Prime Willow-JeanHon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker for the opportunity to take a short call on this bill. As the spokesperson for children I am particularly concerned about what the Minister is proposing today because we know when the previous Labour Government made changes to the indexation of main benefits to wage growth as opposed to inflation we heard the Children's Commissioner commend that move saying it was one of the best things that we could do to address child poverty in this country. Labour has a proud record of lifting over 77000 children from poverty in our time. I am worried deeply concerned that this change is going to put more children in poverty.And why is this change being made? The change is being made so that it can fund the tax cuts that this Government campaigned on. That is shameful and I challenge the Minister and she should be challenged on it because she is saying that people will be better off because of this change. Yet in the information that we have before the House it says that the long-term impacts of this based on the predictions that inflation is actually in fact going to be lower than wages means that beneficiaries—those on main benefits—are going to be receiving less. That means that more people are going to be in poverty. In a cost of living crisis—with a Government who apparently says that this is its number one focus but I haven't seen them do much in terms of that at all—they are proposing to make these changes which are going to make it more difficult for our families.As the information which we have before the House says today those who are going to be disproportionately impacted by these changes are going to be women are going to be people with disabilities and it's going to be our children who are part of these households who receive these main benefits. I am concerned that the information that the Minister has been giving is not understood by those who this is going to impact. They are effectively going to have a cut to their benefit not an increase to their benefit. And I heard the Minister say—Tim Costley: No they're not. No one's having their benefit cut. You want to talk about misinformation—be honest!Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: I heard the Minister say that her main goal is to get more people into employment. Yet the prediction shows that there is going to—Tim Costley: No one's having their benefit cut. Come on be honest—be honest! Who having their benefit cut? Who's having it cut? No one.Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: Read the detail! Read your own rushed statements that have been presented to the House because this has been done under urgency and there hasn't been sufficient time to provide more robust advice. But what the advice does say is that it is going to have an impact and a disproportionate impact on women people with disabilities Māori and Pasifika. There was no consideration of the Treaty they didn't have time for that and there was also rushed reporting and information provided to this House on these changes that has been made because this has been done under urgency. So there was no consultation taken either.These are significant changes that are going to impact our families our children significantly in a cost of living crisis and I join with our spokesperson for social development and child poverty reduction in opposing this bill to the House.