Delahunty Catherine: Social Security (Clothing Allowances for Orphans and Unsupported Children) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDelahunty Catherine: Social Security (Clothing Allowances for Orphans and Unsupported Children) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 18 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2376. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tātou I would just like to acknowledge Tracey Martin for her excellent effort here. He iti he pounamu. It may be a small apparent thing but for the children and the families that Tracey has created this change for especially her original vision before it was gutted by the Government it is an excellent effort.I think this bill is a very good example of what is actually achievable in this hostile and adversarial space called Parliament. Tracey has negotiated extremely successfully and although she had to make compromises that are pretty unacceptable she decided there was enough in it—and we agree with her—to continue with this bill. It is a sword of Damocles when you get to this stage and I think Sue Moroney knows this well as well after the paid parental leave debacle. We come in good faith with our members’ bills we really hope to make change and make things better for people and then we come up against a wall of adversarial pettiness sometimes when common sense is on our side but we have to compromise in order to achieve anything. So Tracey has done that and good on her. The Green Party is very proud to support this bill.What kind of society accepts discrimination against its children let alone its unsupported children? We are the support of those children. We have an obligation—this State us here in this room now—to support those children. If they do not have parents to provide for them it is our duty our obligation and our responsibility to provide for them. So we do thank Tracey Martin very much for continuing in persisting with this despite all the difficulties.I would say: “Feed the kids and clothe the kids.” It is about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for any of you who have any idea about what that means. Feed the kids and clothe the kids. It is pretty basic. I guess we are now going to have to have a member’s bill about giving them homes as well because the basic needs have not been met. But thanks to two fantastic women Metiria Turei and Tracey Martin we have got down to the basics of talking about food and clothing. And thank you Hone Harawira for the original concept. Some of us are not here to talk fancy lawyer language or spout on about economic growth if we cannot feed and clothe our children. These are our children. Make no mistake about it; these are our children.So what is the message to these children? From Tracey Martin the message is that their lives are important and their needs are important. The Government’s amendments however which delay the changes to 2018 and do not quite create parity are what I would call mean-spirited minimalist mealy-mouthed and miserly—a nice bit of alliteration I thought—as well as being completely unnecessary. What is the message we should be giving to these apparently unsupported children who are being treated differently from children who are in the care of strangers? What is the message? Because the Green Party believes that the message to these children needs to be that whether they have two parents or not we will provide for them; that they are important to us; that they deserve the best; that they will not be discriminated against by having less access to things like clothing; and that they and their lives will be celebrated and cherished by us the State and by their community. That is the message we should be giving these kids—not that they are in any sense lesser or entitled to less because of circumstances that were not under their control because those children are us. If we do not accept that we do not have the right to be here making decisions on their behalf.I did not have the privilege of being on the Social Services Committee but Jan Logie passed me some letters that she received—a number of beautiful letters from children. They all say the same thing. I will just quickly share a few of those. “Please don’t make Gran and Grandad wait until 2018. They have looked after us for 17½ years.” Here is another of a little girl saying: “Please don’t make us wait until 2018.” She is sitting on a sofa that is obviously her bed. It has got a sheet on it. She does not come from a wealthy family. She does not have a lot of support. She cannot wait. There is another child on a sofa which is also his bed. “Please don’t make me wait.” He has got a broken arm and a broken leg so obviously he has health issues as well. “Please don’t make me wait.” There is another young girl and her eyes are the eyes that will haunt us if we look into those eyes and do not provide for those children.There are a number of letters here. Some of them have got stickers and some of them have got photos of kids. All of them have been written by children asking: “Please do not make me wait.” Those children have a right to make that challenge to us. There is no reason to make them wait. It is time to do this. We should have done it better but thank you Tracey Martin. We will support this bill.