Naylor Jono: Support for Children in Hardship Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNaylor Jono: Support for Children in Hardship Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 01 December 2015. Volume:710;Page:8417. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JONO NAYLOR (National): Part 2of this legislation obviously is dealing specifically with the changes to the inland revenue Acts and in particular—Carmel Sepuloni: We’re on Part 3 Jono.JONO NAYLOR: Part 3 there we go. Part 3 not Part 2. Part 3 is in fact the bit that does deal with the inland revenue Acts. Even if I got the part wrong at least I got the issues right.It has got to be fair to say that as well as the significant changes that this bill makes to the payments to families who are beneficiaries these changes also recognise that some families—even though they are in work in some way shape or form—are still experiencing some level of hardship. So this part of the bill is dealing with that part of the equation in particular obviously through the Working for Families part of the programme because we need to ensure that actually we are continuing to work with those families who are finding it hard whatever situation is leading towards that. So from 2016—next year in April—the low to middle income working families who are not on a benefit will get up to $12.50 a week more through Working for Families depending on their income.I have heard a number of comments from members across the other side of the Chamber this afternoon basically calling that amount insignificant—calling the $25 insignificant. They have talked about the price of cheese they have talked about the price of eggs and they have said that this is not necessarily going to simply lift people out of poverty. I do acknowledge that for some people $12.50 does not seem particularly significant but I can say that actually for some people $12.50 is significant and it does make some difference.No one has said—no one has said—that this bill is the silver bullet to solving child poverty in New Zealand. It is part of a suite of things that are being put forward. It is part of addressing the issue. It is part of a measured approach in changes to our benefit system and to our taxation system to ensure that we can provide some level of extra assistance.I can tell you that for the first 4 years that my wife and I were raising our children our primary source of income was the student allowance. That made things pretty difficult but actually after being dependent on the student allowance we were then dependent on a social worker’s starting-out salary and we were grateful for the extra assistance that we got when things were tight at that time through this Working for Families.That is a few moons ago—I know a bit of water has gone under the bridge since then—and it is appropriate now that we have been able to get things into a place where we can afford to lift those amounts particularly by increasing the in-work family tax credit by $12.50 and also through the minimum family tax credit to ensure that some of these families are going to get that little bit extra. In order for us to do that obviously we have got to put that in the context of everything else that this Government is doing.This is not a silver bullet and this is not a one-off thing that is happening. This is part of a suite of measures that this Government has been putting in place to actually address some of the issues that need to be addressed and this particular bill needs to be seen alongside those things as well.