Parmar ParmjeetDr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you Mr Chair. I would like to take this opportunity to speak again on my amendment which is to add a new clause 12A in the Income Tax Act 2007. It is to add—the wording is—and that any person receiving a Best Start tax credit as referred to in section MC 1 shall ensure that any dependent child is enrolled with a Well Child provider."I feel it's really important that we look at the full evidence when we are talking about providing the best possible start to newborns and also providing the best possible support to the family of a newborn. The Minister—and I have heard the Minister the Hon Grant Robertson talking repeatedly about the evidence—says that this Best Start tax credit is based on evidence and it is the best move to give $60 a week to these families which adds up and becomes $3160—somewhere around that. If the Minister believes that amount is based on evidence I want to ask: what is the full evidence that the Minister has seen to provide the best possible start to the families of newborns?Another interesting thing is that the Minister also talks about the longitudinal study in Dunedin saying that it tells us that the first three years of life are the most important in a child's development. Yes that is important and the study that the Minister has cited is a very important study because we are really proud of the work that the University of Otago is doing through these two studies the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development study and the Christchurch Health and Development Study.So these studies are about the overall health and well-being which of course includes behaviour as well. These studies have been monitoring 1000 babies that were born between 1972 and 1973. These studies are about full health development and well-being. So when the Minister talks about evidence—that he has based this payment on evidence—I want to ask the Minister: was there any evidence on health checks? Because when you talk about providing the best possible start to newborns health definitely becomes a very important component and health is interrelated to social outcomes. So we cannot exclude health and just talk about social outcomes.I also want to ask the Minister about the evidence when he says that just providing financial help—just financial help—will be actually good for newborns and we can just be assured that the social outcomes for these children will improve. No we cannot just assume that. There is another study Growing Up in New Zealand which is happening in Auckland. It started with tracking 7000 New Zealand children before birth. So this is to see what kinds of things happen in early development and what kinds of interventions work. So I want the Minister to look at the full evidence not look at just the evidence the Minister wants to look at to come up with this idea of giving this $60 a week payment to families of newborns. Of course as my colleagues have mentioned before if parents are working and they are on paid parental leave they are excluded while they are getting paid parental leave.Paid parental leave was increased by us to 18 weeks and now by this Government to 22 weeks and now it is going to go up to 26 weeks. So those families will not be getting this payment for 22 weeks now and when that comes into effect—the increase of paid parental leave to 26 weeks of paid parental—then those families will not be getting this Best Start tax credit for 26 weeks. How is that fair? My amendment is to see that this should become a criterion—that a child should be enrolled with a Well Child provider. In enrolling a child with a Well Child provider they are getting the full health and overall well-being check-up—not just for the child only but for the mother as well.There are simple things sometimes that can affect the well-being of the child and as a mother I know that really well—for example at birth safe sleep practices and vitamin K. These things are really important. There is the first week check then the two to four week check and then it goes up to four years. So there are really good intensive checks that are available through Well Child providers and I want to see that all these children are able to access these services which are fully free. I would like to see that the Minister considers this really seriously if he's really serious about overall well-being and giving a very good start to newborns."