O'Connor Simon; Williams PotoSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Mr Speaker?SPEAKER: Away you go.SIMON O'CONNOR: Oh thank you. I was just waiting for the call.SPEAKER: I gave the member the nod. We've got a bit flexible towards the end.SIMON O'CONNOR: Jolly good. My colleague Chris Penk who has just resumed his seat has I think usurped my usual attempt to get into the grammar nomenclature and so forth—the declensions in Latin and so forth—so I'm going to steer away from that. I'm going to acknowledge first and foremost—Fletcher Tabuteau: Why don't you go and have a cup of tea together?SIMON O'CONNOR: No not yet. Queen's Birthday is Monday strictly and then we'll have a cup of tea for Her Majesty.Chris Penk: Huzzah!SIMON O'CONNOR: Huzzah? It's clearly been a long time. It's actually a serious bill but it has been a long time as we come to this third reading. In fact it's been almost eight hours of sitting—that precludes the breaks—that we have been progressing through this bill to bring it now to a third reading. It has been I think a very thorough eight hours of discussion primarily from this side into what is a topic of great importance: obviously the care of our veterans the care of our beneficiaries in particular to enable them to seek work and entitle themselves to the money that they've earned and then of course the discussion around children.I do regret that from the other side in particular we have not had as much engagement. In fact as I noted in the second reading the paradox of a Government pursuing a non-sanction approach has sanctioned itself in terms of its short contributions but they've been indicative themselves—SPEAKER: Order! Order! We'll just keep going because the member is risking breaching the Standing Orders if he keeps going like that. I've thought about what he said earlier.SIMON O'CONNOR: Oh very good. You'll have to think of what he said earlier.There are effectively three parts to what this bill is as we come now to the third reading. We traversed a wide array of topics in the committee of the whole House stage. Not all of those—in fact none of them—have come through. So where we've ended up first and foremost—again working backwards—is with an abatement scheme for veterans. This side of the House has been very keen and supportive of that. I think it's an idea a conception—which is now soon to become law I assume—that fits and works well. The scheme is relatively simple; it's aligning it much more clearly with other beneficiary approaches.Certainly one thing that I was keen to seek and the Minister was kind enough to reply to this was that they have anticipated the extra number of veterans that will be coming into effectively the veterans' affairs portfolio or area. That's to do with another piece of legislation as you'll be aware—the Veterans' Support Amendment Bill that's currently going through the Parliament—but as I noted earlier the fact that it seems at this point to have unanimity is a positive thing. So in terms of that the Minister has been very clear that they have the budget and the scope through the changes of this bill to cope with that. I had hoped that there might have been a little bit more breadth in the abatement to recognise those who serve the Realm. That wasn't forthcoming but I don't criticise the Government for that either. I think again as it sits in the bill currently it's a pretty good system.I think it's probably prudent to actually separate out veterans' benefits and superannuation from other benefits such as the unemployment benefit or the sole parent benefit—and the abatement rates there are I think positive. I still have concerns despite where the bill—well I should say where the bill has landed is I think fine. Again nothing has changed which is always a little bit disappointing but I don't think it has started from a bad place. Where the bill has landed with abatements providing the scope for an Order in Council is prudent. I think there's always a bit of an issue in this House if you have to come back with primary legislation time and time again to make the changes.I think the Government has made a good step to bring it to $150. It sounds like a lot of money but with a quick breakdown with the minimum wage that is effectively eight hours in a week. I think there will be potentially some challenges to come and I acknowledge the Minister of—is it Labour"? I've forgotten the exact title—"Workplace Relations"? There could be some challenges coming forward and I'm sure the Government will be able to respond to it to changing the abatement rates because as the minimum wage goes up of course we're going to have—well they won't be able to do eight hours strictly speaking once they are at $20 I imagine. If they're at $20 an hour for eight hours it's not going to work.So an encouragement is that as we put this legislation forward the abatement provisions and that through Order in Council are well used because I think fundamentally it seems prudent that a person on a benefit can at least do a full day's work. I think the benefit of that—again all puns intended—is that it's a chance to be part of work to see the benefit of work. The word "dignity" has been thrown around quite a bit tonight but it shows the dignity of work. But the real important element is that the dignity of work shows the dignity of the person. That's fundamental and it's one of the elements why on this side we support the abatement scheme as it's an encouragement to those people on benefits to begin exploring their work. As I've said I think they've got the balance right at this point in time. Ultimately the benefit plus the abatement provides some income but not so much that it's actually an encouragement to remain effectively in and on the welfare system.The most contentious part has been of course the removal of the sanction for those sole parents who will not declare who the other parent is. Now it's primarily the father but there are I think it's important to note occasions where it's a solo dad. To what extent solo fathers do not declare who the mother is is something that we weren't able to actually get into. I don't think that was a reflection of the committee stage but perhaps it's an encouragement to this House as we move forward to understand and get some better reporting around this. Certainly some of the Supplementary Order Papers put forward are to try and understand these things.Look it's been controversial and I think rightly so partly because it does come down to this discussion of social contract. That's been tossed around a lot in the various readings and as I mentioned in earlier contributions I actually think there's a fundamental misunderstanding of what a social contract is. The social contract when it comes to this piece of legislation must remain a two-way street. New Zealanders work hard. They pay their taxes in order that others may seek benefits when required. But the reciprocal nature of that is that those who are getting benefits of whatever nature are actually open and honest with information. The fundamental problem I still have with this bill is that it enables effectively an act of dishonesty to occur; that a person who—let's just use one side of the equation—knows the father who knows who the father is will no longer need to share that. We are facilitating dishonesty.Angie Warren-Clark: There it is.SIMON O'CONNOR: We're facilitating dishonesty here which the other side is very keen on by the sounds of it. That is actually not a social contract.Angie Warren-Clark: Shame.SIMON O'CONNOR: I think they're saying "shame" which is interesting because much earlier on they were talking about stigmatising and how bad it is to shame people. But I've never found much consistency from the left—in fact it provides me great frivolity at times. The key point for me is that what the bill has done and will continue to do if it passes is allow people to not share a piece of information that they have. Fundamentally in this case if someone does not know who the father is or for some reason doesn't know who the mother is—I mean it's almost nonsensical but let's keep it gender balanced—Angie Warren-Clark: It is nonsensical.SIMON O'CONNOR: But I want to be gender balanced because we wouldn't want to have any bias. So fundamentally if they're not sharing the information does that consequently apply to other elements of the welfare system? If I happened to be on a benefit tomorrow do I no longer need to tell the Ministry of Social Development my employment status or the nature of the house that I live in? I know what house I live in and I know what employment I work in but in line with what this bill is thinking to do it's setting a precedent that the person does not have to share the information that they have and I think that's fundamentally dishonest.I think also this does sit in a situation—and I did bring it up much much earlier but it remains seen that the bill has been unchanged—that fundamentally many many other fathers now are going to be paying for what a father chooses not to do and that is actually to contribute towards their child. I want to put it really clearly on the record: there is far more to being a father than simply money. In fact I think a number of the speakers particularly on this side but not exclusively have talked to the role of fathers and what they need to contribute. I said it actually in one of my maiden speeches: love is not an economic commodity and the role of fathers is much more than money. But with bills like this it's a subtle change which continues to send out a subtle—well arguably a not so subtle—message of the importance of fathers and the importance of their contribution and what should be expected.So really that is about the social contract. I'm not going to get into the deep etymology of it but a contract is a two-way street and if we've listened to contributions particularly from the Government's side they have not actually put forward any contract; it's really just a single track—that one person should be able to make their choices and then effectively everyone else pays for it. I don't find that appropriate. I've mentioned before that really there are no obligations on the Crown and there are no obligations on taxpayers to pay for other people's choices and if people are into—what is it?—pro-choice and free choice they also have to understand that their choices do not create an obligation automatically on other people to begin paying for it and so—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member. Your time has expired."