Coddington Deborah: Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Procedure 
Coddington Deborah: Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:617;Page:13503] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 My oath Katherine Rich is right! Let us look at Part 2 and then at what the explanatory note to the bill states. It states that the bill will “take steps to simplify the social security system.” Obviously the Minister himself wrote Part 2. Listen to this from Part 2. I am reading from new subsection (6) which clause 39 inserts into the principal Act: “A person who satisfies the requirements of subsection (1)(d)(ii) but who in a 1 week period is not engaged in an activity related to their employment and who is on leave from that employment because of the birth of a child and who is eligible to receive the parental tax credit in respect of the child is treated for the purpose of subsection (1)(d)(ii) and for the period for which the parental tax credit is paid to the person as being engaged in the week in the activity for the number of hours in respect of which the Commissioner is satisfied that the person would have been engaged but for the birth of the child.” 
I challenge the Minster to get up and tell us what that means. While he is on his feet could he please tell us what the next bit new subsection (7) means—and this I remind the Committee is from a bill that plans to take steps to simplify the social security system. New subsection (7) states: “A person who satisfies the requirements of subsection (1)(d)(ii) but who in a 1 week period is engaged in employment for less than the number of hours required in employment for less than the number of hours required to satisfy . . .” –blah blah blah. 
This is the reason that bills like this should go to a select committee. This is one of the reasons that they should not be rammed through the House under urgency especially when the provisions for this bill do not even come in until October. The Minister could have got the bill through without using urgency. The reason the bill is not going to a select committee is that he does not want people to see his writing—his typical woolly-woofter degree in “bureaucratese” from Massey University which one has to have to be able to write such garbage. The only people in New Zealand who will benefit from this bill are the bureaucrats. We will see a huge build-up of bureaucrats. A greater behemoth will spring up out of what social welfare or WINZ or whatever they call it these days already is. We will have lawyers employed by the hundreds just so they can “simplify the social security system”. 
Part 2 makes no sense at all. Part of Part 2 will address issues like more assistance for childcare so parents can go out to work. What about those parents who want to stay home? What about the Home Instruction Programme for Pre-school Youngsters? That programme integrates parents and early childcare but it gets a measly couple of hundred thousand in this Budget. That programme works but all this Government wants to do is herd children away from their parents and families and put them into institutions. What do they do to do that? They pay them a bounty. Part 2 will further obfuscate the social security system. It will not simplify it at all. Dr Cullen is now the Minister in the chair. That is an improvement. Perhaps Dr Cullen could get up and explain to us what these two new subsections in clause 39 mean. Can he get up and tell us what they mean? They are absolute nonsense andmake no sense at all. 
It has been very interesting in this debate to see the scrap between United Future and New Zealand First. We still do not know which party they are scrapping to support. They are sort of hedging their bets at the moment while National goes up in the polls. They are sitting on the fence and we know what happens when people sit on the fence. They get bowled. 
Ten percent of the workers contribute 45 percent of the tax take and this Government is just going to redistribute more of that. As the  
Dominion Post 
 commentator said this morning there is nothing in this bill for people who work for middle and high income families. Middle and high income families in this country are not even rich.