Logie Jan; Rurawhe AdrianJAN LOGIE (Green): What a pleasure to follow that speech. I really feel the energy and the sentiment of it. It is about time and it is really great to see this legislation in the House to rectify a very longstanding quite incomprehensible to me wrong. I too want to add my voice and to acknowledge the Hon Tracey Martin for her work in developing this legislation and providing the case for it and also to recognise that before she was the Minister she was starting on this kaupapa and through a member's bill to ensure that young children receiving the orphans benefit were able to access the clothing allowance which at that time they weren't. So this is a very natural and obvious next step from that piece of work as well and it is about time we got it done.I also when I was reading this again too was looking at the orphans benefit and the unsupported child's benefit and putting myself in the place of those kids. I don't think anyone feels comfortable that I know of referring to themselves as an orphan. It's one of those things where actually you try and not connect to that reality. I think it's a very difficult thing and I also have a concern that we are reinforcing that reality that many people try and find other ways of coping with through the name of that benefit. Maybe it's not this piece of legislation—it's possibly out of scope—but I do think it's about time to review those. I personally can't see any reason apart from historical precedent for the separation. When it's the same amount of money I don't understand why we have two separate benefits with different criteria one being family breakdown and the other being death missing parents or long-term serious disablement of parents which I also think needs examination around our commitment as a country to properly supporting people with disabilities to be able to actively fulfil their caring duties when parents are wanting to do that. We have a gap in that area that I think also needs attention.So the point of this bill is a pretty simple thing that we're doing. It's aligning the financial entitlements for people in the State care system—so where they've been formally made to be foster caregivers—with the support provided to—actually it's the other way around: aligning the support that goes to people who step in without the State telling them they have to to care for our babies. And this is usually family members. Significant numbers are Māori—around the orphans benefit of the caregivers 40 percent are Māori and 46 percent of the unsupported child's benefit caregivers are Māori. These are people who are not doing it because they've been told they have to; they are doing it because they've seen the need and they have that sense of connection. And this is what we all want. We don't want the State to be intervening and removing children. We want families to be in a position to step in and the fact that families who may be struggling financially themselves have been actually penalised in comparison to those families who are in the State system doesn't make sense to me. It's always seemed really odd to me when it has disincentivised people from being able to step up and care because they're worried that they'd be able to provide less for their kids for their moko than those kids would get access to in the State system. That's just wrong and this is a step towards fixing that. And it's really really important for us to do that.I hear from the National contributions talking about the need for targeting and not being convinced that this is necessary. I think the core principles of what has been tried to be done here is about just standardising and streamlining and removing that disparity between the two systems and that's a completely separate question to targeting. I don't think targeting is an appropriate consideration in this context. I think removing that disparity and disincentives for family to be able to step in should be our priority at this time. I did support them though in having an interest in looking at the implementation time frames particularly around the birthday allowances coming in from 2022 and whether it would be possible to bring that forward. I thought that was interesting.I also am quite interested in at some stage whether it's through this bill or not examining why we're privileging Christmas over other religious celebrations that may be significant to other communities in this country where Eid is a time when there is traditional outlaying that has a financial cost and if children are not able to participate in that way they lose out in the same way that children living in communities that celebrate Christmas do. I think it feels to me that in this day and age it's time just to share and even that out a bit to all of our communities particularly today when I'm thinking about the marginalisation of some communities in our country.But really I'm not going to stretch out the time unnecessarily—I think it's been pretty well canvassed—but just to bring it back again to saying thank you to the whānau for stepping in and to those kids just to say that from the Greens and the other speeches I've heard in the House tonight we want the best for you and this is us taking another step to ensure that you get the lives that you deserve.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members it's come time for me to leave the Chair. This debate is interrupted. The House is suspended until 9 a.m. tomorrow morning. Pō mārie.Debate interrupted.Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Wednesday)