Clark David: Child Support Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Clark David: Child Support Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 27 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:8306. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 I am grateful for an opportunity to speak to these introductory clauses clauses 1 to 3. The title of the bill the Child Support Amendment Bill is something that I think could do with amendment. Certainly in the form that we have just passed it as a Committee it reflects poorly the actual nature of the bill. It suggests that it is a “Child Support Amendment Bill” which would be implying or could be taken to imply that it is aimed at supporting children. In fact as we have canvassed in the debate at some length and in some detail and as we have noted it is likely to be if anything less supportive of children than the existing formula and it has a number of other burdens as well. I have a number of competing titles to offer. I shall leave it to the end to tell you which is my preferred title. 
First I wish to talk about the “Missed Opportunity for Vulnerable Children Bill” because that in some ways quite accurately describes what we have in front of us. We had an opportunity in the Social Services Committee to amend the bill which Labour supported to the select committee so that it could be amended for the benefit of children—so that we could actually put children at the heart of this legislation so that their well-being and their development could be the thing that we were focused on in passing this legislation in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child which we have signed up to in respect of looking out for the interests of vulnerable children. We saw in the select committee that that attempt to bring this into the core of the legislation and to bring it in in a way that did not encourage litigation but that was actually being very clear that the priority here was children was defeated in two separate votes. I suggest then that the “Missed Opportunity for Vulnerable Children Bill” would be a more apt description than the “Child Support Amendment Bill”. 
The Child Support Amendment Bill’s title I guess is technically aimed at telling you we are amending the current child support arrangements. That much is strictly true but it is a little misleading because of the words “support” and “children” being brought in there when in fact what we are doing is undermining the system that we have got. We are making it less transparent. That takes me to my next suggested title which would be the “Child Support (Transparency Removal) Bill”. This bill has got a new and more opaque formula. This is what we are introducing here in this bill: a new and more opaque formula that makes it more difficult for those with children liable parents and primary caregiving parents to calculate how their future arrangements will pan out. We know that the current formula is very simple. Families can work out what their future liabilities are going to be. They can plan towards them. Now we have a bill that is far more difficult to understand in terms of the formula calculation. 
We have been told by officials that they will need to upskill so that they can also brief parents on the likely obligations and responsibilities they will have. That will be an ongoing task certainly with the turnover in the Inland Revenue Department in recent times. That is a department under stress as we know running a 20-year-old computer system to collect our taxes with a dropping revenue base. We know that that department will continue to have high turnover. It will continue to need to train its own people to train the users of this formula and therefore it is a step back in terms of giving parents the transparency to plan for future liabilities. So that is why it should be a “Removal of Transparency Bill”. That is one thing that is very clear here with this new opaque formula that is being introduced. 
Another possible title for consideration is the “Child Support (Further Disadvantaging Women) Bill” because this bill very clearly puts more burden on to the primary caregivers the majority of whom we know are women. We have seen data for this in the select committee that makes it very clear that an increased burden will fall on women who are the primary caregivers who usually are the most vulnerable in these situations. I generalise a little but I think it is fair to say from those who come through the electorate door and those whom we see as constituency MPs that women are often particularly vulnerable in these situations and particularly where poverty and stress are involved. This further makes those women more vulnerable and so therefore we could have a title around the further disadvantage that this bill will generate for women. 
Another title that leaps out from this bill is the “Child Support (Increasing Bureaucracy Cost and Business Red Tape) Bill”—increasing bureaucracy cost and red tape for business because this bill does increase all of those things. We have learnt as we have had the debate as we did in the select committee that not all of these things had been consulted upon. This is typical. I think I made that point earlier in the debate with the paper boy tax and the various other tax grabs that this Government has done to try to fill the revenue hole that it created with the 2010 tax cuts which went to the wealthiest New Zealanders. I remind anyone who is watching at home that 44 percent of the value of the tax cuts in 2010 went to the wealthiest 10 percent of New Zealanders while just 2 percent of the value of those tax cuts in 2010 went to the 20 percent who are the poorest in New Zealand. Those were unjust tax cuts. The story we were told was that they would stimulate economic growth. Well we know now that we have got a Government here that has got the worst economic growth record of any Government in the last 50 years. That Government has not stimulated the economy with those tax cuts so it has got a revenue hole that it has been trying to fill with tax grabs. At the same time as it has been going about those tax grabs it has been increasing red tape—it has been increasing red tape. That red tape on business is just collateral damage as far as the National Government is concerned. As long as it talks business it is not really concerned what happens to small business. Talk to small-business owners around New Zealand and you will see that they are hurting right now. So I will come back to the title— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Good. 
Dr DAVID CLARK 
: —because clearly this all lends itself to the title “Increasing Costs Increasing Bureaucracy and More Business Red Tape Bill” because that is precisely what is generated by this new more complex formula. You will see I was making a point quite relevant to the title debate. 
So if we weigh up all of those options whether it is the “Missed Opportunity for Vulnerable Children Bill” whether it is the “Women Further Disadvantaged Child Support Amendment Bill” whether it is the “New Less Transparent Formula Bill” whether it is the “Difficulty for Planning Bill” or whether it is the “Increased Cost Bureaucracy and Business Red Tape Bill” we think all of those things—I think all of those things—perhaps more accurately reflect the nature of the bill than “child support”. So I contest that those are better titles for the Committee’s consideration but overall I want to stress that in my opinion perhaps the best and most accurate title is the first of those I have suggested which is the “Missed Opportunity for Vulnerable Children Bill”.