Mahuta Nanaia: Support for Children in Hardship Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMahuta Nanaia: Support for Children in Hardship Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3531. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato): This is the Government’s seventh Budget. It promised a surplus some 6 years ago and we have not seen it. More important we are sitting here after the Budget has been read debating benefits not jobs. We would be debating jobs if National were doing its job and it is not. What we know is: given that the Government said the rock star economy would benefit far more New Zealanders in the regions we should be debating jobs here today but we are debating benefits. I wish we were debating the “Child Opportunity Bill” and that the recognition of poverty in this country meant that we would be talking about more than just $25. We would be talking about warm homes. We would be talking about jobs in our regions communities and small towns. We would be talking about how to support those children who are the most vulnerable learners instead of supporting charter schools. We would be talking about how we could support children and parents who have multiple vulnerabilities and want a hand up not a handout. This is an “Oliver Twist Budget” and we are debating $25 more going to vulnerable children. Well we will take it. We will take it but do not expect anybody on this side of the House to say “Thank you very much.”Chris Bishop: Ah!Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: Why? Because it does not fix the multiple issues facing vulnerable families and poor families out there in the community. Chris Bishop sighs. Chris Bishop sighs because he would prefer this side of the House to say thank you. In fact the Children’s Commissioner puts it far better than I could. Dr Russell Wills himself said: “I wasn’t expecting Government to increase incomes for … children. … Let’s be clear a one-off increase is not a plan for child poverty. … What we need is a comprehensive plan to reduce child poverty.” That comes from the Children’s Commissioner. He himself recognises that an isolated payment of $25 cannot fix all the issues. But we will take it and we will take it because we know the hardships that are faced by many children and families in the community in small towns and we know that they need it.But will it make a difference? I suspect not if we require parents to be work tested when their youngest child is 3 years old. Let me share a story. We are talking about a mother who goes to kōhanga and who volunteers her time because she is worried about the type of life her child will have and she knows that getting an education will make a difference. She has to be work tested when her child turns 3. She could make a critical difference to supporting the education pathway of her under-5-year-old child if she were able to continue to be the mother that she wants to be. The bill makes a number of other changes. We will get it to the select committee so that we can identify these types of issues which will I think start to unstitch some of the challenges of how to implement it.The other thing about the bill is that it really does not address some of the aspects that are really fundamental to work. In these days and times for people who are required to be work tested—when there are no new jobs in towns and communities and when people have to make changes to go to where there is work and they have to pay for childcare because they have got no support network of family to be able to help them raise their children—$25 will not make much of a difference. That is the reality—that is the reality. In fact I heard a constituent say “I want to be work tested because I want a job but God it’s demoralising. I go in there for my regular appointments and I have to answer the same questions and go through the same types of box-ticking tests.” She said to me: “It’s just demoralising. Give me anything. Give me a meaningful job because I want to be able to support my children and give them more.” But the jobs are just not there.Sue and I are both from the Waikato. We understand the realities of what is not happening in the region.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Sue Moroney.Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: Sue Moroney. Sorry to my fellow colleague. We are both from the Waikato. We understand the realities. In our area there have been more job cuts than jobs created and the types of jobs that people are having to consider are the jobs that do not really give them certainty. This is the challenge. With the 90-day bill being employed for 3 months is not a full-time job; it is just living from hand to mouth—hand to mouth.This bill should go to a select committee. I am pleased that it is going there because there are aspects of the bill that need to be looked at further to ensure that what is intended will actually make a critical difference to the lives of people. Just yesterday I was one of several MPs who were out on the steps of Parliament receiving a petition from ActionStation. I want to thank ActionStation for its efforts. It is a collective of organisations committed to putting child poverty on the agenda. It identified that far more needs to be done and that the Government needs a plan. This is an area in which those 260000 children living in poverty will increase unless we do something meaningful and comprehensive over a long period of time. We do not want to see that happen in a country like New Zealand.It is very important that people understand the parts of this bill that the Government is trying to implement. The other aspect is being work-ready and work tested for part-time work. I think about this provision in relation to childcare provisions and the practicalities that exist in small communities. It will be very difficult if a person has childcare provisions in the place where they live—say 26 kilometres out of their main city centre—and has to travel 26 kilometres for their part-time work. It will be very difficult to make those provisions fit with childcare and their preschool arrangements. I know. I live in a small town. I have tried to find those types of arrangements. But more important for people who do not have a natural family support network where they live this is going to be an impractical type of measure about which I think we will see many people express some concern. At the end of the day I think if we want to support families and children especially those who are the most vulnerable the changes need to be able to fit them as well as ensure that they are given a hand up and not a handout.There are simply not enough afterschool childcare opportunities. For example when an early childhood centre or a kōhanga finishes at 3 o’clock in some small towns you will not get early childhood centres that can take them from 3 p.m. to 5.30 p.m. In some communities that it is just not the reality. And where there is the opportunity to have that you have to pay a lot of money—more than $25. Those are some of the practical aspects of what the Government is intending to do—that is work test people to go into part-time work—and the reality of having children who need preschool education and then afterschool care. These are some really important things that the Government needs to be mindful of.We are not going to knock the bill to the extent that $25 will not make a difference but the issue for me is whether it will make a critical difference. I suspect not. It is a change. It is an increase. There is no doubt about that. But when you look at the real costs of childcare the real costs to someone who has no car of their own and is using public transport to get to a job $25 will not cover much more than an extra bit of bread and some milk hopefully—and they are still going to have to think about other pressures.The challenge as well when we talk about vulnerable families—families with more than one child—is that you are doubling up on the cost of shoes especially in winter of warm clothes and of kai. If we are really true to what we are hearing in the community there are already significant cost of living pressures on families who are paying a heck of a lot—a heck of a lot—in private rentals. Twenty-five dollars is something but will it make a vital difference? I suspect not. I do not want to look a gift-horse in the mouth and say “Pooh pooh!” all the way through. It is pleasing to see that some effort has gone into recognising that child poverty exists; the extent of which I challenge the Government should not be minimised by the piecemeal approach that it is taking here today. I look forward to hearing the deliberations of the select committee and to identifying how in fact in terms of the implementation of the bill it will make a difference to the lives of needy children. Kia ora.