Child Poverty Reduction Bill

I move, That the Child Poverty Reduction Bill be now read a second time.

I am extremely pleased to be able to stand here today as our commitment to lifting children out of poverty and improving the lives of children across New Zealand takes another significant step forward, with the Child Poverty Reduction Bill being reported back to the House with unanimous select committee support. I’d like to thank all the members of the Social Services and Community Committee, and particularly the chair, Gareth Hughes, for their thorough consideration of this bill.

The Children’s Commissioner has said of the cross-party support that this “is a giant step forward in addressing child poverty” and “It is truly gratifying to see our leaders … rising above political differences to advance such a critically important piece of legislation.” I’m delighted that we have achieved this. The next step is for members in this House to continue to support the passage of the bill and commit to its intent to achieve significant and sustained reductions in child poverty. This is simply a first step.

Reducing child poverty, as I’ve said many a time in this place and outside of it, is one of the reasons I entered politics, and this bill has been one of the highest priorities of this Government. Alongside programmes like the Families Package, the bill is a key instrument to drive change to once again make New Zealand the best place in the world to be a child and to be a young person.

The essence of this bill is to build enduring political accountability, consensus, and action on reducing child poverty. It provides a framework for measuring and targeting child poverty, and it creates a commitment to action on the part of the Government to address the well-being of all tamariki and rangatahi. To help achieve this, it sets in law a range of widely accepted measures for reporting on child poverty: a requirement for successive Governments to set short- and long-term child poverty reduction targets, a requirement for annual reports relating to child poverty to be produced and published independently of Ministers, a requirement that the Minister of Finance must, at every Budget, report on child poverty reduction—a huge step change in the way that we deliver Budgets in Aotearoa New Zealand—and a requirement to produce a strategy for improving the well-being of all children, with a particular focus on the well-being of children with greater needs, children of interest and concern to Oranga Tamariki, and reducing and mitigating the impacts of child poverty and socioeconomic disadvantage. That is where the action will be.

The bill aims to develop a framework that’s flexible enough to accommodate Governments with different approaches and different priorities. Targets themselves are deliberately not included in the bill for this reason, and this underscores the idea and notion of political neutrality in our attempt to ensure that successive Governments commit to the well-being of children.

The select committee received over 600 submissions on the bill, with the vast majority overwhelmingly supportive of the bill and its intent. Some comments from submitters talked about it being game-changing, describing it as having the “potential to transform the lives and well-being of our children”, as being a “landmark piece of legislation—transformative, historic”, and as “a fundamentally necessary conversation for our communities”. I want to thank all the individuals and groups who submitted on the bill for their passionate and thoughtful contributions. They have been extremely valuable and have helped to further strengthen the bill in a number of areas. I just want to briefly outline these main areas of change.

In response to submitters calling for reporting and outcomes on population groups to be made explicit in the bill, the bill now requires the Government Statistician’s annual report on child poverty to also report on particular population groups of interest, including Māori and, if the data is adequate to do so, other groups such as Pacific children, disabled children, and children with a disabled parent, guardian, or caregiver. As we announced in the Budget, we’ve funded Statistics New Zealand to significantly expand the sample size of the household economic survey from about 3,500 households to about 20,000 households. This will help us improve the accuracy of the Government Statistician’s reports on specific populations and to provide a more accurate picture of child well-being and low income.

The bill now also specifies that the Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy is intended to assist New Zealand in meeting its international obligations relating to children and explicitly refers to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as examples. This addition has been viewed very positively by the children’s advocacy community. The bill now explicitly also requires that when developing the strategy, the Minister must have regard, in particular, to principles related to children, including their intrinsic value, their inherent dignity, and their rights, including those derived from conventions. The Minister must also have regard to the principle that children should be viewed in the context of their family, their whānau, their hapū, their iwi, and their wider family group, because, of course, when we talk of child poverty, we are talking about whānau and family poverty as well.

The bill now includes specific requirements relating to consultation on the strategy and reporting on outcomes for Māori children to recognise and provide a practical commitment to the Treaty of Waitangi. In terms of outcomes, the bill now requires that the Minister’s annual progress report on achieving the strategy’s outcomes also include an analysis of specific identified populations, including Māori children and any other groups of children that the Minister deems appropriate.

The committee also agreed to some supporting amendments in response to the Hon Alfred Ngaro’s Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs). The proposed amendments require the responsible Minister to include and report annually on one or more additional child poverty - related indicators, such as employment, housing, education, health and disability, or any other related area. I do think that this is a useful addition to the bill. Such indicators were also recommended in a number of submissions and were originally addressed in my 2012 member’s bill—just a reference to how long it feels like it’s taken to get to this auspicious occasion.

A further change in response to the SOPs is the inclusion of policy-related principles in the bill. This means that, before adopting or changing the Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy, the responsible Minister must have regard to principles such as early intervention and evidence-informed policy, and steps the Government has taken to evaluate the effectiveness of such policy—good practice, I’m sure we’ll all agree. But I do want to acknowledge the Hon Alfred Ngaro for his contribution to the bill.

These are important enhancements overall. The committee’s findings confirm the overall framework of the bill is sound and that the approach is the right one, and public consultation has made the bill even stronger, as has the contribution of the officials who have worked on this bill, and I thank them for that work. There are very few things as important as reducing child poverty. It is therefore vital to the long-term welfare of our children that the framework measures and requirement for action required in this bill are able to gain the support of successive Governments. Alongside the unwavering support of New Zealand First and the Green Party, I acknowledge everyone in this House who will support the bill today, including the National Party.

There are some things that we can take the politics out of some of the time, and I think this is one of those occasions. But the next steps are the important ones, and this coalition Government is absolutely committed to putting in place the fundamental changes that are needed to build, first and foremost, an inclusive and sustainable economy, one that delivers greater prosperity to all its people, including the tamariki and rangatahi of this country. We are committed to continuing our ambition to make the kind of change that you see in a generation that will allow us to be able to stand proudly and say New Zealand is the best place in the world to be a child. Kia ora tātou katoa.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Child Poverty Reduction Bill. Can I acknowledge the Prime Minister. As she has said in her statement—and it’s a statement that goes to the core, when people say, “What is it that we are called to this place for? What is it that we were elected for and what are our core responsibilities?” Prime Minister, I want to acknowledge your words. As you said, when you came to this place some years ago, you had made a declaration that the basis of your calling was to ensure that children and young people in New Zealand, in Aotearoa, lived a long, happy, and well life. So I want to acknowledge that, because that also challenges us to ask that question: what are we here for, what’s our purpose, what’s our sense of direction, and what will we do to the best of our efforts? I want to acknowledge the fact that your call and your acknowledgment of that have asked us that same question: what is it that we are called to this place for?

I want to acknowledge your leadership in being able to say that this Child Poverty Reduction Bill is something that will raise the issue of poverty above the politics. So in my words that I will share today, I will be calling it our bill—this is our intent. I would hope that when we talk about this bill that this is Parliament’s bill and not just a Government bill, because if we’re calling on the best of who we are to the intent of this bill, which is to do the best that we can for the outcomes of all of our tamariki, then it’s something we should do that’s never been done before. Could we call this Parliament’s bill and not just a Government bill of the day? So that’s the first thing that I would say. That would be my reflection, and, again, I want to acknowledge and thank the Prime Minister for her words, as well.

When I think about this, this issue of poverty is nothing new. In fact, in ancient words, in the Book of Deuteronomy 15:11, it says this: “For the poor will always be with us, so I command you to be open-handed.” In other words, it calls on us to do the best that we can and to be open, to be caring, and to be sharing in the best ways possible. So the issues of poverty are nothing new, but what it does command on every single generation every time is: what will we do about this? So, as the Government of the day and as parliamentarians of the day, this is our responsibility as well, and so I thank Parliament and I thank the Prime Minister and others for us being able to talk about this bill—about our bill.

When I think about those that are listening out there today to hear the comments about this bill—this bill is about reducing child poverty. This bill is meaning that not only just those of us in the roles of responsibility, whether it be by governing, whether it be by advocacy as members of Parliament, or whether it be by those who are the officials—I want to acknowledge the officials that have worked through this as well, who have given us the best of their ability. We have challenged and we have changed things in order to get this to a point where we believe it has, at this time, for this day, the right pathway to address this issue in regards to poverty.

But there are a few things that I have to say that we have been challenged with, and in my speech I want to talk about those challenges which, again, we have had. One of the first things that was indicated in regards to the first draft of the bill—and in the submissions, we were reminded of it—was why was the Treaty of Waitangi left out of the bill? It was left out of the bill because sometimes in the system and in our consciousness, though we know it’s the right thing to do, we forget it and we forget the performance of the place of it. So we, with the officials, ensured that it was in pride of place, and the first component of this bill was where the Treaty of Waitangi was in there.

