Beyer Georgina: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Beyer Georgina: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:615;Page:10877] 
10.  
GEORGINA BEYER (Labour—Wairarapa) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: What reports has he received on the impact of Government measures to ensure all New Zealanders have opportunities to achieve their potential? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 Last week I released the latest “reducing inequalities” monitoring reports which showed improved outcomes for Maori Pacific peoples and New Zealanders generally. The reports show improvements in core areas such as disposable income employment and unemployment rates proportion with school qualifications and tertiary education participation. The reports also demonstrate that programmes targeted to meet particular needs of particular groups are having a real impact leading to improved circumstances for all New Zealanders. 
Georgina Beyer 
: How are “reducing inequalities” programmes targeted? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: They are targeted to address particular disadvantages and need—for example programmes to boost school libraries in low-decile schools housing programmes to address dangerous rural housing and adult literacy programmes to upskill adults. These programmes are very similar to ones run by the National Government when it spent $19 million on a Maori employment strategy $6.5 million on Pacific peoples employment initiatives and employed people in the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to get the right balance of people there. 
Judith Collins 
: How can the Minister support years of race-based funding when his own ministry’s report that he has just referred to shows that 26 out of 48 relative trends for Maori and Pasifika peoples in those indicators are getting worse not better despite the extra funding or is this just another example of a Government’s spin being a case of lies damn lies or statistics? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The last comment is marginal but the Minister can comment on the question. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: This Government supports needs-based policies. We target our policies to address the needs of people on the basis of age gender region ethnicity and disability and we have found that if we do that we have a great deal more success. Right now after 4 years of this Government we are cleaning up the social deficit left to us pretty well. 
Larry Baldock 
: How has the Government ensured that all New Zealanders have the opportunities to achieve their full potential in light of a recent report that documented cases of child prostitutes as young as 10 years of age universal drug abuse amongst those who start younger than 16 and the comment by the Commissioner for Children in today’s  
Dominion-Post 
 that the problem has become worse since the passage of the Prostitution Act—the Act that was supposed to eliminate all child prostitution? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: On the last comment I want to say that we need to be careful about how we measure something that once was criminal and now is not. It is going to be talked about a lot more now than it used to be. This Government is the only Government in the history of this country that holds itself accountable by measuring its progress on social issues. We can tell we are doing better because we measure the progress. That is what the social report is about; that is what “reducing inequalities” reports are about. No other Government has done that. We hold ourselves accountable and we are doing better.