Ngaro AlfredHon ALFRED NGARO (National): One of my favourite All Black captains is Tana Umaga. He is a famous Cook Islander—actually he was Samoan but that's beside the point. He made this comment when he was confronted by the media. They had been talking about how rough the game was getting. They said we wanted to make the game a little bit more PC a little bit more soft and cuddly and here's his famous words: This is not tiddlywinks."—this is not tiddlywinks.So now we are here in Parliament where we are debating the issues and the Government of the day who were the Opposition of yesterday who would hold us to account many different times want us to play tiddlywinks. Well I'm sorry but it's not tiddlywinks. Be prepared when you are the Government of today to be held accountable. That's absolutely what there is.Hon Kris Faafoi: Argh!Hon ALFRED NGARO: Mr Kris Faafoi when he was on the other side he was giving it to us. He was holding us to account and so he should. So for the Government of today to expect us to just give you a free ride—I'm sorry. No free passes. Here we go. This is not tiddlywinks. This is the real deal. Let's hold each other to account. There'll be no soft and cuddlies; there'll be no marshmallows. This is where if you've got the ideas if you think you're just as good—in fact here's the thing that concerns me. The Prime Minister today stood up and said "Let's all be bipartisan. Let's hold hands. Let's sing 'Kumbaya' and somehow we'll make child poverty disappear. Somehow we'll make it all look good and rosy." But we won't. Why? Because the reality is you have to work hard. You are in that position today. You may not be there tomorrow but you're in that position today so you'll be held to account and that's what you will deserve and that's what we'll demand of you as well.Since we've been talking about this bill the first thing I want to say is "What's in a name?" Part 3 of the Child Poverty Reduction Bill talks about removing the name "vulnerable children". We know that the Hon Tracey Martin had also been talking about this. She talked passionately about it in her speech about the importance of why the name had to be removed. The reason why the name had to be removed was simply this: the stigma that it would give to children.When the Government of today was the Opposition of yesterday they would say to us "How dare you name this bill 'Vulnerable Children Oranga Tamariki'?" The stigma that it will give to children—why should children be called vulnerable? Why should children be treated in this way? There were many speeches and debates in this House and now you're going to remove "vulnerable children" but you're going to put "child poverty". So what's in a name? You're going to remove the vulnerability but you're going to keep the name "child poverty". In other words you're going to say this. You're going to say there are some children in our nation that are impoverished.Look I don't resile from the fact there are children who are impoverished. But if you're going to take the name "vulnerable children" but keep the name "child poverty" well I'll tell you this: isn't it interesting that you are doing this? It's hypocritical to be able to talk about it in this way because now you're going to put a stigma on children. But so be it. Now you're deciding this. And yet it was under this party—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! I just remind the member not to bring the Speaker into the debate.Hon ALFRED NGARO: Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. I do apologise for bringing you into the debate. The issue though is that the fact of the change in Part 3 of the bill—the changing of the name "vulnerable children" removing that to now become the Children's Act as part of the omnibus process of this bill but we're going to leave the name "child poverty".I will tell you the reasons why. Of the 230 that they've measured the children that are impoverished over 130 are Māori tamariki. They're Māori tamariki. What we're going to be saying is this: we'll say those children are impoverished children. I know that the honourable matua Shane Jones and the Hon Kris Faafoi we grew up in homes that probably today would be measured as being impoverished. I can remember the late Parekura Horomia standing up in this House giving speeches about his times in Ruatōria when there were dirt floors. The people of today would have judged that as being impoverished and incapable and unable. But they never chose to do that. Why? Because they believed in themselves that they had opportunity and they had aspiration.My concern with this bill is that it will send a message out there. It will create a stigma and that these children are now going to be labelled. Our children are going to be labelled. What it's going to say is "Who are the poor kids and who are the kids that are the rich kids or the good kids that are doing well?" We will start to measure them and start to look at what they are doing. That's what my concern is. We're going to take the name "vulnerable" and leave the name "poverty". We're still keeping that name that will create a stigma. I think that's going to be an interesting challenge as we go forward.Let's talk about the targets in this bill and what it's proposing to put into place. And yet many speakers have talked about this about Better Public Services (BPS). I have spoken to people and they have said to me "What does BPS mean Better Public Services?" I acknowledge the Rt Hon Bill English because actually it was under his leadership that he said this "Before we go out