Roche Denise: Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoche Denise: Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 15 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17964. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENISE ROCHE (Green): I rise to take the second short call for the Greens on the Budget Measures (Financial Support for Newborn Children) Bill. We support this bill. We believe that it does not go far enough; I will get into a bit more detail on that in a minute. We do not believe it goes far enough. In terms of the tax credit changes we do support increasing the length of time that the tax credit is extended to—from 8 weeks to 10 weeks after the birth of a child—and increasing the amount from $150 to $220 per week. We do acknowledge and we do note that the application is much tighter than it had been.Our policy has been to extend that tax credit to all so that it targets not just those in work but those who have the lowest incomes. Those are the people who are existing on the meagre benefits provided by the State. All families face financial burden when a new baby enters the family. Those with less money struggle more. They have less resilience to the financial shock that the entry of a newborn into a family makes and the costs that they bring with them. This Government with this Budget is picking the winners and the losers and this Budget is firmly directed at the winners—the 1 percent. By restricting the tax credit to just working families the Government introduces the Dickensian model of the worthy and the unworthy poor. And it fits with the other measures this Government has introduced that demonise those who are not in paid work and that reinforce the punitive approach this Government takes to those who need Statesupport. If we are to address the income levels and the financial strain that families face when they have a newborn baby then all people need to be able to live on the income they receive.We need to get past these stopgap measures. In the regulatory impact statement it says that “poverty is one of the greatest risks to children’s health and development”. It says “reducing parental stress especially in the early years is good for children in the short- and longer-term”. These measures are short-term measures.Why are they being put in place now? Well I have to say I am a bit cynical about that. These measures have been pushed through under urgency yet in terms of the paid parental leave they will not be introduced until 2015 when the Government will up paid parental leave to 16 weeks. Then in 2016 it will up paid parental leave to 18 weeks. We suspect that this urgency is deliberate to get through this wee scrap of support for families just before the election. Of course as we saw with the filibustering that occurred from the National members of Parliament during the first reading of Sue Moroney’s Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill the National Government is keen to avoid displeasing the 52 percent of voters who are women by directly opposing the measure to extend parental leave. And judging by the flood of submissions that Sue Moroney’s bill received that bill was incredibly popular.There was of course the small matter that the Hon Peter Dunne had signalled that he would be supporting the member’s bill. So some concessions have to be made now in order to avoid him forcing the Government to threaten a veto once the bill was passed because as we have got a surplus with this Budget there would be no reason for that veto after all. I have more to say and I will be rising during the Committee of the whole House to do that. Thank you.