Ardern JacindaWEDNESDAY 31 OCTOBER 2018(continued on Thursday 1 November 2018)CHILD POVERTY REDUCTION BILLSecond ReadingRt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Minister for Child Poverty Reduction): 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 3500 households to about 20000 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."