Ogilvy Bernie: Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Ogilvy Bernie: Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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BERNIE OGILVY (United Future) 
: 
 I stand on behalf of United Future to support the second reading of the Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill. 
The bill as we have been told has three main amendments. First it seeks to encourage more sole parent beneficiaries to establish paternity and apply for child support. Second it extends the eligibility for the accommodation supplement to residents of retirement villages who have “licence to occupy” tenure. Third it introduces some flexibility for seasonal workers so that they are less disadvantaged during off-season times by stand-down provisions. 
Two of those amendments—namely the second and third as I listed them—are something that we can go along with pretty well without exception. But it is the first one we do not support and I notice that other speakers have put some emphasis on it as well. 
Although supporting this bill United Future would like to signal that we believe much more work needs to be done on the issue of paternity. Clearly we are glad that Work and Income case managers now need to provide more substantial information about the issues regarding established paternity when dealing with pregnant single women applying for a benefit and that lead maternity carers will now be provided with information packs. I mean that is an advance of a minor proportion compared with what we have in terms of the issues before us. However further work needs to be done to investigate ways of providing clear legal pathways for fathers to establish paternity of their children. I want to devote a little time to that issue because I think we can skirt around it and miss the point but I think it is an important issue. Further commitment needs to be made to resourcing both the scientific and the legal mechanisms that would be required to give fathers an equitable opportunity to be named on birth certificates. 
There are a number of things in the bill that I want to draw attention to. United Future fully supports the exemption provisions proposed by clause 7(3) of the bill for women and children who would be at serious risk should they have to meet the section 70A requirements. I think that we are not heartless and nobody around Parliament has been heartless about this matter. However we must not buy into the myth that the exemption would apply to most of the 19500 current beneficiaries who have not legally identified the other parent or who refuse to apply for child support. The Social Services Committee was furnished with some very interesting findings and I want to touch on one or two of those. 
The Ministry of Social Development did an interview of 4035 sole parent beneficiaries who were subject to that section 70A penalty because they declined to name in law the other parent of their child or children or because they refused to apply for child support. I think it is rather significant that only 6 percent gave the fear of violence to themselves or their child as the reason for not naming the other parent. I think it is unbelievable that we allow the other 94 percent to go scot-free. I must admit that the rest of the reasons given in that survey were many and varied but in general they were excuses that considered the interests of the adults above the long-term best interests of the children. A number of speakers have addressed the issue that the child gets a very rough deal through this approach. If we have poor conditions for the mother to work with and no father then we have this problem looking at us. 
In this day and age of non-invasive DNA testing it seems absolutely outrageous to United Future that there are fathers who for instance can afford to fly to Australia to get away from everything yet we are unable to track them down when they are here in New Zealand. [ 
Interruption 
] Yes and I think we should get into that one and discuss this issue further before this bill goes through. I think we should put this into law somehow. They can afford a trip or to go to a test yet they remain unidentified or unconfirmed because the power base for that decision rests with the mother and she is not being honest. 
By the way the select committee heard one powerful submission from a man who had completed a study of the impact on young teenage boys of becoming a father. The submitter commended the intention of the bill to hold fathers more responsible but he felt that it provided a very one-sided picture of unidentified fathers. Basically he believes that in many cases the blowtorch should be held at the feet of those young boys. He stated: “There are a notable numbers of fathers particularly adolescent males who have fathered children in short-term relationships. For a significant portion of such males the mother of their child has omitted paternal details when they registered the birth. Qualitative research suggests adolescent males are a particularly vulnerable group in this regard. Someone else has pointed out they are generally poorly educated have limited financial resources and lack a strong sense of self. As such many find themselves helpless in their wish to assert their paternity—and that is one of the big issues. He goes on to state this combination of factors causes many adolescent fathers to resign themselves to being precluded from their child’s life. They become shadow fathers unable to assert any paternal rights as they have been omitted from their child’s birth certificate.” 
I believe and United Future believes—and I am sure that other parties do too—that the Government should consider formulating facilities to assist males to declare their paternity where such a declaration has not been provided by the child’s mother. I think it is quite absurd that currently under New Zealand laws judges are removing children from their mothers’ legal care for a few hours so that a DNA test can take place to determine paternity then returning the children to their mothers in order to get around some inadequate legislative provisions that work to the disadvantage of fathers and their legal right to be named on birth certificates. I think this bill should make that issue clearer to get around that problem but it does not. 
This bill is a step in the right direction. But it is really only one small and faltering step on a matter that is a serious foundational family issue—that is the right of every child to have at least access to information about who his or her mother and father are. The child ends up fatherless. Both the studies mentioned in my speech are worthy of serious consideration and United Future would like to signal that we are not prepared to limit our efforts on this matter to supporting this bill; we will not be shying away in the Committee stage after this debate from the hard work that remains to be done on this vital parenting issue. 
Finally I say that United Future will support the second reading of this amendment bill but with the provisos I have laid out.