But here’s the other challenge to the system, and I say that we must challenge the system. When we had that initiated back into the bill itself, and then it talked about the roles of responsibility in that, it declared the fact that under the Treaty of Waitangi, under our obligations, we would consult and report. Now, while it seems like that’s normal and we’ve done this before, I want to challenge that, because if we are going to do better—if Māori are factored in there, in some of the statistics that we are talking about in regards to child poverty—then I believe the fact is that we could and should do better.

So what does “do better” look like? Well, on the bill, we also talked about our obligations to the United Nations SDGs—which are Sustainable Development Goals—about halving poverty. We signed it and we took up our responsibility around that, but then it talked about the responsibilities for us as a country to those SDGs. We talked about judicial obligations. Now, I had to challenge the system then, because it was almost as if we gave more weight to the United Nations’ obligations than we did to the Treaty of Waitangi. This is not a criticism, but this is about challenging the system—we are challenging the system.

So I want to again acknowledge the fact that our Māori colleagues on the other side now have the opportunity to influence this. I want to ask you to do this: keep challenging the system, so that when we say that they are our obligations under the Treaty, they are more than just to consult and to report, and yet, under the UN obligations, we have judicial obligations. We can do better, we should do better, and if we are going to make a difference, we will do better than that.

So if that’s the case, and we are saying that we are going to lift poverty above the politics—and if we are talking about it in this regard, the Treaty of Waitangi, for Māori—then can I challenge also New Zealand First and others that are out there. When we think about Whānau Ora—and I want to acknowledge the Hon Peeni Henare and the role and responsibility that he has—if this is the best of us putting that forward, and if it is to deal with the issues for Māori that are situated in this bill, then why is it that we are playing politics with Whānau Ora?

I believe the fact is that Whānau Ora is putting power in the hands of the people where, actually, they can decide. I would hope that this would elevate it to the point that a decision would be made to empower Whānau Ora to do the role that it was destined to play, which is that Māori have the ability through their commissioning agents to decide for themselves how they can partake in that, through navigators and through others in their roles to be able to ensure that they can make a difference for Māori in our country and, in this case, for Māori children. So I would put that challenge out there. Let’s lift that above the politics. Let’s allow Whānau Ora to do its work for Māori in particular. I think that’s critically important for us, as well.

The other areas that I think are important for us—and, again, these are putting the best of us forward to do this—are around social investment. I know that at the moment, it’s something that the current Government is taking on board, but I would encourage you with this. The best of us that we would put forward—and I want to acknowledge the Rt Hon Sir Bill English, who talked about the fact of how could we challenge the system. If we’re going to challenge the system so that it changes, then social investment is actually doing that. In other words, for every dollar that we invest into the system, how do we know that it’s making a difference? So what we would like to do is this. We would like to challenge the system—I’m challenging the system; I’m not challenging the people—by asking: can the system do better? I believe it can do better.

We on this side believe it can do better, and so, therefore, the challenge to the system is: how can we hold the system accountable? We believe that social investment was a way of being able to do that, hence the reason why the measures and the targets were our push towards that. I believe that we’ve reached a point where we can agree, but I would still advocate for the position that social investment, in its principles and in its ideals, is to challenge the system and to hold that system to account. If it can do better, why should it not do better?

The targets that we had actually put forward, the measures, were, again, about the system, because if the system is treating people like people, and not just like numbers—what we actually did on this side of the House, when we were on that side of the House, was to make sure that it would do that. So we do not backtrack from setting those measures and from setting those targets, because we think that they’re critically important as well.

We know inside of this that the child poverty indicators are critically important. We thank the Prime Minister and also the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet too, and the staff that worked with us to get to a point where we can have some targets, some measures that we could hold ourselves to account on. I want to acknowledge the fact that now we’re going to have that from a fiscal perspective, where, actually, the Minister of Finance, in every Budget, will have to indicate how those measures have made a difference. So I want to actually acknowledge that piece of work. I think it’s important. I think that work will actually be an indicator to the rest of New Zealand that we’re putting our money where our mouths are. In other words, we’re putting the treasures that we think are really important—in this case, children—where we think it is important that our dollars are spent in a way that will make a difference, and I want to acknowledge the work around that as well.

I finish my last comments in the minute that I have left with the words from 1980 of Bob Marley. In 1980, he finally realised that, actually, he had cancer, and so he wrote a song that he had never written before, and it was called the “Redemption Song”. And in that “Redemption Song”, this is what he said—

💬 Hon Members: Sing it!

Oh, well, no.

Old pirates, yes, they rob I,

[Sent] I from the merchant ships

Anyway, I won’t go on about that, but here is what he said in the second verse of the song: that if we are to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery, “None but ourselves can [change] our minds”. One of the challenges to this issue of child poverty: poverty is by choice or by circumstance. And our role is not to judge those who are in there, it is to support them and help them, but challenge them at times. But I would say this: that out in our communities, the change to poverty is not by what we do here in this place as Parliament, but also the changes will happen from our communities, from our people, from our whānau who will stand up and declare that they too want to be part of the change, that they will take up their responsibility to do that.

This is an important day. This is a day that we would say that this bill, the Child Poverty Reduction Bill, is a bill that is Parliament’s bill to declare to the nation that we want to change the issues of poverty that affect our children. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I apologise in advance because I will not be singing any Bob Marley lyrics in the House today. But I do want to start by acknowledging the Prime Minister for leading the work on this bill and for being a champion for children. Her goal is that New Zealand will be the best place in the world to be a child. We on this side of the House all share this goal, and I truly believe that this Government can make that happen.

Child poverty is one of the most emotional and heart-wrenching issues of our time, and I absolutely believe that no one in this House wants to see children experience hardship. This legislation is a commitment to doing better for children. It is an agreement that we will put children at the heart of all we do and make progressing their rights and upholding their well-being an absolute focus of this Government. I know the previous speaker, Alfred Ngaro, wants us to state that this is an all-of-Parliament bill; we could if there was one more person in this House that was supporting it. But I do acknowledge not only Labour but also New Zealand First, the Greens, and National for supporting this piece of legislation.

Child poverty has a huge emotional, physical, social, and economic cost. There is robust evidence that growing up in poverty can harm children in multiple, predictable, substantial, and often sustained ways. We consider current levels of child poverty to be unacceptably high, and have made reducing child poverty a priority. As part of this, we have created a new ministerial portfolio for child poverty reduction, held by none other than the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern herself. We want to make sure we look after our children so they can have the best childhood here in New Zealand, and we know that if we provide that, then we will enable them to reach their potential. And that has to be good for New Zealand.

This bill will establish an enduring legislative framework for Government action on child poverty and ensure transparency and accountability for progress in reducing it. As we know, there is no one measure of poverty. This bill will put in place a measurement framework for child poverty and establish four primary and six supplementary measures of child poverty. The bill requires the Government to set 10-year targets on a defined set of measures of child poverty and periodically set and publish three-year targets. It will also require Governments to report each Budget day on progress made in reducing child poverty and how measures in the Budget will affect child poverty.

We know that some groups such as Māori, Pasifika peoples, and disabled people are overrepresented amongst those in poverty. In fact, Pacific people, Māori, and disabled people tend to be overrepresented in a range of statistics in New Zealand. It’s clear that while we are making progress towards addressing pay inequality, gender inequality, and disparities in educational achievement, and so on, progress for Māori, Pacific, and disabled peoples is not being made at the same pace.

With my Associate Minister for Pacific Peoples hat on, it’s important to note that this bill, in particular, is hugely important for the Pacific population in New Zealand because we have such a young population. In 2013, over one-third, 35.7 percent, of Pacific peoples in New Zealand were children aged zero to 14 years, and, according to median projections, Pacific people are projected to make up almost one-fifth of all New Zealand children by 2038, and a similar story can be told for Māori.

As the Minister for Disability Issues, I want to acknowledge that families of children with disabilities often face increased financial hardship due to high and fluctuating costs of services and supports. This is something raised throughout the select committee process. For our children with disabilities or health issues, having access to the right supports and feeling like part of the community is so important. Children with disabilities will be an important focus within the child well-being strategy which is currently being developed. This will set out the Government’s vision for the well-being of all children, and, as New Zealand’s first child well-being strategy, it is an opportunity to harness collective goodwill, knowledge, and resources to create positive change.

The interests and needs of children with disabilities and of children of disabled parents will be a key part of improving well-being for children. As the Minister for Social Development, I know I have an opportunity, as well, to really make a difference in the lives of some of New Zealand’s most vulnerable children. The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has an important role to play in upholding and uplifting the well-being of children. This is one of the key drivers behind this Government’s decision to overhaul the welfare system to ensure that it is fair, accessible, and maximises the potential of anyone and everyone who uses it, including our young ones. We want to make sure people have an adequate income and standard of living, are treated with respect, can live in dignity, and are able to participate meaningfully in their communities.

