Walker Holly: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Walker Holly: Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 26 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8904. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
HOLLY WALKER (Green) 
: 
 I would like to focus my comments in the debate on Part 1 of the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill in the Committee of the whole House stage on clause 25 new section 60RA which concerns the social obligations of certain beneficiaries with dependent children. I would like to start by reminding the Committee of some documents that were tabled in the House last week by my co-leader Metiria Turei during question time. Those documents were advice from the Ministry of Health on the sanctions imposed in this bill and their likely impact on child health and well-being. If we listened to the rhetoric of the Minister for Social Development about this bill I think we could be forgiven for thinking that that advice was very favourable. The Minister repeatedly contends that by making Well Child / Tamariki Ora checks compulsory and a sanctionable social obligation under this bill the health outcomes of children will be improved. Indeed that is her stated motivation for including meeting Well Child check obligations as one of the social obligations introduced in this bill. 
With the Minister so adamant about improved outcomes for children we might assume that she had heard from officials that the policy would actually achieve better outcomes for children. But sadly we would be very wrong to assume so. Actually the documents that were tabled in the House last week by my co-leader show that advice from Ministry of Health officials in fact showed the exact opposite of that. Health officials were so concerned about the policy to sanction parents for not getting Well Child checks for their children that they repeatedly warned the Minister that such sanctions would cause “substantial negative impacts on families and vulnerable children including risks of increased maltreatment and neglect”. It is clear from this advice that officials were concerned that the integrity and the effectiveness of the Well Child checks programme would be compromised and undermined if Well Child checks were to be seen by parents as a sanction or a punishment as they indeed would be if they were made compulsory for a section of population under clause 25 in Part 1 of this bill. 
 Ministry officials were also concerned that there was no strong evidence that health-related social obligations are needed. They gave clear advice to the Minister that the best way to reach families who are not receiving Well Child checks at the moment is by improving the delivery mechanisms for Well Child checks not by imposing financial sanctions on beneficiary parents which is likely to simply lead to further harm to the child. They repeatedly gave this advice to the Minister as part of interdepartmental consultation on the development of this legislation but they did not get anywhere so they also wrote to the Minister of Health. They pleaded with the Minister of Health to ask this Minister to investigate alternatives to sanctions for non-compliance with Well Child checks because of their concerns about the potential negative health and well-being impact that this could have on children. But to no avail—sadly sanctions remain in this bill for parents who do not meet the requirements of Well Child checks as well as other social obligations listed in clause 25 in Part 1. Those sanctions could and in some cases will mean that parents see a loss of their benefit of up to 50 percent. I think that these sanctions represent a punitive ideological approach by this Minister who is unwilling to listen to advice or indeed evidence about the likely impact of the policies but has committed to them none the less. 
What the Ministry of Health advice that was tabled by my co-leader in the House last week highlights I think is the potentially harmful impact of the sanctions in this bill on children because children will be even less likely to access the health care that they need and to get the benefit of the Well Child checks programme if they are made compulsory for beneficiaries as proposed in this bill. 
But the other obvious way in which sanctions will harm children is the impact that the loss of income will have on children whose parents—who for whatever reason are failing to meet their social obligations—are sanctioned under this bill. The base-level payment of the DPB depending on the circumstances of the person receiving it is $293 per week. So if you were to lose 50 percent of that payment of $293 per week it is $146.50 per week. I defy any parent to be able to provide the necessities of life for their children on $146.50 per week. It is very important that we think about what we are actually condemning children to live on—children whose parents are sanctioned under this legislation—and what that means for their well-being in their daily lives and the ability of their parents to meet their children’s needs. 
Children have the same needs whatever the circumstances that their parents are in. Whether their parents are in paid work whether their parents are in receipt of a benefit and whether or not their parents are compliant with the social obligations introduced by this legislation children have the same needs. Those are needs like a warm safe secure home adequate food and nutrition clothing—shoes raincoats and warm clothes—and the ability to participate in their education and to take part in school trips school camps and so on all of which parents will find very difficult to provide if they have their income cut by 50 percent for non-compliance with the social obligations introduced in Part 1 of this bill. Children have these needs and they do not control their parents’ circumstances yet their parents need income to be able to provide them with these necessities of life. We in the Green Party are very concerned that many children will be deprived of these necessities if their parents are sanctioned under this bill. 
That is why I have proposed an amendment which is set out on Supplementary Order Paper 197. It states: “A beneficiary’s failure to comply with a social obligation cannot be the subject of a sanction under section 117 if—(a) the beneficiary has 1 or more dependent children; and (b) the chief executive is satisfied that the sanction may deprive the child of food or shelter or would otherwise be detrimental to the wellbeing of the child.” It would be my contention that prioritising children which is something that the Minister often says she wants to do means that we must give consideration to a dependent child who is supported by a parent against whom sanctions may be enforced under this bill. The impact on this child on his or her basic rights to food shelter and safety must be considered. To allow for this which we allow for in this Supplementary Order Paper discretion should be provided to the chief executive that when imposing sanctions they may take into account the interests of dependent children. It is our contention that this actually would bring us much more into line with our international obligations under articles 26 and 27 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child which talk about the rights of children and citizens to social security to support themselves. 
We hear a lot about prioritising children from this Minister and indeed from parties all across this Chamber. This Supplementary Order Paper gives the Committee the opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to prioritising children in our social security legislation by allowing that discretion to the chief executive to actually consider the impact on dependent children before imposing a sanction. We have heard from officials from the Ministry of Health who advised the Minister—and even begged their own Minister to intervene—that the specific sanction around Well Child checks is likely to actually lead to detrimental health outcomes for children. Beyond that the simple fact of the loss of income represented by a 50 percent sanction for non-compliance with any of the social obligations introduced in Part 1 of this bill—the children who live in the households where parents will lose that income through no fault of their own and who have no control over their parents’ circumstances will find it very difficult to have their basic needs for food clothing and shelter met. We think at the very minimum that the chief executive should have the discretion to take that into account when deciding whether to impose a sanction and that is why we have moved this Supplementary Order Paper 197.