Hutchison Paul: Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Hutchison Paul: Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 I take the opportunity to speak on the somewhat dubious and deceptive Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill. Here we have the extraordinary situation where the Minister for Social Development and Employment is taking away $6 from each mother who does not name the father of her child but next year—on of all things 1 April—the Minister will give something like $25 for the first child and $15 for each successive child. What an extraordinary thing! If one could identify a party that was totally mixed up in terms of providing consistent incentives it would have to be the Labour Party. There is nothing progressive about it; it is totally regressive. 
There is no doubt that the situation that has arisen in New Zealand is a scandal. As Muriel Newman so clearly pointed out under this Minister’s watch the number of fathers who have not been named has gone from 14000 to 20000—an increase of 40 percent. Three women per day are choosing not to name the father of their child. In fact the genesis of this situation arose over some period of time. Back in 1993 in the order of 7900 women chose not to name the father of their child—about 5.6 percent. But under this so-called Labour-Progressive—I would say “Labour-Regressive”—Government that figure has now risen to 19467 or 16 percent of the total. That has to be an extraordinary scandal. 
The Minister says that the Government is sending a salutary signal; that it is putting out an incentive for people to front up and name the father. He is penalising a parent $6 for one child which is a total reduction of the benefit of $22. If a family has four children the figure is $88 and the $6 increase on 1 July makes it $94. That is a substantial amount to take away from a family of four. But then we hear this absolutely laughable irony that while the Minister is indeed taking away he is tripling how much he is giving. On 1 April there will be $25 more for the first child and $15 more for each child after that. That has to be an absolute farce. 
As my colleague Judith Collins quite rightly pointed out tomorrow there will be another irony in that we are debating the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill and one of the basic tenets behind that bill is the huge importance and benefit to children of their knowing their biological background. Certainly the right of children to know their father is fundamental. Yet this waffly “Labour-Regressive” Government is giving such an extraordinarily mixed set of cues as to how people should think. 
It is also extraordinary that Labour has supplied very little evidence as to why almost 20000 women do not name the fathers of their children. It seems absolutely inappropriate that Labour should bring in this sort of legislation without knowing the facts. What evidence is available? Labour has provided none in the background notes or background papers that I have seen. Some people have asked whether there is collusion between the parents who make their own deal. I think Jill Pettis came out with the idea that one parent may say: “If you do me for child support I’ll do you for custody.” That sort of attitude suggested by the senior Labour Party whip is absolutely inappropriate. The incentives should be utterly clear and based on evidence as to how to solve this massive problem which is occurring in New Zealand every day. 
I note that a number of exemptions are posted and there are new ones. I was quite interested to hear Muriel Newman’s point that the exemptions could be incentives. I think that is a very valid point. So often we hear of fathers quite incorrectly being accused of violence or abuse which only makes the situation worse. Here we have an incentive actually to name someone for the very fact of his being abusive. It seems as though the Labour Party members not only are confused in terms of this amendment but also are providing absolutely inappropriate incentives. 
There are some extreme and compelling situations and I note three that are listed: refugees asylum seekers and carers of children not their own where the natural mother has not established paternity. 
That brings up another very valid point that Muriel Newman brought up. In this day and age the science of paternity testing is reasonably simple. I well remember about 20 years ago going to the Pukekohe District Court after being asked to be an expert witness to sort out which of the men a woman had slept with over a course of about 6 weeks was most likely to be the father. I checked the menstrual dates and worked out who was most likely to be the father. The most unlikely one was the only one with any ability to pay for the support of the child and that was the one who was nobbled by the judge. It was absolutely outrageous. That judge holds a hugely important position in New Zealand society today. 
Darren Hughes 
: That was 20 years ago? 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: That was 20 years ago. Today we have paternity testing; a very easy simple swab can absolutely unequivocally identify the father. Yet the “Labour-Regressive” Government has failed even to suggest in this important amendment that such techniques should be introduced. The Government is 20 to 30 years behind and is using very crude mixed messages to address a very complicated and serious problem. 
There are some outstanding anomalies in terms of the failure over the last few years to collect the money. I point out that a separated father earning $40000 whose ex-wife cares for the children pays only $129 a week or $6000 a year—not $250 a week or $13000 which is a major proportion of the domestic purposes benefit. In other words it is only when the father starts to earn more than $65000 a year that Child Support recovers the benefit. At that wage the amount of child support is $246 weekly or $12000 a year. The extraordinary thing is that 70 percent of those paying child support earn so little money that they pay only $13 a week. It is quite absurd that 70 percent of liable parents are paying that extraordinarily minimal amount. It is worthwhile our sending this bill to the select committee for it hopefully to sort it out.