Child support debate highlights differences in Pacific and Western parenting styles

​They say it takes a village to raise a child, but who pays for it has been the question driving debates in Parliament this week.

Newly introduced legislation on child support includes changes to how much is paid to sole parents on a benefit.

Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni says it’s been a complex piece of law, and something she’s been advocating for over a long time, both personally and as the Minister for Social Development.

“I’ve been a sole parent, I’ve been on benefits, and it’s discriminatory.”

The Child Support (Pass On) Acts Amendment Bill would allow child support to be classed as income and the full amount paid to the primary caregiver, regardless of whether they are a beneficiary. Previously, the $150 million dollars per year was used to offset sole parent support payments.

“If you were on a benefit but you are in a relationship with someone else, and you have an ex-partner paying child support, you get it”, says Sepuloni.

“But if you’re on a sole parent benefit, then you didn’t get that passed on and instead the government took whatever child support was paid and used it as a way of subsidising the benefit.

Speaking to Agnes Tupou on 531pi’s Pacific Mornings, Sepuloni says it's a good outcome.

“We know supporting sole parents to get ahead not only has an impact on them but has generational impacts because it has an impact on the potential or possibilities for their children as well.”

The change will happen from the first of July, and is estimated to impact 41,550 sole parents with a median gain of $24 per week, and bring 14,000 children above the poverty line.

At the third reading on Tuesday, Labour MP ‘Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki reflected on when she was paying child support for her two older children.

“It felt somewhat unfair to me, that I’m paying child support to Inland Revenue, and they didn’t pass that on to my mother who was caring for my children at the time.

“So this will incentivise liable parents to actually pay their contribution, because they know it’s going to end up in the household where their children live.”

Te Paati Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer says the bill brings dignity for the working class and indigenous families, who make up a large percentage of sole parents.

“I'm a result of a tribe who brought us up collectively and continued to do that model despite having our natural development interfered with by the State.

“Barrier after barrier has been put in place to prevent whānau to live with dignity, to be able to raise their babies in the village carefully and without judgement. Simply surviving has been a daily struggle.”

Dads who don’t pay

The debate around this legislation became a point of contention for National MP Simon O’Connor, who highlighted his personal view as a step parent and foster parent.

“The parents should look after their own children, that is part of the social contract. The Crown, the State, whatever you want to call it, should stay out of that by and large.

“This whole “community and village to raise a child”, it’s just such a trite phrase and I’m not even going to try and elaborate on that.

“It is the responsibility of the mother and the father - and I’m being very deliberate with my language there - the mother and the father to raise the child.”

​National party leader Christopher Luxon later defended the comments, saying it was aimed at “deadbeat dads” to step up and look after their kids, and not a dig at homosexual couples.

Political commentator Richard Pamatatau says those comments show a western, narrow minded view of who raises a child.

“The concept of family, aiga, or whānau is very big and very open.

“Simon O’Connor with his arguably quite white approach to the world misses out on the richness and the textures that are there, and he also sidelines people who are choosing to make family a different kind of thing.”

Pamatatau says O’Connor’s comments are destructive to people who are working hard to be responsible parents or don’t fit the conservative mould.

“He is a devout Christian man, he’s somebody who trained for the Catholic priesthood but did not go further, what we have there is an example of why religion and politics should not be mixed together.

“It’s not up to him to tell people or tell the village how it should be operating, I think he needs to step back a little bit and it does make one wonder whether or not he’s thinking about his own identity as a step-parent, and whether or not he thinks that’s the right thing.”

O’Connor’s conservative views also stirred controversy last year when he wrote on social media “today is a good day” following the Roe v Wade abortion ruling in the United States, and was asked to remove the post.