Twyford Phil: Vulnerable Children Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Vulnerable Children Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 17 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13401. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—TeAtatū): I want to note the very serious tone and genuine spirit of collaboration that I have observed in this debate and what seems to be a commitment across the House to really look for solutions and to try to find agreement. I have got no doubt that at the Social Services Committee there will be an earnest effort to test the provisions in the Vulnerable Children Bill to improve them where possible and to give the bill serious scrutiny.I want to devote my time—rather than rehearse the provisions in the bill and the things that colleagues have already covered—to addressing some comments to Part 1 in the bill “Cross-agency measures” and in particular clause 6. This is one of the core provisions in the bill. It is about establishing the Government’s priorities for improving the well-being of vulnerable children and ensuring that children’s agencies work together to improve the well-being of vulnerable children. The House can see that in clause 6 there is a list of measures aimed at this purpose including protecting children from abuse and neglect improving education and training increasing participation in decision making about them and so on and then finally in that list of things improving their social and economic well-being.The question I have is whether or not that final item—in the shopping list of measures there that could shape the Government’s priorities under this part of the bill—is there simply as a token gesture and whether it is there as a kind of an afterthought. I ask that question because when the Minister of Justice spoke she devoted most of her contribution to trying to rubbish the straw man—that somehow she said members on this side of the House were suggesting that poverty should be some kind of excuse for child abuse. That was the main rhetorical flourish of Judith Collins’ speech. A number of other members on the National benches have continued in the same vein including Melissa Lee and Alfred Ngaro.The first thing I want to say is that no one on this side of the House thinks that poverty is an excuse for child abuse—no one does. I have never heard anyone say that and certainly not in this debate. That is a total straw man. The reason that I want to focus on it is that it is very revealing about the National mind-set on issues of poverty welfare and social development including child abuse and vulnerable children. It is very revealing about the National mind-set that this is such a big issue for them. Although poverty is not an excuse for the abuse of children members on that side of the House must recognise that there is an overwhelming correlation between crime and poverty and that the perpetrators and the victims of crime in this country and in any other country that I have ever come across are drawn from the poorest and the most disadvantaged members of our society.It is not just poverty; it is inequality as well. The comparative data on inequality is very very clear. The social determinants of ill health also apply to mental health imprisonment teenage pregnancy violent crime and the abuse of children. Is it some kind of coincidence that we are a gold medallist nation when it comes to abusing our children and we are one of the most unequal societies in the Western World? This iswhy National members have no intention of ever tackling the root causes of the vulnerability of children. They are locked into a mind-set that cannot contemplate the more challenging task of actually addressing the inequality and poverty that is such a hallmark of New Zealand society. It is social factors that cause people to brutalise and neglect their children. It is not an excuse it does not let individuals off the hook and as far as I am concerned you can throw the book at them.I totally support the intention in this bill to improve procedures and regulations but as my colleague Jacinda Ardern outlined this will always be a partial and selective approach unless the Government is willing to contemplate—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Time has expired.