and ask anything of our communities as a Government department as a Government institution let's hold the mirror to ourselves. Let's hold us to account." That's what Better Public Services is about. Then when Better Public Services came to social investment it was also saying "So here's the how."So the mirror then turned around and said "Are we doing a good job? Are we more of the problem rather than the solution to the challenges and the issues—yes of poverty yes of health yes of education?" That's what the BPS target was all about.Then it went on to social investment. Social investment was simply this: when you look at the forecasting of the predictions and when we see this in the bill when it talks about the growth potentially of those children that are in poverty—social investment took an approach as to how we would address these very issues that are actually trying to be addressed in this bill. It talked about this.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Can I just remind the member that we are talking about this particular bill and not previous policy. I don't see anywhere in this bill where those two elements are part of the bill. So would you come back to the substance of the bill?Hon ALFRED NGARO: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Can I just say that it's the linking of the how—talking about the targets that are actually inside this bill.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I have been watching this debate and this has been raised as an issue with other speakers. I think we need to move on from that point and talk about the content of the bill.Hon ALFRED NGARO: The content of the bill talks about targets. In those targets it sets out so-called ambitious targets of reducing child poverty by 100000 over 10 years. Now the challenge that we have for this bill is talking about the how inside of those targets. So the challenge in my debate over here is how will this Government—it's already taken away the targets. It's going to remove the Better Public Services. We don't know what it's going to be doing in regard to social investment. It's an institution. It's there in place.I would encourage the Government of today to look at that social investment that's actually been agreed upon by Treasury and other Government departments as a way of looking forward. What the social investment strategy does in regard to targets like this where those departments that will be impacted and be initiating the legislation of these targets—it says to them this: when we're forecasting what the growth may be and in this case the target is around the reduction of children in poverty in low-income households then the how is where the social investment will do that. It will tell you how.First of all it asks this question. We can do that by raising taxes. Secondly we can do that by increasing debt. By the way the current Government is doing both. Thirdly we can find a new way. Social investment then finds a new way simply by doing this. In the targets that it's producing inside this bill I hope that it will talk about the data that becomes important to ask the right question in regard to the fact: where can we invest early to create the greater income in the long-term approach?Those are the things that I think are really important. I want to challenge this process. I'm actually on the Social Services and Community Committee and we're looking forward to this bill coming in. We look forward to the submissions and the debates that will talk about this. Again in my speech it's the issue around the stigma that that may be creating. I hope that this doesn't create a stigma. Under the National Government we started removing the stigmatisation. Part 3 talks about the name "vulnerable children" and there were some debates about that—whether we should still keep that. But it went with "oranga tamariki". I would say use the same principle around child poverty because you can also find another name rather than stigmatising children to say that actually you're poor children so we're going to help you.The thing that concerns me a lot about this bill is the fact that it's removing the power of communities and now it's saying that actually the power is in the hands of the Government to make the changes. We heard some other speeches from the other side talking about the fact that we can surrogate this. Could it be lunches in schools that are mandatory universal throughout all schools and so forth?That again concerns me. If we're thinking about the factors that does not help communities that are wanting to find a way to better their outcomes to better their situations to be aspirational if we keep surrogating. I'm concerned on this side that what we're going to have is a Government machinery that's going to continue to grow rather than devolving the opportunities for communities to become self-sustaining self-determining and taking their responsibilities for their whānau and their families. We look forward to this bill coming in. We will be supporting it. We will be holding the Government to account. As I said before at the beginning of my speech this is not tiddlywinks. It is going to be a game that will be played hard. We will be holding you to account and challenging the very issues and the parts of this bill. There are parts that are good that we support. There are other parts that we will challenge in our Supplementary Order Papers. I commend and commit this bill to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I understand the next call is a split call. Greg O'Connor has five minutes."