Ardern Jacinda: Social Security Amendment Bill Education Amendment Bill Taxation (Support for Children in Hardship) Bill — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Social Security Amendment Bill Education Amendment Bill Taxation (Support for Children in Hardship) Bill — Third Readings[Sitting date: 03 December 2015. Volume:710;Page:8583. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): I want to just repeat that offer. Anyone who is unable to access early childhood education in their community is to directly contact Alfred Ngaro and he is going to establish that placement. That is on behalf of anyone. That means that if you are unable to do that then I am assuming there will be no deduction or penalty regime via Work and Income. He is holding up a business card; he has put his name to the offer. I really want to make sure other members of the House know that—any casework fire it straight through to Alfred in west Auckland. I look forward to doing that.There were a lot of reports referenced by Alfred Ngaro the last speaker and he used those reports to try to demonstrate that there was not consensus around the measurement of poverty and hardship in New Zealand and in fact internationally. He referenced the Children’s Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty. There was some reference to Statistics New Zealand and some talk of the United States being the only place that has a recognised and agreed measurement. That is actually incorrect.In fact the Children’s Commissioner’s expert advisory group was the first probably to have put to the Government a solid proposal on how we can move forward and entrench poverty measures in New Zealand. It actually wrote a very draft legislative framework for us to adopt as a Parliament one that I thought was so fantastic that I grabbed it drafted it as a bill and put it in the ballot. It was a real shame then that when I came down to the House the day that we did that and I asked John Key whether he would support it he said no before I believe he even read it. So there is an established framework. There is an established way forward for us to build consensus around child poverty measures; it has just been that the Government has never wanted to adopt it if we are talking plainly.It is I think such a well-researched evidence-based set of measures that in fact the Children’s Commissioner has used it as the basis of the Child Poverty Monitor a monitor that is now frequently undertaken and that I think is so fantastic that I usually keep it within easy reach in my desk. Here we go here is my prop—something I have prepared earlier. The Children’s Commissioner now on an annual basis reports against these established measures. They are established beyond New Zealand boundaries. They are established enough that Unicef now uses them internationally to compare where different countries stand on child poverty. New Zealand is unable to be compared fairly across those comparable countries because we have not entrenched all of those measurements in our country but other States have—other OECD nations absolutely have.So what are those roughly well-established measures? I think it is really useful to talk about this because if you are going to establish policy on child hardship which is what this legislation does we need a decent agreed evidence base. It is continually a point of contention and it confuses the public. So I want to really briefly just run through this. This was the Child Poverty Monitor from 2014. The first box talks about the 260000 Kiwi kids living in poverty. That has now actually been revised; we know it is 305000. That measure there is a relative measure based on income. It looks at how many families are living on 60 percent of the median income in New Zealand—60 percent—and it generates that figure. The reason it does it on that basis in the same way that other countries do is it assumes that income levels demonstrate what is required to have a basic existence in that country. There are a few variations on this measure that take into account before-housing costs and after-housing costs and that is useful because it demonstrates to us that actually we have a problem in New Zealand with unaffordable housing which contributes to income poverty. So that is measure No. 1.Measure No. 2 talks about the number of people here—10 percent of kids—at the hardest end of poverty. That is how many are in the severe end because if you use a 60 percent measure you can use a 50 percent one as well. Three out of five children live in poverty for many years—that is your persistence measure your measure around how long people are staying there. This one is interesting actually and the Government should have looked at this one because this one tells us that actually children are living in poverty in their youngest years—usually 4 and under. The reason for that if you look at the evidence is really clear. It is that it is harder for sole parents to be in additional part-time work when they have young children and caregiver roles but then when those children start to get older they move into work. Actually those were the numbers that Alfred Ngaro was talking about. When parents can they do.This legislation mandates parents being in work from the time their child is 3. You do not need to mandate.Parents when they are able—for the benefit of their own children—will make that choice for themselves. The statistics that were quoted prove that. They prove that the mandatory nature is unnecessary and all it does is remove the discretion that parents with children at that age need. Again there is a real lack of analysis there which is disappointing.There is then a measure here: 180000 children go without the things that they need—that is your material deprivation scorecard. That does not look at income. What it does instead is ask—I think from memory—18 questions on basic needs. Can you afford to go to the doctor when you need to? Do your kids share a bed? Do you have shoes clothing the right food? That is trying to delve a bit deeper into those measures of poverty. Taken as a whole that gives us a really good picture. The Government has always argued: “We don’t want to use one measure of poverty because it doesn’t tell us everything.” No one has ever argued with that. We have always said to use multiple measures.In fact the Children’s Commissioner actually uses five in his proposed legislation. Use this. It is a great start. That is the consensus we need and the Children’s Commissioner has handed it to us on a plate. I think we would have had better legislation before this House if we had agreed to those sets of measures because it would have allowed us to use a proper evidence base. As I have said it is not just about income—it is not. Income matters—that $25 that this legislation will deliver matters but it will not be enough. Again if you look at the evidence what we know now is that because most of the really severe needs are for children in their youngest years and often children where there are siblings that tells us that actually we need a targeted payment for young kids. It needs to be more generous and it needs to be per child. That is what some decent analysis would have told us but instead what the Government did is it went to officials and said “We’ve got a pocket of money. Here it is. Go and see what you can do with it.” rather than setting out some really clear parameters about who needed that most. That is what we did with the Best Start payment.My problem overall is that we have never argued that it has just been about income; it has always been about a raft of issues. But if we want to tackle child well-being generally—and when I say “child well-being” I mean poverty and I mean child harm—we need a national plan that brings together those needs across income across housing across early childhood across health and across social development. When the Vulnerable Children’s Plan came up that is exactly what we said to the Government: if you want to find one indicator one thing that is evident in child well-being generally that indicator that piece of evidence will always be deprivation. It is the most consistent theme.So if you want to reduce child abuse and if you want to improve child well-being start from the position of reducing inequality and getting rid of material deprivation and income inadequacy. That will make one of the biggest differences to child well-being overall. I am not just saying that; the evidence tells us it is true. That is why I am disappointed that this legislation did not use the evidence. Otherwise we would have been debating a completely different package here this afternoon.