Martin Tracey: Social Security (Clothing Allowances for Orphans and Unsupported Children) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMartin Tracey: Social Security (Clothing Allowances for Orphans and Unsupported Children) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 25 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1968. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): I move That the Social Security (Clothing Allowances for Orphans and Unsupported Children) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on my bill and I do not take that lightly so I appreciate the time of the House. I wish to start by acknowledging the members of the Social Services Committee: Melissa Lee who was the chair at the time Phil Heatley Jan Logie Asenati Lole-Taylor Sam Lotu-Iiga Sue Moroney Alfred Ngaro Rajen Prasad Mike Sabin Chris Tremain and Louisa Wall. I acknowledge them because their support—unanimous support—for this bill from the select committee has absolutely nothing to do with me. I acknowledge them because that select committee took seriously the submissions of the people who came to speak with it—submissions like those of David White and Di Vivian who is the founder and the chair of the Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Trust. After this speech I will hold my breath and see who is the first contributor for the Government side and I will listen carefully to what they say because I know that at the select committee there was a will—a genuine will—to support the righting of what is this terrible inequality between these children.So to just quickly recap what this very little bill does—it is not very long for people to read—is it gives a clothing allowance of at the most $1600 in a year to orphans and unsupported children who have been taken in by somebody related to them by blood. At the moment if you are an orphan or an unsupported child and you do not have a family member or a person related to you by blood who can take you in—who is in a position to take you in—and you are placed with foster parents or a foster family you have access to at a maximum $1600 per year for clothing. Now $1600 per year does not sound like much but what I think what I hope is that the members of the select committee and I hope all the members of this House will agree with me that the point of this bill is not actually about the money; it is about the fact and the recognition by this House that if you are an orphan you are an orphan and if you are unsupported by your immediate family members then you are unsupported. It does not matter into whose home you go from that moment you become an orphan.Again I challenge any member of the select committee who listened to the submissions to not agree with that statement when you heard or read David White’s submission and how his grandchildren ended up with him and his wife. I am not going to recount that story here because it is their story and David very kindly came to the select committee to tell it to us to make the point. He has placed it in a book because it is the story of his daughter and this journey of her children after incredible tragedy.It is a shame that this bill has taken so long to come here. Again I hold my breath and I hope that it goes forward because the grandparents the kin carers have been calling out for this assistance for a large number of years—certainly for a lot longer than I have been here. They do a much harder job than I do when I walk into this place every day and all they have asked for is the same support. All they have asked for—and it is not for themselves. This clothing allowance cannot be spent on an adult’s clothing. This clothing allowance cannot be spent on anybody’s rent or anybody’s alcohol or anybody’s cigarettes. It cannot be spent on anybody else but the child and it can be spent only on clothing for the child. So it is not possible to take advantage. It is merely righting what has been a serious discrepancy in equity for these children.I think the other thing that has moved the members of the select committee has been the reality many of them knew. I also want to acknowledge the right honourable Paula Bennett or the Hon Paula Bennett—Chris Bishop: Not quite yet right honourable.TRACEY MARTIN: —I know I apologise; I take back the “right”—because I know she also has a will to fix this inequity. I recognise that the Minister was kind enough to place me on a ministerial working party to work on a $10 million fund to put in some immediate support for these families and these children—that is the school and year start-up payment. I think there has been a 73 percent pick-up of that this year. There is no requirement to justify your application but you do need to register for that money and we would encourage any kin carer caring for an orphan or an unsupported child to do so. But the maximum of that fund is $550 for school start-up and what concerns me is that I am already hearing that that is covering just summer uniform. That is another issue we are going to have to deal with—the fact that in this country $550 covers only summer uniform in some State schools.Again we come back to the fact that although it is $550 that is not the point; the point is that the legislation right now discriminates against these children merely because a policeman and a Child Youth and Family services worker showed up at the door of these grandparents or these kin and said to them: “These children need a home. Will you take them in?”. That is the single thing that differentiates them from foster children on this issue and yet the grandparents did not seek them out in most of the cases; the State came looking. The State came knocking on the door with these children and said: “Somebody needs to care for them. Will you do it?”. And just as David White said to his granddaughter when he picked her up from primary school on that day and she said to him: “Who will we live with?” when he told her that her mother had been murdered by her father the answer is: “With us.” What else is the answer?I challenge anybody who has argued against this equity before and used the argument that grandparents just should—well grandparents just do. But grandparents do not have a limitless bucket of money. Contrary to popular opinion many grandparents are living on the fixed income that is the superannuation. Contrary to popular opinion and popular I guess perception these children do not all come as smiley-faced Rosies. They are not all Annies. They are not all Annies dancing up and down the corridors. Many of them come seriously damaged. They have seen things they should not have seen. They have lived through things they should not have had to live through. They have psychological disorders. They require many of the things that cost that bit extra.Again there was a special fund that these families could apply for out of that $10 million pool and I am sure that Mr Ngaro when he contributes will expand on this. So that pool is for things above and beyond—extras that can be applied for and if the need is accepted by the panel that reviews those can be paid for. I know at the moment that some of the largest numbers of those requests are for orthodontic treatment. This bill would not fix that but what it would do is it would give $1600 at the most—that is the maximum this bill will do—to supplement the clothing so maybe some other money could be spent on dental work.Before I finish my contribution there is an amendment that the select committee made and it is around the implementation date of this bill. If this bill does pass through this House it would come into force on 1 July 2018. I agreed to that because I understand the financial constraints. But I just want to add that 1 July is my birthday and so I think it actually was somehow fate that 1 July no matter what year was taken as the day that this bill would actually come into force. I commend this bill to the House and I seek the House’s support. Kia ora.