Ardern Jacinda: Social Security (Clothing Allowances for Orphans and Unsupported Children) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Social Security (Clothing Allowances for Orphans and Unsupported Children) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 25 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13765. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): I am just so desperate to get my opportunity to put Labour’s perspective on this bill the Social Security (Clothing Allowances for Orphansand Unsupported Children) Amendment Bill on the table before we finish for the evening. I want to start by adding my thanks to the member Tracey Martin of New Zealand First for bringing this really important piece of legislation to this House. We do not often get the opportunity to discuss the really important work that carers in New Zealand do and this is an opportunity not only to raise that but also to highlight the fact that there are some inequities in the way that our system works. So I thank the member for bringing in this bill. I thank her for sharing her personal experiences. I am looking forward to the chance at the Social Services Committee for all of the other members—although I have recently departed that select committee—to start looking at some of those inequities and I wanted to touch on some of that just quickly.There has already been some discussion over the support that exists for foster carers through the Ministry of Social Development. Obviously they receive some basic boarding assistance. But alongside that foster carers do receive the clothing allowance that this bill confers on other carers. They receive some assistance for birthdays and Christmas. That may seem surprising to members of this House but I can tell members that I come across families who are living in impoverished situations where children know only one birthday in the household because the family can afford to celebrate only once. So the children think that they were all born on the same day. That is the kind of circumstance some children grow up in. So I think it is entirely correct that some of our nation’s most deprived children who often end up in foster care are supported to have things that New Zealanders consider are a normal part of a child’s upbringing. They also get support for pocket money education and medical needs.The thing I want to highlight is that foster carers do not raise children for money. They get a very basic allowance that almost entirely across the board does not even cover the cost of taking on that child. They do it for love generosity of spirit and their sense of duty to New Zealand. There are 5000 children at any one time who are in the care of the State and who may be in the care of foster carers. They might be in a residential facility or they might still have Child Youth and Family oversight for kinship care. It is a discrepancy in my view and in Labour’s view that we do not provide that kind of assistance to groups like the Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Trust.But our contention is that rather than just applying one element of what foster carers are able to receive to those who are kinship carers why do we not treat all kinship carers as we do foster carers? Why do we not remove that discrepancy altogether? These are often family members themselves who do not have the resources but do have the desire to support the children of their wider family members in whatever circumstances they find themselves in particularly grandparents raising grandchildren who are often living on a pension and finding themselves dealing with not only legal expenses that come with looking after these children but much much more.There is a distinction I want to make because some people ask what the difference is between a foster carer and someone who is classified as having an unsupported child or orphan. Well actually to qualify if you are a grandparent you cannot be a foster carer because you are a grandparent. It is the same with a kinship carer so that is where there is a distinction there. But the way that it is defined by Work and Income is that it is looking for family breakdown. It will be looking to see whether or not there are reasons that mean that child cannot be with their family. Some grandparents therefore do not even get the unsupported child’s benefit. There might not be a technical breakdown but the grandparent knows that the environment the child is living in is not a good environment for that child to be in but they themselves are often deprived of that support because of the strict criteria that exist. I would hope that the select committee would look at that as well in its considerations because it is a significant issue.I am glad that Tracey Martin has the ability to work with the Government on some of these issues. We would have liked to help too but I have great faith given that the member is there that she is carrying over some of the views that we have. We need to look more generally at foster care in this country. We need to have a look at the fact that foster carers do not receive a lot of support from the State. We need to look at kinship care. Those are all things that Labour will do when in Government.