This year, I established the Welfare Expert Advisory Group to support this work. The group will review the welfare system and provide advice to the Government. Professor Cindy Kiro has been appointed as the chair of the group. Her focus on building on the potential in people reflects the principles of this Government. As a former Children’s Commissioner, she brings an important set of skills and knowledge to the role. The group also includes people like Professor Innes Asher, a paediatrician with vast experience of children and families interacting with the welfare system and the broader determinants of well-being of children and families. While I look forward to the work of this group, we’ve already started making progress towards changes at MSD, including improving service culture, making it easier for people to know their entitlements, and providing more support through the Families Package to low and middle income families.

This is just some of the work currently going on, and I know across Ministers and ministries there is much more. What I really want to emphasise by pointing that out is that improving the well-being of children requires all of us to make changes, requires all of us to be engaged and focused on making that a priority. It requires us to look at how we can make positive changes in the lives of children across this Government but outside of this Government as well, across our communities, across Aotearoa—how we do that together.

I’m excited to be here at the second reading of this bill and to get one step further to implementing what really is a groundbreaking piece of legislation that is being put in place for the good of our tamariki—effectively, for the good of New Zealand. Can I just state, to end, that all of us on this side of the House truly do believe that New Zealand absolutely can be the best country in the world to be a child, and we here in this Parliament have the privilege and the responsibility to make that happen. Fa‘afetai lava.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is indeed a privilege to speak in the second reading of this very important bill, and it’s on one of these occasions where the House does show what is possible with good policy development and good collegiality across parties. We will always differ on the path to a destination, but I think we do have a shared understanding and commitment to what that goal is—that is, a New Zealand where every individual aspires and achieves to the best of their ability, socially, culturally, and economically—and, philosophically, we will disagree with the way we get there.

The simple difference between equality of opportunity versus equality of outcome will drive sometimes quite robust discussions on the solutions to what sometimes feel to be overwhelming, almost intractable problems that have emerged in modern New Zealand, but I don’t know anybody in this House that doesn’t have an absolute passion and commitment to work tirelessly to that end. We owe it to each other. We owe it to the people who sent us to this place.

I was part of the social services caucus group in the National Party in February, as social housing spokesperson, when this bill had its first reading. Of course, changes since then meant that I wasn’t part of the Social Services and Community Committee, and so I’m not going to speak to the specifics of what the committee heard, but I do want to reiterate some of the things that occurred very soon after the bill was introduced.

The social services caucus committee of the National Party resolved very quickly to work collegially with the Government in supporting this legislation, and it’s a credit to the Prime Minister, the Minister for Social Development, and, particularly, the Hon Alfred Ngaro and the Hon Louise Upston to enable that to occur. Even before the bill had its first reading, that group were meeting with stakeholders and experts in the social services sector, academics—Professor Boston, I remember, provided some excellent contributions to our thinking about how the bill could be made better—and I think Mr Ngaro, in his normal, self-deprecating style, has actually understated the role that he and the Hon Louise Upston have played in making the changes to the bill that are in his name. But I also want to acknowledge and credit the Prime Minister with the enabling environment in which that took place.

Now, in the first reading, we did do something that I’m glad we’re not doing today—and haven’t done for some months—and that’s a bit of the old “my statistic is better than your statistic” game. We did, as we came out of the 2017 election, I think, reflect on the previous Government’s progress towards eliminating child poverty: the 85,000 children that were lifted out of poverty and the targets that were being set by the respective leaders during the election campaign. I think it’s actually quite helpful—well, it’s not unhelpful—to not focus too much on that. But, in saying that, I do want to reflect on what I described in the first reading as something of a road to Damascus experience that the Prime Minister had had about the importance of a single or a small, concentrated set of poverty targets, and they may have set by UNICEF or some other international body.

Actually, what this bill—sensibly—does is not constrain the Government today, or in the future, to a rigid set of targets, and I think that’s an important feature of the bill. But I would also add this: a target is simply that. This is the framework within which we will have conversations about “how”, and those conversations will continue to be extremely robust, I have no doubt. But, in the same way that the scoreboard doesn’t determine the quality of the game being played on the field, the targets and our approach to them will be a very poor proxy if, indeed, the targets are not then met with sensible policies that will enable us to achieve progress towards eliminating or reducing child poverty.

So, as we continue the progress through the House of this bill, I caution not putting too much stock in the ability to set a target if we can’t then resource and think and collaborate on what the issues are and the solutions to them, because I do think we had a framework for working within that in both the social investment model and Whānau Ora. I have gone from being ambivalent to being wildly enthusiastic about Whānau Ora, to the degree that I think the navigational process and the support process that underpins the ethos of Whānau Ora means that that could be applied across a broad number of sectors and areas—including in the health sector—that I hope the Government will continue to explore. We have paused a little on that and on social investment, and I make no judgment about that because it’s actually notoriously complex to get one’s head around it. As a member of Cabinet with a Minister of Finance and then a Prime Minister that championed this for four or five years, it did take some time for us to understand and appreciate what the opportunities were, and I do hope that the Government will keep an open mind on whatever phase two of social investment might look like and sound like, because I do believe that we were on the right track—we are on the right track—to improving the outcomes for some of our most vulnerable New Zealanders through that model.

I would also conclude, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but only partly, in the context of the inconsistency that I perceive with the high value that’s being placed on the setting of a target—in this case, a child poverty reduction target—with the behaviour and actions of the Government in other areas. I note that national health targets are no longer being reported on. The Minister of Health has indicated that he intends to refresh them, but there’s sort of tumbleweed on that issue.

The Better Public Services targets focused our public servants on what were, I think, quite stretched targets and quite challenging targets for them, but in terms of things like reoffending, youth reoffending, incarceration rates, and so on, we have been making very good progress, and at least because we had set the target, we were able to then quickly understand and identify when we were deviating away from that trend. So there has been something of a road to Damascus experience on targets in respect of child poverty.

I encourage the Government to continue to look at targets for other parts of our Public Service. But I don’t want to detract from what is I think a very important day: another milestone along the road of ensuring that every single New Zealander of any age, stage, place, and race has the best opportunity to be the best Kiwi that they can be.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Thank you very much. The level of energy in the room belies the passion, I think, that is being expressed around this piece of legislation. We are political animals, whether we like it or not. I want to acknowledge the Hon Alfred Ngaro—three minutes and 27 seconds to get to a political statement. But can I acknowledge the Hon Michael Woodhouse—seven minutes, 15 seconds. Look, we are political animals. That was not to detract; that was to say that that is actually what we are. That is what this place is, and we’re all here to make a difference.

💬 Dan Bidois: And it’s taken you 30 seconds.

Absolutely. I own it, Mr Bidois. Thirty seconds. I’m there.

Can I also say, though, to the Hon Michael Woodhouse that he made a statement—he said that we differ on the path. Can I just correct him with regard to Oranga Tamariki and the work that the previous Government did and the work that the Hon Anne Tolley did setting that pathway—we do not differ. She absolutely—the Government absolutely made the right decisions and set up the right framework with regard to Oranga Tamariki. I hope with the decisions that are going to be made and announced in the next couple of weeks that not only will she see but that the members that were in that previous Cabinet and previous caucus will see that I have done them justice with the pathway that they envisaged and that they were on with regard to the children that Oranga Tamariki must commit itself to. So while often there is politics in this place—it is a political place—we don’t always disagree on the pathway, just to make that acknowledgment.

I do rise to speak on the Child Poverty Reduction Bill. I do want to start by thanking all the New Zealanders, the individuals and the groups, that participated and submitted on the bill. There were 632 submissions, and 49 submitters gave oral evidence. I want to acknowledge the members of the Social Services and Community Committee. I want to acknowledge those, as has been mentioned earlier, members across the Parliament that came together outside the select committee and inside the select committee to work to make this bill a Parliament’s bill. As we have noted, we hope that David Seymour will come down. The people of Epsom care about children just as much as everybody else. I’m sure Mr Seymour does. If Mr Seymour would come down and cast his vote in favour of this bill, then we will have a Parliament’s bill.

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

I beg your pardon. I do beg your pardon. So let’s hope that that might eventuate. We’ve said before, and it’s been said again today, that children shouldn’t be a political tool. This is an example today of where the majority of us have actually decided that we will honour that statement.

Can I just make a little comment about Whānau Ora. I’m not sure whether people—they may not—remember, but, actually, the Rt Hon Winston Peters implemented, when he was Minister of Māori Affairs, I believe, a programme called Ka Awatea. Ka Awatea, if you go and have a look at it, was the precursor to Whānau Ora. So I’m not quite sure what people are concerned about—what the Hon Alfred Ngaro is concerned about—but the Hon Peeni Henare is doing a review of Whānau Ora to ensure that those who need the benefits of Whānau Ora are receiving them. There is certainly no intention by any member of this Government to stop what we believe is vital and important work happening that is being delivered by the Whānau Ora navigators and by Whānau Ora providers. But, as the Hon Michael Woodhouse said and the Hon Alfred Ngaro said, when you are talking about taxpayers’ dollars, when you are talking about spending a dollar to make sure that it affects the child in a positive way, one must, every now and then, go back and make sure that that is happening. So that’s all that this Government is doing. I think there needs to be no fear in that place.

The other thing, I think, that’s really important—for me, anyway—about this day is the fact that this is actually a reset moment for our nation. This will be the second reset moment in my lifetime. The first for me was back in the 1980s when—regardless of one’s belief in reasons why or that things had to change—there was a massive change in the way that Government operated back in the 1980s, and it had an incredible downstream flow-on effect to all of our citizens. I would say that what we are doing here today is trying to turn back some of the effects of what happened in the 1980s. So this is a reset moment. This is us, as, mostly, a Parliament, saying things have happened in our nation that we no longer accept.

I am the Minister for Children and I’ve been working with the Prime Minister—we are both joint Ministers on the Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy—and I try to explain it in this way to people that I go and talk to: the vision for me, and the vision that we are trying to attain, is that this is a line that we will not allow our people to fall below. Children do not live in isolation; they live inside a whānau, family, iwi, or hapū. They live with others who care for them. But if this is the line that we will not allow our people to fall below, when one of our children is below it, we need to do whatever we must do to bring them at least to the line. This is the start of that reset. This is the start of a different way of thinking. This is not about stigmatising those who may be below the line. This is saying that as a nation we will take responsibility and we will lift you up.

New Zealand First is thrilled to see a statement around the practical commitment to the Treaty of Waitangi, and it is because it is those words “practical commitment”. For us, it has always been about this: a relationship upon which a nation was built. This is a relationship between two parties, and others have joined us, but there were two parties that signed that Treaty to treat each other respectfully and care for each other. So we are thrilled to see a practical commitment to the Treaty. It must not be tokenism; it must be real. That is why, with Oranga Tamariki, they must—under new section 7AA inside legislation put in by the previous Minister, and even over the year that they have been setting themselves up—create those better working relationships, true co-design relationships, with iwi and with Māori, for Māori children. Because, regardless of a Treaty, the majority of the children that Oranga Tamariki have that need our support are Māori. So if we focus on what is the need, then we will provide. That is what I hope we are establishing here today. That is what I believe we are establishing here today.

My ultimate goal is if I can leave this a place where every Minister, regardless of their stripes, asks themselves this question before they make a decision: how will this decision affect the well-being of children? Then we will have succeeded in shifting the conversation of this nation. But I’d like it to go beyond these doors. I would like every corporate, every power company, every bank, and everybody else, when you are going to make a decision, ask yourself—before you turn off the power, before you send in a bailiff—how will this decision affect the well-being of children? If we ask ourselves that question around every decision, what would the difference be to the decisions we make? This is not about free rides. This is not about anybody getting something for nothing. This is about us deciding as a nation that we will care. We will lift up people. We will take people with us, and, if you are in need, we will stand for you and we will come and support you.

So I didn’t use any of the notes that I actually brought, so I do apologise for that. Perhaps I can use them again in another speech some other time. This is a moment—this is a moment—and I want to honour everybody that is going to stand and speak on it and everybody that is in this House, because, regardless of who sits on which side of this House, this is going to set us on a pathway that will be better for our nation. So to honour you all and all those that are here in this moment, we commend the bill to the House.

Just before I call Denise Lee, I am going to do something quite unusual and compliment the member for staying within the Standing Orders and speaking to notes, or very slightly to notes, in a way which I think enhances the mana of the House, because members speaking from their hearts does make a difference.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. He taonga ngā tamariki katoa.

[Our children are our gift.]

I want to knowledge all those who have spoken before me, all those on the Social Services and Community Committee, the Prime Minister, and all sides of the House that joined hands here together this morning and increased the passage of this bill, which is so incredibly important. It’s one that we all feel very much deep in our hearts, for the issue of child poverty is a persistent concern for our country and for our nation, and one that we take seriously—we all take seriously.

I would like to point out the work that my colleague the Hon Alfred Ngaro has done over the course of this year and how he has worked incredibly hard behind the scenes. That’s part of what we see incorporated into this bill now, but I know of the conversations that take place outside of select committee and outside of the debate here in the House, in partnering with all parties here in the House this morning.

The first Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that Sir Alfred—ha! Sir Alfred—the Hon Alfred Ngaro—

💬 SPEAKER: That’s a bit premature.

I just elevated you, Alfred.

💬 Hon Member: It was the Bob Marley that did it.

Yeah, it was Bob Marley that did it. The singing of Bob Marley—that’s pretty legendary.

So, back in March, the Hon Alfred Ngaro lodged SOP 20, and it was related to a clause setting targets on a selected number of child poverty - related indicators—CPRIs, as I will refer to them throughout my speech. They included conditions such as housing, education, and health. So several submitters during the course of the select committee process submitted in support of CPRIs. Failing that, what existed in the bill was too narrow, and they expressed concern that what existed in the bill didn’t fully address issues in child poverty such as health and housing, as I said earlier. They thought it would be beneficial to introduce CPRIs. Those proposed amendments, clauses 36A through to 36J, require the Minister to annually report on CPRIs—and the Minister, of course, would have the ability to choose which areas to monitor. I’m really happy to say, and we all are, that the select committee adopted those principles.

The second improvement was in relation to SOP 22, back in the day, which, like the other, was incorporated into the principles of this bill, and that was the social investment approach. It’s recognised that some of the principles of social investment, such as early intervention and evidence-related information—evidence-informed policy—is useful when creating policy here in the House and, of course, for this country, and when you’re developing strategy.

Now, the reason why the Hon Alfred Ngaro and those of us on this side of the House really pushed so hard for these two principles—and this is for all of us; not just for those of us on this side of the House—is that, when used together, they represent the best way to not only reduce child poverty but, more importantly, more fundamentally, to prevent it, and that’s where we need to lead to.

The CPRIs make sure that we’re not going in blind. We need to know that the interventions that we are looking at will actually be effective and change children’s lives. So we need to know that what we’re dealing with is a range of indicators that actually allow us to address the root causes of poverty. So it is not enough to know just the relative household incomes that a family or child has; we need to know whether the child is achieving at school, whether they’ve got family issues or a broken home, whether there are health complications that prevent the family or the child reaching their full potential. These indicators give us the depth of knowledge and personal context so we can truly understand the massive and the major issue that we have around child poverty. Meanwhile, principles of that early investment or social investment just, basically, are making sure that we’ve got the right tools in the tool kit, and there’s been agreement on that. We want to make sure that we’re getting the right levers pulled at the right time.

During his valedictory speech, the Rt Hon Sir Bill English pointed out that too much of our system is set up to simply service the misery. So where we find ourselves here now this morning is with an acknowledgement that it’s not enough just enough to measure a percentage of the population, but we need to make sure that we’re intervening early and focusing on education and health and social well-being of these children, empowering them to become productive and fulfilled in their young lives and on into their adult lives.

Now, being bipartisan on this issue just means that all the measures that we’re talking about today will be sustainable and will last. Why do we do this? Why do we join hands? It’s because we need to assure the public of New Zealand, the residents of New Zealand, and the families, whānau, of New Zealand that we want to do our best to get it right. It’s a simple statement, but that’s exactly what we need to do and it is what we’re doing here. Governments have a responsibility to act for those who are most vulnerable.

So, with that, I do congratulate the select committee, the Prime Minister, all parties here involved for their political acumen and courage to get to this point. Our country, Aotearoa, is better for it. And, finally, to our tamariki, to our children, in the words of Sir Apirana Ngata, who once graced these halls: E tipu e rea mō ngā rā o tō ao. Ko tō wairua ki te atua, nāna nei ngā mea katoa.

[Grow up and thrive for the days destined to you. Your soul to your God, to whom all things belong.]

E Te Māngai o Te Whare, ata mārie tātou katoa. It appears that we are in agreement at least at a high level today in this House with the passage of this, the Child Poverty Reduction Bill. I am absolutely pleased, relieved, and hopeful about this, in fact. I know, and it has been acknowledged already by many members, that we may not always agree to the pathway on how we actually get enduring, sustainable, long-lasting solutions to child poverty. I want to be very clear that child poverty is whānau and community poverty, and that is one of the strong points that the Greens have always understood, that we cannot separate tamariki from whānau.

I want to acknowledge the systemic and environmental causes of poverty, and I think my starting point therefore—and possibly it is political—is that poverty is not an accident. It’s also not a personal choice, and there have been utterances today of the opposite. But I’m going to be very clear that poverty is created, in actual fact, by the decisions that have been made in this House, by the decisions made over long successive political actions in this House, by people who are not in poverty. So I do welcome this bill. I do welcome us working together as a Parliament to ensure that we are going to measure, be accountable for, and have political will and commitment to remove poverty from our communities.

The Greens do not accept—we do not accept—that any measure of poverty is inevitable. We know that this has, in fact, been a status quo narrative that we have been held hostage to for ever, for far too long—that that is going to simply be the case in our communities. Well, certainly not the case to the extent that it appears today, and I certainly will continue to say, and know, that there is no excuse, actually, in this beautiful Aotearoa of ours for anyone to not be living in dignity and with all their social, economic, and spiritual needs met in this beautiful country of ours. So I am very pleased about the passage of this bill—the clear commitment that it’s going to require from all of us, not just to work together but to work with our communities.

But I will, if the House doesn’t mind, maintain some reservation about how we are going to get there. That has already been put on the floor by several members as part of the not always consensus around the pathways. There’s also not always consensus about how we got here, I have to say. And I too, like Minister Martin, will be blatant enough to own—poverty is political. We cannot separate property from politics. And if it is far too political of me to say, then it is not always with ease that I sit and receive particularly Opposition members’ flagging that we must do all we can to negate poverty in our country, when some of the actions of that Opposition’s Government absolutely made it worse.

💬 Nicola Willis: Shame—shame on you.

That’s why I’m pleased to see this bill will consider the ecosystem of poverty, which will require that we have to understand how our housing decisions in this House impact—how selling off and reducing the quota of public and social housing absolutely has a part to play in the increase of poverty on children. So I am glad to see that, and I’ll go into submissions now. And I’m not ashamed for putting that on the floor—not at all.

I’ll go through the submissions now. Many—most—were very clear that we have to be aware of the systemic and ecosystem dynamics of poverty and that poverty does not sit in a vacuum. Again, this is what the bill is hoping to pick up, and the accountability of the bill to that systemic dynamic of poverty will be really crucial for our work, going forward.

I want to acknowledge, for example, Te Pou Matakana, the commissioning agency for Whānau Ora, who insisted, as many others did, that we report on poverty by age, gender, and ethnic group to make sure that we are picking up—because poverty doesn’t impact on all groups in the same way. We know that here and it’s very, very clear. I echo what Minister Sepuloni highlighted about the different impacts on Māori, Pacific, and people and children with a disability. Mothers and children also are more likely to be impacted on by the decisions that we make in this House over housing, health, education, justice—all of the areas will impact on whether or not families live with dignity and above the poverty line. So I welcome those many submissions who highlighted that the reporting, if we’re going to do it properly, needs to be very clear.

I really want to pick up on the submission of Hāpai Te Hauora, who put into words in a far better way what I have always wanted to be articulating as a responsibility of my role in this House. Absolutely, many of the submitters came through with the importance of Te Tiriti and an understanding that in fact it is a breach of Te Tiriti that tamariki are not being protected when they are so overly disproportionately represented in poverty, and that we understand the impacts of colonisation and the systemic racist structures that can absolutely impact on children who are Māori and Pacific, and that that has to be taken into account in our solutions. In fact, addressing poverty for all families, and including Māori families, is about enhancing the sovereignty of whānau, hapū, and iwi, and the well-being of children is relative to us understanding mokopuna as our taonga. The structural barriers to well-being relate back to the original loss of land, language, and place in our country. So I want to acknowledge the many submissions that came through, identifying some of those structural causes of inequality, of poverty, for whānau and communities.

That is why, as others already have done in here, there are always going to be political points that actually have to be made in this conversation. That doesn’t detract from the collaborative work that we have to do together in this House, but I think it would be remiss to dismiss the many submitters who came through who are on the ground every day dealing with the systemic barriers, and if we do not address them, then this bill is worth nothing.

I wanted to raise a particular point from the submission from Hāpai te Hauora, who wanted to talk about a single statistician—you know, I do acknowledge my colleague James Shaw as Minister—reminding us that data translation is never impartial; never ever. So making sure that we understand that the collection and translation of data needs to be independent and accountable, and we need to be accountable for it. So I was again pleased to see in the Social Services and Community Committee’s report an understanding of a wider call and collection for data, particularly by gender, age, and ethnicity again.

Most of all, many submissions came through outlining that poverty is not a statistic and that we keep the lived experiences, the narratives, the actual real human stories of the experiences always at the forefront of the work that we do. For example, Kaipara Māori Women’s Welfare League insisted that—and, again, I agree with this—the most enduring solutions require Government to actively partner with Māori to resolve the systemic issues that have caused poverty in the first place, and that we cannot keep plastering over the wounds of racism and institutionalised frameworks that haven’t worked over consistent political Parliaments.

So I am very pleased to lift the voice of those submissions that came through. I’m very pleased to highlight this day of the second reading of a bill that absolutely has all of the support in this House. I am not at all shy of upholding the political points that are inevitable, and I know that that won’t detract from us continuing to work together. Kia ora.

It is a pleasure to take a call on the Child Poverty Reduction Bill. I must say, it’s not the first time that I’ve had to follow on from the dribble and the negativity of Marama Davidson, from a speech that lacks substance or factual accuracy.

But let me come to the bill, which we are clearly supporting in the House today. I would like to acknowledge Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern for raising what is an important topic for us to discuss and debate in this House, and a topic that we can all agree on as members of Parliament who want the best outcomes for our people and also to improve the chances for a better life. So I want to acknowledge the Prime Minister for bringing this bill to the House. I also want to acknowledge my colleagues on the Social Services and Community Committee, and in particular the chair, Gareth Hughes, for your guidance through this submission process, and also the officials for looking after the submissions and giving us good advice in this process.

It is a pleasure to speak on this bill. It’s something that I think we can all agree on, in terms of the high-level framework, but more needs to be done—rather than intent. More needs to be done on the action front if we’re going to actually achieve a substantial reduction. So just to go through the purpose of the bill, it’s quite simple: to help achieve a sustained and significant reduction in child poverty. The key message that I want to make today is that we on this side of the House support the intent. We support the framework for child poverty reduction, although we differ on the pathway to get us to a reduction in child poverty.

So why do we support this bill? We support the targets, the aspirations that we have to reduce child poverty. We support, of course, the range of new measures for the way to measure child poverty in New Zealand. As Peter Drucker, a management guru, once said, you can’t manage what you don’t measure. And so I think that this bill reflects the desire of the House to in fact start measuring so that we can achieve a sustained reduction. The intent around having Oranga Tamariki action plans is something that this side of the House supports, along with the coordination between ministries, which we know is often lacking in many instances, in order to achieve what are going to be great outcomes for reduction in child poverty in the future.

But I want to tell the House very clearly that you can’t legislate for poverty reduction in itself. For example, out of all of the global poverty reduction—in 1981, 42 percent of the world’s population was in extreme poverty according to the World Bank data. With the latest data that we have, from 2013, that number is down to 10.7 percent. That’s a $1 billion reduction. Where does that one billion—not one billion dollars; 1 billion people, I should say—come from? Of that one billion reduction in poverty, 500 million comes from China, so let’s look at what China did in that time to understand what it takes to actually reduce poverty in the world. As we know, under President Deng Xiaoping, China went through a massive array of economic reforms, encouraging private sector growth, and, through that, reduced their poverty by 500 million people to 2013.

We can talk about New Zealand in that case, and I would refute the argument by Marama Davidson that the previous Government in fact increased child poverty. From the last five years, the poverty figures—we had a substantial reduction of 85,000 in the last five years. And so this idea that you can just put out a bill and that the Prime Minister can go to Europe and say, “What a game-changer this is for child poverty in New Zealand.”—that is a load of nonsense. The only way to reduce child poverty—as we know from the China example, as we know from so many countless examples—is to focus on a strong economy, private sector growth, and getting people into work. That is what this side of the House believes. We believe in focusing on jobs, a strong economy, higher productivity, and incomes.

My worry for this bill, even though we are supportive of it, is that that side of the House has no plan to grow the economy, grow jobs, or increase incomes. Let’s see what they have. Let me go through what this Government is doing that will not reduce child poverty. Banning oil and gas exploration, overturning tax cuts that would have made—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order! This is a second reading speech.

OK, Madam Assistant Speaker. Let me come back to the report of the select committee, because I believe that while the intent of this bill is good and that we are supportive of this bill, so much more needs to be done, and we’re not seeing that from this Government at the moment.

But, as I said, we had over 600 people in the select committee from this prospect, and, you know, there are a range of changes that we’ve made, including from one of my colleagues, Sir Alfred—no, sorry, not Sir Alfred Ngaro; the Hon Alfred Ngaro, who submitted a bill—

💬 Nicola Willis: We’re getting a consensus on that.

We’re getting a consensus. We had a Supplementary Order Paper in his name around improving the data and making sure that the Ministers are required to report on child poverty measures in New Zealand. [Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order! Inside voices, please.

I want to talk about a visit that the Social Services Committee had to Australia recently, where, during that trip, we went to the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth, which is otherwise known as ARACY. What amazed me about that visit is that they did a survey of children, and they asked children to indicate what matters to them. It was quite a large, robust survey, and as the members from the opposite side will recall, the two top factors that came out from this visit were that love and the safety of your home were the most important two factors in a child’s well-being. So I would caution the public of New Zealand to think that this is going to solve poverty. What I think that we need to focus on—and judging from the ARACY example in Australia—is communities, and focus on making sure that children feel safe, but also to focus on law and order, because that, no doubt, is an extreme example of how, in fact, poverty can be reduced in New Zealand.

So I would like to just conclude some of my remarks by saying that we are supportive of the bill that we’ve got before the House today. I would like to commend the Prime Minister for raising this. I’d like to commend, of course, the Social Services and Community Committee for their work, and also Alfred Ngaro for his contribution throughout the time for this. But I would caution that so much more needs to be done in order to achieve what we all want to achieve in this House, which is: are people better off, leaving happier healthier lives? We’re not going to get that from this bill. So this side of the House will be making sure that we hold that side accountable for delivering on these targets, because, quite frankly, actions speak louder than words. So I commend this bill to the House.

I understand this is a split call—five minutes, the Hon Willie Jackson.

Kia ora, Madam Assistant Speaker. Tuatahi e tika ana ki te maumahara i te rangatira Ngātata, nō reira e te matua, maumahara tō mahi ki te tautoko Te Ao Māori i ngā wā katoa nō reira e te matua, moe mai, moe mai, moe mai rā.

[Firstly, it is right to remember the leader Ngātata; therefore sir, remembering your efforts to support the Māori world at all times, rest in peace.]

First of all, I pay tribute to one of our rangatira, who we had a memorial for last Sunday. Sir Ngātata Love made a huge contribution to Te Ao Māori and this country, and I pay tribute to everyone in this House who has remembered him. I bring him up particularly today because he was an advocate for this type of kaupapa we’re talking about today, and I don’t think we’ve paid tribute to someone who gave his life to Te Ao Māori and this country. So I mihi to him and his whānau.

It’s a pleasure to stand here today to hear, mostly, the House together advocating in terms of this kaupapa. I congratulate all those who’ve made a contribution: the Greens, the Hon Alfred Ngaro over there. Well done to the member, who—he and I have clashed a number of times over the last 12 months or 18 months. But I mihi to you for your work, Alfred—fantastic that we put our swords down when it comes to this sort of kaupapa, and he well knows about the poverty in his community and the child poverty that abounds in the West Aucklands and in the South Aucklands.

We have to put our children right at the forefront here, because they are the future of our economy, and we have to make an investment—there has to be an investment in terms of child poverty. That’s what our Prime Minister spoke about this morning. For too long—again, as our members know, the Green members, National members, Labour members—too much has come on communities to carry this: community organisations, who have small pūtea, who have small budgets. It has to be a whole-of-Government concern and a whole-of-Parliament concern.

So that’s why I’m pleased with the way this kaupapa is rolling out. I’m pleased with the contributions. There’s no good doing too much politicking over this sort of stuff, because our children are a concern for everyone: for this Parliament and for this Government. So I mihi to everyone in the House who makes a contribution and wants to advance this kaupapa, and I give a commitment that I’ll work alongside you too, if it means advancing our children.

What I’m particularly pleased about, of course, is that Ministers are going to be found a bit more accountable and we’re going to have a framework in terms of reducing the targets and the process going forward. And I’m also pleased that there’s been some acknowledgment—as I heard it earlier from the Hon Alfred Ngaro—about the Treaty of Waitangi and that partnership, about what it means today. What does it mean in terms of going forward? So I’m pleased that, through this bill, we are seeing an emphasis on the Treaty and whānau, hapū, and iwi. What does that mean in a practical sense? That’s a challenge for this Parliament and the challenge for this Government. It can’t mean that we have the tragic history of kids being taken from their whānau, of kids being put into State care at the drop of a hat, with no acknowledgement and no concession in terms of where they’re from, how they’ve been brought up, are they part of intergenerational unemployment, are they part of intergenerational drug use? There’s got to be more thought and process going into that, and there’s enough experts around to say “Let’s emphasise the whānau and the hapū and the wider family.”

So I’m really pleased that there’s an emphasis in terms of the Treaty of Waitangi and that relationship and that partnership with Māori going forward, given that the high child poverty stats are very much in Te Ao Māori. As Minister of Employment, I will be trying to make my contribution in terms of implementing whānau and rangatahi programmes. We’ve already made a start in terms of He Poutama Rangatahi and Mana in Mahi. We need to upskill whānau. We need to create employment. I’ll be working on that—again, with anyone who wants to contribute; it doesn’t matter what party they’re in.

As Minister of Employment, I’m absolutely committed to developing employment policy and programmes that invest in our whānau, that invest in families, so that our children can have respectable and healthy lives. I welcome this bill today. I think it signals real change—transformational change—and I want a future where all our children have the ability to succeed past the circumstances that they have been born into. I congratulate everyone in the House who has made a contribution today. Nō reira, tēnei te mihi ki a koutou. Tēnā koutou katoa.

It is my great honour to rise to speak on the second reading of the Child Poverty Reduction Bill. And it is my privilege to be speaking on a piece of legislation that marks parliamentary consensus, that marks the coming together of parties across this House to craft a bill that will make a difference for children for generations to come.

I think what we have today is a meeting of intention: an agreement that, whether you sit there or here or there, when you come to this House, you share an intention that you will make a difference to the lives of others and that you will make a difference to the generations of New Zealanders that are yet to come. Our debate in this Parliament is not about whether that is a good intention; our debate is about what will make the biggest and most enduring difference for those future generations. What we share is a shared abhorrence of child poverty, and it is to be a denigration of us all if we are to pretend that some people dislike child poverty more than others. What we all believe is that every child deserves a good start in life. They deserve to be happy and healthy, and to have the ability to fulfil their potential. They deserve access to a strong public health and education system. They deserve a good family and home life. What we all acknowledge is that here in New Zealand the Kiwi way is that everyone has hope and opportunity, and that when that happens, the whole society benefits. And so today we acknowledge that in order to advance these shared objectives, a programme of transparent reporting on poverty targets, a programme of public accountability, is called for.

I want to pay particular acknowledgment to the Social Services and Community Committee, who have worked very hard to make this a much, much better bill than it might have been. In particular, I want to acknowledge Alfred Ngaro, who said that what we measure in this bill is important. We have to measure housing conditions. We have to measure education and health outcomes. He said that this must not just be a Government strategy; this must be a strategy that brings in churches, iwi, non-government organisations—all in our society who have the ability to impact on our children. He said that this policy will only work if it brings in the principles of social investment, if it looks at early intervention, and if it looks at the evidence-based policy. He ensured that this bill is much better than it would have been. And I do want to acknowledge the Prime Minister for accepting those great changes from National and making this a better piece of legislation than it could have been.

But, most importantly, I want to, today, acknowledge Bill English. I want to acknowledge him as the grandfather of the social investment policy that I believe will be the enduring thing that makes a difference to child poverty in this country. I want to acknowledge the good work he did in the past five years of the National Government. Against a backdrop of a global financial crisis and major catastrophic earthquakes, he managed a fiscal strategy that ensured 85,000 children were lifted out of material hardship, and he was able to do that because he understood that the foundation on which equality of opportunity is built is a strong economy, because with economic growth we can have better jobs for parents, we can have better incomes, and we can have a better ability for all families to juggle their responsibilities and support the aspirations of their children.

He also understood—to quote his valedictory speech—“the dangerous complacency of good intentions.” He understood that strengthening families and the lives they are able to provide their children is not just about family incomes. It is about breaking the cycles of dependence and dysfunction that impact too many of our whānau, and we have the tools to do it. We have the data. We understand the evidence. It is our responsibility to use those things, and that is what social investment is about.

How will we be judged when New Zealanders look back on this bill? I put to you that we will not be judged by the adjectives we have used to describe its good intentions. We will not be judged by whether it was historic, landmark, or transformative in its description. We will be judged by how many lives it changed. Together, we commit to that work in this House, but let the great debate continue about how we achieve that. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

I understand this is a split call. Priyanca Radhakrishnan, you have five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It is indeed with great excitement and a sense of honour that I rise to speak in support of the Child Poverty Reduction Bill, and it is a privilege to be on the select committee that considered this bill, as well. This is, as many members in this House have acknowledged today, an aspirational bill. It is transformational. The majority, if not all, of the submitters who came and presented to the Social Services and Community Committee expressed a strong sense of relief that such a bill is actually finally before us, given that the sector has waited so long for this House to take sustainable action on reducing child poverty.

At the heart of this bill is fairness. It’s human rights. It’s about lifting so many out of the abject poverty that they face day in, day out so that they can thrive. At the heart of this bill, as well, is political accountability and the fact that it enables the public to hold us in this House and to hold the Government to account.

The bill will also require the responsible Minister to adopt, publish, and review a child well-being strategy, and that’s where the action lies. That’s where the detail is in terms of the lives that will ultimately be transformed as a result of this process today.

I’ll focus my speech on the submissions that came to the Social Services and Community Committee and the changes to the bill. This was an excellent bill that the process has made even stronger, and I want to begin by thanking the 632 submitters, many of whom came and presented to the committee as well. These are people who have been, for so long, passionate about the work that they do day in, day out to ensure child well-being in New Zealand, and I want to thank them not just for their submissions to this bill but for the work that they continue to do to the benefit of our society as well.

Apart from the substantial changes to the bill, one of the points that was made time and again by submitters was that they wanted this to be a cross-party piece of legislation—that they wanted both sides of the House to work constructively to make this bill better. That’s what has been done, and I thank my colleagues on the select committee for their contribution as well.

There have been a few substantial changes to this bill, and many that were tweaks to it as well. One of them, of course, was ensuring that we actually have an analysis of specific identified populations who are disproportionately affected by poverty, and that includes Māori children. This is in recognition of the fact that if we are to get this right, we have to get it right for those who are most affected by it.

A quick point on the social investment model, because it’s been mentioned by members opposite: that was a model that was about limiting liability. That was a model about saving costs. This brings in some aspects of that model, which were about early intervention and which were about evidence-based policy, but not all of it, for good reason.

I want to touch quickly on the child-related principles that will be included in this when developing the strategy. It’s about acknowledging children’s intrinsic value and inherent dignity, that children’s rights in New Zealand law are respected and upheld, and that children should be viewed in the context of their families, whānau, hapū, and iwi and other culturally recognised family groups and communities, and this stems from the recognition that children don’t exist in isolation and neither does child poverty.

There were many other changes, as well, that have been recommended by the select committee that strengthen this bill, one of which also is about consultation and who is to be consulted, and includes the fact that there is a requirement for the Children’s Commissioner and the Minister of the Crown who’s responsible for the Ministry of Māori Development to be included in consultation as well, which recognises and demonstrates practical commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

I want to end by thanking again submitters, select committee members, officials who contributed to this, and, of course, the right honourable Prime Minister, whose bill it is. There’s a Japanese proverb that says, “Vision without action is a daydream; action without vision is nightmare.” With vision and action together, we can change the world. I thank the Prime Minister for her leadership, action, and vision. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party as the sole member of this House opposing this bill—something that seems to have become a bit of a trend recently, after the National Party voted to stipulate country-of-origin labelling on all food, something that I’ll never understand. But, in any case, this particular bill is ostensibly directed at a very real problem.

The problem that we have in New Zealand, one of the wealthiest societies ever to exist, is children who are having surgery because their teeth are so rotten from their parents putting Coca-Cola in their sipper bottles. We have, in this country, children showing up at school almost impossible to teach, either because their parents took P when they were in utero, or because they haven’t fed them since, because they’re still taking P. We have children in this country growing up in housing that is so substandard that their health will be irrevocably damaged before they reach adulthood, and we’ve got about one in six kids coming out of the education system without anything like the skills required to succeed in the 21st century, which will be one of the most skills-based centuries in human history.

This bill, despite all of the hand-wringing intentions of the Prime Minister and despite its title, will do nothing to solve those problems. If income was all that was lacking to solve child poverty, then productivity and GDP per capita quadrupling over the last 80 years would have eradicated poverty. If more money was the solution, then the Government spending tens of billions of dollars a year in benefits and Working for Families and accommodation supplements would have solved poverty by now. All this bill is going to do is tell us how many households are within 60 percent or 40 percent or 50 percent of the median income. It is not a measure of child poverty. It’s not even a measure of the incomes that houses have. It is a measure of how many households have incomes similar to how many other households. That’s the first problem with this bill—that it doesn’t actually solve the problem of child neglect.

But the second problem and the much greater sin of this bill is that not only does it fail to solve the problem it promises to solve, but it distracts from it, because what this bill does is it makes it very clear to any future Government—or this one, for that matter—what has to be done to make poverty go away. Under this definition, all that Governments have to do is tax off one group of people and bring their incomes down, and give to another group of people and bring their incomes up. That’s how you make sure that there are fewer households with less than 40 or 50 or 60 percent of income.

I think it’s a real disappointment that my friends in the National Party have decided to jump on this bandwagon simply because of the addition of clause 36A. And here’s what clause 36A says—well, we don’t need to find it, it’s pretty simple. Clause 36A says that if one measure of child poverty—if the Minister adds one measure, which can be any measure, could be income, could be housing, could be anything—is added to the bill, then the National Party are suddenly happy with Jacinda Ardern’s initiative.

We in this House have an obligation to give New Zealanders a better tomorrow through better public policy. We had the opportunity to measure the real outcomes, the real hardship, the real neglect that children in New Zealand face, and instead we have put in place legislation whose only conclusion is that we should do more of what’s already failed: taxing and spending and ignoring the role of personal responsibility completely. It’s a sad day for this Parliament, but I’m proud to stand in opposition to this legislation. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I also stand today in support of the Child Poverty Reduction Bill in its second reading. Now, there’s no question that most of us across this House actually do support this bill, but more than just this bill, actually: the philosophy around the reduction of child poverty in New Zealand. And I will speak later to my colleague from ACT and the points that he has raised.

But what this bill actually does is it sets a direction of travel that the previous National Government was already on, and that was setting a target of reducing child poverty. Now, there has been a very, very collaborative approach across this House to the development of this bill since its introduction. And I do acknowledge the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, PM, and our leader, the Hon Simon Bridges, who have negotiated behind the scenes some of the details that are now in this bill, and which the Social Services and Community Committee has debated even further, and that we speak to today.

Now, the issue of child poverty is one that most of us here agree transcends politics. And we are very supportive of the move to enshrine the goals into legislation and the measures that this bill will set in place so that it does have continuity and longevity across Governments well into the future.

At the core of this bill are our tamariki, the children of Aotearoa, the most vulnerable in our society. And if we’re going to build a nation of successful and independent people, then we have to start with ensuring that our children are able to function and that they’re able to function without the stresses that poverty brings with it. Now, lifting a child out of poverty is not simply about achieving a one-off target; it’s about ensuring that the reduction of poverty is sustained. We need to hold ourselves up alongside other countries that also have low rates of child poverty, such as Finland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.

This bill sets a legislative framework for lifting our children out of poverty, and it requires the Government Statistician to report every year on the four primary measures and six supplementary measures that are embedded in this bill. Even at the select committee process there were some concerns around the statisticians’ capacity, and there is an acknowledgement that there will be some capacity-building required for the extra work that this is going to generate. So the four primary measures, as David Seymour has pointed out, are around the measures of incomes versus housing costs: 50 percent, 60 percent, or 40 percent. But there are also six supplementary measures about income before and after housing costs. Number five of those six supplementaries is around severe material hardship, and number six is both the income and material hardship measure.

Now, these are all aspirational. However, there are some things that can’t be measured, and one of those which is dear to me is the measure of happiness. And I’ve used the example in the House before of my grandparents, who were a working class, single-income, low-income family, with 13 children and a very humble home. Now, they never had a lot of money while they were bringing up all these children, but what they did have was happiness. They were poor but happy.

So we have to be careful that the wider solutions to tackling poverty are also addressed. Now, this bill sets in place a 10-year target for the measurement of child poverty, but it also requires the Government of the day, whatever Government that is, to publish three-year intermediate targets. Now, the bill also goes on to require the Government to publish and review a strategy for improving the well-being of all children, and it must include the children most at risk. Now, this is where the rubber will hit the road in this strategy.

So that’s why the previous National-led Government had Better Public Services targets, because we saw the need to ensure that the Public Service was able to be measured in performing and dealing with that hard-core social dysfunction that has these families and children living in poverty. And that sat alongside the previous Government’s target of having 100,000 children being lifted out of poverty. Here today all parties are aligned. But there are no targets. During the select committee process, it was argued strongly that the imposition of targets would simply encourage a tick-box exercise, and that we would miss the point and maybe some of the manoeuvrability that was required in addressing child poverty.

In support of the words of Alfred Ngaro earlier, this bill is not just a Government bill; this is a bill of this Parliament. And I’m very proud to be a part of this Parliament introducing this bill. But it’s not, however, the end. In fact, this is only the end of the beginning. Now, the real commitment and the real work to lift the gain for the children of New Zealand starts after the passage of this bill. This bill simply sets the measures of poverty. Now, we have to deal with the contributing factors. We all must work towards building an economy that creates the jobs—and the good-paying jobs—that get families off long-term welfare dependency.

We must support individuals who find themselves in this spiral of recidivist criminal offending. We must support those in our country who struggle with either health challenges or disability, or both. We must ensure that children and their families are well connected to their communities and can easily participate in community activities. Actually, that was one of the points that came up in the discussion in the select committee: that the connectivity was so important. It was all about connectivity, not just in terms of Wi-Fi or broadband, but it was how well they connected with children who connected with sports clubs, with volunteer organisations, and with their school and their wider community.

Now, we must also acknowledge that it’s not all about Government simply throwing more and more money at the issue. We have to deal with those other aspects of our community, and, for me, the foundation to all of that is creating the economy and the jobs that we need so that people can participate in a productive workforce.

