Delahunty Catherine: Third Readings — 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Delahunty Catherine: Third Readings — 
[Sitting date: 18 August 2010. Volume:665;Page:13251. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tena koutou katoa. The Green Party does not believe that being rich is a crime but it seems that the National Government believes that being poor is a crime. This legislation chooses to punish abuse and discriminate against children. This legislation will entrench poverty. Even more people will need food banks and emergency housing. It will cause extreme hardship and fail to increase employment. It will ultimately cost the country more for its failures with the costs borne by the most vulnerable. It is also debatable that it may be in breach of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 
This legislation could be described as rubbish but if we are going to say that we must ask what else should be done. A lot more can be done to provide fair income support. A fair society is one that guarantees the essentials. If we guarantee the essentials we guarantee the opportunities. Critically an income support system must support and be supported by a commitment to full employment. An income support system can operate as an effective safety net for those in need only if there is an economic policy of full employment so that all those who can and want to are able to get a decent job. That is hardly the situation we are facing at the moment. 
One of the claims used to drive up division between beneficiary communities and others is the cost of income support which is what is driving this legislation. The Welfare Working Group went to great lengths to dishonestly claim a $50 billion bill and that kind of extremist unsubstantiated claim serves only to prove how ideologically bound and irrational Minister Bennett’s working group is. By manufacturing a crisis it badly undermined its credibility. 
The claim has been roundly and widely condemned even by the more conservative media every day for the last couple of weeks. But what does it highlight? It highlights that the extremist right which Paul Bennett represents will be using the cost of income support as a stick with which to beat the anti-beneficiary drum. As inaccurate as the numbers are they will be effective in creating fear and driving up fear and distrust. 
There is an alternative. We encourage everyone to get involved with the work of the Alternative Welfare Working Group. It is asking for submissions from citizens. This group is focused on welfare justice—on what families and children need to be healthy happy and productive citizens who are treated respectfully and with dignity—and it uses different language not the language of “work test” and “punishment”. The first public meetings of the group are next week on 24 August in Wellington and we urge people to participate in those forums. 
We know that the National Government has no solution to the issue; if it did it would not have put forward this legislation. So what are the rational sensible economic solutions that will provide support for individuals and families when they need it and ensure that every person who wants to and can work has a decent job? The Green Party has a raft of solutions that will meet both objectives in a cost-effective way. If we guarantee the basics we can guarantee the opportunities. 
The fact is there are choices that any Government can make. National makes choices to undermine families in the economy; the Greens make choices that benefit families in the economy. One of our solutions is to repair the targeted financial support that discriminates against the children of beneficiaries. Children should not suffer any form of discrimination simply because of the source of their parents’ income. 
All children need a loving warm dry home; safe healthy food; high-quality public education; and decent health care. But the children from the poorest families in Aotearoa New Zealand go without it not because their parents do not care but because there is simply not enough money in beneficiary households to meet all their needs. Children are going without shoes breakfast school trips etc. They are going without their basic rights—good health-care and a good education. 
One can give parents all the budgeting advice in the world but it will not help if there is not enough money to go around. Enforced budgeting will not get blood out of a stone. Those children in the worst poverty can eat stones according to this legislation because their families rely on income support and therefore they do not get the in-work tax credit. Why then have a child support subsidy that discriminates against those children as the in-work tax credit does? 
We would deliver the in-work tax credit to 140000 of the poorest families in Aotearoa New Zealand. This would significantly increase the incomes of the most vulnerable families. It would cost about $300 million per year about half of Peter Dunne’s progressive tax cut for the wealthiest families. Those who need the most should be the priority not those who have the most. That measure alone would help to relieve some of the worst poverty because a fair society is better for everybody. 
How then would the Greens support a full-employment economy? Our communities are still suffering from the effects of the recession and there are indications that the New Zealand economy will suffer another serious dip. The Government is doing a Pollyanna. It is talking up recovery but although the Government’s wealthier constituents might be doing better those at the bottom are not. I talk to taxi drivers every day and they laugh when I ask: “Do you think the recession is over? Have you seen this in your life?”. They say it is a ludicrous idea. When thousands turn up for just a few jobs we know that New Zealanders are desperate for work and that the jobs are simply not there. We have not had a full-employment policy for decades and even with the recession National has utterly failed to increase employment. National wrings its hands and claims it is all too hard. It is not; it is a matter of choice. The Government could easily invest in job-rich infrastructure development if it chose to. 
Two weeks ago the Housing Shareholders’ Advisory Group released its report on social housing. It is a very comprehensive report with excellent recommendations about supporting third-sector housing. But it also highlights the extent of the housing crisis in Aotearoa particularly for those on the lowest incomes—that is those who need income support. The report shows that we have a deficit of 70000 homes. It has also highlighted that the inadequate private rental market is failing to provide affordable housing. More than half the renters in the private market require an accommodation supplement in order to pay their rent. That tells us a lot about the state of the housing market. 
We must invest in social housing. Three in four homes are cold and unhealthy and 300000 children live in housing that is too cold and damp to be healthy. Cold housing costs more than $500 million. It leads to 50 hospital admissions a day for respiratory illness costs $54 million a year and means that 180000 workdays are lost because of sickness which costs at least $17 million. Also over $400 million is being spent unnecessarily on power. We need more warm dry homes. So instead of this legislation which punishes the poor one of the Greens’ solutions is to build 6000 new homes over the next 3 years. That could easily be done by the Government in partnership with the third sector. It is waiting to go. It would create 28000 new jobs. That is a plan towards full employment. That is a plan that costs less than half of the tax cuts to the wealthy. That is a plan that will house our families protect our children and give their parents a desperately needed job. 
Today National chooses to punish condemn and discriminate through this legislation. National members can dress it up how they like but that will be the effect on the ground. Today National chooses to leave thousands of children in poverty. A fair system provides the essentials for every child and it is not impossible. It is about the special benefit being returned it is about in-work tax credits being extended it is about housing it is about warm homes it is about progressive electricity pricing it is about public education and adult education and it is about ensuring that parents can provide for their children because the State provides them with the basic opportunities. 





 We are appalled by this legislation. We have had to go through the whole process listening to the rhetoric while we are receiving emails and lobbying every day from people on benefits. They are asking why they are being attacked. I think those voices are really important; the voices of people who feel attacked who are stigmatised by the sanctions ethos that threatens to take away but offers to create absolutely nothing. 
That is why the Green Party has put out our plan Mind the Gap. If we are going to critique a bill as strongly as we have we have to say what else we would do; we cannot just critique it. So we are—this is what else we would do. We would welcome the Government adopting this kind of proactive approach on the basis that all children in Aotearoa New Zealand deserve warm healthy homes income food and clothing. It is not a very difficult baseline to commit to. A fair system that provides essentials is our fundamental principle and we will be opposing this legislation at this reading. God help the poor of Aotearoa.