Ardern Jacinda: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Ardern Jacinda: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 12 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8448. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to have an opportunity to speak briefly to the Ministry of Social Development financial review. I just have to say that social development is picking up the hard end of the rhetoric that we heard from that side of the Chamber just now. I have to say to that member who just took his seat Alfred Ngaro that to block your ears close your eyes and pretend that everything is fine is to do a complete disservice to the community that that member purports to represent. So while that member was sitting there and saying “Don’t call us underprivileged.” he was blocking his ears to the fact that there is 16 percent unemployment among the Pasifika community right now. He was claiming that the Government has done something on behalf of Pasifika people whilst at the same time ignoring the decline of Pasifika languages in this country; whilst at the same time allowing our early childhood education system to be deprived of basic materials for Pasifika languages. That apparently is what a Government that supports Pasifika people does. Well I would like to see what a Government that does not support Pasifika people does. 
No one is arguing that we should sit here and not have aspiration on behalf of our Pasifika community. Of course we should but aspiration starts with opportunity I would say to that member—and where is the opportunity for that community right now? Where is the opportunity for that young woman to get the future that she wants when social mobility under this Government is as shocking as it has ever been in the history of New Zealand? The gap between rich and poor in this country is wider than it has ever been. You tell me how the Pasifika community the Maori community or any community under those circumstances has the ability to move—the social mobility—that New Zealand prides itself on when gaps like that exist. We have all the research and the evidence in the world to back up what we are saying on this side of the Chamber—that if you want to support communities and social cohesion one of the things you need to be mindful of is the growing gap between the rich and the poor. 
 That side of the Chamber might be quite content for the Don Elders of this world to sit at home earning a bucketload of money for doing absolutely nothing while solo parents in this country struggle on $293 a week raising children. That might be absolutely fine on that side of the Chamber but on this side of the Chamber we have a little more aspiration for the people of New Zealand. It matters to us that that gap exists because of what it means to the community. If we want to look at what is happening within social development we should start with inequality. We should start with the plight of the unemployed and that 16 percent of the Pasifika community who cannot get work. We should start with the increasing cost of living and the fact that the material deprivation in this country under that Government has gone from 15 percent to 21 percent. That is not just a statistic; those are the people who cannot afford to go to the doctor cannot afford to send their kids on school trips so that they can get the same opportunities as everyone else and cannot pick up their prescriptions. It is meaningful stuff; it is not just rhetoric. It is the stuff that matters to whether or not families can get ahead and do what that side of the Committee claims it wants families to do but in reality it just cannot—not under this Government. 
It is also about what is going on for the kids in this country. As much as we stand up in this House and say that everything is fine—well at least they do on that side of the House—the statistics say something else. The 270000 kids living in poverty do not have a choice to stand up and make all the claims that that side of the House seems willing to sit back on. They are the ones who are going to suffer if we do not invest in the early years. They are the ones who not only suffer the health effects of poverty down the track but suffer the educational effects as well. If this Government wanted to make a difference to those kids it would be addressing child poverty. Government members can talk about targets as much as they like. They talk about them in education until the cows come home but will they set a target on poverty? Will they set a target on poverty? They will not even agree to measure it. They will not even agree on what a measure is even though the international community is pretty clear on it and that is because they have no intention of closing that gap. They have no intention of addressing child poverty in this country and until they do as far as I am concerned they have no intention of fulfilling the potential of the poorest kids in this country—because that is what it will take. You can talk about parental responsibility all you like but until those families have the tools they need they will not succeed.