Collins Judith: Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4) — Third Reading 
Collins Judith: Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4) — Third Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:5382] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker for the opportunity to speak on the Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4). I thank the Minister for his very gracious comments about the members of the Social Services Committee and the work we did on this bill. 
This is not a perfect bill; it is not even a slightly perfect bill. It does have some good points in it and I will just briefly mention a couple of those. One is the exemptions which the Minister has mentioned and the other is the ability of the Inland Revenue Department to look beyond the declared income of liable parents. The department will be able to look further into those parents’ assets and their ability to find or have access to money and that hopefully will indicate their real paying power. Certainly I am one of the many people in this House who come across parents who may have for example $150000 incomes but who have restructured their incomes so that in one particular case a parent is paying just $30 a week towards the upkeep of the child. I personally find that a disgrace and I am sure the Minister would agree. 
What we have though in this bill is something the National Party has spoken strongly against—that is the write-off of $600 million worth of penalties. We are against that for this reason. The Minister said he would rather have people pay to the children the $400 million they currently owe in direct child support and that the $600 million will really go only to the Crown—I think that was the general thrust of what he said. Well here is some news for the Minister. It is my child it is the children of other parents in this House and it is the children of other taxpayers who are already paying that bill. They are the ones who are paying up right now for the delinquent parents who do not take their obligations as parents seriously. 
I have had enough of people turning up and telling me about what good parents they are yet also telling me on the other hand why they should not be meeting any of the costs of their children. I think that those people need a fairly good swift kick—metaphorical of course. People who behave like that are a disgrace. When those parents are men they tell me they are men but frankly I do not think they are because men who have pride do not behave like that towards their children and towards the mothers of their children. 
Having heard the Minister talk about the debt and the amount owing in penalties I would also like to point out a very very salient fact. It is that 65000 of the parents who pay the liable parent contribution—that is about half of them—pay no more than $14 per week towards the upkeep of their own children. And that amount is not per child; it is for all their children. So for instance if they have six children with three different mothers they have to pay only $14 a week in total towards the upkeep of their children. As any responsible parent can tell us that amount is nothing towards the cost of bringing up a teenage child or a preschool child. It has nothing to do with the real costs of raising children. That is one of the reasons so many custodial parents who are good mums and dads have to say to their children that they are sorry but the children cannot play a particular sport because their parents do not have the money. That situation happens because of liable parents who pay only $14 a week. 
Then out of the 65000 men and women who are paying only $14 a week towards the upkeep of their own children 44339 are not even making that payment of $14 a week. They are in debt. Those are the people for whom we will be writing off penalties tonight because apparently they cannot meet a payment of $14 a week. If they cannot meet a payment of $14 a week what are they doing going around becoming fathers and mothers when they have so little sense of responsibility? I do not believe for a moment that those people cannot meet a payment of $14 a week. That is an absolute disgrace—but we sit here in this House saying that it will all be better because somehow those people will become more responsible towards their children. I do not believe for a moment that writing off the debt of the 44339 people who are not even paying their $14 a week towards the upkeep of their children—in one case 11 children—will mean that suddenly those people will have a conscience because we have said we will write off that penalty. That simply will not happen. 
I do not understand why a United Future Minister of Revenue Peter Dunne is saying that we will write this debt off—that we will get soft—when in his own party’s policies he has some good policies about child support. United Future members have said they will stop those delinquent parents from leaving New Zealand. We in the National Party agree with that. We say: “Good on you!” to those members. If we can stop people from not paying their parking fines as they leave the country then why do we give them a free wave through and say: “Goodbye haere ra and we will see you next time.” when they do not meet the cost of looking after their children—the pathetic cost of $14 a week? I do not understand why Peter Dunne is supporting that. I do not understand why this bill has the support of Peter Dunne and United Future members who have said very strongly and properly that they will look at the real costs of looking after children—at why it is an issue and at how we can actually get a real costing around that. Yet here we are tonight debating a bill where we will write off $600 million in unpaid debt. We are sending the message to those $14-a-week dads and mums that they do not need to bother too much because eventually the debt will become too high and we will write it off again. 
I am here to tell the House that the National Party will not support that sort of delinquency coming from parents—particularly when it comes from parents who should know better. There are parents with four or more children who are not even paying $14 a week towards their children—769 of them. There are 25768 parents who are not even meeting the payment of $14 a week for one child. And the message we send to the good mums and dads who meet their payments and to those who struggle to meet their payments but do their very best to do so is: “Well you are a bit of a mug aren’t you? Why are you doing that when your neighbour down the street doesn’t have to?”. 
Frankly I am so tired of listening to fathers’ groups that go around and protest outside MPs’ houses and judges’ houses and try to bully them. Well they have met their match in the National Party because we will not be bullied by that sort of behaviour. People in those groups tell us that they care about their children. If they cared so much about their children I ask why my child the children of every other parent in this House and the children of every other taxpayer are paying for those fathers’ children and going without the things they could have because there are parents who do not care about their own children.  
 I know there will be people who say some parents do care but simply cannot meet the cost of child support payments because often they have other children and new partnerships—multiple partnerships. Well I am here to tell those people that before they enter into new partnerships they should think about the children they have and they should think about the liability and responsibility they have. I make no excuses for those people. They come from all walks of life. It is utterly wrong for us to think that the only people who do not pay child support are those who do not earn much money; many people with a lot of money take great delight in hiding their income for that very reason. 
I am glad to hear that the Inland Revenue Department will be able to look at that. But the trouble is that at the select committee department officials told us in relation to a very worthy case we discussed with them that they could not necessarily determine whether they had even looked into the situation. So the problem I have with this legislation is that it is too soft on people it should not be soft on and it is just not good enough for the good custodial parents out there and the really good liable parents who pay their way and look after their children—who as much as they say they love them look after them that way.