Walker Holly: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Walker Holly: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 20 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5536. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
HOLLY WALKER (Green) 
: 
 I am proud to stand in strong opposition to the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. I would like to focus my comments in particular on the impact that this bill will have on children. Children are something we are all talking about at the moment and I think that if there is one thing that we all agree on in the House it is that we are failing our children currently when we allow one in four children growing up in New Zealand to live in conditions of deprivation and poverty. 
This bill makes the bold assertion in the explanatory note that it will improve outcomes for children by helping parents out of poverty. If only that really was the focus of the welfare system or the focus of this bill. But in fact this bill will do quite the opposite and I want to address my comments to that today. So the way that this bill is supposed to help improve outcomes for children is through rather sinister and Orwellian language—which I think is probably familiar to members who remember Jenny Shipley’s code of social responsibility which I remember debating at high school—in terms of talking about social obligations: “Using the welfare system to reinforce some important social norms relating to children’s education and health through the use of obligations that beneficiaries with children must meet in order to continue receiving Government assistance.” I find that language very concerning as I am sure do many members of the House. 
Those obligations as we have heard are things like ensuring that children are enrolled in 15 hours of early childhood education from the age of 3 enrolled at a primary health organisation to receive health care meeting their Well Child checks and being enrolled at school when they are of age to do that. Those are all good things for children to do but there is an inherent tension and a lack of logic in the Government’s approach to these issues in this bill and it goes like this. We have a problem of child poverty and we know that children are missing out on the basics and are not having access to the services that they need to get the best start in life. We want to do something about this. And the Government says what we are going to do about this is provide parents with less income with which to provide those basic services. 
The logic goes in circles. Parents do not have enough income to provide the basics so we will punish them for not providing the basics by cutting their income. It is absurd. It is absolutely absurd logic and it completely undermines the bill’s supposed objective to improve outcomes for children because all it will do is place children and their families in greater hardship. The Government knows that it will place children and their families in greater hardship because it actually budgets to do that in its costings and the way that it anticipates the bill will apply. 
So never mind the fact that families already make trade-offs in stretched financial environments like with doctors’ bills versus power bills and fuel versus food which could be a very legitimate reason for not being able to meet those so-called social obligations. Indeed it may be impossible for them to do so because they do not have access to those services in their area or because their primary health organisation has a closed book or a long waiting list or because their local early childhood education provider or kindergarten accepts children for only up to 12 hours a week so they cannot meet the 15 hours a week requirement. All of these are perfectly legitimate reasons not to meet these obligations. The Government knows this and it knows that around 2000 families will find it difficult to meet these obligations. It has budgeted for and fully expects to sanction around 1300 parents a year in these situations. That is a huge number of children who will be adversely affected by those sanctions. There is something very wrong and very cynical about that. Budgeting for savings from sanctioning families which the Government knows will disadvantage children—essentially it is banking the kids’ lunch money. It is very disappointing and it is very disturbing. Again it completely undermines its apparent objective of improving outcomes for children. 
It also breaches our international human rights obligations like the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child for children to have the right to benefit from social security. It is an absurd logic that underpins this bill and it is a logic that will do nothing more than harm children who are already vulnerable and whom we all acknowledge we are not doing enough for at the present time. The Green Party is proud to stand in opposition to this bill and to stand up for our most vulnerable children.