Delahunty Catherine: Social Security Amendment Bill Education Amendment Bill Taxation (Support for Children in Hardship) Bill — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDelahunty Catherine: Social Security Amendment Bill Education Amendment Bill Taxation (Support for Children in Hardship) Bill — Third Readings[Sitting date: 03 December 2015. Volume:710;Page:8590. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare Pāremata. This interchange that we have just witnessed is a classic because I am old enough to remember the “mother of all Budgets”.Hon Simon Bridges: Everyone loves a classic interchange.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: A classic interchange is why we are here—especially one without fossil fuels. What we love is when children are at the heart of policy and this is not it. I think we have heard some excellent speeches this afternoon from my colleagues Jan Logie Jacinda Ardern Darroch Ball and others—and Carmel Sepuloni as well. Their contributions talked about the real content of this legislation and the real consequences where we have this complicated messed-up morass of punitive welfare legislation. Inserting $25 into the legislation and not talking about the reality of that $25 and what happens in different categories of benefit and Work and Income treatment does not acknowledge the real effects.Let us start with the wonderful—if you have got more than four children—effect of getting less than a dollar a day per child. It is a little bit like World Vision. We have got to that point now in this country where it is like World Vision. The children of this country who are living in poverty are supposed to be grateful for less than 50c a day. It is a little bit like the picture on television that we see of this child suffering from the effects of famine and yet we are re-enacting that in our legislation towards children none of whom deserve it in any country and certainly not in a country that can afford to do a whole lot better. It is less than a dollar a day—absolutely unbelievable.So instead of dealing with that we are now going to have charity workers all over the country—the Oliver Twist metaphor that my colleague referred to—who will be providing the gruel who will be doing the breakfasts in schools and who will be doing all the charities. There will be people sponsoring—I used to joke about it—a goat in South Auckland. It is not a joke. The reality is that people in the Government are happy to accept that we should use the benefit system to keep people in poverty and punish people who do not believe they should bow down and accept that.People are sanctioned every day in Work and Income for daring to challenge the way in which they are being treated and then they are trespassed and out the door. They are falling through the cracks and they are not acknowledged in the statistics and this legislation is not going to help. Of course we believe that any dollar is better than no dollar for families on benefits so we will be supporting that part of the legislation. But we will not be supporting the tax provisions and the reason we are not is that as the Child Poverty Action Group has made it clear by increasing the Working for Families abatement rate and lowering the threshold this policy fails to protect the working poor. In fact by its calculations a family earning the minimum wage—working 60 hours on $46000—is about $2225 worse off a year in real terms by this legislation. So that is how the Government has kept the cost down. But it is not right and it is not fair.Then let us get on to the 20 hours a week—the work testing. The word “appropriate” was bandied about a number of times and it is in the legislation—“appropriate” and “affordable”. No do not talk about “affordable” because no one has got a right to talk about “affordable” unless they are rich now—but “appropriate” and “accessible”. Sorry but bollocks—this is not how it works in the benefit system at all. People are being sanctioned daily. They are constantly being sanctioned because they did not fulfil the work requirements.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: Do I have to sit down?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Yes you do when I stand up. That is right. We are trying to do a little bit of tidying up of some of the language and I think that the word the member just used is something we do not normally hear in here. I think I would prefer for it to be kept outside. We are not going to repeat it or withdraw it. Thank you.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: I certainly will not Mr Assistant Speaker. Many words are used in this House in very interesting ways some a lot worse than what I said and in worse ways.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): And the member will sit down again. Members do not comment when I make a ruling. I know that has not been our experience together over many years Miss Delahunty but on this particular occasion you are not going to answer back. Thank you.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: Thank you very much Mr Assistant Speaker. Rules are important; so are traditions. I would like to talk about—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I give up.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: Apologies Mr Assistant Speaker—back to the bills back to the bills. As someone working on early childhood education I am very concerned about the quality of early childhood education and what is actually on offer for people who are being told they must work 20 hours a week from when their child reaches the age of 3. We have a crisis in quality. We have the Ministry of Education saying there is a crisis in quality. We have home care that has not been reviewed because the review was frozen. We have people deeply concerned about the situation for many early childhood centres that have been set up for commercial gain and there is no real evidence that there is any benefit. We have those reports. Those reports come from the Government’s own people. They say that early childhood centres are not necessarily in some cases safe and helpful places for children’s learning. Yet on the other hand we have the Government saying that people if they are on a benefit must go to work 20 hours a week and must put their children in an early childhood centre. This is actually Draconian and inappropriate. Thank you.