Collins Judith: Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Procedure 
Collins Judith: Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:617;Page:13509] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 In rising to speak against Part 2 of the Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill I am amazed at the fact that just about every speech today from the Government and its poodles has involved a personal attack on members on the Opposition side of the House. Government members have had nothing to say other than to personally attack us. Mark Peck has been fantasising about when Labour will be in Opposition. Well I say to Mr Peck that it will not be far off. [ 
Interruption 
] He will not be in Parliament at all because National will take the Invercargill seat. We have looked at what this bill will do for families. I looked at what Steve Maharey put out yesterday because as National’s spokesperson on families I was slightly interested in what he might want to say about families. This is what he had to say: “Parenting is society’s most important job.” What? What sort of loony place does that man come from if he thinks that parenting is society’s most important job? I notice that the United Future people are very very quiet about that. Do those members really think that parenting is society’s job? No it is the job of parents. Parents are in charge of families. Parents do parenting—not society and certainly not the Labour Party. That party cannot tell the difference between parents and society whatever that term may mean. 
There is a clause in the bill that talks about a ring-fenced family support recipient. I had a look through the bill to see whether there is anything in Part 2 or even in Part 1 or any other part that tells us what a ring-fenced family support recipient is. I can tell members there is no definition of a ring-fenced family support recipient or even a definition of a ring-fenced anything. What we are doing today is creating a law so it would be very interesting to find out what the legal definition of “ring-fenced” is. I think we will find that it is another example of a situation where this bill should have gone to a select committee. Although Part 2 is full of mistakes and definitions are not given in it the bill will not be going anywhere near a select committee and the reason is that the Government does not want people to know about the detail of the legislation. It does not want people to know what is really in it. What the Government thinks we might want to do is to find out about what it wants to tell us. 
The Hon Steve Maharey again told us that this legislation will provide more free childcare centres and early childhood education for children aged 3 to 4. That sounds great. That sounds fantastic except there is a little catch: it is available only for those children who go to community-owned childcare centres. But in every new housing area in my electorate and in every new housing area around the country there are no community-owned childcare centres. This Government says that those people are on too high a decile—over 3—so they will not get anything. It does not want them to have anything out of this Budget. All those nice people who are bringing up their own children and asking for very little from the Government are thinking today that they may get at least a little bit of early childhood education in return for all the hard-earned money they pay in taxes. But they will get nothing because this Government will give it only to the community-owned centres—in other words the kindergartens. Those are the very same organisations that ban Christmas and Easter. [ 
Interruption 
] They did that; they banned Christmas in my electorate. They do that because of this politically correct Government which is kept in power by United Future and now by New Zealand First. 
Even Sue Bradford said that this legislation is not good. She said that the detail of this legislation shows us that some beneficiaries will be worse off than they are. This Government has not risen to answer Sue Bradford’s questions. I do not agree with Sue Bradford on most things but when she tells me that beneficiaries will be worse off under this legislation I know she is right. One of the things I do know is that most beneficiaries are very good at working out the detail on these things. We have heard from Clayton Cosgrove who stood up and verbally attacked—abused—people in this House.