Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. I also stand today in support of the Child Poverty Reduction Bill in its second reading. Now there's no question that most of us across this House actually do support this bill but more than just this bill actually: the philosophy around the reduction of child poverty in New Zealand. And I will speak later to my colleague from ACT and the points that he has raised.But what this bill actually does is it sets a direction of travel that the previous National Government was already on and that was setting a target of reducing child poverty. Now there has been a very very collaborative approach across this House to the development of this bill since its introduction. And I do acknowledge the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern PM and our leader the Hon Simon Bridges who have negotiated behind the scenes some of the details that are now in this bill and which the Social Services and Community Committee has debated even further and that we speak to today.Now the issue of child poverty is one that most of us here agree transcends politics. And we are very supportive of the move to enshrine the goals into legislation and the measures that this bill will set in place so that it does have continuity and longevity across Governments well into the future.At the core of this bill are our tamariki the children of Aotearoa the most vulnerable in our society. And if we're going to build a nation of successful and independent people then we have to start with ensuring that our children are able to function and that they're able to function without the stresses that poverty brings with it. Now lifting a child out of poverty is not simply about achieving a one-off target; it's about ensuring that the reduction of poverty is sustained. We need to hold ourselves up alongside other countries that also have low rates of child poverty such as Finland Denmark Sweden and Norway.This bill sets a legislative framework for lifting our children out of poverty and it requires the Government Statistician to report every year on the four primary measures and six supplementary measures that are embedded in this bill. Even at the select committee process there were some concerns around the statisticians' capacity and there is an acknowledgement that there will be some capacity-building required for the extra work that this is going to generate. So the four primary measures as David Seymour has pointed out are around the measures of incomes versus housing costs: 50 percent 60 percent or 40 percent. But there are also six supplementary measures about income before and after housing costs. Number five of those six supplementaries is around severe material hardship and number six is both the income and material hardship measure.Now these are all aspirational. However there are some things that can't be measured and one of those which is dear to me is the measure of happiness. And I've used the example in the House before of my grandparents who were a working class single-income low-income family with 13 children and a very humble home. Now they never had a lot of money while they were bringing up all these children but what they did have was happiness. They were poor but happy.So we have to be careful that the wider solutions to tackling poverty are also addressed. Now this bill sets in place a 10-year target for the measurement of child poverty but it also requires the Government of the day whatever Government that is to publish three-year intermediate targets. Now the bill also goes on to require the Government to publish and review a strategy for improving the well-being of all children and it must include the children most at risk. Now this is where the rubber will hit the road in this strategy.So that's why the previous National-led Government had Better Public Services targets because we saw the need to ensure that the Public Service was able to be measured in performing and dealing with that hard-core social dysfunction that has these families and children living in poverty. And that sat alongside the previous Government's target of having 100000 children being lifted out of poverty. Here today all parties are aligned. But there are no targets. During the select committee process it was argued strongly that the imposition of targets would simply encourage a tick-box exercise and that we would miss the point and maybe some of the manoeuvrability that was required in addressing child poverty.In support of the words of Alfred Ngaro earlier this bill is not just a Government bill; this is a bill of this Parliament. And I'm very proud to be a part of this Parliament introducing this bill. But it's not however the end. In fact this is only the end of the beginning. Now the real commitment and the real work to lift the gain for the children of New Zealand starts after the passage of this bill. This bill simply sets the measures of poverty. Now we have to deal with the contributing factors. We all must work towards building an economy that creates the jobs—and the good-paying jobs—that get families off long-term welfare dependency.We must support individuals who find themselves in this spiral of recidivist criminal offending. We must support those in our country who struggle with either health challenges or disability or both. We must ensure that children and their families are well connected to their communities and can easily participate in community activities. Actually that was one of the points that came up in the discussion in the select committee: that the connectivity was so important. It was all about connectivity not just in terms of Wi-Fi or broadband but it was how well they connected with children who connected with sports clubs with volunteer organisations and with their school and their wider community.Now we must also acknowledge that it's not all about Government simply throwing more and more money at the issue. We have to deal with those other aspects of our community and for me the foundation to all of that is creating the economy and the jobs that we need so that people can participate in a productive workforce.I just want to pay tribute to the contribution earlier in this discussion from the Minister for Children the Hon Tracey Martin and acknowledge her recognition of the value of the social investment approach. I was fortunate to hear the Minister speak at a conference a couple of days ago where she reinforced the value of social investment and the importance that plays in lifting our children out of poverty.It would be remiss of me not to mention the chair of the Social Services and Community Committee Gareth Hughes and his conciliatory and diplomatic approach to the committee. There were some challenging times and the debate was robust at times as it should be but I acknowledge our chair and the other members of the committee who contributed over the many weeks that we listened to submissions from all over the country.There is no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children. This Parliament is taking a historic step forward today and I have great pleasure in commending this bill to the House.