Moroney Sue: Support for Children in Hardship Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Support for Children in Hardship Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 05 November 2015. Volume:709;Page:7770. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour):I rise to lend Labour’s support to the Support for Children in Hardship Bill at its second reading. But as is the way of this Government this is really the Government doing as little as it can possibly get away with while trying to ease its own conscience about the large increase in children living in poverty under its watch. And although this bill is not going to address the issue the Labour Party will support it because doing something is better than doing nothing. But that is about the best that I can say about this bill because in fact it will not address the issue that the Government purports that it will address.The Government and the Minister for Social Development who just spoke are trying to paint a picture where this bill is going to lift children out of poverty. Well in fact what the Social Services Committee found was that for each family and actually for the small number of families who are going to be entitled to this $25-a-week increase in their income the per-family rate will end up being $23.10 a week that they are going to be entitled to. When we think about where this bill is targeted this bill is targeted at the families who are in the most severe hardship. They are severely below the poverty line. And so in thinking about that although it is going to make a little difference $23.10 for that whole family is not going to lift any of those children out of poverty. It will alleviate things a little but not a lot so it is not going to fundamentally address the issue.Sadly in Aotearoa New Zealand a food-producing nation 305000 children live in poverty in this country. That is a disgrace. That is something that none of us should tolerate and that we should not feel at all pleased about. The National Government for three elections in a row has promised a brighter future—it promised a brighter future. What is the result? There are 305000 children in this country living in poverty. That is a disgrace. That is an utter disgrace. And the best the Government can do is at this late stage start offering $23.10 for these families to try to claw their way out of poverty. But at the same time National has got housing costs policies going through the roof—that Government’s policies have got housing costs going through the roof—it has got childcare costs going through the roof and it has got all of these increased pressures on families. And the best the Government can do is offer $23.10 per week to the families who are in the most severe hardship.Jono Naylor: Ha ha!SUE MORONEY: Well it is all about priorities. Government members are laughing about it but it is all about priorities. What do we hear the Prime Minister spending most of his time talking about? He is talking about a flag referendum and spending millions of dollars on that. He is talking about cuddly cute pandas and spending millions of dollars on that. But when it comes to addressing children in hardship the Government does not have an awful lot to say or an awful lot to offer.There are measures in this bill that will make things a tiny little bit better but there are measures in this bill that will harm families. I am going to talk now for a few minutes about this new requirement for families in receipt of benefits and social welfare payments when their youngest child turns 3 to go out and be forced to find part-time work of now 20 hours a week. So I want the people of New Zealand to think about where these jobs are. Where are these jobs? Yesterday the unemployment figure increased to 6 percent for the whole country. But in my region in the Waikato region it increased to 6.7 percent. That increased by 1.7 percent over the course of just the last 3 months. That means that 3800 more people in the Waikato are out of jobs now who were not 3 months ago. So where are these 20-hour-a-week jobs that all of these women primarily are going to be forced to go out and find when their youngest child turns 3? Where are they? What sorts of jobs are they?Well here is my guess: the sorts of jobs they are being forced to accept because of this provision under this mean-spirited Government are the zero-hour contract jobs that the Government purports to be against. In fact in another piece of legislation it is codifying it to make it legal for people to be required to work these zero-hour contract jobs. Those are the jobs that these women are going to be forced to accept: jobs with no security jobs with no certainty over income—and then the $23.10 a week is going to start looking pretty sick. It is going to be looking pretty sick indeed because that is the mechanism that this Government is using to force people into less and less secure environments—less ability to provide for their children less ability to plan for the future.Try going to ask for a mortgage at a bank with a zero-hour contract job because the first thing the bank is going to ask you—the first thing many financial lending institutions ask and the first thing many places where you get financial support ask you—is what is your weekly income. For many of these women who will be forced to go out and look for these jobs and accept them when their youngest child turns 3 they will be forced on to these sorts of insecure jobs.What is that going to mean for their family lives? What it is going to mean is that they are going to be required to make themselves available but have no certainty of work. They are going to need to find childcare and not have any certainty that they are going to actually get the income that allows them to pay for that childcare. So these are the very real situations that all of these most vulnerable families are going to be forced into as a result of this legislation.If the Government was serious about lifting children out of poverty then it would look to the sorts of policies that the Labour Party has put forward. I am going to spend a couple minutes talking about our Best Start package because if the Government was serious about this it would look to a comprehensive package like the one that is proposed by the Labour Party—that is that every child—Hon Maurice Williamson: How’s that package going with the public?SUE MORONEY: Well how is the package going? I am going to test it out right now Mr Williamson because this is the package that would really make a difference: $60 a week extra per child for every child under 12 months of age—for every child under 12 months of age. The Government asks—because this is the only thing that the National Government can think about—how the country can afford that. How can the country afford its failed policies that are actually increasing unemployment and not getting us anywhere very fast? How can the Government sit there and be proud of its record when in fact all of its policies right here right now are demonstrably failing—they are demonstrably failing.So $60 a week for every child up to the age of 12 months and for those families at the lowest end of the spectrum that $60-a-week payment would continue up until that child’s third birthday. That would make a difference. If I was the Minister who just resumed her seat—she should feel ashamed. She should feel ashamed. She got up there and proudly said that a third of the families in the severe hardship category are from families where the parents are in paid employment. Shame—shame on the National Government that you believe that that is OK. It is the National Government’s policies that have a third of the people in the severest hardship out working—those children have their parents out working. Their parents are in these zero-hour contract arrangements and these parents are being forced out to find these inadequate insecure jobs once their children turn 3 and that is nothing to be proud of.