Turei Metiria: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTurei Metiria: General Debate[Sitting date: 18 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2358. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green):The Prime Minister’s parting shot at the end of my questions to him today was that the kids whom he talked to when KidsCan was giving out raincoats all told him that they all had a raincoat and that in just the last hour has shocked a large number of people—the Prime Minister’s statement. Not because the children might have two raincoats—one more than they might need—but shock at the Prime Minister’s complete ignorance of the stress and responsibility that children who live in poverty and hardship cope with every day. We are talking about one in six kids in hardship and one in four kids in poverty from the latest statistics.Kids who live in severe poverty know that the public perception of poverty is that poverty is a crime of which they are guilty—that it is a disgrace that it is a shame that the family will bear and that it should be hidden from view. Why would a child tell a complete stranger the truth about their impoverished life? Any interaction that the child may have seen between their parents and Work and Income teaches them that they are to blame for their circumstance and that they deserve to be treated with disrespect. Any interaction these children see between their parents and a charity or a food bank or at a supermarket counting out the coins teaches those kids that poverty is embarrassing that it requires you to swallow your pride and that if you suffer it for long enough to lose your pride altogether. Any interaction their child may have seen between the family and virtually any agency or any authority let alone authority figure teaches that child that you do not tell the truth. You do not tell the truth because the truth will get you and your family into trouble. The truth will cause you harm shame embarrassment and ridicule. That is what admitting to hardship and poverty gets you.So no child is going to tell a stranger let alone the Prime Minister—whom they see on TV every day; the ultimate authority figure—what their life is really like. How could they possibly expose themselves or their families to even more shame and ridicule? And the kids are right—they bear this responsibility every day. And they are right because at every turn—especially from this Prime Minister—the Prime Minister has refused to engage with the evidence of hardship and poverty. Even his comment this afternoon shows that he is ignorant. His comment about funding KidsCan shows that actually he is not funding KidsCan because he agrees that there is a need. That is what the Prime Minister exposed in his answers today. He is funding KidsCan because he sees that there is a political advantage in doing so. It is prime ministerial largesse. That is why the breakfast clubs are being funded not because he agrees that there is a need.If he agreed that there was a need he would make sure that he fixed it. He would make sure that no kid in this country went to school hungry and that there was breakfast in every school for every kid who needed it; that there was lunch in every school for every kid who needed it. But he does not agree that the problem is serious so he is just putting in a band-aid response and using public money to justify what he is doing. He does not agree. It is a politically expedient act for him. That is why the Prime Minister and National are refusing to support my bill. He is refusing even to accept the evidence that comes to him from independent agencies showing the extent of the problem. And he then tries to claim by talking to kids who are poor and who are not telling him the whole story about their lives that he is right. He has no idea of what these kids’ lives are like and they are absolutely right to keep it from him. How could they possibly trust this man to treat their lives with the respect that they deserve when he treats poor kids not as a constituency and as the ultimate responsibility—the reason why he is sitting here in that chair—but he treats those kids as if they are political opportunities so that he can excuse himself and justify his miserable actions. Thank you.