Ardern Jacinda: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 12 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:11045. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]6.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour)to theMinister of Finance: Does he stand by his statement “our priority of course is to focus on those in persistent deprivation”; if not why not?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance):Yes and I also stand by the accompanying statement I made in response to this parliamentary question asked by the Greens almost 12 months ago so it is good that the member has got round to it. The rest of the—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Would the member just answer the question without that.Hon BILL ENGLISH: The rest of my statement was: “Through one of the more significant recessions we have seen in many decades the Government has protected the income levels of those in our lowest-income households. … The Government is focusing on mobility—that in fact a lot of families who at some times and in some periods experience low incomes actually get out of that situation.”Jacinda Ardern: If his priority is persistent deprivation why after another 12 months will he not measure it or even set a target to reduce it as recommended by the Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty and as set out in my member’s bill on child poverty?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Because measuring it is not fixing it. I think that is why. There are many measures of incomes. We have no shortage of measures of income. The fact is that what those measures show is that income is a very poor proxy for deprivation. So the Government is focusing on the clear indicators of deprivation such as rheumatic fever such as housing overcrowding and such as high levels of interaction between particular families and social services. We are endeavouring to do a harder job than measure income; we are endeavouring to get results from the large amounts of Government money we spend on our most vulnerable most dysfunctional families.Jacinda Ardern: Does he agree with Hekia Parata’s use of a quote yesterday that “Without data you are just another person with an opinion.”; if so what does that say about his refusal to measure child poverty across income material deprivation relative poverty and persistence of poverty?Hon BILL ENGLISH: There is more data on these issues than anyone knows what to do with. What is lacking is a strong focus on action to deal with the problems. Of course we have a series of measurements around crime levels and around child abuse levels for vulnerable children and we will be publishing progress on those measures within a month or so. We have introduced some new issues to focus on recently with overcrowding and rheumatic fever.Jacinda Ardern: Does he disagree then with Treasury’s concern that “There is currently a gap in the monitoring of the material living standards of New Zealand children”; if so why?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes I do disagree with that. I do not think there is any lack of analysis. In fact for too long central government has spent tens of millions of dollars measuring problems as a substitute for trying to solve them. Trying to solve them means getting out of the office block and into the street knocking on the door going into the family home and understanding the complexity of difficult issues and pressures that make those families’ lives so hard. That is what we are focusing our efforts on.