Willis NicolaNICOLA WILLIS (National): I rise to speak in support of the Child Poverty Reduction Bill. This is one of those days in Parliament that I tell people about because when people say Why do you want to do this politics thing? There's all this conflict. People disagree with each other all the time." I say "You know what? Actually we agree on the important things." When it comes to our intentions and what we are here to achieve I think you'll find most people in this House agree that lifting incomes increasing the prosperity of our nation taking people out of poverty improving our physical and natural environment delivering better health services improving what happens in our schools—those are good goals to have. Those are things that we can all agree on. The question for this Parliament is not what we should set out to achieve; it's how we do it.It is a good day today because in this legislation we have Parliament working together. We had an OK bill brought forward by Labour: a bill that said "Yeah actually what we measure is important and that which gets measured gets done." All of us in Parliament agree that child poverty is a scourge. It actually takes away the potential of young New Zealanders to fulfil and be the best that they can be. It takes away from the ability of this nation to improve. We do not want child poverty in New Zealand. We agree on that. But how do we measure it? How do we ensure that we are doing a better job on it?These were the discussions that were had at the Social Services and Community Committee and National put forward amendments saying "Actually the measures need to go into some deeper areas. We need to look at what's happening in the education system. We need to look at what's happening with housing. We need to look at what's happening in health because it is not enough to simply measure how much we are redistributing income. That is not sufficient. We actually need to look at what is happening in the individual lives of children so let's broaden the measures."National further improved the bill by saying "Let us think about what's actually going to move the dial on these measures." National said that that will be a social investment approach that acknowledges the importance of data of evidence and of intervening early in children's lives. So in coming together in this Parliament today we're demonstrating that we agree on our intentions and we can work together to get good legislation in place.But let us not be complacent because good intentions are not enough. And it would be dangerous today if we were to say that the child poverty reduction legislation's third reading was the day that child poverty got solved because in fact what we have before us is a significant challenge and it's a challenge actually that previous parliaments have faced head on and we would be arrogant to think that this was the first ever Parliament to consider that poverty is an important challenge to be met. And I want to remind everyone in this House that if we are to meet the targets that this legislation sets out we need to remember that the economy is the foundation on which equality of opportunity is built because unless mums and dads have jobs unless they have the prospect of a rise in income unless they are able to find opportunity in their own community they will never have the dignity of independently raising their children outside of poverty.So let us look at what a strong economy can deliver because it is very easy to forget that even in the time of the global financial crisis the major Christchurch earthquakes we had a National Government that remained focused on the economy. And during that time—and I place it on the record today because it is forgotten too easily—85000 children were lifted out of material hardship. And that didn't actually happen because Bill English or John Key were nice men. It didn't actually happen because the Cabinet had a great discussion. It happened because individual New Zealanders made the decision to invest in their businesses to hire more people to pay them better wages to embrace a new idea to export more to do more and they created opportunities for everyone and that meant that children were being raised in homes with less material hardship and that was a good thing. So let's remember that the economy will remain the foundation on which we make these improvements.Let's also remember as we come together in support of this legislation that strengthening families is not just about increasing incomes. We would be naive in this House if we were to suggest that simply giving some families more income will alleviate their problems because in New Zealand we have cycles of dependence and disadvantage that are ingrained in some cases and that are particularly upsetting to speak about and to observe but are real. And what we know is that if we are to do something about those cycles of disadvantage we need to get into families on the ground because actually no child is truly living a life in which their potential is ultimately fulfilled unless that child is given the strength of a strong family. And so how do we do that? How do we break those cycles of disadvantage?This legislation compels us to break those cycles because we will not meet these targets if we simply redistribute income. We need to think about social investment. What are the initiatives—whether they be housing whether they be education whether they be health—that will truly make a difference to families and allow them to lift themselves out of disadvantage and that will allow them to embrace opportunity? And the exciting thing for us as members of Parliament the exciting thing for us as a country is that we are living in a time of unprecedented data. We have information we have evidence and we have research which tells us what works and what doesn't. And so we should be compelled to use that information and that is what social investment is about. It says "Let's intervene as early and effectively as we possibly can. Let's not just pat ourselves on the back for doing another press release saying we're doing another initiative. Let's test whether the initiative actually worked and how many lives it actually changed." That is the measure of whether or not a Government policy is effective. And we owe it to every New Zealander in this country who wants to see child poverty reduced to use the best data available to us as we intervene.You know Marmara Davidson got up in this debate today and she said she rejected the word "dependency" because she thought that that was a nasty word. Well I say to Marama Davidson "I agree with you Marama because I want for every New Zealand family the dignity that comes from independence. I want for every New Zealand family the dignity of having their own value and contribution respected that they do not just get ahead with handouts from the State that they can do it themselves." And I say to Marama Davidson that the Kiwi way is actually a way of hope and opportunity because we here in the National Party are optimistic about the power of individuals to shape their own lives. And we urge all members of this House to share that optimism because when we give people the tools when we give them a strong economic platform that actually has jobs they can apply for and promotions they can receive that is when child poverty will be reduced in this country.It is a good day. We are agreeing that child poverty should be reduced. We are agreeing that if we measure it it's more likely to get done. We've come together as a Parliament to improve this bill but let us not give in to the dangerous complacency of good intentions. It's the delivery that counts. Let us measure the achievement of this bill by how many lives it changes. The work starts today. And I encourage members opposite to get on with it and to not just put more headings on press releases. Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker."