Ngaro AlfredHon ALFRED NGARO (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Child Poverty Reduction Bill. Can I acknowledge the Prime Minister. As she has said in her statement—and it's a statement that goes to the core when people say What is it that we are called to this place for? What is it that we were elected for and what are our core responsibilities?" Prime Minister I want to acknowledge your words. As you said when you came to this place some years ago you had made a declaration that the basis of your calling was to ensure that children and young people in New Zealand in Aotearoa lived a long happy and well life. So I want to acknowledge that because that also challenges us to ask that question: what are we here for what's our purpose what's our sense of direction and what will we do to the best of our efforts? I want to acknowledge the fact that your call and your acknowledgment of that have asked us that same question: what is it that we are called to this place for?I want to acknowledge your leadership in being able to say that this Child Poverty Reduction Bill is something that will raise the issue of poverty above the politics. So in my words that I will share today I will be calling it our bill—this is our intent. I would hope that when we talk about this bill that this is Parliament's bill and not just a Government bill because if we're calling on the best of who we are to the intent of this bill which is to do the best that we can for the outcomes of all of our tamariki then it's something we should do that's never been done before. Could we call this Parliament's bill and not just a Government bill of the day? So that's the first thing that I would say. That would be my reflection and again I want to acknowledge and thank the Prime Minister for her words as well.When I think about this this issue of poverty is nothing new. In fact in ancient words in the Book of Deuteronomy 15:11 it says this: "For the poor will always be with us so I command you to be open-handed." In other words it calls on us to do the best that we can and to be open to be caring and to be sharing in the best ways possible. So the issues of poverty are nothing new but what it does command on every single generation every time is: what will we do about this? So as the Government of the day and as parliamentarians of the day this is our responsibility as well and so I thank Parliament and I thank the Prime Minister and others for us being able to talk about this bill—about our bill.When I think about those that are listening out there today to hear the comments about this bill—this bill is about reducing child poverty. This bill is meaning that not only just those of us in the roles of responsibility whether it be by governing whether it be by advocacy as members of Parliament or whether it be by those who are the officials—I want to acknowledge the officials that have worked through this as well who have given us the best of their ability. We have challenged and we have changed things in order to get this to a point where we believe it has at this time for this day the right pathway to address this issue in regards to poverty.But there are a few things that I have to say that we have been challenged with and in my speech I want to talk about those challenges which again we have had. One of the first things that was indicated in regards to the first draft of the bill—and in the submissions we were reminded of it—was why was the Treaty of Waitangi left out of the bill? It was left out of the bill because sometimes in the system and in our consciousness though we know it's the right thing to do we forget it and we forget the performance of the place of it. So we with the officials ensured that it was in pride of place and the first component of this bill was where the Treaty of Waitangi was in there.But here's the other challenge to the system and I say that we must challenge the system. When we had that initiated back into the bill itself and then it talked about the roles of responsibility in that it declared the fact that under the Treaty of Waitangi under our obligations we would consult and report. Now while it seems like that's normal and we've done this before I want to challenge that because if we are going to do better—if Māori are factored in there in some of the statistics that we are talking about in regards to child poverty—then I believe the fact is that we could and should do better.So what does "do better" look like? Well on the bill we also talked about our obligations to the United Nations SDGs—which are Sustainable Development Goals—about halving poverty. We signed it and we took up our responsibility around that but then it talked about the responsibilities for us as a country to those SDGs. We talked about judicial obligations. Now I had to challenge the system then because it was almost as if we gave more weight to the United Nations' obligations than we did to the Treaty of Waitangi. This is not a criticism but this is about challenging the system—we are challenging the system.So I want to again acknowledge the fact that our Māori colleagues on the other side now have the opportunity to influence this. I want to ask you to do this: keep challenging the system so that when we say that they are our obligations under the Treaty they are more than just to consult and to report and yet under the UN obligations we have judicial obligations. We can do better we should do better and if we are going to make a difference we will do better than that.So if that's the case and we are saying that we are going to lift poverty above the politics—and if we are talking about it in this regard the Treaty of Waitangi for Māori—then can I challenge also New Zealand First and others that are out there. When we think about Whānau Ora—and I want to acknowledge the Hon Peeni Henare and the role and responsibility that he has—if this is the best of us putting that forward and if it is to deal with the issues for Māori that are situated in this bill then why is it that we are playing politics with Whānau Ora?I believe the fact is that Whānau Ora is putting power in the hands of the people where actually they can decide. I would hope that this would elevate it to the point that a decision would be made to empower Whānau Ora to do the role that it was destined to play which is that Māori have the ability through their commissioning agents to decide for themselves how they can partake in that through navigators and through others in their roles to be able to ensure that they can make a difference for Māori in our country and in this case for Māori children. So I would put that challenge out there. Let's lift that above the politics. Let's allow Whānau Ora to do its work for Māori in particular. I think that's critically important for us as well.The other areas that I think are important for us—and again these are putting the best of us forward to do this—are around social investment. I know that at the moment it's something that the current Government is taking on board but I would encourage you with this. The best of us that we would put forward—and I want to acknowledge the Rt Hon Sir Bill English who talked about the fact of how could we challenge the system. If we're going to challenge the system so that it changes then social investment is actually doing that. In other words for every dollar that we invest into the system how do we know that it's making a difference? So what we would like to do is this. We would like to challenge the system—I'm challenging the system; I'm not challenging the people—by asking: can the system do better? I believe it can do better.We on this side believe it can do better and so therefore the challenge to the system is: how can we hold the system accountable? We believe that social investment was a way of being able to do that hence the reason why the measures and the targets were our push towards that. I believe that we've reached a point where we can agree but I would still advocate for the position that social investment in its principles and in its ideals is to challenge the system and to hold that system to account. If it can do better why should it not do better?The targets that we had actually put forward the measures were again about the system because if the system is treating people like people and not just like numbers—what we actually did on this side of the House when we were on that side of the House was to make sure that it would do that. So we do not backtrack from setting those measures and from setting those targets because we think that they're critically important as well.We know inside of this that the child poverty indicators are critically important. We thank the Prime Minister and also the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet too and the staff that worked with us to get to a point where we can have some targets some measures that we could hold ourselves to account on. I want to acknowledge the fact that now we're going to have that from a fiscal perspective where actually the Minister of Finance in every Budget will have to indicate how those measures have made a difference. So I want to actually acknowledge that piece of work. I think it's important. I think that work will actually be an indicator to the rest of New Zealand that we're putting our money where our mouths are. In other words we're putting the treasures that we think are really important—in this case children—where we think it is important that our dollars are spent in a way that will make a difference and I want to acknowledge the work around that as well.I finish my last comments in the minute that I have left with the words from 1980 of Bob Marley. In 1980 he finally realised that actually he had cancer and so he wrote a song that he had never written before and it was called the "Redemption Song". And in that "Redemption Song" this is what he said—Hon Members: Sing it!Hon ALFRED NGARO: Oh well no.Old pirates yes they rob I[Sent] I from the merchant shipsAnyway I won't go on about that but here is what he said in the second verse of the song: that if we are to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery "None but ourselves can [change] our minds". One of the challenges to this issue of child poverty: poverty is by choice or by circumstance. And our role is not to judge those who are in there it is to support them and help them but challenge them at times. But I would say this: that out in our communities the change to poverty is not by what we do here in this place as Parliament but also the changes will happen from our communities from our people from our whānau who will stand up and declare that they too want to be part of the change that they will take up their responsibility to do that.This is an important day. This is a day that we would say that this bill the Child Poverty Reduction Bill is a bill that is Parliament's bill to declare to the nation that we want to change the issues of poverty that affect our children. Thank you Mr Speaker."