engaging so constructively with the select committee and for his ambition to make life a little bit easier for foster children. I also want to thank as deputy chair of the select committee members who worked collegially to get to the point that we've reached today. I'd like to thank submitters many of whom shared very personal stories at the select committee as well and finally officials for their work that assisted us to make the decisions that we had to make. Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker.