Child Poverty Reduction Bill

Members, we come to the debate on Part 3—clauses 40 to 47—and schedules 4 and 5.

I rise to take a call on Part 3 of the bill. I do have some sympathy for David Seymour. I know what he’s trying to do—maybe not in quite the right way—but I think the important thing is that we need to be mindful, and I want it to be on the record, that some of the hesitation towards using the word “poverty”, when you classify it to an indicator, is the stigma that could relate to it. I think we need to be mindful of that fact, especially when you think that in Part 3 of the bill in particular, there’s a lot of focus on particular groups of our community and children within those groups. It’s in the bill; we won’t hide from it—in particular Māori, and then it’s also indicating other groups. So I just want to highlight and put on the record that we always need to be mindful. While, in a sense, our intent is to address the issue, the unintended consequence is that we could impose a stigma upon a group and upon a group of people, for instance, and in this case that’s what’s indicated here in the bill, in particular.

I do want to make just a brief comment to the Hon Aupito William Sio when he talked about the fact that we may not understand the complexity. I think we do. In fact, if I can remember rightly, all the things that we put in place when we were in Government for nine years, and, in particular, the first in 42 years to raise the base benefit level, weren’t supported across the House. So we are supporting this. We’re holding it to account. I want to go on the record with that. As the National Party, we’re supporting it because we support the aspect of reducing poverty for children. But, at the same time, too, we’ve contributed to this. We’ll be mindful also that we hold the Government to account and the departments as well—they’re just as important—in regards to achieving those results as well.

My contribution is to Part 3 in particular, which talks about Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and I just want to put on the record again that, in the initial draft, this was left out. So, if we’re talking about the fact of what should have been left in, Te Tiriti o Waitangi was left out. We had to actually request for it to be put back in, and now that it has been put back in, it’s actually then talking about what are the roles and responsibilities of the Government and those departments. It’s two things: it’s to consult and then to report.

Now, I want to indicate to the committee that, in a sense, if we’re going to do something different, if we’re going to be world leading, in actual fact let’s be careful that we don’t use the same tools that have been used previously before. We need to ensure that, and some of those tools that I think are really important are parts of what we supported on this side of the House, which is Whānau Ora. I know that the new Minister, who’s here, the Hon Tracey Martin, actually did indicate the fact that that’s part of their review. Well, I hope that it is, because the reality is that’s not what I’m hearing outside. I’ve been to the Whānau Ora conferences. That’s not what people are saying. Those providers are saying they’ve been sitting, they’ve been waiting, they were promised, and they weren’t delivered the $20 million that was meant to support them. So Whānau Ora is a critical tool in regards to helping achieve the results under this bill for Māori children. So I would say this again, and I’ve said this before in the second reading, I hope that Whānau Ora does not become a political football in regards to this bill, in regards to achieving the results for Māori.

I want to also indicate under this that we did also petition the fact that this Part 3 talks about our obligations to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. There was a lot of focus on that. We wanted to make sure, first and foremost, that our constitutional partnership and roles and responsibilities are under Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It was left out; it was put back in. We’ve got two parts to it. We hope that they’ll be adhered to but, more importantly, we want to support the aspect of Whānau Ora having its full roles and responsibilities. We did when it came in. We see that it’s important to put power in the hands of Māori providers to deliver to Māori in a way that they know makes a difference. We’ve seen the results. I hope that the Government of the day, the Labour-led Government, the coalition Government—call it what you may—will also see fit that they too will support it in the appropriate way, because we believe that’s going to be important to this bill as well. Madam Chair, that’s just my brief contribution to this Part 3 of the bill.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I too will make a small contribution to Part 3 of this bill. I think it’s completely agreed across this House that there’s nobody here that does not have a very strong interest in reducing child poverty in this country. I look forward to the day when we hold ourselves up against the likes of the Scandinavian countries, who have very low rates of child poverty. I think we’re taking a very good first step on our way to that in holding the Government to account for the measures that it will implement in terms of how we measure, year on year, the indicators that are being set down in this bill to measure the persistence of child poverty and therefore hold the Government to account on achieving those targets.

Part 3 of this bill makes several quite significant alterations to other Acts of Parliament. Consistently throughout the bill we have seen that the word “vulnerable” has been taken out of this piece of legislation and “Vulnerable Children’s Act” has simply been replaced with the “Children’s Act”. There are several other significant changes that have been made to definitions and new inclusions in this bill, and I speak specifically to clause 45, which, as my colleague Alfred Ngaro has alluded to, includes now the Treaty of Waitangi, which was not included in the original draft. That was an issue that was raised by National Party members on the Social Services and Community Committee and was successfully included. There was a very strong argument in support of having the Treaty of Waitangi included, and that is because we know that the stats indicate that that is a target group that we need to be continuing to focus on.

Other definitions that have been changed or included in this bill relate to the definition of “child”—and that is now being included as being consistent with other Acts—and the other children’s agencies that are included in here, and the departments of which are now responsible in terms of this particular bill. They include the Domestic Violence Act, the Education Act, the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act, the Oranga Tamariki Act, the Policing Act, the Social Security Act, and any other Acts. So they are simply the providers who have an interest in delivering on this piece of legislation.

There are also other designations in here that I would like to refer to, and the Hon Alfred Ngaro has already referred to: our obligations as a global citizen to the conventions that we are connected with, which are the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. During the select committee stage we heard quite strong arguments and debates around the special interest that we need to take in children with disabilities. It is very much acknowledged that families who have children with disabilities do require special attention and may indeed need special assistance to ensure that if they are in a state of living in poverty, they are supported well to pull themselves out of that poverty spiral. So those obligations are now included in this bill, and again the National Party members on the select committee initiated that discussion, and we’re very pleased to have the support of the rest of the committee to have those included.

I also want to make note of some of the other indicators that have been discussed tonight. As other members of the select committee may well remember, on a trip to Australia we visited some social service providers and NGOs, and one in particular that stands out to me was a very broad survey that was done over there, and the results of that survey of children—of all of the aspects of their lives that they wished to have as a priority, to be loved and to feel safe were the two highest that were consistently brought up by children. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Just a really quick, genuine question, and particularly with the Minister in the chair, I was wanting to bring up Part 3, clause 45, which then goes into section 6AA(3) of the Act. Just asking a genuine question around a sort of conditional clause added in. So, firstly, you have, you know, subsections around New Zealand meeting its international obligations relating to children, and then it seems to put in “However, this Part does not, in and of itself, give domestic legal effect to, or implement in New Zealand law, any of those obligations.” So it seems like a weakening, and I just thought I’d genuinely put that question on the floor.

I thank the member Marama Davidson for the question. I wouldn’t categorise it as a weakness. What it is is that there are three particular areas that the United Nations—or United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC)—has inside that they would like New Zealand to ratify. One of those, for example, is that there be no child labour. One of the reasons why New Zealand, for example, has chosen not to take on board that particular UNCROC suggestion is because of paper boys and paper girls. There has been a tradition in this country that school children have been able to do after-school work. So it’s things like that. There are a couple of others that we also, at this stage, don’t feel that New Zealand is able to move forward on. It’s a work in progress, I would suggest, but I certainly wouldn’t categorise the phrasing inside the piece of legislation now as a “weakening”. It identifies those three that we still have, that we still believe suit New Zealand’s purpose, or they are a work in progress for New Zealand, and as we move further down that pathway we’ll be able to address them. Kia ora.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 157 in the name of the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern to clause 45 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Part 3 as amended agreed to.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

Schedule 3 agreed to.

Schedule 4 agreed to.

Schedule 5 agreed to.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

The committee divided the bill into the Child Poverty Reduction Bill and the Children’s Amendment Bill, as set out on Supplementary Order Paper 158.

House resumed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Report adopted.