9. Child Poverty—Measurement and Unicef ReportJAN LOGIE (Green) to the Minister for Social DevelopmentChild Poverty—Measurement and Unicef Report9. JAN LOGIE (Green) to the Minister for Social Development: Does she stand by the Deputy Prime Minister's statement in relation to child poverty that I do question some of the data and the way that they've collected that"; if so was she disputing all of the conclusions in the UNICEF report?Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): Yes and no.Jan Logie: Does the Minister agree with UNICEF that "New Zealand is clearly capable of reporting against Innocenti's measures for multidimensional poverty"; if so will she agree to start using internationally agreed-upon measures so we can compare her Government's outcomes for children against the majority of OECD Governments?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: To the first part of that question this Government does use the multi-measure multilevel approach when addressing issues of poverty and hardship. For example one way we addressed that was in Budget 2015 when we included a $790 million child hardship package to better support the 60000 to 100000 children experiencing severe hardship and that used the Material Wellbeing Index and the deprivation 17 index. Those measures benefited approximately 203000 families. That is about 380000 New Zealand children. We collect income information both before and after housing costs and we are one of the few countries in the world to do that and we know that housing costs are an important factor in hardship so in Budget 2017 with the $2 billion Family Incomes Package the accommodation supplement was lifted to lift about 20000 families above that threshold for severe housing stress. These are the multidimensional multilevel measures that the member was asking about. And then we collect and measure fully relative low-income measures that give trends about income inequality and again the Family Incomes Package in Budget 2017 of $2 billion is expected—Mr SPEAKER: Bring the answer to a conclusion.Hon ANNE TOLLEY: —to reduce the number of children living in those families with less than half the median income by 50000.Jan Logie: Does the fact that New Zealand is ranked 38th out of 40 countries for child health and well-being including 34th out of 34 for youth suicides make her reconsider how effective her Government's policies may have been over the last 9 years?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: I understand that the temptation to mix the indexes that were used in this report is great but I have no responsibility for the health issues that were part of the report that addressed child health issues.Jan Logie: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. If you could provide me with some clarity—this question was initially to the Deputy Prime Minister because of the range of issues that were covered in that report. To have it redirected and then for the Minister to say she cannot respond to the wider issues—I think there is an issue.Mr SPEAKER: No no not at all. The member used the ranking 38th out of 40 I think and talked about poverty and health issues so the Minister took the opportunity to say she is not responsible for health. It clearly can be transferred—there was no difficulty about that. In fact the Government has a duty to transfer it to the Minister most responsible. The member then may not be happy with the answer but the question that was given was addressed.Jan Logie: So why is the Minister wasting time disputing data and justifying potential token efforts when the report has us languishing at the bottom of the developed world in relation to the health and well-being of our children?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: I do not think anyone on this side of the House would describe almost $3 billion of taxpayers' money addressed to the lowest-income people in this country as paltry. However the advice I have received is that the UNICEF report on child poverty uses three indicators. The first is misleading for international comparisons. It is a relative measure that is relative to the incomes of that country. As I have said in this House before because it uses median income it can change depending on the median that you strike in any one year—Hon Member: Yes that's true.Hon ANNE TOLLEY: —it can change dramatically. That is true. The second indicator is not even a measure of poverty. It is a measure of the effectiveness of the tax and transfer system. So you could talk about it as the income redistribution—Mr SPEAKER: Again bring the answer to a conclusion.Hon ANNE TOLLEY: —which is addressing inequality.Jacinda Ardern: What is misleading about a relative measure for child poverty?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: I have said in this House on a number of occasions that it is simply not possible to measure poverty—and no country that I am aware of has done it successfully—by one simple measure. It is a multidimensional multilevel issue that is on a continuum. We should all be proud of the fact that successive Governments have gathered significant data that we can use and this Government has used it as I described in my response to the first supplementary question."