Ardern Jacinda: Child Support Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Ardern Jacinda: Child Support Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 08 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:2023. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 I welcome the opportunity to speak to this Child Support Amendment Bill. I resent being called the “Party of No” given that we have offered to support this bill to select committee in order—with a heavy caveat—to allow wider debate and discussion from the public. I would hope then that the select committee process for this bill will be more robust than the last one which went to select committee with a whopping 9 days for consideration.  
Before I get into the detail of this bill I want to speak a little bit to its context because I think that when we are analysing bills such as this there is one simple lens that we should apply and that is quite simply whether the measures in this bill will be in the best interests of children. I think that when we apply that lens we see the world quite differently. But I want to come from the starting point the environment that we are working within currently. I believe that some of the policy some of the debates we have seen in this House and even some of the most recent welfare reforms have not applied that lens to children. We have not been focusing heavily enough on children. If we were we would be probably focusing a bit more on mothers.  
Now what do I mean by that? Bill English consistently comes into this House and talks about smoothing the sharp edges of recession. I want to add a counterstatement to that: women and mothers in particular are the shock absorbers of poverty and recession. Now what do I mean by that? Well unemployment currently in New Zealand is sitting at 6.7 percent. For women it is 7.1 percent and we are at one of our highest rates since the 1990s. Women are overrepresented in statistics around joblessness and underemployment. They are overrepresented in our statistics around sole parents and particularly those in receipt of Government support; in fact they represent over 80 percent of those reliant on Government support. In New Zealand sole parents have one of the highest rates of unemployment in comparison with other OECD nations. By default then those women are more likely to live in poverty. When we are talking about living in poverty in real terms that means things like eating less fruit and fewer vegetables sharing bedding arrangements with children postponing doctors’ visits for yourself in order to ensure your child can access the doctor less heating and poor-quality housing. 
 Women are the shock absorbers of the recession. Women are the shock absorbers of poverty. Why am I bringing that up in this current context? Well a lot of the discussion that has been around parenting lately has been solely around women. Particularly when it comes to welfare reforms and the discussion about team parenting the discussion about sole parents has predominately been about women on the domestic purposes benefit. I have two questions then with that lens on around children. Are we genuinely improving the situation for women in New Zealand through some of the changes we have seen proposed by this Government or are we making it worse? Are we currently valuing the role of mothers in New Zealand or are we playing up to preconceptions and negative stereotypes and ultimately damaging the women who are caring for children in New Zealand?  
And finally what about the dads? I am tired of having conversations whether it be in the context of child support the domestic purposes benefits or welfare where the assumption is that we should be talking solely about women. I do not believe in immaculate conception. Either the Government does or it is ignoring reality. I do want to add a caveat here. I am of course not talking about all fathers involved in a separation who do not have direct full-time custody of their children. There are many out there who are working damned hard to do the best by their kids even if they are not the constant custodian of them. I am not talking about them. But if the Government wants to have a real debate let us talk about dads who have run away from their responsibilities because this is not just about single mums who are still around. It is about the people who leave. If that was brought into the frame this would be a genuine debate but it has not been.  
Let us be clear. Why am I talking about this group of women? It is because this bill will have a very heavy impact on parents who find themselves in a sole-parent situation where they are reliant on Government support. Why am I flagging that? Because Inland Revenue Department figures seem to suggest that a high proportion of the inland revenue payments being collected are held on to because another parent is receiving Government support. Let us look at some of those figures. As at 31 December 2011 there are 141913 custodians registered with the Inland Revenue Department. So where the department was managing an arrangement—let us be clear that not all child support arrangements are registered with the Inland Revenue Department which is what the Minister has talked about—83189 of those cases are where payments have been retained by the department for sole parents or unsupported child payments. Basically we can assume therefore that that might be the number of in particular women who are in receipt of a domestic purposes benefit where for instance the Inland Revenue Department is holding on to a child support contribution because the sole parent is on some form of Government support. By my calculation that could mean—and I acknowledge this is a very rough calculation—up to 30000 sole parents who are not receiving any indirect support for the child they are caring for. To my mind we should be talking more about that figure in this debate.  
There are a couple of other issues that I hope we will hear discussed in the select committee. The first is how we can encourage more parents to show accountability to their children and responsibility and whether this bill could have any role in that. There has been some discussion in overseas jurisdictions for instance about whether or not parents have a more direct involvement in the upbringing of their children if they are the non-custodial parent if they are paying directly to the other parent. At the moment we have the Inland Revenue Department sitting there in the middle. Is that creating a disincentive and a lack of connection between the other parent and the custodian parent and therefore a lack of accountability? I think it is a fair question for us to discuss at the select committee.  
Secondly what about our arrangements in terms of overseas payment? We have reciprocal agreements which allow us to collect payments for some overseas jurisdictions but we have already discussed in the select committee where those have fallen down and whether they are adequate in particular for Australia where a large part of our non-payment tends to reside. I think a discussion needs to be had over that.  
 But I come back to the bill itself remembering our lens—that is the lens of children—and secondly also the role of mums. The Families Commission has said in the extensive work it has done in this area—and I know Rajen Prasad is likely to pick up on this in more detail—that the outcomes for parents who have arrangements outside of the Inland Revenue Department are generally found to be more satisfactory by both parents. That might be self-evident because for instance payments tend to be higher when they are not enforced by the Inland Revenue Department or outside. For instance there seems to be a difference of $433 per month as a median payment versus $241 for department-based payments.  
Also Inland Revenue Department arrangements tend to have less contact than those that are set up as private arrangements. At the select committee I would like us to have more discussion about why those Inland Revenue Department arrangements have such a high level of dissatisfaction for both parents. I want to hear from parents on that and in particular I want to hear about those primary custodians and I know that will mean by and large that we will be hearing from a lot of mums but I want to hear from dads also. I want to hear about people’s views of the per-child payment decreasing once we go beyond a multiple of one which is something that David Clark has raised with me and whether or not this is fair. Can we assume strict economies of scale when it comes to the distinct needs of children? I want to hear from parents on that.  
Overall though we need to keep in mind that although care arrangements may have changed in the modern day actually when it comes to working arrangements particularly for sole parents they have got worse. We cannot assume that because a sole parent has for instance 60 percent of the care arrangements and the care responsibilities they are then able to automatically top up their 40 percent of remaining time with an appropriately flexible part-time job. That is not realistic. We must look at the realities and I look forward to hearing from the public on this bill.