Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. It is indeed a privilege to speak in the second reading of this very important bill and it's on one of these occasions where the House does show what is possible with good policy development and good collegiality across parties. We will always differ on the path to a destination but I think we do have a shared understanding and commitment to what that goal is—that is a New Zealand where every individual aspires and achieves to the best of their ability socially culturally and economically—and philosophically we will disagree with the way we get there. The simple difference between equality of opportunity versus equality of outcome will drive sometimes quite robust discussions on the solutions to what sometimes feel to be overwhelming almost intractable problems that have emerged in modern New Zealand but I don't know anybody in this House that doesn't have an absolute passion and commitment to work tirelessly to that end. We owe it to each other. We owe it to the people who sent us to this place. I was part of the social services caucus group in the National Party in February as social housing spokesperson when this bill had its first reading. Of course changes since then meant that I wasn't part of the Social Services and Community Committee and so I'm not going to speak to the specifics of what the committee heard but I do want to reiterate some of the things that occurred very soon after the bill was introduced. The social services caucus committee of the National Party resolved very quickly to work collegially with the Government in supporting this legislation and it's a credit to the Prime Minister the Minister for Social Development and particularly the Hon Alfred Ngaro and the Hon Louise Upston to enable that to occur. Even before the bill had its first reading that group were meeting with stakeholders and experts in the social services sector academics—Professor Boston I remember provided some excellent contributions to our thinking about how the bill could be made better—and I think Mr Ngaro in his normal self-deprecating style has actually understated the role that he and the Hon Louise Upston have played in making the changes to the bill that are in his name. But I also want to acknowledge and credit the Prime Minister with the enabling environment in which that took place. Now in the first reading we did do something that I'm glad we're not doing today—and haven't done for some months—and that's a bit of the old my statistic is better than your statistic" game. We did as we came out of the 2017 election I think reflect on the previous Government's progress towards eliminating child poverty: the 85000 children that were lifted out of poverty and the targets that were being set by the respective leaders during the election campaign. I think it's actually quite helpful—well it's not unhelpful—to not focus too much on that. But in saying that I do want to reflect on what I described in the first reading as something of a road to Damascus experience that the Prime Minister had had about the importance of a single or a small concentrated set of poverty targets and they may have set by UNICEF or some other international body. Actually what this bill—sensibly—does is not constrain the Government today or in the future to a rigid set of targets and I think that's an important feature of the bill. But I would also add this: a target is simply that. This is the framework within which we will have conversations about "how" and those conversations will continue to be extremely robust I have no doubt. But in the same way that the scoreboard doesn't determine the quality of the game being played on the field the targets and our approach to them will be a very poor proxy if indeed the targets are not then met with sensible policies that will enable us to achieve progress towards eliminating or reducing child poverty. So as we continue the progress through the House of this bill I caution not putting too much stock in the ability to set a target if we can't then resource and think and collaborate on what the issues are and the solutions to them because I do think we had a framework for working within that in both the social investment model and Whānau Ora. I have gone from being ambivalent to being wildly enthusiastic about Whānau Ora to the degree that I think the navigational process and the support process that underpins the ethos of Whānau Ora means that that could be applied across a broad number of sectors and areas—including in the health sector—that I hope the Government will continue to explore. We have paused a little on that and on social investment and I make no judgment about that because it's actually notoriously complex to get one's head around it. As a member of Cabinet with a Minister of Finance and then a Prime Minister that championed this for four or five years it did take some time for us to understand and appreciate what the opportunities were and I do hope that the Government will keep an open mind on whatever phase two of social investment might look like and sound like because I do believe that we were on the right track—we are on the right track—to improving the outcomes for some of our most vulnerable New Zealanders through that model. I would also conclude somewhat tongue-in-cheek but only partly in the context of the inconsistency that I perceive with the high value that's being placed on the setting of a target—in this case a child poverty reduction target—with the behaviour and actions of the Government in other areas. I note that national health targets are no longer being reported on. The Minister of Health has indicated that he intends to refresh them but there's sort of tumbleweed on that issue. The Better Public Services targets focused our public servants on what were I think quite stretched targets and quite challenging targets for them but in terms of things like reoffending youth reoffending incarceration rates and so on we have been making very good progress and at least because we had set the target we were able to then quickly understand and identify when we were deviating away from that trend. So there has been something of a road to Damascus experience on targets in respect of child poverty. I encourage the Government to continue to look at targets for other parts of our Public Service. But I don't want to detract from what is I think a very important day: another milestone along the road of ensuring that every single New Zealander of any age stage place and race has the best opportunity to be the best Kiwi that they can be."