Coddington Deborah: Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Procedure 
Coddington Deborah: Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:617;Page:13516] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party to talk to the title of this bill which should in truth be called the “Future Elections (Working for Welfare Families) Bill” because that is what it is all about. That is what the future vision of this Government is—getting more and more people on to welfare and State dependency so that it can guarantee to have their vote in future elections. 
That is what the Government thinks will happen but it actually will not because people do not want to live on welfare for the rest of their lives. They know how dispiriting it is and they know what it causes. In the case in Carterton where the child “Lillybing” was abused and died the family had $1000 a week coming in in various forms of welfare payments and family support. That family was not financially poor. It suffered from a poverty of spirit and that is what locking people into welfare dependency gives to them. The only way such people can increase their incomes or get bigger houses is to have more and more children—children who are not wanted or cared about. In that case—a most disgraceful situation—a child was left clinging to a toilet seat for 4 hours clinging so that she did not fall in. That is the vision this Government wants for this country. That is what this bill will do for families. 
The bill will do absolutely nothing for the Kiwi battler on Struggle Street—not a thing. Members of this Government should listen to talkback radio but they are too snobby to do that and think that talkback has a lot of whingers and moaners. Talkback is the people’s Parliament and it is what makes the world go around in this country. If Government members listened to talkback they would hear what people are really saying about this bill. 
They are saying there is nothing in it for the working family. We can take the example of a teacher married with two children who is earning $50000 a year and next door a family with two children earning $25000 a year. Both families are living in the same street in Auckland and paying $300 a week in rent or mortgage payments. The family who works twice as hard to get $50000 is sending across the back fence to the other family on $25000— 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Unbelievable snobbery. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: The Minister can take a call if he has any problems with what I am saying. He is sending across the back fence around $200 a week. He is sending another $100 a week to the Government to spend how it likes. Why does this patronising Government not just allow those people to keep their own money so that they can be rewarded for working hard? 
This Government though thinks that earning $50000 a year is being rich. One is considered rich and high-income if one is on $50000 a year and what does this Government do to those it thinks are rich people? It takes money away from those people just because they have it. The best thing this Government could have done for families in this country was to give them a choice. 
I bet this Government has not seen the press statement from the School Trustees Association this morning which said that the association has no chance of meeting its budgets now because of the miserly increase this Government has made in the operational funding grant. ACT would not actually make the grant any greater but we would let the funding follow the child. 
This Government entrusts parents to give it their votes every 3 years but it will not trust them to pick schools for their children. It allows parents to choose the family doctors they go to—it does not do that based on where they live—but when it comes to choosing schools for their children the view is: “Oh no. These are just ordinary people. Ordinary people cannot choose. They do not know what is best for their children.” This Government thinks it does know so that is why it will bring in a bill it calls the Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill. It is an absolute disgrace that this Government thinks it can direct how families will go in the future of New Zealand.