Hipango HareteHARETE HIPANGO (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I have the responsibility to take a third reading call for the National Party on the Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill. Before I turn to address the House if I may acknowledge Judge Dugald Matheson Family Court Judge of W'anganui who has presided on the bench there for the last 12 years. Judge Dugald Matheson is retiring from the bench. He was appointed in 2011 whilst I was still serving as a Family Court Judge and I had the distinct pleasure and honour to appear before His Honour Judge Dugald Matheson who is now retiring after many years' service as a Family Court lawyer and many years of welcomed and treasured service on the bench in W'anganui.When Judge Matheson was on the bench and I appeared before him in the Family Court I often had child clients who were the children of sole parents and were also the subject of liable parents who often forfeited their responsibility to financially contribute and contribute in other meaningful ways in their child's or their children's lives. This Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendments Bill has been supported by the National Party with reservations that have been outlined by my colleague the Hon Louise Upston. The reservation that the National Party has expressed about this legislation is that the onus of responsibility—not the right of the parent but the onus of responsibility—of a liable parent is to support their child. Regrettably Government policy in legislation has actually been reinforced in ways that have locked many people into an oppressive sense of dependency on State welfarism.I heard my colleague across the House say that this is not a lifestyle choice. Reality check: regrettably I've represented a number of parents that through generations have become locked into State welfare dependency which had through the course of generations become something of an oppressive dependent welfarism. So reality check: I come from communities rich in culture but poor in terms of some of those values around mana motuhake which I've often talked about in this House. In mana motuhake to explain to people who don't really understand what that concept is mana is about the inherent dignity and the inherent essence of being able to stand with support; motuhake is the dependent community that you are reliant on and that you come from. Mana motuhake is what I often talk about and that starts in the whānau; it is not a State welfare responsibility. State welfarism is not something that should be a right of entitlement. On child support I've talked in this House again where this bill has focused on the sole parent rights. I come from a generation where we weren't premised—I wasn't nurtured in the values and principles of rights. It was about duty loyalty service and responsibility. And somehow over the course of time particularly with State welfare policies locking in a dependency that shifted from a responsibilities premise back to a rights premise.So back to the bill. This is about child support. This should be about what goes directly to as I've said in an earlier speech in this House the mouths of our babes. The whole focus of this legislation is about rights entitlements of sole parents supported by the State who has collected from the taxpayer and liable parents—those who contribute but those who don't and have shirked their responsibility as a liable parent fiscally and in many other ways. It's the State it's the taxpayer that has supplemented the contribution to the sole parent to provide and to feed the very mouths of those babes that I talk about.A lot of people may not understand what this legislation is about and I've heard colleagues in the House say—and the Minister who opened the debate today—that this is a complex piece of legislation. Yes and that was my very point right at the first reading. Because of the complexity of this why was this introduced under urgency? Why has this been brushed through in the space of some four weeks when there have been thousands of submitters—thousands—who have implored the Government: Actually let's not just focus on the children who are in the care of the sole parents and who the liable parent is responsible for." There are many children of two parents—a mother and a father be they sole benefit or liable parents—who are not in the care of either of those parents; they are in the care of caregivers and that is what the unsupported child's benefit is about which this Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill totally disregards—Angie Warren-Clark: We're working on it.HARETE HIPANGO: Totally disregards. And whilst we're working on it how long does it take this Government to realise and recognise this has been introduced under urgency and has totally dispensed with that bulk number of children? And I posed questions at the committee of the whole House to the Minister: how many of our children are not receiving the benefit of this from the liable parent because they're not in the care of either one or the other or both of the biological parents but are with a caregiver? And I can share with this House that many of those caregivers who I represented again in my role in the Family Court are nannies grandmothers—in the main grandmothers—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Ms Hipango we've been pretty tolerant. Let's get back to the bill—not what might be in the bill.HARETE HIPANGO: So back to the bill Mr Speaker: it's identified that the recipients the caregivers of the unsupported child's benefit do not directly benefit from this. And that's the concern and those were valid questions that were raised and presented to the Minister—to be told that this is a piece of work that's under review and Oranga Tamariki are looking at it.The issue and the concern and it's directly relevant—the pass on is about the pass on of the contribution from the liable parent which previously has been supplemented by the State. It's not going to the very children who would benefit from this. And this is called the child support amendment bill not the sole parent or the sole parent beneficiary bill. That's my point. So it's a pass on but actually it's a knock-on by this Government and the knock-on is that there's been a penalty overlooking the relevance and the significance of our children. And I am a child advocate and I'm the children's spokesperson for the National Party. But the thousands of children who do not benefit from this legislation—this is about tweaking the process for the collection of funds from a liable parent that's previously been supplemented by the State when now under this legislation there's no longer the requirement for a sole parent to have to apply for a formula assessment to the Inland Revenue Department that has collected and accumulated the taxpayer fund. What's of note and interest too—and this is where the public will be interested—is there's a news article report dated 27 March 2023: the Government keeps about $150 million each year of child support payments which would otherwise go to sole parents who rely on benefits. However this legislation to be effective as from July will now let those parents receive their child support payments directly from the contributing liable parent.So that's what this legislation is about. But the relevant fact that I make—and the Minister and Government did not respond—is how many children are missing out because the Government is taking its time with the review under Oranga Tamariki; the Government didn't take its time on introducing this legislation under urgency to rush it through the House for it to be implemented and effective as of July.So that's the very point: the oversight the knock-on effect that this has on those children who should also be entitled. A responsible Government has dropped the ball on this one."