Flavell Te Ururoa: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFlavell Te Ururoa: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 10 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15357. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]9.TE URUROA FLAVELL (Co-Leader—Māori Party) to theDeputy Prime Minister: Does he agree with the Children’s Commissioner that “Setting targets like we do with the road toll and with NCEA if we had that kind of commitment that legislation and plan then we’d see a year-on-year fall”; if so is he prepared to instruct the Ministerial Committee on Poverty to introduce the four child poverty measures released in the Child Poverty Monitor?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister): First of all there are not any legislated targets for the road toll and the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA). Along with the NCEA pass rates the Government has set a number of targets directly relevant to the welfare of children. There is no need to instruct the Ministerial Committee on Poverty to introduce the four measures because the four measures that were published yesterday are public measures taken each year by the Ministry of Social Development and published so that anyone can monitor the progress of incomes. The final point I would make is that what is wrong with the commissioner’s proposal—or the limits of it—is that those measures of child poverty are static income measures. There is a lot more to relieving poverty than measuring static income such as for instance breaking the cycle of dependency on our welfare system through the parents of young children raising educational levels in the public education system for those who need it most—of which New Zealand has traditionally done a pretty poor job—enhancing mobility into the workforce through a growing economy and much more active support for many of those who find themselves caught outside the labour market. These are dimensions to poverty and its resolution that the Children’s Commissioner I am sure understands but certainly did not articulate in his report yesterday.Te Ururoa Flavell: What does he believe that the Prime Minister meant when he said about child poverty “So we had much higher levels then it went down then it went back up a bit” and how does the Minister the Prime Minister or anyone else know what the reality is if the Government refuses to adopt and monitor official measures of child poverty?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well there is a misconception that there are no official measures for child poverty. If I can help correct that misconception the Child Poverty Monitor report published yesterday was a repackaging of existing official measures of child poverty. The Children’s Commissioner happened to pick the measure that shows the biggest number of those in child poverty when there are three other measures that show lesser numbers. But those are official measures. They are taken each year they are published and we are fully accountable for any implications people may draw from them. So the Prime Minister’s comments were based on those official measures reported by the Ministry of Social Development every year and actually he is correct. Child poverty rates did drop through the 2000s they rose a bit through the recession and now they are flat to dropping again which actually is a remarkable performance for New Zealand in the context of the global financial crisis and the economic mismanagement prior to that by the previous Government that caused recessions in New Zealand.Te Ururoa Flavell: Is the Minister concerned that the rate of poverty severity where households are both income poor and experiencing material hardship is twice as high for Māori and Pasifika children aged 0 years to 10 years than for the New Zealand population; if so will he be arguing for a substantial investment in having a living income and in expandingWhānau Ora?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes we do share that concern and are particularly concerned with what the member refers to as poverty severity and what is referred to in other situations as persistent deprivation—that is those families that are caught in a cycle of low income the effects of which are made much worse by social dysfunction and a very complex set of problems. So we are focused pretty strongly on that particular aspect of child poverty. With respect to The Living Wage Aotearoa New Zealand Campaign which is a proposition put forward that is voluntary for businesses and other organisations to lift incomes of course we want to see higher incomes and we support economic policy that will deliver higher incomes. I want to thank the member and his party for the work he has done onWhānau Ora on originating it and I look forward to further work with the Māori Party on expandingWhānau Ora because it has for the first time in quite a while the potential to assist the Government to deliver its support in an appropriate way to exactly the families that he refers to.