O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Excellent choice. I'm very pleased—Hon Ruth Dyson: He says modestly. SIMON O'CONNOR: Modesty—yeah it's maybe not a virtue. I am very pleased to take a call but I mean fundamentally around all of this it's the classic left dynamic of bribing people with their own money. I want to reserve though—obviously it's not a general sort of commentary as I want to actually focus in rightly on Part 1 Subpart 1 and I want to draw attention to the amendment of Sarah Dowie the MP for Invercargill. What she's doing here in the amendment is effectively putting through a bit of an eligibility criteria to do with the Best Start tax credit. In this contribution I'm not so interested in getting into the Best Start grant itself. Other colleagues are—rightly—taking calls and showing up the myriad of problems particularly around how it's defined and structured. So I want to focus in on the eligibility criteria and in particular this amendment of Sarah Dowie. For those members not familiar with it particularly on the other side of the Chamber what the honourable member Sarah Dowie is suggesting is that any person receiving a Best Start tax credit as referred to in amended section MC 1 shall ensure that any dependent child has attended a 15- to 18-month core Well Child check. Now having chaired the Health Committee I am very familiar with this programme. In effect it enables children from pre-conception up to three years old to get elements like oral health checked and to get their vitamin K injections. There's at least a chance or if not two to see their general practitioner. The Well Child checks also engage the family at large particularly the mothers. It's everything from breastfeeding techniques to how one sleeps with a child in bed—basically the advice is do not sleep with the child in the bed—so what this amendment is doing is putting I think a very constructive eligibility check here. So out of this there are a number of questions that arise for the Minister. The first fundamentally is whether the Minister is happy to have further eligibility criteria. Is he willing to see that the—I suppose in a sense it's a carrot and stick approach. In just throwing money about through this Best Start tax credit is he willing to also provide an inducement and encouragement—excuse the very bad pun on the word inducement"—to induce and to encourage people into some other positive behaviours. I think and I would hope—though I would like to hear also from the Minister—that he can see the value in the Well Child check. If so—if he sees value in that check in those actual series of checks from pre-conception to three years of age—is he willing to entertain this as eligibility criteria? Again I think the member Sarah Dowie has done a very good job to put down this amendment. I think obviously with amendments that are done in urgency it may need to be filled out further but that's another question for the Minister. If he in conception—again bad pun—knows that things like the Well Child check criteria are good is he willing to attach that to the Best Start tax credit which would be an encouragement to have those parents take their child along? It's very particular in this amendment from Sarah Dowie that it's the 15- to 18-month core check. Importantly the Well Child checks begin as I say at pre-conception. There's a whole array of engagement week by week so I'd be interested too—and I encourage the member who's put the amendment to get up and speak a bit more specifically and maybe more informatively for the Minister as to why she has chosen this particular part. I'm not going to bore the committee by going through every element of the check but why she's gone for this one in particular. The fundamental question that I think the Minister needs to address is that if he's going to push ahead with this tax credit—as I say throwing money about—is he willing to use this as a health opportunity? We've heard a lot from both him in the chair and in the wider debates from the Government and supporting members that these tax credits sit within the whole wider child poverty concept and a big element they continually push is the health of children. So here is not only a remarkable opportunity to give money—which is effectively the people's own money as I said at the start—but an opportunity to encourage good healthy behaviour in obviously the parents in the mum and dad. As I say that is part of the Well Child checks but it's also a good opportunity for the child because we know if they get those vitamin K shots if they have the little prick test on their foot and if the family are getting through all the discussions that's really good for the child. I'd make the argument—which I think the Minister can address too—that those things are in some ways more important than the money. They are more important than the money. So I welcome the—[Time expired]"