Hague Kevin: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hague Kevin: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 14 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4347. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call in this debate on Vote Social Development. I think my contribution will mesh nicely with that of the Minister for Social Development and of Ms Ardern; I am not so sure that it will mesh all that nicely with Sam Lotu-Iiga’s contribution. The Minister referred to the publication today of the summary of submissions on the green paper. I want to take that as my starting point because while we have had this consultation with the public around the Green Paper for Vulnerable Children we have also had the Maori Affairs Committee considering what needs to be done for Maori children and I sit on the Health Committee which is engaged in an inquiry into practical steps for improving child health outcomes and reducing child abuse. Many of the submitters to those three processes have been expressing some degree of bewilderment and sometimes frustration about the fact that there are three processes. I think what this amounts to is that actually for people in the community their lives are being lived in an entirely unsiloed way whereas our response as a Parliament and the State’s response to people’s needs is instead fragmented and broken into silos. I guess those three inquiries are emblematic of exactly that issue. 
What we have is a situation where the challenges that people face are not well met by that fragmented response by the State. What we need to do is to find ways of working across silos—working in a cross-sectoral way—to address the needs that people have. It is no surprise at all to anyone working in any of those three areas including the area that we are looking at now of social development that the families and the communities who have the greatest needs in the social development area are the very same ones who have the greatest needs in health or indeed in housing or in education. We need to find a way of addressing problems that will address those heart problems because those communities are typically Maori communities Pasifika communities poor communities or communities marginalised in some other way. So those issues are the ones that we need to address. 
In the area that I know best in health that problem which we are facing in social development and in those other sectors is an increasing problem. The gaps the inequalities in outcomes and the way in which inequalities drive worse outcomes—in both the causes and the effects—those problems are becoming worse. We are seeing worse health outcomes for the poorest and the most marginalised and the same is the case in those other sectors. It is an increasing problem and one that we need to deal with. 
In years gone by I worked across sectors trying to get cross-sectoral collaboration. Although there was generally agreement that this was a good thing to do it was typically a very hard thing to have happen because nobody had the resources to make it happen. If I can now just give some praise to the last Labour Government—in its very last term of Government it actually changed that. The Ministry of Social Development had for the first time the mandate to facilitate and fund cross-sectoral collaboration. I believe that if there is an opportunity that arises from having these parallel inquiries and these parallel processes going on it must be this: to again find a way of making cross-sectoral collaboration actually happen on the ground. 
I acknowledge the Minister’s recognition of the value of cross-party collaboration. I recognise Jacinda Ardern’s call for that same thing. I suggest to the Government that here is a great opportunity to make something of these inquiries and to call on other parties to collaborate.