Bennett GlenGLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Kia ora Mr Speaker. I rise to take a call obviously in support of the Social Security (Financial Assistance for Caregivers) Amendment Bill. For myself as a first-term MP it's been a real privilege to be on this journey from first reading to select committee and now to the second reading. I look around the room and look at the back here and I've got a pretty powerful back row here—Tāmati Coffey: Yeah that's us. GLEN BENNETT: —that is us—and in fact almost all of the MPs from the Labour Party who are on the Social Services and Community Committee are in the House tonight to support this enthusiastically because we need to ensure as my colleague Angie Warren-Clark said that this is around equity. For me this is also personal as a caregiver myself who has negotiated my way through the different benefits in terms of what we're talking about tonight. So it's been a privilege to listen to our submitters to hear their ideas and thoughts and to read from a number of them in terms of why they support this piece of legislation. I just want to focus really briefly because this really stuck with me—and I hope that these two words can stick with me throughout my political career—when the submitter said This is everybody's business." It's everybody's business. This isn't just around caregivers it isn't around Work and Income or the Ministry of Social Development and it's not just around children; this is everybody's business. So I'm really proud to be here supporting our bill here to ensure equity and ensure that people are paid and I think for me I want to come back to our officials. I want to thank our Oranga Tamariki officials who presented some amazing information for us but there was a particular one. This appendix to their advice was around children being cared for inside the State care system and children being cared for outside the State care system and although I've negotiated it myself for a long long time I did not realise the lack of equity there was when it comes to the different forms of funding and the allowances. It was really really clear for us and it made it clear as a committee that we needed to support this piece of legislation so thank you to our officials. Thanks also to Kelvin Davis the Minister for Children for ensuring that all children all tamariki are given a fair deal. Now everyone's mentioned the orphans benefit and how we'd discussed maybe changing the name and I just want to reflect back that we got to the point where we just wanted the legislation to be right and for people to be paid a fair deal so we decided that it wasn't as important to get the name right as it was just to ensure the legislation served our community. So I'm glad that hopefully in the future maybe we can rethink that name but at this point in time let's just get the legislation right and then we can talk about changing the name. I also want to thank the caregivers around Aotearoa who take care of tamariki. Some as Angie Warren-Clark said are whangai-ed with part of their extended whānau but for others they with complete strangers and let's just think for a moment around those tamariki and the experiences that they must go through in terms of going to a new placement going to a stranger's house and think how resilient many of our tamariki are. For me I was a foster caregiver or I guess I still am. They've just grown up a bit more and I don't get the payments any more sadly but that's OK—they still cost me money. The foster care allowance—which again we're talking about bringing the system up to match it. I received the foster care allowance for many years for a number of young people. I think of one of those young people who was 11 years old when he first came into my care. I negotiated that experience in terms of the distress and trauma he'd been through and then for me I was having to negotiate my way through Oranga Tamariki in terms of the payments system which in many ways is very simple. It was a simple process and easy to do. That young man is almost 30 and he's doing OK but I thank the State and I thank the fact that I was able to receive that foster care allowance to support him in his growing up. Then I think of another young person who had been through the youth justice system. He came to stay with me when he was 15 and in that situation we had to negotiate the unsupported child's benefit which was a bit more clunky and a bit harder to access. It wasn't easy. So seeing the two systems—the foster care allowance and then the unsupported child's benefit—it was hard work to get through. Having a young person in my care who was on the foster care allowance and then having a young person that we had to work through to get him on to the unsupported child's benefit I realised the difference. There wasn't equity in the system even though I was doing the same role with the same responsibilities and with the same care requirements. So I'm really glad that we're changing things. The third one—I'll hold up three fingers eh—was around the orphans benefit and sadly I've had to negotiate this as well. This young person was six years old when his mother dropped dead in front of him. Sadly his father wasn't on the scene and wasn't in the picture and never has been. So this young person—a six-year-old—had to negotiate. Well he had caregivers initially and then it wasn't until he was 15 that he came to stay with me and we had to again follow through this orphans benefit for him. But again the good news in that situation is that he turned 30 this year and he and his partner were able to buy their first house together which is really exciting. I'm not sure we'll get on to housing because that was the previous speaker but anyway that's my one referral to housing. It's a good news story because this six-year-old is now 30 and through the support of the State and the orphans benefit—terrible name but it did a job. But again I saw the inequity around the foster care allowance the unsupported child's benefit and the orphans benefit. I just want to say a big thankyou and I know there are people in this room who are or who have been caregivers and the role that that plays is massive in terms of our community and our society in creating homes because we have to realise that this isn't about providing just shelter or just water. I know that in Maslow's hierarchy of needs that is the most important But it goes up to the next level and it's actually around creating a home—a place for a young person or a child to call home. So to all the caregivers around Aotearoa I say a huge massive thankyou. Keep up the good work and keep on keeping on because it's not easy. You have some days which feel like it's the end of the road and it's the end of the line and it's the end of that experience and the young person or child is difficult. But then there are the good days and then there's seeing the progress and seeing a young person being able to buy their own home or a young person who didn't end up in prison or in trouble with the courts. So I really enjoyed being on the select committee and having the submissions come through. I think of Barnados Birthright the Office of the Children's Commissioner and Grandparents Raising Grandchildren who in the last 20 years have just grown and grown and grown as an organisation and I don't say that in a positive way. It's awesome that they're there. It's awesome that we have an organisation like Grandparents Raising Grandchildren but it's becoming more of a thing that grandparents are in the picture and grandparents need to be looked after. There needs to be equity so that when they have a young person who's on the orphans benefit or who's on the unsupported child's benefit they are paid the same amount that a foster caregiver is paid. I'm really also glad that we talked about what became the holidays payment. Again it was a no-brainer and as a committee I'm really grateful that we all agreed. Yeah it was initially a Christmas payment but we live in 2021 and not everyone celebrates Christmas. We need to ensure that we reflect all people in our community and our society so I'm glad—I'm so glad—that we did that. Anyway in closing Mr Speaker thank you so much for allowing me to speak on an area that I'm really passionate about and that I know a lot about. I think we've got a really good balance and I want to support this to the third reading. I commend this bill to the House."