King Annette: General Debate 
King Annette: General Debate 
[Volume:668;Page:14856] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. As New Zealanders we like to think that our country is the best place in the world to bring up children. We call New Zealand God’s own. We say things like: “The future of New Zealand is with our children.” “Our children are our greatest assets.” “Every child deserves a decent standard of living.” “Every child should have the ability to reach their full potential.” and “We value our children and children matter.” How many times have we heard those words spoken in this House? I believe that all those statements are true and I doubt that any member in the House does not believe they are true. But are they true for every child in this country? That is the question that we should be asking ourselves in this House. 
Today we heard the compassionate and soft face of National! We heard Judith Collins answer a question about child poverty and she made it very clear National has no interest in what happens to children in this country. She has no interest in working across this House in line with the request of Every Child Counts that parties in this House work together for the good of children. The organisation made that request in all sincerity to this House. Whom does Every Child Counts represent? It represents the major organisations in New Zealand that look after and care for children and families from Barnardos and Plunket to kindergartens iwi organisations whanau organisations and so on. 
Every Child Counts is a major organisation and it has pleaded with this House for us to form a cross-party group to work for the benefit of children. In good faith I took its request to the Prime Minister of this country 1 year ago. He turned it down. I have that letter here and I will seek leave to table it later on. He turned it down and said he was not interested. He was not interested and I have waited 1 year to see what this Government would do in terms of children in this country. I waited to see whether it would put children first and whether children would become a major focus of this Government’s expenditure and policy development. 
Have we heard about children? As the Child Poverty Action Group said children have become invisible in New Zealand. They are invisible to this Government. The Government will say it has done so much for children. It had an advertising campaign to stop parents from shaking babies. It has done so much for children that it finds it hard to write it on a postage stamp! 
Well the truth is New Zealand is not doing well for our children; we are not doing as well as comparable countries. We sit at the bottom third of the OECD rankings in terms of most child indicators. Many of our children in this country are left behind. Their early life experiences are harmful and ongoing. Many Maori and Pasifika children have poorer life chances than other children of the same age. 
Contrary to Mrs Collins’ statements in this House the Labour Government did make some progress on child poverty in this country. We made it with positive actions like Working for Families which took 132000 families out of poverty in this country. We brought in affordable primary health care to reduce the cost of going to the doctor. We restored income-related rents and introduced 20 free hours of early childhood education. And we reduced the number on the unemployment benefit to 22000 compared with the 65000 we have now and that number is growing. 
But I have to say that is not enough. As far as Labour is concerned there is unfinished business when it comes to child poverty in this country. We ask the Government whether it will do something about it. It has had 2 years to address child poverty. We heard today that it will not make a commitment to reducing child poverty in this country. I need to tell those members opposite who sit on the front bench and make out that they care about children that child poverty in this country is growing yet again. The numbers are going up right now and they will continue to go up as long as the Government continues to follow its current policies. I recently read Plunket’s annual report in which it stated: “You need to invest in the first 3 years of life.”