Upston LouiseHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you Madam Speaker. I stand to take a call on behalf of the National Party and just want to put back on record for those who are just following this debate for the first time that it was not even six weeks ago that this piece of legislation was read for the first time and unfortunately is yet another piece of legislation by the Minister for Social Development and Employment who has rushed another bill through the House. I thought it was really interesting that their excuse for having it so delayed was that it was a really complex piece of legislation and it was really important that officials had time to do the work which is really interesting. So actually I think it gave even more reason why the public equally should have had the time to submit on the bill but the Government didn't think that that was something that they should trifle with. So on this side of the House before I go into the substantive comments I do want to say that a shortened report-back on a piece of legislation like this that is incredibly complex I think is irresponsible. So in terms of the shortened process I think it is really important to understand that on the surface of it it looks like a logical bill; it looks like a logical thing to support. When the Welfare Expert Advisory Group recommendations first came out about—what?—over four years ago I thought this is one that the Government would have moved on quite quickly. So it is somewhat surprising that it's taken this long for it to get to the House. So again on the surface of it it's looking at resolving an inconsistency—those who are receiving other types of assistance or benefits are able to get their child support passed on and sole parents weren't. It sounds like a simple thing to fix. But if you think about it for a moment the intent or the general purpose of welfare assistance is to use all available resources before seeking financial assistance through the Ministry of Social Development. So if you think about it the reason there is a sole parent is there is a liable parent—in most cases one that's identified. And so the way it works at the moment is that the child support is offset against the cost to taxpayers of the sole parent benefit. Makes sense—liable parent pays the costs. We're not talking about a small amount; we're talking about $354 million. So this is a cost that is currently covered by liable parents and will no longer be if this bill passes. So on the surface of the inconsistency there is a bit more to it. Then look at it and the National Party supported the child poverty reduction legislation just as—well I think all New Zealanders would want to see child poverty reduce in New Zealand. For those who are listening or speaking in this debate who have been sole parents on that benefit they know it's not much of a life. So to provide assistance makes sense. The median gain for this is $20 per week. So then what it will mean is that for somebody receiving the sole parent benefit the child support will be passed on and basically be treated as income. So it will mean for many households more cash at the end of the day and it is a step towards reducing child poverty. The question though is—and this is not something that I believe the Government have gone through in sufficient detail in this rushed process—is this the best use of taxpayer funds and could the child poverty reduction targets have been achieved in a different way? As I say $354 million isn't a small amount that we should trifle with. So it does require scrutiny and scrutiny of this House and unfortunately insufficient scrutiny was accorded in the select committee process because yet again it was a piece of legislation that was rushed. So one of the areas that definitely concerns the National Party also is the extension of the temporary additional support for liable parents. So the National Party believes that parents should support their own children in the first instance and so by allowing this to be widened as a temporary additional support to pay for child support that is putting the burden fairly and squarely back on taxpayers which actually I think is an unfair burden. So we don't agree with that component of the legislation proposed. We also don't agree with the fact that this is not being extended for the unsupported child benefit. If the intent was purely around child poverty reduction it makes zero sense for the unsupported child benefit to be excluded from the pass-on provision. So that's where—and again it's being rushed; it's being rushed so the Government can say they've done something when the payments take effect or the transfer takes effect on 1 July. For all the complexity I do actually worry about the ability of the agencies to implement it and implement it well. So it is good to see that there is an amount of funds allocated for evaluation. The sorts of questions that the National Party will be asking as this is implemented—which unfortunately we weren't able to get answers for in the select committee process where you would expect to be able to get these questions answered—are: will there be more liable parents paying child support as a result of this legislation? Will there be more parents paying child support? Will there be more child support collected or less? Will there be more sole parents claiming the sole parent benefit? Those are the sorts of parts of the evaluation we would expect. Actually we would have expected answers to those questions ahead of the bill being introduced. What we would be very concerned to see is that as a result of this policy we continue to see the number on sole parent benefit increase. We've seen that already with policy changes made by the Labour Government that we disagree with: the removal of the subsequent child policies and also the removal of the obligation to name a father—if a father is not named of course you then can't claim child support. So I do think that this may well be another piece of legislation that means the number claiming the sole parent benefit actually increases and that would be a concern because what we do know is the number of children being raised in benefit-dependent homes. So again if the objective of this is around child poverty reduction it doesn't make any sense on the one hand to say that and then to lock more children into benefit dependency when we know the outcomes for children raised in benefit-dependent homes are worse in terms of health worse in terms of education worse in terms of their incomes and also contact with the justice system. So it is a bit frustrating not to have some of those questions satisfied in the select committee process. Because we have seen the number of sole parents increasing it would be deeply concerning to this side of the House if that number continued to lift and more significantly the time spent on the sole parent benefit increases because we do know there is a direct connection with material hardship and poor outcomes for children that are raised in benefit-dependent homes. So on balance we will support this legislation in the second reading. But as I say the $354 million there may well have been more effective ways if the singular aim in this was to reduce child poverty. We do know that the Government is not on track with their 10-year targets; maybe that's why they have rushed this through by 1 July. But I will definitely have more questions for the Minister in the committee of the whole House stage. So it is with still some quite severe reservations that the National Party supports the Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill in the second reading. As I say I continue to be concerned that the Government rushes through legislation without sufficient scrutiny.