I just want to pay tribute to the contribution earlier in this discussion from the Minister for Children, the Hon Tracey Martin, and acknowledge her recognition of the value of the social investment approach. I was fortunate to hear the Minister speak at a conference a couple of days ago where she reinforced the value of social investment and the importance that plays in lifting our children out of poverty.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the chair of the Social Services and Community Committee, Gareth Hughes, and his conciliatory and diplomatic approach to the committee. There were some challenging times, and the debate was robust at times, as it should be, but I acknowledge our chair and the other members of the committee who contributed over the many weeks that we listened to submissions from all over the country.

There is no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children. This Parliament is taking a historic step forward today, and I have great pleasure in commending this bill to the House.

Madam Assistant Speaker,

Tō aroha he karere ki te ao,

Puritia ko ngā kaupapa kia mau

Ngā tamariki toa, kei te rangi e

E hāereere ana e, taukuri e.

E Te Māngai o Te Whare, ko ahau te kaikōrero whakamutunga o te pānuitanga tuarua o tēnei pire. Nō reira he tino hōnore tēnei mōku te tū ki te kōrero e pā ana ki tēnei pire. I au e whakaaro ake ana, ā, me pēhea rā taku kōrero, ka toko ake te whakaaro a tēnei waiata i roto i a au, ā, i hiahia au te tīmata taku kōrero i tēnei waiata.

Tuatahi me mihi au ka tika ki te Pirimia, nāna tēnei pire i kawe mai ki Te Whare Pāremata. Nāna tēnei whakaaro i kawe mai ki Te Whare Pāremata. Koia nei tētahi o ngā take i haere mai ia, i uru mai ia ki roto i Te Whare Pāremata. Ko tōna hiahia, tōna whāinga matua, ko tēnei te wāhi, tēnei te motu, puta noa i te ao, te wāhi pai kia tipu ake hei tamariki.

He tuatahitanga tēnei. Āe, i tēnei wā, he hītori. E hiahia ana ahau ki te mihi ki tērā taha o Te Whare, nā te mea kua tautoko i tēnei pire. Te nuinga o ngā pāti i roto i Te Whare. E ngau kino nei tēnei take i roto i Te Tai Tokerau. Āe, ko te pēpi e inu ana i te pātara, te wai, i te huka. He aha ai? Nā te pōhara o te whānau ki te hoko i te miraka mō te pēpi. E kai ana i te rohi me te wai noa iho, hei whakakī i te puku o te tamaiti.

Ko te tamaiti e haere ana ki te kura, horekau he kai. Ko ngā taitamariki i kōrero mai e taku tāne, he kura māhita, e ngaro āna tamariki i te mutunga o te tau, he kai tahi te kaupapa. Ka pātai atu ia ki tētahi o ngā tama, he aha te take kāhore koe i haere mai ki te kura i taua rā. Hei ko tāna, matua, nā te mea horekau he rima tāra hei koha mō te kai mutunga o te tau. Ka tangi hotuhotu tana ngākau. Ināianei, māna e hoko ngā kai hei kai tahi mō te mutunga o te tau.

Mō ngā kōtiro, ngā tamāhine, kāhore e ngaro ana i te kura, nā te mea horekau te whānau e taea ana ki te hoko ngā kōre, ngā puru, ngā kapu rānei i te wā e heke ana te toto o ngā kōtiro. E ngaro ana i te kura.

Mō ngā tamariki, ngā taitamariki, kāhore e whiwhi ana te raihana mō te taraiwa motokā. He aha te take mehemea ka pātai, nā te mea horekau he moni hei utu i te nama kia whiwhi i tana raihana. Horekau he motokā tō te whānau, horekau he penehīni, he warrant, rego, aha rānei.

Mō ngā tamariki e mōhio ana ahau, e noho ana, e moe ana i roto i ngā tēneti, ngā karāti, ngā whare makariri, mākū anō hoki. Tētahi tamaiti i whiwhi i te karahipi mō te haere ki te whare wānanga, engari horekau he moni kia utu i te tīkiti kia rere atu ia ki te whare wānanga. Koirā te pōharatanga. Koirā ngā kino o tēnei mea te noho pōhara.

Whakamau ko taku titiro

Te rerenga o te rā

Tau ana te ahuru e

Ki te manawa

Ko tēnei pire, ko ngā painga, ka hanga i ngā whāinga kia whakaheke i te noho rawakore. Ia te tau, ia te tau, ka rīpoata ā-tau te kāwanatanga he aha ngā mahi kia whakaheke i te noho rawakore. Te Minita mō te Pūtea, ia tau, ia tahua pūtea, me, um, me tuki me pēhea rā te whakaheke i te noho rawakore o ngā tamariki. He rautaki anō hoki mō te oranga o ngā tamariki. Koirā ngā kaupapa nui kei roto i tēnei pire.

E hiahia ana ahau ki te mihi ki te neke atu i te ono rau o ngā tāngata i tono mai ō rātou whakaaro mō tēnei pire. Ka nui te mihi ki a rātou ka whai wā ki te tono mai ō rātou whakaaro. Te nuinga i tautoko. E hiahia hoki ana ahau ki te mihi ki a rātou, ā, i roto i ngā hapori e mahi kaha nei ki te tiaki i ngā tamariki i roto i ō rātou ake hapori.

Hei kōrero whakamutunga māku, e whakaaro ana ahau i tētahi whakataukī. Ko ngā tamariki he taonga tuku iho. Ko tētahi whakataukī mō te tamariki, mō te tamaiti. Ko te piko o te māhuri tērā te tipu o te rākau. Mehemea e hiahia ana tātou kia tipu kaha, kia tipu tika wā tātou tamariki, kia tū tangata ai rātou i roto i tēnei ao, he mea nui te whakaruruhau. Te whāngai, te ngaki, te tiaki, kia puāwai.

Horahia e matariki,

Ki te whenua,

Hei māramatanga mō te motu e,

Kia tipu he puāwai hōnore,

Mō te pani, mō te rawakore e!

Tēnā tātou katoa. Ka whakairihia tēnei pire ki Te Whare.

[Your love is the gospel to the world,

Adhere to the commandments,

The missioners, to heaven,

Are now long gone, alas!

Madam Assistant Speaker, I am the final speaker for the second reading of this bill. Therefore it is a great honour for me to stand and speak about this bill. When I was considering how my speech should go, the thought of this song came to me, and I wanted to start my address with this song.

Firstly, I should rightly acknowledge the Prime Minister, who brought this bill to the House. She brought this idea to Parliament. This is one of the reasons she came here, entered Parliament. Her desire, her main aim, was that this country be the best, the best of all around the world, for children to grow up in.

This is a first. Yes, at this time, it’s history-making. I want to acknowledge the Opposition for supporting this bill, as do most of the parties in this House. This issue is hard-hitting in Te Tai Tokerau. Yes, babies are drinking, from bottles, water and sugar. Why? Because of the poverty-stricken families, unable to buy milk for the baby. They’re eating only bread and water, to fill the child’s stomach.

The child who is going to school has no food. The children spoken of by my husband, a school teacher, were absent at the end of the year, on the occasion of a shared meal. He asked one of the boys, “Why didn’t you come to school on that day?” He responded, “Sir, because I didn’t have $5 to contribute for the year-end meal.” His heart was sobbing. Now he buys the food to be eaten together for the end of the year.

Regarding the girls, the daughters, they are absent from school because the family isn’t able to buy pads, tampons, or cups when the girls are menstruating. They are absent from school.

Regarding the children, youth, not getting their licence to drive cars, what is the reason? It is because there is no money to pay the cost to get their licence. The family has no car, no petrol, no warrant, no rego, or anything else.

Children are living and sleeping in tents, in garages, in cold and damp houses. One child received a scholarship for going to university, but there was no money to pay the ticket so they could fly to the university. That is poverty. These are the evils of living in poverty.

My gaze is transfixed,

To where the sun rises,

Subdued

Is the palpitating heart.

This bill, its attributes, create goals to reduce living destitute. Every year, the Government reports on what can be done to reduce living in poverty. The Minister of Finance, every year, every Budget, should address how to reduce the impoverished living of children. Another strategy, too, for the well-being of children. They are the main initiatives in this bill.

I want to thank the over 600 people who sent in their thoughts about this bill. Many thanks to those who had time to send in their thoughts. Most were in support. I also want to acknowledge those in the communities working tirelessly to look after the children in their own communities.

As my last utterance, I am thinking of a proverb. Children are a treasure passed down to us. The unfurling tip of the sapling is the growth of the tree. If we want our children to grow strongly and correctly, and to stand tall as people in this world, protection is important. Feeding, cultivating, caring, so they blossom.

Spread your light oh Matariki,

On to the earth,

As a guiding light for this land,

May the seed became an honoured bloom,

For the poor, for the needy.

Thank you all. I commend this bill to the House.]